{18+ COMPLETED • COLLEGE ROMANCE}
When a college freshman with a learning disability and a reputation collides with a straight-A, straight-laced girl in the dorm kitchen one night, he sees the darkest parts of himself reflected in her. But the two o...
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B R E N
The cafe was dead this morning. Zero customers currently filled the space, and god, I wished that it was packed. The clock on the wall at The Grounds had never moved slower. This was the longest, most agonizing shift I'd ever worked.
Of course, it had nothing to do with the actual work. I enjoyed making drinks and roasting and cleaning. The simplicity of it was soothing.
But what was not perfect?
"Bren, just tell me," she pleaded for the fifteenth time.
"Nessa, I'm not going to tell you anything." I snapped a towel over my shoulder before shuffling around her to rinse an empty coffee cup. "I'm mad at you."
"Oh, come on." She rolled her eyes. "I was doing you both a favor. Just tell me what happened after you left the party."
"Nothing happened," I asserted, staring at the soapy water in the sink even though all the dishes had been done.
Nothing had happened, and yet everything had.
Nessa blinked at me beneath her long, dark lashes. "I know you're lying, Bren Hadaway. I know you stayed in our room."
"Only because Beau wouldn't let me back into ours." I threw down the towel, growing irritable. Well, more irritable.
I was so profoundly screwed. I was screwed in that way that a person got screwed when they openly declared their feelings for a person who was actively in love with someone else. And now I had these memories I would never unsee, never forget.
I was going to be chasing the high of last night for the rest of my goddamn life.
But I couldn't bring myself to regret anything that had happened last night, because I saw how it affected Madie—the way her eyes had opened wide in awareness for the first time.
Though, as much as I wanted that for her, I also felt some small amount of guilt. None of what we did, the things we said, the way we touched, had been appropriate considering her relationship with Quinton. I didn't feel bad for him. Hell, no. I just knew that it would hurt Madie in a way.
But the text I sent her about it going too far hadn't gotten a response.
I frowned. Finally moving away from the sink, I glanced up to see Nessa's smirking face. It stopped me in my tracks.
"What?"
"Good thing I didn't come home last night either, huh?"
There were several beats of silence as I absorbed her words. "You and Beau planned that shit, didn't you?" I accused as the realization hit me.
Nessa shrugged one of her shoulders and readjusted her mustard-yellow beanie, but that expression of hers told me all I needed to know.
"Seriously, Nessa?" I groaned. "What did you guys really think was going to happen? She's still dating Quinton."
