Page 28

DAMON

M y fist pounds against the door so hard, the sound vibrates through my chest. “Chris!”

I pause and listen, hearing nothing but the sound of the television, so I raise the side of my fist again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Open the door!”

When it swings open a second later without warning, I stumble inside, righting myself at the sight of my friend grinning like an idiot. “I take it the date went well,” he says with a wink. “You’re welcome.”

I cross my arms over my chest as he shuts the door behind me, then turn to face him. “You have some explaining to do.” Chris frowns, saying nothing as I continue, “What was the one thing you promised me when you came up with this whole date idea?”

The crease between Chris’s eyes deepens, and he shrugs. “There weren’t really any stipulations, just that Avery wouldn’t be there.”

I snap my fingers and point. “Exactly! You were supposed to tell the girls that under no circumstances was Avery supposed to be on the double.”

“Right.” Chris shrugs, hugging his arms to his chest. “And I did.”

“Did you now?” I ask, arching a brow.

“Of course. I remember because I was making out with Charlotte when I pitched the idea. I told her that we wanted to set you up with Liz, and that you wanted it to be a double. Based on the way she started kissing me, I’m pretty sure she thought it was a great idea.

And then I started to tell her the only condition was that .

. .” Chris trails off, his voice fizzling like water on a fire as his face pales. “Oh shit,” he mumbles.

I nod my head like a deranged bobblehead, finger pointing at the center of his chest.

Chris raises his hands, palms up as he takes a step back.

“I’m sorry,” he says carefully. “I was about to tell her, I swear, and then she started doing this thing with her tongue, and . . .” He hisses out a breath like I might kill him?and I might?before he clasps his head in his hands.

“She used sexual warfare on me. She must have!”

“How the fuck is your girl supposed to know I didn’t want Avery on the date if you didn’t fucking tell her?” I ask, poking him in the chest so hard my knuckle cracks.

“I’m guessing this means Avery was on the date?” He winces.

I nod, my jaw tight.

Chris swallows. “And I’m also guessing that means the date went horribly.”

I drop my arm, the anger leaving my chest like a deflating balloon. “Yes. I mean, no. Not entirely.” I spin around and pace, throwing my arms in the air then clasping my hands behind my head. “Fuck, I don’t even know anymore.”

Chris’s eyes brighten before he approaches me again. He’s cautious, like one would approach a wild animal. “So, you’re saying it wasn’t all bad? Does that mean . . .?”

“I don’t know what the fuck it means,” I say, raking a hand through my hair. I feel like I’m losing it. “We kissed.”

Chris gasps, mouth gaping. “What about Liz? You can’t just kiss another chick on your date with Liz”

I roll my eyes. “Something tells me Liz isn’t too heartbroken, but she also wouldn’t know about the kiss because she stayed at the bowling alley to play pool with Travis while I drove Avery home. Which was completely her idea, by the way, so spare me the lecture,” I snap.

A slow smile spreads over Chris’s face. “So, you kissed when you dropped her off, huh? How was it?” he asks with a lift of the chin.

“Like I’d tell you, fucker.”

“I sense a little hostility here, and I can’t say I blame you, but”?he holds a finger up? “this sounds like good news, so what’s the problem? I mean, it’s clear to all of us you have unresolved feelings for the chick. Maybe this is what you needed.”

I stride toward the couch and plop down onto one of the cushions, then rest my face in my hands. “I don’t know what to think,” I mumble, then lift my head and meet his eyes. “She told me her reasons for breaking up with me.”

Chris’s eyes widen. “Oh shit. And?”

I swear this guy likes gossip more than most chicks I know.

“And they weren’t what I expected. Even if I don’t completely agree with her decisions, I can at least understand her motivations. She was put in a tough spot.”

“So, you’re going to give her another chance?” he asks, sinking down into the chair across from me.

Sighing, I drag a hand over my face as I think about my answer. So much has happened tonight, I need time to process it. Though I’m not sure there’s enough time in the world to digest everything that’s happened.

“I don’t know,” I hear myself say. “It’s not that simple.”

“It’s only hard if you make it hard,” Chris says, shaking his head.

“I don’t know if I can go through it all over again,” I say, my voice soft as I stare off into the distance. “The heartbreak. The pain. I can’t survive it twice.”

“But you said you understood. You said?”

“I know what I said, okay? It’s just . .

.” I press my mouth closed, thinking about how I told her I was broken, and how she said I wasn’t, that she broke us and there was a difference, but I’m not sure that’s true.

I’m not sure I know what to do with us now or how the fragmented pieces of my heart can fit with hers when the shape of the puzzle has changed.

“What if some things, once broken, can never be mended?”

I slip into the lecture hall for my Tightwaddery class three minutes before it starts. It’s the first time I’ve been here since the first week, and I wonder how much I’ve missed as I scan the rows of filled seats, my heart skipping a beat when I spot an empty chair beside Avery.

I’ve given her a lot of thought since our date Sunday night, and even though I haven’t come to any concrete conclusions, I know I can’t stay away from her any more than I can keep from thinking of her.

Hesitating for only a moment, I cross the room, making my way toward her as she sits there, watching with wide, russet eyes. “Hey,” she breathes out.

My gaze instinctively falls to her mouth, remembering what it felt like to kiss her again. “Care if I take this seat?” I ask, ignoring the butterflies swarming my chest.

When she shakes her head, the light catches the tiny gold flecks in her eyes. “No, of course not,” she says with a smile, and I can’t help but admire how pretty she is.

Time hasn’t changed much where Avery Astor is concerned. She’s still the most beautiful girl in the room.

My mouth curves as I slide into the chair and drop my backpack beside me, the fabric hitting the floor with a soft thud.

I unzip it, fingers skimming past textbooks and gum wrappers until I find my notebook and a freshly sharpened pencil.

Just as I flip to a blank page, the door swings open and Professor Karr strides in, his usual whirlwind of energy trailing behind him.

His hair is a little more disheveled than normal, his button-up slightly wrinkled, but he barely pauses before launching into today’s lecture, scribbling the topic across the board with rapid strokes, as if the words are on fire in his brain.

I lean back in my seat, twirling the pencil between my fingers as Professor Karr drones on. What about, I have no idea. The words bounce off my brain like static, completely useless, because no matter how hard I try to focus, all I can think about is the girl beside me.

Every time she shifts in her seat or tucks that golden hair behind her ear, it draws my eye.

I hate that I know her so well. I hate how I can still read the tension in her every movement, or how I can sense when she’s overthinking.

Things between us are uncertain, and if she’s anything like me, she’s lain awake every night since our date, replaying the evening over and over in her head.

Every laugh. Every shared glance. Our conversation in the car. The kiss.

God, that kiss.

The moment our lips touched, it was like coming home, and a piece of me I hadn’t realized was missing clicked back into place.

It was a reminder of how amazing life could be, of everything good and pure and true in this world.

It was everything I had been aching for in the quiet moments, everything I’d pretended I didn’t miss over the last two and a half years.

The feel of her silky locks between my fingers, the taste of her mouth, and the heat of her breath against my skin are all things I had committed to memory long ago, but experiencing them again after so long .

. . The memory of her pales in comparison to the reality of her.

I already knew Avery Astor had ruined me for all other women. It’s why I haven’t dated since we broke up. It’s why I swore off women and relationships. One and done, that was my motto.

Or at least it was.

But now I don’t know if I can go back to not having her.

Yet I’m equally as uncertain whether I can risk losing her again.

I’m stuck in limbo, where loving her feels like breathing, but the fear of breaking all over again feels like dying.

All of this at the worst possible time, too.

Monday is the National Championship game—the most important game of my football career thus far—and even though it’s only Wednesday, in twenty-four hours, I’ll be headed to Houston, Texas to prepare for the biggest game of my career.

Now is not the time for distractions.

My focus should be on football. On breath work and game tape. On passing game-throwing perfect spirals and looking for the gap. Anything and everything except the girl beside me.

I drag a hand over the back of my neck, trying to redirect my focus to the front of the room. It’s a seemingly impossible feat when I’m hyperaware of her every movement.