When you woke up Jaden was nowhere to be found. You got up and got dressed and dug through the bed for your phone. Found it along with missed calls from your mom, Vinnie, and Charli. You noticed snapchat was still open and checked your story and panicked when you saw another picture from Jaden. That explains the calls from Vinnie. Luckily your mom never jumped on the snapchat trend. You think about deleting it, but after opening Vinnie's texts, it's obvious he'd already seen them. You slide the phone in your pocket and decide to deal with that another day.
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You check the message from Charli and know she's probably asleep and don't want to wake her up. You call for an uber and wait on the porch. The party has died down, but you still hear voices in one of the back rooms and there are people passed out on all the furniture you pass. You sit on the patio chair on the porch and realize you've sobered up enough that the night's events start to hit. You can't believe you just did that... with a boy you just met. You'd made Vinnie wait over a year.
As memories of his mouth on you, his hand tracing the line of the tattoo before sending your body into overdrive... you decide you're completely fine with every bit of it. You just hope he'd call you. He'd added you on snapchat when he had your phone while you were sleeping, but you had no intention of calling him first. This was college and you needed to grow up. If this was more than just a hook-up, that was on him.
Your uber drops you off outside of your dorm and you're grateful to see two other people just getting home at dawn. It made your walk-of-shame more bearable. When you walked in Charli was still up and on the phone. She quickly hung up and smiled at you like she knew what'd you'd done.
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You: "Sorry I didn't tell you I was disappearing. It just kind of happened."
Charli: "Yeah, Nick told me you'd left with Jaden. I didn't want to get in the way so I just texted. I was waiting up to make sure you didn't need a ride."
You: "You're the sweetest, I swear. So you and Nick, huh?"
Charli: "Yeah... He came here and hung out for a bit. That was him on the phone letting me know he made it home ok."
You: "I'm sorry I kept you up. I don't know if I can sleep after that night, but I'll try to be quiet."
Charli: *grabbed her keys* "Nah, me either. Let's go to Target. They should be opening soon. You don't even have bedding yet."
In the hall you run into Josh and he calls out to you girls. You tell him about your early morning trip to Target and Charli pipes up to invite him. Josh is such a happy guy even this early in the morning and it's contagious. While you girls are trying to decide which bedding to grab, he turns the corner riding the cart into a wheelie.
Josh: "That list Charli is carrying seemed way too intense to not need a cart."
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Charli: "She came with nothing but a bag of clothes!? Lucky for her, I'm organized enough for the both of us."
You head to the bathroom aisle to grab towels and a caddy to carry all the toiletries she'd picked up. She was trying to sell you on the hot pink to coordinate with her turquoise set, but honestly she seemed to be having way more fun shopping than you were so you told her to grab whatever you want. Josh took that to heart and grabbed the Iron Man towel set from the kids rack and waved it in front of you. You threw them back on the shelf and rolled your eyes, but secretly he was just the right kind of goofy to put you in a good mood. It was still getting to you that Jaden hadn't woken you up before he'd left you alone in that room. You wondered if he'd actually message you, but you were having a really good time with your new friends and decided to not stress about it.
Back at the dorm, you're unloading your stuff and Charli is sleepy so Josh offers to go with you to grab donuts while she rests. You walk across the lawn towards the cafeteria building and for the first time really get to enjoy what a beautiful campus you'd enrolled at. Noticing you're distant and lost in thought, he bumps his shoulder into you and it causes your arm to push against your tattoo so you gasp. He apologizes, concerned and you reassure him: "I'm ok. I just got a tattoo yesterday and it's a little tender."
Josh: *shocked* "You just casually got a tattoo yesterday?"
You: *teasing him* "Yeah, at that party you invited us to and then never showed up to."
Josh: "I got caught up with something and by the time I finished it was too late. Trust me I'm paying for it tonight. I'm on cleanup duty for skipping. Ahhh the life of a fraternity pledge. But wait... why in the world would you get a tattoo at a party? That sounds like a bad idea."
You: "A lot of that party is starting to feel like a bad idea, but the tattoo I kinda like."
