Page 41 of Surviving Lies

“See, I never learn from my mistakes. You can ask Ava. I keep going back, even when I shouldn’t. I haven’t quite figured out why yet. But don’t make my same mistake. Make sure he’s the one. Or that he’s going to be the right one, someday.”

I felt as though I didn’t have time to completely unpack what she was saying to me, but I knew I wanted to revisit that with her. “Thanks for that, Macie. That’s good advice.”

“Ava and I are good,” she said. She smiled and disappeared back into the crowd.

I made my way through the barrier to Ty’s frat house, the guys letting me stroll right in. It was equally crowded on this side, people shoulder to shoulder and rushing the DJ table. Many of the frats provided their own music, each competing with the next, making the entire area impossible to talk in, let alone hear much of anything in. Looking around, I felt his eyes on me but couldn’t find him in the crowd. Turning my head slightly to the right, I found him, close to where he had been standing, watching me. His long strides brought him to me in three steps.

His mouth travelled to my ear, but he still had to talk loudly. “You came back over.” He pulled back to look at me once he said that, searching for my reaction. And of course I smiled because, yeah, he knew I had come back over for him.

“I did,” I said into his ear. I lingered against his chest, the familiar scent of him invading my thoughts, my memories.

But Macie’s words were forefront in my brain. Shaking them away, I looked back at Ty.

“I remembered the last time we were at this house together.” Letting out a laugh, I hoped he had kind thoughts about that day here last year.

His knowing smile, a smile I knew so well, spread across his face as he came near my ear again. “Oh, I remember. And I remember the next morning, too. You didn’t feel so good. We both missed class so I could bring you Gatorade and soup, if I remember correctly.”

I nodded, reminded of that terrible morning. It was a bad one.

A group of people bumped into me, almost sending me onto my ass, but Ty grabbed my arm and pulled me close, keeping me steady. Conveniently, we were then so surrounded by people, we couldn’t pull apart if we wanted to. Chest to chest, he leaned down, and I stared at his lips. I didn’t realize how much I’d been missing those lips until now.

“Do you want to ...?” His words trailed off, lost in the surrounding noise.

Trying to push away to look up at him, I gestured to my ear, letting him know I couldn’t hear him. He immediately grabbed my hand and led me to the deck stairs. Forging a path through the mass of people on the deck was no joke, but Ty got us to the door leading inside. It was better once there, but not much.

“Let’s head upstairs and see if there’s someplace we can talk!” he yelled.

I hesitated. This should not be what we were doing. But I was definitely the one giving mixed signals; I had come to him.

So I nodded, and he pulled me along. The feeling of my hand in his, following behind his powerful body as he took charge in the room – I liked it. I missed it.

We walked through the masses of people in what I would consider a living room when Gage caught my eye. He was standing in a corner talking with a group of people, watching me walk toward the stairs with Ty. His eyes lingered on our joined hands, but Gage’s face stayed neutral.

I quickly pulled my eyes from his, but not before noticing who he was talking to. Surrounding him were three beautiful girls, each prettier than the next. But that wasn’t allowed to bother me; Gage and I were not in a relationship, and I had no hold over him. And I was in the hands of my ex, heading up the stairs.

So why did my heart sink when my eyes met Gage’s?

“C’mon, Bec. There’s a room up here we can use to talk, get some quiet.”

This felt reminiscent of our first day seeing each other only a few weeks ago, and that didn’t go well. I was regretting my decision to do this. To be here, going upstairs with Ty. Was anything good going to come of this?

He opened the door to a room, and we both slid inside, glancing around and listening. No one was on the bed, and it was significantly quieter, so we both felt like we’d found an empty one. Ty pushed all the dirty clothes off the bed and grabbed a blanket from the closet, spreading it out across the mattress. One never knew the cleanliness of us college students.

“Wanna sit?” he asked as he gestured to the cleared surface of the bed.

“Sure,” I said, moving to sit up against the wall for support. Ty joined me and we sat shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, quiet for a while.

“You look beautiful today, Becca.” Ty pulled his knees up and rested his hands atop them, his head turned toward me. I bent my knees to the side in order to twist my body in his direction. Our faces were closer when he continued. “But you always look beautiful, not just today. Every day.”

His smile was a shy one. He was nervous. And I hated I’d done this to him. Ty had never been nervous around me, never. But I guess I didn’t really do this to him; he did it to himself. But it was still hard. Hard to be this close to him and not want things to go back to the way they were.

It would be easy. We would just never go to his parents’ house. That’s the only place we ever had a problem. Here at school, we were in our own little cocoon – a blissful, ignorant cocoon. Things were perfect between us here at school.

But things weren’t perfect.

I smiled back at him but said nothing. Which was unusual for me. And he took note.

“Are you OK?” he asked gently.

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