Me: Yes, I’m safe and sound in my dorm.
He doesn’t respond right away, and I toss my phone back onto the bed. Holding it reminds me I haven’t talked to Heath. “Well, should we watch Notting Hill?”
We’re just cueing up the movie when there’s noise outside of my window. My window faces a parking lot, so it isn’t unusual that it’s noisy, but this noise is… well, it’s different.
“Do you hear that?” I ask.
“Sounds like a bunch of drunk guys heading out to party. It’s too early to be so obnoxious, must be freshmen. No offense.” She stands and goes to look. “Uh, Ginny, I think you need to see this.”
I scramble from the bed to look. There’s shrubbery along the edge of the building, so the aforementioned obnoxious guys aren’t directly under my window, but they’re as close as they can get.
Adam and Rhett are on all fours on the ground and Maverick is on top of them on his hands and knees and then Heath stands on his back. They’ve built a freaking pyramid. Reagan and Dakota laugh. We open my window as far as it goes, which is only a couple of inches.
Heath holds his cell phone over his head and sings along with the music.
“What in the world is he doing?” Dakota asks.
“Shh! He’s serenading her,” Reagan says.
“Why Mariah Carey?” Dakota asks in a whisper.
A few other residents have opened their windows and call out or sing along. People walking by in the parking lot are stopping. Some have their phones out videoing it, no doubt.
Heath wears a shy expression, one I wasn’t sure he possessed, but he belts out the song confidently. When he’s through the chorus for a second time, he stops.
Rhett calls, “Did she hear us? What’s going on? I can’t see shit down here.”
“The whole dorm heard you, asshole,” someone calls.
“What are you doing?” I ask through the crack. My heart hammers in my chest. Hope and excitement claw at the hurt and anger.
“I didn’t think this all the way through. I don’t know what to do now,” he admits with a sheepish grin.
“Tell her how you feel,” Mav urges. He looks up to me and lifts a hand to wave, which makes Heath wobble on his back.
“Maybe you should get down first,” Adam prompts.
Heath jumps down and the rest of the guys get up. Heath walks closer and stares up at me. “I miss you.”
“You could have said that over the phone.”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t answer.”
“Trying to watch a movie in here!” someone else calls out a window not far from mine.
Heath looks toward the voice. “Sorry, man. Almost done.”
Mav pushes forward. “Go fucking watch it then. Guy’s trying to pour his heart out.” He nods to Heath as if to say, I’ve got you covered.
Heath tilts his head to the side and speaks a little quieter. “Can we talk somewhere else, not through the window?”
I hesitate and he adds, “Doesn’t have to be tonight. Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? You name it and I’ll be there.”
Reagan whispers beside me, “Go down there.”
My heart is beating so fast, but the rest of me is frozen in place. “I’ll call you, okay?”
He nods, a look of resignation taking over his features and he takes a step back.
“Come on, boys,” Adam says.
Every one of them looks disappointed, but I can’t bring myself to run down there and throw myself into his arms. Of course, that’s what I want to do, but then what?
They head toward the parking lot. Adam’s Jeep is parked in one of the fifteen-minute spots closest to my dorm.
“Heath,” I yell out my window. They all turn with matching hopeful expressions. “I miss you too.”
Last night, Reagan and Dakota stayed through the movie. They didn’t ask if I was going to call Heath or say anything really, and I’m glad because I didn’t know the answer. I still don’t.
After they were gone, I laid in bed with my phone scrolling through our text history and then my pictures. He’s become such a big part of my life and I know that I can’t cut him out completely. At least for another semester, he’ll be living with my brother, but even if that weren’t the case, I’d see him on campus. A glimpse across the crowd or maybe we’d run into one another at a party.
I’ve started a dozen different text messages, but I haven’t been brave enough to send any of them.
I go to the game Saturday afternoon with Dakota and this time we sit in our usual seats. We’re in our blue and yellow, and I do my best to plaster on a happy face as the team takes the ice.
Heath looks straight to my seat, and when he sees me, a hint of a smile pulls at his lips. Tonight’s game is as fast-paced as last night’s and we’re on our feet, hands clenched in nervous excitement for most of it.
Vermont’s defense is big and mean and they seem to have it out for Heath in particular. He takes hit after brutal hit.
I cringe when Maverick’s slammed into the boards. In front of me, Adam and a guy from Vermont collide and both go down, but not before Adam passes the puck to Heath. It’s like a wrestling match on skates, but Heath races to the net, past defenders, and finds the net. The horn blares and we go crazy with the rest of the crowd.
The goal seems to shift things and Vermont is sloppier, not quite recovering their composure. Valley holds on to win by one.
I decide to wait for Heath by the locker rooms. I have no idea what I’m going to say, but avoiding him forever isn’t an option.
The guys are slow to come out and I’m pacing and wringing my hands when his dark head finally comes through the door. He pauses when he sees
