“Nothing to interrupt,” I shrug nonchalantly. We discuss the layout for the article on Summer, which we’ll run Monday, right after the fundraiser this weekend. When we’re both on the same page, I find Ashton has taken over my chair, clicking through pictures of giant red penises on my screen. The Prescott Hall Penis, not actual dicks.
I slap my laptop shut. Stuff it in my bag and snap, “What do you think you’re doing?”
He lifts his hands in the air. “I just wanted to see what you were working on.”
It’s something we’d done all the time when we’d dated. Now I want to sanitize my computer and apologize to it for leaving him alone with all my notes and schedules. The contents of my life. A life he willingly let go and which I never want to let him in again.
I loop my bag over my shoulder. Cross my arms over my chest. “Ashton.”
He perks up.
“You’re a fucking prick.”
I say it loud enough that the whole room hears. So they can’t help but stare at the dumbfounded expression on his face when I walk away.
* * *
Natalie’s head pops up from the couch when I open the door. She sees it’s me, then collapses back on the cushions.
“You know,” she says when I take off my flats. “I’m the only one in this house not getting laid. Valentine’s Day, Kennedy!”
I note her sloppily tied hair and running gear. She’s worn the same outfit all week, yet hasn’t stepped a foot outside other than for classes. On Monday, when Rylie asked if she was going running with Morris, Natalie had grumpily punched a throw pillow and told us, “No. The Sergeant is in town.”
Rylie had asked me with concern, “Is that a new euphemism for her period?”
I’d briefly updated her on The Sergeant. And that was enough for her to understand why, every day Morris’s dad was here and keeping him too busy to hang with friends, Natalie had sunken into a moping pit of despair.
Now, Natalie continues, “A whole semester! I’m cursed.”
“Didn’t you have a date the other week?”
“His goldfish died. It really tore him up.”
“You could say he really flushed his opportunity with you.”
Natalie glares at the ceiling. “You and Rylie spend too much time together. Do you guys also talk about all the raunchy sex you’re having? I bet you compare notes. Do you have sex notes, Kennedy?”
“Peeing after prevents UTIs,” I offer, sitting on the couch next to her. She wiggles her head onto my lap, and I tidy her blue hair into a neat bun.
“You know that’s not the kind of notes I want.”
I laugh when she swats me with a pillow. I hadn’t realized how much I’d need to share with my friends until I let it slip. Sure, being out and open with Spencer at Brigid’s wedding had been nice. But my family doesn’t know our history. How months ago, we’d barely given each other the time of day, sure that the other was the last person on earth we’d ever want to kiss.
I open my mouth, ready to share more with her. Of Ashton, on campus. That after seeing him again, I realized something astounding.
Only a knock sounds on the door. Natalie pops right back up again. I roll my eyes, then answer it. Morris stands on the other side, dressed in mesh shorts and a Lakewood Leopard tank. He looks right over me, like I’m not even there, to the girl on the couch. The one who scrambles too quickly and falls to the floor in her rush to reach the door and hug him.
“Shoes,” Morris reminds, gripping her arms after a quick embrace.
I hand her running shoes to her, and Natalie slips them on, her sulky mood evaporating as they begin chatting about distances and what roads they want to run along. With a hasty goodbye, I watch as they jog down the sidewalk, standing in the open doorway… because a minute later, Spencer comes from the opposite direction they’d gone.
I wait for him, heart in my throat. Those words on my tongue.
Hi, I love you.
He kisses me before I can say anything. And I tame down those words. Enough to ask instead, “How’d it go? Morris was just here, but I didn’t have time to ask—”
Another kiss. Deep and knee-shaking. When he pulls away again, he rubs his nose against mine and says, “The guy was an asshole.”
I close the door, frowning as he walks inside and takes the spot on the couch Natalie just abandoned. I sink down beside him. “Did it not go well then? Are you okay—”
Spencer stops me with another kiss. Smoothing his hand over my cheek, he smiles at me. “I’m fine. I had fun. I did my best. The scout was an ignoramus.”
My grin fills my whole face. He saw my video. I’d hoped he would before the meeting. Spencer leans back, pulling me with him, and we kiss for a long, long time.
Just as the makeout’s getting good, though, he stops. Leaves me squirming in his lap as he reaches for his bag on the floor. “I got you something.”
I’d rather have more kissing, but Spencer smiles when he fetches the object from his backpack. My mouth twists in confusion when I see the football. But then he spins it in his hands and I read the name on it.
I gasp. Run my fingers over the large swooping ‘S’ in ‘To Sean Walsh’. I follow it to the signature below in Trevor Morris’s handwriting. Tears gather in my eyes. Spencer Armstrong got my dad a present. An autograph from his favorite football player. Because he knew it would make him happy. And that would make me happy.
I want to tease him. Say that now my parents will expect Spencer at Thanksgiving to watch football with my dad.
But that’s months from now. Will we still be… Would Spencer still want to…?
I press my lips together, wanting
