Page 32 of Crossroads

THIRTY-ONE

“So when are you finally going to ask me out?” Amber asks, flicking her hair and sending me a flirty smile across from the small table in the library on campus.

We have a couple of classes together, and yeah, I noticed right away she was attracted to me, but I didn’t feel even a flicker of interest toward her.

And it’s not because she isn’t absolutely beautiful and funny and smart—she’s all those things. But one thing she isn’t—and that’s Jasper.

The man has me in a chokehold. He’s all I want, and all I think about every single second of the day. It’s bordering on an obsession, one I don’t want to heal from.

I am actually fighting for my life right now, trying like hell not to check my phone that’s resting in my pocket for a message from him, but I remain in the moment. “I thought we were just study partners?” I say, my brows knitted together in a playful manner.

Her pretty eyes, framed in liner and mascara, roll, and her full and lightly painted lips turn up in an even flirtier smile. I should be jumping at the chance to be with her. But nothing.

I feel nothing but friendship.

“We can do both.”

I don’t know why I say it—okay, I do, but I still can’t believe it comes out of my mouth—when I say, “I don’t think my boyfriend would like that very much.”

Her mouth falls open, only slightly before she catches herself, and she laughs semi-awkwardly. “Oh my God. I’ve been flirting with you for weeks. Why didn’t you tell me you’re gay?”

I don’t even bother correcting her on the whole label thing because it doesn’t matter right now. “Sorry,” I say instead.

She pouts, but it’s playful. “Well, that’s okay. So boyfriend, huh? Is he hot?” Her eyebrows wiggle, and I laugh.

“You have no idea.”

Her eyes light up with delight, and then I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket and nearly drop the damn thing in my excitement, trying to get to it. She’s watching me, but I don’t care.

Jasper is calling me.

“I gotta go.”

“The boyfriend?”

“Yeah.” I nod as I gather my things and hit answer. “Hey, you.”

I barely hear Amber sigh and say something about someday wanting that with someone because I’m already grinning, my phone against my ear as his warm voice floods through me. “Hey. You busy?”

I sling my bag over my shoulder and head for the exit. “Nope. What are you up to?”

“You said you wanted me to call you sometime today.” I can hear his warm smile, and it makes my desire to see him grow even more.

“I did,” I say with a lazy grin, walking back to my dorm. “My mom invited me to Thanksgiving at home.”

“Oh?” he asks, sounding intrigued.

“Yeah. But so did Kelly.”

“Oh yeah?” He sounds much happier at that prospect, and it makes my heart squeeze with anticipation, and inconveniently—since I’m surrounded by people on campus—my dick twitch in my jeans. Goddamn, I miss him.

“Yeah, and I think I’m going to do that. Wondering if you have a place I can stay?”

“You know I do.” His voice is rumbly and sexy as hell, making the situation in my pants even more inconvenient.

“Okay. I’ll book the flight. I wish I could stay longer, but I have a test on Wednesday afternoon, so I’ll have to find a flight out on Thanksgiving morning and leave Saturday.”

“I’ll take all the time I can get with you.”

See, how can he say things like that to me? That’s why it was so easy for me to call him my boyfriend. I haven’t dared ask him if he’s seeing anyone, but I haven’t really had to. We talk as often as we can. Sometimes getting off with each other just talking or sometimes video calling.

It always has to be quick because I never know when my roommate will be back, and that would be awkward as fuck, but we’ve made it work.

He doesn’t ask me who I spend my time with, but I hope he knows he’s always with me. Always in my thoughts.

“What are you doing right now?” he asks, and I wonder if maybe just hearing my voice is having the same effect on him that it’s having on me. I smile and unlock my dorm door, but my shoulders slump when I see my roommate is here and has his girlfriend with him.

They both look pretty camped-out too, so I don’t think they have plans to leave any time soon.

“Just hanging out at the dorm,” I say and then nod to my roommate and his girl.

“Hey, Caleb. Hey, Anna.” They both wave to me.

They have headphones on, watching something on their laptop, so I don’t even know if they really heard me.

But really, that was for Jasper’s benefit so he knows that anything he was thinking can’t happen right now.

My dick revolts as I plop down on my bed, and he laughs, probably easily able to picture my grumpy-ass pout right now. “Thanksgiving.” He says it like a promise.

“Yeah. What are you doing on this fine Friday?” I kick back on my bed.

“Oh, you know. Going to the bowling alley.” His tone is light and happy, but my body immediately goes on high alert, and I sit up straight on my bed, panic rising.

“The bowling alley?” Where Lucy works? Where I witnessed that fight so full of passion, it made me yearn for the first time in my life for someone to love me that much? That bowling alley.

He seems to pick up on the panic in my voice because his is immediately soothing. “Em . . ” he starts softly. “Lucy doesn’t work there anymore. She moved. She’s living in the town where she’s going to college.”

I hate how fast my body relaxes. How worked up I got at the thought of him being around her when I’m stuck here. “Oh. That’s . . . that’s good for her.”

His laugh is a deep, throaty chuckle, and I am so busted. “Hey, Emerson?”

“Yeah?”

“It wouldn’t matter if she was or not, okay? I don’t want Lucy. I don’t want anyone else.”

His words settle me in a way that nothing else could. I lick my dry lips and swallow hard. “Me either.”

I can feel his smile. “Thanksgiving.”

“Thanksgiving,” I repeat.

We chat a little longer, but nothing else really needs to be said because all I’m doing now is counting down the days until I see him again.

I missed my flight. How the fuck could I miss my flight? It feels like my head is going to explode as I stand at the airport—totally defeated.

My hands are shaking as I dial Jasper, and when he answers—his voice so happy—I feel like I’m going to die as I croak out, “I missed my flight.”

“W-what?” I can feel his mood drop instantly.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Jasper.” I take a seat in the crowded airport, my knees nearly giving out. “I don’t know how it happened. I left so early. So early. I swear I did. But there’s so much fucking traffic here. No one would move, and by the time I got through security, it was too late. I’m . . .”

“Hey, hey. Breathe.” His voice is as soothing as it can be. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” I say, helpless and distraught as I tug at my own hair. I can’t believe I missed my flight. “I wanted this so badly. I wanted to see you so badly.”

I don’t care that there are people everywhere, likely listening in on my conversation. Nothing else matters, and I don’t care that they’re about to witness my total breakdown.

“These things happen. It happens, Emerson.”

I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “It shouldn’t have. I wanted this so damn badly. I need to see you. I . . .”

“I know,” he says. “I know, Em. I want to see you too.”

“I won’t be able to get another flight. I mean, even if I get one for tomorrow, I’d have to leave pretty much right away . . .”

“No. It’s okay. Don’t worry about that. Do you have somewhere you can go today? To spend Thanksgiving? You know Kelly is going to ask if you’re being fed.”

I know he’s trying to lighten the mood, but it doesn’t work. “I don’t care about that.”

“I know you don’t, but I need to know you’re going to be okay.”

“The dorms are open, and they have some sort of dinner for everyone who can’t go home for the holiday.”

“Okay, good.” I hate how calm he sounds because I know he’s disappointed. But he’s trying to be strong for me. “Christmas. We’ll have Christmas.”

I nearly choke on a sob and almost lose it. “I don’t want to wait another month. I want you now. I can’t do this anymore, Jasper. I . . .”

“Hey, Em. Breathe for me.” His tone is soothing, and I try to do what he says, but it feels like I’m panicking. It hurts to breathe. “Listen to me. You have me. I promise you, you have me. You’ve had me since you walked into my life in those shiny white shoes.”

A watery laugh leaves my throat. “You have to let the shoes go.”

“Never,” he says in that perfect Jasper teasing tone. “It’s going to be okay.”

I shake my head again, wiping at the falling tears. What the hell? I’ve never been a crier, but all of a sudden, I’m a weeping fool for this man. “Maybe I could just come home. Quit, you know? I can go to school there.”

“Don’t you dare.” He’s not being cruel, but his words cut through me anyway. “You love it there, Emerson. This is your dream.”

“I want you. That’s my new dream. Everything else can fall into place.”

“No,” he says clearly. “You’re going to finish college there. You have to do this. It will get easier.”

“I don’t want to be with anyone else, and I don’t want you with anyone else,” I say for the first time. “I want to call you my boyfriend and mean it wholeheartedly. I want you. Selfishly and fully. I. Want. You. I love you.”

He’s quiet for so long that I nearly crack right here in the airport and beg him to love me too because I can’t call the words back.

I’ve been holding onto them for so long.

“I love you too, Emerson.” Before I can tell him he doesn’t have to say it just because I did, he goes on.

“I love you more than anything in this world. I think about you all the time. You have me. I don’t want anyone else, and the thought of anyone touching you makes me homicidal.

” That pulls a quick, surprised laugh from me, and I can see him grinning, even though I can’t actually see him right now.

So proud of himself. “We’re together. Okay?

You and me forever. But that doesn’t mean that you get to quit school and come here and give up a huge piece of yourself for me. ”

“But I would.”

“I know,” he says. “I know you would. But that’s not love. That’s not the kind of love I want for us. I want you to have everything you want and know I’m right there with you, even when I can’t be physically there with you.”

“Four years is a long time,” I say because we’re young.

I know that in the back of my head. I never wanted to get married and have a life with someone.

That was never in my plans. I wanted many things but never that, and now I know, without a doubt, I’d rearrange my whole life to be with him and never look back.

“We’ll make it work. I promise. You trust me?”

“More than anyone in my life,” I answer honestly.

“Okay. Drive back to your dorm safely, eat shitty dorm turkey, and I’ll see you by Christmas. I promise.”

I close my eyes and choke back more tears. “Okay. I love you.” I say it because I can and because I want to hear him say it again.

“I love you too.”

And for now, that soothes my soul enough to go on.

But I don’t know how long I can go without being with the man I love. Nothing else seems to matter as much anymore.