Page 74 of Sunshine

I plan all the ways I can keep them there, to save them for later.

When his eyes find mine, they’re awestruck. “Do you see it, too?”

“See what?” I ask, breathless.

“The light,” he says, so clearly. “All around us.”

He doesn’t wait for me to answer—just kisses me long and slow. But I can’t help but wonder . . .

“The stars?” I ask, pulling my mouth away only enough to say the words.

“No.” He smiles. “It was the sun.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

THEN

Jason invites me to visit him at Texas A&M during the spring break of his freshman year. It’s only a few months after his first season of college ball finishes, and he and Wells decide to stay on campus for the week-long holiday. I’ve been going crazy missing him at home, so it doesn’t take much convincing for me to want to go.

It takes my mom and Barry a little more to agree, though. I suppose letting their seventeen-year-old daughter drive alone to visit her boyfriend at college is a little . . .unbecoming. Thankfully, my mother’s love for Jason and her hope for our future together wins out, and she sends me off after I promise to check in with her every day.

The drive from Saddlebrook Falls to College Station is about two and a half hours, and I make it in good time. When I pull into the parking lot of Keahey Hall, the five-story building where Jason and Wells share a dorm together, I soak in the surroundings. The building looks like it’s been here forover a hundred years. The luscious green lawn surrounding it is freshly manicured, and the concrete sidewalks look like they’ve been recently resurfaced. Despite its age, the grounds are well-kept, and I have no doubt plenty of money flows through it.

I check the ribbon tied around my ponytail in the rearview mirror of Mom’s Mercedes before pulling my cheer duffle from the back seat. Pushing out the door, I send a quick text to Jason to let him know I’m here, and then make my way toward the hall’s front entrance.

I enter the double doors to the front lobby just as Jason rounds the corner from the stairwell, a white Aggies T-shirt stretched across his chest, and I can’t help but skip forward to close the distance between us.

“My girl,” he murmurs into my hair as his arms wrap tightly around me. I’ve seen him twice since school started, for Thanksgiving weekend and soon after for Christmas break, but in the months that have passed since then, he’s . . . changed. He’s all angles and hard muscle, so much more the man of my future. “It’s so good to see you. How was the drive?”

I nuzzle into his chest as his familiar smell of clean soap and woody aftershave wraps around me. “God, I’ve missed you,” I confess, the truth of it hitting me harder than expected. I’ve been so lonely this year without Jason around, but to feel his body against mine like this ignites an ache I’ve buried deep. I only have five days here, and I’m already anxious about how quickly it’ll go by. “The drive was good,” I continue. “A little traffic going through Houston but overall not bad.”

He gives me a quick squeeze before pulling away and grabbing the duffle from my hand. “Hope you don’t mind climbing the stairs—the elevator’s been out for a week.”

I laugh, unable to contain my excitement. “I don’t mind at all.”

The stairwell is dark and narrow, the walls a beige-painted brick that glares against the fluorescent lights. Jason’s dorm is on the fourth floor, and as we push through the swing door that leads to a long, carpeted hallway the smell of burnt popcorn overtakes us.

Most of the doors along the corridor are open. The few that are shut are adorned with pictures and streamers. Each door has a dry-erase board that lists two names at the top, and many have colorful notes scrawled in different handwriting.

I trail behind Jason as we maneuver between two girls leaning against opposite sides of the hall, and I try not to notice the way they both stare at me. I catch a glimpse of a shirtless boy with wild blond curls inside a dorm room to my left, sitting on the foot of a small bed. He’s got one foot propped up as he strums quietly on an acoustic guitar and . . . he’sgoodfrom what I can hear. His eyes pop up to look at me just as we clear the doorway.

A tall boy with a smattering of freckles and bright red hair flies across the hall from one room to another just as a small cheer erupts from within the first. It’s a lively environment, and Jason nods a hello to everyone we see along the way. It hits me that these are his peers now, the people he sees every day and spends countless hours with, who he’s inevitably built a life with.

“Here we are,” Jason says as he veers toward a room on the right, the names JASON and WELLS marked at the top of the dry-erase board in sharp black marker. There’s curvy red print in the bottom corner that says “Kimmy was here!” drawn with a heart that sends mine tripping over itself.

Jason opens the door, and I’m surprised to see the shared room is tidier than expected. Two beds rest against opposite walls, one with a navy comforter and one with gray. There’s a desk at the foot of each bed that both look well used—good academics are a requirement for college athletes, so I imagine he and Wells spend a lot ofrealtime studying. My eyes trace along the stacks of papers on each wooden surface, the Aggie zip-ups that hang from a hook near the door, the wide window that lets in a ton of natural light. “Wow,” I say, my mind in overdrive as I take it all in.

“Yeah.” Jason nods as he looks around, too. “It’s not much but . . . it’s home.”

I reach for the side pocket of my duffle and pull out my camera—a DSLR I got for Christmas. Popping the cap off the front of the lens, I find Jason in the viewfinder and snap a picture.

He grins. “You’re taking a photography class again?”

I shake my head. “It’s mine. I had to find something to do without you at home.” It was quickly becoming my favorite possession. I’d forgotten how much I loved capturing moments, and these days it was rare for me tonothave the Canon hanging from my neck.

Replacing the cap back on the lens, I look around again. Wells has always been organized and tidy with his work around the ranch so I’m not surprised to find his space so clean. But Jason hasalwaysbeen messy. He must have spent some time sprucing up the place before I got here. “It looks good in here,” I admit. “Nicer than I expected.”

Jason narrows his eyes as the corner of his mouth tugs. “What did you expect?”

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