ABBY PASSED OUT BEFORE I DID. HER BREATHING evened out, and her body relaxed against mine. She was warm, and her nose made the slightest, sweetest buzzing noise when she inhaled. Her body in my arms felt way too good. It was something I could get used to far too easily. As scared as that made me, I couldn’t move.
Knowing Abby, she would wake up and remember she was a hard-ass, and yell at me for letting it happen or, worse, resolve to never let it happen again.
I wasn’t stupid enough to hope, or strong enough to stop myself from feeling the way I did. Total eye-opener. Not so tough, after all. Not when it came to Abby.
My breathing slowed, and my body sank into the mattress, but I fought the fatigue that steadily overtook me. I didn’t want to close my eyes and miss even a second of what it felt like to have Abby so close.
She stirred, and I froze. Her fingers pressed into my skin, and then she hugged herself up against me once before relaxing again. I kissed her hair, and leaned my cheek against her forehead.
Closing my eyes for just a moment, I took a breath.
I opened my eyes again, and it was morning. Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have.
Abby was wiggling around, trying to unwedge herself out from under me. My legs were on top of hers, and my arm still held her.
“Stop it, Pidge. I’m sleepin’,” I said, pulling her closer.
She pulled her limbs out from under me, one at a time, and then sat on the bed and sighed.
I slid my hand across the bed, reaching the tips of her small, delicate fingers. Her back was to me, and she didn’t turn around.
“What’s wrong, Pigeon?”
“I’m going to get a glass of water. You want anything?”
I shook my head, and closed my eyes. Either she was going to pretend it didn’t happen, or she was pissed. Neither option a good one.
Abby walked out, and I lay there a while, trying to find the motivation to move. Hangovers sucked, and my head was pounding. I could hear Shepley’s muffled, deep voice, so I decided to drag my ass out of bed.
My bare feet slapped against the wood floor as I trudged into the kitchen. Abby stood in my T-shirt and boxers, pouring chocolate syrup into a steaming bowl of oatmeal.
“That’s sick, Pidge,” I grumbled, trying to blink the blur from my eyes.
“Good morning to you, too.”
“I hear your birthday is coming up. Last stand of your teenage years.”
She made a face, caught off guard. “Yeah . . . I’m not a big birthday person. I think Mare is going to take me to dinner or something.” She smiled. “You can come if you want.”
I shrugged, trying to pretend her smile hadn’t gotten to me. She wanted me there. “All right. It’s a week from Sunday?”
“Yes. When’s your birthday?”
“Not ’til April. April first,” I said, pouring milk on top of my cereal.
“Shut up.”
I took a bite, amused at her surprise. “No, I’m serious.”
“Your birthday is on April Fools’?”
I laughed. The look on her face was priceless. “Yes! You’re gonna be late. I better get dressed.”
“I’m riding with Mare.”
That small rejection was a lot harder to hear than it should have been. She had been riding to campus with me, and suddenly she was riding with America? It made me wonder if it was because of what had happened the night before. She was probably trying to distance herself from me again, and that was nothing less than disappointing. “Whatever,” I said, turning my back to her before she could see the disappointment in my eyes.
The girls grabbed their backpacks in a hurry. America tore out of the parking lot like they had just robbed a bank.
Shepley walked out of his bedroom, pulling a T-shirt over his head. His eyebrows pushed together. “Did they just leave?”
“Yeah,” I said absently, rinsing my cereal bowl and dumping Abby’s leftover oatmeal in the sink. She’d barely touched it.
“Well, what the hell? Mare didn’t even say goodbye.”
“You knew she was going to class. Quit being a crybaby.”
Shepley pointed to his chest. “I’m the crybaby? Do you remember last night?”
“Shut up.”
“That’s what I thought.” He sat on the couch and slipped on his sneakers. “Did you ask Abby about her birthday?”
“She didn’t say much, except that she’s not into birthdays.”
“So what are we doing?”
“Throwing her a party.” Shepley nodded, waiting for me to explain. “I thought we’d surprise her. Invite some of our friends over and have America take her out for a while.”
Shepley put on his white ball cap, pulling it down so low over his brows I couldn’t see his eyes. “She can manage that. Anything else?”
“How do you feel about a puppy?”
Shepley laughed once. “It’s not my birthday, bro.”
I walked around the breakfast bar and leaned my hip against the stool. “I know, but she lives in the dorms. She can’t have a puppy.”
“Keep it here? Seriously? What are we going to do with a dog?”