Hold the Forevers

“Oh,” I said. “You found me.”

“I guess I did.”

He took that final step forward, bridging the distance between us with ease. His hand pushed up into my hair. My head tilted up to look at him towering over me.

We hung there, suspended in space and time. Everything shifted. The world dropped away. The chanting buzzed into silence. All around us, people celebrated, and here, right now, it was just me and Cole.

Then his head dipped down, and his mouth touched mine. We melded together as if we were always meant to be. He tasted like sweat and the sweet tang of a sports drink and something inexplicably him. My fingers tangled into the front of his jersey, distorting the number eighty-eight. I reveled in the feel of his kiss. I’d been hesitant last night, but all that hesitancy had evaporated.

He hooked his other arm, still holding his helmet, around my back, crushing me against his chest. I’d never felt so small as I did against his muscular build. I stood on my tiptoes, throwing my arms around him as he deepened the kiss. His tongue sweeping in to claim mine. I groaned deep in the back of my throat.

Then to my surprise, he effortlessly lifted me off the ground. I gasped as he twirled me around and then stole another kiss.

My eyes were only for him as he gently set me back on my feet. That was when everything else rushed back in. And the cheers from the crowd had changed in volume, erupting into applause and catcalls and whistles. Which was the moment that I realized they were cheering for us.

My face turned beet red, and I buried it into his jersey. “Oh my God!”

He laughed. “That was quite a kiss.”

“You were on the big screen!” Josie cried, snapping a picture.

“We were not!” I gasped.

Josie winked. “I got it all on my phone.”

“Stop! You did not. How many pictures did you take?”

Josie shrugged. “How could I not take pictures?”

Cole chuckled softly. He put his finger under my chin and tilted it up until I was looking at him. Then he stole another kiss. “Don’t listen to anyone else. This was perfect.”

My eyes locked with his again. “It was.”

“You’re mine now,” he said with all the heat of our first kiss baking in the summer sun.

Still, I shivered at the proclamation. And how right it was.

“I already was.”

And that would never change.

4

Athens

May 5, 2008

Finals week wasn’t the ideal time to throw a party. I definitely should have been studying for my Spanish final. Languages were not my strong suit, and I needed an A on the final to keep my B in the class. It was pathetic.

Instead, I was waiting for Marley to show up in Athens. She was the genius of us. She’d been in the Duke TIP program since middle school, which identified young talent, and had been admitted to the university with early acceptance. I missed her, as she was five long hours away. Thankfully, she didn’t have any finals at Duke and was currently driving south to be here in time for my birthday party.

I texted her, requesting an ETA.

Driving down the Atlanta Highway. *insert B-52 lyrics*

She was ridiculous, but I was glad that she was finally here.

Cole had been needling me all day about coming over to his place early for birthday shenanigans. It didn’t matter that we’d celebrated his birthday yesterday downtown. Half the football team had drunkenly shown up and gotten him so plastered that he’d blacked out the second I got him into his bed.

It was still surprising to me that our birthdays were so close. His on the fourth of May and mine on the fifth. I’d always hated having my birthday on Cinco de Mayo until college when it was apparently the coolest shit ever, and Cole had promptly declared that he was throwing a joint birthday party. Then he’d planned two anyway. Having two birthday parties after claiming we were only having one was perfectly Cole.

HERE! HERE! HERE!!!!!

I dashed out of my dorm room and down into the Brumby lobby. Marley had hiked up the hill and opened the lobby door when I got out of the elevator. We collided in the middle, laughing and practically near to tears. This was the longest either of us had ever gone without the other. I’d seen her at Christmas, and it was too long to go.

“I missed you!” Marley said.

“So much,” I told her. “Let’s never do this again.”

“Deal.” She finally released me. “So, when do I get to meet him?”

“Cole has been asking the same thing.”

“Well, it’s not fair that Josie was here the weekend y’all met,” Marley said. She brushed strands of her curly, dark hair out of her face and adjusted the large backpack on her back. It was likely all she’d brought with her for the day that she was staying with me before she returned to Savannah for the summer. If I knew my best friend at all, the rest of stuff was neatly arranged in boxes in the trunk of her giant SUV. Likely labeled, dated, and color-coordinated. “I mean, she’s been rubbing it in that she got those pictures of y’all at the game.”