with me. It’s the only possible explanation.
Christina dismisses us, marking the longest ninety minutes of my entire life, and the team slowly filters out the doorway of the training room. All of the other guys are in great spirits, fist-bumping and laughing about how we’re going to clobber the Panthers in tomorrow night’s game. I hang back from the rest of the group, distancing myself from them so I don’t have to engage.
As I cross the threshold into the hall, the metric ton of weight I’ve been carrying on my shoulders lifts partially. At least it’s over for today. Too bad I’ll have to go through this mindfuck several times a week for an entire goddamn semester.
Slowing to a stop, I search the hallway for Vaughn—the only person whose presence I can tolerate at the moment—but he’s missing in action. His assessment was last; maybe he’s still inside with his trainer. I have an hour until my next class, so I pull out my phone and shoot him a text letting him know I’m grabbing lunch in the athletes’ lounge if he wants to meet and study for a while.
The instant I hit send, Violet appears from out of nowhere, and the load crashes back down on me like a ton of bricks. She comes to a halt in front of me, tucking a lock of wavy blonde hair behind her ear. Her hair is shorter than it used to be, hitting just above her shoulders, and while it looks good, somehow, I find the change unsettling.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” she asks, twisting her hands.
“I guess.” I follow her off to the side of the hallway, where we’re partially shielded by the built-in trophy cases. Behind Violet, a massive mural of the LSU logo adorns the wall in black, white, and gray. A steady stream of students passes by, their animated chatter granting us some degree of privacy.
Shifting my duffel on my shoulder, I glance over at my teammates gathered down at the other end of the hall. Fortunately, they’re too preoccupied to notice us. When my gaze falls back to Violet, it’s like being speared with a hockey stick in the gut. Her face is familiar yet foreign. It’s a face I’ve spent two years trying to forget, even though I know I never will.
“I have class in a few minutes,” I lie, looking past her into the crowd. “What’s up?”
Seeing her is even more difficult than I expected. It’s not just awkward; it’s torture. Same big blue eyes and cupid’s bow lips, but the person beneath them is a stranger.
“This tension between us is too weird.” She lets out a heavy sigh, and her expression is so hopeful that it almost stirs emotion within me. Almost, but being dead inside helps quell those feelings nicely. “We have to work together all semester. Can we call a truce? Be friends, maybe?”
Friends? That’s cute.
“You and I both know we can’t be friends.”
Violet plants her fists on her hips, tilting her head defiantly. “Why not?”
“Why do you think?”
Behind Violet, Vaughn strolls out of the classroom, scanning the hallway. When his eyes land on us, they widen, and he throws me a questioning look. I give him an almost imperceptible shake of the head to let him know to keep walking.
Despite my attempt to be discreet, Violet notices our unspoken interaction. She surveys our surroundings warily, lowering her voice to a whisper-yell. “Are you seriously trying to play the victim? After everything you did?”
An errant surge of irritation comes rushing back to me. While I wasn’t exactly a model boyfriend near the end, it doesn’t change the fact that Violet jumped right into someone else’s bed the moment we broke up. After seven months together, she moved on in the span of a weekend. Who knows, maybe it was even sooner. Given the timing, I’m not convinced there wasn’t some overlap.
“Can’t have hurt too bad considering how quickly you found someone else. How is Jay these days, anyway?”
Violet stiffens, indignation stretching across her pretty face. “Were you keeping tabs on me or something?”
Obviously. It’s like she doesn’t remember me at all.
“I know everything that happens on campus.”
I hadn’t even given Violet back all her stuff yet before one of my friends spotted her walking hand in hand with Jay McAllister, some idiot from the baseball team. She barely had time to delete me from her social media first. She and Jay didn’t last longer than a couple of weeks, but I still want to punch him in the face whenever I see him on campus.
Her mouth sets in a line and she takes a step closer, followed by another, until we’re almost toe to toe. It takes conscious effort to keep my breaths slow and even. She still smells the same, spicy cinnamon and sweet vanilla, which has always reminded me of a cinnamon roll with frosting. It is, unfortunately, every bit as appealing now as it was back then.
Our physical proximity triples the load bearing down on my shoulders, crushing my chest along with it. A strange combination of resentment and desire courses through my veins. Part of me still wants her, even though I’m pissed.
With our height difference, Violet has to crane her neck to look up at me. In the crowded, noisy hallway, our confrontation continues to go unnoticed.
Fury gleams behind her light blue eyes. “He asked me out, and I was single. Is that some sort of crime, now?”
“You were single for all of two seconds.”
“Not that I have to explain myself to you, but that was a rebound. It didn’t mean anything.”
Maybe not to Violet, but it sure spoke volumes to me.
“I bet.”
It’s not like I didn’t move on. Obviously, I did—because damned if I was going to let it look like I was moping around pining after her. But it took months before kissing someone else didn’t turn my stomach.
“You have the balls to complain that I moved on too soon when you’re the one who broke us in the first place?” she hisses.
My grip on the strap of my bag tightens. Does she think I don’t fucking know that already? I’m well aware of the starring role I played in the failure of our relationship, but she played a part, too.
Her tone turns skate-edge sharp. “You ditched out on Easter dinner with my family.”
Guilt is something that rarely troubles me, but even I’m not immune to experiencing a hint of it when she brings that up. Instead of going with Violet to meet her parents and sister, like I was supposed to, I may have taken a boys’ trip with a bunch of guys from the team at the last minute. Can’t deny that I handled it badly, even if I had my reasons.
“Why the hell are you even here?” I deflect, because I can’t really defend what I did. “You could have chosen from like, twenty other varsity teams to work with other than this team.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. It wasn’t my call.” Violet takes a giant step back and crosses her arms over her black long-sleeved LSU zip-up, leveling me with a glare colder than I’ve ever seen before. The temperature in the hall drops at least ten degrees. “I never would have chosen to inflict your presence upon myself, especially not for an entire semester.”
“That makes two of us.”
She huffs and shakes her head, tipping her chin to look up at the ceiling. Beneath the fluorescent lighting, her eyes shine, turning glassy. Guilt flickers in the back of my conscience again, but I tell myself it’s misguided. I don’t owe her anything, especially not anymore.
“This is what I mean about being friends, Violet. It’ll never work.”
“Fine.” She draws in a breath, narrow shoulders rising, and her gaze snaps back to me. “Fuck you, too.” Turning on her heel, she stalks away, blonde hair bouncing with each step. She disappears into the sea of people, leaving me holding all the words I should have said instead.
