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Aveena
Duke University
Freshman Year
“You can still change your mind, you know? It’s not too late.” Dia trails after me, carrying a box labeled “FRAGILE” toward Xavier’s truck parked out front.
“Shit, you’re right. Let’s move everything back to the dorm,” I snark, hoisting the heavy box in my arms into the car’s brimming trunk. I’ve barely shut the tailgate before Xavier, who’s been on the phone with our landlord for ten minutes, ends the call and rounds the truck to meet us.
“We all set?” Xavier knots his arms around my waist from behind and jerks me flush to his chest. I crack a girlish giggle as he rains kisses all over my face.
“Got one box left,” I whisk my head over my shoulder to kiss him, our mouths moving slow and hard in unparalleled sync.
“Oh, hell no,” a chuckling Dia intervenes. “I still have her for a few more minutes. Hands off, Emery.”
Dia’s about to peel us apart when her ringtone cuts through the empty campus, the perk of moving two weeks after summer break kicked off. Most students have cleared out already.
Xav and I come up for air just in time to see Dia pull out her phone and check the caller ID. A smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes stretches her lips.
It’s that Chance guy.
Has to be.
“Never mind, keep sucking face. I’ll be back,” Dia teases, distancing herself from us before pinning the phone to her ear. I throw my head back against my boyfriend’s shoulder, watching my best friend dig herself deeper into a hole of denial.
“Is that her new boyfriend?” Xav asks, his mouth flush with my ear. He seizes the opportunity to kiss my neck and suck the sensitive skin behind my ear between his teeth.
I shudder all over.
“More like a temporary fix to a permanent problem,” I correct.
Dia might be semi-mad at me for moving out of our dorm and getting a place with Xav off campus, but we both know she could use having the room to herself—it was getting harder and harder to sneak Xavier in every time we got horny.
Also… bunk beds.
Not sex-proof.
Granted Xav and I aren’t exactly gentle in bed, fine, we’re animals, but I’ll never forget having to explain to Dia why the top bunk was broken. I paid for the damages, but she didn’t let me hear the end of it for months. Even now, I’m convinced I’ll never live it down. Seriously, she’ll be telling the story at my wedding one day.
“Have you told her he’s back in town?” Xavier questions.
The thought makes my skin crawl.
“Nope. And I’m not going to,” I reply.
The last thing Dia needs right now is Finn fucking Richards back in her life, especially considering all that’s happening with her family. Finn is, and will always be, Dia’s blind spot. Her epic, arguably toxic love. I don’t care that he’s back in Silver Springs after dropping off the face of the earth; it nearly killed her when he left.
God, that was almost a year ago.
It’s crazy how things change.
Less than a year back, Xavier was on stage at the cocktail party, spilling his deepest secrets to the world. The events that followed ranked a solid ten out of ten on the crazy shit scale. Word spread through town like wildfire, and by Monday morning, every student at Easton knew Zac’s identity.
Not that anyone risked confronting Xavier about it.
They wouldn’t have lived to see graduation if they had.
The Stallions remained loyal to their captain through and through, more than happy to hand out broken jaws and black eyes to anyone who ran their mouth. But the best part? Brie was eventually exposed as admin of the Facebook group and “confessions spreader” by Lacey of all people. I think it was something about Brie saying Lacey looked fat in her cheer uniform.
