Page 122 of Fair Catch

Just like the cavity that once held my heart.

Thirty-Two

Kason

One Week Later — February

A hand shakes me on the shoulder, stirring me from sleep in the chair I’d been occupying on the fifth floor of the campus library. I startle a little, my eyes bursting open as I lift my head to find Holden leaning over me.

“Hey, sorry to scare you,” he says, taking a step back. “I called your name and when you didn’t respond, I noticed you were asleep.”

Huh. I didn’t realize I’d dozed off, my textbook sliding out of my grip and to the floor at my feet. Then again, I haven’t been sleeping much, if at all, the past week I’ve spent living on Mal and Ivy’s couch.

I doubt I’d be sleeping much regardless if I was in the world’s comfiest bed, though. After that last night with Hayes, sleeping alone is pretty much impossible.

When I don’t respond to him right away, Holden waves his hand in front of my face. “Kase? You good?”

Blinking rapidly, I shake my head to clear the fogginess of sleep. “Shit, sorry, Hold.”

Holden stares down at me with a frown, clear concern lining his features. He motions with a thumb over his shoulder toward the set of stairs leading down to the main lobby.

“They’re about to close up. Unless you’re planning to stay the night.”

As much as I don’t want to sleep here, no part of me wants to go to Mal’s.

Or anywhere else for that matter.

The only thing I really want—what I’ve wanted since the moment I moved out—is to go to the apartment and pound on the door until Hayes opens it. And then I want to kiss him like my life depends on it, like it’s the only thing keeping me grounded to Earth, before dragging him to his bed and showing him all the ways I’ve been missing him the past seven days.

But I can’t. And it’s killing me.

“Paging Kason Fuller. You still waking up in there?” Holden says, pulling my attention back to him.

“Sorry.” I shake my head, as if it would be enough to clear my rampant thoughts. “I guess I am.”

Rising from my seat, I shoulder my bag and head for the stairs, Holden by my side.

“You wanna walk out to my car with me? Or better yet, you want a ride home so I know you won’t pass out on a bench on your way there.”

“I, uh…” I pause to clear my throat as we exit the building, moving down the lamplit path to the parking lot. “I drove, actually. No worries about me spending the evening on a park bench for tonight.”

“You didn’t just walk from home?” he asks, motioning toward the direction of the apartment I’d shared with Hayes. “Isn’t it only like two blocks from here?”

Home is such a funny word. Especially considering I’m pretty much homeless for the time being. And hearing it right now is like a knife to the gut, slicing deep enough, it might as well disembowel me.

I want to lie. Make up some excuse as to why I’d drive here. After all, the issues with my love life, or life in general, aren’t for Holden to worry about. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Yet I find the truth spilling from my lips anyway.

“I’m actually staying with Mal and her girlfriend.” When his confusion deepens—I’m assuming about who Mal is—I add, “She’s an old friend from Alabama, and one of the Leighton cheerleaders?”

“No, I know who Mal is.” Holden is every kind of confused now, his brows crashing together and shaking his head a few times. “But I need you to back up. You and Hayes aren’t living together anymore?”

God, just the sound of his name has my heart squeezing uncomfortably. “We were until last week, yeah. But then things got…complicated, and I had to move out.”

“In the middle of a lease?”

“My portion was bought out,” I murmur, my voice cracking and crumbling on the words.

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