Page 40 of Palm South University: Season 3

“Yeah, and then made a joke about taking my girlfriend to dinner.”

“Wasn’t joking the other night, but then again you weren’t around, were you?”

Tossing my hands up with a sigh, I grab my backpack and longboard from behind the referee stand, strapping on the bag and fighting against the urge to punch them both.

“I give up. If you two want to compare dick sizes all night, be my guest. But I’m going to dinner.” They both take a step forward and I hold up a hand. “Alone.”

And with that, I drop my board to the sidewalk and kick off, leaving them both standing there as equal losers in my eyes.

I take my time at dinner, calling Skyler and asking her if she can meet me. She had to miss the dodgeball tournament for a local poker tournament downtown, but she’s finished when I call her, so we meet at Tizzy’s Tacos.

Two tacos, one bag of chips, and an hour of venting later, and I feel marginally better.

I don’t really tell her about Adam, mostly because no one on campus knows about what happened between us last semester, but I do tell her about Grayson. She listens, eating her burrito and offering advice around mouthfuls when appropriate. Even still, nothing is solved when we finish.

So, I take the long route home, zigging and zagging my board across campus, pausing to sit and reflect at the pond by the Student Union. When it’s nearly midnight I finally give up on trying to feel better and make my way toward the house. With Bo dropping out unexpectedly last semester, I don’t even have a roommate to go home to.

Ashlei is sitting on the front porch steps when I roll up to the house, and she lights up when she sees me.

“Hey, you’ve got a visitor.”

I cock one eyebrow. “A visitor? At midnight?”

She nods, biting her lip with a mischievous smile. “Mmm-hmm. I helped them sneak in. Just… be quiet. And have fun.”

With that little nugget of vagueness and a giggle, she hops off the steps and skips inside, leaving me standing in the open door behind her.

Tiptoeing up the stairs with my heart thundering under my ribs, my mind races with what—or rather,whom—I’ll find in my bedroom. If Ashlei had to sneak them in, it’s definitely a guy, but the only question is… which one?

The fact that I even have to ask myself that sends a surge of guilt through me.

As pissed as I am at Adam for making an already tense situation worse earlier at the game, part of me wants to thank him. He finally said what I had yet to fully express to Grayson — he wasn’t there for me when I needed him. All week I had looked forward to that date, and when it had all went up in flames, Adam had been the one there putting out the fire.

But Adam isn’t mine, either.

Even if I had chosen him over Grayson last semester, if I had given him the chance he’d begged for at formal, I would have ended up with the same disappointment. He’s drowning in his new responsibilities as president, just like he thought he would be. I knew he wouldn’t have time for me, for us, and Grayson had given me every part of himself last semester.

So, was it fair of me to be upset with him now? He’s chasing a dream he’s had his entire life. Shouldn’t I support that? I know he cares about me, and I care about him. So what if it’s not always easy?

With my hand on the doorknob to my bedroom, I realize I don’t want to see either one of them on the other side. I’m still mad at the way they acted. And I still have absolutely zero grip on how I’m feeling.

But it doesn’t matter, because one of them is waiting. So, with a deep breath, I twist the knob and push through.

And then my breath catches.

My entire room is covered in small candles, bathing my bed in a soft golden light. And as the door closes behind me and I gently drop my longboard and backpack to the ground, my eyes find Grayson’s.

He’s sitting on my desk chair beside my bed, in only his boxer briefs, hair damp like he’s freshly showered and guitar strapped across his chest. He plucks a few chords as he watches me, brows bent inward, tail between his legs.

“Cassie,” he starts, the chords finding more of a melody as he speaks. “I am so, so sorry. Not just for being a sore loser earlier and causing a scene at your event, but for making you feel like our time together doesn’t matter to me. I should have been there for our date.”

I shake my head, opening my mouth to tell him I understand and that he couldn’t have missed that show, but he cuts me off.

“No. No excuses, no bullshit about a show or my agent or whatever. I should have been there. And this is my promise to you that from here on out, I will be.”

He motions for me to sit on the bed and I do, hands folded together and squeezed between my knees as he keeps his eyes on me and strums out a beautiful song.

It’s an original, one that feels like he just wrote it — just for me — and I hang on to every word as he sings to me. It’s a song about being scared, about falling in love, about finding who he is in a time when he’s not even sure which way is up. And, finally, I get it.