I snort. Keeland’s gaze lands on me.
“Armstrong.” He doesn’t extend a hand to me.
“Asswipe.”
He gives me a cool look, like he’d expected as much.
“Does Kennedy know you’re here?” Rylie asks. I see her grip her phone, probably preparing to message her roommate about her ex-boyfriend showing up the moment he goes away.
Keeland dismisses me with a flick of his eyes, turning to her with a self-righteous smile. “Of course. We talked yesterday. We had a lot to catch up on.”
My scowl deepens. When?
When did Kennedy talk to him? Besides the two hours with me that she blew off, the rest of her day had been packed. She hadn’t put it on our calendar. She never even mentioned seeing him.
But would she? Would she tell the guy she can’t picture a future with about catching up with the guy she once planned forever?
It pisses me off that I don’t know the answer.
Keeland gives me another smug look. I curl my fingers into fists. The last time I punched him, it had been for Hart. But now I want to punch him for Kennedy. For being such a shitty boyfriend. For keeping hold over her heart long after he had any right. For looking at me like that. For myself.
“I’m hoping we can make up before fall semester, Rylie,” Keeland says to her. “I’d really like to continue studying at Busy Beans—”
“Too bad. Find another coffee shop.”
He’s not deterred. “—And I’d like to get along with Kennedy’s friends. I know we have our differences, but Kennedy and I, we have history. I’ve been gone, but that doesn’t stop us from feeling—”
“Fuck off.”
They look at me. Rippling with anger. Arms crossed over my chest to restrain every part of me pulsating with the urge to pummel him to the ground.
“Armstrong—”
“Fuck. Off,” I grit, eyes narrowed to slits. “Or else you don’t want to fucking see what I’ll do next, you fucking limp-dick moron.”
This guy—this fucking piece of human garbage—he doesn’t seriously think he and Kennedy are getting back together. That she’d take him back. That’s she not over him.
Because she has to be over him. She fucking has to.
“You heard him,” Stone backs me up. “Leave.”
With a sullen pout, Keeland doesn’t push his luck. He turns on his heel and walks away.
Stone reaches for my arm. “Spencer, you know Kennedy…”
I stalk away. Tension stretches to a taut point, ready to snap at any second. I push through students and alumni and sorority girls that give me coy glances—looks I never acknowledge because there’s one girl on my mind and I can’t fucking find her anywhere.
Finally, though, I see a familiar flash. Of long hair. Dark as night. See an arm, a hand, lightly touching the tie of a professor.
Fuck.
Meegan.
I step back, knocking into a waiter, almost upending her tray. Heads turn in our direction, Meegan one of them. Before she can see me, I dart out of the way. Hide in the crowd and make my way to the hallway exit. In this mood, and when I still haven’t found Kennedy, a run-in with my ex is at the very bottom of the list of things I want to deal with right now.
The hallway’s nearly empty of people, everyone inside the main atrium. I try to breathe, to count in my head and snap my wrist band—and then I see another familiar head. This one auburn. With a swishing ponytail, turning a corner further down the hall.
I follow her.
37
Kennedy
At first, I almost don’t see Summer, ducked under one of the booth tables. One boasting the advantages of a degree in mathematics. I almost point out the irony that I find her here, of all places at this fundraiser, except when she glances up at me, there’s a grim set to her mouth and a frantic gleam in her eye.
For the first time all semester, Summer Prescott looks… frazzled.
“Walsh,” she says when she sees I’m the one that said her name. She holds out a hand. “I need a pin. Any sort of pin.”
Her other hand holds together two ends of the booth’s tablecloth. I set my camera bag on the table, rummage through my purse until I find a handful of paper clips. Summer takes them, twisting the thin metal until she’s fashioned a set of hooks to keep the cloth cinched together.
She rises from under the booth, smoothing down her skirt and fluffing her blond curls. “Thanks,” she says. “Someone was supposed to tie these all back so no one trips on them.”
I don’t envy the pointed stare she gives to a nearby group of her sorority sisters, who stand around the volcano punch station, gabbing to each other.
“Okay, that’s the last of the tablecloths,” Summer speaks under her breath. She glances around the room. It’s an incredible fundraiser. One of ABB’s best yet. Though I hadn’t had time to interview the alumni or the STEM majors or any of the other random students who dropped by to see the new building, the buzz all around is how well this party came together.
You wouldn’t think that by watching Summer. Her eyes pierce the details. I see it in the way her head tilts, measuring the star light fixtures. From how she draws in a breath when a waiter spends too much time flirting with a table of young women, the food on his tray growing cold. The perfectionist in me recognizes the calculation in her expression, the way she mentally notes whatever’s out of place in hopes to right it before anyone else notices.
I say her name at the same time her phone goes off. She checks the message, stare hardening. “How the hell are we out of napkins already?”
She bolts off, not realizing I’m still waiting there. With a sigh, I grab my camera bag and follow her.
“Summer,” I call after her.
“What do you want, Walsh? I’m
