Chapter Eight
Sadie
I put the last load of clothes in the back of my trunk, declared myself finished packing, and wiped the back of my hand across my sweaty forehead. “That’s it. Freshman year is in the books!”
Melinda, Carrie, Blair, and I jumped around laughing and being silly in the parking lot behind our dorm.
Sophomore year we’d be living in the sorority house, and we were pumped to have better accommodations next year.
First, though, I planned to thoroughly enjoy the summer.
A feeling of sadness washed over me. Harrison had to stay on campus this summer due to football practice.
Things were strained between us, and it worried me to leave.
But I wasn’t going to let the people who’d offered me jobs down.
If he’d wanted me to stay with him, he should have asked me earlier in the year.
Though even if he had, I wasn’t willing to let him pay for things for me.
I was independent enough to want to earn things on my own.
It just didn’t seem that he understood my way of thinking.
I couldn’t understand why he was so mad about it, but he didn’t seem to be able to put it into words.
Maybe he was just going to miss me that much.
I knew it was going to make me crazy to be away from him for the next several weeks.
I consoled myself with the fact that Carrie and I would be coming back to school a couple of weeks early for cheerleading practice. At least that would shave off a little of the time we had to be apart.
“Let’s go pick up Drake and say goodbye to Harrison,” Melinda said. Drake didn’t have a car on campus, so he’d be riding back with Melinda and Blair. Carrie and I would be following behind in our cars, caravan style.
We drove across campus and pulled in front of Harrison and Drake’s fraternity house.
Drake had obviously been on the lookout for us. He came out of the beautiful three-story brick mansion almost as soon as we pulled in. He was holding his stuff, and I thought it seemed like a small amount.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I yelled across the lawn to him.
“No,” he shook his head, lowering his voice as he came closer to us. “It’ll take me a few trips.”
I made a face. “Why doesn’t Harrison help you?”
Drake pushed his glasses back up his nose. “He’s kind of busy.”
“Busy? He knows we’re here to say goodbye, right?”
“I’ll be sure to remind him.” He didn’t look me in the eyes as he was talking to me.
I frowned. Was Drake acting weird?
I’d texted Harrison we were on our way a few minutes ago. I pulled my phone out. He’d left me on read. Huh. I texted him again, and he left that one on read as well.
What the hell? Was he that mad at me about not staying here this summer?
“Should we go help Drake?” Melinda asked.
I was about to say yes when a bright pink Jeep zipped into the driveway of the fraternity house like it belonged there. Out popped Aubrey Seeks… and my boyfriend.
A feeling of dread came over me. I felt my friends watching me and sensed how uneasy they were. I pulled out my phone and texted him again.
I saw him look at his phone, read the message, and then put it back in his pocket.
“Who keeps texting you?” I heard Aubrey ask.
“Nobody important,” Harrison said, and I heard Carrie gasp.
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. Nobody important? That’s not what he’d said when he was inside me the night before. I felt the sharp sting of tears in my eyes but held them back. Why would he say that?
They were carrying take-out cups from a popular restaurant on campus. They’d gone out to lunch together even though he’d told me he didn’t have time to eat with us before we left town.
Reality smacked me in the face. All those late nights that Harrison went out with the team after practice.
The times he needed to meet up with friends from class to work on projects.
The times he’d canceled plans with me because he was tired.
Had any of that been true? How many times were lies?
How many times was he with Aubrey instead?
A sick feeling grew inside me. I was afraid it was every single time.
About that time, Drake came back out with another load. “Sorry,” he called to us. “It should only be a couple more.”
Aubrey and Harrison turned their heads to see who he was talking to. Harrison’s eyes locked with mine, and I saw the color drain from his face. He recovered quickly. He smiled and started walking over to us. Aubrey followed.
“I’ll go help you get the rest of your stuff,” Melinda told Drake.
Carrie and Blair looked nervous. The tension in the air was thick.
I was shaking inside but tried to appear outwardly calm. “We’re about to leave,” I said to Harrison.
He walked over and grabbed me in his strong arms, holding onto me tightly. “God, I’m going to miss you so much,” he whispered against the side of my head. I loved how the feel of his hard muscles contrasted with his soft T-shirt. He smelled great, too.
I looked over his shoulder and saw Aubrey looking at us like she was going to be sick. I blinked. She was jealous as hell. It was written all over her face.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked.
“Sure,” he put his arm around my shoulder and started walking around the huge front lawn of the frat house.
“See you tomorrow, Harrison,” Aubrey called out as she got in her Jeep and sped away from the frat house.
“Why’s she seeing you tomorrow?”
“Oh. Ah, we have a couple of classes together this summer.”
I paused. “What?”
Harrison looked at me guiltily. “Aubrey is staying in town this summer, so we thought we’d take some classes together.”
I stopped walking and pushed his arm off my shoulder. “When were you going to tell me that?”
He couldn’t seem to meet my eyes. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“I think you know you didn’t.”
He sighed. “Look, I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be weird about it. There’s nothing between us. We’re just friends. That’s all. Like I’ve said about a million times.”
The conversations we’d had about Aubrey since I’d seen them together at the library that evening in the spring hadn’t gone well. He’d accused me of being jealous and paranoid, and I’d told him he was na?ve and clueless.
“Just friends.”
“Right,” he breathed a sigh of relief as if he thought I was finally catching on.
“Then why did you leave all three of my texts on read?”
He glanced at me sharply. “What?”
“I was watching you when you got the third text. You told Aubrey it was nobody important when she asked who kept texting you.”
A look of panic crossed his face briefly, then his features morphed into anger. “You know why? Because she knows how possessive you’re being. If I told her it was you checking up on me again, she’d give me hell for it.”
“She’d give you hell for getting texts from your girlfriend?”
“Well, no, not exactly…”
“And where were y’all coming from?”
“What do you mean?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You ate lunch together.”
“Oh, right. It wasn’t just us. It was our whole study group from our marketing class.”
That made me feel a little better. “Why didn’t you just tell me that yesterday? Remember how you told me you didn’t have time to eat with us?
He blew out a sigh. “I had more time than I realized, and I was able to go with them. That’s all.”
“You sure were cutting it close to get back in time to tell us goodbye.”
“We said goodbye last night, Sunshine. I didn’t think we needed to do it all over again today.”
“You don’t remember asking me to come by today before we left town?”
“I guess I forgot. What is this? I feel like I’m being interrogated.
” He chuckled and ran a hand through his thick hair.
He was tanned and blond highlights were already starting to pop up from the time he was spending in the sun.
He was so damn handsome it hurt to look at him sometimes.
I didn’t like the thought of him being around Aubrey over the summer.
“I wish you weren’t going to be around her so much this summer.”
“You know, you had the chance to be here, too. I’ve offered more than once, Sunshine.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not going to be here, so it serves me right that you’re going to hang out with Aubrey?”
“No, of course not. Besides, don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you. I just don’t trust her.”
We stood there silent for long enough it became awkward.
That was different for us. Until recently, I couldn’t remember ever feeling awkward or strained around Harrison.
Now there was this feeling between us that wouldn’t go away.
I was about to open my mouth to say something, when he blurted something out that made my blood run cold.
“Do you ever think we got together too early?”
I couldn’t even respond.
He looked down at me. “Like, what if we are soul mates but we were supposed to live life a bit more before we got together? Be with other people, learn what’s out there, that kind of thing?”
I didn’t trust myself to say anything for a moment. I just looked away and choked back tears. I wouldn’t let him see me cry.
“What are you saying?” I whispered.
“I just wondered if you ever felt that way.”
“No. I don’t. But obviously you do.”
He shrugged and looked up at the sky where gray clouds were starting to move in. “Sometimes.”
“Is this your way of telling me you want to see other people?”
His eyes jumped back to mine. “No. No, of course not.”
“You want to sleep with Aubrey? Is that it?
I looked up into his soft brown eyes. “No, God. I was just being an idiot. Sometimes I just say whatever comes into my head without thinking.”
I’d never known him to do that. And to me it had sounded as if he’d given it a good bit of thought. I pulled back.
He was staring at me, a desperate look on his face. “Don’t be upset because I said something stupid, okay?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling small and vulnerable. “Tell me now if you want to take a break from each other this summer. I’m just warning you that if you start dating around, I’m free to do so as well.”
He gasped and got a strange look on his face, like maybe he hadn’t considered that I’d date other people, too. “I don’t want to take a break, do you?”
“No.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re the one who started all this.”
“I’m sorry. I think I’m just upset because I can’t stand the thought of us being apart, Sunshine.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, unconvinced he wasn’t entertaining the thought of hooking up with other women over the summer. Especially Aubrey Seeks.
“Sadie,” Carrie called, cutting into my thoughts. “You about ready?”
I glanced over and saw that Drake was all packed and it was time for us to head out for the summer.
“I have to go,” I said, turned on my heel, and hurried across the lawn.
“Wait. Sadie, wait.” He came after me and pulled me to him, turning me around and kissing the hell out of me.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said between kisses.
“I’m not looking to date other women this summer or ever, okay?
And I swear Aubrey’s just a friend. But if it will make you feel better for me not to take classes with her, then I won’t. ”
I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. “It would make me feel so much better. I know she wants you, Harrison. No matter what you think.”
He pulled me to him for one last hug. “Love you, Sunshine.”
“Love you, too.”