Chapter 4
Round and Round
Istood there like an idiot for way too long.
Grey had followed me. He’d been mid-kiss, seen me, and followed me.
I couldn’t believe it. Why would he do that?
“You seemed pretty busy.” I tried not to sound bitter.
I had no right to feel anything about a kiss between him and a stranger, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t hurt.
“Oh, that was Carina,” Grey said as if it answered any questions I might have. “She’s my girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend,” I repeated. That one word felt like a bullet aimed at my heart. A physical pain shot across my chest, and my pulse spiked for the second time that night. Not again.
“It’s not that serious,” Grey said.
I could see that he instantly regretted his words. It didn’t matter, though. It was too late. They were out there.
“You played great tonight,” I said, desperate to change the conversation to a topic that hurt less.
“Thank you.” He looked at me through his eyelashes. It struck me how long and pretty they were. Like everything with Grey—long and pretty. He could be a model. “The songs were from the heart.”
The echoes of the first song played in my head. I want you, so might as well. Who cares if it’s gonna hurt like hell? I pushed the lyrics away, making myself focus on what Grey was saying.
“You write your band’s music?” I asked.
Grey took a step toward me. I tried to back up, but my hips found the door of my car, stopping me in my tracks.
Why is he coming closer? Is he trying to make things harder on me?
The man had just told me he had a girlfriend, and for some reason that I couldn’t fully grasp, that mattered to me.
It suddenly made our interaction feel inappropriate, illicit, like if Piper had told me she had a boyfriend and still had gone on the date with me.
Wait a minute, did I just compare him to a girl I’m interested in?
I couldn’t seem to wrangle my confused thoughts with Grey so near.
One thing was for sure, he shouldn’t be getting any closer to me, yet, he closed the gap between us.
And every step he took fucked with my ability to focus on anything but his body.
“I write every word,” he said, taking another step closer.
I wanted to tell him to stop, to stay away, but I couldn’t seem to force the words out.
It was as if the rational part of me had been hijacked by the part of me that wanted to see what would happen if he continued to get closer.
So I didn’t say anything. I just leaned against the car and watched him, a hostage in my own body.
“Well, you’re very talented as a wordsmith,” I said. They weren’t the words I should say, but they would do to fill the silence.
“I’ve seen you around a lot,” he said. Another step closer.
My face flushed with embarrassment. “I wasn’t stalking you or anything.” My words came out in a rush. Nice, Ethan. Very nice.
“No, not like that.” Grey stood right in front of me, only a foot away. “I’ve been noticing you.”
He was close enough that I could smell his cologne. I had already come to associate the scent with him—minty citrus and vanilla. My breath hitched in my throat. “What does that mean?” I managed to ask.
A soft smile graced Grey’s lips. “Just that I’ve been noticing you. You seem to be everywhere.”
“It is a small campus.”
“Hmm,” he said contemplatively.
He studied me as he stood there. I could tell. I just wasn’t sure what he was looking for—or what he found. A breeze stirred the night air between us.
“Do… you want something from me?” I’m not sure where I found the gall to ask such a forward question.
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
His words sent a chill down my spine that settled near my tailbone. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in danger—not physical danger, but emotional. Though, I wasn’t sure why exactly.
“Why did you say hi to me at the party?” The question had been haunting me for over a week.
“You know, it’s the polite thing to do when you see someone you know,” Grey said coyly.
I frowned. “And now? Why did you come after me?”
He was so close. Tension filled the air in that tiny space separating me from him. I found myself wanting to close the gap between us and… I didn’t know what. Push him? Hug him? He looked like he gave great hugs.
“I’m not sure.” Grey rubbed the back of his head, causing his shirt to ride up in the front and reveal a strip of his stomach. “I felt like I needed to. You looked upset.”
“Why would I be upset, Grey?”
He was correct, but he didn’t need to know that.
“I was simply embarrassed for intruding on an intimate moment between you and your… girlfriend.” The word only caught in my throat for half a second.
Grey narrowed his eyes slightly. I could still feel the magnetism pulling us closer, but it seemed to have weakened slightly at the mention of his girlfriend.
“Speaking of which,” I said, taking advantage of my clearing head. “You should probably get back to Carina.”
Grey gave a short, dry laugh. “You’re right, Ethan. Have a good night. Sorry if I bothered you.”
He whipped around and walked away from me.
I watched him leave, feeling a dull ache in my chest that I couldn’t explain.
How had he created it? I wanted to call after him, to have him come back.
But to what end? I didn’t have a plan for what to do with him, and I certainly didn’t have the energy to come up with one.
So, I watched him leave, wishing somehow that the interaction had gone different.
But then, what did it matter? He had a girlfriend, and I was interested in Piper.
I was interested in Piper.
Confused and hurting, I got into my car and drove home.
“You’re sulking again,” Josh said at breakfast the next morning. His hair was still wet from the shower but meticulously combed in his usual side part.
“No I’m not.” I sounded sad, even to my ears.
“Totally sulking,” Kellan said through a mouthful of food.
We sat in the dining hall, Kellan and Josh working their way through mountains of pancakes. Meanwhile, I chased a grape around my plate with a fork.
“What happened? Did your date with Piper not go well?”
I blinked at Josh. With everything that had happened after the concert and my subsequent agonizing over it, I’d almost forgotten that I’d gone there with Piper. “No, it was fun.” Minus the panic attack and the dull ache in my chest that had yet to fade, it had been the perfect night.
“Then, what’s the problem?”
“I—” How much should I tell them? The whole point of last night was to try not obsessing over Grey. Instead, I’d been an idiot and taken Piper to a place that had guaranteed I would run into him. And look at what it’d done to me. Every ounce of my pain was my own damn fault.
“What did you do?”
Damn it, Kellan already knows.
I gave them a guilty smile. “I might’ve taken Piper to a Dreamscape show last night.”
Josh let out a disgusted sigh while Kellan gave me a disbelieving look. All right, maybe he hadn’t known.
“Why would you do that?”
“Well, she likes Dreamscape,” I said, only a little defensive. “She knew all the words to their songs and everything.”
“And you saw Grey,” Kellan finished.
I grabbed one of the grapes from my plate and popped it into my mouth so I didn’t have to answer. It didn’t buy me enough time, because Josh and Kellan just stared at me until I’d swallowed.
“Guys, it’s fine, seriously. We talked after the show, and he was really understanding, and—”
“You talked to him?” Kellan said a little too loudly.
A random girl gave him a disgusted look, and he lowered his voice.
“Ethan, why would you do that? You’ve already been so confused over him.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Look, he has a girlfriend, so no worries.” I winced at the hurt that entered my voice. I’d been doing so well too.
“And him having a girlfriend bothers you,” Josh said. It wasn’t a question.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Kind of.”
“What’s the problem?” Kellan asked. “Wasn’t your plan to ‘sleep with sexy girls’ this year? Or am I making that up now?”
“Sounds pretty made-up at this point.” Josh folded his arms over his chest.
“I’m sorry. Did I miss something?” Kellan asked. “Do you like guys?”
“It’s fine if you do,” Josh jumped in.
“Obviously,” Kellan said with a flippant wave of his hand. “I like guys. I’ve dated a guy before.”
“Wait, you have?” I asked.
“I’ve literally told you about this,” Kellan said. “You guys just don’t listen to me.”
“How drunk were we when we had this conversation?” Josh asked.
“That’s beside the point,” Kellan said. “Ethan, do you like guys?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure,” I confessed. “I didn’t think so, but then, I can’t seem to shake Grey.”
“Dude, it’s fine,” Kellan said. “You probably just have a man crush on a straight guy. It happens all the time.”
“Does it, though?” Josh asked, earning a glare from Kellan.
“All you have to do is find something else to focus on—literally anything else. Go out with Piper. Start working out. Focus on school. But for the love of God, don’t see Grey again.”
“It’s not good for your mental health,” Josh agreed. “And even if he has a girlfriend, he doesn’t seem too opposed to confusing you.”
“Well, yeah,” Kellan said. “Guys like him will take attention from anyone they can.”
I chewed my lip. Once again, my friends were right. They were essentially saying “Don’t play with fire,” and I kept doing it then complaining about the burns.
“I know,” I finally said. “Thank you, by the way.”
“No problem,” Kellan said, polishing off his plate. “But I’m serious about the Grey thing.”
I could tell he was, though all I could do was stare at the collection of crumbs on his face.
“On that note…” Josh got to his feet.
“We know, we know.” I smiled. “You have to get to class.”
While Kellan was right about me needing to stay away from Grey for my own sake, he was wrong in thinking I would ever get a gym membership.
Instead, I spent the next couple of weeks focusing on school.
It was refreshing, even if it had been the complete opposite of my plans going into the semester.
I managed to get ahead on a lot of my classwork and even had time for the occasional coffee date with Piper. Things were going pretty well.
August slipped into September then October. And before I realized it, midterms were upon me. Those, too, came and went with me holding the highest grades of my academic career. Apparently, trying to distract yourself from a guy was a great motivator. Who knew?
The week after midterms, my eight-week course started, and of course, it was at eight in the morning. My alarm woke me at six thirty. I stared at it long and hard before shutting it off and sitting up.
“This seemed like such a good idea on paper,” I mumbled into my hands.
The idea had been to have an easygoing first half of the semester and focus for the second half. But thanks to Grey, I hadn’t enjoyed myself for much of the first half of the semester. Sighing, I got up, got ready, and headed to class.
Campus was startlingly empty at this time of day. Most people avoided early classes like the plague.
“Smart people avoid them,” I muttered, kicking myself for my past decisions.
I was already thinking about dropping the class when I walked through the door and found my seat. No, I shouldn’t drop it. Having to be up early every morning would be a great way to continue distracting myself from the Grey situation. I couldn’t overthink if I was always exhausted.
I got settled and watched the other students file into the room.
I’d been one of the first since I’d developed my annoying habit of punctuality over the past six weeks, and I hadn’t considered that campus would be empty.
Everyone coming in looked as bleary-eyed as I felt, if not more so, which was a small comfort. At least I knew I wasn’t being weak.
Class was about to start when the teacher walked in, clutching the biggest cup of coffee I’d ever seen and introduced himself as Professor Young.
He called the class to attention and began doing roll call.
That was when the students began to chatter among themselves.
Professor Young looked up, clearly confused.
I imagined he wasn’t used to hearing anything from the students in such an early class.
I looked around, following my classmates’ gazes, then my eyes went wide when I saw what they were looking at.
Greyson Hyun had just entered the room and was walking down the steps of the lecture hall.
Of course he’d be here. I was just getting over him. The universe couldn’t let me have one single win.
His eyes found me, as they always did, and the faintest hint of a smirk tugged up the right corner of his mouth. Grey made his way toward me and sat in the chair next to mine.
“Er, right,” Professor Young said, still unsure as to what all the commotion had been about. “As I was saying…” He then picked up right where he left off.
Most of the class seemed to grow bored of the situation now that Grey had found a seat. I sat rigid, like a wooden plank was taped to my back. I could feel Grey looking at me, trying to catch my gaze, but I did my best to ignore it.
“Hello, Ethan,” he said in a low voice to ensure it didn’t carry to Professor Young.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth.
“I’m taking this class?” Grey said.
Smart-ass. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” I continued. I was so frustrated, I could feel tears prickling the corners of my eyes.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Grey said stiffly. He finally looked forward, paying attention to the teacher. “But I’ll be here with you every day for the next eight weeks.”