“Hey, man,” Sawyer replies, shaking it. “Nice to meet you. I’m Sawyer.”
Austin nods, smiling, then glances at me.
Sawyer does too. He hesitates, same as he has when introducing me all day.
“I’m Wren,” I say, smiling. “Sawyer’s girlfriend.”
I didn’t intend to say it. I’dwantedto say it before, to stake some obvious claim. It’s socially strange to introduce someone as your first love or your first heartbreak, but simply calling Sawyer a friend doesn’t do a great job of encompassing our history. I’m not calling him my boyfriend anyway. I’m asserting he has a claim on me, not the other way around. Also, he was the one who kissed me this afternoon. If he didn’t want me getting romantic ideas about us, he should have kept his mouth to himself earlier.
I flip some hair over my shoulder before glancing at Sawyer, striving for some measure of casual. I’m off-balance, searching his face for a reaction, loving and hating that he still manages to make me this nervous. I feel like a seventeen-year-old who just walked up to her crushall over again.
“Nice to meet you, Wren,” Austin says, entirely oblivious to the seismic nature of this moment. He glances left. “This is the bathroom line?”
“It is.”
“Jeesh,” Austin mutters. “Which way is the kitchen?”
“Ahead and to the left,” Sawyer answers.
“Cool,” Austin says, lifting a hand at me before ambling away.
A group of guys pass by, including Wesley, most of them calling out greetings to Sawyer. He replies, but his eyes remain on me, stepping closer so they have more space to pass. His left hand plants on the wood panel closest to my head.
There’s no oxygen in here. I’m breathing too fast. Or maybe I’m not breathing at all.
“You know, there are bathrooms upstairs,” Sawyer comments.
I arch an eyebrow. “Are you asking me to go upstairs with you?”
There are whispers around us in the hallway, suggesting at least one person in line is eavesdropping. I couldn’t care less that we are not, in fact, alone. It feels like we are.
He smirks. “Went well last time.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I would have, if I’d stayed downstairs.”
I blink rapidly at him. “Really?”
I always assumed if I hadn’t followed him, nothing would have happened between us that night.
Sawyer nods. “This thing between us has been a lot of things, Wren, but it’s never been one-sided. Not on my end at least.”
I’m dangerously close to tears. My nose is stinging, and I’m excessively blinking again.
He leans closer. “We could also go back to my dorm room. It has a bathroom, no line, and a bed.”
“Don’t you want to stay longer?” I ask. “All your friends?—”
“Not even a little bit.”
“You sure? I’m not trying to … disrupt your life.”
“All you’ve ever done is disrupt my life, Wren Kensington.”
He says it affectionately, not angrily, and I feel the blush burn my cheeks as I push away from the wall, following him outside.
55
