Never Have I Ever – A College Romance Book (Campus Games 1)

Grayson

What the fuck is she doing with that guy?

I shouldn’t be asking that, and I definitely shouldn’t be imagining all the ways I can break that asshole’s face. I was the one who ended it with her. I was the one who couldn’t tell her the words she wanted to hear. I was the one who said we never happened.

Which is complete bullshit. We happened, and we were fucking good. I shouldn’t have said that to her, and I shouldn’t have ended it. But hearing her say those words to me with her sweet, breathy voice on the brink of tears as she begged me to love her back, I couldn’t do it.

The reality is I like her a lot, so fucking much, but what she wants from me, I can’t give her. No matter how much she thinks she loves me. She doesn’t, and she’ll understand that sooner or later. She’ll know what I did was for the best, and then she’ll forget all about me and move on.

Hell, she might even take that asshole home tonight and get over me by getting under him. I hate the thought of that, but she’s not mine anymore. No, she was never mine, to begin with.

She’ll forget about me sooner or later. She’s probably starting to, but I’ll never forget her. I’ll never forget my angel and how sweet she sounds when she laughs or even says my name. Grayson. One word, and I’m weak. One fucking word, and I fall to my knees. She has no idea what she’s done to me. I have no idea how I’m going to get over her.

It’s like as soon as she stepped into my life, she became the thing that was missing. That sounds dumb. Fuck, What the hell am I even thinking? I sound like one of those delusional girls. Jesus. I need a fucking drink.

The only reason I’m here is because Aiden called me telling me he needed a ride home, even though his shift doesn’t end for another two hours, which I didn’t know until I got here and my eyes met hers.

He probably set this up, which wouldn’t surprise me. I should go home. I should leave and come back when the bar closes. I shouldn’t be looking towards her blonde hair and his hands on her body.

My jaw is so tight, it fucking hurts. I tear my eyes away from them as I tap on the counter, getting Aiden’s attention. “Get me a scotch.”

He chokes out a laugh. “Bro, relax your face. Jesus.”

I glare at him. “I don’t need beauty tips. I need a drink.”

He shakes his head, filling up a glass with the dark liquid. “You need to talk to her,” he says, sliding the drink to me.

I take a sip of the drink and shrug. “What is there to talk about? It’s over. It was a hook-up, and it’s done.” Even as I’m saying those words, I know it’s not true. Nothing about us was a hook-up. We were so much more than that.

He narrows his eyes at me. “You don’t act like this over any hook-up.”

I haven’t mentioned anything to Aiden about Rosie. He doesn’t know that what happened between us was so much more than fucking, even if he suspects it. He doesn’t know that she was perfect, so sweet, so beautiful and I fucked it all up. I fucked her up.

I take another swig of my drink and look over my shoulder, where they’re still dancing. Her head is laying on his shoulder. The sight makes the tight feeling in my chest increase tenfold. I don’t want some other guy making her happy. Making her smile and laugh and being the cause of that sweet sound coming out of her mouth.

I don’t want that asshole’s hands on her hips, feeling her body under his hands. Feeling how good holding her is. Jesus, how much fucking longer are they going to keep dancing, “Does this song ever end?” I huff out.

Aiden laughs, and I flip him off. He sighs and leans on the counter. “What happened between you two?” He asks.

I fucked up. “Nothing.” I spit out, knowing it’s bullshit.

He scoffs. “C’mon. I’m not stupid.”

I groan. I know how he is. He’s not going to let this go. “Jesus. Fine.” I spit out. “You were right. She got attached; she told me she loves me.” I say, craving the burn from the whiskey in my throat.

His brows draw together. “So?”

I lift my eyes to meet his. “So? Didn’t you hear what I said?”

He nods. “Yeah, but why’s that a bad thing?”

I laugh bitterly. “Because she doesn’t love me,” I tell him. “I don’t know what she feels for me, but love isn’t it.”

“And you don’t love her?” he asks.

“Of course not.” I down the rest of the glass. “Love isn’t fucking real.”

He laughs. He actually laughs, shaking his head. “Tell me you don’t believe that.”

I shake my head. “You do?” I ask him, staring up at his face. It looks like he’s about to laugh again.

“Believe in love?” he raises his brow. “Uh, yeah?”

“Christ,” I mutter, running a hand down my face.

“Hey, can I get a beer over here?” someone mutters.

He sighs, lifts himself off the counter, and starts filling a glass with beer. “Grayson. if you don’t think love is real, then what is it you think you feel for Rosalie?” He asks me.

“I don’t feel anything for her.” I force out, hating how my throat seems to constrict as the words come out of it.

He serves the guy at the end of the bar and then comes over to me again. “Listen. When you want to be honest with me, then we’ll talk. I’m not going to stand here and listen to this bullshit.”

“It isn’t bullshit,” I say. “Yeah, we had fun, but now it’s done.”

He stares at me for a while and then shakes his head, narrowing his eyes at me, “You said that shit to her, didn’t you,” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

I shrug. “Not those exact words.”

He grimaces. “You’re a dumbass.”

“What?”

“You’re a fucking dumbass,” he says. “You’ve been lost without her. Drinking, sleeping all day, acting like you’ve got a stick shoved up your ass all week. You can’t even look at her with another guy without feeling sick. And you think you don’t love her?”

“I don’t.”

He gestures with his head behind me to Rosalie. “That girl said she loves you, she felt comfortable with you and told you how she feels, and you said ‘it was fun, but now it’s over’ to her face,” he says, frowning at me. “You broke her heart.”

Fuck, don’t I know it. I did everything I possibly could to avoid that situation. I didn’t want to hurt her. “I told her not to get attached.”

He crosses his arms, glaring at me. “Was she just a fuck?”

This guy is begging for my fist. “Don’t fucking talk about her like that.”

“Was your whole interaction purely sexual?” he asks me again.

I look away, remembering everything we did together. How I showed her what makes me feel alive, how I took her drinking for the first time, dancing with her, taking her to the lake.

“Not exactly. We did other stuff,” I tell him.

“Like?”

“Like shit I don’t want to tell you,” I spit out. I don’t need to tell him everything that happened between Rosie and me. It was between us. It was ours.

He laughs. “You’re head over heels in love with that girl.”

I swallow, shaking my head. “I—”

“Love isn’t a made-up concept, Grayson. It’s when you can’t stop thinking about someone. You want every day with them. You trust them. You love everything they do. You love everything about them.”

I picture her smile and how my chest tenses every time she smiles at me. Her laugh, her voice, how sweet and breathless it is. Her face, that gorgeous mole that I can only see when she doesn’t have makeup on. How she gets excited about everything, how she feels in my arms when she cradles her head into my chest.

Aiden’s voice snaps me out of a Rosalie montage in my head. “If you don’t feel that way for her, then fine. You don’t love her,” he says.

Shit. He’s right. I do feel like that for her. I can’t even sleep when she’s not near me. Every time I think about how I’m never going to see her again, never going to kiss her again, never going to hold her again, I struggle to breathe.

“Fuck,” I curse, running a hand through my hair.

He grins. “You’re welcome.”

I love her. Of course, I fucking love her. I want every moment with her. I want to wake up with her, go to sleep with her, share every day with her. I want to teach her everything and share all of her firsts with her. I want to hear her laugh, I want to see her smile, I want to make her happy because she makes me happy just by being around, by being herself.

I want her.

I love her.

“I’m going to get my girl back.”