Chapter 6

The next morning, I woke up in the bathroom, sitting at an awkward angle as I leaned against the wall beside the toilet. I wasn’t the only one in here. Sel was in the frosted glass shower, and Addie was lying in the doorway to the bathroom, her head buried in her arms.

A hiss escaped my lips as I adjusted, my head pounding as if someone had just hit it with a fucking hammer. My mouth had a god-awful after-taste, feeling like cotton, almost like I hadn’t drunk water in years. Every time I drank, it was like I forgot how much hangovers sucked and how I swore to myself I’d never drink again.

“I fucking hate jungle juice.” Addie’s words were muffled by her arms, but I was still able to make out what she said. I doubted her skull felt like it was an egg being cracked, like me. “The two of you were nightmares to deal with.”

“Why the hell am I in the shower?” Sel’s words were a low mutter and were hard for me to focus on past the pounding in my head.

“You wanted to take a shower and wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Addie mumbled.

The shower door swung open, revealing Sel, who looked like she had a shower last night. Her hair was dry, but the brunette strands were wavy, her natural hair texture before she straightened the ever-loving fuck out of it. Mascara had run down her cheeks in dark streaks, going down her neck. Her bright pink lipstick was smeared, and her clothes—yes, she was still dressed—looked stiff. She was the definition of a hot mess this morning.

“How the fuck did we get home last night? The last thing I remember is losing at Jenga,” Sel grumbled as she awkwardly crawled out of the shower. It was far from dignified, and if I didn’t feel ready to die, I would’ve laughed at how ridiculous she looked.

“You don’t remember making out with the one guy?” It was probably how her lipstick ended up so smeared in the first place.

“Cassius helped,” Addie said before Sel could answer my question.

My memory was pretty scattered, but I faintly recalled seeing him. If I remembered correctly, I accused him of being an annoying ex-boyfriend. Forgetting about my hangover, I buried my face in my hands, hissing when the throbbing grew worse.

“Fuck,” I said with a grunt as I clutched my head. Goddamn hangover, I had just woken up, and already, I knew this hangover would be up there with the worst I’d ever experienced.

“I can’t believe Cass was there.” I hadn’t meant to use the nickname I used to call him when we were children.

“He and his friends were party hopping, but once he saw me attempting to wrangle your drunk asses, he offered to help.” Addie finally lifted her head, looking up at me. Her face was clear of any makeup. Unlike Sel and me, she wasn’t still in her clothes from last night. “He ended up carrying you when you refused to go anywhere with him.”

I had zero recollection of this, but that sounded like me, especially with how he’d been pissing me off lately.

“You lucky bitch,” Sel muttered as she sat beside me, leaning back against the wall and closing her eyes. It seemed crawling out of the shower was all the effort she was willing to put into moving. “I’d love to be in a fine-ass man’s strong arms.”

“He threw her over his shoulder,” Addie said, her voice muffled again since she dropped her head.

“Even better.”

Oh my god. Could this get any more embarrassing?

Cassius and I were crossing each other’s paths often now, which was something that hadn’t happened during my freshman or sophomore year. If I were the type to believe in fate, I’d say fate kept pulling us together.

We’d been friends growing up. He was a year older than me, and I had this stupid crush on him—not that I ever told him or anyone else. He was the one I could always count on. I trusted him more than anyone else and thought he would always be there for me. But then, out of nowhere, his family moved right before I turned twelve. It was like they moved into the middle of nowhere or something because he completely ghosted me.

Not once did I receive any calls, texts, or even emails.

The only warning he gave me was when his family stopped by one day to say goodbye. It was so out of the blue that I was completely floored. To make matters worse, Cassius had been distant that day, and I should’ve realized then that he would never contact me again.

When I spotted him on campus a few weeks into my freshman year, I was in shock. Even though he’d done a lot of growing up since I’d seen him last, I instantly knew it was him. My heart felt like it would pound out of my chest as I stared at him across campus, watching him laugh at something his friend said. A burst of ugly jealousy made an appearance when a blonde-haired girl came up to stand beside him, and he draped his arm around her shoulders, kissing the top of her head. It was a stupid thing to feel, especially given the amount of years that had gone by since we’d last seen each other.

Not only had the irrational jealousy reared its ugly head, but my years of pent-up anger toward Cassius had as well. Not once had he tried contacting me, and it stung. He was my best friend, and I thought that meant something to him, but apparently, I was wrong. What kind of friend did that? The only way I could rationalize was that he hadn’t ever cared for me, at least not in the way I cared about him. A flash of hurt broke through the anger, even though it had been years, and I turned away from Cassius and the girl, unable to look at him anymore.

The next time I saw him was a few weeks later, and this time, he saw me.

I was in the library, and when I reached for a book, I looked to my left and saw Cassius sitting at a table over fifteen feet away. He was reading a book when he glanced up, meeting my gaze, his entire body stiffening and his eyes widening as he recognized me. This might sound cliché, but for a moment, it felt like time stopped. I remained where I was, waiting for him to say something or to acknowledge me. I wouldn’t be the first one to talk, not when I hadn’t been the one to cause the rift between us. But he didn’t say anything.

His deep and fathomless eyes, which had always been my favorite shade of blue, scanned over me, his face hard to read. His jaw clenched ever so slightly, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been appreciating his rugged beauty. Before I could take my next breath, he stood from the table, grabbed his book, and left.

All I could do was stand there, with my hand still on the spine of the book I’d been reaching for when I spotted him. Hurt bloomed in my chest once again but was immediately shoved aside in favor of outrage. If I wanted to know how he felt about me, I now had my answer.

Well, fuck him. If he couldn’t stand to be around me, that was perfectly fine. I’d gotten along just fine without him all these years, and I would continue to do so.

Over the past two years, I’d seen him maybe a dozen or so times, but neither of us acknowledged each other until the other day. The first time he’d spoken to me in almost nine years.

This fucking hangover kicked my ass, and I was so glad that I didn’t start work until next week, otherwise, I would’ve been miserable. It lingered and refused to leave, even after the greasy breakfast—a hangover necessity—and a long, hot shower.

Despite the chilly but sunny day, we spent it outside not wanting to be cooped up. The fresh air from the park helped, and we even managed to find an area in the shade. Although, Sel and I still kept our sunglasses on. We invited a bunch of our friends to join us, but other than Eric and Melissa, they all had other plans. As if we didn’t already love Eric enough, he brought us lunch, refusing to let us pay him back.

“Man, I’m so annoyed I missed that party,” Melissa said after we told her what we remembered. “But after puking up my guts the night before, the thought of drinking made me sick.”

“Can we please stop talking about throwing up?” Just hearing that word made my stomach protest.

Sel’s phone dinged with an incoming message, and a frown pulled at her face as she read whatever it said. Rather than ask her who it was, I patiently waited, knowing she’d tell us. The girl hated keeping secrets and rarely did so.

“Who the fuck are you?” She muttered to her phone, her frown deepening as she lifted her sunglasses to the top of her head as if that would help her.

“What’d they say?” I asked, shifting closer to her on the picnic table bench.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed as she glanced up from her phone. “’Sup.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Melissa said with a small chuckle as she shook her head.

Addie snorted. “Wow, what poetry.”

“Well, at least we know it’s from a guy,” I muttered, having received my fair share of low-effort texts like this over the years.

“Try asking who it is,” Eric offered, resting his forearms on the wooden table.

None of us spoke as Sel sent the message, and we waited for him to respond. It only took a minute, but it felt like several. Sel groaned when she looked at her phone, and my curiosity couldn’t be contained any longer. Raising my sunglasses to the top of my head, I leaned close to her and peered at her phone. It was a mirror selfie of a guy standing in his dorm room, shirtless. His light brunette hair was messy, and it was hard to see his face with the way it was angled. The guy was objectively hot—at least his body was—with tanned skin and a six-pack, but random shirtless pics were annoying as hell, especially when Sel had asked for his name.

“Shirtless selfie, can barely see his face,” I told the others as Sel sent her response: ’Who the fuck is this?’

“Is he doing the classic pose?” Melissa held up her phone as if she was taking a mirror selfie and tilted her head down so she was looking at her phone, making it hard to see her face—just as he had done.

“Yup,” I said once I finished laughing.

“Hey, be glad it’s not a dick pic,” Addie said as she stood up to throw her trash away.

“Give him time.” Melissa wasn’t wrong: if the guy was sending selfies this early, it stood to reason dick pics would soon follow.

This time, when Sel’s phone dinged again, I preemptively leaned over to read the message, as did Addie when she retook her seat ’??? It’s Marcus, from the party last night.’

A chorus of “oh’s” came from the three of us. Now, this all made complete sense. This slip-up on Sel’s part had to have happened near the end of the night when Addie and I weren’t around.

Melissa looked ready to bounce out of her seat, waiting for one of us to share. “Sel screwed up and accidentally gave him her real number,” I bluntly said.

She had a fake number memorized, and she’d give it out whenever a guy asked for her number when she was drinking. Freshman year, she made the mistake of giving out her number while drunk and received daily dick pics from the guy. Whenever she would block him, he’d text her from a different number. It had taken months for him to finally leave her alone. After that whole debacle, she’d made up the fake number and hadn’t had a slip-up until last night.

Sel dropped her phone on the table with a sigh. “I’ll deal with this later.”

Man, it sure was nice to deal with someone else’s problems. If only my problems lately were as simple as this.

“Fucking jungle juice,” Sel muttered as she dropped her face into her hands.

Monday night, after I returned to the dorm, I gave my dad a call.

I had successfully managed to make it through class, only glancing at Ezra once, and that had only been due to another random thought springing into my head. I wonder what he did this weekend. I hadn’t given a shit what he’d done this weekend or even spared him a second thought, so this was out of the fucking blue

How was the first week of classes?” My father’s warm and familiar voice soothed me, just like it had when I was a kid. It made me feel safe and reminded me of simpler times in my life when I wasn’t jumping at shadows or having strange interactions.

“Classes are fine. You know, same old, same old.”

“You’ve been keeping yourself out of trouble?” A hint of humor laced his tone, and I could just imagine his grin.

Rolling my eyes even though he couldn’t see it, I gave a light chuckle. “Yes.” My laughter halted as my mind drifted to the feeling of being watched.

Knowing me as well as he did, my dad immediately picked up on my hesitation through the phone. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, I’m probably just being paranoid,” I hedged, unsure of how he’d react. My dad was never one to dismiss my feelings and instincts, and part of me was afraid of that. What if my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me?

“You know you can tell me anything, right?”

My chest clenched at his words. “I know. I’ll tell you once I’m sure what it is.”

My father’s sigh was drawn out and slightly weary. “Okay kiddo, but my offer still stands.” He knew better than to push for more answers when I wasn’t in the mood; I’d inherited my stubbornness from him after all.

We talked for over ten minutes, and I asked him about the latest criminal he caught. He was light on the details. It had always been like this. Whenever I asked why, he’d tell me he didn’t want to burden me with his knowledge. When I was younger, it irked me, but now I understood. Some things happened in this world that I probably didn’t want to know about, and if I did, my life would never be the same.

Our conversation came to an end when my dad got a lead on the latest criminal he’d been hunting, telling me he was an elusive son of a bitch. He’d been hunting him for months and barely found any traces of him. Worry sat in my stomach as I hung up, hoping not for the first time that he’d catch this guy without injury.