“Probably.” He stuffed his free hand in his pocket and stared straight ahead. “Once I saw your parents’ home, it changed the way I thought about you. You started to be one of them to me.”
Evie stopped walking. “Excuse me? One ofthem?”
“A rich kid,” he clarified. “I know, I know. It was unfair. You never acted like you were better than anyone else, and you never tried to make me feel as if I was less than simply because I didn’t come from the right area code. But I was pretty messed up back then.”
“Bryson, you were a basketball star on campus. Everyone else worshiped the ground you walked on.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Bryson said. “And that’s part of the issue. Everyone knew me because I could dribble a ball. Ninety percent of the people on campus had no idea what my major was, or my GPA, even though it was mentioned at least three times per game. They didn’t care about that. I helped the team win basketball games. That’s what mattered. And I had to prove myself as an academic over and over again.”
“What does that have to do with the area code you came from?”
“Because I had been relying on my athleticism to get meoutof that area code for years before I ever started at LSU. Since junior high school, actually. It’s a weird dynamic, but I came to both depend on my ability to play basketball and resent it.”
He tapped the side of his head.
“I’ve always had this brain. I’ve always done well in school. But even from an early age, what was in here didn’t matter. I was tall, Black, and had an athlete’s build.That’swhat people saw. That’s what people’s assumptions were based on. It’s a lot easier to show people that you can make a three-point shot than do a math problem, so that’s what I became known for.”
Evie could see how much it still affected him, and she understood why he’d come to resent it. But she would be lying if she didn’t admit that his words stung.
“I didn’t know what area code you’d come from when we first met,” Evie said. “And, if you want to know the truth, I didn’t know you were a basketball player either.”
His head swung around. “You didn’t?”
“Nope.” Evie shook her head. “Ashanti was the one who first pointed it out. I called her after the first day we met. The day I started volunteering at The Sanctuary.”
“That wasn’t the first time we met,” Bryson said.
“Yes, it was.”
He was shaking his head. “It was the first time you talked to me, but it wasn’t the first time we met.”
“I would have remembered—”
He cut her off. “I met you once before, just outside of the vet med building on campus,” Bryson said. “I’d noticed you standing on the steps outside the entrance and asked if you needed something, but then Cameron came out of the building before you had the chance to respond. I found out later that he’d kept you waiting for a half hour while he hung out in the lab with a couple of guys from his frat.”
Evie stopped walking. “Oh my goodness,” she said. “That wasyou!”
“That was me,” he said. His voice had taken on a hoarseness that she felt on her skin. “You may not have noticedmebefore then, but I’d noticed you, Ev. Well before we volunteered at The Sanctuary.”
Evie’s chest expanded with an oddly warm feeling. To know she had been on his radar, even back then, sent her mind into dangerous places. Places that made her wonder if things would have ended up differently if Cameron hadn’t chosen that moment to come out of the vet med building. One small change, a few minutes, could have altered everything about the past decade.
“I guess we’ve come full circle, haven’t we?” she asked.
“Not yet.” Bryson shook his head. “Full circle would mean… well, it would mean something else. At least to me. But we’re leaving the past in the past, right?”
She glanced at him, then quickly averted her eyes.
“Uh, yeah,” she said.
The confusion she’d experienced way too much lately reared its head again. Her chest tightened with the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what she really wanted.
She’d told herself it was best to keep things strictly platonic and professional when it came to Bryson. They were no longer a couple of young college kids still trying to figure out where they belonged in the world. They were adults. They’d seen more, experienced more. They’d lived.
It didn’t change what happened eight years ago, but it added context she hadn’t considered before tonight. Before this very moment.
What exactly was she afraid of when it came to moving beyond friendship with Bryson? She knew herself well enough to recognize if she was moving too fast and too soon, didn’tshe? Then again, she thought she knew herself well enough to recognize if she was being cheated on.
“Stop overthinking things, Ev.”
