Page 3

Avalon

I think I’m in love.

I sighed. Though I’d tried to forget him writing that, putting it off to a glib response, the words lingered in my thoughts. If only they were true. With my crush on him, I could easily return the sentiment.

I knew that. He didn’t.

The disparity of our social statuses hadn’t stop me from emailing him back and forth a few times a week, ever since last April—barring the summer break, of course.

And each of his short messages had managed to make me smile.

I loved bantering with him. Being anonymous gave me free rein to be completely myself, something I had never been comfortable doing with another guy.

It was ridiculous, really, this addiction to him. Daily, I’d stalked my inbox like a starving lioness after her prey. I waited anxiously for every email from Parrish Locksby.

Because, yes, I knew exactly who he was.

After about the third time he’d written me, I’d conducted an investigation, and it had taken me less than fifteen minutes to suss out who was on the other end of the messages. It hadn’t been difficult to determine the identities of the university’s team captains. Only one had the initials PL.

Parrish Locksby. Ice hockey captain. And drop-dead gorgeous with the cocky little grin he’d sported in his official team pic.

And I knew him. I mean…kind of. We’d had class together our sophomore year.

I’d about fallen off my chair when I’d pulled up his profile to verify it was who I remembered. His photo had been updated since we’d been in the same Shakespeare course. But yeah, he was the guy who’d sat beside me for almost every session.

And this was who I’d been corresponding with?

Yeah… One look and I’d known I wouldn’t be revealing my identity.

The guy had All-American god written all over him.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if girls swooned when he passed them, just like the silly girls in Beauty and the Beast, who’d practically fainted as Gaston had walked by.

Some guys would react the same, too. No judgment from me.

When we’d had Shakespeare 201 together, I’d certainly heard plenty of ill-suppressed sighs whenever Parrish had entered the room—usually a few minutes late since it was an eight a.m. class, and apparently, he worked out first thing in the morning, even during the off-season.

He’d always come in fresh from the shower, his hair slightly damp.

My teeth sank into my bottom lip while I imagined running my fingers into his thick light brown hair.

It looked coarse, yet I would bet it would still be like soft, silky ropes under my touch.

My breath caught when I imagined those whiskey-brown eyes peering down at me, making my heart race while my palms flattened over his powerful pecs—

And…this was why I wrote in my spare time and why Parrish starred as the dragon warrior in my novel, even though I hadn’t meant to write him onto the pages.

My brain often galloped off into flights of fancy before I realized it.

That I’d inserted myself into this particular fantasy should concern me, yet I had to admit, my thoughts spiraled that way more than they should.

Daydreams were the only place where Parrish would adore me while I stood in the embrace of his steely arms. Hockey gods didn’t notice hot-mess Plain Janes.

Not that I was all down on myself. I was fine with who I was. I just happened to be a realist. Ordinary. And clumsy. And awkward. I wasn’t remotely close to being the glamorous perfection of the puck bunnies who panted after the men on the Loggerhead’s hockey team; that was all.

Take today for example. I’d been hurrying across the quiet library when I’d noticed a loose thread on my cardigan sweater.

My attention caught up in the snag, I’d tripped over my own feet, stumbled then careened into the steel book truck, full of books to be reshelved.

It had crashed onto the tiled floor, books going everywhere and me falling on top of it, while students stared and a couple documented my folly with their phones.

Clumsy. Awkward. Hot, hot, hot mess.

“You’re staring off into space again, Babes.”

The bench where I sat, enjoying the warm March afternoon, vibrated from a heavy weight dropping down beside me.

“Hey, Nash.” I tipped my head to look over at Nash Higgins, the guy who was arguably my best friend here at Rustin University.

Probably my best friend ever. He and I had similar backgrounds.

We were both on our own with no family support.

He had no one back home, as far as I knew.

I only had my older brother and sister, who were pretty glad I was away at college and forever out of their hair.

“You okay?” he asked.

“You heard?” It was a big campus. I’d hoped that word of my latest mishap wouldn’t go past the small late-morning crowd in the library.

“Peters was there doing research,” he said, naming one of the guys from his computer science lab. “So…you okay? He said it was…”

“A train wreck?” I offered, heat creeping up my neck. “My bruises have bruises, but my pride sustained the worst damage.”

“I’m sorry, Babes.”

“I’ll live. Only about a month left ‘til graduation, right?”

“Right…” He winced. “Still coming over to study this evening?”

“Yeah, I’ll bring pizza. Will Porter be there? Should I plan on him?”

“Nah. He’ll probably be off doing something with the guys from the hockey team. The season might be wrapping up soon, but they’re all up in each other’s business all the time. Plus they have that Frozen Four thing coming up.”

“Up in each other’s business, huh?” I teased, trying to ignore my immediate inclination to quiz Porter about his teammate, Parrish. He was sure to know details I couldn’t get from the school website or the Rustin News.

“Not like that, you perv. Porter might be gay, but he doesn’t dip with his team.”

“No?”

“Shut up.” Nash shoved me lightly, but not hard enough to knock me off the bench. I laughed. I knew he had a thing for Porter, but they weren’t together. Yet. As far as I knew, I was the only one in the know about Nash’s crush on his roommate. Porter certainly had no clue.

Nash and I both had our secrets, and both, apparently, had a thing for hockey players, it would seem.

“I’ll come over around seven. With pizza and statistics.

” I groaned out the last word. Nash was a computer science guy, so numbers were his jam.

The class was cake for him. Me? I was an English major, and I wanted to murder my adviser for advising me to take the math class.

If not for Nash, I would have dropped it within a week.

Well, if not for Nash but also because I needed the math credits toward my graduation requirements.

Thankfully, my bestie since Freshman orientation was helping me through that mess.

“So why were you staring into space? Were you fabricating more fantasies about your wrong email guy?”

I rolled my lips together, grimaced, then shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe, I was writing. In my head. Writer’s do that, you know?”

“Mm-hmm,” he said, sounding skeptical. At least, I hadn’t told him that I knew my pen pal’s identity.

Especially because Nash probably knew the hockey team’s captain since he and Porter had been roommates for a couple years.

With that kind of info in his back pocket, Nash would try to orchestrate a hookup for me and Parrish.

Yeah, I so wasn’t giving him details.

“Did he write you again last night? He did, didn’t he? Are you holding out on me?”

I looked down at my feet, pushing one through the grass. “We may have messaged back and forth a few times last night….and this morning.”

“Did you ask his name yet?” Nash demanded.

“Nope. Not since the fall.”

“Has he asked yours?” He sounded incredulous, refusing to believe Parrish and I were still anonymous.

I side-eyed him. “A few times.”

Again, I’d withheld some info from Nash. God knew, if I let on that there was a bet between me and Parrish, Nash would be hacking into my email then backtracking the connection to Parrish. I didn’t know how he did that. I just knew he could.

Nash chuckled. “Look at you being all coy. I want to hear every detail about it later.” He stood and hefted his backpack onto his shoulder. “I’ve gotta get to the computer lab.”

“Yeah, I need to head back to the library. To study this time. My Egyptian mythology paper isn’t going to write itself.”

“Are you sure? I have an app for that.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, glaring.

He lifted his hands, laughing as he walked away. “I know, I know. No Rise of the Computers allowed. I was only joking. You’re just so easy to rile up.”

My death stare only made him laugh harder.

“Go slay some cyber-demons and keep your AI far, far away from me, and maybe, I won’t get olives and ham on your pizza,” I growled.

He mimed a gag then slapped a hand over his heart and lifted the other into the air. “I’ll be good. Promise.”

Spinning, he jogged off toward the computer tech building.

I shook my head while I watched him go. It was too bad we had zero attraction to each other.

Well, that and the fact we both liked guys.

Other than that, we were basically birds of a feather, both a little nerdy.

Both outside the orbit of the most popular people on campus.

Wallflowers. Both doing our best to get through college and make something of ourselves without support from our families—and despite our families, truth be told.

Still, Nash was exactly the type I could see myself with when I finally paired up for the long term. Someone like Nash. But not Nash. I wanted a full romantic and physical relationship someday.

Gathering my things from the bench, I realized the sky was clouding over. It was getting a little chillier, and I didn’t have a coat with me. Slinging my bag over one shoulder and shoving my phone into my back pocket, I started toward the library, halfway across campus.

As I hurried, I was wholly unprepared for a body slamming into me from behind, tackling me onto the grass and tumbling with me down the shallow incline beside the path.

Somehow, as we fell, the larger frame wrapped around me and tried to protect me during our tumble.

Ineffectively. I still stopped with a jarring thud, a heavy weight atop me.

“Shit! I’m so sorry. I wasn’t—” The guy broke off as he pushed up on his hands, the rest of him still sprawled over me. “I wasn’t looking, and I… Are you okay?”

I licked my lips and swallowed, trying to get words to form as my lips moved, but no sound emerged. Stunned, I stared up into a pair of wide, whiskey-brown eyes.

Parrish. It was Parrish Locksby. Sprawled over me as if all my daydreaming had materialized him. Every hard, solid inch of him pinned me down. His legs tangled with mine on the cold, slightly damp grass. His groin pressed against mine.

Holy hard ridge, Batman.

That was his dick pressed up to me all up close and personal.

“I… It’s… I… It’s okay. I’m okay,” I managed.

“No, it’s not okay.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have been running backward and yelling over to my friend. Shit. Are you sure you’re okay?”

My chin trembled into a nervous nod, but I couldn’t get words past my constricted throat. I couldn’t banter with him like I did on email. Not while I inhaled the dark notes of Parrish’s cologne and the heady scent that was all him. Plus that…ridge.

His brow furrowed, and I knew he was sizing me up, taking in my Plain Jane-ness. Summing me up. Forming a judgment. It was exactly why I’d never revealed my name to him. I was just an ordinary, awkward girl outside his echelon, computer screens and the wide expanse of the internet separating us.

Or so I’d thought. Yet, here we were, face-to-face, chest-to-chest, and breathing each other’s air.

I might never recover.