Hazed (Palm South University)

Smoothing my hands over my shorts, I adjust my tits in my sleep tank and roll my shoulders back before putting on my come and get me sex-kitten smirk and open the door.

As soon as I do, that sexy smirk is replaced with wide eyes and my jaw nearly hitting the floor.

Where I expected Kade to be waiting with a drunken glaze in his eyes, I instead find his brother, stone cold sober, his hands in tight fists at his sides. His chest is heaving like he just ran three miles uphill, and his nose flares as he lets his eyes crawl down the length of me, taking in what very little clothing I’m wearing now.

“Jarrett?” I ask, crossing my arms over myself, as if that will do anything to cover my legs or midriff or very hard nipples peeking through this silky top. “What are you—”

I stop short when Jarrett holds up one finger, his eyes hard on mine again. With that one gesture, my lips snap together, heart picking up its pace in my chest.

“You showed up on my doorstep like this once,” he says, his voice ragged, and with the words I remember all too well the night I beat down his front door. “You made me listen. So now you have to do the same.”

I swallow. “Okay, do you want to come in or—”

“I love you.”

My next words die in a chokehold, as if Jarrett physically reached out and wrapped his hand around my neck. I let my mouth fall open, shut it, part my lips again, zip them back together. Before I realize it, I’m leaning a hip against the doorframe to keep from falling over. “You what?”

“I love you,” he repeats, face contorting like it physically pains him to admit. “I never stopped loving you. I don’t think I can.”

I swallow, hating that my heart is thumping so loud in my ears, that hearing him say those words feels like wading into warm, tropical water.

“And I know it’s fucked up and wrong for me to come here and tell you that,” he says when I don’t respond. “And I know I said I could just be your friend but goddammit, Jess, I lied. Okay? I lied. I can’t be your friend,” he says, shaking his head at the audacity of it. “Because the truth is that I want you, all of you, everything that you have to give. And I don’t want to share.”

My weight sinks more into the doorframe, and I cover my shaking lips with fingertips trembling just as much. “Jarrett…”

“Wait,” he says, holding his finger up again. “I’m not finished.”

I swallow, waiting.

“I know my brother may potentially hate me for the rest of my life for saying this,” he says, rolling his lips together as he looks off to the side. I don’t miss the way tears prick his eyes then, as if the mere thought of Kade hating him is too much to bear. “But I want you to choose me.”

“Oh, my God,” I whisper, so low I’m not even sure he can hear me.

“Give me a chance,” he pleads, his eyes finding me again, and this time, he takes two massive strides toward me, until he’s so close I could reach out my hand and touch him without any effort if I really wanted to. “Don’t throw away what we had. Because I can see it on your face when you’re with me that you still feel it, too.”

I close my eyes when he says that, freeing two tears that I didn’t realize I’d been holding at bay with my eyes wide with shock. I let out a shaky breath, swallow down the emotion, and open my eyes again.

“How can you do this?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. I shake my head, over and over, anger and confusion settling in in equal measure. “How can you show up here and say this after all this time? After everything that… and we didn’t talk for so long… and then Kade…”

“I know it’s inconvenient,” Jarrett says, but he stands just as tall, staring down at me over the bridge of his nose. “I know my timing is shit. But I can’t go back and undo what I did. I can’t go back and make a different choice. All I have is right here, and right now, and I may not know much, but I know that I refuse to let you go without a fight.”

I think I scoff, or maybe I gasp, or maybe I just let out a whimper of a breath with my jaw still hanging down on the ground.

“Don’t answer me now. Think about it,” he says, and then he backs away, giving me space to breathe again. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me all hope is gone.”