Hold the Forevers

He shot me a mischievous look and opened a side entrance.

My eyes widened. “That’s not supposed to happen.”

He didn’t respond, just drew me inside. The lights were off, but brightened his phone screen until he found what he was looking for and flipped on the lights.

“Aha!” he said.

And then I saw it—a vending machine.

I couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that exploded out of me. “You dragged me into a dark corner of campus to find a vending machine?”

“Work your magic, Delilah.”

“I don’t have any change.”

He winked at me and pulled out his Bulldog Bucks card. “Got you covered.”

He passed it to me as if he never considered that there might not be any money on his card. That it would just be there when he needed it.

I swallowed back my emotions on that, like I did everything, and hoped my superpower wouldn’t let me down.

With a deep breath, I swiped his card on the machine and pressed the Coke button. We both waited with anticipation as the machine rattled, taking its sweet time. It was an old model, and honestly, I was surprised it had card access at all.

Then there was a sturdy clunk, followed immediately by a second clunk.

“Ohhh!” Cole cheered, throwing his arms in the air and doing a two-step, as if I’d scored a touchdown.

I burst into laughter at the display and joined him, dancing circles around him. “It worked! Superpower unlocked!”

We dug into the bottom of the machine and pulled out the two Cokes. Cole looked at it as if it were a goddamn miracle.

“This is seriously the coolest shit,” he said after we shut all the lights off and headed back to his car.

“It’s so random.”

“That’s why it’s the best superpower ever.”

“I accept this great achievement.”

He slipped his hand back into mine and gave me another look that made me melt into a puddle. “I don’t want this night to end.”

I flushed again. “Me neither. I’m having a great time.”

“We could go get a drink,” he suggested.

“I don’t have a fake.”

He shrugged. “You don’t need one. I can get us in.”

“Are you that self-assured about everything?”

“No,” he said. “I wasn’t sure that you’d say yes.”

“I didn’t.”

He leaned back against his Jeep and finished off the Coke, setting it on the hood. “Yeah. Why did you say no anyway?”

“I kind of swore off football players.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You dated a football player here?”

I shook my head. “In high school.”

“Well, damn, guy must have broken your heart if you swore off all of us.”

“Something like that.” Not that I wanted to talk about Ash at all.

“So, why’d you say yes then? I’m still a football player.”

“Don’t remind me,” I said with an eye roll.

“I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m glad you did. I’d been working up the courage for weeks.”

“No, you haven’t!”

“I’m serious,” he said. “I liked that you never gave a shit who any of us were.”

“So, you do notice that people notice you,” I teased.

He held his hands up and shot me that same cocky grin he always shot the camera. “I mean … I noticed more that you didn’t notice.” He tugged me a little closer until we were nearly sharing the same space. “I like that.”

I cleared my throat, feeling everything in me set aflame from that look. “What if I said I had noticed?”

His eyebrows shot up. “That so?”

“Maybe,” I said with a laugh.

His eyes dipped down to my lips, and for a split second, I thought he might kiss me. Right here in the center of downtown, where anyone and everyone could see us.

I realized two things simultaneously: I wanted him to kiss me, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that to happen.

This date … this date had been perfect. Easy. Uncomplicated. I’d made out with random strangers, and it hadn’t meant anything. But I knew without a doubt … this would mean something.

Cole Davis meant something.

So, I took the step back that I needed to breathe in his presence.

“Why don’t we get you home, Lila?”

I nodded. This time, I didn’t correct him.

And I never would again.

3

Athens

April 5, 2008

The tailgate before the spring G-Day game looked like a stampede of elephants had trampled over North Campus. Josie wove drunkenly through the crowd of people, as if she went to Georgia, easily maneuvering us from one drink to the next.

To be fair, Josie had gone to an Atlanta high school that had sixty people out of their senior class come to the university. So, it was feasible that she knew more people here than I did.

“You have to sit with us,” Channing said, latching on to my arm.

“Definitely.”

My buzz was tipping into dangerous territory, but how could I deny the captain of the dance team? I couldn’t.

Georgia had two main dance teams. The one that marched with the band for football games and the varsity team that performed at all basketball games, volleyball games, and gymnastic meets. Channing and I were on the latter.