“Is that… some kind of code talk?”
Cecelia laughs, her merry green eyes sparkling with mischief. Or from the beer she drank before. “No. I just meant this is the place where Matthew and I finally, you know. Had our first real kiss. It feels lucky.”
“Erm, yeah. I remember. I also remember the crowd and the jeers because you and Matthew took so long to do the deed.”
Just to clarify, when I say “do the deed,” I’m not even talking about sex. Cecelia and her boyfriend didn’t even kiss each other for the first few months they knew each other, and when they finally did, it was because Cecelia lost a bet.
It drove everyone around them crazy. The sexual tension was off-the-charts, through-the-roof ridiculous.
My best friend tips her head back, laughing, long brown hair spilling down her back in a silky cascade. “Well, I couldn’t seem too eager. Have you met the guy? He was so full of himself I had to keep him in check. Still do.”
She reaches for the door, hand grasping the cool metal handle.
I stop her from walking out. “Do… do you think that maybe Caleb and I… that we moved too fast? Should I have waited? To sleep with him, I mean.”
What I need right now is some reassurance, and Cecelia is ready to give it. She takes her hand off the door, resting it on my shirtsleeve. “Abby, don’t have regrets. This thing with you and Caleb—it isn’t over. In fact, if you want my opinion—and I think you do—it’s only the beginning for the two of you. I get that you’re freaking out, but these things have a way of working out.” She gives a short laugh. “God, listen to me, talking like I know what I’m doing. Remember how I questioned myself and my relationship with Matthew every day? I questioned my choices forever, texted you constantly. Giving up everything to move in with Matt—hardest decision ever. But I did it, and eventually I stopped worrying about it. So don’t do that to yourself. Please.”
My arms open wide, and when she steps into them, I rest my chin on her shoulder, our arms enveloped around each other as she whispers in my hair. “It’s not just going to be okay, Abs. It’s going to be awesome.”
A throat clears in the bathroom, and both our heads shoot up. A redhead just exiting the other stall, wearing a tight silver midriff top and an even tighter smile, grimaces at us.
She is so not amused. “Uhhhh, am I interrupting something?”
Cecelia laughs and releases me. “Nope. Not anymore.” She gives the girl a wink, and a blush creeps up my neck before she clasps my hand and pulls me out the bathroom door.
Music assaults us when we enter the bar, and the crowd immediately swallows us up as we walk with the flow toward our group. Toward Matthew, Jenna, Molly, and Weston. Lone Rangers is nothing but deafening music blaring from its speakers and wall-to-wall people—drunk students and students looking to get drunk. Guys trying to get laid, surrounded by an unlimited supply of girls who’re going to let them. Tight groups of cliques. Singles ready to mingle.
Cecelia is still firmly grasping my hand as she pulls me through the throng, her mere presence here comforting. We get jostled, bumped, and smacked in the butt a few times as we weave through, the smell of sweaty bodies and stale beer lingering in the musty air.
Or it is stale bodies and sweaty beer?
Same thing.
“This way.” Cecelia nods toward Matthew’s tall form, visible in the back corner where we’d left them twenty minutes ago. Yes. It took us twenty minutes to go pee.
It’s déjà vu over and over again—this crowd of people, in this place. Same faces. Same music. Same crappy lighting. Same sticky floors. Same, same, same.
The only difference is he wasn’t here when I walked away to use the bathroom, and now… he is.
Six days. One hundred forty four hours. One thousand, four hundred and forty minutes. Eight thousand, six hundred and forty seconds.
But who’s counting?
Caleb
“Dude, incoming!” Blaze announces at the top of his voice, hands cupped around his mouth to create a megaphone. “Girlfriend rapidly approaching,” he says to Matthew. “And she’s got Walk of Shame hot on her heels, bro.”
Stephan bumps me with his hip. “Showtime, your lover looks like she’s about to puke her guts out. What’d you do to her, man?”
As if he didn’t already know.
“Hey!” Matthew’s sharp voice cuts in, stopping Stephan from continuing. “Guys, enough. If Cecelia hears you talking shit about those two, she’s going to take it personally, and I’m the one who’s going to hear about it when we get home. And I didn’t drive all the way here to get my damn ass chewed out at the end of the night.”