Page 15 of Kiss Me Honey Hone

Or, well, notexactlylike he did.

Sade eyed him with a smirk. “You know, you could get paid for it.”

Aaron handed over the duffel bag. “What, the committee pays now? Thought this was a ‘volunteer’ gig?”

She rolled her eyes. “Nothere.At an actual club. They do that at gay bars, don’t they?”

“Wouldn’t know.” He splayed his hand over his chest in mock chaste horror.

“Uh-huh, sure.” She gave him a knowing look. “You know what youshoulddo?”

“Go on.”

“Get on TikTok. Upload vids of you working the pole. You’d get a fuck ton of followers and we might increase our membership. We’d get Club of the Year at the Ryston Summer Ball. You know it always goes to the netball team.” A group of girls crying and huddling together around a stall caught her attention. “Speaking of which.”

Aaron followed her line of sight. “What’s that about?”

“You didn’t hear about Connie?”

“The girl who dropped dead?”

“Yeah. Can you believe it?”

Aaroncouldbelieve it. Death and destruction followed him around like a foul smell. Would he get blamed for this one, too? He feigned his shock by shaking his head. Playing up to those all-important expectations again.

“It’s awful.” Sade watched the scene up ahead, the netball girls all consoling each other. “Connie was in the B team, but still one of the best. No health problems, nothing. Just…gone. Collapsed at a bar. Her friends thought she was drunk, so they just left her in a booth to sleep it off.”

Aaron frowned. “Theylefther?”

He wasn’t exactly best friend of the year. Had very few people he bothered to talk to let alone check in on. But even he knew leaving a mate drunk at a bar was asking for trouble. They might not have expected her to be dead, but she’d have been a prime target for—

Shit.

Sade gave a bitter laugh. “Netball girls can be ruthless. Figured she’d passed out and abandoned her. By the time anyone checked…too late.”

Aaron watched the group take down a framed photo of a girl he assumed was Connie, her memory already immortalised on poster boards, smiling and carefree, at odds with her tragic end. It caused an unexpected lump in Aaron’s throat, thinking back to Rahul. About what he went through. He hadn’t had anyone checking on him, either. Apart from him. For a place that housed thousands of people each year, university seemed rife with loneliness.

“Did you know Connie?” Aaron asked.

“Not really.” Sade hoisted her bags onto her shoulder as Aaron scooped up the boxes of pamphlets.

He followed her out of the student centre and into the crispevening air, heading around the building toward the storage units where student societies stashed their gear. The campus was darkening, and a cool breeze carried the scent of freshly cut grass. Aaron’d had free rein of the campus when everyone else had gone home for summer and he’d had to remain in Halls, considering he had no family or home to go to. It wasn’t all bad. He had a part-time job at the campus shop which kept him occupied serving the staff who remained on site, with even a visit or two from Kenny buying up the leftover Cadbury’s Crème Eggs, plus he’d utilised the sprawling lawns where he sunbathed without interruption other than the occasional groups of summer school participants.

And Kenny had taken him for their weekly sessions.

Until his holiday inGreecehad ruined it all.

Sade shrugged. “I joined the netball club in my first year and got to know her back then. She was nice. Quiet. Unassuming. No drama. Not like the others.” She shook her head. “But she wanted to fit in with the popular crowd. Whereas me? I couldn’t give a fuck.” She grinned, giving a little curtsey. “Kinda tragic, though, right? That she was so desperate to be in a crowd who couldn’t be bothered to check if she was still alive before they wandered off and left her.”

Aaron dropped the boxes near the storage container door. “Yeah… that’s rough.” He helped Sade pack the pole into the container, clanking metal reverberating around the quiet campus as he stacked the last of the pamphlet boxes inside.

“You want me to walk you to the bus stop?” he asked, watching her lock up.

“Aw, worried I’ll drop dead on the way?”

“Maybe.”Morethan maybe. This university had a history of dead students. Usually ones close to him. As if he were a bad omen. He kinda wanted to stop that from happening. For his own sanity, if not the lives of his fellow students.

“Nah, I drove today. Dad finally caved and got me a rustbucket over the summer so I can get to and from campus and work.”

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