Page 45 of A Summer Thing

Chapter Twenty-Four

Declan

“Addy, what the hell are you doing here?” My words come out in nervous pants of laughter, my heart still beating a mile a minute. She wasn’t supposed to be back for another two weeks.

She steps farther into our shared room, clicks the door shut behind her, and her shoulders slump down low as her features grow completely somber.

My concern peaks well past my embarrassment.

I pull my blanket up over the fresh set of sheets I just laid down and pat the open space beside me to beckon her over.

“What’s going on, Addy?” The thick sheen of tears welling in her eyes is freaking me out—on top of the fact that she’s here , with no heads-up when she wasn’t due back yet.

The more seconds that pass, the more devastated she seems. The skin beneath her eyes is swollen and puffy, like she’s been wiping away her tears for hours. Concern weeds its way through me, a dozen terrified thoughts taking root in my mind.

“Cal and Stacy—they’re okay, right?” I practically blurt, that one worry in particular taking precedence over the many others running in a panicked loop.

Another tear slips free and dives down her cheek, but she nods, her eyes widening. “Oh my gosh, yes. Of course, they’re okay. I’m sorry, I just… I… I…” she trails off, and relief floods through me, easing my worry for a brief moment.

But Addy still looks completely devastated. “Addy,” I nudge her softly, and she finally moves her feet, sitting down on the bed beside me. I pull her hands into mine and sandwich hers between them. “Talk to me. Please. You’re freaking me the hell out. What is going on?”

“I messed up. Like, really messed up,” she says, but the words are drowned out by a sob that bursts out of her, the reservoir of tears that have been building behind her eyes spilling free.

“Whoa, Addy. Hey, hey.” I pull her into my arms and wrap her in my embrace. “What do you mean you messed up? What happened?”

“I slept with Boss,” she says, quiet, tearful, and full of regret. And… Oh. Oh.

“Shit,” I breathe. It’s probably not the best reply, but it’s the most honest one I have at the moment.

It’s no wonder she looked so shell-shocked when she walked in here.

Confused, torn. And now—with endless rivers of tears streaming down her cheeks—a little bit broken, too.

I’m not sure what to say, or how to respond at all.

“I can’t even do cheating right!” she cries out as she pulls away from me, her fingertips digging through the roots of her curly black hair before pulling tightly.

“You’re supposed to cheat on the boyfriend back home when you go to college, not cheat with him, on the boyfriend from college.

And now I can never be with Boss again because I’ll always feel guilty.

And God—this is going to kill Jonah.” Her tear-filled eyes widen, emphasizing that statement as all her words spill free.

She’s not wrong. Jonah will be devastated.

“How am I supposed to tell him?” she continues. “He doesn’t even know I flew back to New York yet.”

“I don’t really know, Addy.” I shake my head, at a loss. “But you will, and it will be okay.” Eventually, at least.

“But what do I do?” she whines.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” Her head falls into her hands as she pulls the other one free from her hair, burying her face in them. “Obviously, I can’t be with either of them, right?” She peeks up at me through her fingers.

I shrug, and then I let my shoulders fall, my expression thoughtful.

“Is it that black and white? That cut and dry? Because Jonah might forgive you. He’s in love with you; obsessed, even.

” The guilty expression she’s been wearing returns tenfold, pinching at her features.

Her tears well up and spill free again, too.

“Did Boss know you have a boyfriend?” I ask.

“He did.” She nods.

“Well then, my best guess is—if you broke it off with Jonah for good—Boss would probably want to get back together, too. So, you have a choice. You just have to decide what it is you want to do.”

A choked sob falls from her mouth as she throws herself back against me. I wrap my arms around her and squeeze her as tight as I can, comforting her in the only way I can right now. I smooth my hand along her back again and again.

“No matter what, though, it’s going to be okay. You’ll be okay,” I say after a while.

“It doesn’t feel like it.” She sniffles.

“I know. But it will be.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

______

A few nights later, in an attempt to get Addy’s mind off of her troubles, I bring her with me to meet Jude and his friends at a bar—the same bar in Brooklyn, where I met them all for the first time.

Even though I have to practically drag her out of our dorm room, she’s in better spirits by the time we arrive.

Whether it’s the promise of a fun night out, the hour of talking things through some more on our way over, or the three mini bottles of tequila she took down between the liquor store around the block and here, that’s leaving her mood lighter, I can’t say.

But there is a smile on her face, and that’s all that really matters at the moment.

We spot Jude across the bar when we enter, and Addy waves at him wildly from my side. It makes my lips curve into a smile.

Jude is smiling, too, when we reach him.

He opens his arms wide for me, but Addy steals his hug right out from under me, slipping into his side.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you last, Jude!

Last summer, right? Definitely not two nights ago, naked and between the thighs of my best friend.

” She slaps his chest with a loud bark of laughter. “Definitely not.”

He chuckles as he hugs her back. “How’ve you been, Addy?”

Her demeanor darkens—or crumbles, really.

But she hikes her shoulders up in the next blink and straightens her spine.

“Honestly? I’ve been better. But there’s a bar that-a-way with my name written all over it, so off I go!

” She gestures toward the bar with a put-on smile.

“You two kids have fun. I’ll be back shortly. ”

I follow her trail with my gaze, lingering on her quickly retreating back.

Jude steps into my line of sight and smooths away the tension between my brows with his thumbs, before using his grasp on my face to pull me into a kiss.

It goes from a featherlight, sweet peck, to a parting of mouths, our tongues colliding, in a matter of seconds.

When he pulls away, I’m entirely breathless.

“Okay. Well. Wow.” I clear my throat. “Hello to you, too.”

“Hi, baby,” he replies, his teeth digging into the bottom curve of his smile. It does things to me. That smile, and that grip of his teeth. His soft inflection on the word baby, and the way he keeps looking at me, his eyes softening with every second that passes between us.

Isabella dances into our space, though, the first to break into our bubble as she wraps her arms around my middle. “We’ve missed you! This asshole has been keeping you all to himself,” she huffs.

I hug her back with a breath of laughter.

“Quick,” she says, handing me her phone. “Give me your number before Jude mauls your face or drags you away from us again. That way we can hang out soon— without all these clowns.”

I don’t hesitate for a second. I would love to hang out with her. With any of Jude’s friends, really.

“When you leave next week, she’s all mine!” she taunts Jude, dancing away from us with her phone in the air and a smug grin on her lips.

I feel Jude’s limbs stiffen beneath my touch. And note the thin line of tension that runs through his brows, and through his gaze, as well. Because I feel it, too. The bottom of my stomach hollowing out with the reminder that he’s leaving soon.

Nick, Connor, and Antonio make their way over, and the thought could almost be forgotten when they all greet me in their warm, yet slightly aggressive ways.

Tight hugs that have the air whooshing out of my lungs, and a rough, accented, “Good to see ya,” running like light sandpaper over my eardrums, and then being picked right up off my feet by Antonio and dropped at the bar near Addy.

“First, I’d like you to introduce me to your beautiful friend here, and then, we’re all taking shots, since this motherfucker is headed back to Oklahoma too goddamn soon.

” His words echo my own thoughts, or maybe it’s my thoughts that continue to echo his.

My mind is spinning, reeling, from the warmth of their embraces, from the reality that Jude will be gone in just a handful of days, and from the fact that Addy is back early, heartbroken and leaving my own heart feeling a bit broken for her, too.

Isabella waves the bartender over—who seems to be a good friend of theirs, if their verbal sparring has anything to say about it.

“Quit fucking around and pour us some drinks, you lazy fuck!” Connor laughs.

“I’ll pour you something, alright,” the bartender volleys back with a crude gesture, and Connor laughs even harder.

They go back and forth like that for a while, before a line of whiskey shots appear before us at the bar.

We each take one in our hands and raise them in the air.

My arm rests in line with Jude’s, his front pressed close to my back.

Addy is on one side of me, and his friends are on the other, completing our circle.

“To the end of the summer, and to another year of watching our guy kick ass in college ball,” Nick toasts.

“To friends— best friends—” Addy nudges me with a playful smile, “and to new beginnings.”

Isabella leans closer, eyeing Jude. “To me stealing your girl this year,” she quips, and Jude’s resulting chuckle vibrates against my back.

“To Brooklyn!” Antonio booms like a cannon, making me jump in Jude’s hold with a laugh.

“To it becoming your home, too,” Connor says with a wink thrown my way, and I blush as all eyes fall on me.

I lift my shot glass a little bit higher. “To amazing friends, both old and new.”