Page 67 of Give In

“Really? Holden and I are being college guy stereotypes by spending the night playing video games while drinking cheap beer. Wanna come over?”

“That literally sounds perfect.”

I thought about my earlier naïve plans and theperfectway I’d hoped the evening would go. A deep ache filled my chest, swirling with a hint of guilt.

Brooks knew we were just friends, but that didn’t mean I needed to treat him like my fallback.

Sighing, I closed my eyes. “Actually—”

“Too late. Just come over and relax. It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t think I remember how to have fun or relax,” I said with a laugh, though I wasn’t really joking.

“That’s how you know you’re overdue.”

Clicking off with him, I turned off my phone and started driving toward cute boys, cold beer, and normalcy.

And away from the one person who’d made me feel like I didn’t have to pretend.

*******

Damien

“Fuck.” I paced the floor and dialed again, that time from my house phone I only used for work contacts I didn’t actually want to talk to.

“Do you want to go after her?” Steph asked, setting the takeout on the kitchen island.

I didn’t want to. Ineededto.

But after what’d just happened, she wouldn’t go home. And she wouldn’t go to work. She might hang around campus, but I doubted that. Campus was my homefield, and she wouldn’t give me that advantage.

Listening to the endless ringing, I thought about where else she had to go.

Or, rather, who she’d go see.

Twisting jealousy filled me as I side-armed the phone across the room. It hit the wall and exploded.

Steph didn’t pause in fixing her food, though her eyes did widen.

Whether that was from my outburst or her hungrily staring at a mountain of beef and broccoli, I wasn’t sure.

Her plate heaping, she popped the wine’s cork and poured a glass before sitting on a stool. “Okay, talk to me. What’s up?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Give me the abridged version. Who is she?”

“She’s… Hell, Steph, she’severything. And I can’t have her. I shouldn’t have her. But now maybe someone else is going to.” Running my palm down my face, I closed my eyes and saw her. That image of her would be seared in my memory until my last breath, and then it’d torture me in hell.

The surprise. The embarrassment burning across her cheeks.

The fucking pain that dulled her sky-blue eyes.

By the time I’d gotten over my own surprise to realize the assumption she’d made, it’d been too late.

She’d been gone.

“You do know you’re not making sense, right?” Steph asked.

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