Into You Series: The Complete Collection

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

I make a plan to speak with Wes first thing Monday morning, I even text him that I’m bringing donuts, but he arrives seconds before the lecture starts, so all I get is a low “hmm” of acknowledgment before everyone else in the class descends upon the apology donuts that they have no right to.

After class, I plan to make conversation attempt number two, but Wes spends more time than usual talking with our other study group members and acting as if this weekend’s foray never happened. I wait for nearly thirty minutes for him to finish his conversation, but since he seems intent on filibustering, I leave to go to my next class without my own conversation to be had.

That afternoon, I text him a quick “Can I drop by?” once I’m back at the dorm because I’m polite, damn it, but when I receive no response, I throw politeness out the window and begin knocking on his door for five minutes, calling “Wes!” until one of our hallmates opens their door to say that he’s at the study hall and to please “tone down the crazy ex-girlfriend.”

Psht. Rude.

My dorm room is empty when I get back. Hank looks like he’s desperate for a run, so I get his leash and take him on a walk, trying to inhale the fresh autumn air and imagining the good life Hank must have, running in the center quad, nipping at innocent butterflies. People stop to pet him. He loves it.

Geez, what a ham.

By the time we get back to the room, Grace is back, sitting cross-legged in front of her half-finished megaphone project in a huge white shirt, her wet red hair draped over her shoulder.

She looks up at us, then back down.

“Thanks for taking him on a walk,” she mutters.

I nod in response and mumble, “Of course.”

Hank, the big lug, bounds over to her, licking her freshly washed face. Grace couldn’t care less about the dog drool. She smiles instead, giving him a pat as he curls down next to her.

I change out of my park clothes and dig in my closet to find sweatpants when Grace finally speaks up again.

“What’s that?” she asks, pointing at my hip.

I look down. My underwear covers most of the tattoo, but the tip of the lavender flower, along with the slight lingering redness and smudge of ink that still hasn’t disappeared since Saturday, peeks just above my panty line.

“Oh … it’s …”

Her gasp is louder than I expect, causing me to jump in place and hit my hand on the built-in closet. That thing has no give.

“You got a tattoo?” she says breathlessly.

I shake the pain from my hand. “Yeah. I mean, you know I’ve wanted a lavender plant for a while now.”

“Can I see?” she asks.

I tug down the hem of my panties to show her the rest of it, then pull them back up.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment before slowly nodding in understanding. “That looks new.”

“I went with Wes on Friday.”

“You got a—” Her tone starts shrill, but she stops before lowering it back down. “Ahem, I mean, you got a tattoo with him?”

I can already sense the ease flowing through the air. The pull at the edge of her lips says she’s more curious about what the heck is going on than mad at me anymore.

“I don’t like it when we fight,” I say.

She shrugs and that small twitch becomes a full-on smile. “Yeah, me neither.”

“Forgive me?”

“No, forgive me !”

I sit down on the ground across from her, legs crisscrossed, and lean over the megaphone to wrap her in a hug. She hugs me back just as quick, our heads nearly smacking together. When we pull apart, Hank barks and we wrap him in a joint hug too because, hey, I wouldn’t want to feel left out either.

“You would get a tattoo on a first date,” Grace says with a sly smile.

I laugh. “Technically Saturday was our first date.”

“Oh god, and you would make a fool of yourself on a first date with a guy you just impulsively got a tattoo with,” she says, pushing her foot out to poke at my own.

I look down at my bandaged feet. “If I’m being honest, I think Project: Pound Town has turned into Project: Relationship with Wes.”

Grace nods solemnly, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping both arms around them.

“Tell me all about it.”

“I feel something with him. I’ve felt it since day one. A connection or whatever. Is that weird?”

“Nah.”

“I mean, we got tattoos and I didn’t think anything about it. Like, I’m impulsive but … come on, right?”

We both nod, mulling it over until Grace exhales, cracks her knuckles, and gathers her laptop from her other side.

“Well, grand gesture time it is.”

I am not ashamed to be the center of attention. In fact, I excel at it. I spent four years playing leads in high school theater, won awards at our annual One Act competition, and placed third in state competition for monologues. Suffice it to say, I crave the spotlight.

But I’ve never done this before.

Turns out Grace’s megaphone does have a valid use when it isn’t an art installation.

“HEAR YE, STUDENTS, HEAR YE!” My voice booms through the main quad. People picnicking during lunch look between me and my outfit and I know they’re trying to figure out which is weirder.

I click the speaker on again. “IF ANYONE KNOWS WESLEY … UH … WESLEY WITH THE TATTOOS, THEN … TELL HIM WE NEED TO TALK! ANYONE WHO GOES ON THE HUNT GETS A FREE T-SHIRT!”

I bend down to reach into a box and pull out a T-shirt identical to the one I’m wearing. On it is Wes’s face—stolen from social media and crudely screenprinted. And surrounding the smolder—because every picture of him is swoonworthy—are as many puns as I could fit, which, for the record, is approximately twenty.

“Oh my god, is this a performance art thing?” someone asks.

“YES,” I yell through the megaphone. I swear her hair blows back with the sound.

“Let’s say we find him,” Grace yells from halfway across the quad, “what do we do then?”

“GOOD QUESTION, COMPLETE STRANGER I’VE NEVER MET!” I shout back. Grace winks and gives me a thumbs-up. “YOU REDIRECT HIM TO ME! I’M LITERALLY UNMISSABLE!”

This gets collective laughter, but I think it’s more at me than with me.

I stick a leg out, posing to show off my neon-green tutu skirt topping the sparkly tights underneath. Strung around my punny shirt are flashing holiday lights. Grace and I were lucky to have also stumbled upon New Year’s Eve glasses from 2000 where the two eyeholes are being taken from the O s.

“And what do we get if we find him?” someone else yells.

I grin. “YOU GET TO PLAY WITH OUR PUPPY!”

On cue, Grace releases Hank, who bounds over to that person’s blanket—you would think we’ve trained him, he does it so well—and starts wagging his tail.

They get excited. Hank gets excited. I’m excited.

It’s a glorious day.

People flock up to me, grabbing shirts, chattering about how they can’t wait to be involved in their first college flash mob.

It takes only fifteen minutes before three people are walking back with Wes in tow, like they’ve claimed him as their prisoner.

My bottom lip sticks out as I start to yell, “HEAR YE?—”

“Ray, what in the world,” he says.

“Hang on, I have to let people know I found you,” I whisper.

“THE HUNT IS OVER. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION.” I lower the megaphone. “Sorry, what’s up?”

“What are you doing?”

“Getting your attention,” I say. “Duh.”

Wes lets out a laugh, one that he clearly wishes he had held in. But this is why I’m dressed like this. Hard to be mad at someone when they’re a walking disco ball.

“Err … do we get to play with the puppy now?” one of the winners says, throwing his thumb over his shoulder at Hank, who is being held back by Grace. I can tell he’s excited about the inevitable joy that is to come with new strangers to lick.

“Oh, yeah, all yours.” I move the megaphone back to my mouth. “RELEASE THE KRAKEN.”

Grace lets go of his leash and Hank knows exactly whom to run to—just in the same way I look to Wes, he looks back, and we both know whom we belong to.

“You’re not afraid of anything, are you?” he asks.

I shrug, taking a step toward him. “Some things.”

He bends down to the box of shirts and pulls one out.

“‘Sore-ry I’m a pain’?” he reads, inspecting the clip art image of a stubbed cartoon toe.

“I had to go Canadian to make that one work.”

He sighs. “Would you like to go on a proper date with me?” he asks.

“Thought you’d never ask.”