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16

LANE

M aybe it’s because I can’t think straight.

Maybe it’s because the decision-making part of my brain is deactivated from the shock of having Scarlett in front of me so close that I can see the hazel ring of her eyes and remember how I used to drown in them.

Maybe it’s because, as much as I’ve tried to ignore it, for all these months I’ve missed being near her so much that it’s been like having withdrawal symptoms that I’ve never truly recovered from.

But after I take a seat at her table, ask her breathlessly what she’s been up to, and she tells me what happened to her apartment yesterday and the desperate position she’s now in, I don’t even think before the words rush from my mouth.

“Stay with us. We have an empty room. As long as you need.”

Her eyelids pull back wide enough to reveal the full circumference of her irises, and my chest clenches at the sight. “What?” she asks, taken aback.

“Me and my teammates live in a big house just a couple blocks off campus. One of my roommates moved out the other day and the room’s going to be sitting empty for the entire semester. Take it. No charge.”

She blinks away the disbelief in her expression, shaking her head. “Lane. I can’t do that.”

My lips pull down, like there’s a weight attached to their edges. It feels like there’s a weight in my chest, too.

She can’t do that because she made it clear a year and a half ago that she had no interest in us developing our relationship beyond the brief summer fling it was?

But she has nowhere else to go, and that’s totally unacceptable to me. If that is the reason she’s holding off on accepting my offer, I have to make sure she knows she doesn’t have anything to worry about.

I shrug, trying to summon a casual tone and expression. “Sure you can. We’re just old friends at this point, right? I have an extra room, and you need a place to stay. Win-win. Nothing more complicated about it than that.”

Her brows tug together, and something flashes in her eyes that I can’t quite read. But it’s not the relief that I expected to show in them.

“Friends, huh?” she asks.

I nod, forcing a smile. “Of course.”

She might have broken my heart, but it’s not like she cheated on me or anything. She didn’t do anything wrong. I can’t hold it against her that she came to her senses sooner than I did and realized that jumping from the temporary fun we had in Chicago to a demanding long-distance relationship was a silly idea in the first place.

I don’t want her thinking that I’m holding a grudge—or holding out any hope that we’ll pick up where we left off—and let that make her pass up a no-brainer opportunity to keep her from being homeless.

Hesitancy still radiates from her, so I fix a prodding grin to my lips, prop my forearms on the table, and lean toward her.

“Come on. Where else are you gonna go?”

The flat expression on her face tells me she has no answer to that question.

I don’t know how I’m going to share a home with the one girl I’ve never gotten over, but for her, I’ll keep my real feelings under wraps and make it work.

I rasp my knuckles against the surface of the table like I’m a judge pounding his gravel, settling the matter.

“Alright, roomie,” I say chipperly, “let’s go meet your other roommates.”

I was hoping the guys wouldn’t be upset with me for volunteering our empty room without consulting them. I was really hoping that they’d get along with Scarlett, too. That they’d like her.

Turns out, they might get along too well.

We’re in the living room. Scarlett, me, Rhys, Sebastian, and Jamie who’s over to visit. Tuck is out on a double date with Olivia along with Hudson and Summer. We’re just hanging out, Scarlett and the guys getting to know each other.

I don’t know how the hell the topic of conversation turned to this, but everyone’s sharing their weirdest or most awkward sex stories.

It’s Scarlett’s turn right now. The guys are absolutely cracking up, because of course Scarlett knows how to tell any story to make it the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.

But me? I’m sitting with my jaw clenched, my muscles tight, and my flat mouth unmoved by even the slightest twitch of a smile.

I can’t be surprised that Scarlett has lived an eventful life with lots of experiences. It’s one of the things I found most interesting about her.

But actually hearing about her being with other guys?

I don’t like it. Not one damn bit.

It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t help it.

“He did what with his dick?” Sebastian asks, his voice still choppy with laughter.

My grip digs into the worn fabric of the couch cushion I’m sitting on. My knuckles go white and thin as jealousy rises to my mouth and coats it with a bitter taste.

I choose to pay attention to the drumming of my pulse in my ear rather than listen to Scarlett recount what happened between her and another man’s cock.

“What about you, Lane?” Sebastian turns to me, his cheeks still red from laughter at our new roommate’s story.

“Me? Huh?” I ask, my attention pulled away from the stupid, irrational jealousy curling through my body.

“What’s your weirdest sex story?”

My nostrils flare. I don’t want to hear Scarlett talk about other guys, and I don’t want to talk about other women around her, either.

“Nothing. I don’t have one.” I grit out the words.

“Oh, come on,” Scarlett says with a prodding, musical tease.

“I don’t want to. I don’t have any stories.” The contradictory excuses rush out in a tight monotone.

She rolls her eyes. “You’re no fun.”

She’s right. Nothing about me or Scarlett having sex with other people strikes me as fun right now.

I don’t know where this stupid caveman reaction is coming from. I’ve never had any hang-ups about a girl’s previous partners before. And I know that Scarlett’s lived a full life.

Hell, I know she’s going to keep living it. I’ll probably have to get used to not just hearing about her with other guys, but seeing her with them while she’s living here.

The thought has my stomach twisting into a tight ball that radiates a very unpleasant feeling through my body.

This is something I’m going to have to get over. But I’m not getting over it within the next couple of minutes.

“What about you, Jamie?” Scarlett asks, turning to the rookie who’s been silent ever since we got on this topic.

Although, I guess he’s not a rookie anymore. He’s halfway through his sophomore year, and he’s turned himself into an incredibly valuable member of the team. Filled in for me on the first line while I was injured. But I guess in my mind, he’s still the quiet and reserved freshman I knew him as last year.

He shrugs, blush crawling up his neck. “I don’t really have any stories, either.”

Sebastian props his elbows on his knees and leans forward. An interested look fills his eyes as he regards Jamie. “Yeah, you don’t. You never do. I never hear you talking about girls. Or see you with any.”

The blush crawls faster up Jamie’s neck and fills his cheeks with a splotchy redness.

“Maybe he doesn’t kiss and tell,” Scarlett says. “ Some guys are still gentlemen, believe it or not.”

“Yeah,” Rhys echoes, “there’s nothing wrong with?—”

“Are you a virgin?” Sebastian’s cuts off Rhys’s words.

The effect of Sebastian’s question to Jamie is like a tray full of dishes clattering to the ground and smashing over the quiet murmur of a restaurant.

Rhys’s brow quirks. So does Scarlett’s. And so does mine. Jamie’s only getting redder as the four other pairs of eyes in the room are trained on him.

He opens his mouth to answer. But then it flaps closed. He’s still for a beat. Then he shrugs.

“ Duuuude ,” Sebastian’s exclamation breaks the silence, “you haven’t got laid yet?”

Rhys lifts his brow in surprise. “Wow,” is his more subdued response.

Now poor Jamie’s face looks like a ripe cherry.

Sebastian hoots a laugh, slapping his knee. “Damn, dude. I knew you sucked at talking to girls, but …”

“Oh, fuck you,” Jamie answers, rolling his eyes and holding up his middle finger at Sebastian.

Jamie starts to push up from his chair, but Sebastian throws up his hands in a mea culpa reaction. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be a dick. Don’t go. We have questions.”

Scarlett flattens her lips at Sebastian. She angles herself toward him and crosses her arms. “What questions? If Jamie doesn’t want to have sex yet, what business is it of anyone else’s?”

My chest warms at seeing her immediately jump to the defense of someone she just met.

My mind is pulled back to that day when she stood up to the guy in the airport ranting about a crying baby. Or the day she fell into my arms, when she told me she’d been kicked out in the first place for coming to the defense of a girl inside who was being harassed.

“It’s just …” Jamie begins, pausing to find his words. “I don’t want to do it with someone I don’t feel an emotional connection with. Don’t get me wrong, if people want to have sex just for fun, I don’t judge. That’s fine. But I … I don’t know, I don’t. I want it to be something more than that, for me.” His eyes dart diffidently side to side. “Is that weird?”

“Of course it’s not weird!” Scarlett says supportively.

Sebastian shrugs. “It’s a little weird.”

I snort. “No, it’s not, asshole.”

“Whatever you wanna do with your dick, Jamie, I support it.” Rhys’s announcement is solemn and dignified.

“Wow, I’m overwhelmed,” Jamie responds in a sarcastic deadpan.

“Let’s change topics,” I say. “Nothing to do with sex. As a matter of fact, let’s keep the whole pelvic region out of it.”

Sebastian reaches for one of the PlayStation controllers on the cluttered coffee table. He fixes a challenging look at Scarlett. “Should we see if our new roomie can keep up in Invasion X ?” he says, referring to the first-person shooter game we’ve been playing a lot of lately.

Scarlett arches an eyebrow in response. “Keep up? Throw me that controller and prepare your ass to be kicked.”

Sebastian tosses it to her, and she snags it out of the air. “I could grow to like you, Scarlett,” he says.

I squint at Sebastian as he focuses on the TV screen.

Once again, I can’t deny that the feeling slicing into my chest is jealousy. I’ve seen the glimmer of attraction in his eyes when they’ve rested on her today. I don’t forget the look on his face when we saw her walking down the street, either.

Just don’t grow to like her too much , I want to say.

Scarlett’s in bed, in the room right next to mine.

That thought has been blasting through my mind like a stereo with the volume turned all the way up, making it impossible for me to sleep.

It’s past midnight now, and the sheer shock and surprise of everything that’s happened today has worn off.

What’s left in its wake is a tender pang in my chest, an almost physically painful yearning. It’s like the emotions I’ve spent the last eighteen months trying my best to ignore are roaring to life.

I fling my covers away, swing my legs off my mattress, stand up, and approach the wall.

Her room is right next to mine. Hudson’s old room. I know where his mattress and bedframe are, where Scarlett is sleeping right now. They’re pressed right against the other side of this wall.

I rest my palm on the wall, level with the top of the mattress where I know Scarlett is lying right now.

My hand feels warm even against the cold plaster. It feels good to be close to her after all these years. Too good.

Even though my nervous system is discombobulated by the combination of surprise from seeing her again, relief that she’s safe after losing her apartment, sadness at remembering how the summer we spent in Chicago ended, and being wound way too tight with arousal all day long because just seeing her makes my entire body catch fire … knowing that I’m as close to her as I can possibly be right now, pressed against the small barrier that divides us, soothes me.

There’s only one way I’m getting any sleep tonight.

I gather the heavy quilt from my bed and wrap it around my shoulders. I sink onto the floor, back resting against the wall that Scarlett’s on the other side of. The tuft of hair on the back of my head is my only pillow as I lean it against the space where I imagine Scarlett’s head is lying.

I close my eyes and fall asleep just like that.