Page 6 of Sunrises & Salvation

ADAM

Z oey comes into my dorm room, slamming the door behind her and turning to glare at me, Brittany, and Danielle.

The former is propped up against the couch with her feet spread across my rug.

The snacks and drinks are on the coffee table to our right—thanks to Brittany, we still met up for movie night, even though it seemed like Zoey didn’t want to.

She storms across the room and wraps her palm around Brittany’s upper arm. “We need to talk. Now,” she demands.

What the hell is her problem? Zoey’s cool; she has always been laid back and goes with the flow.

She’s the easiest person to get along with, and I love her for Brittany because where Brittany is chaos embodied, Zoey is mellow.

They balance each other perfectly, but I’ve never seen Zoey act like this.

“What’s going on?” Danielle asks, lifting her head off my shoulder and cocking it to the side while she watches the couple open the door and disappear into the hallway.

“I don’t know,” I remark.

“Zoey seems really upset. Do you think everything is okay?”

“How should I know? You know as much as I do.” Danielle huffs and pushes herself into an upright position. Times like this, I’m so freaking glad that I don’t have a roommate. Adding another person to the mix sounds horrible.

“Maybe we should go to dinner, try to patch things up over food or something,” she suggests.

I instantly want to turn down the idea, because the thought of going out and being social after the week from hell and the attitude in the group chat earlier makes me think that it would be more fun to lobotomize myself with a rusty spoon.

Wait. Could that be what this is about? The group chat? Because I’m not fucking homophobic. I have no problem with anyone, because how dumb would it be to worry about others when I can barely worry about myself.

Zoey doesn’t actually think I’m homophobic, right?

Fuck. This is all because of brown eyes and pink cheeks that I can’t get out of my fucking mind. This is bad, really bad. Because I can’t tell them how I’m actually feeling right now when I don’t even know how I’m feeling.

“No, not tonight, Danielle.” I can feel the tension build in the air between us. She hates being told no, and that seems to be all I can say.

“I’m going to go ahead and head out. I have to be at the golf course first thing in the morning.

Mother’s demand. I’ll see you later, Adam.

” The disappointment in her doesn’t affect me like it should.

I should care more about her, I should want to let her kiss me.

But I hate it, I hate sharing that connection with anyone. I would be fine on my own.

Liar, a voice rings loudly in the back of my head, and a flash of brown eyes and pink cheeks has me internally groaning and letting my head fall back against the couch.

Zoey and Brittany come in as Danielle leaves, but their murmured goodbyes are cut short when Zoey shuts the door. Brittany comes to sit beside me on the couch, and Zoey sits beside her.

“Adam, there’s something we need to talk about.” Brittany starts off gently, and my pulse races. What the hell.

“Why don’t you like Hunter? Is it because he’s gay? Because that’s low. Even for you.” I open and close my mouth a few times, feeling like a fish fresh out of the lake.

“What?” is the only word my dumb brain can come up with.

“Zoey!” Brittany admonishes, staring at her girlfriend with wide eyes. Zoey shrugs, her face set in stone.

“I’m just asking. He’s so nice, but he needs friends. I can’t try to be his friend if Adam is going to be homophobic.”

“What? No, why the fuck would you think that?” I ask, astonished that is the conclusion that they have come up with. Seriously, what the fuck is going on?

Zoey glares at me, her green eyes cutting, and I have to hold back my flinch. She can’t actually hurt me, but if looks could kill, I would be six feet under.

“You acted weird when I brought up that I wanted to invite him to our movie night. You said he was weird and you were uncomfortable…. I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable…

” Brittany trails off. An abnormal feeling builds in me, the thought of me being the reason that Hunter isn’t making friends.

I think of his sweet smile on move-in day and watching him talk with Brittany.

His smile was contagious; it made me want to match it with one of my own.

He hasn’t left my mind since that day, and that’s my problem.

It’s not his fault that I’m having a crisis over wondering why I feel like this about him.

I need to fix this. Now. So Hunter can make the friendships he looked so desperate for that first day I saw him.

“No, no. That was my fault. What I meant was…” I trail off because what can I say?

That my feelings for him are convoluted, and I want to be his friend?

But I also don’t, because if I get close to him, it will never be enough.

I’ll want to own and consume him, and I don’t know what to do with these strong feelings inside of me when I’ve never felt like this about another person.

Brittany stares at me, waiting for me to explain myself, and I fumble over the words.

“I just meant he seemed weird, but like a good weird. Like Zoey, and I love being around her.” My smile is awkward, but whatever.

I’m not going to give them any more information.

If I give Brittany an inch, she’ll take a mile.

“So you would be cool with him coming over tonight and watching the documentary with us? Zoey ran into him in the library, and he said he was busy…”

“But he was lying. I could tell,” Zoey fills in.

“Sure, he can come. I don’t care.” Lies , the flutters in my gut call me out.

“I’ll have Brit call him and tell him to come over. Nonnegotiable.” Zoey reaches for the table and grabs Brittany’s phone, quickly typing on it, then putting it on speakerphone. It rings and rings. Just when I think that he’s going to ignore it, the line picks up.

“Hello?” the gruff voice on the other end of the phone says, and the fluttering feeling drops like a dead weight into my stomach.

“Hey, is Hunter there?” The sound of something rustling comes across the speaker. It sounds like bedsheets. Did we seriously catch him in bed with someone else?

There’s a low moan, and then the line clicks.

We sit in awkward silence until I clear my throat, trying not to let my disappointment show. This was a sign, that’s all it was. In no world could I even think about what would happen if I were in bed with Hunter rather than the person on the other end of the line.

It’s fine. I can be civil. Friends would be pushing it, but it won’t be bad to see him once or twice a week. It won’t be the two of us alone either, so the temptation to push his limits won’t be there.

“Maybe next time,” I offer, shrugging my shoulders, grabbing the remote, and pressing play on the documentary.