Page 123 of The Trouble With Bad Boys

I knew he played with Alec last season, but I guess the two weren’t close enough for him to know we’re from North Carolina.

I chuckle. “That obvious?”

“It’s just that the closest storage unit is about twenty minutes out of town. If you want, I’m sure we can keep your stuff locked up at our facility until you’re ready.”

I tense. That would help a lot, but my father paid the bill, and I know it cost a pretty penny to have everything moved here.

“Well, you see, uh, I don’t exactly have the funds to do that right now.” I’m not even going to get into the fact I have no idea where I’m going to stay tonight. “I’m certain a storage unit would probably be cheaper, and besides, my dad is the one who paid that bill and…”

I stop, and he lifts his brows in question.

“I don’t exactly want to run to him for help, if you get what I mean.”

“Don’t worry about that part, okay?” he says, nodding toward his truck. “Follow me back to our place, and we’ll get everything sorted.”

I press my lips together, feeling conflicted about what to do.

He brushes his hand along my arm like he did the other night. I swear it’s like he touched me with a live wire, sending a jolt of electricity through my arm. My breath hitches, and my eyes snap to his.

He jerks his hand away and takes a step back, adding some distance between us. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“No, it’s okay.” I reach out for his hand.

I have no idea what I’m doing, but when he clutches my fingers, holding me, I’m starting to question how the hell I got myself here.

His thumb brushes along the back of my hand briefly before he releases me. I make a fist, trying to ignore how much I enjoyed having his hands on me again and how I didn’t want him to let go.

He watches me walk to my car before he jogs over toward his truck. The window is down so I can hear his coworker shout something at him, and the two of them laugh before the truck engine roars to life.

As soon as I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, I hit the button on my steering wheel.

“Call Hallyn,” I say, following the moving truck.

“How is the moving going?” she answers, bypassing the greeting.

We had talked a couple of hours ago, so it’s not like we needed the formalities anyway.

“You’ll never guess what happened,” I deadpan.

“Oh God, that doesn’t sound good. What is it?”

“Well, my appointment with the leasing office was at four o’clock, so my dad arranged for the movers to show up at four thirty, thinking I’d have my keys and they could start moving things in.”

“Uh-huh…” She waits for the other shoe to drop.

“Well, that was until I found out there’s water damage in our apartment.”

“Are you kidding? Do they have another open unit we could move into instead?”

“No, with all the students moving back to Braysen for the fall semester, they are full. The leasing agent reassured me they’d have our unit ready in a week, though.”

“Well, that’s not so bad. You could stay with Alec and Tanner until then. I’m sure your brother wouldn’t mind, right?”

The line goes silent, and she sighs.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about things with Tanner…” Hallyn trails off.

Hallyn’s been dating Tanner, my brother’s best friend, off and on for the past year until the two finally called it quits.

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