Chapter 3
3
MADDIE
T here are some places where you’d rather not run into anyone you know. The condom aisle at the pharmacy is one of them.
But that’s exactly where I am—reaching for a pack, no less—when I hear the voice of my older brother’s best friend behind me.
“So, you come here often?”
My stomach dips, and a chill of embarrassment crawls up my spine. I couldn’t mistake the low, rumbly timbre of that voice for anyone else.
I turn around and find myself face to face with Rhys, right in front of the condom shelf.
My stomach was already dipping in embarrassment when I knew he was behind me, but now that I see him in front of me, my stomach is twisting into knots.
His high cheekbones, razor-sharp jaw, pouty lips, deep amber eyes, and his thick mop of jet-black hair are all things I’ve been acquainted with for as long as I can remember, but they never fail to make my heart do a funny sort of flip in my chest every time I see him.
Right now, there’s an extra twinkle in those amber eyes and a twitch on those pouty lips. Rhys is beaming with boyish glee over catching me in an embarrassing moment.
“Oh, you know it,” I snark back, collecting myself. “The condom section of Davis Pharmacy is totally my jam. I’m here all the time.”
Dimples carve into Rhys’s cheeks as he laughs. “Wow, didn’t know this is where all the cool kids hang out now.”
“That’s because you’re not one of them,” I quip.
His eyebrows leap. He covers his heart with his right hand, a motion that makes his huge, tattoo-covered bicep pop. “Ouch, talk about a low blow.”
I shrug. “Truth hurts.”
Rhys reaches out his right arm, thick with corded muscle and coated from his wrist up to his chest with ink, to grab the pack of condoms I was just reaching for off the shelf. I catch a whiff of his woodsy, cinnamon scent as his arm passes by my head, and I try to ignore what feels like an electric current traveling from my nose straight to my core.
His eyebrow quirks as he examines the case. “ Snug-fit , huh?”
My cheeks feel so hot they could glow. “Well, uh,” I stutter, before gathering my wits and answering, “I don’t discriminate.”
Rhys doubles over at my words, peals of his laughter booming down the condom aisle.
I really had no idea what I was reaching for. I didn’t know they made so many kinds of condoms, or how the heck you’re supposed to choose between them. I have zero experience buying them, and that’s not because I’m against practicing safe sex.
It’s because I haven’t practiced any kind of sex.
Yep. As a twenty-year-old college sophomore, I’m still a virgin.
“ Ohh , party in the condom section?” Jasmine, my best friend of twelve years and roommate of one day, exclaims as she saunters down the aisle toward us.
“You know it,” Rhys jests in reply.
Jasmine and I are here to do some shopping for our dorm room. Staples like paper towels, tissues, cleaning products, and basic over-the-counter medicine like aspirin.
She’s just coming back from the bathroom. Right as we were passing the condom aisle, she told me she had to go, asking me with a wink to pick up a pack of condoms as she speed-walked away, reasoning it would be good to have some in our dorm just in case.
And I’m sure she was reasoning to herself that it would be funny for me to be flustered and awkward trying to make a selection given my utter lack of experience. Jasmine and Rhys are my two closest friends, but both of them really do enjoy messing with me.
But messing with me is their way of nudging me out of my comfort zone. It’s probably a good thing, honestly. Otherwise, I might never leave it.
“Catch,” Rhys says, tossing the pack of condoms in Jasmine’s direction.
She snags them from the air. “Snug-fit, huh?” She smirks at me. “Good call, Maddie.”
I roll my eyes.
“Well,” Rhys says, “I’ve got dish soap to buy. I’ll leave you girls to, uh …” he gestures at the extensive condom display, “whatever fun you were getting up to.”
With another wink, he turns around and saunters away. The white t-shirt he’s wearing is so thin, and his surging back muscles stretch it so tight, that I can see the dark contours of the tattoos covering him underneath.
“Snug-fit, why not?” Jasmine says, dropping the pack into the shopping basket at my feet. “Let’s also grab a regular pack, just in case we’re lucky enough to snag some guys with normal-sized dicks.”
I huff a laugh. “It’s a tall task, but I’m sure you’re up to it.”
“ We’re up to it,” she answers, nudging me playfully in the ribs after she picks up the basket. “This is your semester. I can feel it.”
I bounce my eyebrows skeptically but keep my doubts to myself as we walk to the self-checkouts.
We’re both carrying loaded-up paper bags as we step out of the pharmacy and onto the main street of Cedar Shade, the charming and gorgeous small Vermont town that’s home to Brumehill College.
“So,” Jasmine begins, “how embarrassing was it to be caught in the condom aisle by the guy you had a crush on in middle school?”
Jasmine and I met in elementary school, but she and her family moved to a different state when we were in seventh grade. Despite the distance, we kept in touch, talking on the phone every day and visiting each other whenever we possibly could. She spent her freshman year at a college close to her current home, but this year transferred to Brumehill.
Now, for the first time in seven years, we’re living in the same town—and for the first time ever, we’re roommates, just like we dreamed about ever since we were kids.
When Jasmine and I still went to the same school in sixth grade, it was clear to her that I was utterly smitten by Rhys, my brother Lane’s best friend, who was two years ahead of us in eighth grade. But when she moved away, as the years went on, she just assumed the middle school crush fizzled out.
What she doesn’t know, the one secret that I’ve kept from my best friend, is that it was a lot more than a crush—and it never ended.
“I think I’ll live,” I answer sardonically.
Guilt lightly pinches at the nape of my neck as I think about how Jasmine doesn’t keep anything from me, while I’m holding back the fact that I’m absolutely head over heels for Rhys Callahan. So head over heels that it literally hurts sometimes.
Hurts, because no matter how I feel about him, he’s a college sports idol and I’m just his best friend’s dorky younger sister. We might be friends, but there’s no way he’d ever think of me as anything more than that.
Which is fine …
I pull myself out of that train of thought. Instead, I drink in the atmosphere around town as we walk to our dorm.
Excitement is buzzing in the air. It’s the Sunday of move-in week, before classes start this Tuesday. The streets are mobbed with students, whether freshmen excited to get acquainted with the town or upperclassmen revisiting their favorite local spots after summer break.
The side streets crammed with quaint, lovely rowhomes are full of juniors and seniors moving into their off-campus houses or apartments, while campus is crawling with freshmen and sophomores settling into their new dorms.
There are tearful hugs from parents leaving their sons and daughters for the first time, groups of students living on the same dorm floor fast becoming friends as they explore the campus and town, tables set up all around campus by student organizations trying to recruit new members, and more than a couple haggard faces that are clearly feeling the after-effects of the dozens of parties that raged last night.
The atmosphere is infectious. A thrill glows in my chest as I think about the semester ahead of us.
Finally living with my best friend isn’t the only thing that has me brimming with anticipation. After a miserable freshman year studying something I had no interest in, I’ve finally switched to an Art major.
Art has always been my greatest love, whether it’s creating it, reading about its history, or appreciating it in museums and galleries.
This semester, I have a full schedule of art classes, and I’m so excited for every one of them. I’ve always liked school, and I’ve always been good at it, but I’ve never been downright giddy to start a school year like I am now.
When Jasmine and I arrive at our dorm building, located just aside from the center of campus, we stop to admire it. It’s a gorgeous piece of architecture, built in the late nineteenth century. Its bright red brick facade, striking design, and the skillful ornamentation that adorns it make it one of the most recognizable landmarks on campus.
It’s by far the most coveted building to live in. Whether you stay here or one of the newer dorm buildings—which are nice enough but nowhere near as jaw-dropping—is all down to the luck of the draw. Somehow, Jasmine and I won the lottery.
I drop my eyes from gazing up at the building when the front door opens, and out walks one of the girls who lives on the same floor as me and Jasmine.
She also happens to be one of the girls who was sneering at us from across the kitchen island at Rhys and Lane’s house party last night—and one of the girls whose faces turned green with envy when Rhys sauntered over and wrapped his arm around me.
Her eyes flare with recognition as she steps out of the door. When she passes me, she beams a glare that could wilt flowers or turn milk sour.
Meanwhile, my stomach twists at the memory of Rhys’s heavy, jagged arm draped over me last night.
Jasmine tilts her head backward after the girl passes us. “Think we’ll end up friends by the end of the semester?”
I huff a laugh. “Somehow I doubt it.”
“No big loss,” my friend retorts.
When we’re in our third-floor dorm room, I breathe a swoony sigh, already feeling so at home here even though this is just our second day. We’ve already started decorating it with posters, pictures, knick-knacks, and comfy blankets and pillows that we’ll get plenty of use out of once the chilly New England autumn rears its head.
After placing what we bought at the pharmacy into a cute little bubble-gum pink three-drawer chest that Jasmine brought with her, I turn around to my new roommate suddenly yelling “Catch!”
My arms shoot up in an uncoordinated fumble as a rectangular object flies toward me. Unsurprisingly, I’m not able to get my hands around it. As a result, one of the boxes of condoms we just purchased smacks against my forehead.
Jasmine goes exactly one beat with a straight face before her expression cracks and she bursts into peals of laughter.
“Are you alright?” she manages to sputter.
“Chipper,” I deadpan, scooping down to pick it up. “At least they were the small ones.”
I hold my frame for another beat before I crack up laughing along with Jasmine, who wraps her arms around me.
I drop the box into the drawer, and a small chill skitters over me as I remember turning around in the pharmacy and seeing Rhys. Then a large chill follows it at the memory of last night. Heat laces through my bloodstream as I recall the look of hunger gleaming in Rhys’s eyes as he pinned me with his heavy, hooded gaze.
Tension coils low in my core as I remember how the rough rasp of his voice hit my ears. I know he was looking at me like that, talking to me like that, just to put on a show for the girls who’d talked down to us, but …
But what?
I sigh as I push the drawer shut.
Rhys actually wanting to be anything more than my friend, for real? Yeah, right.