Page 25 of The Very First Night

“I’m sorry for keeping you up,” I say quietly.

“I was already up—I’ve always been a massive insomniac, and this heat doesn’t really help. Besides, I heard someone come downstairs, so I was pretty sure there was gonna be someone to talk to.” He flashes me that signature Tanner Adler smile and I know with certainty that he means it.

As the faint sound of a throat being cleared echoes through the otherwise silent room, both our heads snap toward the open doorway.

“Are you coming back to bed?” Elijah asks, a clear crease of irritation in his brow.

“Yeah, I just couldn’t sleep, so I came down for some water, but then I ran into Tanner.”

Elijah’s usually stoic demeanor breaks as his jaw clenches and his expression morphs into one of possessiveness. His dark eyes glare daggers at Tanner. “Are you done, then?” he asks, his face softening as he looks at me.

That’s new.

“Yeah, I was just going to come up.” The lie falls off my tongue with ease; telling Elijah that I was actually enjoying talking to Tanner sounds like a bad idea.

He simply nods before gesturing for me to follow him back upstairs.

Without questioning, I cross the room, then turn around to look at Tanner. “Thanks for the ice cream.”

“Anytime…Just Kat.” He smiles, a faintly sad expression marring his face.

Trying not to linger, I walk back upstairs with Elijah, but the moment we land at the top of the stairs I notice he’s sporting that same irate look he had in the kitchen—except now it’s aimed at me.

Then I realize he isn’t looking at me.

He’s looking at Tanner’s Blink 182 T-shirt hanging off my frame.

Oh.

ELEVEN

KAT

Exactly as one would expect, syllabus week passes with minimal work on my plate. I swear, it’s like professors know that the chances of us mentally being present are slim to none. We’re now halfway through the second week of classes and, to my delight, we’re finally receiving homework. Nothing insanely time-consuming, but I like feeling like I’m accomplishing something.

I’ve always loved the start of a new semester. Fresh pencils, new notebooks—something about it has always felt like a perfect fresh start.

However, no matter how new the textbooks and the pencils and the notebooks, at the end of the day it’s still the same school that you left last semester. Nothing changes; no new experiences except for the ones that you go after yourself.

So when my newly formed group of friends decides that they want to go to college night at the Dusty Armadillo, I can’t help but find a poeticism in the fact that we are starting a new semester at the same line-dancing bar that Jenna and I have gone to since freshman year.

The parking lot is crowded as our Uber drops us off out front, the line around the side of the building filled with mostly freshmen in pristine new cowboy boots, undoubtedly ready for their first college night at Kent State’s favorite country bar.

The guy manning the door, Darren, happens to know me and Jenna really well. Well, “know” is an exaggeration. Jenna and I have spent far too many drunken nights at the Dusty, one of which involved Darren having to pry Jenna off the bathroom floor after one too many shots. Somehow, we still didn’t manage to get kicked out that night.

If we’re being honest, I think Darren has a crush on Jenna. I mean, why wouldn’t he? Everyone likes Jenna. If I were attracted to women, I would probably like Jenna.

As if he can hear my thoughts, Marcus pulls Jenna closer as we approach the door, not bothering with the line nearing the corner of the building.

“Hey! Wait your turn!” some girl yells.

“Are you twenty-one?” Darren asks her.

“Well, no, but?—”

Darren cuts her off. “Well, people over twenty-one buy drinks. Freshmen, which I’m assuming you are, wait in line.”

The girl shoots him a glare, but she doesn’t bother to retort. I think she knows that it would fall on deaf ears anyway.

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