Page 35 of Past the Broken Bridges

“It’s certainly more fun when there’s less pressure,” I tell her honestly. “We’re college students. We have our whole lives to find significant others. I never came here expecting to meet mine.”

Sawyer looks away, studying the other people writing and talking among themselves. There’s a distance to her eyes that make them look like the stormy waters of the Gulf Coast during hurricane season—moody and dark.

I expect her to ask me another question, but she simply goes back to writing her story without so much as another peep.

“Was that all?” I doubt, wondering why she shut down so quickly.

“You don’t have much longer to write your prompt,” she answers quietly, her pen scribbling along the lines of her notebook paper.

I try figuring out what I said to upset her. It wouldn’tbe the first time I’ve opened my mouth and said something dumb. I’m sure it won’t even be the last. “There’s nothing wrong with coming here looking for love.”

Her daggered eyes have the potential to be lethal if looks could kill. “I’m not here for that either.”

I’ve touched a nerve, and it intrigues me. “I guess we have that in common. So why exactly are you here then, Sawyer?”

“What are any of us here for?” she counters, her eyes on her paper instead of me. “I’m here hoping to figure myself out. Before…” She stops herself, shaking her head.

“Before what?”

Clearing her throat, she asks, “Is Banks your first name or your last name?”

“Last.”

“What’s your first name?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “My turn. Why put a time limit on figuring out who you are? That comes with life. We’re always changing. Evolving. Adapting. Who you are in college won’t be who you are five years from now. Or ten.”

She offers a thoughtful head bob, and for a moment, I don’t think she’ll give me an answer at all. “Not all of us have the same timeline, Just Banks. Time is relative that way. Same as how we spend it.”

I hum, unsure of what else to say. It seems like she’s thought about this before, and I wonder why.

Eventually, Professor Grey says, “Time’s up! Go ahead and exchange your stories with each other and we’ll have three new people share theirs with the class.”

I look at my empty paper.

Sawyer looks at the paragraph on hers.

When she looks up, I smile. Then I reach over and use the pad of my thumb to smooth her bottom lip. “Ink,” I murmur.

A little breath from her caresses my thumb, and I watch as her throat moves with a thick swallow. “Oh.” She touches her lip. “Thanks.”

“Of course.”

Except there was no ink.

Sorry, Dawson.

Chapter Twelve

Banks

I’ve always thought Valentine’s Day was a scam—a consumer’s holiday. If you don’t bother spending money buying people gifts on any random Friday, do you really love them?

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card. You get a bouquet of flowers, maybe a box of cheap chocolates from the store, and lay on your thickest charm. Women go nuts for it.

I’d know because I’m just as guilty of doing it in the past, except I never really cared that deeply about the girls I showered with half-assed presents—like the stuffed animals with those stupid mushy sayings on them or boxes of those pharmacy fifty-percent-off chocolates they keep on the endcaps for people like me who don’t want to think too hard or spend too much.

Which is why I find it so ironic that I’m standing in front of the candy display at work, looking at the Valentine’s Day–themed chocolates that come out once a year. Most of them are sold out—students buying them for their significantother last minute to say they got them something, the way I used to.

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