Broken Hill Havoc (Broken Hill High Series 5)

“Hey, Tora?” he murmurs. “I love you.”

My heart races as the butterflies swirl up in my stomach, giving me ‘the feels,’ but those feels are instantly replaced with guilt as I still haven’t told him about Josh, and I know for a fact I’m not going to tell him about Lukas either. “I love you, too, Nate.”

There’s a slight pause and I can practically hear his smile through the phone. “Night, babe.” Not a second later, he ends the call and I scoot down in my bed feeling like a piece of shit.

Nate has been incredible to me and I should be honest with him about Josh and Lukas, but all that’s going to do is cause problems. Punches will be thrown and feelings will be hurt. I can’t be the reason for all that bullshit again. We’ve done the drama and I’m finished with it. I just want to get through college without getting into any trouble and when I’m around other human beings, it seems to be something I can’t help but do.

———-

I wake with a gasp and scramble around for my phone. My alarm never went off, or hell, maybe I forgot to set it after talking to Nate. My fingers curl around the cool metal and I light up the screen for the time. Shit. Nine thirty.

I’m fucked.

I throw myself out of bed and hurry around my room, searching for something to wear. I completely missed my early class and now I’m about to miss the second one.

As I pull on my jeans I try to remember if I even showered last night when I recall that I didn’t. Shit. Shit. Shit. It’s going to have to wait until I get back. I’ll race through a shower after class and shoot straight back out for my exam this afternoon.

I hurry out into the main part of the house, thankful that I packed my bag last night. Now, I just have to remember where the hell I put it.

I find it on the kitchen table and sling it over my shoulder before diving through the fridge and grabbing a muffin.

Shit. I have to brush my teeth.

I drop the bag, hurry down to the bathroom, and get shit done before looking at my hair and deciding it could really use a brush. I fly out of there and scoop my bag back up before realizing that the house seems way too quiet.

Brooke must already be out. I silently hate on her for not waking me up and cringe at the guilt that soars through me. I was supposed to wake up early and tell her about her douche canoe boyfriend, and now she’s going to be left in the dark for even longer. I doubt I’ll even see her before the end of the day, and there’s no way I’m going to do it over the phone. It needs to be in person.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

Today is already shaping up to be a shit day. I should have just let Nate come over last night, that way I would have woken up in his arms and all the shit that followed wouldn’t have bothered me. I would still be able to smell him on me, but noooo, I had to go and adult, choosing sleep over hot sex.

Fuck me. I’m such an idiot.

With that final thought, I find my car keys on the entryway table and haul ass out the door, hoping I can somehow manage to salvage this day.

Chapter 8

I push my way through the door and all I want to do is collapse down onto the couch and fall asleep. My day has been huge and I honestly don’t know how I made it through it. I was able to track down one of the girls from my morning class which I missed and she agreed to email me her notes if I agreed to introduce her to some of my single friends. I agreed, realizing that Tyson and Max are the only single ones and know that both of them would only be interested in sex, but then, maybe that’s what she’s after.

I got to my second class just in time and managed to open my laptop as the professor started talking. Afterward, I raced home, had a shower, grabbed some lunch, and headed straight back to campus for my exam. I got there twenty minutes beforehand to look over my notes once again to realize the battery in my laptop was dead. Luckily, I was confident with everything I had gone over last night and I’m pretty sure I nailed it. But I guess, I’ll know for sure after it gets graded. It’s a waiting game now.

Following my crazy day, the alarm at my parents’ home was going off and I had to go over there to figure out what the hell was going on, only to find the neighbor’s dog had escaped and was running around my backyard. I guess I was just lucky it wasn’t some crazy psycho breaking into my home again. Been there, done that.