Chapter 14
REID RATHE
“Here, man,” Dustin says, passing me a bottle of beer.
“Thanks.”
I check my watch and look out the window to the darkening sky.
I haven’t left Dustin’s yet. I have Spanish homework to do, but I just don’t feel like doing it.
It’s not due for a few days anyway, so I should be good.
My notes are terrible though. They’re intermixed with a conversation that Avery and I had.
Weeding through them is going to be difficult without rereading our conversation until it’s memorized more so than the notes themselves.
God, I’m pathetic.
Chasing after a girl who says she doesn’t want me. The only thing keeping me going is knowing that, for a fact, she does. I’ll break through her ice. I’ll find the right thing to say or do at the right time. Somehow.
Footsteps stomp down the hallway, and I turn my attention there. Jacob and Dustin are in the living room with me, so that only leaves…
Dustin’s roommate emerges from his room at the back of the apartment and stops in the living room to stare with his hands on his hips.
Jacob looks up from his phone and grins. “Gary!”
“Drinking again,” Gary grumbles as he takes us in and the bottle of beer in each of our hands.
Gary is exactly as I’d picture him if someone just told me his name.
A true nerd. Glasses too big for his chubby-cheeked baby face, pimples dotting his stub nose, red hair that hasn’t seen a pair of scissors in who knows how long, and a pathetic mustache.
He spends hours playing video games in his room, hardly ever emerging.
He refuses to go to the parties and get to know some of our friends.
If the person isn’t gaming, Gary has no interest in them.
And he doesn’t drink. In fact, I’m positive he’s called campus security on our parties a few times just to get the drunk folks gone so he could hear whatever came through that giant neon-blue headset of his.
The only reason I know about the headset is because we snuck into his room one day while he was in class just to see if he had porn magazines. It would have made him more likable if he had, but we came up empty-handed.
“Those plaid pants suit you well,” I tease. “Really makes your chicken legs look like they have some muscle.”
“Screw you, rich kid,” Gary hisses.
I hold a hand over my heart. “Rude.” It stung, but I’m not going to show him any weakness.
“You started it,” he growls. “Always here with your sports car. Girls always want you because of your stupid messy hairstyle. Do you think you’re perfect, Reid?” He hisses the last sentence, and it grates at my nerves.
“Of course I’m perfect,” I say with a smile. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t feel the need to point it out.”
He sneers at me and looks at Dustin. “I don’t know how you hang out with these two douchebags.”
“Simple,” Jacob says after taking a swig. “He’s a douche too.”
The three of us laugh, and Gary’s face grows red as his hair with anger.
“Oh, what’s wrong, Gary?” Jacob jokes. “Can’t handle being out-douched?”
Gary throws up his hands. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Dustin comes down from laughing. “Do what?”
“Live here!” He slams his meaty hands back onto his hips. “I’m moving out. I came out here to tell you that, and as of right now, I know for certain it was the best move I’ve ever made in my life.”
“So I’m assuming you haven’t had sex before, then?” Jacob asks.
“Screw you,” Gary says through clenched teeth before he starts stomping back down the hallway.
“Gary, wait!” Dustin says, but Gary doesn’t listen. His door slams a few seconds later. “Fuck,” he adds in a whisper.
“Is it such a bad thing?” Jacob asks. “Then we can have any party we want to at any time.”
“Yes, it’s a bad thing.” Dustin rakes a hand through his hair. “I count on his half of the rent.”
I twist my lips to the side. “So get another roommate.”
He drops his hand to his lap. “I’ll have to.” He glances at me speculatively. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Move in with me.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I already have an apartment.”
He shrugs. “Give it up. Move in with me.”
I take a good, long swig. My parents would hate it. “I don’t know…”
“Come on,” he begs. “That one girl you’re after lives in the building, right? You could be closer to her.”
“True,” I murmur. I’d be right across the hall from her. It’d be harder to keep my secret from Dustin, but it would be easier to see her whenever I want to. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
“That’s all I ask.” He downs his beer and sets it on the coffee table. “So you’re really not going to tell me about her? I could totally be your wingman since she lives in the building.”
“No,” I say firmly.
“He’s just not ready yet,” Jacob interjects, going back to his phone. At least he’s not smirking knowingly.
“Wait, you know who she is?” Dustin asks.
Jacob only glances up for a second. “I may have an idea.”
“Then tell me.”
He tucks his chin and pinches his lips together. “That’s not my story to tell.”
“Since when do you not tell stories?” Dustin grumbles.
He only shrugs and goes back to his phone. “I can keep shit to myself.”
“Sure, sure,” Dustin gripes. He looks back at me. “You’re really not going to tell me?”
I shake my head.
His sigh comes from deep within his chest. “We keep nothing from each other, man.”
Guilt wafts through my entire body, making the beer in my stomach curdle. I rub at the back of my neck and slump against the couch. “Just give me time to sort this all out, and then I’ll tell you.” It’s not a lie. Not a single lie in that promise and it eases some of the guilt.
He sighs and rolls his neck. “Fine. But I want the details when you do. And don’t go blabbing to Jacob first.”
“Hey!” Jacob shouts, pretending to have hurt feelings.
Dustin places a hand over his heart. “I’m the best friend. The best man at his future wedding. You’re the pet we keep around who eats everything in the apartment and humps anything he can find.”
Jacob purses his lips. “Oddly accurate.”
I chuckle under my breath. “At least you don’t chew up shoes, and we don’t have to watch you take a shit outside.”
Jacob points the neck of his bottle at me. “That can be arranged.”
I gag. “That’s one image I didn’t need to have in my head.”
Dustin’s phone chirps, and he digs it out of his pocket. He quickly reads it and then looks up at us. “Ivy and my sister want a movie night.”
“Okay?” Jacob says, going back to his phone.
“They want us to drive them,” Dustin amends.
“Pussy-whipped,” Jacob mutters, never looking up from his phone.
“Says the man who hasn’t stopped texting a girl since we got here,” I interject, raising my eyebrows at him.
“How do you know it’s a girl?” he asks.
I give him the look.
“Okay, fine. Whatever.” He pockets his phone and stands. “You two go ahead. I’m not going.”
Dustin takes our empty bottles of beer and heads to the kitchen with them. From there, he asks, “What the hell are you going to do instead?”
Jacob wiggles his eyebrows at me.
“He’s going to go get laid,” I answer for him.
He leaves while whistling, closing the door softly behind him and leaving me with my own thoughts while Dustin cleans up.
“Are you sure you want me to come?” I shout to him.
He pops his head out of the kitchen, a frown pulling down his brows. “Why wouldn’t I?”
I shrug. “I feel like I’ve been crashing your dates lately.”
He shrugs and heads back into the kitchen. “My sister is coming too.”
Butterflies flutter in my stomach, and I’m reminded of the restaurant where I pinned her against the wall and took her mouth. What I’d give to taste her one more time, but I don’t know how I’m going to do that at a movie theater. I got lucky at Sicily.
“You should really get to know her,” he adds.
Oh, I’m sure trying all right. But she’s stubborn as hell. I can’t tell him that though, so I ask, “Why?”
He heads out of the kitchen, drying his hands. “I want my best friend and my sister to be friends. Ivy will no doubt have her as her maid of honor at the wedding, and I want you as my best man. It would be nice if you both were on a good level of friendship.”
I look down at my hands and nervously crack my knuckles. “There is no wedding, dude. You have to ask the question first.”
I look up in time to see a smile spread across his face. “Oh, I plan to. I’m going to marry that woman.”
“No second guesses?” He and Ivy have always been solid since I’ve known them. Even when they were at different points in their lives, they still stuck together. I want that…with his sister. The sister he wants me to be “friends” with.
He shakes his head. “She’s who I want.”
“You’re a lucky man, then.”
“How so?”
I rest my arm on the back of the couch. “Not everyone knows what they want. Not everyone finds who they want to spend the rest of their life with.”
He must take that to mean something other than it’s not because he crosses his arms. “You’ll find your woman, too, Reid. And who knows, maybe it’s this mysterious woman.”
Trying hard to hide my smile because I’d want nothing more, I nod and stand from the couch. “Let’s hope so.”
“But you’ll have to tell me who she is before the wedding.”
I roll my eyes. “You’ll know when she walks down the aisle.”
He playfully shoves my shoulder as I slide past him and to the door. He follows me. “How much do you want to bet that it’s a chick flick?”
“I won’t be taking that bet,” I say as I open the door and we step out into the hallway. He sounds disappointed, but honestly, if I’m sitting next to Avery, I don’t care if we watch Barney.