Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1) (17 page)

This reply flew out of my fingers like fire out of the end of Hermione’s wand. I tried to play it cool, tried to remember I didn’t have any right to question what he did with whom. By this time next week he could be married to Twyla and I would never, ever know. Somehow the memory of his hands on my butt made me
feel
like I had the right to an explanation, though.

Text from Boone:

I sighed.

Mia and I grabbed dinner at Snokes. Meals were still pretty normal if you didn’t depend on the salad bar. I dribbled clam chowder off my spoon a few times then crushed the saltine crackers in their little packs of two, creating cellophane pillows stuffed with salty white crumbs.

“Calm down,” Mia advised. “Sir Hotness obviously knows you’re peeved. And he obviously
cares
you’re peeved. Twyla’s playing you.”

“I know
.” I poked at one of the packets with my definitely unmanicured finger. “You think I don’t know that?
He’s
the one who brought it up. I wouldn’t have said a word.” I sighed. “I’m mostly pissed because I shouldn’t be. We’ve only been dating a few weeks.”

Mia put her chin in her han
d and gazed up at the ceiling tiles. “Your first argument. Maybe you’ll have makeup sex.”

“Psshh. Not likely. I’m going to go back to Indiana to die a virgin.
On a bed of ash.”

Mia laughed with a snort. “You still have four or five days before life ends as we know it.”

“Yeah, except he’s been ignoring me for longer than that.”

“I know, sister-friend
,” she said sympathetically. “So, don’t put out but be cool tonight, okay? You two are so cute together. Don’t F it up over a bee-yotch like Twyla.”

We’d
been in our room only moments when he appeared. His eyes were bloodshot, his shirt more rumpled than usual, and his cheeks as endearingly stubbly as they’d been this afternoon. His appearance reminded me he was worried about his family, had responsibility for a bunch of underclassmen, and faced a trip into the unknown like the rest of us, all of which made me feel about two inches tall.

“Hey,” I said
. I walked to him and initiated a peck on the lips.

His
relieved smile unfurled slowly. “Hey,” he answered, his voice a little gruff.

“Hotness,” Mia said from her desk. “I need a favor.”

“Which one of us is Hotness?” Boone asked me.

I turned toward her with a warning on my face
, no idea what she would say.

She smirked. “Violet says you have a big ol’ truck. Any chance I can get a lift Thursday morning down to the bus station? The shuttle I need is already full.”

“Sure,” he said. “All my guys should be gone by then.”

“Awesome
.” She unfolded out of her chair. “’kay, well, it’s an October Saturday night and the semester is randomly ending. Better go study. Ta ta!” She grabbed a notebook off her desk on her way out the door.

Boone and I sat on my bed.

He looked at me with what Mia would call a quizzical brow. “I’m just a dumb guy, so can you tell me if you were mad at me about Twyla?”

“No
.” I picked at a thread on the bedspread. And not just any bedspread, but the special matching one, now destined for a room in Indiana where it matched nothing. “I mean, no, I’m not exactly mad about Twyla. It’s…I’m not the person who’s gonna pick that fight. Twyla doesn’t like me. She obviously
really
likes you. I’m not going to stand in a doorway holding fifty pounds of books to try to save face with her, especially when I don’t know what’s going on with us.” I snapped the thread. “You sort of disappeared this week.”

I regretted the word
“us,” and how petulant my last sentence sounded, and I wished I could sink into the floor. “I know you’ve been busy,” I added lamely.

He waved my excuse for his absence away.
“Okay,” he said. “That makes sense.”

“It does?”

“Yeah. I haven’t been around much and it’s partly what you said. The not knowing what the future will be.” He searched my face where I’m sure he saw pure misery. “I wish we had more time.”

I nodded. M
y throat clogged with a lump way too big for a guy I’d been seeing for a month, except he’d expressed my most heartfelt wish, put it right out there in words. He slipped an arm around my shoulders, and I snuggled in to his side.

“If
you’d waited three seconds I would have grabbed the door
and
carried your books for you, ya know?”

“You sure you had time
? Seems like you’re throwing favors at all the girls.”

His chuckle rumbled from my ear to my heart.

“How’re you getting home?” he asked.

“Um, I don’t know yet,” I confessed.
“I…I couldn’t bring myself to make the call home.”

“Good, because I have an idea. Indiana is practically on my way to Nebraska
, and I have plenty of room in the truck. How ’bout I give you a ride?”

I bent my neck at a nearly impossible angle to look up at him without pulling away.
“Are you serious?” My spirits lifted at the prospect of spending even seven more hours together.

“Sure,” he said, grinning. “If I can take Twyla to storage and Mia to the bus stop, the least I can do is drive you home.”
 

 

A half hour later, after a make-out session perhaps worth a seven-day hiatus, I reluctantly let Boone return to his duties.