Going Long (Waiting on the Sidelines #2)(15)

My estimate wasn’t even close. Gavin and I worked until midnight finishing up the data and running our results. It was worth it, though, because not only did we come up with some killer findings and draw some great conclusions for our report, but also I was able to forget about everything else in my life for most of the night.

We ordered pizza, made fun of our lab partners and swapped stories about growing up with rich kids. Gavin came to ASU from Compton. I laughed at first when he told me, because I didn’t think anyone actually came from Compton, but he assured me they did. He said his neighborhood was full of families that had lived there for years, but that it made him sad to see people afraid to go out at night. He took a bus to a private school that he was able to go to on a scholarship. And I thought I had it hard.

I’d also learned that Gavin came to ASU because of a girl, but after their freshman year, they broke up; his ex, Maya, moved back to California, but Gavin decided to stay. This part of the conversation started to make me a little uncomfortable, partly because I didn’t want to go into my relationship with Reed and the drama that had descended on my life as of late, and partly because it felt a little as if Gavin was flirting with me.

When we were eating, he reached over twice to dab my cheek with a napkin; I kept one in my hand to take care of my own face after that. Then, when I was typing up our final results, he stood behind me and massaged my shoulders a little, sometimes his touch lingering just a little too long.

Gavin was incredibly good looking. He was the kind of guy who played the guitar with random bands for fun and rolled to class on a skateboard. His intelligence was a sexy contrast with his entire bad-boy image. When I was packing up my things and getting ready to leave, I felt a rush of heat hit my nerves as Gavin put his hand on the center of my back as he walked me to the door. And when he reached over to give me a friendly hug—one that suddenly felt not-so-friendly—I panicked.

“I have a boyfriend,” I just laid it out there, just like that. No preface, no real reason to add it to the conversation, other than the massive blood-rush hitting my eardrums and making me feel as if I might soon pass out. I had nothing left other than to give Gavin the stupidest of smiles.

“Oh, uh…okay?” he said, once again shoving his hands in his pockets, seeming to try to make himself appear less threatening. “I didn’t mean anything. I just…boy, I’m not really sure what to say here.”

He stood there rubbing the back of his neck and chuckling nervously. I had just made this extremely awkward.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to fix things. “I just… I realized that we talked a lot about you, and I hadn’t shared much. I thought it was one of those things that were good to know.”

He just smiled at me, his lips forming the most adorable grin, forcing his eyes to scrunch a bit. “It’s okay. Yeah, that…the boyfriend…it’s good to know,” he said, nodding and reaching out his hand in a fist to give me a pound. I just pounded back and laughed a little.

“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all weird. I think I just need to go home and get some sleep.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” he said, opening his door for me and leaning against the frame as I walked out backwards, making my way to the stairs. “Sweet dreams, you.”

He watched as I walked all the way to the stairway door, and then he closed his. I may have not had much dating experience, and I may have only been with Reed, but I was pretty sure Gavin was hitting on me, ever so slightly. And I didn’t hate it. But the guilt it left behind as I made my way back into my room and dumped my pile of papers and computer on my desk was certainly not worth the small little rush of being found attractive by someone who wasn’t Reed. And when I forced my mind back to Reed, I started to cry. Hard.



Reed had sent me a couple of texts while I was working on my project with Gavin: one apologizing for missing my call, and the second one—a longer one that came a few hours later—explaining that he’d slept most of the day away, hung-over from a really rough night.

I cringed a little thinking about a pissed off Reed doing shots at some bar in Tucson, cursing my name. I knew I had driven him to it, and I knew what he was like when he was drunk. The fact that he had slept an entire day away in recovery led me to believe he’d probably had a lot to drink, and that made me nervous. His texts were very formal, almost as if he was apologizing for missing some tutoring appointment we’d had. And they were without any mention of love or X or O. I was probably reading into things, but with the vague way I’d left things with him in front of my parents’ house, I couldn’t block my imagination from pairing him with some strange woman.

I knew it was late, nearly 1 a.m. But I took a chance and sent him a text back.



Sorry, I was upstairs working on a project all night. It was a mess and it’s worth most of our grade. I miss you.



I put that last bit in hoping he’d bite, and when my phone rang seconds later, my eyes teared up again, this time with relief. I answered almost immediately.

“You’re awake!” I was a little too excited.

“Yeah, Noles. I’m awake,” Reed’s tone was less happy to hear me. We both sat there listening to silence for more than a few seconds when finally he spoke, first letting out a huge sigh that put my mind on edge. “Nolan, I did something stupid.”