Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
Bear went radio silent on me.
At first, I was relieved. It saved me from having to figure out what to say after he bailed on our in-person meetup.
I was struggling with how to get back to our easy exchanges while dealing with the hurt after learning he’d seen me and still chosen not to come up and introduce himself.
It had been my worst fear—the worst-case scenario about finally meeting up with him that I’d convinced myself wouldn’t happen. But it had.
He said it was because I was out of his league, but was it really? Or was he just trying to make it seem that way so he wouldn’t hurt my feelings more? I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else going on.
But as the hours and days ticked by with no new messages from him on our Discord chat, relief turned into something heavier.
The truth was, I missed him.
I missed our late-night messages, the dumb jokes about mayonnaise machines, the way he always knew how to make me laugh on the worst days.
He’d become a constant in my life—someone I relied on and got to be goofy and ridiculous with.
Losing him, even temporarily, felt like losing a part of myself that he’d helped me rediscover.
But while Bear was MIA, Foster was…not.
He showed up to every tutoring session early. He smiled when he saw me. He listened in a way that made me feel like my voice had weight and like the things I said mattered.
And slowly, subtly, he started closing the space between us. Both literally and figuratively.
At first, it was just a glance that lingered a second too long. Then, he started sitting closer—just enough that I could feel the warmth of his body radiating beside me, and occasionally feel the brush of his knee against mine.
It wasn’t overt. Nothing he did crossed a line. But it felt deliberate, especially when he’d glance at me at the smallest touch and his blue eyes seemed to darken with a look I was terrified to identify.
The lingering looks, the accidental-on-purpose touches, the way his subtle, manly cologne seemed to permeate the breathing space while we worked and made me lightheaded—it was wreaking havoc on my body and mind.
Because for every flutter he caused in my stomach, or catch of my breath, there was a swell of guilt right behind it.
I wasn’t supposed to like him.
Not when I had feelings for Bear.
Not when Bear and I had shared real conversations and quiet confessions and a bond that felt like more than just shared pixels and game mechanics.
I’d put Foster Kane in a box after our night together freshman year, and he was supposed to stay there as a bad decision I’d made once upon a time, but now I was starting to question if that was fair.
He clearly wasn’t the party guy he’d been freshman year.
And spending three days a week with him made it impossible not to get to know him more with each tutoring session. That crush I’d had freshman year wasn’t buried as deep as I thought it had been.
My nerves were a jumbled mess when I showed up to our latest tutoring session. My heart felt like it dipped in my chest when I saw he wasn’t at our usual table.
I checked my phone to see if he’d texted me. He’d convinced me to exchange numbers so he could reach out if he was ever running late or needed to change our schedule. A part of me was still expecting him to use it for something else, but so far he hadn’t texted me at all.
When he walked in the door with two coffee cups in hand, those butterflies once again took off in my stomach.
Coffee wasn’t that big a deal. It didn’t warrant the swarm that took flight or the weird giddiness that filled my chest.
I couldn’t explain the emotions and feelings Foster brought out in me, and maybe that’s what scared me the most.
He placed one of the cups on the table beside my laptop like it was no big deal. Like he hadn’t just set off a full-on emotional crisis in my chest.
“What’s this?” I asked, my voice even and not conveying in the slightest the chaos going on inside of me.
“Vanilla latte,” he said casually, sliding into the seat beside me. His knee brushed against mine as he got settled, and it took everything to ignore the warmth that bloomed from that spot.
I blinked at the cup, then at him. “How’d you know?”
He shrugged like it was no big deal, but I didn’t miss the subtle pink on the tops of his cheeks. “It’s what you ordered at the café when I ran into you.”
I hadn’t even realized he’d been paying that close of attention.
His gaze caught mine and the air thickened between us.
I wasn’t sure either of us took a breath as we held a silent conversation with our eyes.
The way he looked at me now—it wasn’t how he looked at everyone else.
There was a gentleness to it, almost reverent.
Like he was trying to memorize my every reaction.
The words might’ve been unsaid, but I couldn’t deny the feeling—it was one I’d felt before.
I liked him.
That nearly all-consuming crush I’d had before was back with a vengeance.
And I hated how much that scared me.
Because I wasn’t supposed to fall for him again. Not after everything. Not when he’d once made me feel so small, even if he hadn’t intended to. And definitely not when Bear existed—although hadn’t he also hurt me?
I didn’t know what scared me more—the possibility that Foster could hurt me again…or the possibility that he wouldn’t.
Was the way I’d felt hurt with him really all that different from how Bear had made me feel?
And I couldn’t deny that I knew I’d forgive Bear and move forward, so why was I holding on so tightly to the idea that I couldn’t forgive Foster?
I broke our gaze and focused on the reason we were meeting.
Math was logical. It made sense.
It didn’t make me feel like I was on a stormy sea on a flimsy raft.
It didn’t have me questioning if someday I was going to be forced to pick between two guys who couldn’t be more different, but both stirred up a confusing mix of emotions inside me.