Pledge

23. Talks

A/N: It's done! There are 27 chapters in all (I think but you know I can't count...)

23. Talks

He looked up from his notebook as Kirstie and Matt shuffled into the seats across from him. He glanced around the campus coffee shop. For some reason, he was hoping that familiar blue eyes would have accompanied them here.

Kirstie smiled at him, sympathetically. He must have worn the disappointment on his face.

"How's he doing?" Mitch asked, unable to make small talk.

It had been a whole month since crossing. One month since Scott told him that he didn't want to be near him.

One month of completely redoing a pledge program.

Mitch had seen Scott on campus exactly five times since then. He never had the courage to walk up to him. Not that he should. He should respect the man's wishes, right?

It was so damn hard to respect those wishes, and his heart clenched painfully in his chest each time he held himself back.

"He's actually... okay," Kirstie said, looking to Matt for verification. Matt nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. "Almost... too okay?"

Mitch wasn't sure what that meant, at first.

"Scott covers a lot of things up. He's always been like that. He's tough to crack, sometimes."

Okay. Mitch knew exactly what she meant. He had seen it himself on several occasions.

"Speaking of..." Matt muttered. Mitch turned towards Matt's gaze, and his heart fluttered. Scott was walking into the coffee shop.

But then his heart halted in his chest. He was walking in with two guys wearing Greek letters.

The wrong letters.

Sigma Kappa Psi.

Scott didn't appear to see his two best friends... and Mitch... as he approached the counter and placed an order with his two new friends.

Friends? Recruiters? What was Scott doing?

"Is he going to be mad if he sees you talking to me?" Mitch asked.

Matt laughed. "Mitch, you're my brother now. You can't shake me."

Kirstie smiled. "He knows that you and I are friends. He's been very cool about it."

Mitch watched over their shoulders as Scott took a seat at a table across the coffee shop with the two Sig Kaps. He felt an overwhelming need to pull Scott away from them.

"Easy there, tiger," Matt assured him, gently. "He isn't rushing, or anything. They're in his class. He told me he has a group project to do."

Mitch felt like he could breathe again. He watched the blond as his friends spoke, and admired how his skin crinkled around his eyes when he laughed, how the light reflected off of those beautiful strands of blond hair, and how Scott always looked down shyly after he said something funny that made others cackle with laughter.

His heart ached. He missed him.

He turned his gaze back towards his friends, and they were looking at him silently with small smiles.

"What?"

"I can basically smell the adoration coming out of your pores," Kirstie teased, softly.

"Has he asked about me?"

Matt rolled his eyes. "You two are annoying."

"Why the two of us?" Mitch asked, laughing.

"Because he does the same thing." He made his voice higher, which Mitch supposed was meant to mock Scott. "'Was Mitch there? How's Mitch? Did you see Mitch? Has Mitch asked about me?'" He returned his voice to normal. "It's annoying as hell."