"Yeah, it's been a while."
"I'm sure these boys can assist you with that, beautiful," bursts from Colt's lips, earning him another slap to the head.
"Ignore him. He's been hit in the head with a ball one too many times," Leon says from beside me but I'm too enthralled with the way Luca is looking at me right now to reply.
Our friendship wasn't a conventional one back in high school. He was the star quarterback, and I wasn't a cheerleader or ever really that sporty. But we were paired up as lab partners during my first week at Rosewood High and we kinda never separated.
I watched as he took the team to new heights, as he met with college scouts, I even went to a few places with him so he didn't have to go alone.
He was the one who allowed me to cry on his shoulder as I struggled to come to terms with the loss of another who left a huge hole in my heart and he never, not once, overstepped the mark while I clung to him and soaked up his support.
I was also there while he hooked up with every member of the cheer squad along with any other girl who looked at him just so. Each one stung a little more than the last as my poor teenage heart was getting battered left, right, and center.
With each day, week, month that passed, I craved him more but he never, not once, looked at me that way.
I was even his prom date, yet he ended up spending the night with someone else.
It hurt, of course it did. But it wasn't his fault and I refuse to hold it against him.
Maybe I should have told him. Been honest with him about my feelings and what I wanted. But I was so terrified I'd lose my best friend that I never confessed, and I took that secret all the way to Columbia with me.
As I stare at him now, those familiar butterflies still set flight in my belly, but they're not as strong as I remember. I'm not sure if that's because my feelings for him have lessened over time, or if I'm just so numb and broken right now that I don't feel anything but pain.
It really could go either way.
I smile at him, so grateful to have run into him this morning.
He always knew when I needed him and even without knowing of my presence here, there he was like some guardian fucking angel.
If guardian angels had sexy dark bed hair, mesmerizing green eyes and a body built for sin then yeah, that's what he is.
I laugh to myself, yeah, maybe that irritating crush has gone nowhere.
"What have you got next?" Leon asks, dragging my attention away from his twin.
Leon has always been the quieter, broodier one of the duo. He's as devastatingly handsome and as popular with the female population but he doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve like Luca. Leon takes a little time to warm to people, to let them in. It was hard work getting there, but I soon realized that once he dropped his walls a little for me, it was hella worth it.
He's more serious, more contemplative, he's deeper. I always suspected that there was a reason they were so different. I know twins don't have to be the same and like the same things, but there was always something niggling at me that there was a very good reason that Leon closed himself down. From listening to their mom talk over the years, they were so identical in their mannerisms, likes, and dislikes when they were growing up, that it seems hard to believe they became so different.
"Psychology but not for an hour. I'm—"
"I'm taking her for coffee," Luca butts in. A flicker of anger passes through Leon's eyes but it's gone so fast that I begin to wonder if I imagined it.
"I could use another coffee before econ," Leon chips in.
"Great. Let's go," Luca forces out through clenched teeth.
He wanted me alone. Interesting.
The reason I never told him about my mega crush is the fact he friend-zoned me in our first few weeks of friendship by telling me how refreshing it was to have a girl wanting to be his friend and not using it as a ploy to get more.
We were only sophomores at the time but even then, Luca was up to all sorts and the girls around us were all more than willing to bend to his needs.
From that moment on, I couldn't tell him how I really felt. It was bad enough I even felt it when he thought our friendship was just that.
I smile at both of them, hoping to shatter the sudden tension between the twins.
"Be careful with these two," Colt announces from behind us as we make our way out of the lecture hall with all the others. "The stories I've heard."