The Destiny of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #3)(65)

Fuck. I want to kiss her so badly right now, pull her against me and just hold her. I could try and blame it on the fact that she looks so vulnerable and I just want to seize the opportunity to touch her when her guard is down, but it’s not like that. I know it the moment I step back and let her go by simply because she said it was what she needed at the moment. Nothing else.

She doesn’t thank me as she hurries by me and I don’t turn around to watch her go. I just did something solely for someone else, tossing all of my own needs aside, and I have no idea what to do with it.

Once I hear the door shut, I pull myself together before I turn around, pretending like nothing happened.

Seth immediately shakes his head at me, flabbergasted. “What the hell was that about?”

“Nothing.” I head over to my desk to clear it out. With each item I put in the box, the lighter I feel because soon I’ll have some place to live and it’s not back home. “She just needed a place to crash for the night.”

He strolls up and leans over to catch my eye. “Not that. That weird little moment you two just shared.”

“I don’t share moments with anyone.” I glance out the window, keeping an eye on the yard in front of the building for her to step outside.

“So you say,” Seth says. “And I’ve never seen you do anything that would contradict that, until just now.”

“Seth, maybe we should just let him be,” Greyson says, leaning against the door.

I gather my pens and notebook out of the desk, along with the leather case that carries my insulin and needles and place it into a box. I relax when I spot a girl with dark hair and red streaks hiking across the grass down below. “Yeah, please drop it. I don’t have enough alcohol in my system just yet.” I back away from the desk toward the mini fridge. “Speaking of which.” I bend down and open the fridge, taking out a bottle of vodka, hoping it’ll drown out what I just did.

Greyson sits down on the bed and shakes his head disapprovingly as I tip back my head and down a much-needed shot. Seth snatches the bottle from my hand and takes a large gulp himself.

“You two are such alcoholics,” Greyson says. “Seriously, this isn’t normal.”

“Normal is overrated,” Seth jokes, handing me the bottle.

I put it back in the fridge and shut the door. “So not that I’m not super thrilled you guys randomly showed up way too early in the morning, but why are you here? I thought you were headed to your house,” I say to Seth.

“Well, we were,” he replies, sitting down beside Greyson. “But then I got a lovely call from dear old ma a few days ago, saying that she’d changed her mind and that she wasn’t comfortable with Greyson and me staying with her, so now we’re crashing in town for the summer.”

“Why don’t you just go to Greyson’s?” I ask, crossing the room to the closet.

“Because his parents live all the way over in Florida,” he tells me. “And we don’t want to drive that far. Besides, I got an offer to work at the clinic and I really want to do it, being a Psychology major and all.”

“You’re a Psychology major?” I question. “When did that happen?”

“When I registered for fall classes and my counselor suggested I declare something other than undecided,” he says, with a grin. “And since I’m so smart in the human psyche department, I thought I’d give psychology a go. And Greyson got a new part-time job as a bartender down at Moonlight Dining and Drinks. He starts in a few days.”


I grab all my shirts off the hangers and put them in the box, keeping a gray one out to put on now. I don’t like how unorganized I’m being, but I’m in a hurry to get down to the apartments, just to have peace of mind that I have a roof over my head. “So then where are you two living? Because getting an apartment around here on short notice is pretty much a lost cause.”

“We just got a place up on Elm yesterday,” Seth tells me, getting up from the bed. “Which is why we stopped by… it’s got an extra room and we were wondering if you wanted to stay with us, since you don’t have place to stay.”

I glance up as I fold the top of the box shut. “How did you know I didn’t have a place?”

Seth grabs the tape from the dresser and hands it to me. “You told us the other night at Red Ink.”

Me and my drunken mouth. “Well, I’m good now.” I pull a piece of tape off and stretch it out over the box.

“Good living with Violet?” He exchanges a disbelieving look with Greyson and Greyson sighs. “Come on, you seriously want to live with her?”

“Maybe.” My chest constricts as I say it because I do. “I can’t just leave her with nowhere to go and she’s got a job and everything so she can pay half the rent.”

“She can get her own place,” Seth says as I tug the gray shirt over my head.

“No, she can’t,” I reply, running my hand over my hair. “She needs help.”

“Obviously.” Seth rolls his eyes. “She’s scary as hell.”

“I’m scary as hell.” I pick up my cologne off the desk and spray a little on me before adding it to another box. It seemed so hard to pack before, but it seems easy now that I know I’m not going back home.