Wait for you

I sighed. “You want a song?”

“Yes.” He stood up at our table, in the middle of the Ram’s Den, and shouted. “Yes! I want a song!”

“Wow.”

He raised his hands as several students turned in their seats. “What? What?” He turned back to me. “Was that a little too much?”

“Yes,” I said. “Most def.”

 Brit put her forehead on her textbook. “Seriously,” she groaned. “I can’t believe he’s making us map Europe on our mid-term. I thought I’d left that shit behind in high school.”

“Give me a song, nerd,” Jacob demanded.

“Oh, my God, you’re ridiculous.” Shaking my head, I placed my hands on the table. “Okay. Here you go. Hungary to the upper left, upper left, Serbia to the lower left, lower left. Bosnia on the bottom, on the bottom. Slovenia to the top, to the top. And where’s Croatia?”

“Where? Where?” Jacob sung.

“It’s next to the Adriatic Sea, across from Italy!”

Jacob popped up straight. “Again! Again!”

I went through the song twice more while Brit gaped at the both of us. By the time, Jacob whipped out his pen and started scribbling countries across the map, my face was the shade of a tomato, but I was giggling like a hyena.

And he got the map right, with the exception of putting France where the United Kingdom was supposed to be but I think he was just testing me on that one, because seriously.

I tossed an M&M at his mouth. It bounced off his lower lip.  On the replay, I got the M&M in his mouth. He swallowed and shot forward, lowering his face next to mine. “Guess what?”

“What?” I leaned back.

He blinked two times. “Here comes your boyfriend.”

Looking over my shoulder, I spotted Cam entering the Den with not one girl but a girl on either side of him, gazing up at him like he was the last eligible, hot guy on campus. I rolled my eyes at Jacob. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Gurl, you got competition.” Jacob folded his arms on the table. “That’s Sally and Susan—beta, delta, boogie-sigma-chi-latte- VPs.”

Brit’s brows lowered. “That’s not even close to a sorority name.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s not a competition, because it’s not like that between us.” Slowly, surely, I looked over my shoulder. The trio had stopped by the couches. Cam was paying attention to whatever the two girls were saying to him. One of the girls, the blonde, had her hand on his chest and was moving it in tiny circles. My eyes narrowed. Was she giving him a breast exam? I turned back to Jacob.

He raised his brows.

“They can have him,” I said, throwing three Skittles in my mouth.

“I don’t get you two,” Brit said, closing her book. Study time was over. “You guys see each other practically every day, right?”

I nodded.

“He comes over every Sunday and makes you breakfast, right?” she added.

Jacob flipped me off. “I hate you for that.”

“Yeah, he does, but it’s not like that.” Thank God I never told them about him asking me out because I’d never hear the end of it then. “Look, we’re friends. That’s all.”

“Are you gay?” Jacob demanded.

“What?”

“Look, I’m the last person to judge your sexual preference. I mean, come on.” He jerked his thumbs back at him. “So are you gay?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not gay.”

“I’m not either, but I’d go gay for you.” Brit smiled.

“Thanks.” I giggled. “I’d go gay for you too.”

“How cute,” Jacob said. “Not the point. That fine, mother fucking specimen of a man is all up in you—oh my God, he’s ditched the ra-ra’s and is coming over.”

My stomach knotted and I prayed to God, Shiva, and Zeus that Jacob didn’t say anything that would make me want to kill him later.

“Damn,” Jacob said, shaking his head. “He makes jeans look like they were molded to fit his—hey, Cameron! How’s it going?”

I closed my eyes.

“Hey, Jacob. Brittany.” Cam dropped into the seat beside me and nudged my arm. “Avery.”

“Hey,” I murmured, acutely aware of Jacob and Brittany staring at us. I closed my text and shoved it in my bag. “What are you up to?”

“Oh, you know, mischief and mayhem,” he replied.

“That so reminds me of Harry Potter,” Brit said, sighing. “I need a re-read.”

We all turned to her.

Two bright spots appeared in her cheeks as she tossed her blonde hair back. “What? I’m not ashamed to admit that random things remind me of Harry Potter.”

“That guy over there reminds me of Snape,” Cam said, jerking his chin to the table behind us. “So I understand.”

The guy with the jet-black hair did kind of look like Snape.

“Anyway, what are you guys doing?” Cam shifted and his leg rested against mine. I swallowed. “Playing with M&Ms and Skittles?”

“Yes, that and we’re studying for our History mid-term next week. We have to map out Europe,” Jacob explained.

“Ouch.” Cam knocked me with his leg.

I knocked his leg back.

“But Avery, wonderful, Avery…” Jacob glanced at me, his grin spreading, and my eyes were narrowing. “She’s been helping us study.”

“That she has,” Brit said.

Cam sent me a sidelong glance, and I scooted away from him.

Popping his chin on his hand, Jacob smiled at Cam. “Before we started studying, I was telling Avery that she should wear the color green more often. It makes her sexy with that hair of hers.”

My mouth dropped open. He had so not even said that about the stupid cardigan I was wearing.

“Do you like the color green on her, Cam?” Brit asked.

Oh my God.

Cam turned to me, his blue eyes as deep as the waters off the coast of Texas. “The color looks great on her, but she looks beautiful every day.”

Heat crept across my cheeks as I let out a low breath.

“Beautiful?” Brit repeated.

“Beautiful,” Cam repeated, reclaiming what little distance I’d managed to put between us. He nudged my knee again. “So did you guys learn anything from studying?”

I let out the breath. “I think we got it.”

“Because of you.” Jacob glanced at Brit, and my stomach dropped. “Avery came up with this song to help me remember where the countries were.”

Oh no.

“Sing him your song.” Brit elbowed me so hard that I bounced off Cam and ricocheted back.

Interest sparked in Cam’s eyes. “What song?”

“I am not singing that song again.”

Jacob beamed up at Cam. “It’s the Croatia song.”

I shot him a death glare.

Cam laughed. “The Croatia song? What?”

“No,” I said again. “I am not singing again. That is so not my talent.”

“What kind of talents do you have?” Cam asked, and when I looked at him, I kind of got hung up on the cut line of his jaw, of the way his hair brushed his temples. What the hell? Cam was staring back at me, brows raised. “Avery?”

“Do tell,” Jacob coaxed.

Brit nodded. “Talents are fun.”

“They can be.” Cam’s gaze dropped, and I sucked in a soft breath. He leaned over and there wasn’t more than an inch or two separating our mouths. I heard Jacob’s audible gasp. “Tell me what your talents are, sweetheart.”

“Sweetheart,” Jacob murmured with a soft sigh.

“Dancing,” I blurted out. “I danced. I usedto dance.”

Curiosity filled Cam’s face. “What kind of dancing?”

“I don’t know.” I grabbed the bag of Skittles and dumped the rest of them into my palm. “Ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary—that kind of stuff.”

“No shit?” Jacob exclaimed. “I did tap when I was like six, for about a month, and then decided I wanted to be a fireman or something like that. That shit was hard.”

Brit smirked. “I tried dance and discovered I had no coordination or grace beyond shaking my ass. Were you any good at it?”

I shrugged, uncomfortable. “I took classes for about ten years, did some competitions and a lot of recitals.”

“Then you were good!” Brit said. “I bet you did all those crazy turns and tricks.”

I used to be able to do a ton of them and was at one point crazy flexible, but the thing I was really good at, had been the turns—the fouette tour—arguably the hardest series of spins in ballet.