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A thought occurred to me as I was walking up the steps to the baseball team’s house.

I had never caught a single glance of Colton the first time I went to a party hosted by the baseball team. But the second time around, it was Colton who had invited me to the party.

It just went to show that life, truly, is full of surprises.

Taking slow and steady breaths, I tried to calm down my nerves, feeling grateful that we had decided to pregame before coming there. The music got exponentially louder once Nina opened the front door to the house, me tagging along behind her with Claudia and Lily.

On our way to the kitchen to get some drinks, we were intercepted by Miles.

‘You made it!’ he exclaimed when he saw us.

‘Hey,’ I greeted him. Remembering he hadn’t met the other two yet, I said ‘This is Claudia and Lily. They lived across the hall from us in the dorms during freshman year.’

‘Nice meeting you two.’ He nodded in greeting. ‘Now, let’s get you girls some drinks.’ Leading us into the kitchen, he poured us drinks in red solo cups.

He passed one to each one of us. ‘Here you go.’

I thanked him, taking it from his hand.

‘So, here’s the rundown. Drinks are in the fridge and the ice cooler, the dance floor is in the living room, and beer pong is happening in the dining room if you’re up for it,’ he explained.

‘I’m still looking for a partner for my round, by the way.

’ This, he directed at Nina with a flirtatious glint in his eyes.

‘That depends on how good your aim is,’ Nina retorted, before taking a sip of her drink.

Miles might have caught her off guard the other day, but it wouldn’t be the case that night.

With the added liquid courage from the two Fireball shots we had each gulped before coming there, Nina was fully prepared to face her crush head-on.

Miles’ head jolted back slightly at her response, surprised but intrigued at her newfound confidence which wasn’t there the last time they had seen each other. ‘Are you questioning my skills?’ he asked.

Nina arched a brow at him. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’

Keeping her gaze on Miles, she took another sip from her cup—her eyes daring him to take up her challenge.

Shooting Nina a smirk, Miles took up her bait. ‘Challenge accepted. Come on.’ He ushered us to the beer pong table.

A round had been in session between two baseball players against two basketball players. Looking around, I noticed that most of the baseball team was there, and I slowly started to scan the faces to see if I could find the one who had invited me, trying my best to be subtle.

‘He’s not here,’ I heard someone whisper to me. Turning my head to see where it came from, I saw Miles looking at me.

So much for being subtle.

‘Oh,’ I trailed off, struggling to think of what to reply to that.

‘Something urgent came up, but he said he’ll be back in an hour or so,’ he continued.

I just nodded my head at him, bringing my attention back to the round of beer pong that was on.

I couldn’t help the feeling of disappointment emerge at Colton’s absence. I hadn’t even realized, until that very moment, how much I was looking forward to seeing him outside of our Wednesday ASL practice sessions.

What was so urgent? And why didn’t he tell me anything?

I quickly brushed the thoughts out of my head.

Colton did not owe me anything just because he had invited me to the party. I was pretty sure he invited most of the people there, which didn’t make me anything special. I rationalized myself.

Did I put a bit more effort into my looks tonight in hopes of seeing him?

Maybe. Okay, fine. Yes, I did.

But I refused to let this affect me further.

I was at a party at the baseball team’s house with my best friends.

Looking around at all the people having a great time, I told myself to forget about Colton.

Let the fun commence.

After participating in a few rounds of beer pong myself and doing very poorly, Lily took me out to the dance floor to sweat the alcohol away.

I even caught up with some of the people I had known from my other classes, along with those on the track team who had made it that night.

I have to admit, I was having a lot of fun.

But, as the clock got closer to eleven, my energy was starting to drop.

Excusing myself from the group I was with, I went to search for a bathroom to get some alone time and clear my head for a few minutes.

As I passed through the kitchen, I noticed that the back door was open, with people coming in and out of the house. I decided to change where I was heading, after seeing there weren’t many people outside.

Exactly what I needed.

I went back to look for the girls to inform them where I was going, so they wouldn’t panic when they couldn’t find me inside.

Heading over to the dining room, I saw Claudia and Lily play against two baseball players at a round of beer pong, while Nina was in conversation with someone.

I squinted my eyes to get a better look at who she had been talking to.

It was Miles.

Observing her body language, she was definitely flirting with him, and from the looks of it, he was flirting right back at her. I internally squealed and chanted ‘ Go best friend’ in my head, happy that they were hitting it off.

I decided to not distract them and went straight to the backdoor, stepping outside to the backyard, thinking I’d be gone just for a short while.

There were groups of people scattered all around, but everyone seemed to be in their own little bubble. I wasn’t planning on being out there for long, just enough to get my bearings straight before heading back in.

However, as I glanced around, I saw an unoccupied seating area.

I could stay out here for a bit.

Sitting down in one of the chairs, I took off my sandals and lifted both my legs, bringing them to my chest. I placed my crossed arms on my knees and rested my head on top of them. Closing my eyes, I let the night breeze cool off the warmth on my skin.

Moments later, I heard movement come right next to me, seeming like someone had just taken a seat in the chair beside mine.

I lifted my head, and an unfamiliar warm feeling settled inside me when my eyes landed on a face I didn’t think I would be seeing that night.

An unfamiliar warm feeling?

It’s probably the alcohol.

Colton smiled at me when our gazes locked.

I smiled at him in return. The almost silence enclosing us in its embrace.

Choosing to not break the silence, Colton signed to me instead.

‘ Hey, partner, ’ he signed.

I smiled at him, signing back, ‘ hey, partner. ’

Although we had been learning ASL for weeks, we were mostly still learning new words as there was a lot left to cover.

We were only recently introduced to how sentences in ASL were structured, and asking questions in ASL was in our syllabus for a future class.

So, instead of signing it perfectly, Colton just signed each word to me and added a question mark at the end.

‘ You okay? ’ he asked.

I arched a brow at him, slightly amused by the way he was signing, and gave a nod. ‘ Just tired, ’ I signed back to him.

Colton nodded, then signed. ‘ You want me to go? ’

I shook my head at him. ‘ Stay. ’

Seconds passed by as I waited for Colton to say something, but he didn’t. His head was turned upwards, looking at the night sky. I followed suit, admiring the full moon along with the stars.

We just sat like that, enjoying each other’s presence in comfortable silence, stuck in our own little world.

The only thing that would have made that moment better was if Colton had his arm around me and my head was on his shoulder.

I immediately stopped my train of thought—shaking my head as if I was trying to physically remove the visual of it from my mind.

That can’t happen, you know it can’t.

I let out a wistful sigh.

The needle to burst our little bubble came in the sound of my phone buzzing against my pocket. I took it out and saw that it was an incoming call from Nina.

I answered it right away.

‘Where are you?’ Nina asked, worry in her voice.

I let out a wince, I must have been out there longer than I had thought. ‘I’m outside, in the backyard.’

‘Oh, thank god,’ she breathed out. ‘We couldn’t find you anywhere, so we thought you left.’

‘Nope, just getting some fresh air,’ I reassured her. ‘I’ll meet you inside.’

‘We were actually about to leave.’

‘Is everything okay?’

‘Beer pong got a bit out of hand,’ she trailed off. ‘They added vodka into the drinks to level up the game, and I think Claudia overestimated her alcohol tolerance again.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘She’s all right, about to crash, but still fine.’

I let out a sigh of relief, glad to hear nothing bad had happened. ‘That’s good, so should I meet you on the front porch instead?’ I suggested.

‘Yeah, see you in a bit,’ Nina said before she hung up.

‘Is everything okay?’ Colton asked me, a worried look on his face.

‘Yeah. I think we’re done for tonight, we’re just about to head back.’

‘How are you getting home?’

‘Probably an Uber,’ I answered.

‘I’ll drive you home.’

Normally I would have politely rejected his offer and insisted that we could get ourselves home just fine. But this time, I just said, ‘Thank you,’ gave him a smile of appreciation, and left it at that.

Colton must have been expecting my usual antics, and when the two words finally registered to him, his eyes widened in amusement. ‘No arguments today?’

‘No arguments today,’ I confirmed.

With that, we both stood up and made our way to the front porch, taking an alternate route along the side of the house, rather than facing the party crowd.

‘There they are,’ I pointed out once I saw them.

Claudia stood in the middle of Nina and Lily, her arms wrapped around each one of them. I could tell they had been struggling to hold her up, considering Claudia was a foot taller than both of them.

‘Did you order an Uber yet?’ I asked once I approached them.

‘Not yet,’ Nina said. ‘Can you do it?’