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“Well,” I muttered, fighting the frown that wanted to surface, “at least when there’s more girls on campus, you guys will have more to look at. Other girls to spend your weekends with.” Like Sawyer. Sawyer never let the all-male campus thing derail his goal of banging every girl in a thirty-mile radius. Declan and Will? They could be just like him; they were definitely attractive enough. Girls would flock to them like moths to the flame.
I…that thought bothered me more than I was willing to admit.
Declan’s dark brows came together, and he started, “Ash—” Will, on the other hand, was silent, staring at me with what I could only imagine as judgment.
“Don’t,” I said, waving him off. “Forget I said it. I don’t know why I said it.” These were the times when I wished I had my own room, an actual room with its own door that I could close to block out the rest of the world and my roommate, and in this case, my roommate’s brother, too. “It was stupid.” I went to sit on my bed, burying my face in my hands.
Why would I go and say something so stupid? Ugh. I wanted to smack myself.
“I think I know why,” Will’s voice entered my ears, and a presence came beside me on the bed. Will didn’t touch me, but I could still feel his closeness. “You’re used to being the only girl on campus. You think that with the addition of a bunch of others, everything will change.”
I was slow to withdraw my face from my hands, meeting his eyes.
“You think you won’t matter to Declan,” Will continued as Declan made his way over to my other side. When Declan sat down, I was once again in the middle of a brother sandwich, and I had to mentally scold myself: it was a brother sandwich which would most definitely never happen.
“That’s stupid,” Declan muttered. “A thousand girls could walk by, but none of them would make me forget about you.”
My inner nice girl swooned. I didn’t let her out often, because the nice ones never survived long in this world, but in this moment, I felt her weaken at the knees. It was a good thing I was sitting down, otherwise my legs would’ve been goo. It was also a good thing Will was here, because his presence stopped me from doing something I’d probably only regret tomorrow.
“Speaking as someone who’s going to a college with both girls and guys, I can honestly say I’ve never met a girl like you before,” Will told me, causing my head to snap in his direction. My inner nice girl, the one who wanted prince charmings and knights in shining armor, was already swooning. How much more could the poor girl handle?
I told Travis and Sawyer they’d never met a girl like me before, and I meant it. But hearing Will say it was something else entirely. Hearing him say it made the air sweep from my lungs, and my heart nearly stop. I’d believe anything Will said. He was, for all intents and purposes, my knight.
A dimpled smile grew on Will’s face when our stares met, and even though there was a foot between us, it was like we touched, tingles of electricity shooting through me, warming me up in places I shouldn’t notice, but I did. I wasn’t an innocent girl. I’d had sex, a lot more of it than my mom would ever want to know. I’d lost my innocence so long ago, I didn’t even know what the word meant anymore. I had to pull out a dictionary for it; whip out Google and search it.
“It’s true,” Will said, as if he thought I was going to fight him on it. I wasn’t. I just couldn’t believe the feelings both these brothers brought out in me. Around them, I almost felt normal. Around them, I could forget everything I never wanted to remember. “You are special, Ash. Never doubt it.”
I let out a short chuckle. “This turned into a pep talk I wasn’t expecting.”
Around me, both Declan and Will laughed. I doubted they’d be laughing if they knew how tempting it was having them sitting on my bed, with their handsome selves being so…well, handsome. A temptation I never expected, one that took every ounce of self-restraint not to give into. I mean, I doubted they’d be down for a threesome anyway, because that was borderline incest. But still. Dream fodder.
The day wound down, and unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you wanted to look at it—there was no hanky-panky between me or either of the brothers, or between all three of us. It was near seven o’clock when Will said he should go, and both Declan and I volunteered to walk him to his car, which he parked in one of Hillcrest’s many lots. You had to have a pass to use the lots during the week, but on the weekends and when school wasn’t in session, anyone could use them.
“You know, once I’m a student here, we can do this more often,” Will said, his hands in his pockets as we walked along the sidewalk through campus. Campus was pretty dead on the weekends; not at all like Kelsey’s college, from what it sounded like. A part of me couldn’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like if I would’ve gone to a public college, been roommates with Kelsey.
Fun. It would’ve been fun, and a hell of a lot less drama-filled.
“Maybe you should get yourself your own copy of Mario Kart, so you can practice,” I teased, earning myself a light-hearted glare from Will.
“One day,” he said, “I’ll beat you.”
“Maybe you should get her some chicken nuggets before playing against her,” Declan suggested with a shrug. “She’ll be so focused on eating them, it’ll give you an advantage.”
I let out a laugh. As if I couldn’t eat and game at the same time. These guys were noobs when it came to gaming, weren’t they? They might have some experience with shooters, but other games they had no skill at. Clearly, they’d never stayed up to pull an all-nighter playing Mario while drinking Mountain Dew and munching on Cheetos, and it showed.
We turned into the parking lot, walking through the cars parked until we reached Will’s vehicle. Will and Declan said their goodbyes, and I averted my eyes, as if the goodbye was something private, something that should only be shared between them and not me. Like I was overstepping, somehow. Or maybe I felt this way because I felt conflicting feelings for them both.
I don’t know. Don’t ask me. At this point, I was clueless when it came to what I was feeling. Until Hillcrest, I’d never felt such strong feelings for more than one guy at a time before. Crushes were a dime a dozen back in high school, but what I felt for these guys? So much more than that. I wasn’t crushing on them. I liked them. I liked them a lot.
Once Declan and Will’s goodbye was done, Declan moved onto the sidewalk near the car, and I turned my gaze until I met Will’s pretty hazel stare. Unlike most people who claimed to have hazel eyes, Will really did. I could spot all three colors in his gaze—green, brown, and blue. Most of his stare was green, a beautiful jade color. Bits of brown amber flecked around his pupils, while a dark blue rim of color ran around his eyes, as if keeping the hodgepodge of colors together.
Will had his hands in his pockets, but when he stepped toward me, he was slow to pull them out. Before I knew what he was doing, he wrapped both arms around me and hugged me to his chest. I was so surprised it took a moment to register, and I was slow to hug him back, setting my hands on his side and holding myself to him, breathing in his welcoming, musky scent. Similar to Declan’s smell, but different.
But, I guess, that was the root of it. They were similar, but so very different when it all came down to it.
“I told him to watch out for you,” Will whispered, his lips brushing against my hair, his warm breath sending tiny shockwaves of lust through me, “so now I’m going to tell you to watch out for him.”
I smiled against his chest. “What am I supposed to say to you, then?”
