Page 12 of Catch Me If You Can

She knew the shirt wasn’t outside. But she followed anyway.

Not surprised.

Not even a little.

***

Nathan

I shuffled through the crowd of bodies, in search for the one person I wanted to see. “Have you seen Caleb?” I asked Taylor, catching her mid-dance. She shook her head, all bouncy curls and glittery energy.

Another Weeknd song started playing over the speakers.Great.I knew if Caleb was controlling the music right now, he would’ve been playing Mayday Parade or The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. If Caleb loved it, everyone else would too.

I nodded and stepped away. I had looked everywhere, but he had vanished.

Lately, nights have been consumed with Sarah. I’ve hated not being able to spend time with him but having a girlfriend was…different. It was something I had never experienced before and I thought at some point, he’d be happy for me. Maybe even proud.

Truthfully, it probably wouldn’t have even happened if it weren’t for him. He had shoved me into the spotlight, and now I couldn’t even share it with him.We hadn’t had alone time together in months.Three,to be exact.

And it sucked.

So yeah, I wanted to congratulate him. That performance was... insane. I’d heard him sing before, sure—but nothing like that. He had been practicing.A lot.

He had looked amazing up there. Comfortable. Alive. That rasp in his voice, the way his hands moved across the guitar. I tried to ignore the way my stomach turned when I thought about it.

It was just pride, I told myself. Just admiration.

I missed him.God, I missed him.

I pushed through the crowd until I made it back to the stage. Tony and the other guys from the band were dancing like idiots and shoving each other around like we weren’t at a school event but a frat party.

“Hey!” I shouted. It was loud over here—too loud with the speakers right behind me. They finally looked over. Their faces shifted the second they saw it was me.

They didn’t like me. Never had. I wasn’t their friend. Caleb was. And they didn’t bother hiding it.

“Yo,” Tony said flatly, arms crossed over his chest like I’d already wasted his time.

“Have you seen Caleb?”

A slow smirk crept onto his face, one that made my skin crawl. It was smug. Almost like he knew something I didn’t.

“I think he walked out the gym doors,” he said, chin jutting toward the back. “Probably just in the hallway.”

I nodded. “Great. Thanks.”

He didn’t respond. Just kept smirking.Weird.

I turned back around and started pushing through the crowd again, this time heading toward the doors.

It wasn’t until I was halfway there that I realized I hadn’t seen Sarah in a while either. She had said she was going to grab a bottle of water, but that had been, what, fifteen minutes ago?

As if summoned by my thoughts, I heard her laugh echo through the hall. That unmistakable, breathy little giggle she always did when she was flirting.

It was coming from around the corner by the lockers.

My stomach tightened. Who was making her laugh like that? And why was it coming from the same direction as—Caleb.

I stopped in my tracks. There they were. Sitting on the windowsill like it was the most natural thing in the world. His leg perched up behind her, caging her in. Her body turned toward him like she belonged there.

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