“I should clean up.” He started to stand. “I made the mess.”

“No.” I backed away with his bowl. “You cooked. I clean.”

He relented, opening the foiled bread. It did smell wonderful. “What made you choose here?”

I washed the dishes and his little frying pan before answering that doozy. “I just wanted to get away, like you.”

“Got to be hard though.”

“No.” I picked up the pot he used to boil the eggs. “It was incredibly easy to make the decision.”

He seemed to consider that as he broke the bread in half. “You are an enigma, Avery Morgansten.”

I leaned against the counter, my eyes widening and he proceeded to eat half of the loaf. “Not really. More like you are.”

“How so?”

I gestured at him. “You just ate four hard-boiled egg, you’re eating half of a loaf, and you have abs that look like they belong on a Bowflex ad.”

Cam looked absolutely thrilled to hear that. “You’ve been checking me out, haven’t you? In-between your flaming insults? I feel like man candy.”

I laughed. “Shut up.”

“I’m a growing boy.”

My brows rose, and Cam laughed. As he finished off half of the loaf, he talked a little about his parents. I made my way back to the table and sat, genuinely interested. His father ran his own law firm and his mother was a doctor. That meant the Cam came from money, not the kind that my parents rolled around in, but enough that mostly likely paid his rent. He was obviously close with them too, and I envied that. Growing up, all I wanted was for my parents to want to be around me, but with the benefits, the jet-setting, and all the dinners, they’d never been home. And after everything that had happened, the few instances they were there, neither of them could even look at me.

“So you flying back to Texas for fall break or Thanksgiving?” he asked.

I snorted. “Probably not.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Got other plans?”

I shrugged.

Cam dropped the subject and it was close to noon by the time he left. Stopping at my front door, he turned to me, flipping the tiny skillet in one hand, banana-nut bread in the other. “So, Avery….”

I popped my hip against the back of the couch. “So, Cam…”

“Whatcha you doing Tuesday night?”

“I don’t know.” My brows lowered. “Why?”

“How about you go out with me.”

“Cam,” I sighed.

He leaned against the jam. “That’s not a no.”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a no.”

“Yes, it is.” I pushed off the couch and grabbed the door. “Thanks for the eggs.”

Cam backed up, lopsided grin in place. “How about Wednesday night?”

“Goodbye, Cam.” I closed the door, grinning. He was completely insufferable, but like the night before, being around him did something sort of miraculous. Maybe it was the verbal dueling, but whatever it was, I tended to act… normal. Like I used to.

Heh.

After showering, I piddled around the apartment and debated texting Jacob or Brittany to see what they were up to. Eventually, I tossed my cell on the couch and dragged my laptop out. I couldn’t avoid my email forever.

In my junk folder, there were a few suspicious looking emails. Two with my name as the subject. After receiving the last email, I learned my lesson and clicked delete with a certain amount of glee.

The emails, though, it was strange to get them now. While I’d been in high school, it had been one thing. I’d been surrounded by the kids, but now, after we all left for college? Something just wasn’t right about that. Like did they seriously have nothing better to do? I doubted it could be Blaine, because as twisted as he was, he stayed far away from me. And the phone call? I refused to change my number. Back during the worst of it, when I’d get three to four phone calls a day, I’d go through a series of telephone changes and they always found out what it was anyway.

Shaking my head, I clicked on my inbox and found another email from my cousin. Seriously? I was half tempted to not click on it, but I opened the stupid thing.

Avery,

I really need to talk to you ASAP. Call me whenever. It’s very important. Call me.

David

My finger hovered on the mouse pad.

Delete.

Chapter 8

Over the next couple of weeks and as summer finally loosened its grip, a sort of odd routine started to occur. Monday through Friday, I got up and went to class. With each passing day, I started to look forward to astronomy. Not so much because I never knew what Professor Drage was going to say or what he would wear. A few days ago, he’d been rocking a pair of acid wash jeans and a tie dye shirt. I think I focused on that more than anything else. But crazy pants Professor aside, it was a certain class partner who made the fifty minutes pretty damn entertaining.

Between Cam’s side comments during Drage’s lecture and his surprisingly accurate knowledge of solar systems, running away from astronomy on the first day had really ended up paying off in the long run. With Cam as my partner and seat-mate, there was no way I would fail the class.

I spent lunch three days a week with Jacob and Brittany, and even went to one of the football games with them. Parties were still a no go, something that neither could really understand, but they didn’t abandon me. Twice a week, they hung out at my place. Not a lot of studying got done, but I wasn’t complaining. I liked it when they came over. Okay, like wasn’t a strong enough word. They were great and it had been way too long since I had friends like them who didn’t seem to care when I acted like a spaz, which was quite a bit.

At least twice a week, I turned Cam down.

Twice. A. Week.

It was to the point that I sort of looked forward to how he was going to slide it into conversation. The boy was relentless, but it was more of a running joke between us than anything else. At least in my opinion.

I also started to look forward to Sundays.

Each morning since the very first, Cam showed up at my door at all kinds of ungodly hours with eggs and something he’d baked. The second Sunday, it was blueberry muffins. The third Sunday it was pumpkin bread—from a box, he’d admitted. The four and the fifth Sunday, it was strawberry cake and then brownies.

Brownies in the morning were the shit.

Thing were really… good with the exception of email and phone. At least once a week, I’d get a call from an UNKNOWN CALLER. I deleted the messages and the emails without opening them. There was at least fifteen unread emails from my cousin. One of these days I was going to read them, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that or call my parents.

They hadn’t called me, so I didn’t see the point.

By the beginning of October, I was happier than I’d been in so long. The scent of autumn, something I missed while living in Texas, was in the air, long sleeves could be worn without looking like a freak, and cramming for mid-terms during lunch included M&Ms and Skittles.

“Can someone please tell me where Croatia is on this map?” Jacob groaned. “Like is there a song I can come up with that will somehow remind me of this?”

“Hungary, Slovenia, Bosnia,” I said, pointing at the blank map of Europe. “And then there is Serbia.”

Jacob glared at me. “Fucking overachieving bitch.”

I popped a red Skittle in my mouth. “Sorry.”

“Can you imagine a song with those names?” Brit dipped her fries in mayo.

“That is so gross,” Jacob muttered.

She shrugged. “It’s yummy.”

“Actually, I’m going to nerd out on you, so prepare.” I picked up an M&M and held it in front of Jacob. His eyes widened like a puppy about to get a treat. “With the exception of Hungary, all of the countries next to Croatia end with an a. They all sound alike. Think of it that way.”

His eyes narrowed. “That didn’t help.”

I sighed. “You want a song?”

“Yes.” He stood up at our table, in the middle of the Ram’s Den, and shouted. “Yes! I want a song!”

“Wow.”

He raised his hands as several students turned in their seats. “What? What?” He turned back to me. “Was that a little too much?”

“Yes,” I said. “Most def.”

Brit put her forehead on her textbook. “Seriously,” she groaned. “I can’t believe he’s making us map Europe on our mid-term. I thought I’d left that shit behind in high school.”

“Give me a song, nerd,” Jacob demanded.

“Oh, my God, you’re ridiculous.” Shaking my head, I placed my hands on the table. “Okay. Here you go. Hungary to the upper left, upper left, Serbia to the lower left, lower left. Bosnia on the bottom, on the bottom. Slovenia to the top, to the top. And where’s Croatia?”

“Where? Where?” Jacob sung.

“It’s next to the Adriatic Sea, across from Italy!”

Jacob popped up straight. “Again! Again!”

I went through the song twice more while Brit gaped at the both of us. By the time, Jacob whipped out his pen and started scribbling countries across the map, my face was the shade of a tomato, but I was giggling like a hyena.

And he got the map right, with the exception of putting France where the United Kingdom was supposed to be but I think he was just testing me on that one, because seriously.

I tossed an M&M at his mouth. It bounced off his lower lip. On the replay, I got the M&M in his mouth. He swallowed and shot forward, lowering his face next to mine. “Guess what?”

“What?” I leaned back.

He blinked two times. “Here comes your boyfriend.”

Looking over my shoulder, I spotted Cam entering the Den with not one girl but a girl on either side of him, gazing up at him like he was the last eligible, hot guy on campus. I rolled my eyes at Jacob. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Gurl, you got competition.” Jacob folded his arms on the table. “That’s Sally and Susan—beta, delta, boogie-sigma-chi-latte- VPs.”

Brit’s brows lowered. “That’s not even close to a sorority name.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s not a competition, because it’s not like that between us.” Slowly, surely, I looked over my shoulder. The trio had stopped by the couches. Cam was paying attention to whatever the two girls were saying to him. One of the girls, the blonde, had her hand on his chest and was moving it in tiny circles. My eyes narrowed. Was she giving him a breast exam? I turned back to Jacob.

He raised his brows.

“They can have him,” I said, throwing three Skittles in my mouth.

“I don’t get you two,” Brit said, closing her book. Study time was over. “You guys see each other practically every day, right?”

I nodded.

“He comes over every Sunday and makes you breakfast, right?” she added.

Jacob flipped me off. “I hate you for that.”

“Yeah, he does, but it’s not like that.” Thank God I never told them about him asking me out because I’d never hear the end of it then. “Look, we’re friends. That’s all.”

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