Chapter 67 (1/2)

Tessa looks away from me, but that’s okay. It will take some time for her to get used to hearing these things from me, but she will get used to it. I’ve made a vow to tell her how I feel and to stop being selfish and expecting her to decipher my every word and intention.

The vibration of her cell phone breaks the stillness, and she pulls it from the pocket of her oversize sweatshirt. I force myself to pretend that she bought the WCU sweatshirt and that she’s not wearing Landon’s clothing. I have been subjected to wearing every embroidered piece of WCU merchandise known to man, but I hate the idea of his clothes touching her skin. It’s irrational and fucking stupid, but I can’t stop the thoughts from entering and taking root in my mind.

She swipes her thumb across the screen, and it takes a moment for me to realize what I’m seeing.

I snatch the phone from her hands before she can stop me. “An iPhone? You’re shitting me!” I stare down at the new phone in my hands. “This is yours?”

“Yeah.” Her cheeks flush, and she reaches for the phone, but I stretch my arms above my head, out of her reach.

“Oh, so now you get an iPhone, but when I wanted you to, you absolutely refused!” I tease. Her eyes are wide, and she takes a nervous breath. “Why the change of heart?” I smile at her, easing her discomfort.

“I don’t know. It was time, I guess.” She shrugs her shoulders, still nervous.

I don’t like how she looks unsettled, but I’m hoping that a little playfulness is all that’s needed. “What’s the pass code?” I ask while hitting the numbers that I’m guessing she’ll have used.

Ha—got it on the first try, and I’m welcomed in by her home screen.

“Hardin!” she squeals, attempting to grab the phone from me. “You can’t just go through my phone!” She leans across and grabs my bare arm with one hand and reaches for the phone with the other.

“Yes, I can.” I laugh. The simplest touch from her has me buzzing; every cell beneath my skin is alive from her skin on mine.

She smiles and holds out a demanding little hand to match that sweet little grin that I’ve missed so much. “All right. Give me yours, then.”

“Nope, sorry.” I continue to tease her while obsessively scrolling through her text messages.

“Give me the phone!” she whines and moves closer to me, but then her smile disappears. “There are probably a lot of things on your phone that I don’t want to see.” And like that, I can feel her guard sliding back into place.

“No, there isn’t. There are over a thousand pictures of you and an entire album of your bullshit music, and if you really want to see how pathetic I am, you could check the call logs and see how many times I’ve called your old number just to hear that robotic bitch voice tell me that your number is no longer in service.”

She glares at me, obviously not believing me. Not that I blame her. Her eyes soften but only momentarily before she says, “None of Janine?” Her voice is so low that I barely catch the accusation.

“What? No! Go on, look at it. It’s on the dresser.”