Page 133 of Jump on Three

Her dreamy eyes swept over mine. “I love you too, Ivan.”

I don’t know how I’ll live without you.

Chapter Forty-five

Evelyn

After class, I went directly to my suite. Delilah had texted to meet her there. She needed me. I did not question her.

Walking in on my three suitemates waiting for me, I thought maybe I should have questioned her. There were french fries on the coffee table and three sets of eyes pinned on me.

“Hello.” I waved. They stared.

“We’re stagin’ an intervention, babe,” Bella announced. “Get in here and let us intervene.”

I eyed my door, but I didn’t think they would let me hide in my room, so I dropped my bag and let myself succumb to whatever this was.

Delilah told me to sit on what turned out to be my desk chair, and the other girls took seats around me. I grabbed french fries from the coffee table in front of me. If I was about to be interrogated, at least I would have my favorite snack.

Luciana took the lead. “We’re worried about you, Ev. You and Ivan look like walking corpses half the time, and the other half, you’re locked away together.”

“And not in a sexy way,” Bella added. “’Cause girl, you’re louder than you might think, and I haven’t heard any ‘Oh, Ivan’ comin’ from your room in quite a while.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, torn between embarrassment and acute melancholy. Since the day Ivan showed up with my scone last week, we had been spending as much time as we could bear together. We listened to music or watched movies while holding each other like life rafts, but nothing more than that. It was difficult to even think about sex when we were both so unfathomably sad.

“What’s going on, love?” Delilah asked gently. “Tell us so we can help.”

Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes. “Ivan is moving to Miami the day after graduation upon his father’s orders. He asked me to go with him, but I told him I couldn’t. We’ve been spending as much time together as we can, but we both know it will be over soon.” I touched my aching chest. “It’s awful.”

“That’s a lot,” Luciana said. “Miami’s so far.”

“What about doing long distance?” Bella asked.

I lifted a shoulder. “I can’t picture that working. I don’t do well with phone calls, and I’ve discovered I’m a very jealous person. Ivan will be working in a club around beautiful women I do not know. Even thinking about it is overwhelming.”

“Moving there is out of the question?” Luciana asked.

Jump with me.

Why won’t you jump with me?

I nodded. “I can’t be that far from Delilah. I would be a mess and make him miserable.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me about this?” Delilah asked. “You’ve been carrying all this around for weeks and haven’t said a word to me.”

“I wanted this to be my choice without any outside influence,” I explained.

“But we always talk about big decisions. We’re a pod,” she argued.

“That isn’t always true, though, is it? We left Spain when you unilaterally decided—”

“You could have died. If you’d wanted to stay there, it was due to some sort of trauma bond with that place.”

“I did not want to stay there.” I stuffed a fry in my mouth, chewing too hard, making my molars clank. I liked the sound and bite of pain, so I did it two more times.

“You could have talked to me,” Bella said.

“Or me,” Luc added.

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