Page 17 of Campus Crush
“I’ll stay and hang out, see if he’ll talk to me.”
We’d been close our whole life. Mason was the baby brother I’d always wanted, and I looked out for him with the fierceness of a lioness protecting her cub. But even I struggled to get through the walls he’d put up since Mom died. I was scared what would happen to him if he held all his pain inside without letting it out.
I couldn’t lose another family member.
As we sat around the dining room table later that evening, I couldn’t help but notice that each of us seemed somewhat lost in our own heads. Gram didn’t ask as many questions as she usually did. Mason was as silent and stoic as a guard at Buckingham Palace.
And while I had plenty to worry about between the twoof them, my thoughts kept veering to a too-handsome-for-his-own-good hockey player with a charismatic smile that reminded me why I’d had such a crush on him freshman year.
The same hockey player that I suspected had a learning disorder he didn’t seem to be fully aware of.
TEN
PeachyKeen:
I messed up my crop layout and now my iridium sprinklers aren’t aligned. I hate it here.
BigBear88:
Chaos is part of the charm.
PeachyKeen:
I live in organized harmony. This is personal.
BigBear88:
Want me to come move them for you and ruin everything evenly?
BigBear88:
Be honest. You romance Sebastian, don’t you?
PeachyKeen:
Excuse me, what makes you think I go for broody emo boys in the basement?
BigBear88:
The spreadsheet you sent me about optimal gift-giving.
PeachyKeen:
That was for science.
BigBear88:
Science. Sure.
PeachyKeen:
Did you just pass out in the greenhouse?
BigBear88:
I got distracted trying to pet the cows.
PeachyKeen:
