Claire (Hart University Book 2) (19 page)
Read Claire (Hart University Book 2) Online
Authors: Abigail Strom
But every time I thought that, Will would touch me. He’d bump my shoulder or give me a hug, and my knees would turn to jelly.
That is not the response of a friend.
Okay, so, maybe I should make the move. I mean, I’d been the one to put the brakes on at Thanksgiving, right?
I’d thought about all the ways I could do it. I could just grab him and kiss him, of course. I could ask him out on a date or something formal like that. Or…
Or nothing.
The more I thought about it, the more nervous I felt. What if Will didn’t feel the same way anymore? What if he didn’t want things to change? If I fucked this up, the stakes were really high.
I’d lose my best friend.
The more time went by, the less willing I felt to take responsibility for that.
It would be much better to wait for Will to make the move. That way, it wouldn’t be my fault if everything got messed up.
* * *
Jocelyn had a van, which made her Sugar Lane’s de facto transport. After we got the instruments stowed inside we had room for one more, so Tamsin traveled with the band to Boston the next day.
The two of us sat in the back together. Tamsin showed me the tattoo she’d gotten last week—a red heart on her ankle.
“I really like it,” I said. “Maybe I’ll get one, too. I feel like I should have tattoos, you know? I’m supposed to be a musician.”
“You
are
a musician,” Tamsin corrected me. She paused. “So, it’s February.”
“That is undeniably true.”
“The Semester of Us is officially over.”
“It’s been over for two months.”
“Yes, it has. Are you ready to fall off the wagon?”
I thought about it. “Are you?”
“Nope.”
I stared at her. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. I’m thinking about a Year of Us. Or at least a Year of Me,” she added. “I mean, I don’t expect you to stay single and celibate your entire sophomore year.” She grinned. “Especially since, if you’ll excuse my mentioning it, Will McKenna is about as crazy in love with you as any guy I’ve ever seen.”
Just like that, goose bumps swept over my entire body.
“I think I’m in love with him, too,” I whispered.
“Yeah. That’s pretty fucking obvious.”
I stuck my tongue out at her.
“So why the hell aren’t you doing anything about it?” she asked.
I sighed. “Because I’m scared?”
“Sure. But do you think you’re going to be any less scared tomorrow? Or next week, or next month, or—”
“Okay,” I said, stopping her. “I get it.”
“I’m just saying. Life is short and whatnot.”
“That’s very profound.”
“I’m a fountain of profundity.” She paused and looked out the back window. “Hey, we’re here! Are you guys ready for the big time?”
* * *
It turns out there isn’t enough deodorant in the world to prepare you for your band’s first major gig.
But once we got through our first song, I knew it was going to be okay.
Part of that was seeing all our friends in the audience. Rikki and Sam, Julia and Dyshell, Izzy and Mena and what looked like every resident of Bracton—along with the entire Panthers football team.
Among the other reasons for Sugar Lane to feel proud tonight, we could now claim credit for bringing the art geeks and the athletes of Hart University together in one place.
Will was there, too. I kept seeing his face in the crowd, and every time I did, my heart glowed brighter and I sang harder.
Then, when we were close to the end of the set, I saw him again. He was dancing like a maniac—with Becky.
I finished that song on autopilot, and the next one, too. I felt like my heart had been sucked out of my body. I managed to get through the rest of the set, but even though the crowd cheered and the band was ecstatic as we left the stage, Jenna knew something was up.
“Are you okay?” she asked me as she was getting ready to go on with the Mollies. “You guys were fantastic, but you seemed a little tense at the end there. Did all the excitement catch up with you?”
“Maybe,” I said, using the towel she’d handed me to wipe the sweat from my eyes. “It was awesome, though. We’ll never forget the night we opened for the Red Mollies.”
She gave me a quick hug. “I have a feeling the Mollies are going to remember the night they shared a stage with you. Congratulations, kiddo. Sugar Lane rocked the house.”
As soon as she took the stage with her band, the crowd erupted. Jocelyn, Milton and Burns went out into the club to be part of it, and I told them I’d join them in a minute.
But I didn’t. Instead, I stood in the shadows and watched Will.
He wasn’t with Becky anymore. I saw her over by the bar, laughing and dancing with Andre and Dyshell. Will was up front near the stage, in the crush of fans dedicated enough to get that close.
Once the song was over and Jenna was introducing the next one, I saw Will turn and scan the room.
Was he looking for me?
And then, in that moment, I realized something.
I could spend the next week or month or year asking myself questions like that. Was Will looking for me? How did he feel about me now? Did he still want me? Was he interested in someone else?
Or I could take a chance and tell him how I felt.
I went backstage and waited for what Jenna called the “breather” song. That was the one near the middle of the set when each musician had a solo. After she finished her guitar jam, Jenna came off stage to gulp down some water.
That’s when I grabbed her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Red Mollies were awesome, but I couldn’t fall into the music the way I’d fallen into Claire’s set.
Of course if Claire were with me it would be different. I kept looking for her, and even though the club was a madhouse I couldn’t understand why I didn’t find her.
She’d looked a little stressed out during her last few songs. Was she feeling sick? Should I try to get backstage and look for her?
Then Jenna took the microphone.
“Okay, everybody, we’re going to change things up a little. I’d like to invite Claire Stone back onstage to perform a new song. She’s never played it in public before, so this is something special for the people here tonight.”
The moment Claire came out I forgot everything else. The heat and the people jostling me faded into the background, and the only thing that existed was Claire.
She was nervous, although I didn’t think anyone but me would pick up on that. I could tell from the way she held her guitar—a little tighter than usual—and the way she bit her lower lip before she spoke into the microphone.
“Hi, everybody.” She paused. “This is a love song. The guy I wrote it for is here tonight, so… it seemed like a good time to play it.”
That was her whole introduction. She took a deep breath, looked down at her guitar, and started to play.
I heard the music more than the words. It was gorgeous, like everything Claire wrote, but it was more than just a beautiful melody.
A hundred different things were in that song. Her hands on me after the season opener, healing the damage from the game. Tigger and Piglet and the way we could talk about anything. Listening to the falling snow, and the way we could be silent.
The night we’d spent together.
When she was done I didn’t even clap, although I was glad everyone else did. Claire left the stage and I just stood there like an idiot, my heart thumping against my ribs, until she found me a few minutes later and pulled me away from the crowd.
“Hey,” I said, looking down at her.
“Hey.”
I waited a moment, and so did she.
Then I cleared my throat. “So. Was that song about me?”
One side of her mouth quirked up. “Please tell me you already know the answer to that question.”
There were a lot of things I could have said—some of them clever, some of them cautious. But what came out was,
“I love you.”
Claire’s eyes widened. “Oh, Will.” There were tears on her lashes, and she blinked them away. “I love you, too.” She took a deep breath. “I love you so much.”
And then I pulled her into my arms and kissed her.
We were standing in the shadows at the edge of the dance floor, occupying our own little bubble of privacy.
But even if we’d been on stage under a spotlight, I would have done exactly the same thing.
Author’s Note
Thank you so much for reading
Claire
. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll join me as the series continues. (And if you haven’t read
Rikki
yet, I invite you to check it out!)
Get ready for junior year at Hart University!
Tamsin
is coming soon, so be sure to sign up for my
newsletter
to receive release day announcements.
The Hart University series:
Rikki
(Freshman year)
Claire
(Sophomore year)
Tamsin
(Junior year - coming soon)
Julia
(Senior year - coming soon)
Other Titles by Abigail Strom
Winning the Right Brother
(fun fact – this was my first published romance, and it tells the story of Will’s mother and stepfather.)
The Almost Like Love series:
The Landry family series:
Cross My Heart
(another fun fact – this is the love story between Claire’s father and Jenna Landry!)
All my series books can be read as standalones. Learn more at
abigailstrom.com
.
And if you’re a fan of steamy paranormal romance, you might enjoy the Blood and Absinthe series I write as Chloe Hart:
Taming the Vampire
(free at all retailers!)
You can learn more at
authorchloehart.com
.
Acknowledgements
Thanks as always to Mikel Strom and Tara Gorvine for their help, encouragement, and endless patience, and to my mother for her general awesomeness. Thanks to Sarah Hansen (Okay Creations) for her gorgeous cover and the folks at Victory Editing for their eagle eyes. And finally, an epic thank-you to my readers, who are the reason I write.
About the Author
Abigail Strom started writing stories at the age of seven and has never been able to stop. On her way to becoming a full-time writer, she earned a BA in English from Cornell University as well as an MFA in dance from the University of Hawaii, and held a wide variety of jobs from dance teacher and choreographer to human resource manager. Now she works in her pajamas and lives in New England with her family, who are incredibly supportive of the hours she spends hunched over her computer.
If you don’t want to miss a new release, you can sign up for my
newsletter
, follow me on
Twitter
, or like my
Facebook
page. You can also check out my
website
for more information, including the playlists I’ve created for each of my books. I love to hear from readers, so drop me an email at [email protected] if you’re so inclined!
Copyright
Claire: Hart University, Book 2
Copyright © 2016 by Abigail Strom
EBook ISBN 978-1943296026
Cover Art copyright © by Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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