Chapter Three

 

Kyle

Between the kiss before we’d left and having her alone in the car with me, my dick had already been at half-mast. But the second she mentioned spending the night with me, it went rock-hard and flexed against the zipper of my shorts. “Damn, baby,” I groaned. “You can’t say shit like that when we’re this close to campus or else I’m barely going to be able to walk, let alone carry our stuff into the dorm.”

“Ten minutes isn’t long enough?” she giggled.

“Not even close.” Her green eyes darted down to my lap and widened. My dick twitched like it knew she was looking at it. “You’ve gotta stop staring at me like that because you’re only making it worse. Keep it up, and I’m going to have to pull the car over and do something about it.”

“Hmm,” she murmured, tilting her head to the side as though she was considering the possibility of me following through with my threat. The blush on her cheeks spread down her neck and chest, and my gaze zeroed in on her pebbled nipples as they poked through her bra and shirt. I wanted to know how far down that pretty pink color went. So fucking badly. But now wasn’t the time. Almost, but not quite. And this definitely wasn’t the place.

“My shitty car is not where this is going to happen,” I bit out. It was a reminder to myself that pulling over wasn’t a possibility. After waiting this long for Emily, I’d damn well last another half day in order to give her what she deserved. It sure as hell wasn’t losing her virginity in the front seat of my car. “And I’ll need a hell of a lot more than ten minutes when it does.”

“When,” she echoed softly, settling back into her seat.

I had a plan already set in motion, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stick to it if she pushed even the tiniest bit. Her plump lips tilted up in a tiny grin, and I groaned. She knew exactly how close to the edge I was. Luckily, she decided to take pity on me and switched her attention to the stereo. After turning it on, she picked one of the preset stations and turned up the volume. With the music surrounding us, I focused on the road for the rest of the drive to the campus.

By the time I pulled into the parking lot closest to the dorm, my dick finally settled down to its usual half-chub state whenever Emily was near. It was a good thing, considering the crowds of people streaming in and out of the building. Our new classmates...and their families. Moms and dads helping their kids on an important day. A milestone in our lives. Since mine had never really been around before I went into foster care, their help and support wasn’t something I missed. But Emily’s story was different. Her childhood had been almost perfect; right up until the moment a drunk driver plowed into her parents’ car and took them from her. Darting a quick glance at her while I tried to find an open spot, my heart clenched when I found her tracing a pattern on the passenger window with her head bent low.

“Thank fuck,” I breathed when a car backed out about fifty feet in front of us. As soon as I pulled into the spot, I shut off the engine, wrenched my door open, and raced around the back of the car to get to her side. When I got to her, she’d already undone her seat belt. I was relieved to see there weren’t any tears spilling down her cheeks because it destroyed me when she cried. “You okay, baby?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Sorry. It just hit me, I guess. How much I miss them.”

I cupped her chin and tilted her head up. “You don’t ever have to apologize to me for missing your parents.”

“I—” she started, but I cut her off with a quick kiss.

“I had to wait more than two years to get us to this place, and I’m not going anywhere. Not when you’re sad, pissed, cranky, or what the fuck ever you need to be. I’ve got you, Emily.”

Her eyes lit with happiness as she smiled up at me. Huge. And it made me feel like I’d conquered the world.

“Hey, guys! Everything okay over here?”

I turned at the interruption, ready to bite someone’s head off for ruining the moment between Emily and me. But when I realized who it was, I couldn’t do it. There were exactly two people in my life I cared about. Emily, who owned my heart. And Faith, the woman who’d helped my Emily achieve her dream of attending college. For that, she had my undying gratitude.

Faith was a former foster kid who’d had it as bad, if not worse, than anyone else I knew. And that was saying a hell of a lot. She only had one more year to go on her degree, and she’d spent the past three years reaching out to kids in the same system she’d come through.

She went to all of the local high schools and made sure we knew the state offered a college waiver program that covered tuition and fees. Told us about the monthly stipend available to help with living expenses. Helped us fill out the forms. But most of all, she gave us hope that a college education wasn’t out of our reach because she insisted if she could do it, then we could too.

“Yeah, everything’s good,” I answered.

“It’s a big day. I was just having a moment,” Emily added as she got out of the car and stepped to my side, wrapping her arm around my waist.

“A big day in a totally different way for you two.” Faith grinned and widened her eyes at us while wagging her brows. “Since you can finally come out as a couple.”

That was the other incredibly cool thing about Faith. She’d figured out our feelings for each other early on, and she’d kept our secret. Foster kids didn’t rat on each other and even though she’d aged out of extended care when she turned twenty-one, Faith still thought of herself as one of us. It was why she’d spent so much of her free time over the past three years focused on helping foster kids.

“When exactly did you clue into our secret?” I asked.

“Right about the time you strolled into one of my after-school presentations and asked me if it’d still be possible for you to use the waiver if you started a year late since you hadn’t applied in time your senior year.”

Emily nodded, as though Faith’s explanation made sense. “How’d that give us away? A ton of the other kids there were asking questions about the program.”

“You missed all the application deadlines, which told me you hadn’t been thinking of going before then and something must have changed your mind. When Emily’s eyes lit up like you’d just given her the best gift ever, I put two and two together...”

“And came up with the pair of us,” I finished for her.

“Yup,” she confirmed. “From then on, it was impossible to miss the way you guys just seemed drawn to each other. You didn’t even need to be looking at each other to seem like you were still connected.”

She sounded wistful, and Emily must have caught it too. “Maybe now that you’ve got so many of us enrolled in colleges across the state, you’ll take a little more time for yourself and find the guy who’s going to look at you the way Kyle does me.”

“Maybe,” Faith sighed. “Stranger things have happened—like that stupid article about me in the paper leading to me getting funding from a group of ladies who lunch so each and every foster kid enrolled here will get gift cards for stuff like pizza, groceries, and the campus bookstore plus extra a little extra cash every month!”

All that shit sounded good, and she was so fucking happy to have gotten it for us. It didn’t matter, though. I hated the idea of my Emily needing charity from a bunch of uppity bitches because it meant I wasn’t providing enough for her.