By the time I raised my hand the shadows in the hall had lengthened, stretching out and casting an ominous presence. It made me feel smaller, like that screwed up eighteen-year-old who had no business stealing everything I had from her.
I lifted my hand. Before it could land or I could change my mind once again, the door flew open.
Her head jerked back, dodging my raised hand.
I ripped my fist back and shoved it into my pockets. “Hi.” Did that sound as dumb as I thought it did?
She sucked in a sharp breath. And stared.
Yup, definitely. All the normal small talk conversation starters died in the back of my throat. Asking if she’d majored in accounting like she planned, how graduation had been—those trivial pieces of information were overshadowed by this cloud I’d had hanging over my head for years. There was no smooth when it came to Bay.
She was every bit as beautiful as I remembered. Her hair was damp and smelled like the raspberry body wash she’d used back in high school.
Damn, if she’d had time to shower and change, I’d been standing out here way too long.
The waves of her hair were weighted down by the water and also the length. It was well past her shoulders now. The glasses were gone. Her piercing, champagne-colored eyes narrowed as her brain processed me standing in front of her. She wasn’t happy to see me. And why should she be?
“I have nothing to say to you.” She stood in the doorway to her apartment, arms folded over her chest.
I licked my lips. “The key to my room.”
Her eyebrows furrowed and pinched together.
“Hank said you’d have it for me.” I clung to my excuse, fully prepared for her to tell me I’d be sleeping outside until someone else turned up to ask for the key.
She let out a deep breath and nodded. I’d never been happier about showing up early, since it meant an excuse to spend even a few minutes with her.
The door bumped into her back as she let it close.
We were toe to toe, staring into one another’s eyes. The air crackled with an energy unlike anything I’d felt the other times I’d been alone with her.
No one could love you for who you truly are because you’re an asshole who can’t help but destroy the people around you.
What could I say to her when I couldn’t even tell her she was wrong? There was so much I wanted to say to her, but words didn’t fix anything.
She shouldered past me, nudging me aside as I’d apparently lost the ability to function properly in her presence. A small black zippered bag hung from her wrist. There was a wet line along the back of her navy top where her hair brushed against it. Her jeans molded to her ass and the powerful legs that seemed poised to create craters in the floor with each step.
Our time apart hadn’t cooled an iota of the anger and animosity she felt for me. Not that I had thought it would, but maybe an irrational part of me had hoped. That all would be forgotten, or maybe that it had been a fever dream I’d thought up to make leaving her easier, and she’d punch me for never calling.
Maybe I had taken one too many hits to the head.
I rushed to catch up to her quick and heavy steps. We rounded the corner and she shoved her hand into her pocket, pulling out a keycard and swiping it in front of the card reader. A placard with the words “Residence Director” engraved on it hung outside the doorway.
“How was graduation? Hot, I’d imagine. It’s hot…” I clenched my hands at my sides rather than tugging at my collar.
She glared, her face a stone mask of ‘don’t fucking talk to me’.
The door silently unlatched and the lights flickered on. She marched to the clear container of colorful folders with sticky notes stuck to the top of each.
Her fingers moved deftly through the box before she plucked one out and strode over to me, her face blank.
Was she not ready to jump out of her skin like I was? Or maybe ready to claw off my face or deliver a swift kick to the nuts.
She held out the folder like a dead fish.
“Do you have a job lined up after graduation or are you going to stay on as a Residence Director?”
Her silence howled in my ears.
My throat tightened.
She dropped her eyes to the extended folder and then snapped them back to mine.
Sawdust would’ve tasted wetter than my mouth just then. I slid my hand onto the folder, letting my fingers brush against hers.
She jerked her hand back and the folder fell to the floor between us.
“Bay.” It sounded like a croak, a rusty gate of a word I hadn’t let myself say out loud in over a year. Somehow it seemed to be one of the few words I could utter in her presence.
“Let’s not.” Her words were sharp and final, but I couldn’t be this close to her and not talk to her.
“We need to.” Training camp was a grueling non-stop thirty days I’d prepared myself for. But it also meant she could dodge me as much as she wanted. Knowing she was closer than she’d been in years and not getting to say what I needed to say to her—that would kill me.
“We don’t need to do a thing. This story”—she gestured between the two of us—“ended back in Greenwood.”
She tried to push past me, but I couldn’t let her walk away, not yet. I didn’t have a single thing I could say to get her to stay. Not in the way I wanted. Not in a way she deserved.
Staring straight ahead, she pressed her shoulder against the metal doorframe.
I needed to back off. I needed to get out of the way. But this might be the last chance I ever got to be near her.
“I’m sorry.”
Her head snapped to the side. Our bodies were so close. We were sharing the same air, passing it between us like all those nights I’d drawn her, or watched movies with her, or just felt like the luckiest guy in the world because she was beside me.
“Too fucking bad. Take that apology and shove it so far up your ass you can taste the hair on your knuckles.” Her eyes blazed. Every muscle was tight, radiating the anger she’d let loose with every syllable.
“Well that was graphic as hell.” The corners of my mouth twitched, nerves getting the better of me. She had a harder edge to her now. Or maybe it was what being around me did to her.
“I wanted to paint the picture for you.” Her voice was low and biting.
I dropped my arm and stepped out of the doorway, still not giving her a clear path out. I was wrong on so many levels, but once again, I couldn’t stop myself. “Can we talk?”
“What about how our interaction has gone so far has made you think I have a word to say to you?”
“I-I thought you might want to talk.” My palms felt like I should have sweat droplets dripping from my fingertips. There were so many things I’d told myself I’d say the next time I saw her. I’d thought I’d have more time. A solid plan in place. Two brain cells to rub together. “Clear the air.”
Her cheeks were flushed like they’d get when she’d catch me watching her in class, or after I tickled her and she gasped, panting, after finally telling me to stop. Or the way they’d gotten when we’d stood on the football field in our caps and gowns and she told me to walk away.
“About you humiliating me in front of the entire school? About sleeping with me and then breaking my heart?” Her throat worked up and down. “Or about breaking my dad’s guitar?” Her voice broke and I wanted to chop off my own hand for what I’d done.