Ritual - Palm South University

“That was borderline cheesy.”

“You love my cheese.”

I roll my eyes, but don’t deny that he’s right, and after another hot, longing kiss that has me wishing we were already done partying for the night and back in his bed, we continue our walk down Greek Row.

“I just have to run inside and grab my keys. Meet you at the car?” he says when we get to the A Sig house.

I nod, pulling out my phone to text the girls. My feet carry me on autopilot to Kade’s parking spot, and it’s not until I’m a few feet away from it that I look up.

When I do, I drop my phone.

I can’t bend to retrieve it when the glass shatters on the ground. I can’t even grasp that it fell at all. I can’t do anything but stand there as if my feet are cemented to the parking lot, staring, unblinking, unbelieving at the sight in front of me.

My heart races in my ears, pulsing in my throat, consuming me with its erratic, suffocating rhythm. It’s all I can focus on, and it’s the only thing keeping me upright and alive, because every other organ slowly gives out.

“Jarrett?”

His name is a gasp of a whisper on my lips, and I blink over and over, trying to unsee him, to clear the vision of him leaned up against Kade’s car. It must be a mirage. It must be a hallucination.

Jarrett’s eyes are hard on me, brown and endless as ever, his smooth head and sprawling tattoos covering every inch of his arms a sight for sore eyes. I still don’t believe he’s real, even when he pushes off the car and tucks his hands into his pockets, crossing the small space between us and stopping with just a foot left to go.

His eyes search mine, and my stomach bottoms out.

He bites his lip, and my heart squeezes to a stop before kicking back to life painfully in my chest.

He lets out a breath that reaches my lips, and I inhale it shakily, swallowing it down, my entire body shaking with the familiar scent of it.

Kade’s hand on my hip jolts me back to life, and I jump at the contact, breathing heavy and nearly fainting. The only thing that stops me from going down is Kade’s arms around me, and he frowns, looking back and forth between me and Jarrett while I try not to pass out again.

“Are you okay?” he asks me, and I think I nod. I think I grip onto his arms to hold myself upright. I think I keep breathing.

What happens next, I only wish I could convince myself wasn’t real.

Because Kade looks at Jarrett, and Jarrett appraises Kade, and then he says the last thing I ever could have expected.

“Hello, brother.”

After that, everything goes dark.“SMILE, LADIES!”

Cassie holds out her Polaroid camera as far as she can with all of us piled into Erin’s queen-size bed, taking a picture with a grunt. When she pulls the photo out and starts waving it around, she frowns.

“You cut off all our faces?” I tease.

“Surprisingly, no — but I look like I’m taking a poop.”

“You do not,” Erin argues, stealing the picture with a smile. “We all look perfect.”

It’s the night before graduation for Erin, Ashlei, and Jess, and with all their families coming into town and graduation parties and campus-wide celebrations, this will be our last chance to be all together, just the five of us.

Maybe for a very long time.

My heart twists, and I hug Cassie tight. “Welp, it’s just going to be me and you now, Little.”

“Hey! We’re not dead,” Ashlei argues.

“We’re not even leaving the zip code,” Erin adds.

“Still, it won’t be the same without you here here,” Cassie says with a pouty lip.

We all fall quiet at that, and I roll over to squeeze Jess. “You okay over here?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” she says on a sigh, scrubbing her hands over her tired face. “I’m trying to be present, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t all the way fucked up right now.”

“I cannot believe Jarrett is here,” Cassie says.

“I can’t believe Jarrett and Kade are brothers,” Ashlei chimes in.

Jess just groans, rolling until her face is buried in the covers. “Just kill me now.”

“What are you going to do?” Erin asks.

“Move to Mexico?” Jess answers hopefully, popping her head up long enough to say the words before she face plants in the pillows again.

I chuckle, sweeping her hair back. “It’ll be okay. You’re with Kade now. Jarrett lost his chance, right?”

There’s a long pause, and the girls and I exchange worried glances.

“Can we just talk about something else for now?” Jess begs.

“Sure. I can join in your misery and remind you again how I fucked up the best thing to ever happen to me,” Ashlei offers.