Page 42 of For Crosby

Instead of meeting his eyes, I reached into my open car door and grabbed the handle on the paper bag in the passenger seat. I stepped back and extended it to him. “I brought leftovers.”

His wide eyes looked about ready to burst from their sockets. “For me?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Surprised is definitely an understatement,” he said.

“Just thought you might like them.”

“How’d you know I’d be here?”

I shrugged, my guilty eyes averting his and latching onto a lone bird soaring through the overcast sky.

“So, you know my shit?”

I glanced back to him. “Just what the news said.”

He scoffed as he shook his head. “I’m surprised it took this long.” He spun away from me and headed toward his building.

The fact that he’d left me standing alone on a deserted sidewalk with the bag of leftovers in my hand was not lost on me. As I glanced around the empty campus, anger raged inside me. Why had I shown up? Why had I gone out of my way for this jerk? We weren’t even friends. We were nothing to each other.

“Aren’t you coming?” he called as he reached the front door of his building.

I buried my free hand in my hip and stared across the space between us. “Why should I?”

He turned slowly and gazed at me. “How far did you drive?”

“Six hours.”

He said nothing, just nodded as if it made perfect sense I’d drive all that way for him. “Come on. I don’t want to eat alone.”

Did I stand my ground and head back home? Six hours was a long way to drive back angry. Besides, I needed to pee.

I released a breath and walked to the door. His eyes followed me as he held the door open for me. I brushed by him, stepping inside the silent foyer. It was then, as our shoes echoed up the stairs, I realized how very alone we actually were.

Crosby

I pushed opened the door to my room, hoping it wasn’t too much of a disaster. Sabrina had stopped by the restroom, so I hurried over to my desk and shoved some things in drawers and over to my unmade bed and tugged up the blue comforter.

“Nice place,” she said, walking inside with the bag of food she’d brought me from six fucking hours away. I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. This girl who barely knew me—this girl I’d repeatedly been a dick to, drove six hours from another state to make sure I wasn’t alone the day after Christmas.

Go fucking figure.

“You can put that down over there.” I pointed toward my desk.

She placed what I assumed to be a monster meal down and glanced around my empty room. The walls were bare and my hockey sticks and equipment bag stood in the corner.

I gestured toward my bed. “Feel free to sit.”

She lifted her brows presumptuously.

“I’ll be a gentleman,” I assured her with a small grin.

“You sure? I took you for someone who couldn’t control it.”

I tossed back my head and laughed. “You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Look at me,” she teased, glancing purposefully down at her torn jeans and hoodie.

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