Page 130 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
“I take it you two know each other?” she asked, nodding back to where Melanie was still staring at me.
I shrugged. “You could say that.”
The tease worked, and B rolled her eyes so hard I was pretty sure she saw brain matter.
I laughed — the most genuine, heartfelt laugh I’d had in a long time — pure joy at her being close enough to breathe the same air as me overwhelming. When I finally stopped, I just shook my head, looking at her like a miracle before I opened my arms wide.
“Come here.”
“Ew,” she said automatically, shaking her head and walking the other way. “You’re sweatier than two rats fucking in a gym sock.”
“Oh, come on,” I teased from behind her, already following. “It’s just a little perspiration.”
And then, I swooped in, wrapping my arms around her and hugging her to my chest as I spun her around. She squealed, laughing and flailing until I finally relented and set her feet back on solid ground.
“Why are you so sweaty?” she asked on a laugh. “And why are you here?”
“I just finished playing basketball out at the courts. And I go to school here. Which, I guess that makes two of us now,” I added, holding up the envelope from Campus Housing.
She snatched it from my grip and flipped through the contents, holding out her hand for the keys, next.
“I didn’t know you went here,” she said, but her blush betrayed her.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s okay that you’re stalking me, B. Maybe I kind of like it.”
“You wish,” she replied, nose still in the papers. “Seriously though, you were supposed to be at UC. What happened?”
“Remember my uncle I told you about? The one who had connections at a university in California?”
She nodded, and I spread my arms open wide as if to gesture to the campus as a whole.
“You’re looking at the same university my dad and uncle graduated from, both with their degrees in Accounting. At first, my application was waitlisted, but my uncle knows a few of the guys on the Admissions Board, and he worked some magic.”
“And now here you are,” she said, peeking up at me through her lashes. I loved that feeling of having her eyes on me, of knowing her stomach was in knots being this close to me again.
“Here I am,” I repeated.
She shook her head, dipping her gaze back to the envelope. Every cell in my being buzzed with her near, the unyielding brightness of all the possibilities blinding me.
“So, you made it to California after all,” I mused.
She looked up then, her eyes mischievous and alluring. I wasn’t even sure she knew when she did that, when she looked at me in a way that made my balls tingle and my mouth dry with the urge to touch her. She played innocent, but her gaze told me something else.
“I guess I did,” she breathed.
We were selfish in that next moment, eyes devouring each other, and I was already planning the rest of our day, the rest of our night, the rest of our lives. A million images flashed before me — campus bonfire parties, late nights studying in the library, early mornings surfing the waves, lazy afternoons tangled in the sheets…
But it was all wiped away in an instant because my roommate appeared out of nowhere, grabbing B from behind and spinning her around just the same way I had.
My first instinct was to punch him, hard, right in the nose. It was a guttural response, one I couldn’t control if I tried, and as soon as he dropped her back to the ground, I surged forward with the intent to do just that.
Until he spoke.
“Oh my God, I almost forgot how beautiful you are,” Ethan said.
Then, he dipped her back like a fucking prince in a movie, kissing her the way I’d always dreamed of doing.
My stomach dropped at the sight, at the way she melted for him, the way he looked at her like she was his world once she was upright again. His hands framed her face, revering her, and they smiled at each other like they were in love.
I was going to be sick.
I cleared my throat when they didn’t stop the stupid love-sick stare after a long pause, and that seemed to jerk Ethan back to the present moment. He perked up, tucking B under his arm like he’d done it a hundred times before.
Like he owned her.
My fists curled at my sides.
“And I see you met my roommate!”
B’s eyes widened, and she turned to me with a dozen questions dancing in her gaze, but I just clenched my jaw and slowly put the sickening pieces together.
Ethan had gone to Florida for the summer. He told me he met a girl. He told me he was in love. He told me she was coming here. He told me he’d found his First Lady — since the prick wanted to be President one day.
