Lani waltzes out of the Hall, swaying her considerable curves with no conscious effort whatsoever—but I barely even look.
“Hey there, bodyguard,” she greets through her permanent smirk. “Lose your client?”
“Yeah, actually. I thought she’d be leaving for class now.” I hold up the second iced coffee, the one I brought for Beth, light and sweet, and currently watered down by the ice that did not survive the past forty-five minutes in the midday late summer sun.
Lani’s smirk actually shifts into a sympathetic smile. “You missed her by about three hours.”
Huh? “I thought her first class was at noon.”
“It is. But she headed over to the student health center around nine this morning to talk to them about volunteering.”
I nod, equally disappointed and impressed. But not remotely surprised.
“She pissed at me?” I ask, against my better judgment.
“Shouldn’t she be?” Lani counters.
“’The fuck was I supposed to do? Ruin her first few weeks of college? Give her a reason to stay holed up in her fucking dorm room? She was already looking for excuses not to go out,” I remind her. She seems to care about Beth, but girls can be shitty as hell to each other, and my jury is still out on Lani. Beth needs a real friend. Besides me, I mean.
Lani sighs. “I know that, Dave. But she found out anyway, didn’t she? And in a much more fucked-up way than hearing it from someone who cares about her. Lying to her, or keeping something from her that you knew would affect her…” She shakes her head reproachfully, and I really don’t appreciate being admonished like some wayward fucking kid.
But Lani’s right. I should have told Beth. My stomach twists with guilt—an ironically familiar and unfamiliar sensation. Because I’ve never given enough fucks to feel guilty over shit. Except with Beth, and when it comes to her, the shit I’ve done to deserve that guilt—how I contributed to one of the lowest points of her life…It cuts me into fucking pieces, even to this day.
I sigh. “Get her to text me back, will you?” I mutter, and push off the wall to head to class.
I toss the wasted iced coffee in the trash bin. I need a better fucking peace offering.
* * *
I finish the day the same way I started it, waiting outside Beth’s dorm.
The girl still refuses to text me back, and I oscillate between guilt and anger. Because what the fuck? I didn’t kill her fucking dog.
I text my mom to check in while I wait. My dad can go fuck himself. If he had his way, I wouldn’t even be here. I’d be at some top business school—not studying to “waste my life as a starving writer.” But I’d rather be a “worthless loser who could never support a family” than a rich asshole like him.
I get the eerie feeling I’m being watched, and out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse some unfamiliar guy who’s been hanging around out here as long as I have.
Actually, scratch that. He’s not exactly unfamiliar. I realize I’ve seen him around over the past week, but never before this semester. But he’s definitely not a freshman—there’s no way that guy is only eighteen.
And yet it’s more than that, too—the familiarity. But I can’t put my finger on it either. He takes a drag on his cigarette and I look away so he doesn’t catch me watching him.
But I’m good at looking at someone in just my peripheral, so when he thinks I’m staring out at the road, he takes another opportunity to watch me, and I confirm that I’m not paranoid.
Shit. Did I bag this guy’s girlfriend or something? Sister?
Mother?
I haven’t even hooked up with anyone since we all got back to campus.
Then I catch a flash of blond hopping up the steps that lead to the quad from the Washington Avenue entrance. I toss my cigarette on the ground and stub it out with my shoe before making my way toward her.
Beth startles when she notices me, and she stops walking, so I make up the distance still between us. She looks adorable as all hell in those tight jeans and loose racerback tank top. Her bra shows at her sides and I’m equally turned on and annoyed by it. She never did have any kind of self-awareness. At least not when it comes to how goddamned attractive she is. And it bugs me that every guy that’s passed her today has caught a glimpse of that black lace.
I shove my hand through my hair. “Beth,” I sigh.
I wait for her to go off on me again, but she doesn’t. She just kind of looks up at me, her resentment a palpable thing. I can’t stand to see her look at me like that. But what makes my lungs burn is knowing that I deserve her resentment. She has no idea how much. Fuck, I hope to God she never will. Especially not now that she’s come so far—that she’s doing so well. Well enough to tell me off in public, at my own party, anyway.
But not tonight, it seems, and when she still doesn’t say anything at all, I make my attempt. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I thought I was protecting you.”
