All Lined Up (Rusk University 1)

“She’s gone?” I ask.

“Yeah. Your boy drove them home ’cause Stella already had too much to drink.”

I grab my phone and text Ryan. I keep texting him all the way down the stairs, past the group of girls, and out the front door. I’m probably blowing up his phone, but I don’t care.

When I get to my truck and don’t trust myself to text and drive, I call him. He answers on the second ring.

“Relax, dude. She’s fine.”

“No, she’s not.”

Ryan sighs.

“She’s going to be fine. She and Stella are back at her dorm, and they’re talking some things out.”

“Why can’t she talk to me?”

“She will. Just give her some time.”

“I can’t.” Or I don’t want to. All I can think about are her damn rules. What did she say? If either of us thinks it’s too much, then we just say the word, and it’s done. We walk away.

What if that’s what this is?

“You can.” Ryan’s voice is surprisingly firm. “She doesn’t want you to see her upset. She’s not going anywhere, man. Just wait and talk to her tomorrow.”

He hangs up on me then. And I barely resist the urge to throw my phone against the windshield.

I drive around for a while, getting closer and closer to her dorm each time before I convince myself to stay away. I’d be there in a heartbeat if I were certain it wouldn’t push her away faster. Finally, I head back to my place and do the only thing I can think of.

I run.

Chapter 26

Dallas

I make a beeline for the shower as soon as Stella and I get inside our dorm. She tries to stop me, but I can’t talk right now. I don’t know how to deal with stuff like this. I’ve spent my entire life actively not dealing, and now I’m ripping at the seams because of it.

It’s a Saturday night after an incredible victory, so the dorm is pretty much a ghost town. I have the shower all to myself, so that even if anyone could hear me crying over the water, it wouldn’t matter.

What scares me more than anything is that I don’t know who the girl at that party was. She sure wasn’t me.

I know my tendencies and my faults. I know that I jump to anger first, and when that doesn’t work, I walk away instead.

That girl? She was throwing herself into the fire instead of trying to escape. And that’s not a version of myself that I’ve ever had to face.

I don’t think Carson had anything to do with that bet, not with the way he reacted, the way he stopped things from going further, but that doesn’t help with the humiliation burrowed so deep beneath my skin that even the scalding-hot water of the shower can’t touch it.

God, what he must think of me.

At least I didn’t mention the bet. At least he doesn’t know just how little I trusted him for a few moments there. Because the only thing that hurts more than my own pain is the idea of causing his.

But when I finally pull myself out of the shower, wrap a towel around my frame, and face my bloodshot eyes in the mirror . . . I have to ask myself—

Regardless of how much I like Carson, do I like the person I am with him?

It would be an easier question to answer if I had any idea who I really was.

Back in the room, I tell Stella everything. Including the fact that I slept with Levi. As I predicted, she’s hurt. I can see her questioning our entire friendship. What else haven’t I been telling her? But I promise her that I have no other outstanding secrets. Not after I tell her everything about Carson and me, too.

When I finish, I’m furious to find myself crying again, but at this point, it’s not something that I can turn off or stuff down anymore. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to do that again. She pulls me into a hug, and together we lie on my tiny twin bed until I’ve gotten it all out of my system.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Stella assures me.

“Is it?”

“Of course it is. That guy is head over heels for you, and this is just a bump in the road.”

“It’s not Carson I’m worried about. It’s me. I trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust myself.”

She pushes my hair back out of my face and sighs. “Oh, sweetheart. You’re going to be just fine. You’re nowhere near as screwed up as you think you are.” I know that’s a dig at herself. I recognize the self-loathing because I am a master at it. “This is just what it feels like to get older. It won’t be the last time you look back at your life and realize just how stupid or naive or terrible you’ve been. I’m pretty sure that’s a reoccurring thing until death do us part. The truth is . . . we’re all a little screwed up. If humans were capable of being perfect there would be no such thing as Jerry Springer, and the world would be filled with unicorns and fairies, and families would never be broken, and children would never disappoint their parents, and things wouldn’t hurt as badly, but it also wouldn’t feel so damn good when things go right. And friends wouldn’t have anything to stay up late and talk about because everything in the world would be too boring to matter. The only thing we can do is try to find people whose scars compliment our own. And I’m pretty sure Carson McClain would carry your baggage around the world and back if you asked him.”

“You think?”

“In a heartbeat.”

We fall asleep that way, two grown women in one twin bed, like we’re still freshmen in high school having a sleepover, whispering about boys and gossip so my dad won’t hear. Things were so much less scary then. We were rushing headfirst into the future with no idea just how complicated things would get on the way.

WHEN A KNOCKING at the door wakes us, the sun is bright and bleeding through the blinds. Stella mumbles a “Go away” and burrows deeper under my covers. How the two of us managed to sleep through the night in one twin bed is one of the great mysteries of the universe, but when the knocking gets louder, I snap to attention.

Carson. It has to be Carson. I scramble over Stella trying to get out of my bed, and my knee accidentally sinks into her midsection.

“Easy on the bladder, Dallas, unless you want a mess in your bed.”

“It’s Carson,” I whisper. “Just a second!” I call toward the door.

Stella props up on an elbow and says, “I’m guessing you want me to make myself scarce?”