The sky opens above us without warning, rain drumming against the stone courtyard and soaking through our clothes. Mackenzi laughs in surprise, the sound warm and breathless as water streaks down her cheeks and darkens her hair. I brush a wet tendril from her face and tuck it behind her ear before kissing her again.
Her hands fist tightly in the front of my sodden shirt as she melts into me beneath the downpour, kissing me back like she doesn’t want to stop, either. The rain runs between us in cold sheets as I pull her impossibly closer, my mouth moving slowly against hers until the rest of the world disappears completely.
At least not until Jagger’s loud-ass voice cuts through the night. “Are the two of you going to get a room?” he calls while climbing the front steps. “Or do we all get to watch?”
Mackenzi laughs softly as Gunnar slugs Jagger hard across the shoulder when he reaches the top of the stairs.
“What?” Jagger recoils dramatically, throwing both arms into the air while continuing toward the doorway. “Some of us have been living off phone sex since we got here and wouldvery muchlike to go home and knock up the love of their life.”
Mackenzi chokes on a startled laugh in my embrace.
Hawk groans behind us. “Jesus Christ.”
“What?” Jagger asks defensively while rubbing his shoulder. “I’m very committed.”
“Youshould becommitted,” Gunnar mutters.
I look back down at Mackenzi.
The security lights catch softly in her eyes as she stares up at me, and suddenly every brutal second from the last three days feels worth it, just for this moment of having her in my arms.
“What do you say, trouble? Do you want to go home?”
Westbridge looks exactly the same.
After everything that’s happened since I was practically dragged from campus, it still exists in this untouched bubble of ivy-covered stone and students stressing over GPAs, like the world continued to go on as normal.
The Gothic buildings glow amber beneath the late-afternoon sunlight as students cross the quad, carrying backpacks and coffee cups. Music drifts faintly from an open window while laughter echoes across the courtyard.
It’s all normal. The entire campus feels painfully normal, except for packing up my dorm room.Again.
Damon stands in the middle of my room, looking like a six-foot-four security threat. My roommate, Chloe, hasn’t known peace since he arrived an hour ago.
To be fair, neither have I.
Though, for me, it’s mostly because watching Damon move around my tiny dorm room in a fitted black Henley,carrying heavy boxes like they weigh absolutely nothing, should probably qualify as foreplay.
He ducks slightly beneath the low doorframe with another armful of my things, while Chloe pretendsveryhard not to stare at him, which is difficult because he looks wildly out of place here. Compared to the Westbridge frat boy and jocks who look like Calvin Klein models and smell like expensive cologne, Damon looks like he was granted parole an hour ago.
“I still think this is ridiculous,” I huff while packing the last of my sweaters into a duffel bag.
Damon snorts softly from across the room. “You’re not staying here.”
“I survived here perfectly fine before you.”
“Mm-hmm.” He stacks another box near the door. “Not convincing.”
I’m putting up a fight, but in reality, I’m not actually upset about it. Not even a little.
Excluding the three days he spent in Bogotá, I haven’t gone a day without waking up tangled around him since the first night he was in my bed. The thought of sleeping anywhere without Damon feels wrong in a way I can’t fully explain. And Damon apparently agrees because the second we boarded the flight back to Chicago, he informed me—with absolutely no room for negotiation—that I would not be spending a single night anywhere except beside him.
Chloe clears her throat awkwardly as Damon lifts my suitcase effortlessly from beside the desk while balancinganother box against his hip. “You know,” she says carefully, “most boyfriends just help lug a laundry basket or two.”
Damon glances at her. “Most boyfriends aren’t moving their girlfriends into their home.”
My entire face heats instantly, and Chloe’s eyes widen. Damon looks completely unaffected by the fact that he just casually droppedgirlfriendinto the conversation for the first time, and my pulse absolutely does not survive it.
He notices, too, because the corners of his lips twitch slightly as he walks over to me. “Ready?”
