on his phone. The conversation with Brooke lasts much longer than expected, and after I have myself completely packed and my luggage is in the trunk of my car, I return to the bedroom to find Landon sound asleep.
“Brooke, I gotta go,” I tell her in a quiet voice. “I’ll message you when I’m on my way to the airport tomorrow.”
I turn my phone on silent and check the time. Guilt rears its head when I realize I’ve been talking to Brooke for over an hour. When I slip into bed, I look at the face I fell in love with thirteen years ago as the moon casts its glow across the room. We were so young when we met; it seems like a lifetime ago.
“You love him?” Brooke asks as I rifle through my closet in search of my blue chiffon swing top.
“What? It’s only been three months.”
“Yeah, so . . .?”
“Here it is,” I murmur as I pull the top off the hanger and slip it over my head.
“You’re with him a lot. Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been staying up until all hours of the night texting him.”
“We really need to get an apartment so I can have my own room,” I respond as I continue to get ready for my date tonight.
“So, do you love him?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her while applying some gloss to my lips. “I’m just now getting used to him.”
“What does that mean?”
Turning from the mirror, I look at Brooke, who’s sitting in the middle of her twin bed. “He’s nice. Like, really nice.”
“And?”
“I didn’t like it at first. I guess I was just so used to how Trey treated me that when Landon would do or say sweet things to me, it used to turn me off. In a weird way, it made me feel smothered and icky.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?”
I shrug my shoulders, walk over to the edge of my bed, and sit down before admitting, “I don’t know. I guess I was embarrassed. I mean, what was I going to say to you, ‘I don’t like him because he’s perfect and nice and it makes me feel gross’?”
“That’s exactly what you should have said to me.” She shifts to sit on the edge of her bed so we are face to face. “Do you still feel that way?”
“No.”
“What are you texting about in the middle of the night?” she teases, and I quickly respond.
“None of your business, you little perv.”
Her face lights up. “Let me read!”
“God, no!”
“Come on.”
“You are so nosey, you know that?”
“Yes, I am well aware. So, are you going to let me read?”
“Absolutely not,” I say, and before she can continue her begging, my phone buzzes with an incoming call from Landon.
“I’m downstairs in the lobby.”
“Okay, I’ll be right down.”
I grab my purse and give myself one last lookover before turning back to Brooke, saying, “Stay out of trouble while I’m gone, will ya?”
“Never,” she responds with a smile as she gets off her bed and walks toward me. “You’re right. Landon is nothing like Trey, which is why he’s perfect for you.”
I look at my best friend and then pull her in for a hug. “Thank you.”
When I make my way to the dorm’s lobby, I see Landon sitting on one of the couches. He looks amazing in his dark-wash jeans and charcoal button-down. His hair is styled perfectly—not a strand out of place. He stands as I walk over to him, and the smile he wears so beautifully releases a flutter inside me.
“You look amazing,” he says before giving me a soft kiss to my lips.
Even though we’ve been seeing each other for a few months now, we’ve been taking things really slow—slower than most girls my age would. Our physical relationship has been very PG-13, aside from the late-night dirty texting. I’m fairly reserved, I always have been, but then again, I’ve only ever been with one guy.
As we walk out of the building, I catch a few girls giving Landon a gawking eye. He looks down at me and jokes, “Maybe I should’ve done the whole college thing. Apparently, I’m a stud.”
I playfully jab his ribs and laugh along with him. His humor is one of his best traits.
He takes me to The Barking Crab where we sit on a wooden picnic table along the water and enjoy lobster and a bucket of crab legs. We take our time, talking and enjoying the sunset before we