It’s like he knows he’s going to be there with me, and he’s so sure in that fact that he’s determined to find out where he fits in my picture so he can step into the role fully.
My heart pinches the more I think about him, because as confident as I was at the beginning of the semester about us, something has changed in the last few weeks.
And I have no idea what’s going on with him.
“Yeah, up your ass and probably a few other girls’, too,” I shoot back at Grayson, arching a brow.
He throws his hands up over his heart like he’s been struck. “Ouch. Okay, I deserved that.”
“You deserve a whole hell of a lot more than a jab for what you did.” I shake my head, crossing my legs as my eyes scan the sidewalks for Adam. “You’re just lucky I’m too nice to hand out punishment.”
“I lost you.”
I blink, turning back to him and finding sincerity laced in his gray eyes.
“Trust me,” he whispers. “That was the worst punishment of all.”
I swallow, something low and familiar hitting me deep in my belly at the sight of his pain. For so long, that boy had been everything to me. I’d loved him. I’d touched him and let him touch me, too.
God, is it awful that I’ve sort of missed him?
It’s not that I want to be with him — not at all. Adam is everything I’ve wanted since I first stepped foot on this campus, even if we did have to take the long way around to finally be together.
But I miss talking to Grayson, miss listening to him play, miss the connection we’ve always had so effortlessly.
And I hate losing people.
It’s the worst feeling in the world, in my opinion. I’d felt it the hardest when I’d lost my childhood best friend, Paris, after she’d betrayed me my freshman year. And it’d reverberated through me when I’d walked away from Grayson in that courtyard, knowing I’d never forgive him, that what we’d had was lost.
But now here we are, trying to be friends when it all seemed so impossible even a short month ago.
Something about that fills me with hope.
My gut drops again at the more pressing matter on my conscience — which is that I know when I tell Adam that Grayson and I are rekindling a friendship, he will be less than thrilled. And if there’s one scar I don’t want to reopen, it’s the one that’s still fresh from watching Grayson and Adam at each other’s throats for an entire semester.
Last time the roles had been reversed.
But I have a feeling it won’t matter to Adam that he’s the one who has me now.
He still won’t want to share.
I wanted to tell him after the first day of class, when I realized Grayson was in the same one. But at the time, there was really nothing to tell. We went to a small campus. It wasn’t that weird that I ended up in the same class with my ex.
But once we started talking, once he apologized and asked me if we could try to be friends, I knew I needed to tell Adam — and I planned to.
Except he’s been so distant.
First, it was the concert, and I didn’t want to upset him when he already had so much to focus on. He had been stressed out that night, and it seemed like he’d been that way ever since. We haven’t hung out much, and when we have, he’s always on his phone, talking to Jeremy about fraternity stuff or working on his outline for Alpha Sigma Chapter or planning his next big thing — the Halloween bash.
But distractions or not, I have to tell him, and soon — which is why I’m not hiding the fact that I’m sitting with Grayson now as I wait for Adam to come by and meet me for lunch, like he used to do every day after this class.
When my phone buzzes in my pocket, I don’t have to check it to know it’s him saying he won’t make it.
He’s had some sort of excuse like that for the past couple of weeks, ever since his concert.
I sigh, pulling my phone from my pocket long enough to tell him it’s okay and we’ll catch up later, but my chest is tight as I do so. Jeremy had let it slip to me that night of the concert that some of the brothers had been giving Adam a hard time about spending so much time with me and not dedicating enough time to the fraternity, and ever since then, he’s pulled back, focusing more on them and less on me.
Which is fine, I remind myself, because we’re together all the time.
I can spare him and let him do his thing as president.