The entire time I was at practice, I couldn't hide the shit-eating grin from my face, no matter how many times I got sacked. She had come back to me, and this time, there was no way in Hell that I was going to let her go again.
Coach seemed angry still. He had us run several drills where I was taken down repeatedly. He claimed that our opponents on Saturday always had an opening to their quarterback that we needed to practice taking advantage of. My body hurt, but by the end of practice, he looked at me as though he had a bit more respect for me. He even smacked my shoulder pad when the team came in for the huddle at the end of practice. It felt like a turning point in my life.
Love life? Great! Football? Great! School? Still sucks, but my grades were decent.
In the rush to get back to Violet, I was surprised to run into Diana.
She kept true to her word and was making an effort to earn my friendship back. As much as I wanted to tell her that it would not
The walk to the dining area of the house was quick, as though I were on autopilot. I smiled when I smelled lunch being made. Jones sat across the room with a few members of our team and waved me down."Practice was rough on you, man! I can't see how you could be smiling after you got sacked so many times. Coach definitely has it out for you still." Jones exclaimed as he took another bite of his sandwich and began to talk with his mouthful. "What's got you so happy?"As I opened my mouth to respond, I was stopped short by the feeling of a hand smacking into the back of my head. "What the fuck?!""Briggs, you're a fucking idiot, you know that?" Tyler yelled as I stood from my chair forcefully, almost knocking it over. "You're a fucking idiot!"As soon as I saw the red of his face and the white of his knuckles, I knew that this would not end well. The two of us had been good. He agreed to stay out of it unless I hurt Violet, and I don't remember doing that.
It was a long two weeks without Violet. I waited outside of her lecture hall, but she wasn't there. My calls and texts were ignored, and I didn't see her around campus. I needed to apologize but she made it impossible.I let out a groan of annoyance when my passenger door opened, and the overpowering smell of artificial flowers saturated the inside of my car. I didn't want to drive Diana. Unfortunately, since I had driven her to school when the year started, she had no other way of getting home for Thanksgiving without paying an absorbent amount of money for a cab, or by calling her parents to make the four-hour round trip to pick her up.If I made her do that, the weekend would start off on the wrong foot. Considering it would already be pretty bad, I didn't want to add fuel to the fire earlier than I needed to. There was no way that I could keep it to myself that Diana and I were no longer together. It was bound to come out at some point. If it didn't then it absolut
My room hadn't been changed, but I didn't bother to unpack since I would only be there for three days. I hid in my room for as long as I could until I heard the doorbell. It was sure to be Diana and her parents, Cindy and Tom. My parents had them over constantly as they were best friends, major holidays were no exception.I sent a text to Violet to let her know that I missed her, and I hoped she was having a good thanksgiving. I scrolled up through all of the other unanswered messages. She could at least text me to tell me if she wanted nothing to do with me. She didn't have to ghost me.A knock on my door interrupted my thoughts. I could smell her before I opened the door. Her sickly strong floral perfume wafted into the room when I opened it."Hey, fancy seeing you here." She chirped with a smile that quickly dropped at my lack of expression to her awful joke. "Um, your mom sent me up here to grab you so we could set the table for dinner while they finish up."
As we all sat around the table, I was thankful that my dad had gone and grabbed the table leaf. As it was, Diana was sitting closer to me than I would have liked. Her elbow kept bumping mine as her dominant arm was next to mine. If the table was its usual size, our parents may have tried to get her to sit in my lap due to the limited space.The tension may have been thick between the two of us, but our parents went on and on as if nothing had changed. They brought up memory after memory as if it would spark the romance between us again. When they didn't get a reaction out of that, they began to make future plans for us."I think that Ice Skating would be wonderful for us to do on your Christmas break! Oh, it is so romantic to skate under the twinkle lights! We can do a couple of pictures for the three of us in front of the tree. I'll have to start shopping so each couple can have a different matching Christmas sweater set! That would be so cute!" Cindy's excitement spr
"For the record, Violet is the most important person in my life. I'm done eating. Enjoy the rest of your dinner. Diana, please find your own way back to school this weekend." I took a deep breath as I turned around and walked away. When I reached the base of the stairs, my mother spoke up."You don't get to talk to me like this in my own house. Get back here this instant. You will sit your ass down, eat your dinner, and apologize to everyone!" Her voice wavered at the end when she made eye contact with me.The word vomit came forward too quick to stop it. "I am so sick of you telling me how to live my life, and I am done with it. I don't want to date Diana, I don't want to be a doctor, and I hate this town. I won't be living here once I graduate. I am falling in love with Violet more and more every day. She may not be talking to me right now because your precious Diana won't leave us alone, but I will continue to fight for her every second of every day."My degr
It may have been from the practice I had after the first time we slept together, but it was almost too easy to avoid Caleb for the two next weeks. Instead of eating at the student union or going to FIX, I survived off delivery and my stash of Ramen.Instead of going out the main door of the business lecture hall, I would use the side exit. Then, I would make my way to my dorm room by walking the long way behind the buildings that lined the university's quad. Thankfully it was finally cold enough to get away with wearing my beanie and hoodie, which only helped to hide me from anyone who may have had an eye out for me.I was both relieved and disappointed when he didn't seem to have anyone searching for me. The chase was over. He had me, lost me, found me, and then gave me up. It was inevitable and expected, but that didn't make it any less hurtful. I felt like one of those ridiculous girls in a rom-com. I wanted to stay away from him but also wanted him to chase and fig
It was only an hour or so later that we were walking down The Row. The over-crowded house had been sending vibrations through the neighborhood around it from the blaring bass. I couldn't stop my eyes from traveling two houses down to the Kappa Alpha house. I knew there was a good chance that he would be here tonight, but I also promised Chloe that I would go with her when Ryan invited her. Now I had no choice but to be here for her for when she breaks up with him."You just had to date a frat boy," I said with distaste in my words as I pulled my eyes back to the girl walking next to me."You dated one too! Look, Vi, if you don't want to be hung up on him anymore, then you need to find someone else and move on. Stop hiding in the dorm room and avoiding going to the dining hall. As much as I love you, this is not healthy." Her fingers interlaced with mine, and she gave my hand a supportive squeeze before pulling away as we made our way up the front entryway of the Phi De
The second she walked into the room, it was like there was a magnet to her, and I was being drawn in. I didn't care about what Jones was saying next to me, nor did I care about the girl to my left that was failing in her attempt to get my attention.All I could see was Violet. She was just as beautiful as the last time I had seen her. I never wanted to go two weeks without seeing or talking to her again. It had been like losing my best friend, a metaphor that Jones was not happy about when I had tried to talk to him about the situation.It didn't matter that we were in public. I just wanted to march through the crowd that separated us, throw her back up against the wall, and kiss her until the only thing she could think or say was my name.After looking for her for almost two weeks, I needed nothing more than to get her to talk to me. To get her to agree to be mine and to make sure that everyone else knew it.I had tried to talk to Tyler about her but eve
Hello, my beautiful readers! I hope you that enjoyed reading Violet and Caleb's story as much as I loved writing it! I always read stories where the main characters jump right in to a relationship, but haven't read many about the journey leading up to it. That is what I wanted to create. A book where my readers feel the emotions with the characters as they develop. I've also heard a lot of feedback that epilogues should only include marriage, pregnancy/ child birth, or a proposal. I wanted a story that broke the norm. I wanted to create a story that was about the creation of a relationship with a look into their future without it being a stereotypical epilogue, so I gave bonus chapters instead. I hope you enjoyed. Your feedback and comments mean the world to me. So, please leave the book a review or comment to let me know what you thought! Plus, don't forget to Vote! I appreciate you all! Love, Ashley Breanne
It was like a dream. There he stood, in a pair of jeans with a black button-up shirt tucked in, holding a bouquet of roses. I'm not sure when I started running. All I know is that I did. My suitcase fell to the ground as I dropped the handle a few feet in front of him before launching myself into his arms and wrapping my legs around his waist. I wasted no time in pressing my lips to his eagerly as his arms wrapped around my body to hold me close. The plastic that was wrapped around the bouquet crinkled behind me as he kissed me back just as passionately. His black hair was just as soft as I remembered, if not softer, and I laced my fingers through it as his tongue met mine in a heated kiss. "Damn." I heard Stephanie say to my right, and I pulled away with a blush only for Caleb to lean in and peck me twice more. "Hi, baby." He whispered against my lips, and my toes curled in my shoes. "I've missed you." "Why don't you greet me like that?" I heard an unfamiliar voice ask. Looking
I couldn't help the smile spread across my face as I met the bright blue eyes peeping through the crack of the seats in front of me for the hundredth time. There was something about him that was pulling me in. Maybe it was the flush in his cheeks or the head of blonde hair peeking out from beneath his beanie, but he kept drawing me back to him. I couldn't help it. He was cute. Moving back next to the window, I broke our eye contact only to pop back over into his line of sight once more, leaning onto the armrest of the empty seat next to me. An excited burst of giggles left his parted lips as his arms flailed about. No one seemed to mind me playing peek-a-boo with him for the past twenty minutes. Even the person sitting in my row on the aisle seat was content with it. It seemed that everyone in the cabin agreed the beautiful sound of the infant's laughter was better than the screaming that had started only an hour into the flight. Based on the sighs of relief that were let out into
It didn't take us long to get to the Alpha Kappa house, where I sat at his desk eating the burger and fries I had him order me in exchange for my help on his homework, watching ESPN on his TV. Tyler lay stretched out across his bed, staring at his laptop with relief as he submitted the assignment.As of last year, he was officially an upperclassman and was given the option to have an individual room instead of having to share. My jealousy oozed out of every pore when I showed up at his room after finding out that I was stuck with Teresa. It was the only time in my life that I regretted not joining a Sorority. Even then, that terrible thought only lasted for a second. They are way too social for me.The TV had just been background noise while we worked, but it quickly caught my attention as I grabbed a fry and stuffed it in my mouth."You would not believe the talent this kid has. He is definitely going to make a name for himself. 23-year-old Caleb Briggs, pi
It didn't take long for Teresa to realize that I was not going to let her walk over me.To be honest, she wasn't that bad as a roommate, but that was mainly because she was never in the room. When she was, she was asleep in her bed and stayed out of my way.Not that she was happy about it. She threw a fit when I made her move my stuff back to where she found it and explained to her, like an adult talking to a toddler, that she couldn't take my bed just because she wanted it.I was there first. I had dibs."Please, tell me that you have your ticket booked." Caleb's voice was distorted through my headphones as I sat in the quad under one of the trees lining the area. The same tree where we had sat together almost two years ago as we agreed to be friends. Even with his face pink and his hair wet from his after-practice shower, I couldn't help but think to myself that he was still the sexiest thing I had ever seen.And he is mine.
One and a Half Years LaterI leaned my head against his chest as his warm arms wrapped around me. It felt different.He felt different.Training camp was both good for him and hard on him. His body had new aches and pains, but everything about him was bigger and more defined than before. He moved faster, his footwork was impeccable, and everyone was impressed by him.I kept myself busy with my summer job waitressing, trying not to obsess over when he was going to call me or if he would even be able to each day. Yet, he never let me down. If he couldn't call me, he would text me instead. Since my phone was glued to my hand like a preteen waiting to hear from her first crush, he always got an instant reply.Yet, the feeling of being in his arm again made it all worth it. 48 days apart was just the start. Now we had my entire senior year to survive.The back hatch of my Father's now empty SUV loudly slammed shut next t
I turned the idea over in my head for the millionth time in the past two months since we first met. Then, Diana came to the forefront of my mind again. I could deal with everyone hating me for keeping the school's golden couple apart. I could even deal with people talking shit about me but, she was an absolute deal-breaker."What about Diana?" The bitterness in my voice shocked even me, and I silently cursed the few drinks I had downed for lowering my vocal and emotional control.With a bright smile and a shy rub at the back of his neck, I heard him loud and clear over the busy room. "I told her to fuck off and leave me alone. I told her that I was with you now, and I didn't want anything to do with her ever again.""Was this before or after you spent Thanksgiving break with her and, according to her, told her all about me?" Not the most civil way I could have put it, but I could still feel the anger and heartbreak pumping through my blood mixed with th
The air was thick, even for being outside, and I was acutely aware of the dark green eyes watching me from the second floor. As soon as he looked my way, I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. He had my complete attention and didn't even know it.The arm around my shoulder was hot and uncomfortable as he pulled me up against his side. Chloe gave me a discrete thumbs up from down by her hip, and I rolled my eyes as I laughed at her obvious intoxication. Clearly, she needed some liquid courage to have that specific conversation.Ryan stood behind her with his chin on the top of her head as he held onto her lovingly, not wanting to let her go. She leaned back into his embrace but looked stiff and uncomfortable."What do you say we give them an out so they can go be alone and we go get another drink?" Justin whispered in my ear. His warm breath tickled my neck as he spoke. He had been nice so far and surprisingly very funny, but his touch sent a bad feeling in
The second she walked into the room, it was like there was a magnet to her, and I was being drawn in. I didn't care about what Jones was saying next to me, nor did I care about the girl to my left that was failing in her attempt to get my attention.All I could see was Violet. She was just as beautiful as the last time I had seen her. I never wanted to go two weeks without seeing or talking to her again. It had been like losing my best friend, a metaphor that Jones was not happy about when I had tried to talk to him about the situation.It didn't matter that we were in public. I just wanted to march through the crowd that separated us, throw her back up against the wall, and kiss her until the only thing she could think or say was my name.After looking for her for almost two weeks, I needed nothing more than to get her to talk to me. To get her to agree to be mine and to make sure that everyone else knew it.I had tried to talk to Tyler about her but eve