{18+ COMPLETED • COLLEGE ROMANCE}
When a college freshman with a learning disability and a reputation collides with a straight-A, straight-laced girl in the dorm kitchen one night, he sees the darkest parts of himself reflected in her. But the two o...
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B R E N
I woke up, and Madie was gone. It was surprising and annoying. When we'd fallen asleep, she was naked except for the towel wrapped loosely around her. Nestled next to me, her wet hair soaked the pillow, smelling like lavender bubble bath. Soft skin beneath my chin. The ocean whirring like my heart. I'd really been looking forward to waking up to the same thing.
But the banging of pots and pans reverberated through the hollow house, telling me exactly where my girl was.
I stopped myself from flying down the stairs to find her, knowing I should use the moment to fucking think. I'd already relived last night a thousand times in my dreams. To be honest, it was the first time in a long time that I had allowed myself to dream at all.
But what the hell was wrong with me? I lost all control in that cavernous club. Shit, I didn't just lose control; I lost my mind, touching her like that. I rolled over and groaned into the pillow. Trying so hard to hold back from Madie only made it that much more dangerous in those moments when I broke down and caved to the way she made me feel.
And there was what had happened in the bathroom when she—
I should just go downstairs.
Thinking really wasn't helping anything at the moment.
Sitting up, I searched the floor for that one T-shirt of mine Madie always wore. I'd hauled the rest of my clothes to the laundry room yesterday when Madie went shopping, and the load still sat in the dryer.
The shirt was on top of Madie's suitcase, half stuffed into the front pocket like she was planning on stowing it away and keeping it forever. Shaking my head with a smile, I crossed the room and snatched it. The shirt popped right out and brought a bunch of papers tumbling with it. I hesitated, knowing I shouldn't look at them. Who knows what they were, what they said—if they said anything at all.
But as most of my control had been stripped away last night, I bent down and grabbed them.
And they definitely said something. They were her discharge papers from the hospital. And the further I read down the page, the further my stomach dropped. My toes curled into the rich carpet, trying to grip into something real. Because this couldn't be true.
Control, restraint, whatever you wanted to call it...it was all gone. On every front. With the papers still in my hand, I flung myself down the stairs, not really thinking clearly and not really caring.
Madie was in the kitchen, a blue checkered apron tied around her waist, a spatula in one hand. She was bent over what looked like a cookbook, her nose only an inch away from the page. If I wasn't so focused, I would have told her to put her goddamn glasses on.
At my footsteps, she peered up. She flashed me a shy smile that honestly confounded me because shy hadn't seemed to be a part of her personality last night. But none of that mattered at the moment.
