Page 42 of False Start

His brow crinkles, but he’s grinning. “The show or the movie?”

I roll to my side and tug him into my arms. “You know what I mean, you little shit.” He cackles when I tickle his side.

“I do. Stop,” he laughs and shoves my hand away, but I just pull him into me even more but stop tickling him. “I know you miss Big Bend.”

I do. I know it’s kind of sad that I’m in a big college town, actually on the school’s football team, and I’m thinking about my small town of a couple of thousand people. Wishing for one more chance to go out underneath the high school stadium lights. But I do. “Sometimes.”

I can feel him smiling, even though I have him tucked into my side.

“Do you think you’ll ever go back there?” I know he’s thriving in school, but a part of me hopes he’ll want to move back to Big Bend someday. I’ve always thought of college as somethingto do, but I think for Austin, it’s always been the beginning of something.

Something bigger.

Something better.

“I’m not sure.” He’s hesitant to answer me, and I know why. He doesn’t have any real plans to move back there.

And I realize it really doesn’t matter to me. Yeah, I’d miss my family and the town itself, but that would be nothing compared to how much I’d miss him if we don’t live in the same town again someday. “Well, wherever you go, I’ll go.” And I mean it with my whole heart.

He slowly lifts his head, his eyes searching mine. I wait for him to argue with me or to say I can’t know that, and I’m fully prepared to argue back. He looks concerned, but then he surprises me when he changes the subject all together. “College football is pretty cool. I mean, at least, it looked that way on TV.”

I blink at him. “You watched?”

He smiles and lowers his head back onto my shoulder. “My best friend was on television.”

I toss my head back and laugh, feeling pure joy. “Oh, so that’s what I had to do to get you to watch a game?”

We laugh together, and he kisses my shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Vaughn. It’s going to get better and better. You’ll see.”

I hold him close to me and kiss the top of his head, but I think he’s wrong. Totally and completely wrong for the first time in his life.

Because I’m really not sure how it could get any better than this.

20

VAUGHN

This game sucks. Okay—it doesn’t suck. We’re actually ahead and probably going to win, but I’m in a pissy mood. And it’s not like I contributed to the win in any way.

I’m in a terrible mood because Austin was supposed to come see me last night, but he had to cancel. And I know he had to. He was right to cancel when he has such an important test on Monday.

I could tell by his voice on the phone he was just as disappointed as I was, but it still sucks. Stupid college. Stupid tests. Stupid football.

I told him I could drive there after the game, but he didn’t want me to fall asleep at the wheel. I also said he could stay in my dorm and study this weekend, but he said—and he was totally right—that I’d distract him.

I can’t keep my hands off him when he’s actually in the same town as me. So I guess I’ll just have to wait until next weekend. I can make it. It’s just another reason I wish I’d have pulled my head out of my ass before we went to college.

It may not be fair to Vanessa, but since she was going to break up with me anyway, it would have been better if she did it when I still had a chance at convincing Austin to come here.

But maybe that wouldn’t have been better after all. He’s so happy at that school. I couldn’t take that away from him, even if we were together. My brain hurts from thinking so hard, and when we pull out the win, I’m in an even worse mood as I head to the locker room to change into a suit.

Yes. An actual fucking suit. Coach requires we all change into them after a game. Why? No one knows, and no one questions it. So I change out of the uniform I didn’t even get to play in and into a goddamn suit.

“Jesus, could you scowl more?” Jacob, one of the other freshmen, looks way too amused as he watches me.

“Probably,” I say, not smiling because nope, I’m not going to smile. My boyfriend is stuck in a whole other town this weekend, and I don’t get to hold him. Boyfriend? Is that even what he is? I don’t know because he still won’t let me tell him I love him.

I still think of him that way anyway. He’s mine, whether he knows it or not.

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