Let Love Live (The Love Series #5) (13 page)

“I thought you said you were heading off to Scranton with a scholarship and everything,” Scott asked, folding his arms on the back of the chair.

Shrugging, I answered lamely. “I did, but I lost it. Just need to get my shit together for a year before I can hope to transfer. What about you? I thought you had bigger plans than this place.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I did. But my parents got divorced a few months after that camp. The scholarship I had didn’t cover everything and my mom couldn’t afford it. The few bucks my dad was willing to throw in weren’t much of a help, so I chose to go here. Stay close to home and help Mom out. Plus, my sister is in college, too, and she’s almost done, so I didn’t want to screw up her last year.”

Maybe my first impressions of Scott were wrong. Maybe he wasn’t a jerk, after all. He had a level head on his shoulders and he cared about his family. Some of the tension I thought I would feel talking to him faded as we joked about our older-than-dirt sociology professor.

After sitting there for about twenty minutes, I slung my bag over my shoulder and got ready to go. If I was lucky enough, maybe I could catch Dylan before I went to bed.

“All right, man, it was good catching up. I’ll see you in class, yeah?” Scott stood next to me. He’d filled out since camp. He was about as tall as me at about six foot, but a bit more muscled – almost too much, for my own taste.

My own taste
. That thought had me smirking. I was able to admit my desires in my own head. I couldn’t wait for the day that I could verbalize them to someone other than Dylan. 

“There’s a party tomorrow night at my sister’s sorority house. Wanna join?” he offered as I adjusted my bag. As much as I didn’t want to be around him earlier, he had really never been anything but nice to me in our time at the camp. Hell, he and Eric actually let me stay with them for a few nights after I found out about Dylan. Of course, I’d just told them Dylan was being an asshole and that I couldn’t stay there with him.

A pang of guilt hit me right in the gut. I had been such an asshole to Dylan. I only hoped he knew how much I regretted shutting him out for so long.

While a sorority house party was the last thing on my sounds-like-a-great-idea list, it sure as hell sounded better than sitting in my room alone all night while my parents fought downstairs and while Reid was out with his friends.

On a whim, I said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.” We exchanged numbers and said we’d be in touch the next day. Even though I didn’t feel entirely happy, the thought of at least having
something
to do made me smile as I walked to my car and drove home.

Despite my best arguments to drive myself, Scott insisted on picking me up. He knew the best place to park because it was his sister’s house. Since I didn’t feel like having to answer about a few dents and scratches on my car to my dad, I went along with it.

When we pulled up to the house, I could practically feel the music pulsing out the front door. It was a weird night – warm and humid, the usual chilly fall air was nowhere to be found. But really, it was more than the weather that was strange. I felt out of place, even though the drive had been relaxed and easy.

Inside, all I saw was people and red plastic cups. It was pretty much the same as any high school party I’d been to, except here, I knew no one. Scott handed me a drink and I willingly swallowed back half of it in one huge gulp. A little liquid courage and I’d be fine.

“Come on. I’ll introduce you to my sister and her friends.” He still had to yell even though he leaned in close to my ear.

Scott led me out back onto the deck. The railing was covered in multi-colored Christmas lights and blow-up palm trees graced every corner. It was tacky and cheesy and one-hundred percent what I’d expect a college house to look like. The volume was much more tolerable out back and I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw a line of people failing miserably at a drunken limbo contest.

A few of his friends greeted me, but we eventually meandered our way out to the small backyard where Scott’s sister, Alex, was sitting around a fire-pit with a group of her friends.

She leapt out of her seat and squealed when she saw Scott. “You made it!”

“Free drinks and a night out of the house, fuck yeah, I made it,” he joked as he draped an arm over her shoulder. She was much shorter than him. Since she only came up to Scott’s chest as she stood next to him, she was safely past five-feet tall. Pretty much everything about her was petite. She was cute – like a little pixie. Her short black hair framed her face and made her light blue eyes pop.

A group of kids who Scott apparently knew already came up behind him, taking his attention away from his sister, leaving me to introduce myself.

“So, hi. I’m Shane.” I extended my hand to her and she smiled coyly at me before sliding her small hand into mine.

“Alex.” She winked and released my hand. “You’ll have to excuse my brother. Everything else ceases to exist when he’s around beer and boobs.” Her gaze fell over my shoulder to where Scott had just been dragged. He was apparently needed as another judge in the wet T-shirt contest.

Thank God, he hadn’t dragged me with him.

“Need another drink?” Alex tipped her head to the keg off to the side of the house. “We leave that one in the shadows so we don’t have to wait on line inside.”

“Sure.” I finished off the rest of my first drink as she pulled me over to the keg. “So how come you’re sitting out here. Isn’t this your house?” I asked as I filled our cups.

“Yeah, but I had a late study session tonight. I’d rather just chill by the fire.”

“What are you studying?” I hadn’t declared a major, yet. There was no point, really. Since I was only going to be there until May, I could figure out the rest of my life later. But I still knew the rules. Meet another college student, ask them what they’re studying. It was a rule encoded in a college student’s DNA; I was sure.

“I’m actually going to be a nurse. I finish my undergrad program in December and then I’m off to grad school in the spring.” She was obviously proud of her career choice; her enthusiasm bled through each and every one of her words.

As we got our drinks, the group of her friends made their way over to the ridiculously outrageous wet T-shirt contest. I couldn’t help but stare – not for the boobs, obviously. I was simply transfixed, watching a group of people laugh and have a good time. It had been so long since I’d been around that kind of scene, that I’d kind of missed it.

And of course, it was just my luck that Alex mistook my distraction as a guy staring at tits than for what it actually was.

Her fingers snapping in my face roused me out of my silent staring. “Did you hear
any
of what I just said?” Her tone was more joking than angry which helped me relax back into the conversation.

“Sorry. Yeah, I heard parts of it,” I answered honestly. “Sorry to hear about your parents.”

She rolled her shoulders and took a large swig of her drink. “Thanks, but it’s better that he’s gone. Even though I wasn’t home much, it was a shitty place to live. They were always fighting and screaming. My mom was miserable, so now maybe she can be a little happier.” She took another sip. “You probably don’t want to hear it, though. Not the most lighthearted of conversations for a party, huh?” She scoffed, at herself more than what she thought I was interested in.

“My parents are the same.” The look on her face suggested my confession shocked her a little. “They aren’t divorced, but they should be.” I leaned back in the Adirondack chair, stretching my legs out in front of me, letting the dancing and flickering flames relax me. “What did you wish for on your tenth birthday?”

She choked on her beer, obviously surprised my question. “I’m sorry, what?” she laughed.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “No, seriously, what did you wish for?”

Alex pulled her legs up on the chair and hugged them close to her chest. “Okay, then. Let’s see.” She absentmindedly played with a piece of her hair as she thought. “I was big into horse riding back then, so probably something to do with that. Or Nurse Barbie. I pretty much wished for that every year.” She paused, letting herself get lost in the memory for a brief moment, before asking, “You?”

“Me?” I swallowed the rest of my beer. “I wished for my dad to leave and never come back.” She looked at me, her eyes wide, but not out of shock so much as sympathy.

“That sucks.” Our chairs were close enough together that she reached out for my arm and gently placed her hand there. Her eyes softened and she began tracing her fingers up and down my forearm.

Shit. She was definitely misreading me. I pulled my arm away from her and she wrapped hers back around her legs. “So Scott told me you play ball.” I was happy she wasn’t hurt, and talking about baseball was easy enough.

“My whole life actually.” That thought saddened me. It was the one thing that brought me happiness when I was a kid, stress as a teenager and pure contentment because it brought me to Dylan. I thought coming to the party would help distract me, but instead, it did the opposite. Sitting here talking ball with Alex, who was pretty – no man, gay or straight, could deny that – and who was obviously interested in me – if even just for conversation – just made me miss him even more.

I would much rather be sitting in front of a campfire, talking about the playoffs and whether Boston would actually make it into the series, with Dylan curled up by my side than Alex.

But as the night went on, Alex began to grow on me. She was fun to hang around, knew her baseball, and made me laugh more than a few times.

We both looked over to the car at the exact second Scott stumbled. He righted himself and then stumbled again as he tried to get the key into the door.

“He probably shouldn’t drive, huh?” she asked.

“Uh, no. Definitely not. I would drive, but if my dad sees me in someone else’s car, it wouldn’t be pretty.”

“I got it.” She walked past me and I followed behind, laughing at how easily she bossed around her younger but much bigger brother.

“I’m fiiine, Alex. I can totally drive,” Scott slurred.

She snatched the keys from the ground and dangled them in front of his face. “Yeah? And how are you gonna manage that without these?” she quipped and opened the back door for him. “Get in, Scotty. You’re drunk.” The second his ass hit the seat, he flopped over and passed out.

We pulled away from the party and I told her where I lived. A few minutes into the drive, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and a warm feeling bloomed in my chest as Dylan’s name popped up on the screen. “Hey,” I was consciously trying to keep my voice even, to hide my excitement. Dylan had been so busy with classes and his fall baseball league that we hadn’t talked much since he left.

“Hi, babe.” The term of endearment caught me off-guard, but I loved it.

We were still about ten minutes from home, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk. “Let me call you back in a few minutes, okay?”

“Sure. But hurry up. I miss you.” His confession forced a goofy grin to pull at my lips. As soon as we said goodbye, Alex turned down the music, but kept her eyes on the road.

“Girlfriend?” There was a hint of accusation in her question.

I scrubbed my hand through my hair, trying to figure out what the best approach was. “Something like that, but it’s nothing serious.” Calling what I had with Dylan “casual” made bile rise in my throat. It was anything but that. I just didn’t need to get into it with Alex.

“That’s me.” I pointed to my house and she parked in the road. Scott was still knocked out in the back, curled up like a baby. I was actually surprised he hadn’t fallen off the seat when the car shifted into park.

“So if it’s nothing serious, can we get together next weekend?” she asked nervously. Even if I was straight, what did she see in me?

“No, I don’t think–”

She cut me off before I could finish. “Come on, Shane. It’ll be fun.” She gave me a pouty face look and I rolled my eyes.

I shocked even myself when I said, “Okay, sure.”

She bounced in her seat, but simply said, “Cool.”

After we exchanged numbers, I quickly added, “As friends.” It was a clarification, not a question.

She leaned across the center console. “Sure,” her voice was pitched low and she trailed a fingernail down the length of my arm. I just rolled my eyes, trying desperately to hide my unease.

I didn’t want to go out with her. It was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do, but I didn’t want to turn her down, make her feel rejected, at least not to her face. I had a week to come up with an excuse and call her to break it off. Maybe it would be easier to do over the phone rather than in person.

I thought of all of this as I softly crept into my house and up the stairs to my room, careful to avoid all the spots that creaked loudly when you stepped on them.

Thankfully, I arrived home before Reid, which left me alone in our bedroom.

I flopped back on my bed, slid my phone out of my pocket, and dialed Dylan. He picked up on the first ring.

“Hey,” his voice bathed over me, sending shivers everywhere.