“See? I left the refrigerator door open.”
I can’t stop laughing. I shake my head as I push the door closed. Even when he’s trying to be inconsiderate, he’s adorable.
I take a seat next to him on the couch. His weight presses on the cushion where he’s seated, making more of a dip than I expect. I slide toward him. Our hips touch. I don’t pull away.
“Have a good visit home for Christmas?” Jamie asks.
My stomach sinks a little bit. “Actually, I didn’t go home.”
Concern etches on Jamie’s face. “Why not?” Then he blinks. “Actually, don’t answer that if you don’t want to. Obviously. It’s rude to ask.”
“No, it’s fine.” I take a deep breath. “My parents and I aren’t getting along right now.”
He frowns. “That’s too bad.”
Yet again, even though I’m always so closed off about telling others my personal business, I feel like I want to share the details with Jamie. Like it’ll take a weight off my chest.
“They didn’t agree with me taking this gap year,” I begin. I push out a cynical laugh. “To put it lightly.”
“You’re still fighting over that?”
“We both dug our heels in. I wasn’t going to consider not doing this, and they weren’t going to consider accepting it. We haven’t spoken since I told them what I was doing and then moved here in August.”
“Why do they have such a problem with it?” he asks.
“My parents are very … conventional. They think everything in life has to be done a certain way. You need to do well in school, go to a good college, study something practical that will give you a good career, and then you need to work and start thinking about having a family. To them, life means following a blueprint. There’s no room in it to take an off-ramp for a little while and try something out of the ordinary.”
“Well, I’m really fucking glad that you don’t share their philosophy,” Jamie says, a glimmer in his green eyes.
A warm glow fills my cheeks. Our gazes feel tethered for a beat, but I pull mine away when the hum between us threatens to get too intense.
“Honestly, I never thought I’d do something like this, either. If you’d told me just a month before I made this decision that I was going to, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“What happened?”
I hesitate. Should I share this part of my story with Jamie?
Telling him everything else that I usually keep bottled up has felt liberating, though. What the hell, why not?
“My ex cheated on me.”
His eyes flash. His nostrils flare. Muscles tick at the sides of his jaw.
“Does he have an address?” His voice is a dark rasp that I’ve never heard before.
My stomach feels upside down as I take in his lowered brow and the protective fire turning his eyes into burning emeralds.
“Well, he still lives at Cornell,” I say with a smirk.
Jamie looks contemplative. “Hm. I could make the drive and be back by morning. But it’s probably really cold there, too. Digging a hole in the frozen ground is what would hold me up.”
I laugh. The last traces of resentment I’m still holding onto feel like they’re floating away.
“No need to commit a murder for my sake. I’m over him. Honestly, I was over him the moment I found out. He wasn’t right for me, but I wasn’t sure how to end things. When I caught him, it was more of a relief than anything else. Plus, Adam definitely would have talked me out of my gap year idea. He was a lot like my parents in the way he saw life. Him cheating was a convenient, clean cut to sever our relationship.” I huff an ironic laugh. “Sometimes, I want to thank him.”
Jamie hums reluctantly, his expression turning contemplative. “I see what you’re saying. I’m still going to hate him forever, though.”
I smile. “If you insist.”
