Just a Boyfriend

by Wilson, Sariah

  And from the look on her face, I could tell she was remembering it, too. “I don’t want to play a game that’s about paying rent. I have to play that game in real life.”

  “Your scholarship doesn’t pay for your room and board?”

  “It would cover some of it if I lived in the dorms. But since I’m a junior, I’m a little too old to be living in the dorms. I have an apartment off campus with three of the girls from the team. What about you?”

  “I’m . . .”

  “You’re . . .”

  “Living in the dorms,” we finished together.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but she was smiling, and that felt like a win. I was a junior, too. I wondered if it made her think less of me.

  “Don’t be. I don’t mind. I’m going to school to study and play football. I don’t need more space than a dorm room.”

  “And to eat,” she reminded me, still sporting her smile.

  “Obviously. I plan on eating taking up most of my time.”

  “EOL’s going to regret that scholarship when they realize you can eat your own body weight every day. They have no idea how much money they’re about to lose.” Ember shook her head, her ponytail flicking over each shoulder. I remembered how soft her hair had been and wondered if it still felt that way. “And speaking of losing, I’m not playing Monopoly with you again. You cheat.”

  “I cheat?” Was she for real? “The last time we played you launched a communist revolt and tried to redistribute all the property and money.”

  “That’s because it’s what’s fair.” The twinkle was back in her eyes.

  “No, it was because you were about to lose. You’ve always been such a sore loser.”

  She stayed quiet for a moment, like she was thinking about what I’d just said. I hadn’t meant for it to be serious; I liked teasing her. Always had. She said, “I don’t want to say you’re right because I don’t like to give the impression that I might have been wrong about something, but you’re somewhat correct. I hate to lose. Anything. Especially people. Especially . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, and she stared at me with such intensity that my knees went hollow and my chest suddenly felt too tight. Who had she hated losing? Me? Or was she still worried about her mother?

  “Look,” I said, my palms suddenly feeling sweaty. Why was I nervous? I had no time to analyze my weird reaction. “Before the whole overprotective-motherus-interruptus thing upstairs, I wanted to clear the air.”

  “Air clearing is overrated. I’m a fan of a nice thick fog where everyone can stay in a haze of ignorance.” She joked, but I could hear a tremor in her voice. “There’s nothing to clear. Thanks for the apology, but it’s not necessary. Everything happened a long time ago, and we’re adults. We’ve both moved on. I mean, you moved on all the way to the East Coast. So we’re good. We can be friends. Just friends.”

  Why had she said she’d moved on? Was she dating someone? Jealousy flared to life inside my gut. “Yeah. I didn’t ask for anything more.”

  Ember’s face flushed, and I realized that I had said the absolute wrong thing. I hadn’t meant it like I wasn’t interested, because I had come to the realization that I would probably always be in love with her, but that I wanted her to know that I didn’t have any expectations and was happy to go along with whatever she wanted.

  I reached for her hand. “Wait. I didn’t say that right—”

  “No.” She pulled back and folded her arms. “Don’t . . . it’s fine. We can be mature and polite, and everything will be fine. We’re going to be at the same school. I’m sure we’ll run into each other. And we’ll be helping my mom with her bucket list, right?”

  “Right.” Yeah, I had no plans to do that. Especially now.

  “Okay. So we’re good. Everything’s good.” She nodded once, as if to reassure both of us that she meant what she’d said, and she left the kitchen.

  I balled my hand up into a fist. Both times I’d tried to fix things between us, I’d somehow made them worse.

  But this was what I’d chosen. To be back in Washington State, back close to my family. And close to her.

  I was going to have to man up and respect her boundaries. Just friends. I looked at my hand. That just-friends thing was going to be difficult if I kept trying to touch her every time we were in the same room.

  That meant no more being in the same room together. I was going to have to stay far, far away from Ember Justine Carlson.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EMBER

  Six months later . . .

  Staying away from Bash turned out to be surprisingly easier than I would have expected. Mom’s test came back clean, and she returned to teaching at the high school in the fall. She’d been tested twice since then, and everything still looked good.

  And even though her prognosis was excellent, she still wanted to accomplish things on what she was now calling her survivor list. Our time was limited to weekends and holidays. I spoke with my volleyball coach, explaining the situation to her, and since her own mother had dealt with breast cancer, she was happy to let me have some time off here and there.

  I couldn’t go to everything; I did miss out on bungee-cord jumping in Las Vegas (which I was very happy to avoid because, while I hadn’t tested the theory completely, I suspected that I was afraid of heights). We did a 5k run to support breast-cancer research. We spent an entire day in a high-end luxury spa in Seattle, being pampered and catered to.

  We also spent Thanksgiving in Indonesia, which was strange because my mom had always been so big into traditions, and it was beyond weird not to be at home with a game on and the kitchen smelling like turkey and pumpkin pie. We did find a restaurant serving an American Thanksgiving dinner, only they had substituted duck for the turkey. It was fun experiencing new things, but part of me wished we were back home.

  Although if we’d stayed in Washington, there was a chance Bash might have joined us. He had a home game Thanksgiving weekend that prevented him from going out of the country, and I was secretly relieved. I also didn’t have to deal with him at Christmas. His grandparents had missed him and asked him to spend half of his winter break at their house, and the plan was for him to return home in time for the holiday. Doug and Marley had been so excited, hanging up his stocking and setting aside the ornaments with his name on them so that he could put them on the tree himself.

  But a terrible blizzard had closed the airport, and he wasn’t able to get back until after Christmas Day.

  Then my mom, Lauren, and I left to go to Michigan to visit my mother’s extended family, and a supercharged version of the same storm that had hit Pennsylvania hit us, too. No power for several days, roads impassable. We stayed a week longer than we had planned.

  Which meant I had missed the first week of classes. Most of my new professors were understanding and helped me get the materials I needed to catch up.

  The lone exception was my biochemistry teacher. After class I’d explained my situation, and he wished me luck and said that he didn’t make notes available for students who failed to show up for class. And that he advised the ones who did respect his time not to share their notes. Which would be to my detriment because things he’d already taught would be on the midterms.

  Obviously, I was going to hate that class. I left in a huff, nearly flattening a little blonde woman who had been a witness to our whole exchange as she waited for her turn to speak to the professor.

  My next class was college algebra. It was on the easy side as far as math classes went, and it was my one math requirement to get my bachelor of science in nursing. When my mom had fallen sick, I’d decided that I wanted to help other families the way that ours had been helped. I wanted to be there for other teen girls worrying about losing their mom, so I decided to become an oncology nurse. My mom had been so proud of my decision.

  It hadn’t been easy, but I was determined. I had much harder classes scheduled for next year, so I thought it would be better to get math out of the way n
ow.

  The algebra class was in a large lecture hall filled mostly with freshmen. I settled into a seat near the back, pulling out my laptop to take notes and a pad of paper for working out any problems the professor might put on the board.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  My heart twisted and turned in my chest as the air inside my lungs solidified.

  Bash.

  Without waiting for me to respond, he sat next to me. His leg brushed against mine as he settled in, and a lash of electricity burned its way up to my stomach. I moved both of my legs away, not making eye contact.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  It had been surprisingly easy to keep all things Bash related on a low simmer in the back of my brain. Sure, I had twinges where I missed him. That was nothing new—it had been going on for nearly four years. And maybe they were a bit worse since I knew he was so close by. Especially when I was in the athletics building, training or practicing. When I could hear the football team lifting weights next door and knew that he was there, just out of reach.

  And sometimes those twinges turned into full-blown I-miss-Bash attacks. It happened mostly when I let myself overworry about my mom. Even after all this time, he was still the first person I wanted to call when things got hard.

  But that was only occasionally. For the most part my life was steady. Peaceful. Just the way I liked it.

  Alas, all good things had to come to an end.

  And I was feeling one of those full-body attacks right now. He was so close, and he had obviously just showered, because he smelled like soap and his favorite brand of shampoo, and it was such an intoxicating and familiar blend that my mouth actually went dry.

  “What am I doing here? I’m here for algebra class. Just like you.” He said it with a smirk that on anybody else would have been annoying, but on him was just totally endearing.

  It felt surreal to be sitting here, just having a conversation with him, like we’d done it a million times before and would do it another million times. As if we hadn’t spent the last few years not having conversations.

  I tried to come up with some clever retort, but I had nothing.

  “Hey, Bash.” A tall girl with chestnut-brown hair and an athletic frame sat down on the other side of me, leaning over to say hi to him. She offered him her fist, and he bumped it.

  “What up, Sabrina? Hey, have you met Ember? She’s . . .” His voice trailed off as he looked at me, obviously not sure what to say next. “An old friend.”

  Sabrina had a bright smile, and she gave me a little wave. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

  “You too.”

  My brain had immediately flipped into jealous-girlfriend mode. Who is this woman? Is she dating Bash? Why is she so pretty? Does he love her?

  “Sabrina’s on the team and is completely awesome. Coach just recruited her to be our starting kicker. And she’s already killing it,” Bash said.

  “Wow. That’s really impressive,” I said. I didn’t want to give her any cool points, but even JUCO football teams were highly competitive. Very few women got football scholarships.

  She shrugged. “I love the game. And EOL is actually going to let me play, unlike my last school.”

  The professor at the front of the room held a stack of papers aloft. “This is the study guide for your first test, which will take place in two weeks. Come down and grab a copy!”

  “I’ll get them for us,” Bash offered, running down the steps to reach the teacher’s table at the front of the hall.

  “Are you two dating?” Sabrina asked. Ruh-roh. Was she in jealous-girlfriend mode, too? She didn’t look envious. Just curious, her expression honest and open.

  “No!” The word exploded out of my chest. “No. Nope. Definitely not. No.”

  “So that’s a maybe, then?” she teased, and given her sense of humor, I could see why Bash thought she was awesome.

  “What about you?”

  “Me and Bash?” she asked. She raised her eyebrows briefly, as if considering. “We’re not. Could we? No. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great guy and is one of the few in my career who hasn’t tried to harass and/or hook up with me. But I learned a long time ago to never date teammates. It gets messy.”

  Bash chose that moment to return, and I thanked him for getting me a copy of the study guide. His long fingers brushed against mine . . . and I dropped my paper. Which slid across the floor and under the seat of the student in front of me. Humiliated, I tapped on her shoulder and asked if she could return it. I didn’t need to look at Bash to know that he would be grinning.

  Other than the current embarrassment, the strange thing was how normal this all felt. Yes, I was totally aware of Bash’s body and its proximity to mine, the heat pulsing out of him that beckoned me closer, the way his clothes strained against him, as if they could barely contain all that muscular hotness. But other than that, I was just sitting in a class that I apparently shared with him, and it was . . . okay.

  “How are your other classes going?” Bash asked.

  I filled him in on my delayed return, and since I was still upset about it, the story about my biochem professor’s refusal to let me have any notes from the first week came tumbling out. Both Bash and Sabrina made sympathetic noises and threw in a couple of “that sucks” for me.

  “If you need help catching up in here, I have a friend named Jess who is really good at math. I could get her number for you,” Bash said.

  Another her? Crazy Jealous Girlfriend Brain returned. Who is this Jess? Does Bash like her? What did he mean by friend? How hard would it be to destroy her?

  The professor called the class to order, and while I was still totally distracted by all things Bash, I did manage to listen and even understood some of what he was saying. But they must have gone over some of the concepts the week prior; I wasn’t quite getting everything. I didn’t know about this Jess person, but I could go to the athletic department’s academic adviser, Keilani, and have her point me in the right direction for some minor tutoring.

  Bash held his pencil against his lips. His very masculine, delicious lips, if I recalled correctly. Firm and perfect. Bash was good at a lot of things, but he’d been a genuine All-American at kissing.

  His gaze caught mine, and I quickly looked away, feeling the heat rising to my cheeks. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just put Bash squarely in the Friends and People I Don’t Get to Date categories?

  Class finally came to an end, and I’d only fantasized about climbing into Bash’s lap and kissing him four times, so I was counting that as a win.

  “I’m heading over to the Smithson to grab some lunch,” Bash said, naming the student center that held our food court. “Do you guys want to join me?”

  Yes. The word crashed into the back of my lips so hard I had to purse them shut to keep it from escaping. I shouldn’t want to go, but I did.

  “Sure!” Sabrina said, standing up and sliding her backpack on.

  Bash also stood. “Ember?”

  My throat was inexplicably tight. I swallowed and then coughed. I was not one to turn down food, ever. But I’d had enough Bash nearness for one day. “I have some other stuff to do.”

  “Okay. See you around.”

  I watched him and Sabrina leave, my stomach curling up when she nudged him in the arm and he let out a laugh at whatever she’d said. Sighing, I packed up my own bag, careful to slide the laptop into its protective case.

  As I headed out of the classroom and into the bustling hallway, I felt a tap on my left shoulder. I turned around to see someone who was like the photo negative of me. Petite, blonde, expensive clothes, and a smile that made it look like she was perpetually happy. She looked like the kind of girl who had a pet unicorn and a goblin bodyguard at home. She literally smelled like cupcake frosting. It was making me hungry.

  Then I realized she was the same woman I’d seen in my biochem class after the professor had reprimanded me. “Can I help you?” I asked.

  �
�You can, actually. I have kind of a strange proposition for you. Can we sit?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EMBER

  The tiny blonde gestured toward a pair of padded stools situated in front of long windows. I nodded and walked over to one of the seats. I was curious as to what she had to say, and I instinctively trusted anyone who smelled like baked goods. I noted that it was snowing again as I grabbed one of the stools, sitting cross-legged.

  “So, I’m Bethany.” She formally offered me her Lollipop Guild–size hand, and I shook it, taking care not to crush her.

  “I’m Ember.”

  “Are you in the nursing program, too?”

  “I am.”

  She nodded. “That’s why we have a couple of classes in common. And you know that guy you were sitting with in algebra today? Bash?”

  “Yeah. He’s my . . .” What I wanted to say was his dad is married to my mom, but we’re not related and have never even really lived in the same house together, so I don’t consider him to be my stepbrother, although I guess technically he is, and we used to date when we were in high school, and we’re only sort of friends so not really close or anything like that. I settled on the same phrase he’d used. “He’s an old friend. Why?”

  She looked uncomfortable. “Do you like cookies?”

  I hadn’t expected that. “I freaking love cookies.”

  She opened up her purse and pulled out a Ziploc bag with two giant chocolate-chip cookies. At least, they’d better be chocolate chips. If she was trying to pull some oatmeal-raisin situation on me, we were going to have words.

  I questioned my lifelong stance on not carrying a purse. I’d never seen the point. My cell phone case had slots for my ID and debit card, and I could stick it in my backpack or my pocket. Why bother with a whole other bag?

  I knew other women used purses for things like lipsticks and tampons and wallets. But as a cookie-transportation system? That idea had definite merit.

  “Thanks.” I took a bite of the chocolate-chip cookie, and it was divine. Soft, chewy, with huge chocolate chips. “Seriously, again, thank you. This is amazing.”