Cassie
“And obviously, Harvard — ohhh, yes right there — would be amazing. Especially if I wanted to go into — oh, God — research. But really, I feel like my heart is calling me to Johns Hopkins. Ughhh, this is amazing.”
I finally give up, letting my hands drop to my sides from where they were hovering over the keys of my laptop. I close my eyes and sink into the pillows, letting out another moan when Adam presses his thumbs deep into the arch of my left foot.
He chuckles. “That good, huh?”
“You have no idea. I mean, I know I need to get used to this, being on my feet all the time. But after just one week at the hospital…” I groan again as Adam rolls my ankle and massages my heel. “Well, let’s just say I’ve got a whole new appreciation for nurses.”
Adam smiles, rubbing my foot with admiration in his eyes.
I don’t know why it even interests him, sitting on my bed in the Kappa Kappa Beta house while I filter through all the medical school pamphlets I collected over break and compare them with my online research.
You would think I was doing a boudoir shoot rather than talking about where I wanted to go for med school.
“No matter where you go, you’re going to be amazing,” Adam says, switching to my right foot. “But let’s just say someone walked in right now and said your life depended on you naming your top three schools. Don’t think too hard, just say what your gut tells you.”
I grimace. “I don’t want to—”
“Cassie, just say it, dammit, or I’ll suck on your big toe.”
“Ew!”
Adam opens his mouth big as a trout and pretends like he’s going to shove my whole foot in his mouth, to which I respond with jerking back so hard I nearly pull him into my lap. He laughs, grabbing my foot and rubbing again with a go on look on his face.
I sigh. “Harvard. Johns Hopkins. Duke.”
“And if that same person said you can only choose one, your top choice, and it’s yours. You’d say…”
I chew my lip for a long while until Adam starts tickling my foot while I writhe and try to break free.
“Johns Hopkins!” I scream, partially begging for mercy. “Johns Hopkins, okay?”
Adam smirks in victory, going back to the massage. “Well, there you have it. You can toss the rest of these pamphlets.”
I laugh. “I wish,” I say, picking up one for a smaller, lesser-known school in Florida. “But the truth is, the chances of me getting into those places are… well…”
“You’ll get in.”
“I need to apply to at least ten schools, just to be safe.”
“Fine, do what you want,” Adam says, and then he starts reeling me in like a fish, using my leg as the pole.
“But you’re going to get in. You and I both know they’d be crazy not to let you in.
With your GPA and the research projects you’ve already done, plus the fact that you’re graduating a whole year early?
” He shakes his head. “You’re going to be the best damn doctor anyone has ever known. ”
I welcome the kiss he presses to my lips with the sentiment, and then my cheeks heat as I finally admit out loud what I’ve been considering for months now. “Or… surgeon.”
Adam’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “Surgeon, huh?”
I nod. “Am I crazy to think I can do that?”
“Are you kidding?” Adam pulls me into his lap then, covering me in kisses. “I’d let you perform surgery on me right now, no training or anything. That’s how great I think you’ll be.”
“You’re crazy,” I say with a laugh, squirming under his kisses.
“Crazy in love with you.”
As corny as the line is, it makes me swoon all the same, and Adam pulls me back into the mountain of pillows on my bed as we stare at each other all googly-eyed.
For once, it feels like Adam and I are on stable ground.
After the hellish semester we endured in the fall — well, really, the hellish semesters, plural, that we’ve endured ever since we’ve known each other — it feels amazing to finally just be together.
We spent the holiday break with each other’s families, going to stay with his aunt first, and then with my parents and sister.
I knew I loved Adam before, but there was a whole new level of love uncovered when I walked into the house he grew up in, when I met his aunt who took over after his grandfather passed away, when I saw pictures of Adam growing up, when I made cookies with his aunt and got to know the woman who raised the boy I was so in love with.
And if that wasn’t heartwarming enough, watching him play video games with my sister and listening to him talk golf with my dad and watching him load the dishwasher for Mom while she nearly cried at the sight?
Well, that was the icing on the cake.
And now, we’re back at PSU, Adam in his last semester before graduation and me going into my last full year, now that I’ve decided to graduate early.
It feels like a new era.
It feels like everything I could ever want.
“Are you sure you don’t need to be at the A Sig house?” I ask, but I’m already wrapping myself up more in him, knowing full well I don’t want him to leave. “Fraternity Rush is still under way, and I know you have a lot to do.”
“Oh, I have plenty to do,” he agrees, but wraps himself up in me just as tight. “Fortunately, I did a lot of it when we first got back, and I’ve become rather good at delegating. Jeremy is handling everything tonight, and the other brothers are stepping up, too.”
“Are you sure?” I ask again.
“Yes, I’m sure, my little parrot,” he says, kissing my nose.
“Hey, I’ve got to step back a little this semester and let the other guys get their chance to shine.
I’ve already been the first to ever be president two years in a row.
” He shrugs. “I’m graduating in just five months.
These guys gotta figure out what comes next, and I have to step out of the way in order for that to happen. ”
I arch a brow. “You’re surprisingly… calm about all this. You’re not going to miss it?”
“Of course, I will. I mean, I feel like I’m largely responsible for turning our entire chapter around, for giving us a new reputation, for getting A Sig back in the game.
” Adam pauses, his eyes focused somewhere in the distance.
“But I think I’m ready for the next chapter in my life, and I have faith in my brothers.
They’re going to be just fine without me. ”
“And what’s next for you?”
Adam watches me for a long time, his eyes flicking back and forth between my own, like there are a million things running through his head and he can’t tell me a single one of them.
“I’m not sure,” he finally says. “I mean, I majored in Business. Pretty versatile. But… you know… I’ve been thinking… and I really loved turning our chapter around here, and I know there are a lot of other Alpha Sigma chapters struggling across the nation.”
“Oh my God,” I say, jolting upright so I can face him. “Are you thinking about being a Field Executive?!”
Adam laughs. “You stole my thunder.”
“Babe!” I smack his chest, my smile so big I think it might split my face. “You would be amazing at that.”
Field Executives are college graduates who go on to work for their fraternity at the national level.
They’re usually assigned to a chapter for a semester or a year, and their tasks range from everything from recruitment and expansion to best practices for the chapter and spreading historical fraternity knowledge.
Adam wouldn’t just be amazing at the job — he was practically made for it.
“Don’t get so excited,” he says, holding up his hands. “They don’t hire many guys, and I’m sure I’ll be one in a sea of hundreds applying.”
“Doesn’t matter. One look at what you did here at Palm South, and they’ll hire you on the spot. With a signing bonus.”
Adam laughs as I cuddle up against him again. “A signing bonus, huh? Like a baseball player?”
“Yep. Millions of dollars, just like that.” I snap to illustrate.
He laughs again. “You know, my aunt is obsessed with you.”
“Is she now?”
“Yep. Which makes two of us.” He pins me into the sheets then, kissing all over my neck while I laugh and wriggle beneath him. Just that simple movement fires me up, and Adam pauses where he hovers over me with a wicked smile.
“This semester feels different, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” he agrees, sweeping my hair from my face.
“You and me, we’ve been through so much…”
Adam nods, resting on his elbows so that we’re chest to chest, stomach to stomach, lined up in every possible way.
“I kind of feel like nothing can stop us now.”
At that, Adam smirks, pressing a long kiss against my mouth before he whispers, “It’s only up from here, baby.”
And then, he peels my shirt up and kisses his way down to show me just how unstoppable we are.