Gravity (Greenford #2) - Romeo Alexander Page 0,32

hearts grow fonder. The night had been comfortable, full of laughter, and it had ended with them curled around one another in Samuel’s bed.

The memory marked the first time Samuel had found himself truly thinking about their shared past while he was around Caleb. It had always tickled the back of his mind and he’d even peeked in, but he’d never quite lost himself to a memory before. And if the atmosphere in the backseat was any indication, Samuel wasn’t the only one feeling a little bit of nostalgia.

With that nostalgia came no small amount of yearning as well, which pulled Samuel up short as he turned to look out at the passing scenery. Perhaps, before Caleb showed up unexpectedly, Samuel would have told himself that he was over their relationship, even if there were a few lingering regrets he needed to sort out first. Yet, sitting with him less than half a foot away, remembering when they could be good together, Samuel was beginning to suspect maybe the past had a greater hold over a person than they were willing to think...or believe.

The thought drew a smirk to his face, shaking his head at his own reflection. Because it would be just like him, to insist that he was fine, that he had moved on, was going to new places, when in reality he was still stuck, maybe not most of him, but enough to be significant. Had he ever been able to truly move past what he and Caleb had, or had he simply pushed it away after he’d determined that he’d learned enough to move on.

Maybe the reality was that he hadn’t learned very much at all.

“What forest are you lost in?” came Caleb’s soft question.

“I just don’t know why you can’t pay attention when I’m talking,” Caleb huffed, brushing a stray blade of grass from his pants.

Samuel shrugged, looking around the campus as students went back and forth between buildings, paying no attention to the men sitting in the grass beneath the shade of a large oak. He honestly couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking about before Caleb had interrupted him. Although admittedly, the thoughts had interrupted the conversation he’d first been having with Caleb.

Now he was struggling to remember what they’d been talking about.

“It’s nothing personal,” Samuel explained, plucking another few blades of grass with a jerk of his wrist. “Living in my head is like...wandering around in the countryside. Sometimes I know exactly where I’m at, or I see a path that I’m following, like in conversations. But sometimes I find myself wandering through the woods instead, no idea where I’m going or what’s going on.”

“Must be some fascinating trees,” Caleb grumbled, glaring when Samuel tossed the grass onto his pants.

“Yeah, I guess. But it’s not like I choose to wander into the woods.”

“The woods just appear?”

“On all sides.”

Caleb grunted, sounding unconvinced but not looking as annoyed either, as the crease in his brow had eased. It came back once again when Samuel plucked more grass and tossed it over his pant leg.

“Quit,” Caleb huffed, brushing it off.

“I’m just sharing the forest with you,” Samuel told him, grabbing a fallen leaf this time and setting it atop Caleb’s head. “Hoping it makes you less grumpy.”

Caleb continued to glare as he snatched the leaf off his head, but it was ruined by the twitching at the corner of his lips. He crumbled the dried leaf up and let it rain down over Samuel’s face with a toss of his hand. Caleb let out a laugh when Samuel gave a squawk of protest as some of the dried fragments ended up in his mouth.

“Serves you right,” Caleb said while still reaching out to gently brush a bit of dried leaf from the corner of Samuel’s mouth.

After that, Caleb had taken to merely asking what forest Samuel was wandering through whenever he drifted off mentally. For his part, Samuel tried to at least remember what they were talking about when he snapped back to reality.

“Thinking about life, my life, and where it’s taken me and where I thought it had taken me,” Samuel answered because as part of the unspoken deal, he would share what he’d been thinking about if he could remember.

Caleb snorted. “That’s a long and dark forest to get lost in.”

“It is,” Samuel admitted. “I’m glad I had you here to pull me out of it. Otherwise, I might have wandered until the poor driver had to smack some sense into me.”

“Well, you certainly