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“No problem. You can follow me to the apartment.”
Jordan drove an old gray pickup with huge mud tires and a lift kit. It wasn’t surprising since we live south of the Mason-Dixson line. I’d become accustomed to country guys and the norm here.
My mother on the other hand didn’t grasp the Southern way of living but my dad liked that about her obviously. They’d been married for twenty-something years.
The apartment building was close to the one I’d originally planned to live in and looked to be newer than expected. Once we parked, I got out and met him by the tail end of his truck.
“How much is the rent here?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t too much more than I expected.
Jordan walked me toward the elevator and pressed the third level. “It’s nine-fifty a month which is about three twenty a piece. Is that much more than you planned for?”
I sighed in relief. “A little cheaper. I was going to pay four hundred a month with my other roommate. It was the apartments down on Dove Creek.”
Jordan chuckled. “I know that place. It’s quieter here for sure, they have parties there every other weekend, and the landlord is gone a lot.” Jordan gave me the side eye. “Where you from?” he asked.
I clutched the handle of my suitcase. I didn’t like to talk about home much, I’d hated high school, and getting out of my parents’ house had been a long time coming. “Zachary,” I said.
The elevator dinged and I followed him down the hallway toward room 303. “Really? My other roommate is from there?”
“Is he a sophomore, too?”
He pulled out his keys, unlocked the door, and let me inside. I walked into the spacious living room, definitely decorated by men, and turned to face him. “Nah, it’s his first year. I bet you know him since Zachary is so small. Y’all graduated together.”
Sweat began to gather at the base of my neck. My mind raced at the thought of who it could be. Most of my class had taken it upon themselves to go out of state for college. Some to Alabama and others to Florida, there were a few that decided for LSU, but none that I could think of on the spot.
I cleared my throat when the toilet flushed, and the door behind me opened in a whoosh. “Ah, there he is. Hey Mav, I think I found us our third roommate.”
Mav ... Maverick. As in Maverick Booker.
I couldn’t turn around. My feet cemented themselves to the hardwood floor beneath my flip-flops. I stared at Jordan as he gave me ayou okaylook, and I stood frozen like an idiot.
Maverick Booker was not someone I wanted to live with or be around. He’d accepted a full-ride football scholarship to Alabama and I’d been so happy to know I’d never see that jackass again.
Jordan met Maverick’s eyes over my shoulder and cringed. “Umm, this is Maverick,” he said, trying to get me to turn around.
I didn’t. I swallowed the deep clog of fear and regret in my throat.
His chuckle, even from several feet away, slid down my spine and immobilized me in my place. “You gonna turn around Lee or you gonna stand there ... like always,” his voice was deep like I remembered.
Even though I’d tried to block it out.
Like always. It was all I’d been able to do growing up when he made my life Hell. He’d bullied me for years, and I had no idea why I’d become the object of his obsession.
Jordan shifted, weighing my reaction, and said, “So I guess y’all know each other?”
I nodded slowly, stiffening when I heard his footsteps come near and he walked around to face me. Maverick stopped in front of me, his dark green eyes zeroed in on my face and his mouth tight in a line.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and I didn’t have to look down to know what he looked like. I’d seen him shirtless many of times after football games from the safety of the bleachers with my best friend.
While she fawned over him, I hid.
He was the closest thing our small town would get to a real-life Marvel character, with crisp hard lines of his abs, and the bulky dip of his oblique. Maverick stood tall around six-three, with wide shoulders and lean muscles that he’d used to push me into lockers and pull my hair on the school bus for field trips.
This wasn’t a boyhood crush that caused him to pull my ponytail or poke my backside. His hate for me grew as the years passed, and I still had no idea why.
Maverick’s dark head of hair wasn’t styled like usual. He wore it pushed back, away from his heavy brow and sharp cheekbones.
I wanted to leave—I wanted to run for my life but his penetrating stare and the fact they both stood in my way—kept me there.
