Hate To Love You

“You had my back with Shay once.”

“Yeah.” She touched my knee, a soft reassuring touch. “I can see you’re worried about something, but you don’t have to be. Your relationship with Shay isn’t what I had with him. I already know that. If I’d been attacked, Shay would’ve comforted me. That’s it. He would’ve been there for me to cry on his shoulder, and he would’ve been the doting and supportive boyfriend, and everyone would’ve thought how perfect he was being. But he wouldn’t have done what he did for you. He really cares about you.”

She said cares. Even she couldn’t say he loved me.

I forced a smile, feeling a burning sensation in my chest. “You’re right. I really care about him, too.”

“See.” Her smile grew. “I might be seeing you a bit more here than I did in the other dorm. I come over to see Phoebe a lot.” She stood, and we made our way back to the main front entrance. Her step was a little lighter, and she spoke a bit more freely. “Now, if she wants to see me is a different story. I think she’s lonely. I don’t want her to feel that way. Sometimes she lets me stay. Sometimes she doesn’t.”

She waved a goodbye, saying she’d see me later.

I was rooted in place. Again.

She was a good person. She was beautiful on the inside and outside, and it hit me. If Shay hadn’t loved someone like her, what chance did I have?





“What’s going on with you?” Shay asked me later that night. We were studying in his room. He was at his desk while I was stretched out on his bed. We were both dressed in lounging clothes. He had on a shirt and sweatpants, but I went the boy-shorts route. They were hidden underneath a large sweater that hung on me like a dress.

After talking to Sabrina, I tried to shake my insecurities off.

Shay wasn’t Parker.

I wasn’t going to become Sabrina.

Right?

I kept trying to reassure myself, but it was useless. For whatever reason—maybe the fact that I admitted to myself I was falling for him—my irrational sense of doom hung over me like a storm cloud. I couldn’t shake it, and seeing the puzzled look on Shay’s gorgeous face, I thought, fuck it.

I sat up, crossing my legs over each other. I faced him squarely from the bed. “Are you going to hurt me?”

His eyes widened. He’d been holding a pen in his hand, but it dropped to the floor. “What? Where did that come from?”

“You heard me.”

I was watching.

I was waiting.

But no reaction, other than his shock. I didn’t see any flicker of guilt in his eyes, and I instantly felt stupid. I needed to get a handle on my issues. “Nothing.” I dropped back to the bed with a sigh, letting my textbook fall to the side. “I’m being a girl.”

“Whoa. What’s going on?”

I heard the desk squeak. Shay came into view as he stood over me, frowning down at me. He folded his arms over his chest, and I tried not to gawk at how that defined his already spectacular chest, shoulders, and arm muscles.

I failed.

I was pretty sure I felt a little drool, but I wiped it away and scooted so I was sitting back against the wall facing him. He sat next to me, his hand on my leg.

I looked down at my hands, folded on my lap. “My feelings are stronger than I want them to be. Last time this happened, Parker squashed me like a damned bug.” I looked up. “Are you going to squash me?”

“No.” He shook his head from side to side, his eyebrows knitting together. “You really think that? Haven’t I shown you enough how much I care?”

My mouth went dry.

He had.

But . . . I gave him a small smile. “Could you maybe write it down? Like on flashcards?”

“Flashcards?”

I nodded. “I can pull those out anytime I start getting freaked about us.”

“You want me to profess my feelings for you on flashcards?”

“Makes total sense to me.”

I didn’t bat an eyelash.

That was all he did, raking a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t be surprised by anything by now with you.”

I nodded. That sounded completely reasonable.

But I was still waiting, and he saw that, too. He stood, going back to his desk. “Okay. Fine. Shay’s Flashcards of Love coming right up.” He picked up a pen and grabbed a deck of blank cards he’d been using for studying. “Silly me, I thought I would be using them to quiz myself tonight. Nope. They’re the new form of emotional reassurance.”

I closed my eyes, half-grinning, but half-cringing on the inside.

Whatever.

I’d been nuts since the beginning. It wasn’t as if I was starting a new protocol for our relationship. He enjoyed the sex enough. I was banking on that keeping him around if his real feelings started to fade.

“Flashcard one,” Shay started.

I could feel his gaze, and I looked up again, meeting it. I felt zapped. There was a fierceness in him, a smoldering emotion that I wasn’t sure if I was seeing correctly. I gulped. He wasn’t breaking eye contact as he started, “Spontaneous.” He scribbled the word down, then flipped to the back. “She’s down to have sex almost anytime and anywhere.”

I looked back down. The tips of my ears started to burn.

He continued, “She’s up for any adventure, too. Antonyms: boring or dull.” He coughed and then I heard him pull out a second flashcard. “Funny.” He flipped it over. “She can make me laugh just by being herself. She sits, and I think it’s cute and funny. She breathes, and I get aroused or I start chuckling. She gets upset about something, and I’m walking around with a hard-on.”

I didn’t think “funny” described all of that, but I bit down on my lip. I wanted to hear more, and I didn’t at the same time.

“Smart.” Backside of the card. “She’s a freshman, and she held her own with upperclassmen in a class I know she thought was boring as hell. She can challenge me to think beyond myself or my friends. How she acts makes me want to be a better man.”

My whole ear was inflamed. It was growing to my cheeks and farther down.

“Sweet.” He flipped it. “She had a roommate who treated her like shit at times, but she was so sweet, Kennedy never wanted to hurt her feelings. She could’ve humiliated her roommate and never did. She didn’t want anyone to know about our relationship in the beginning, which leads me to . . .” He pulled out a new card. “Fearful. She’s scared of being hurt by me, which is the opposite of annoying, which she thinks I am right now.”

I looked up, my hands clasped tightly together. I swallowed over a lump.

He wasn’t even writing. He was looking right at me, unflinching and unwavering, “The fact that you’re worried I’m going to hurt you is the very reason why I never will. It doesn’t make me want to run for the hills or jump on this chance to leave you. Because I could. I’m a guy. Guys know how to screw with a girl’s mind and insecurities, but I don’t do that. Not with you.”