Getting Him Back (11 page)

“It’s the middle of the night.” I had no idea what time it was, but the window was still dark. “Just stay.”

I thought he would argue with me, mostly because that seemed to be how things rolled between us, but he didn’t.

He went back to petting my hair, sifting his fingers through it like I did with the fur on Blake’s fluffy Angora cat. The sides were shaved short, so he scraped his nails through it there, then stroked the longer curls on top. Over and over. It was hypnotic. I started to drift off, then jerked awake.

“You’re doing that to make me fall asleep so you can sneak out.”

“Sneak out?”

I felt him looking down at me. “I noticed you didn’t argue my main point.”

“I don’t want to argue.”

I didn’t either. I just wanted to hold him. “So don’t.”

He made a breath like a laugh. “Because it’s that easy.”

“Yes. If you don’t want to argue, you don’t argue. If you don’t want to fight, you don’t fight.”

“Things are so simple in your world.”

“My world? Don’t you live here too?”

I felt him shake his head, then he kissed my temple. He was quiet after that, and I thought he’d decided to fall back asleep.

Right as I relaxed he said, “I really need a shower though. I’m sticky.”

My throat heated, spreading into my chest remembering how he’d gotten sticky. Come and lube and sweat.

“I can fix that.” I wriggled over him and out of the bed. After dragging on my robe, I rummaged through the closet to find the washcloths my mom had sent me off with. “Be right back.”

In the bathroom I ducked into one of the shower stalls and wiped myself down. It felt a lot stickier than it was. I wet a fresh washcloth for Wyatt and added a little soap from the dispenser over the sink. On the way out, I paused for a second to look at myself in the mirror. My hair was sticking up like I was doing a weather broadcast in a hurricane. My cheeks were a little red under my freckles, the color staining my throat and chest.

“You totally just had sex. And it was awesome,” I told myself.

The high floated me back down the hall until I got back to my room and looked at my empty bed.

Wyatt was gone.

Chapter 11

I wadded up the sheets and shoved them into the laundry bag, then eyed the pillowcase. Fuck it. I was leaving it unwashed. It smelled like Wyatt, like rain and fall leaves, and I wasn’t ready to let that go.

I hit Fast-Forward on another of the peppy songs my Pandora station seemed determined to play for me this morning and headed down to the laundry room with my calculus book.

Connor had rolled in at 7:00 a.m. with a grin and a thumbs-up and flopped on his bed, his sleep grumbles starting up almost immediately.

I’d only had about twenty minutes of sleep in the hours since Wyatt pulled his vanishing act, so when Connor came back, I’d decided I might as well be productive if I was going to be awake.

Deciding wasn’t doing though. Slouching in a chair with my calculus book on my lap and my feet on the folding table while some underwear, socks and last nights’ sheets got busy with Tide, all I could think about was Wyatt.

I didn’t have his phone number, didn’t know anyone who had classes with him, only where he worked and where his room was. And for damned sure, I wasn’t going anywhere near his room.

In the worst moments of staring at the ceiling last night, I’d imagined Wyatt and Blake talking about me.

Dude
,
you weren’t kidding about him being clingy.
I
practically had to chew off an arm to escape.

That thought kept me rooted on the east side of campus. I wasn’t about to go chasing him through the jock cafeteria, putting on a very special Ethan Is Pathetic and Desperate Show.

There wasn’t anything else I could do besides prepare for the one midterm I was totally going to fail.

Despite me hiding from it behind window blinds, the sunlight streaming in proved the day was beautiful. By noon, most people had taken their studying outside. Makayla tried to drag me out too, but I was clinging to the idea that Wyatt might come looking for me in the only place he knew to find me. My dorm room.

“We could totally find some hot nerd who can help you with your calculus. Look at them all over the lawn.”

Being outside sounded way better than feeling locked up in my room. “One condition. We go hang out by Lake Murphy.”

“This isn’t about your soccer guy, is it?” Makayla gave me a suspicious side eye.

I was strong with truth on my side. “It’s really not.”

The sky was ridiculously blue, making the leaf colors on the trees extra bright. Me, Makayla and Whitney were a freaking college brochure picture. Three students on a blanket in the bright sunshine, books spread around us. The midterm suspension of Humans vs. Zombies lasted until Saturday 6:00 a.m.

This wasn’t the hill where I’d watched for Blake five weeks ago. We were right above the path that went from the student center to Kilpatrick. Despite the location, none of us were looking at the lake.

“I call foul,” Whitney said, tapping a highlighter on her psych text even harder than she’d been for the past half hour. “You’ve known about this prime boy-watching spot all this time and you’re only telling us now?”

It did seem like most of the more attractive males on campus passed through the three-way intersection ten yards from our blanket. The third branch led toward the library and the El.

“I just found it.” Which was sort of true. I’d picked it because I could cover the most likely route Wyatt would take going to or from his dorm.

“Oooh, him.” Whitney pointed with her highlighter.

“Kind of schlubby,” Makayla said.

“Grad student probably.” I’d noticed they all looked harried and sleep-deprived.

“Not him. He’s passing the lamppost now.”

I looked. Medium build, brown skin, cute face, jeans and a V-neck T-shirt. His eyes swept over us, then stopped on me. He held my gaze for a second, looked away and then a quick glance back. He never broke stride.

“For who?” I asked.

“Me,” Whitney said.

“Sorry. Gay.”

“Why didn’t I have you around in high school?” Makayla rolled into a sit up. “Would have saved me so much time and effort.”

“How can you be sure?” Whitney was still watching him. She looked for my phone. “Grindr?”

“Don’t need it. We totally just did each other.” There was nothing like being clocked by a cute guy to bring some confidence back.

Makayla and Whitney looked at each other in confusion while I smirked in my best imitation of Wyatt.

“Whatever.” Makayla shrugged. “What about him?”

In between grading the doability of the guys who went past our intersection, we did some studying. Whitney complained that she’d heard her psych prof had questions on the footnotes. Makayla showed me something that worked with parabolas, but that was only a small part of my problems. Makayla couldn’t remember anything about the wave velocity I was trying to figure out.

“Makayla, artsy one coming for you, three o’clock.” Whitney interrupted us.

I knew him immediately. He was wearing the Coborn hoodie I’d bought him, though he had the sleeves shoved up. The sunshine and boring subject had made me drowsy, but seeing Wyatt headed down the path from the library jolted me like a triple espresso. Everything hit at once, him stroking my hair, what he sounded like when he came, how it felt to be inside him, what his real smile looked like.

And how it had felt to come back to that empty bed.

“Not my type.” Makayla barely glanced up.

“He is mine.” I hadn’t meant it to come out like that, with such a hard edge, but it did. Both girls turned to look at me.

“Ha. Was that who was helping you drive the bed frame against the wall last night?” Makayla jabbed at me with a mechanical pencil.

Even the hot flood of embarrassment didn’t stop me from watching him. He didn’t do much looking around. I imagined his eyes under his hoodie and hair, staring forward, focused on the obstacles made up of students congregating on the path.

I’d been hoping Wyatt would come over to us, now I hoped he stayed far away. The last thing he needed was to be the object of Makayla’s curiosity. In fact, the whole plan to come over here had been a colossal mistake. If Blake thought I was clingy, a guy like Wyatt probably thought I was a freaking tumor. Ethan: My Pushy Gay Tumor.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to vanish behind one of the girls? But a skateboarder came down the path and Wyatt looked up to dodge him. I knew the exact moment he saw me and I cringed. He made it obvious with that disgusted head shake thing.

Then he waved and kept walking.

A wave? My shame vanished in a flash of irritation. I had my dick in you last night and you
wave
?

“Aren’t you going to go talk to him? Especially since you made us carry our shit all the way over here?” Makayla asked.

“No.”

“But you told Whitney she should go after that guy she couldn’t stop talking about.”

“It’s different.”

Wyatt was all kinds of different. And I really liked him.

“I thought you were the one who chased your soccer guy to school here.”

“And look where that got me.” I thought of something Wyatt had said. “Makayla, am I—do I act like I’m in my own little world?”

“Uh—”

“Subtext says yes.”

“It’s not a bad thing. Necessarily. You just kind of have this view of how you think things should be.” She finished with a wave of her hand.

Didn’t everybody? Weren’t you supposed to go confidently on your dream path or something? “I should just accept that the world sucks and go with that?”

“I said it wasn’t a bad thing. It just—” She smiled. “It makes you special.”

“Great. Now I need to ride the short bus to school.”

“Hey.” Whitney said. “My little brother takes that bus.”

“Sorry.” And I was. I guess it was more of me living in my own special world. The one that clearly irritated everyone around me. And they were right. I hadn’t noticed my roommate was dealing with his own breakup the first few weeks because I was so obsessed with my own. I needed to stop acting like a greedy child and grow up.

Right after I asked Makayla if she knew how to do this last calculus problem.

There was only so much integral differentiation I could handle before my brain exploded. I rolled off the blanket and started taking pictures with my phone. A macro of a bright yellow leaf on the still green grass, Whitney and Makayla talking.

“Hey. You’d better not be using angles that give me a double chin,” Makayla said when she saw what I was doing.

“Never. I like my junk right where it is. Not gonna risk it pissing you off.” I got a really good shot of the sky through the thinning yellow leaves on the beech? elm?
whatever
tree, then turned back on my stomach, lining up a shot across the grass. Some guy’s feet and ankles were screwing with my shot. I pulled the phone down and saw Wyatt ten yards away, still in the hoodie I’d given him. That had to be a good sign, right?

He motioned a
C’mere
with his head.

“Be right back,” I told the girls.

I found Wyatt sitting on the other side of the tree. A chestnut tree, that was it. I kicked away a few of the spiny seed balls and sat next to him.

I was glad he didn’t need to put up with all of Makayla’s questions, but we didn’t have to hide or anything. “The girls—my friends—are cool. If you want to come meet them.”

He shook his head and his hoodie slipped back. The sun shone off his black hair—and the streak of white.

“Uh-oh. Aren’t you afraid you’ll combust, like a vampire?” I flicked one of the spiked green balls toward him.

He flicked it back.

I split the case, pulling the shiny reddish brown seed out. It was warm from the sunshine, and silky smooth. I tossed the green-spined skin toward our feet. “I guess that’s one way to try to keep your nuts safe.”

He made a choked sound that might have been a laugh. I’d give it to him. For karma’s sake. Maybe my calculus professor would grade on the curve too.

I rolled the chestnut around on my fingers. I could work on not being clingy or in my own world, but I was never going to be good with silence. “So did you want to make out or talk?”

“About?”

About us having sex.
You disappearing without a word.
Your roommate being my ex
. Those were a few good starters. I shrugged. “Anything.”

When the silence went on, I whipped the chestnut into the branches. He flinched at the crack of the wood. Leaves rustled down.

“Ooooh-kay.” I drew the word out. “The weather’s always safe. It’s a nice day, huh?”

He faced me. “I guess it was rude, taking off like that.”

“If you wanted to leave, you could have just told me.”

He shook his head. “And you wouldn’t have tried to talk me out of it.”

“Maybe. Were you freaked out? Was it...bad?” I mean, I knew he’d come, but maybe he’d been really sore after.

“No.” His answer was fast, emphatic and a boost to my ego.

“Is this the my world thing? Because I get that I can be a self-absorbed asshole. I’m working on it.”

“You aren’t an asshole. I like you. When you aren’t fishing for compliments.”

I totally hadn’t been. But denying it wasn’t going to move the conversation anywhere productive.

“I wanted to say I was sorry for taking off. I liked being—the sex was good.” He climbed to his feet and brushed off his ass.

I wanted to drag him back to my room, to his room, up against this tree and show him how absolutely fucking amazing the sex had been. I pushed off the ground. There was a big
but
coming and I wanted to deal with it on my feet.

He tucked his hands into the pouch of the hoodie. “You’re a nice guy, Ethan. Problem is, I’m not.”

He walked away before I could figure out how to argue with him.

I’d about had it with the other guy getting all the good exit lines.

What the hell did that mean, he wasn’t a nice guy? He was a secret ax murderer? He really was turning the Frayne Center’s math lab into a meth lab?