I couldn’t be more fucking single if I tried.
“No, that’s fine. Texting my ex-boyfriend is totally normal.” I glare at them.
“We weren’t asking how his intramural floor hockey team is doing, if that’s what you think.” Taya gives me attitude right back. “But the subletter he finally got can’t move in here. So he was asking us if we knew of anyone who could fill the room.”
Icy fingers of dread claw at my stomach. Callum cannot move back in here. It was humiliating enough that he broke up with me after all these years, but to live under the same roof? Would I have to watch him bring home other girls? The thought makes me want to lean over and dry heave.
I’m nowhere near over him, our relationship, or the abandonment I still feel from it. My life without Callum is like having a gaping hole in my chest. No matter how much I try to ignore it or fill it with other things, it’s always there, nearly making me breathless.
“I don’t really have anyone in mind …” Gannon looks thoughtful.
“There may be a girl I know from my Italian TA sessions. I’ll have to text her.” Taya wanders off to the side of the kitchen to fire off a message.
“And if he can’t fill it, Branson and June will just pay for it. Like they did last year.” My heart twinges thinking about the two people I thought would be my in-laws.
I love Callum’s parents; they were who I wanted Callum and I to be when we were in the good ole days. Now, it kills me to think I haven’t talked to them in over a year.
“His dad said no can do. Said it was ridiculous to be paying double when he had a perfectly good room here.”
I could see Branson saying that. I could also see June trying to meddle and didn’t doubt it was a little bit of both. My throat is dry and suddenly I’m full of anxiety. The kind that seems like it’s about to swallow me whole if I don’t get up and get some fresh air.
“I mean, he’s not wrong.” Amelie bites down, worrying her lip.
“So it’s my fault he doesn’t live here?” I bite out, never one to keep my angry opinions to myself.
That’s me, the bitch. Taya is the level-headed, go-with-the-flow friend. Amelie is the sweetheart. And I’m the bitch, the one always pissed off at the world and generally hating people. If something is bothering me, you’ll know about.
“No one said that.” Amelie walks over to touch my arm gently. “I just feel bad because, well, that his room.”
“It’s a shitty situation,” Gannon adds, and I know he cares more about Callum than me.
He’s right, it is shitty. Deep down, we all know the breakup was my fault. I know it, though I’ll deny it with my poisonous spikes sticking out like a porcupine. If I had just dealt with my lifelong shit, maybe Callum would still be in the picture and none of us would be in this predicament.
“I have to get going to class,” I choke out, not wanting to stay for another minute of this conversation.
My friends give me sympathetic looks, and then I’m gathering my stuff so quickly I nearly topple my salad over, slinging my bag onto my shoulder and exiting the house.
Shaking my head to clear it, I know I have to stop thinking about Callum before I break down. I have so much more to focus on, what with my overloaded schedule this semester. Not only am I taking more credits than required, but then there are the business school clubs I’m a part of, the paralegal internship for the local law office I landed, and the shadowing I’m doing of a local newscaster. Following Andrea Minton around while she covers minor league games for the network in our college town is a gig so many had vied for, and I couldn’t believe I’d gotten it.
Well, I could, since I worked my ass off. I worked harder than anyone I knew, because I am my mother’s daughter. She told me from a young age that I shouldn’t, under any circumstances, count on a man to pay my way. If I wanted a certain lifestyle or nice things, I was going to have to go out and get them myself.
So that’s what I’m doing; I’m double majoring in both legal studies and sport media. After graduation it’s, hopefully, law school, and then onto working for some high-powered firm that focuses on broadcasting deals with major sports leagues or franchises. It’s specific, and a lofty dream, but I’ve had a love for both subjects since I was small. I was a powerhouse athlete in high school, and the only reason I didn’t go with the division one recruitments I was offered is because playing sports in college wouldn’t pay in the long run. Law school would, so I needed to focus my energy there.
Add in keeping my GPA at a 4.0 to uphold the academic scholarships that basically pay my tuition, and I am busy as hell.
I could do this. I could avoid Callum and all conversations about him. I’d certainly done it for the past year and a half.
There are only just over nine months until graduation, and I can suffer through my heartbreak until then. After that, I’d be in a completely different state, away from everything that reminds me of the only true love of my life ripping my heart to shreds.
3
CALLUM
Another day, another sublet rejection.
“Fuck me,” I mutter, trying to wrack my brain for any other possible solutions.
I’ve used this entire first week of classes to try and find someone to take my room in the Prospect Street house. Desperate is an understatement, and I’ve exhausted all avenues. I even posted on Craigslist, which Gannon found and told me to take down or the girls would cut my dick off if they found out.
He was probably right, so I removed it. Plus, I don’t want my friends to be unsafe with whoever moves in. It just can’t be me.
Though I try to stem the thoughts, they come rushing out. What the fuck would I do if I had to live across the hall from my beautiful, frustrating, ridiculously stubborn ex-girlfriend?
Bevan’s face rushes into my memory before I can shut it out, and I have to close my eyes in the middle of class. No matter the lecture my professor is giving on the fundamentals of kinesiology, the only thing I can see are all of those gorgeous inky waves I’d tangle my fingers in when I kissed her.
The jewel-green eyes that are like two enormous, judgmental, fiery emeralds skewering you every chance they get. The way her lush lips, the color of crushed cherries, turn up at the corners when I suck on that spot just next to her collarbone. God, her body. Fuck, do I miss being naked with her. She’s the only girl I’ve ever buried myself in, my first, and who I thought would be my last. I may look like a total douchebag, anyone who sees me would assume fuckboy jock, but I’m a monogamist through and through. I’d found my queen and wanted to give her my life.
Unfortunately, she wanted to play games and bring nothing but petty drama.
I’m not paying attention when the professor says we’re dismissed, and without thought I stand, gather my things, and barrel down the top row of stadium seating I was occupying.
And run right into someone.
We tangle and wobble, our balance precarious as my big body just shoved the undeniably smaller person.
“Oh, excuse me,” a raspy yet tinkling voice puffs out.
I straighten whoever it is, holding them by the arms to keep us both from falling down as we regain our balance. When I blink up, I am staring at a petite blonde wearing a Yankees ball cap with denim overalls that hit mid-thigh. She’s cute. More than cute. Pretty, in a Minka Kelly type of way. If Minka Kelly had a strawberry blonde ponytail pulled through the back of a hat.