Page 41 of Swept for Forever
“Huh. What a dick!”
I let out a laugh because that was so Mom. Never one to mince words.
“He is.”
Luckily, we were in our last year of college. Just a little longer, and he’d be in my rearview for good.
Then, Mom added, “I saw him with Julia.”
Julia?
Of course.Her.
Miss Popular, always the center of attention. The one my friends had warned me about. The girl who always needed help with her paper, but only from Jimmy. The secret glances. The convenient little moments they always seemed to share. I should’ve seen it coming.
But more than anything, I should have felt something.
Anger. Betrayal. The bitter sting of humiliation. Just more ammo for the list I was building for Jimmy.
Instead, there was…nothing.
Nothing except the realization that Dom had settled into the space Jimmy left behind. And more.
God, I shouldn’t be thinking about him like that.
He was in his thirties. Probably married or engaged. At the very least, he was not mine.
But he had saved me.
And a girl who’d been dumped by her boyfriend, chased by a criminal, and left stitched up, feverish, and clinging to an IV in a hospital bed?
Yeah, that was prime material for falling for a guy like him.
I opened the map app to check the distance from here to home while Mom dished out more relationship wisdom. Maybe I could get her to pick me up after the hospital lets me go.
But there was another man I should really be worrying about. Whatever I did, I couldn’t lead Stiff-Neck to Mom.
So I closed the map and decided quickly. “Look, Mom. I’m gonna be away for a while, okay?”
“A while? How long? What about swimming?”
Ah, geez. Swimming.
I had trained so hard for the championship. It was supposed to be everything.
“I’ll think about it, Mom.”
“Don’t let that bastard ruin your dreams.”
Of course, Jimmy would be in the squad. Our history spanned years. When I started college, I had to choose between gymnastics and swimming. Everyone said couples who trained together stayed together, so I picked swimming. No regrets there. I just regretted who I’d shared the lane with.
If I kept going, he’d stay in my periphery. I could handle that. Probably. But without Dom grounding me, being stuck with that human fungus might do more damage than I cared to admit.
“I know,” I said. “But I’m enjoying it here, and there’s still time. I’ll call you later when I get a new phone.”
After I hung up, I erased her number from Dom’s phone. Not because I needed to. Just because it was his phone. His life. His world.
And if he had someone waiting for him, the last thing I wanted was for her to see a random call to my mom and start asking questions.
