Greek (Palm South University)

I look down, realizing I’d only half-changed out of my work clothes, so I’m wearing an over-sized Kappa Kappa Beta t-shirt and a bright orange pencil skirt.

“Shit,” I say on a laugh, running a hand back through my hair that’s no doubt just as much of a mess. “It’s been a busy day. Busy week. We have a wedding at the Hennigton Estate tomorrow.”

Kade whistles. “Must be a fancy one if it’s there.”

“The budget was four-hundred-thousand dollars, if that tells you anything.”

He balks. “That’s a joke, right?”

“Not even a little bit.” I slide a finger along the buttons on his shirt. “What are you so dressed up for?”

I didn’t miss the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat at the touch, but his smile was quick and easy. “Had a meeting with the Director of Development and Chapter Operations for Alpha Sigma.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “He came all the way from national headquarters? That doesn’t sound good.”

“It was very good, actually,” he says, grabbing the back of his neck. “They’re so impressed with how we’ve turned the fraternity around, they’re giving us a sixty-thousand-dollar budget for house-expansion.”

I gasp. “Kade! Oh, my God! That’s amazing!”

“He said to put in a pool,” he adds with a laugh. “The brothers are going to flip out.”

“I’m flipping out. This is amazing!”

He nods. “Well, we mostly have Adam to thank.”

“And Jeremy. And you,” I say, pointing a finger into his chest. “You were a big part of it, too. Still are.”

“Yeah.”

I frown. “Why aren’t you doing backflips from excitement right now?”

He blows out a laugh, shaking his head and looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows behind me. “Jess, I haven’t been capable of being happy for months.”

My stomach sours. “Kade…”

“No, no, don’t say you’re sorry, okay?” He chews his lip. “I don’t want to talk about the summer, or about him.” His nose flares a bit with that word, and then his eyes are on me. “I just want to hear how you are, and talk to you, and fucking hold you in my arms. I just want to know I still have a fighting chance to make you mine. I have to know.”

I was already nodding before he finished, and I climb into his lap, straddling his thighs and wrapping my arms around his neck as I press my mouth to his.

The moment our lips touch, we both shiver, gasping at the sensation of being connected again.

Kade folds his arms around me and pulls me even closer, swallowing my next breath and kissing me like it’s the last time he’ll ever get the chance to.

“I love you,” I whisper, pulling back to look him in the eyes when I say the words.

He nods, brushing my hair from my face. “I love you.”

“Consider the summer over,” I add. “I don’t want to stay away from you any longer.”

“Oh, thank fuck.”

I smile.

“I was actually hoping you would come to the A Sig karaoke event in a couple weeks. You know how big of a deal it is… I really want you there. I need you there.”

“Then I’m there.”

“Really?”

I nod, and when he pulls me in for another kiss, I wonder how I’ve stayed away from him this long.

Or how I could have ever walked away from him in the first place.

“WAIT, SO THE PLEDGE actually streaked through class?” I ask Adam.

“Not only did he strip down naked in the middle of class — a class with almost a hundred students, I might add — but he ran up and down the stairs, his junk just bouncing everywhere.”

“Oh, my God.”

“The poor professor, she’s seventy-four years old. She fainted.”

“She fainted?!”

“His waving willy sent her right to the floor.”

I snort, but cover the sound with my hands in shame. “That’s awful,” I say, but I can’t stop laughing.

“She’s alright, thankfully. But yeah… that’s what I’m dealing with.”

I shake my head. “Well, at least you’re in a cool place. You’ll have a fall! Unlike us here,” I add with a sigh.

Adam chuckles. “I do love it here. But it reminds me of spring break last year.” He pauses. “Makes me miss you even more.”

“Thanksgiving,” I remind him, pressing my fingertips to my laptop screen, right over where his lips are. “And I fully expect you to show me around. We were in the Rockies, but I’ve never been to Boulder. Or Denver, really, other than to fly in and out.”

“I can’t wait,” he says, and his brows fold together with the sentiment.

It’s only been a few weeks since we both left Boston — him to go to his first Alpha Sigma chapter assignment as a Field Executive, and me to come back to Florida for my last semester of college. But after having the whole summer together, it’s like torture, being in different states, living different lives.

I finger the AS letters hanging from the white gold chain on my neck, remembering the day he lavaliered me like it was yesterday instead of six months ago. Any time I feel lonely or distraught over us being so far from each other, over not knowing the next time we’ll be in the same place, I reach for that charm and let it ground me, let it remind me that what we have is far too strong for distance to destroy.