Stay with Me (Wait for You, #3)(2)

“I tried to stop him,” Brit said, folding her arms. The two of them looked like they finaled in the Perfect Blond Couple Award. “But you know how he is . . .”

Everyone knew how he was.

Ollie was in grad school now, to become a doctor—surprisingly—but his antics were as big a legend as the Hot Guy Brigade. Ollie would be second to the lieutenant. He got a lot of bonus points for coming down to Shepherdstown every other weekend to see his girlfriend and for being a shameless goofball.

“As you can see, I have fashioned a new leash.” He gestured at what looked like a miniature belt secured around the tortoise’s shell.

Cam stared up at him. “Are you serious?”

“You can walk them now.” And then he proceeded to demonstrate this by leading Michelangelo across the table, and I had to wonder if Avery and Cam ate off it. “It’s better than yarn.”

Walking a turtle? That . . . that had to be worse than walking a cat. I started giggling. “It looks like a Barbie belt.”

“It’s a designer leash,” he corrected, his lips twitching. “But I did get the idea while we were in Wal-Mart, checking out the toy section.”

Teresa frowned. “Why were you in the toy section?”

“Yeah,” Jase drew the word out. “Is there something you two aren’t telling us?”

Brit’s eyes widened.

Ollie just shrugged. “I like to check out the toys. They are so much cooler now than when we were kids.”

This statement led to an all-out discussion about how our generation had been sorely cheated when it came to the sophistication and cool factor of today’s toys, and I had to think really hard about the kind of toys I’d played with. There’d been Barbies—of course, there’d been Barbies, but instead of Big Wheels and board games, I had satiny sashes and sparkly crowns.

And then I had nothing.

As the group started talking about summer plans, I tried to pay attention to where each of them was planning to go. Cam and Avery were going to spend their summer in D.C., since Cam had made it onto the United team. I’d never been to D.C., even though Shepherd wasn’t too far from the capital. Brit and Ollie were doing something amazingly crazy. They were leaving a week after school let out and heading to Paris, and they were planning to road-trip across Europe. I’d never been on a plane, let alone overseas. Hell, I hadn’t even been to New York City. Teresa and Jase were in the midst of planning an awesome beach trip to the Carolinas with his parents and little brother. They were getting a condo on the beach, and all Teresa could talk about was soaking her toes in ocean water. I’d also never been to the beach, so I had no idea what sand felt like under my feet.

I really needed to get out more and have a life. Seriously.

But that was okay, because those things, including gallivanting across the continent with a Hot Guy, weren’t part of my goals—the three F’s.

Finish college.

Find a career in the nursing field.

Finally reap the benefits of following through on something.

Goals were good. Boring. But good.

“You’re awful quiet tonight, Calla.”

I tensed up, unable to help myself, and then I felt heat seep across my face at the sound of Brandon Shiver’s voice. Lowering the bottle between my knees, I forced the muscles along my shoulders to relax. It wasn’t like I’d forgotten that Brandon was sitting next to me, to my left. How could I forget that? I was just currently pretending he wasn’t there.

I wetted my lips as I shifted my head so a sheet of my own blond hair fell over my left shoulder, shielding my cheek. “I’m just taking it all in.”

Brandon chuckled. He had a nice laugh. And a nice face. And a nice body. And a really nice ass.

And then there was Brandon. Sigh. Like an extended sigh felt around the world. He would also be a close second to the lieutenant of the Hot Guy Brigade with his brown hair and broad shoulders.

“With Ollie here, it’s always a lot to take in,” he commented, eyeing me over the rim of his bottle. “Wait until he starts talking about the turtle roller skates idea he has.”

I laughed, relaxing a little more. Brandon was hot, but he was also a nice guy, somewhere in between Cam and Jase. “I can’t even imagine turtles on roller skates.”

“Ollie’s either bat-shit crazy or a pure genius.” Brandon shifted on the ottoman. “Jury’s still out on the verdict.”

“I think he’s a genius.” I watched Ollie scoop up the turtle and head back around the couch to the pretty extravagant habitat the little green man lived in. “The way Brit talks, he’s acing all of his courses. Med school can’t be easy.”

“Yeah, but most really smart people are totally insane.” He grinned when I laughed under my breath. “So, has the epic battle for next-semester classes ended?”

I nodded as I grinned again, settling back in the moon chair. With only a semester and a half left before I graduated with my BSN in nursing, getting into classes was like arm-wrestling Hulk Hogan. Everyone who knew my name, or was within earshot, knew I’d been battling my schedule for what felt like an eternity. We were currently a week away from the end of the semester and almost a month since academic advisement for next semester had closed up.

“Yeah, finally. I think I had to give up my right leg to get my classes, but I got all I needed. I have to meet with someone in financial aid on Monday, but I should be good.”