“But if you could put some clothes on, that’d be great.”
So much for him removing the stick from his ass. He nodded his head, pursed those beautiful lips, and retreated toward the front door, muttering something about the gym.
“What the hell is his deal?”
Jagger’s grin was a step past shit-eating to downright comical. “No clue, but that’s the most worked up I’ve ever seen the guy, and I’ve lived with him for almost a year. Way to go, Sam.”
“That’s not a compliment.” I spooned sugar into my steaming cup of coffee. “I really need to pick up honey, and please tell me you have creamer.”
“Ember lives here every other weekend,” he replied, moving past me to the fridge, then handed me a bottle of Amaretto creamer.
“Thank God for little things.”
“Sweet and blonde,” he commented with a wink. “Just like I like my women. Oh, a letter came for you yesterday. I left it on the entry table. Make yourself at home, and welcome to Alabama, Sam.”
He patted me on the back and left me sipping my coffee as I headed toward the front door. Sure enough, a letter addressed to Samantha Fitzgerald from Troy University sat on the polished wood.
I balanced my cup as I opened the letter, hissing as the skin of my thumb split. I popped it into my mouth and set my coffee down, opening the letter with my empty hand. The sweetest pressure settled in my chest as I unfolded it. This was my fresh start. This was my hope.
“Dear Ms. Fitzgerald,” I started to read along. Then stopped.
No. No. No.
How? They’d admitted me. They’d promised me a clean slate, that my grades from last semester wouldn’t matter. They would start me on academic probation and then let up when I did well this first semester.
“Sam?” Ember asked, balancing two cups of coffee as she stood in front of me. I hadn’t even registered her coming in. “Are you okay?”
Failure stung like a bitch. Oh wait, that was my thumb. “Shit.” I squeezed the skin, opening the paper cut, and almost laughed when I saw it wasn’t bleeding. Anything that hurt that badly should at least give you something to show for it.
Kind of like the last two and a half years I’d wasted in college.
My voice didn’t shake, or hold any tone. It was as numb as I was. “Upon further review of your transcript, we regret to inform you that we cannot accept you into Troy University.”
It doesn’t matter what state you move to. You’re still a whore.
Chapter Two
Sam
“Sam? Let me in.” Ember knocked for the hundredth time.
“Go away,” I answered, my head tucked between my knees as I leaned back against my bed. Breathe in. Breathe out. This will pass. It has to.
“That’s so not going to happen,” she called through my bedroom door. “Let me in.”
Let her in? To what? The absolute mess I’d made of my life? Another school rejection. Another chance…lost. God, what if it was my last chance? What if this was it? No college was going to accept me, not when my records came with that giant black mark. Every carefully constructed plan, dream…gone. Again.
And maybe I deserved it for what I’d done.
My stomach rolled and saliva pooled in my mouth.
I bolted to my feet and threw open the door, tripping past Ember as I raced to the bathroom. The bath mat cushioned my knees as I fell and curled over the toilet in time to bring up what little coffee I’d managed to drink.
Ember pulled a curl from my face as I dry-heaved, the pain nothing compared to the shredding my heart was taking.
“Here,” she whispered, handing me a cup of water as I flushed the toilet.
I swished and spit, keeping my eyes on the cup.
“Is this why you’ve lost weight?” she asked as we sat on the bathroom floor, leaned back against the tub.
“I haven’t—” She cut me off with a glare. “It’s been hard lately,” I finished.