I don’t know if he’s kidding or not, but I wouldn’t put anything past Maverick.
“Absolutely fucking not.” I don’t want to share one second of my time with Ginny. Not with anyone.
11
Ginny
“And that’s the story of why I’m never going back to my brother’s apartment.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.” Reagan gives me a hopeful smile across the table. I snuck out of Adam’s early this morning and went straight to Dakota and Reagan’s. They’re consoling me over brunch at a cute little café they like.
“I was having a full-on panic attack in the bathtub. I have an issue with dark, enclosed spaces.” I wave it off, hoping they don’t ask more about that piece because I don’t really feel like going into the specifics. “It was absolutely that bad.”
Dakota snickers and takes a bite of her bagel.
“It’s kind of romantic,” Reagan insists. “Crawling into the tub with you and calming you down. I’m impressed, although not all that surprised that Heath was the one to come to your rescue. He’s got that cocky but capable look about him. Still, I’m not sure I would have known what to do, so you were really lucky.”
“It wasn’t romantic. It was pity.” I groan and bury my head in my arm on the table for a second. When I lift it back up, they’re both smiling at me. “It’s too bad. I liked Heath. Now I’m going to have to avoid him until I can look at him without wanting to disappear into the ground.”
“Are you a drama major like this one?” Dakota asks and points her bagel toward Reagan.
“No, why?”
She smiles and I toss a crumpled napkin at her. “Ha. Ha. Very funny.”
“We’ve all made fools of ourselves one time or another. It’s college. It’s fine.” Dakota finishes her bagel and grabs her coffee. “Do you need to get back to the dorm or do you want to hang out today?”
“I need to shower and change, but I don’t have anything after that.”
“You’ll want to shower after, but we can swing by the dorm on the way because you need sneakers.”
“On the way where?” I ask, standing and following them out of the booth.
I gasp as we jog around the Valley U campus track. “When you said hang out, I was picturing Netflix or mani-pedis.”
“Two more laps and then we switch to speed walking,” Dakota says, sounding far too comfortable talking while jogging.
The Scott pride and competitive nature keeps me pushing on, but when we finally begin walking, I’m a lot more sweaty and tired than these two.
“Do you guys do this often?”
“Three times a week,” Reagan says, sounding only slightly out of breath.
“Why?”
“I like to run,” Dakota says.
“She was on the track team,” Reagan adds. “I let her drag me along because it justifies the really big slice of cheesecake I’m going to have later while I make Dakota watch Lifetime movies.”
“What’s Ava, your roommate, like?” Dakota asks, swiftly changing the subject.
Ava and Trent hadn’t been at the dorm when we’d stopped by, but Trent’s things were still there. I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed tonight.
“She’s really nice. Her boyfriend goes to school at Northern. That’s why I was at Adam’s this weekend. He was visiting, and I wanted to give them some privacy. Hopefully next weekend she goes to his campus because I’m going to need a few weeks while I’m in hiding.”
“You can always crash with us. The bathtub is all yours,” Reagan teases.
“Thanks a lot, jerks,” I say with a smile.
Trent’s gone and Ava’s asleep in her bed when I get back. I shower and then get into my own bed to nap, but last night plays over and over in my mind. Adam and Heath have both texted, but I only responded to my brother and with a quick—I’m fine, it was nothing—that will hopefully keep him from asking more.
A knock at our door gets me out of bed and I’m half expecting it to be Adam. It would be just like him to skip texting back altogether and want to check on me in person, but it’s Heath standing in the hallway.
“What are you doing here?”
He smirks and adjusts the baseball hat on his head. “It’s nice to see you too.”
“Sorry. Hello, how are you today? Great weather we’re having. What the heck are you doing at my dorm? And how did you know where I lived?”
His rough chuckle pulls a smile from my lips. “Good. Agreed. I wanted to see you and…” He leans in closer. “I can’t reveal all my secrets.” He’s full-on grinning at me with a mocking glint in his eyes. “Come on, take a walk with me.”
“A walk?”
“Sure. You got something better to do?”
“I was planning on taking a nap.”
“Sleep’s boring. Come on, am I really having to talk you into this? It’s gorgeous outside and we can stop at the dining hall to feed you.”
“Me?”
“Now that you mention it, I could eat.”
He doesn’t move and I relent. “One minute.”
I leave him in the hallway, shut the door, and change out of my comfy yoga pants and into a pair of shorts. I swipe on lip gloss and a dab of mascara. When I pull the door open, he’s leaning against the wall, one ankle crossed over the other and hands in his pockets.
“Ready?”
He pushes off the wall and motions for me to go first. “If you are.”
We cross the street to the dining hall in silence. Heath seems perfectly at ease with the quiet, while I have a million questions on the tip of my tongue. He holds the door out for me.
“I should have assumed spending time with you would mean eating.”
“Always,” he says. “Plus, it’s where we met. We have history here.”
I huff a laugh and grab a tray. Now that we’re here, I am kind of hungry. Heath gets a much smaller portion of food than normal and I
