Before You Go

  Before You Go

  Meredith St. James

  737 Brass Books

  Copyright © 2018 by Meredith St. James

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Laurel

  2. Isaac

  3. Laurel

  4. Isaac

  5. Laurel

  6. Isaac

  7. Laurel

  8. Laurel

  9. Isaac

  10. Laurel

  11. Isaac

  12. Laurel

  13. Isaac

  14. Laurel

  15. Isaac

  16. Laurel

  17. Isaac

  18. Laurel

  19. Isaac

  20. Laurel

  21. Isaac

  22. Isaac

  23. Laurel

  24. Isaac

  25. Laurel

  Epilogue

  Also by Meredith St. James

  Laurel

  I blinked hard as I shimmied my navy skirt back up over my hips. I couldn't help but resent how put-together I always dressed. If I'd shown up in sweatpants then it would have been much easier to make a quick getaway. Instead, I was forced to stand there smoothing out the skirt and my silk blouse.

  "You don't have to rush off," he had the nerve to say.

  I fought to maintain my composure as I turned to face him. He was hovering near the opposite side of the bed. He looked put-off as if he'd really expected me to stay for another round after the bombshell he'd just dropped.

  "I have finals," I said, wielding the truth like a shield.

  "I'm sure you can afford to spend a single hour doing something other than studying."

  I took back everything I'd just thought about sweatpants. I was glad to be wearing real clothes. There was something comforting about being dressed for battle—which was sort of what it felt like as I faced Isaac in his bedroom.

  "You've made it abundantly clear that this is ending." I gestured between the two of us. "I'd say let's not prolong the inevitable."

  "Laurel, you're graduating. You had to know it wouldn't make sense for us to keep doing this. Your whole life is about to change."

  I scoffed. "Right, my apologies. I forgot it only makes sense to sleep with a student while they're still a student. Now it's on to the next unsuspecting girl, right?"

  "Don't do that."

  "Do what?" I asked, turning my back on him again so that I could sit on the edge of the mussed up bed to put my heels on.

  "Act like we've been doing something dirty."

  I couldn't help the hollow laugh that escaped me. "Are you kidding? Doing something dirty is all we've been doing. Let's not sugarcoat it now. Especially not after that fantastic speech you just gave."

  All I'd done was suggest that after nearly a year of sleeping together that maybe there was something more serious going on between us. I'd never seen a man so panicked before in my life. He'd made it abundantly clear that it was time for me to move on to other things. As if sleeping with him had been an extracurricular that I'd been adding to my resume.

  If only. At least then all the wasted time would have counted for something.

  "Come back to bed and I'll make it up to you," he offered. He sounded too desperate for me to stay, which made no sense considering he was the one slamming the breaks.

  "No. I'm leaving."

  I stood and grabbed my phone from the nightstand, carefully ordering a rideshare service to pick me up at the liquor store down the street. It was tacky as hell, but I wasn't gonna spend another minute awkwardly standing around.

  "I can drive you," Isaac offered, following me as I made my way through his house towards the front door.

  "No need."

  "Laurel…" He tugged gently on my arm, forcing me to face him. "Stay. Let's talk."

  "Honestly, Isaac? There's nothing to talk about."

  I pried his fingers off of me. The first time I met him I had imagined how good his touch might feel. The first time he actually reached for me, he surpassed even my highest expectations. I never thought a day might come when his touch would make my skin crawl.

  "You have stuff here. You should at least take your things."

  There hadn't been any question that we were doing the fuck-buddy equivalent of a break-up, but those words still sounded so final. I yanked the door open. He reached for me again but I darted away. There was a good chance if he touched me I might burst into tears.

  Sheriff Barrett hadn't raised his daughter to be a crier.

  "Laurel!" Isaac called after me. I kept moving. He stood on the front porch of his house, still busy trying to decide what to do even while I was already disappearing around the corner.

  Laurel

  "I can't believe summer is already over. It feels like it just started," Ivy whined.

  I glanced at my eclectic friend. The poodle skirt she made herself danced around her as she bounced around the room. It amazed me how much energy she had. It seemed like she never stopped moving, always bouncing or dancing. I would have thought something like that would be annoying, but it had turned out to be endearing.

  "You act like anything is going to change. You spent all summer cooped up in the art building, anyway."

  Ivy spun and dropped on my bed as I tried not to cringe at how she'd ruffled the bedspread. I was spread out with my collection of nail polish on the floor of my bedroom. It wasn't that big of a deal to choose a color but nothing seemed quite right.

  "It's different when it's by choice. There's no accountability. No professors bitching about whether or not my work is gallery appropriate." Ivy sighed. "You should use dark red. Channel your inner slut."

  I stared down at my collection. They were all light, subdued colors. "I don't have dark red. Or an inner slut."

  "Everyone has an inner slut, Laurel. Also, check the snack cabinet. I'm pretty sure I have at least six different shades of red in there."

  "Of course you do." I laughed. Ivy was the only person I knew who would think to keep nail polish in a kitchen cupboard.

  I strolled through the apartment to the kitchen, musing about how many of my Type-A tendencies I was forced to part with since moving in with Ivy. She was disorganized, loud, and full of life. I hated her when we first met. She grew on me though, finally wearing me down enough to convince me to stay on campus for the summer to work for Kelley's art school.

  The art school had needed the help. With my fresh marketing degree in hand, I did my best to help bring them into the 21st century. I mean, they hadn't even had a social media page. I wasn't sure how they thought they'd recruit top-notch talent when young artists barely knew the school existed.

  "Maybe I should just go with that nude shade," I called out, worrying my bottom lip. The nail polish was right where she said, but not a single one of the bottles looked anything like something I'd wear.

  "It's still officially summer for eight more hours!"

  I let my head fall back as I groaned. We made a summer agreement that I was starting to regret now that the rush of summer was ending. Ivy had gotten the final say. On everything.

  She made the suggestion to me in a weak moment of mine when she caught me crying into a bowl of oatmeal the first week I'd moved in with her. She swore she could change my life if I would just be open to trying things. Somehow, that morphed into her challenging me all summer to do things I would never have dreamed of. Because I never wanted to back down from her challenges, it actually sort of worked. I was more relaxed and go-with-the-
flow than I'd ever been.

  I grabbed for the darkest shade.

  "So proud of you," Ivy gushed, startling me.

  She'd managed to sneak up right behind me. "I'm not sure how the heck you always do that," I said, resting my hand over my chest where it felt like my heart might beat itself right out of my body.

  "Do what?"

  "Sneak up on people. You're like the loudest person I know until you decide to start being sneaky."

  "I think I'm unique to the game 'cause of my versatility," she responded in an exaggerated deep voice. One of my manicured eyebrows dipped. "It's a quote."

  "From what?"

  "Ice Cube," she answered cheerfully.

  "That's… hmm."

  That was Ivy. She never remembered to put the cap back on the toothpaste but she could remember an Ice Cube quote. Not that I should have been that surprised. She had three separate copies of the movie Boyz n the Hood. One in the apartment, one in her purse, and one in the glovebox of her car.

  "You never know when you might need to help someone have a good cry. Or explain gentrification," she was fond of reminding me. Apparently, she considered the movie a catch-all for either occasion.

  There was no use trying to understand Ivy. She did what she wanted, how she wanted. She was a true free-spirit.

  "So, what should we do tonight for our last night of freedom?"

  "I figured you'd just want to get some sleep. Don't you have an eight a.m. class tomorrow?" I asked.

  "Yep!" She was the only college student I'd ever met that didn't bemoan an early class. "But that's future Ivy's problem. Tonight's only problem is how short of a dress I can convince you to wear."

  I blanched at her glee. My style had relaxed considerably since I met Ivy. I bought my first pair of jeans, even. Clubbing dresses, however, weren't part of my vocabulary—much less part of my wardrobe. I started to back away from Ivy slowly as if I could stop the inevitable.

  "Laurel," she reminded me again, "It's still summer." The magic words.

  "No way. I'm drawing the line at being forced to wear something that lets all my bits and pieces hang out."

  She rolled her eyes at me. "I'm not gonna let your ass hang out. Your tits maybe, though." I crossed my arms over them as if I could hide what she already knew I had.

  I was the queen of buying bras to minimize my bust size. It worked, too. My chest didn't draw any unusual attention. The only people who knew what I was packing under my blouse were the few people who had seen me naked. Unfortunately, that list had expanded to include Ivy after she nonchalantly walked in on me getting in the shower a few weeks earlier. I'd been horrified. Even more so because she stood there complimenting my breasts like it was no big deal. I finally was forced to summon up the courage to shove her out of the room.

  "Or, we could stay in and watch a movie," I suggested hopefully. I would even have agreed to watch something in black-and-white with subtitles if it would keep us safely in the apartment for the night.

  "Nope." She whipped out her phone and typed out a quick message. "Ronnie mentioned her and Travis were going to The Burgundy tonight. We can meet them."

  "It's the last night before classes start. It's gonna be insane there." Dread filled my stomach.

  "Which also means it's gonna be the perfect hunting ground."

  I couldn't ignore the mischievous gleam in her eyes. "I'm not interested in hunting anything." The very idea made me scowl.

  "Stop being such a party-pooper. This summer has been all about being the best versions of ourselves, right? Well, what better way to prove it than by finally getting over…" Her voice trailed off. She didn't have all the details, only a vague understanding that I was going through an emotional upheaval when I moved in with her.

  "I am over it."

  "Great, then there's no reason not to go out and have a good time tonight with all sorts of strange, delicious men."

  I shook my head at her description. "Strange isn't the way I want my ideal man to be described."

  "Who said anything about ideal?" A wicked grin spread over her face.

  Ivy was the queen of one-night stands. She was as polite as could be about it considering we were sharing an apartment. She never let her partners stick around long enough that I would be forced to awkwardly interact with them. And despite the thin walls of the apartment, she kept things relatively quiet in the bedroom.

  The only reason I really knew about her activities was because she had a rule. She never slept with anyone unless she sent someone a picture of their ID. Somehow, over the summer she started sending all of those messages to me. I liked to think of it as a good faith show of trust between us. She trusted me enough to help keep her safe. It was sort of an honor—in the weirdest way possible, of course.

  "I guess I could go and be your DD."

  "Hell no." She stared at me like I suggested we shave our heads. "What good is having three different ridesharing apps if we never use them? You are absolutely drinking with me tonight."

  A strangled sound fell from my lips as she bounced off to her bedroom. Within mere seconds she was returning, a sly grin on her face as she handed me a hanger with a scrap of material hanging on it.

  "Can I wear jeans with this?" I asked.

  She shook her head slowly. "This is a dress," she clarified.

  "What? No." I studied the small slip of material swinging from the hanger. "No. Absolutely not. That's a shirt."

  "It's a dress. And you're wearing it."

  She thrust it towards me, letting it hang between us until I finally took it reluctantly. "Please don't make me do this," I pleaded one last time.

  Instead of answering, she pointed down the hall in the direction of my room. I forced one foot in front of the other as I carried the offensive garment to change in privacy. Not that it mattered considering the dress didn't look like it would cover much more than my underwear anyway.

  "Bonus points if you skip wearing panties!"

  Ivy's laughter rang out through the hall as I grumbled. There was no way I would go out without all my underwear firmly in place. Letting the door slam shut behind me seemed like a fitting, though minor, act of rebellion.

  A thin layer of nervous sweat broke out around my hairline. I removed my clothes, dropping them neatly in my hamper. Anxiety flooded me as I slipped into the dress Ivy gifted me. My one saving grace was that I was a few inches shorter than Ivy. The dress would have been completely obscene on her taller frame, but it on me it merely looked run-of-the-mill skimpy.

  "It's just a dress," I whispered to myself as I stood in front of the full-length mirror hanging on the back of my door. I didn't look like myself.

  Maybe it would't be such a bad thing to play someone else for a night.

  "Hurry up, Laurel. I still have to do your makeup before Evan and Nathaniel get here," Ivy called to me.

  "Who?" I shouted back.

  Ivy fell silent, a sure sign that she was up to something. I let out another groan under my breath. Channel someone else… No. I reminded myself of the true goal, channel a better version of myself.

  Isaac

  Something heavy landed with a thud on my chest, effectively waking me up from where I'd fallen asleep on the couch. "What. The. Fuck." I stirred, forcing my eyes to open painfully. The heavy object was a textbook. I brushed it off, letting it slide down onto the couch beside me.

  "You have class in thirty minutes."

  I squinted up at Drew, his face shadowed because of the sunlight streaming in through the window behind him.

  "Class. Thirty-minutes. You."

  I groaned. "It's just a syllabus day."

  "You still have to show up."

  "I've got thirty minutes." I waved him away but he didn't move.

  "Is this your syllabus?" He turned and kneeled by the coffee table where my laptop was sitting open. "Because you've typed the name 'Laurel' about eighteen times under the 'University Expectations' section."

  "Fuck."

  I shot st
raight up, a sharp pain shooting through my head from moving too quickly. Drew was right. Her name was laced through the description of university policy.

  "Does this have something with why you've been a reclusive binge-drinker all summer?"

  I sent him the least amused look I could muster through the haze of my hangover. As a grown man, the last thing I needed was my nephew giving me shit about how I spent my time. I shoved him out of the way so I could get my fingers on my laptop keyboard.

  It would take me ten minutes to get to campus, another two to get to my classroom. I needed ten minutes to shower, shave, and get dressed in a hurry. That only left about eight minutes… I checked my watch. Seven minutes. Seven minutes to somehow fix and finish the syllabus I was supposed to have had ready weeks earlier.

  Fucking perfect.

  "Is Laurel the girl in all those pictures you've got on your phone?"

  My head whipped around so I could stare open-mouthed at Drew. "Why were you looking in my phone?"

  "I got bored." He shrugged as if that was the only answer he needed.

  "I don't have time for you right now. Don't you have your own classes to get ready for?"

  The whole point of him staying in my house was that he was starting his freshman year at Kelley. He got waitlisted for a single dorm, and his mom—my sister—didn't trust him enough to let him move into any of the off-campus apartments. Somehow, he managed to convince us not to force him into a regular shared room. It was weird having Drew around full-time. He was only eighteen, but some days my thirty-three didn't feel that much older than him. He definitely liked to press his luck with me.