Page 86 of Dangerous Play

“Letting go? Not yet. Rather drinking them away as step one.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

IVY

Finals,Christmas, and New Year’s came and passed in a blur of me forcing myself not to reply to Max and ignoring everything that was happening.

I ignored the message he sent.

I ignored all the notifications that reminded me he had unhidden all our photo history.

I ignored ESPN playing on repeat how he and Maddox stopped in the middle of the field after he saw I wasn’t there, only to call him “the flash” for running at lightning speed and saving the goal.

I ignored the flowers he sent me at the end of the semester.

I ignored the flowers I received on Christmas morning from him.

I even went as far as ignoring Nova and Rosie and their attempts to involve me in any pre-Christmas activity in the town, which meant, for the first time in my life, I missed the Christmas market. I had it on my list to form meaningful relationships with others from my major, and it was a surprise to find out theyactually didn’t care about Ander or the soccer team. They were a completely separate entity from the sports-team-obsessed students, and it was refreshing to talk with like-minded people.

“We will see you at lunch?” Avery turned around in her seat as I got up from mine. She was one of my new friends, and I genuinely enjoyed her company. It felt like a fresh start. She wasn’t part of the gossip mill, and while she didn’t live under a rock, she certainly didn’t concern herself too much with all the drama from last semester.

I nodded as I waved her goodbye. Picking up my laptop, I headed out of the classroom and quickened my steps to make it into the opposite building on time.

I spent a lot of time thinking up job opportunities for the future with my double degree in marketing and computer science. The world was my oyster, and I saw firsthand how the small changes I implemented in Max’s account had immediate rewards. He signed with Under Armour, and I saw his pictures over the break.

Gone was the guy who was way too shy and uncomfortable to pose for a golden-hour sunset picture with me. He looked like a born model in their new collection of clothes, playing around with the soccer ball, feeling completely at home in front of the camera.

I was glad his reputation was recovering after everything that went down last semester. But his talent spoke for itself. It didn’t matter what he said about a coach’s daughter when his footwork was top-notch, and his dedication was unmatched. He was born to be a soccer sensation, and he was working toward that goal every day.

A notification buzzed on my phone, and glancing down, I saw a campus alert pop up regarding a class cancellation due to thesickness of our professor. But I forgot to even care about my sudden free time as I looked up, and my eyes locked with dark, chocolate-colored ones.

Everything else faded into the background—the chatter around me, all the other students. Nothing else mattered, just Maximilian Aarons standing right in front of me, wearing his black Titan’s hoodie with his name on it, his arms crossed as he leaned against the handrail of the stairs.

I gaped at him in utter shock because it was one thing for him to send me flowers and message me, but it was a completely different thing to show up at my campus after everything my school had put him through.

Yet, he was there.

“You’re a hard one to track down, Blossom,” he said as a greeting, and his lips pulled into his signature smirk I loved so much.

My heart skipped a beat, and those damned traitorous butterflies started flapping in my stomach, reminding me how it felt to love him. Not that I ever had a chance of forgetting.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice coming out all wrong. I didn’t want to sound so shaken and raspy.

Max dragged his eyes over my jeans and cropped sweater combination before meeting my eyes again. His windswept, messy hair made him look more innocent than he really was. Because the way his tongue darted out to lick his lower lip, I knew what he was thinking.

“Isn’t that obvious?” He shrugged, ignoring the people around us who were pointing at him and taking pictures. “Clearly, flowers weren’t working toward my apology. Which is weird because I remember you loved flowers. Unless that was fake too.”

I shook my head, not wanting him to think for a second that anything in the past was fake between us. “No, it wasn’t.”

“Good, because I’m not sure you’ll be able to enter your dorm room from all the roses I left you.”

Warmth crept up my face. “What?”

“There are roses in your dorm—dozens,” he explained slowly with a grin as he reached an arm toward me. “Come here.”

I took the steps one at a time, in the slowest pace ever, as my heart hammered against my ribcage. My eyes locked with his, and I didn’t dare look away, in case this was all a dream and he was just a fragment of my imagination.

But it couldn’t have been, as he looked too perfect standing there casually, like we hadn’t spent the last month apart and ignoring each other.

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