The Way We Almost Were ✓

57| crossroads

for heyshortcake 💞

| Chapter 57 |

| crossroads |

There was an unspoken agreement between Nick and Bree, both of them being all too familiar with each other's feelings and their own, that they understood to keep their interactions to a bare minimum -- if there were even any at all.

It wasn't awkward, to be seated close in the lectures they shared, but Bree would have to be an utter fool to not admit there was a slow-spreading tension hanging in the air between them, to be blind to the undercurrents of emotions that continued to run wild and out of reach.

There were so many questions sitting on the tip of her tongue. So many. How exactly did Nick manage to stay hidden for the better part of a year? That too, from a cartel as widely renown and lethal as the Crawford's? But was she even allowed to ask those questions from him? Was Nick allowed to respond to them even if she did ask?

What did it mean now that Michael was here? Was his father here too? What did that mean for the city of Columbia, where their college was at? Did the local law enforcement even know members of a mob had entered the state of South Carolina? All the way from New York?

Bree raised a hand to her head without realising it, her fingers pressing into her forehead where it was beginning to hurt again. Whatever her lecturer was saying turned into a buzz as the throbbing in her temples instensified. She couldn't concentrate.

How long would Nick resist against them? Against his own father? And how long would the cartel tolerate his resistance? What if they deciced force was necessary? What if they resorted to bloodshed like so many of their other infamous cases? Would they target other students at this college to prove a point to Nick? How far was an armed drug ring willing to go to prove that they needed to have the final say in who stayed and who left their organisation? Bree didn't know the answers to any of this. This wasn't supposed to be real life.

The last fifteen minutes of the lecture passed by in a haze of white noise and a dull ache spreading across Bree's head.

Her hands moved on their own accord, piling up her study materials once it was time to leave the lecture hall. Bree tried not to focus on it, but her peripheral vision captured snippets of Nick's hands doing the same -- deliberate, cautious movements as they gathered his books and notes.

Her own movements slowed, automatically matching her pace to that of Nick's, while her gaze shifted sideways and she discreetly continued watching him through the corner of her eyes. Why couldn't she stop drinking in all these little details? Like how he capped every single pen before tossing them into his bag. Or how he arranged the lecture notes and books according to size -- in ascending order -- and then balanced them against his arm while rising out of the chair.