Page 71 of Breakaway Goal

I don’t want to make the wrong move and ruin the last year I have with the person who might just mean more to me than anyone else in my life.

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MADDIE

“You’ve had some great ideas over the years, Maddie,” Jasmine says as she twists off the cap of another bottle of white wine. “But a day drinking pumpkin carving party is way up there.”

I hold out my glass for Jasmine to fill. “What can I say? It was a flash of inspiration.”

Jasmine, myself, and three of my friends from the art department—Hannah, Yun-hee, and Ayanna—are hanging out having a pumpkin carving party featuring a couple bottles of wine at the park on the Monday before Halloween.

The idea popped into my head as I was taking a stroll through Cedar Shade one day and enjoying all the Halloween decorations. I kept smiling as I looked at the creatively carved pumpkins that adorned the yards and porches of so many houses in the neighborhood, and I thought it would be fun to have a little get-together with friends and carve some of our own.

It might sound silly, but suggesting to my friends that we do this kind of feels like a big step for me.

Part of my social anxiety is that it’s hard for me to be the one to propose things. I get too stuck in my head.

What if something sounds fun to me, but wouldn’t to anyone else? What if me organizing things or inviting people to things is just a burden on them? That’s the thought process that’s so often shut me down and kept me from suggesting things that I’ve wanted to do.

But lately, I’m finding it more possible to overcome those nagging anxieties.

Rhys helping me go to that first art party weeks ago was a big step in that direction, when he pushed me to get out there and talk to people like I wouldn’t have had the courage to do if I were alone. I ended up meeting and hitting it off with Yun-hee and Ayanna, who I’ve kept in touch with since.

And then, since Rhys and I started doing … whatever exactly you can call what we’re doing, I’ve had an even bigger boost of confidence. Something about the way Rhys looks at me since we had our first kiss just melts off the patina of self-doubt that’s accumulated over my confidence.

When I suggested this as a hang-out idea to the girls, they all loved it. It’s the first time Jasmine is meeting my other friends from the art department, and it’s great to see them immediately hitting it off.

Hannah excitedly holds up the pumpkin she’s working on. “Look!” she beams. She’s carved a cute silhouette of a cat.

“Aww,” Jasmine coos. “That is going to look so good lit up at night.”

I gasp, and maybe my enthusiasm is a little bit heightened by the fact that this is my second glass of wine. “That’s so adorable,” I gush. I run my fingertips along the pumpkin rind of the carving. “Look at her little tail.”

“Ta-dah!” Ayanna exclaims, turning around her pumpkin to reveal a super cool, creepy, gothic-style carving of a screaming face.

Jasmine playfully pouts. “I should have known I’d get shown up carving pumpkins with four art students.”

Jasmine tosses aside the pumpkin that she’s admittedly been butchering for the past several minutes and picks up another one. Yun-hee scoots close to her to give her some carving pointers—and also to have her wine glass refilled.

I take a minute to breathe in the chilly autumn air. The coolness mixes nicely with the warmth from the wine in my chest.

When I was depressed last year, thinking about how I was missing out on what I wanted my college experience to be, this is what I was wishing it were like.

Hanging out with my long-time best friend, making new friends who are into art like I am, and even having sizzling-hot hookups with a guy—but even in my wildest dreams, I wouldn’t have imagined that last part would be featuring Rhys Callahan.

Though, technically, I guess we haven’t actually hooked up yet. We’ve done everything short of actual sex.

I’m looking forward to it, of course. But at the same time, I kind of want to keep putting it off.

Not because I don’t think it’ll be good. I know Rhys will make it an incredible experience for me. But … what happens after that?

Having my first time was the whole point of what we’re doing, after all. Once that’s over with, there will be no real reason for us to keep doing the kind of things thatjust friendsdon’t do with each other.

I really, really,reallywant to keep doing those things with Rhys.

And I don’t mean just him getting me off, or me getting to play with his gorgeous cock, or us making out and getting to run my hands all over his panty-melting body.

I mean the way he looks at me with a spark of hunger in his eyes because he knows what I look like underneath my clothes. The way his hand will graze against the curve of my ass when he knows no one’s looking. The way we’re casually physical with each other when we’re together. The flirty insinuations he drops into our conversations that make my stomach leap into my chest.

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