CHAPTER NINETEEN
WALKER
Flynn has been staring at me since I arrived at our favorite campus library and settled in at the table in the back corner with the perfect view out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s quieter than the main campus library located between the science buildings. Because even in public, Flynn demands the noise be drowned out around her.
Her heavy gaze, however, couldn’t be louder.
“Care to share why you’re staring?” I ask, looking up from my laptop.
“Is this the way it’s going to be now?” Flynn asks, folding her arms over the table.
For a moment, I think she’s mad at me for being late. She has every right to be, especially since I overstayed my welcome with Sonya and purposefully took longer. I knew I needed to go home to get my stuff and change my clothes, but I was high on Sonya’s citrus scent.
“Are you just going to be smiling all the time?”
I bite down on my bottom lip to force the smile down, not even realizing it’s been plastered to my lips since I got here. Fuck, since I left Sonya’s, it’s like she shot life directly into my veins, brightening the dimming corners and bringing in new color.
“I’m not smiling.”
“Sure, and I’m not gay,” she says, a teasing look playing in the corner of her eyes. “You want to try that one again? Maybe the truth this time.”
Shaking my head, I reach for my glasses and pull them off to set them face down on the table before rubbing between my brows. “Maybe I might be smiling a little.”
She holds up her index and thumb, showing me the very thin space between them. “Yeah, maybe a little. It’s a good look on you.”
“Funny,” I say. “I am sorry I was late meeting you. We got a little distracted.”
The skin near her eyes crinkles as her smile widens. “I’m sure you were. I had some fun of my own last night.”
“Oh, yeah?”
She nods her head eagerly, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. The happiness is practically buzzing off her skin, and I’m not sure how I missed it.
“Yeah, Devon and me have a date on Tuesday. I’m kind of…really excited. I never thought I’d get to this point with her. I thought she was just going to be one of those people I think about but never work the nerve up to actually talk to,” she admits, a grin permanently pressed to her lips.
“I’m glad, Flynn.” Reaching across the table, I take her hand and give it a gentle squeeze. “It’s really good to see you happy.”
“I am. The happiest I’ve been in a while,” she confirms, gripping my hand back. “And you? You’re happy, right? With Sonya and everything?”
I nod my head. “I am.”
“Good, so that means I can bring your mom up again.”
I scrunch my nose up, untangling my hand from hers to slide my glasses back on and run my fingers into my hair. “Can we not?”
“Have you talked to her yet?”
Swallowing, I curl my fingers around the base of my neck and give it a firm squeeze. I can feel the unsettled feeling tightening my chest strings again, pulling them until they’re wrapped around the cage, protecting my heart. “No.”
“Then, we cannot.”
“Flynn, I’m going to talk to her. I will talk to her.”
“Good,” she says, grabbing my phone from the surface of the table and flipping it over so the screen is face up. She nudges it in my direction and then pulls her hand back, curling them together under her chin. “Call her now.”
“We’re in the library.”
She looks around at the empty tables around us. The only other students using the library are up on the second floor. There is no reason for me not to call, to just be honest and tell her what she needs to hear, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I feel suffocated by my own lies.
Thankfully, my screen lighting up with Sonya’s name saves me from having to brush it off for the millionth time. Flynn’s eyes drop to the screen and the picture of Sonya with her face scrunched up, a massive grin on her face in our booth at Adam’s. I still remember the day I took it. She had been excited about going home to visit her parents for the weekend for the first time since starting school her freshman year.
“I’m going to take this,” I say, sliding back in my seat as I swipe my phone off the table. Flynn doesn’t argue with me when I head for the stacks, dragging my thumb across the screen to answer and bring it up to my ear. “Miss me already, Sunny?”
“So much,” she teases, and I can almost hear the smile on her face as she says it.
I didn’t think it was possible to miss a person this quickly, but that’s exactly what this tug in my chest is. I miss her. I miss her warm glow. I miss the way I catch her staring at me, studying me. I’d call her out on it if I didn’t spend just as much time watching her. If I could make it my job, I would. I could easily spend my life looking at her.
“I’m sorry for calling. I know you’re studying with Flynn, but I got my hands on an extra ticket for Dylan’s game tonight, and I thought you might want to come.”
“You’re inviting me to a hockey game?”
“Yeah, if you want to come,” she offers. “Fitz always has extra tickets in case his family wants to make a last-minute trip down, and he gave them to me. I technically have three if you want to invite Flynn to come along. You don’t need to come,” she says, suddenly back peddling in her invitation. “If you don’t want to. I just thought maybe it’d be fun.”
I smile at the nervous edge in her voice. Nothing about Sonya has ever been nervous, not with me, and I’m wondering if this is a new addition to our friendship now that we’ve slept together. I shouldn’t like it as much as I do, not that I want her to be nervous with me but it’s a confirmation I need. She wants me to say yes. And fuck, all I want is to make her happy.
“I’m there.”
“Yeah?” she asks, not waiting for me to change my mind. “Okay, great! I’m glad. Did you want to come to the house and drive over with us or meet us there? We usually go to On The Bench after to celebrate.”
“Even when they lose?”
“Even then. They celebrate both. It’s a weird bonding thing, I think. They win together, they lose together,” she shares. “I don’t really understand it, but I’ve given up trying to understand hockey players and their rituals.”
“I’m going to be honest. I don’t know a damn thing about hockey. I’m probably going to need you to explain it to me.”
“We don’t go for the game, Cowboy. We go for the hockey butts. And don’t worry. I’ll explain as much as I can, but you’ll pick it up quickly.”
“How about you look at hockey butts, and I’ll just admire yours.”
“Are you an ass man, Walker? I had no idea,” she says as if she hasn’t felt my stare on her ass in the last year and a half. I am only human. “I can’t really blame you. My ass is fantastic,” she hums out, confident as ever.
“I’m pretty sure I’m just a Sunny man,” I admit before I can think over what that means. There’s a string of silence between us, and I’m about to correct myself when she graces me with that small giggle again.
“Smart man.”
Smiling, I lean into the edge of the bookcase. “I have my days,” I tell her, tucking my free hand into my jean pocket.
Maybe this was a bad idea, all of it. We opened a door that I don’t know can ever properly be shut again.
I feel myself wanting more of her, craving everything she’ll give me, but the panic is quickly replaced by the memory of her moaning last night. The way she had arched into me, pulling me into her. She wants this just as bad and doesn’t need to tell me because I felt it.
“I’ll meet you guys there. What time?”
“Seven.”
“Okay, I’ll see you at seven.”
“Bye, Cowboy,” she says, and after returning the gesture, the line goes dead, and I’m left to stare at the wall of history books in front of me. I don’t know if there is an easy way to get myself through this without any damage. She already has a tight hold on my heart. I handed it over without question because I knew she’d protect it from any outside harm.
Problem is, I’m not sure it’s the outside I need to be worried about.
She’s going to break your heart.
“Damn, you must have left an impression if she’s already calling you,” Flynn says with a teasing grin, her eyes glistening with warmth.
“Oh, fuck off,” I say, sinking back into my abandoned chair. “She was inviting me to Dylan’s hockey game tonight.”
“You? At a hockey game?”
“Yes, me at a hockey game.” I roll my eyes in her direction while pulling my laptop towards me, waking it back up to the notes I’ve been putting together for the law school admission test I’ll be taking in the coming months as I prepare for my final year in undergrad. “It’ll be fine. I can handle a hockey game.”
“Sure you can, Sport.”
Maybe I overestimated just how ready for a hockey game I am. The parking lot outside the MacDonald arena—better known as The Barnyard—is packed. I knew our team was good and had a fair amount of off-campus attention, I just didn’t realize how much.
Shouldering my way through the crowd, I spot Sonya standing on a set of stairs leading up to the arena with Bekah at her side. She lifts her hand when she spots me, taking a few steps down to meet me at the bottom step, putting her right at my eyeline.
“Hi, Cowboy.”
“Hi, Sunny,” I say with a smile, lifting my gaze from her for a second to acknowledge Bekah, who’s bundled up in a puffy black coat. A dark blue beanie is pulled over her dark curls with the Mustangs white, gray, and neon blue logo stitched into the front. The horse’s mane and eyes, a blazing blue flame.
“You ready for this, Walker?” Bekah asks. “It gets pretty intense in there.”
“Don’t let her scare you,” Sonya says, redirecting my attention back to her. She smiles up at me, the sweet, sugary one that I selfishly want to keep all for myself. “I brought you a present,” she says, pulling a baseball cap with a matching emblem to the one on Bekah’s beanie out of the back pocket of her jeans. “Need to make sure you’re repping the right team.”
“As if you would ever let me rep someone else,” I hum when she steps forward and pulls it over my hair. “Thank you, Sunny.”
“Okay, lovebirds, let’s get inside,” Bekah says, turning to head up to the entrance while Sonya’s attention remains on me. She looks like she wants to keep touching me but thinks better of it and tucks her hands into the front of her winter coat.
“You’re going to love this, I promise. And if not, I’ll make it up to you later.”
“Oh, yeah? How exactly do you plan to do that?”
She grins at me before stepping forward until her lips hover just before mine. She’s barely even touching me, but I feel her everywhere. “I don’t know, Cowboy. I think we could find something that you might like,” she says, eyes never leaving mine, and just when I’m about to lean forward, she steps back. Her hand slides down into mine, her eyes glittering with amusement as she yanks me towards my first hockey game.