I roll my eyes and attempt to ignore the girls at the table behind us, listening intently to our conversation.
“What’s your secret?” she asks. “How’d you get the one guy no one’s ever been able to get?”
Without hesitation, I say, “He has a type.”
“Which is?” She lifts a micro-bladed eyebrow, chewing on the end of her pencil with pillow-sized Kylie Jenner lips.
“He likes girls with tact,” I say. “I think he also has a thing for basic human decency. Oh, and self-respect. He’s pretty into that.”
She wrinkles her perfect nose and scoffs before turning away, and I angle myself to hide the humor trying to display itself across my lips. Maybe I came off a little harsh, but I know what she was saying underneath all of those questions.
She thinks he can do better than me.
She thinks he’d be better suited for someone like her.
I had “friends” like that back in high school—ones who’d make underhanded remarks disguised as innocent questions—and I ate them for breakfast.
Our professor excuses himself to take a phone call, and I use it as a chance to check my messages.
Sure enough, Talon texted me within the last twenty minutes.
TALON: My place tonight … seven.
I fire off a quick “if you insist” along with a winking emoji and put my phone away.
My stomach is a cage of frenzied butterflies and my head is all kinds of distracted and my lips burn in anticipation of seeing him again. We’ve been “dating” almost a month now and this still happens every time I think about him.
Every. Damn. Time.
He wasn’t wrong when he said we could have fun together, but every part of me knows that come May, things are going to get one-hundred-and-one kinds of complicated.
Chapter 26
Talon
They say time flies when you’re having fun and it just might be the truest words ever spoken, cliché or otherwise.
In one week, we leave for Irie’s cousin’s wedding in Missouri.
In two weeks, my offer from Richmond expires, which means they’ll be allowed to make a new offer, one that will undoubtedly be less sweet than the first.
Music plays low from a speaker on my desk as Irie and I are sprawled across my bed on a random Thursday night.
We were supposed to be studying, but neither of us are feeling focused on anything other than each other tonight.
“It’s getting late,” she says, her leg intertwined with mine as I twist her soft hair in my fingers. Hozier’s From Eden plays in the background, and her body is warm against me.
“Stay.”
She gazes up at me through sleepy eyes, her lips pink and swollen from two solid hours of kissing me tonight.
“I can’t,” she says. “I’ve been staying over a lot lately, and that’s not fair to Aunt Bette.”
“Has she said something?”
“No. She hasn’t. And she won’t. But still. It’s not right.”
I stroke my hand against the side of her pretty face. I always hate when she leaves. Everything feels empty and hollow, lifeless. It’s like a piece of me is missing. She’s my phantom limb.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks, sitting up and tucking one leg halfway beneath her.
“You think you’ll miss this?” I ask.
We’ve been so focused on having fun this past month that we’ve intentionally side-stepped the inevitable—life after graduation.
“What kind of question is that?”
“Just answer.”
She rolls her eyes, pretending to be annoyed. “Obviously.”
“What if I never find anyone like you again?” I ask. “What we go our separate ways and I never find someone who drives me half as wild as you do?”
“I don’t know why you’re bringing this up right now,” she says. “We went into this knowing we wouldn’t have a future, remember?”
“A couple years ago, there was this volunteer board at the Memorial Union,” I say. “I walked past it probably half a dozen times before I actually stopped and looked at it. Irie, your name was on every last sign-up sheet.”
She shrugs. “Just doing my part.”
“Where am I going to find another girl as selfless as you? As giving? I mean, you live with your eighty-year-old aunt taking care of her instead of living in some campus apartment with a bunch of friends, getting that true college experience,” I continue. “And don’t even get me started on the way you hold your own when other girls give you shit. You are everything, Irie. Inside and out.”
“Everything? No one’s ever called me that before.”
“You’re the real deal,” I say. “And I know that if we walk away from this, I’m never going to find anyone half as real as you.”
Irie slides off the bed and begins to gather her things from around the room—shoes, bag, phone, and when she’s dressed and ready to dash out the door, she turns to me and hesitates.
“I think we’re moving way too fast,” she says. “And I think you’re overthinking this.”