“What?” He blinked. “All they need is a letter from you laying out the issues preventing you from attending classes. But from what I gathered, they won’t have a problem letting you defer your classes and your scholarship to next semester due to hardship. You’re still inside the drop bubble—gak!”
He squawked after I launched across the sofa and tackle hugged him.
“Oh my god! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” I laughed hysterically. “I never thought they’d let me skate by.”
His arms wrapped around me. “You’re not skating anywhere. You busted ass last year and your advisor fought for you. He wants you to come back and keep kicking ass.”
Then it felt like he pressed a kiss against the top of my head.
And I stopped breathing for a second as all the joy of the moment slowly leached out of me.
Hope was wrong.
Dylan was treating me the exact same way Ryan did Fliss. He didn’t see me as an equal or a potential partner or even as an adult.
I was still ‘kiddo’ to him. He’d all but said it just now.
And yet I couldn’t prevent myself from tightening my hold on him for a second as I wished it wasn’t reality. I so wanted this to be different.
But fairytales weren’t meant for girls like me.
I was and always would be trailer trash.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t live there now. Some stains never truly washed away.
“Indy? Everything okay? You’ve gone all rigid.”
I closed my eyes because I knew I had to face reality.
No matter how much it sucked.
Shaking my head, I moved to push away from him, but Dylan put his hands over mine on his chest and wouldn’t let me go.
“Really, what’s going on? You’ve been kinda weird since you and Hope were all conspiring over in the corner earlier. She didn’t make you uncomfortable, did she?”
Aside from making me wish for things that would never be? But I would never say the words.
I just shook my head.
He stared deeply into my eyes, and after a beat, something he saw made his eyes soften. His heartbeat thundered under my hands.
And my own quickly sped up to meet it.
Something about the moment felt profound. Like he was finally,actuallyseeing me.
“Indy,” he murmured softly. Only this time it wasn’t a question.
I held my breath as the moment drew out.
Was he…
He leaned up slightly, narrowing the distance between us. Then he muttered something that distinctly sounded like “fuck it.”
And then he was kissing me.
Dylan Burns was kissing me.
His lips moved over mine gently in a kiss that quickly grew insistent. His tongue nudged at my lips, and I opened them to him.
