I didn’t actually know what sort of relationship Sydney and Ben had shared. Obviously, not a physical one since I’d been the one to take her virginity. But between what she’d told me and what Noah had hinted, I was pretty sure she’d been in love with him. And now I knew he was alive. The kid was a fucking Boy Scout too. Smart, athletic, charismatic, and an all-around great guy. Not that I didn’t have my own strengths too, but how was I ever going to compete with that? I already felt like winning Sydney’s heart was this long up-hill marathon, one of which I probably wouldn’t finish as is. Now Ben was back in the picture? Fuck me.

This is what game-over feels like.

This is what rock-bottom feels like.

“How much of that did you just hear?” Ellie asked, as I walked into the kitchen, chucking my keys onto the counter. I should have hurried to change my shirt, so I could return to work, but I couldn’t motivate myself to go do that.

“A lot,” I admitted. “Your brother’s fucking alive.”

Taking a couple breaths I tried to remain calm. But how could I?

Ellie’s face scrunched up. “Um. That was a different Ben I was on the phone with,” she tried to lie. But then, probably realizing she was a crap liar, she shook her head and said, “Fine, it was my brother. He’s alive.”

“How?” I choked out, unable to hide my disappointment.

“Jesus, Rhett,” Ellie groaned and pushed past me. She stomped into the living room. I followed. “Try to sound a little more enthused, would you?” she said sarcastically, plopping down on the couch.

I groaned. Of course this would turn into an argument with us. “I’m just trying to make sense of it. It’s not very often you find out someone whose funeral you attended, isn’t actually dead.”

“Well, I don’t have all the details. Ben’s acting strange enough as it is. He called me the first time about a month ago. Just to say, hey sis, I’m alive, surprise! Apparently, after the coast guard accident, he washed up on the beach in Malibu. Instead of calling the police or an ambulance, some rich old lady, ex-Hollywood type, took care of him and now he’s staying with her. It’s weird as hell, I know. He essentially faked his own death.”

This was weird as hell. “And you’re going to go visit him in November?”

“You heard that part too.” Ellie sighed, rubbing her hand across her forehead. It only occurred to me now how stressed she looked. Actually, she’d been acting a little off all month. This had to be why, this had to be weighing pretty heavily on her. “I convinced him to let me come visit. I’m going in November. He thinks I’m coming out there alone. But I’m bringing Noah and Georgie too—that’s my plan. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, he doesn’t want that. But what the fuck else am I supposed to do? I don’t care what goes wrong in a person’s life, you can’t just fake your own death, put your family through hell, and then live in sunny California in someone else’s beach house while the rest of the world moves on without you. Life doesn’t work that way. Shit, Georgie tried to commit suicide because of his stupidity. It’s fucked up.” Ellie sniffled, brushing away a tear from her cheek.

“So you’re taking Noah and Georgie out there…to what? Try to convince him to come home?”

“Something like that. I’ve slowly been planting the idea of a group vacation.”

I stepped over to Ellie, bent down, and tried to wrap my arms around her shoulders. She looked like she needed a hug. But immediately she pushed me away. “Gross,” she grunted. “You’re covered in something disgusting. Besides, I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine.”

“Well, I am. So back off. And please, please, please—you can’t tell anyone about this. It’s my family. It’s my shit. I need to deal with it in my own way.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “I won’t tell.”

“Thanks, Rhett. I appreciate it.”

Except, there was one person I couldn’t keep this from, one person I was going to have to tell. This wasn’t the way I wanted to see her again. But what had to be done was going to have to be done.

* * *

Luke University, with its massive stone buildings, lush green fields, picturesque sidewalks, and cliché groups of students walking around wearing backpacks—was like something out of a movie. A National Lampoon’s movie, that is. I’d never been on a college campus before, and I’d never felt more out of place. I grew up with a single mother who struggled to pay rent each month. Baseball was always supposed to be my ticket out of that. But if it would have landed me here, I wasn’t so sure that would have been the best thing for me. My skin itched. I felt like an imposter walking around this place.

Parking was a nightmare. I took the first open spot I could find, hoping I wouldn’t end up with a ticket, and started trekking across campus. Noah, who surprised us all when he decided to apply to college to be with Georgie at the end of this past summer, lived off campus. But Georgie lived on campus in the dorms. Miles Residence Hall—wherever that was. It was Friday, and I had plans to meet Noah at one of the dining halls for lunch in about an hour. And I was staying the night. We were supposed to be partying like freshman tonight. That had been my excuse for coming here. But I also knew that Georgie and Sydney lived in the same dorm, a detail Noah had casually mentioned, a detail that was my only clue to finding her.

But this place was a damn maze. I didn’t know how all these kids were walking around, with so much purpose, like they all knew exactly where they were and where they were going. I had to ask four different people for directions. I finally found Miles Residence Hall—a plain brick building with lots of windows. One of those windows had to be hers. And now that I was here, now that I was this close, I felt my body start to shake.

The news that I had to tell her had my heart in a vice. I paced outside the building in the shade of a large oak tree. The leaves were changing and falling, the empty contents of my stomach churning, and the world around me starting to blur. How the hell was I going to do this without looking like a fucking stalker?

“Rhett?” came a voice from off in the distance.

Oh, shit.

It was Sydney. I hadn’t even noticed her approaching because she fit in here so seamlessly. She wore light jeans, a green sweater, and one of those damn backpacks. Seeing me, her pace increased. She left a couple girls she’d been walking with, stepped off the sidewalk, cut across the grass, and hurried over to me. Never before—which was a very hard thing to top—had she looked more beautiful. She wasn’t wearing makeup, at least not the stuff that covered her skin, and I could see her freckles, a spattering of gorgeous little dots across her cheeks and nose. Her hair seemed longer, all wind-blown, falling so perfecting down over her breasts, and I seriously had to catch my breath. It was more than her appearance though, she seemed happier somehow.

“Hey, sweetheart, how’s it going?” I casually said. The words started pouring out of me as I tried to mask my nervousness. “I’m here visiting Noah. We’re supposed to meet for lunch in about an hour. I figured I’d stop by and see you first. Well, I didn’t actually know if I’d find you, but I guess I got lucky.”

“It’s good to see you,” she said, brushing her hair out of her face and smiling. Quite the contrast to the last way we’d greeted each other. “What do you think of the campus?”

“It’s big and intimidating,” I answered honestly.

“I thought so too, at first. You get used it though. I love it here.” She bit her bottom lip, a smile still lingering on her face, and glanced down at the ground. “It’s really good to see you,” she repeated, turning shy on me.

“You already told me that.”

“I know. I needed to say it again.”

This fucking blew chunks! Why me? There was a spark between us. And not just the ‘I want to rip your clothes off’ spark, but one that meant a hell of a lot more to me. Something had changed since the last time we’d seen each other. A really good something, and now I had to bring up the one person I knew would immediately snuff that spark. If I were the type of person to believe in karma—then this would be it, right here right now, kicking me in the ass.