35. Posey
Posey
The first latte arrives the next morning, but it isn’t Brent delivering it. Instead, Jaxon is on my security screen.
“You can tell him it’s a lost cause,” I say into the speaker system.
“A Jack Frost.” Jaxon holds up the latte.
I purse my lips, and I ring the buzzer to let him up. He passes me the cup at the door, and I give him a wan smile. “He’s going to have to do a lot better than a latte.”
“Oh, he’s aware.” Jaxon grins.
Once he’s left, I realize there’s something taped to the side of the cup. I open the slip of paper, and there’s just one word: YOU.
Destiny wanders out of her room, and she frowns at the cup in my hand. “I thought we kicked Faulkner to the curb.”
“Seems he can take a beating,” I say as I stare at the word and try to puzzle out what it means.
Nadiya’s door down the hall flies open with a clatter. “Holy shit! Posey are you and Faulkner back together?”
“Technically we were never—” I say.
“He’s responding to all the people on Val’s posts,” Nadiya says, passing me her phone.
I click on his replies, and my lips twitch.
Brevity at its finest. On most of the comments, he’s simply written “Untrue” in response to whatever rant is there.
But at the bottom of Val’s post, he’s written a longer message saying that Val has deliberately misled people about their relationship prior to Thanksgiving and she’s continuing to misrepresent the situation.
I’m no sooner done reading it than it disappears.
“The bitch deleted it,” I whisper.
“What?” Nadiya takes back her phone, and then she gasps as her feed updates.
I’m almost too afraid to ask, but she turns her phone toward me, and there is a photo of me and Brent. We’re in Bermuda at the beach, and we’ve both got a slice of pizza in our hands. I forgot he snapped that picture. Feels like so long ago.
“That lighting is ace,” Destiny says, peering over Nadiya’s shoulder. “The two of you are glowing.” She points at the caption. “Aww. Look at that.”
The caption is simple: One of my favorites of one of my favorites.
Warmth sweeps across my body, and I long to stare at the photo and reread the caption a thousand times.
“You cannot melt after one latte, one post, and a bunch of half-assed comment replies,” Destiny says. “You gotta milk this till the teats run dry.”
“Melting?” I scoff. “No one is melting.” Perhaps a slight thawing, but there will be no melting. I snatch my phone off the counter, and I send Brent a text.
Try harder.
Almost immediately, I get a response. Challenge accepted. The best you’ve ever had, Jensen. Except now it’s not just in bed.
The trolls will come for you.
Let them try. Val isn’t the only one who can craft a love story. ??
I trace my finger over the word love before closing my phone with a decisive click. Destiny is right. One post, a few responses to trolls, and one latte doesn’t solve the bigger issue. When I asked him to defend me, he stood by in silence.
For the next week, lattes are delivered to me all over campus, but never by Brent.
His roommate, members of the men’s and women’s basketball teams, swimmers on the team, Sebastian Swan and his girlfriend Natalie, and other people who I’ve never seen before.
It’s an endless parade of caffeinated drinks.
At least three a day, and sometimes more.
Each latte has a slip of paper attached. Sometimes the slip has a complete message on it, and sometimes it’s one to add to the wall of words in my bedroom. You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. Your punny sense of humor is the best. This is real for me.
The last one gets me every time I read it—a mantra I was stupid enough to stick to my wall to see every day.
On top of that, he’s posted a photo of the two of us to all his accounts each day. The captions are simple, but they are little fires under my frosty heart, warming it an inch at a time.
Destiny stares at the latest post over my shoulder. “I didn’t realize these teats had so much milk in them.”
“Doesn’t change that he didn’t do it when I asked.” I click my phone closed.
“That’s true. I’m so glad you’ve never made a mistake in your life, and you always do what people ask of you right away. Otherwise, that comment would be embarrassing.” Destiny swipes one of my lattes off the island and takes a long sip. “This tea is good.”
I can’t help the chuckle that escapes. “Have you switched sides? You’re supposed to tell your friend when you’ve crossed over to make yourself some tea in the enemy’s trenches.”
She gives me a helpless look and shrugs. “I cannot deny the boy is working his ass off to get you back.”
“He’s doing all of it from a distance, though.
” At the start of the week, that wouldn’t have been a complaint.
But there’s something about being surrounded by Brent-like things that’s making me crave him more than if he’d left me completely alone.
“Ethan delivered my latte today after swim practice, and he smelled like Brent.”
“Like a pool.”
“Yes! Like chlorine. Chlorine is not sexy. Why is chlorine sexy? Why?”
“I’m going to say this real slow for your brain cells in the back.” She holds her hand up to emphasize each word as she says it. “It’s because you like the guy who is attached to that chlorine smell.”
I do like the guy attached to the chlorine smell, and there’s a chance, however much I don’t want it to be true, that I miss him. A lot.
“You think what he’s done is enough?” I ask.
“That’s not a question I can answer. You’re the one he didn’t support, the one he hurt. Does it feel like enough to you?”
My home screen flashes with a new notification.
Since Brent started posting photos of us everywhere with cute captions, I turned my push notifications back on.
At first, I was sure it was a stupid move.
Instead, what I’ve found is Brent on social media like it’s his job.
As soon as anyone posts a negative comment about me anywhere, he’s there defending me or explaining or apologizing for any confusion his initial silence caused.
His account must be out of control with notifications, but he’s made sure that everything I can possibly see, he’s commented on it.
I don’t even know how he’s doing it because he trains a lot and he hadn’t missed a single comment.
“Brent can’t keep defending me on social media for the next few months while we’re still at Northern,” I say. “It’s not sustainable.”
“That sounds like you are contemplating a real relationship.” Destiny smirks.
A real relationship still scares the shit out of me, but if I’m honest, Brent and I were pretty much in one before that viral video blew us up. We spent a lot of time together doing things couples would do, and I didn’t mind one bit. Would even go so far as to say I enjoyed it.
“He tried to talk to Val, right?” Destiny asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “He said it didn’t go well, but he didn’t elaborate. She obviously used his appearance to spin another narrative instead.” I fiddle with my phone, an idea on the edges of my consciousness that I’m not sure I want to follow. “Should I go talk to her?”
Destiny sucks in a sharp breath and gives me a ‘yikes’ look. “Not alone.”
“Should I ask Brent to go with me?”
“Do you think he would?”
I consider everything he’s done since I returned to campus and everything he’s still doing now on social media, even when he doesn’t know I see it. “He would.” Whatever corner he needed to turn to see things from my point of view, he’s done it.
“Sounds like a threesome in Val’s eyes.” Destiny winces. “You’d have to meet somewhere very public.”
A gross but valid point.
“What are you hoping to get out of talking to her?” Destiny asks. “She clearly doesn’t want to play nice. You can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“I don’t want the rest of my final year to be constantly on guard and trying to one-up each other.
Maybe if I talked to her...” The truth is I’m not sure what I want out of the conversation, but I don’t want this battle to go on.
Maybe talking to her won’t breed anything positive, but I have to try.
“Call your boyfriend.” Destiny winks. “See what he says.”
I bite my lip, and I stare at the notification on my home screen. When I click into it, Brent has posted another cute photo of us. I had no idea he’d taken so many, although I discovered in Bellerive that I had more of him on my phone than I realized too.
Before I can second-guess myself, I send a text to him.
I think we should try to talk to Val one more time.
We?
You and me somewhere public.
There’s a long pause before bubbles appear on my screen. Can I come over so we can talk in person?
Destiny is home, and Nadiya will be home in a few minutes. We haven’t been alone together in weeks, and I’m not sure I want our first conversation to be with an audience. Is Jaxon home?
No. You want to come here?
A kaleidoscope of butterflies takes flight in my stomach at the thought of seeing him. Be there in 30.
I click my phone closed, and I yell, “Going to Brent’s.”
“Atta girl. Go get your man.”