Chapter Four

 

Emily

I felt Kyle stiffen up next to me and rubbed my hand up and down his back in a gesture meant to soothe him before he went ape-shit on Faith. I wasn’t sure what had set him off about the gift cards and cash, but it was obvious to me that he wasn’t happy about it. I just didn’t want him to take whatever it was out on Faith. When his attention shifted from her to me again, his deep blue eyes scanned my face. When I smiled up and mouthed “be nice about it” at him, he relaxed.

“That’s awesome. Is there anything we need to do? Paperwork to be filled out?”

Faith flashed me a relieved smile before she answered my question. “Nope. I met with the woman in charge yesterday, and she gave me a bunch of stuff to hand out to everyone this weekend.”

She heaved her backpack off her shoulder and dug through it to pull out two envelopes. Since Kyle didn’t reach out to grab his, I took them both. Opening one, my eyes widened at what I found inside. “Can you pass along our thanks, from the both of us?”

“Yeah, we’d appreciate it,” Kyle murmured after I jabbed my elbow into his side.

“Uh huh, I can tell,” Faith laughed. “No worries, though. I’ll pass along your heartfelt gratitude when I talk to her.”

“Please do, because what’s in these?” I jiggled the envelopes, but carefully because I didn’t want any of the contents from the one I’d opened to spill out. “Wow. Just wow.”

“Yeah,” Faith agreed with a big grin. “I’m not sure how she pulled it off. It’s way more than I expected, even with her telling me the first ones were going to be special because of all the stuff kids need when they move into the dorms. And she did them for all the foster kids enrolled here, not just the incoming freshman. We’re talking about a hundred thousand dollars of stuff, and I first talked to her a week ago. I can’t even wrap my head around how she was able to raise that much money that quickly.”

My mind was blown by that amount. “It bears repeating, so...wow.”

Her grin widened more. “Well, if you two crazy kids are all set, I’m going to try to track down the others. I want everyone to get their envelope as soon as possible so they can grab any necessities they’re missing sooner rather than later.”

I stepped forward and gave her a quick hug before she took off. “I know I’ve said it before, but this bears repeating too. Thank you so much. For everything. I can’t believe I’m here, and I owe it all to you.”

Faith was even more awkward with compliments than I was. Considering her childhood and how long she was in the foster system, it wasn’t a big surprise because she hadn’t been on the receiving end of them often. Her cheeks filled with heat, and she looked away as she stammered, “I...Umm...You. Gah! You don’t owe it all to me. You’re here because you deserve to be. Because you worked hard for it. I just gave you the nudge you needed. That’s all.”

Kyle tugged me back into his arms. “So not true. You did way more than give us a nudge.”

“Him especially,” I teased.

“There’s no arguing with that,” Faith laughed as she walked away.

Kyle nuzzled against my neck. “Hey, no giving your boyfriend shit.”

“Boyfriend,” I repeated softly, loving the sound of it.

“Damn straight.” He turned me in his arms and brushed his lips against mine. “We haven’t been able to say it aloud all this time, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve always thought of myself that way. Like I’ve always thought of you as mine.”

“As yours, huh?”

“Definitely mine,” he growled against my mouth.

It sent shivers down my spine, and this time I was the one who brushed their lips against his. Another growl rumbled up his throat, and then he took the kiss over. His tongue swept inside to tangle with mine, and his hands pressed against my back to crush me against his chest. I gave myself up to the kiss and completely forgot where we were until the loud beeping of a car horn. The envelopes started to slip from my fingers, and I yelped.

“What’s in there that has you so freaked out at losing it?”

I opened the envelope again and flipped through the contents. “Several hundred dollars in gift cards to Publix, Walmart, Target, and a few restaurants. And”—I paused to count the twenty-dollar bills—“three hundred in cash.”

“That’s more than I was expecting.”

“Which is a good thing.” I rubbed my thumb over the wrinkle in his brow. “So why are you frowning?”

“I want you to have the best, and it kills me that I can’t give it to you.”

“Yet,” I whispered, pressing my lips against his one last time before stepping out of his hold. “It won’t be long before we both have our degrees, and we’ll be out there taking over the world together. And maybe someday we’ll be the ones giving back to kids like us as they start their college journey.”

“Then I guess we’d better get moved in so we can start ours.”

Since we didn’t have a lot of stuff, it didn’t take us long to move into our rooms. It was a little scary being on my own in the dorm with a stranger for a roommate, but I knew Kyle was never going to be far from me. There were only ten rooms separating us and nobody around to tell us we couldn’t spend as much time together as we wanted...except for our roommates when it came to sleepovers. Something I was currently obsessing about.

“Tonight’s probably too early to ask my new roomie about you spending the night, right?” I sighed, sitting cross-legged on Kyle’s bed while I watched him unpack his clothes into his dresser and closet.

“It is,” he agreed. “But that’s not going to be a problem because I got us a hotel room for the night.”

I almost fell off the bed; I was so surprised. “You what?”

He shut the drawers, pulled the curtain on the closet, and walked towards me. Dropping to his knees, he took my hands in his. “Today’s a big day for us, and I wanted a guarantee we could spend all of it together. A hotel room gives us that.”

“It does,” I agreed. “What time can we check in?”

“In about an hour.”

I jumped off the bed, thinking about the pretty bra and panty set I’d bought with him in mind. “I’ll go pack my stuff and meet you back here in thirty minutes.”

I ran out the door, bumping into a guy a few steps into the hallway.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, darting around him and heading to my room.

“Hey!” my roommate Sara greeted me. “I’m heading out with my parents to grab lunch and do some shopping. Did you want to come with us?”

I smiled at her and shook my head. “That’s really nice of you, but I’ve got plans with Kyle. We’ll be gone all night, so I won’t see you again until sometime in the morning.”

“Couldn’t you get into trouble for not spending the night here?” Her voice lowered like she thought someone was listening in on us in our room. “Because you’re out with a boy?”

“Nope, it’s move-in weekend. We have until tomorrow to be here, and I heard some other students mention that they’re staying at the hotel with their parents tonight. So it shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“Yup, he’s my boyfriend.” And I loved that I could finally say it out loud.

“You guys serious? Been together long?”

I grabbed a backpack from my closet and started packing my stuff into it. “As serious as it gets. We’ve been together for two years.”

“How’d you meet?”

And there it was; the awkward question I was going to have to get used to answering. “We’re both foster kids, and we were placed in the same house when I was sixteen and my parents died.”

“He was your foster brother?” Her nose wrinkled up as she looked at me with wide eyes. “That’s a little...weird.”

“It’s not like you’re thinking. We lived in a group home, not with a foster family. It would be more like if you were interested in one of the guys down the hall from us. Kyle and I were just two kids who lived down the hall from each other; not siblings in any way, shape, or form.”

“Okay,” she said, elongating the word like she didn’t mean it. “And they let you date?”

“Nope, but that didn’t stop us from falling each other.”

Nothing could have. For two years, my attraction to Kyle and my growing feelings for him had been my guilty pleasure. One I couldn’t talk to anyone about. And one I refused to give up.