Page 12 of Past the Broken Bridges

His eyes, hidden behind the square glasses that make him look like Clark Kent, roam over the front of me. My toes curl into my slippers, making me hyperaware that I came out here in nothing but a thin pair of pajama shorts with TweetyBird on them that barely cover my goods and a baggy LSU sweatshirt. I’m slim but definitely love pasta—and tacos—with a chest that’s small enough to go braless under most shirts but big enough to havesomethingto look at, and he must like what he sees because he keeps staring.

Or maybe he’s just had a lot to drink. Because seriously. Who eats somebody else’s tacos? That’s just messed up.

He puts what’s left of the food back into the bag. “Your accent says so.” Wiping the back of his hand along his mouth, he drops the bag onto the ground between us. “And the fact you’re in Baton Rouge and still chose Taco Bell to order this late when you had other options. You’re in Louisiana. We’re the second-biggest distributor for seafood next to Alaska, Birdie. You could have done better than tacos.”

Birdie?My eyes drop to the shorts that he’s focusing on again. I tug on the hem of them to try covering a little more of my thighs, to no avail. “So you decided to teach me a lesson by eating the food I paid for?”

Half of his lips turn up at the corners as he dips his chin down. “Nah. Was hungry. Saw the food sitting outside and figured someone forgot they ordered it.”

He kicks it toward me with his work boot that looks well worn—scratched-up and muddy. Weirdly, I’ve always found that attractive. It reminds me of hard work and adventures. But then again, this man stole my food. I can’t just let that slide. He’s definitely getting a one-star review. With words. Very carefully selected ones.

Wait. “Youfoundthe food?”

He hums. “It’s cold,” he tells me, stumbling toward the end of the hall and sliding his palm against the drywall for balance.

My eyes go down to the discarded bag of half-eaten foodbefore they move back up to the stranger reaching for his pocket. “So you aren’t my DoorDash driver?”

He pulls out a set of keys. “Nope,” he calls over his shoulder, struggling to fit one into the lock. Eventually, he gets it and pushes the door open, nearly toppling over when he puts too much of his weight on the swinging door.

That’s when it hits me that the cute, food-stealing boy is my neighbor. And before I can tell him he owes me ten dollars, he disappears into his apartment and closes the door behind him—or more like slams it with his dirty boot—without another word.

“What the hell?” I repeat, frowning at the food I’d been craving for the last few hours. Leaving the bag where my rude neighbor dropped it, I go inside and head to the fridge, where I see a note taped to the leftover container of shrimp reminding me to eat it instead of ordering takeout.

I snort at my father’s handwriting, crumpling the paper and picking at the seafood since my other plans were dashed.

Closing the refrigerator, I run my hands over the list I taped to the front after he left earlier. Sighing to myself, I curl up on the couch and dig into the food.

That night, when I’m tucked into bed with my silk headwrap on that matches my pj’s, I can’t help but wonder about the boy across the hall.

And he’s the last thing I think about when I fall asleep.

Chapter Five

Sawyer

If there’s one thing I quickly learned the second I stepped onto LSU’s campus, it’s that the movies got it wrong. Girls don’t get dolled up to go to classes. There’s barely any makeup on their faces or hair styled to careful perfection. Most of them are wearing leggings and their college garb, which makes my skinny jeans and long-sleeved shirt look overdressed.

At least I didn’t go all out with my hair. The sandy-blond color I chose to start the semester with is braided back and resting carefully over one shoulder. Casual but cute. I touch the tips of the braid as I walk out of the Journalism Building, blocking the beaming sun with my free hand and already feeling the slightest trickle of sweat under the expensive heat-friendly wig that my mother bought for me. She’d gotten me three different kinds of the same shade so I could play with lengths, and I know she spent a fortune on them because they’re real hair. I learned the hard way that synthetic wigs don’t last nearly as long and, after a few failedtrial runs with a straightener, that they aren’t meant to be styled with heat.

It’s a comfortable sixty-nine degrees today, but with the sun out, it feels like I’m baking in my clothes since I’ve been used to thirty-degree days in upstate New York. Most people are bundled up in layers, but this is nothing compared to northern weather in January. As soon as it hits fifty at home, everybody is in T-shirts and shorts.

“Stop being a baby,” I murmur to myself, wishing I’d put on a wig cap. I’d been running late, sleeping through my first alarm and accidentally hitting snooze twice after that. I used to be a morning person, but that changed over the years. Now I’m lucky if I can interact with people before nine, which makes eight a.m. classes a near impossibility unless I’m heavily caffeinated.

Pulling out my printed schedule that I color-coded with the highlighters Bentley got me as a going-away present, I double-check the building and room number for my last class of the day. I memorized most of it, but I had a bad dream last night that I got lost and walked in ten minutes late. Everybody stared.Everybody.

It was worse than the time I had a dream where I went to school and the wind knocked my wig off in front of everyone standing outside. From that day on, I’ve been adamant on the best wig fastenersjust in case.

I’m walking toward Field House Drive when somebody taller than me jogs over and stops beside me at the crosswalk, shading me from the sun. “Hey,” he greets, a big grin stretched across his scruffy face with familiarity.

I offer a timid smile at the stranger. “Hi.” It takes me a minute to recognize him. He came over and introduced himself to Dad and me when we were moving in. Iremember it was the first time I ever saw somebody taller than my father, who stands at almost six foot five. “You’re Dawson, right?”

His grin widens. “And you’re Sawyer. You look different today though.”

I look down at myself, wondering what could possibly be different. I skipped shorts for my favorite pair of skinny jeans, and the shirt I opted for isn’t the stained one I wore when I first met the boy in front of me. “Put together?” I ask, half-jokingly.

His eyes roam down the front of me again in appraisal. “Ididlike your shorts. A lot.”

What is it with boys and shorts? It’s like they’ve never seen legs before. “You and my neighbor across the hall,” I murmur, more to myself than him as I look both ways and wait idly for the cars to pass.

---