Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“I’ve missed you, too. Have you slept?” The dark circles in his eyes concerned me.
“A little.”
Unbidden, I saw in my mind’s eye the image of him lying on his lower bunk bed, facing me. It’d been so comforting to see his kind face anytime, day or night. My bed was stripped bare now. Just a sad mattress.
“Maybe we can study together sometime,” I suggested. “We both have tests coming up.”
“Sure,” he said, lifting my spirits. “But it’ll have to be sometime next week. This week is just too insane.”
“Yeah, okay. I understand,” I said.
But I didn’t. Not really.
I wanted to be with them so damn badly—why didn’t they want to be with me?
By Friday, I couldn’t stand it. Had Jude, Mason, and Parker become completely different people since I moved out?
Or worse… were they never the men I’d thought they were?
That latter one was what hurt worse.
As the elevator made its way to the sixth floor of Henderson, I tightened my hoodie around my face, afraid there were housing officials around every corner. But I didn’t see one of them or anyone as I approached the suite.
Part of me knew that I shouldn’t be here—and not just because of what the housing officials thought. No, it was worse than that. If the guys wanted to find a way to be with me, they would have.
But they hadn’t
So like so many spurned women throughout history, instead of moving on, I was revisiting the scene of the crime. And what the hell did I expect to happen? That one of them would open the door and say, “Oh, Kylie, we were so busy we forgot about you, but now that you’re here, let's pick up right where we left off.”
Out of sight, out of mind wasn’t supposed to apply to relationships.
I took a deep breath as I stood before door 672. A week ago, I would’ve flashed my key card and waltzed right in.
But that was then.
Instead, I knocked on the door of the place I used to live with my guys. Who, apparently, didn’t want to be my guys anymore.
The last thing I was expecting was a tall, thin blond who looked about fourteen to open the door.
“Hey, can I help you?”
It had never occurred to me that they’d get a new roommate so soon, but of course they would. The housing office would’ve assigned them one just like they’d mistakenly assigned me here at the beginning of the semester.
“Are you okay?” The kid asked again. He had to be in graduate school to live in this building, but he still looked very young to me. I wondered what the guys thought of him.
“Um, are your roommates here?”
He shook his head. “No, just me. Why, do you know them?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to come in and wait for them?”
“Sure, thanks.” When I stepped inside, it felt like home for one, wonderful second. But then reality returned. There were someone else’s things in my bathroom. Someone else’s sheets on my bed.
I pulled back my hoodie and smoothed out my hair, and the blond was instantly more attentive. “Can I get you something to drink?”
I bit back a laugh. How many hundreds of times had I asked that question of someone else in this suite? “I’m good, thanks.” Ahead of me was the wall of windows, and every muscle in my body yearned to walk over and look at the mountains. But it wasn’t my suite anymore, and it wasn’t my view.”
The blond guy kept sneaking peeks at me out of the corner of his eye. When my guys returned, would they even care?
“So, which one of my roommates do you know?”
“All of them,” I said. “Do you know when they’ll be back?”
He scrunched his mouth to the side as he thought about it. “Well, Greg will be back in about an hour, I think. He’s got a class right now. And Harper’s probably down at the gym. I guess you could go check if you wanted to. Brian—”
“Wait.” I held a hand up, trying to process. “Who are those guys?”
“My roommates,” he said, sounding surprised.
I tried to speak but no words came out. I licked my lips and tried again. “What happened to the guys who were living here before?”
“They left a couple of days ago. Can you imagine giving up a place this awesome? You should see the room we were in on the second floor. It’s about a quarter the size of this suite. Hey, do you want me to give you a tour? There’s a fireplace and a balcony and get this— a bar. Can you believe it? I have no idea why those guys left.”
I still couldn’t get my brain to catch up. If my guys weren’t here anymore, where were they? And why on Earth had they left in the first place?