Page 16 of Forever Yours

I came up behind Ash, curious to see who was asking for me. The music from across the hall had tempered a smidge, but the hallway was even noisier as people came and went. I took in the tall, dark-haired guy standing there.

“David, right?”

His face lit up when he saw me, making his chiseled features even more handsome.

“Hey! For a sec, I thought I knocked on the wrong door.”

Ash looked at me over his shoulder, waggling his eyebrows. “Do you know everyone at CU?”

I playfully pushed him out of the way. “We met earlier. He lives a couple doors down,” I replied, then indicated to David to come in.

Eyeing the food scattered over my bed, David shoved his hands into the front pockets of his shorts and hunched his shoulders. He was my height but not as broad in the chest as I was. Luckily, I hadn’t lost the swimmer’s build I’d built up over the years. Jayson and I also did a lot of pool time together over the summer. He was still twice as fast as me in freestyle, but I beat him every time in the breaststroke.

David shuffled his feet and took a step back, almost knocking into three guys walking down the hall toward the elevator. They lifted their chins at me and Ash, and we returned the gesture. Guys had such easy ways of saying hello. No words needed.

“I can come back later. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Just wanted to say hi and see if you wanted to hang out sometime.”

David’s eyes dipped, and he bit his bottom lip. The action involuntarily drew my gaze. I quickly recovered from my stupefaction when my phone started playing Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” Jessi’s ringtone.

“Um, sure. That sounds nice. Sorry I need to get that,” I said when the song stopped and started playing seconds later.

David shuffled his feet again and nodded. “Cool. Okay. Well, I guess I’ll talk to you later. Nice meeting you, Ash.”

“You, too.” Ash held a fist out for David to tap as I grabbed my phone from the desk beside my bed.

“See you around, Elijah,” David called out.

“Bye, David.” I held my hand up in a casual wave while simultaneously swiping the screen to unlock it with my other hand.

Two missed calls and one text message.

Jessi: Wanted to see how things went today. Had dinner with the fam. A going away thing. Can you see my huge eye roll? No? Attaching a pic. Heading to bed. Call me tomorrow. Love you xxx

I tapped on the image she sent and laughed at the close-up of her crossed eyes. I turned my phone’s camera on and snapped a selfie of myself making a weird face and sent it.

Me: Love you too. Miss you xo

The smile on my lips dropped instantaneously when another text message came in. Not from Jessi, but from Julien.

SexyBoyfriend: Hey, E. I’m so sorry, babe. Came home to Jay praying to the porcelain gods. It’s not pretty. Ry still isn’t here. I’m going to stick around and make sure my brother doesn’t pass out face-first into the toilet. If you change your mind, you can come back over and spend the night.

He wasn’t coming.

Disappointment washed over me like acid rain, along with a hefty dose of worry. For Jayson. For Ryder. For Julien. And for myself.

I tossed my phone down onto the bed and rubbed a weary hand over my face and through my thick mop of hair, messing it up.

I was bone tired. Not physically, but mentally. Emotional exhaustion was real, and I was hip-deep in it. I’d been riding the soul-sucking roller coaster of self-inflicted misery with Julien, Jayson, and Ryder for months, and I wanted off. Even if for a few hours.

Tonight was supposed to be the start of something new. New life. New place. New experiences. And I was already over it.

Fuck.

“He likes you.”

My head jerked up. “What?”

Ash plopped back down onto my bed and popped the last bite of his now-cold burger into his mouth.

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