So, I don't know how I did this but I accidentally skipped posting ch. 12 (the chapter before dunk tanks). I suggest that you go read that chapter before reading this one bc it'll make a lot more sense. Sorry about that-- I've been losing my mind lately  

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"We can't do this again," I decide, tugging on my own shirt as I get out of the bed.

"We can't?" Noah wonders, still laying down, relaxing in his bed with nothing on under the covers.

"No, we can't," I shake my head at him. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry," He assures me with a disappointed frown. "Can I ask why though?"

I sigh, stepping into my panties and then into my Nike shorts before pulling my hair into a pony tail on the top of my head. "I just feel icky and sex isn't supposed to make you feel icky."

"Is it something that I did?"

"No," I insist quickly. "Absolutely not. It's just that the whole friends with benefits thing isn't really me. Especially not right now when I have so much going on with the first day of classes tomorrow and everything with Scott. I just want to nip it in the bud before my life gets too complicated."

"That's fine," He says. "I understand."

"Do you?" I wonder, feeling a little bit bad. Yesterday, after the fair was over, Jasper told me that Conner was coming over so Scott offered me his couch so that I didn't have to interrupt their night. However, then some of his friends came to the booth and when they found out that he broke up with Macy, insisted that he had to go out with them to "celebrate". Yes, they said celebrate. And that was when Noah offered me his house. He is living with his parents until school starts but they are out of town for the weekend so with Conner at our apartment, the house was empty.

With an empty house and an incredibly charming smile, Noah knows exactly how to get into my pants.

"Yes, I do. Really," Noah assures me, putting on that panty-dropping smile that almost kills me. "We should probably agree to be just friends at least though, considering my brother and your friend are probably going to be dating by the end of the week."

"We can be friends," I assure him, sitting back down on the bed beside Noah. "You are pretty cool."

"You're pretty cool too," He says. "And maybe when things calm down again, we can pick things back up. You know, when it doesn't make you feel 'icky'."

"Yeah," I sigh. "Maybe."

"Do you want to go to breakfast or something before you leave?" He offers.

"I appreciate that but I really have to get back to the apartment," I say to him, stuffing my bikini top and bottoms in my bag. I always have an emergency pair of panties in my bag but not a bra so I am braless under my shirt and I don't really like that feeling. "I still have some stuff to do before tomorrow."

"Sure. Well, good luck with your first day," He tells me with a smile and then he sits up and I lean forward and we share a longer-than-expected kiss.

"I'll see you around," I mumble against his lips as I pull away and slip my flip flops back on my feet.

"Yeah. See you around," He says.

"Oh. Wait, I do need a ride though," I say before I can even stop myself. "You know, it's fine. I'll call Jasper."

"I'll give you a ride," Noah says, pushing the blankets away so that he can get dressed. "I'll probably have to pick Conner up anyway."

I don't even try to hide my pervy glances as he pulls on some clothes and I can see him smirk at that but I don't really care. I can't believe that I have to do the right thing here and not have sex with him again. It's so unfair.

"Okay, if you don't mind. Thanks," I offer him a grateful smile and then we're headed down the stairs of the house and then through the living room to the front door where his silver car is parked in the driveway.

Noah's house is about fifteen minutes away from our apartment and the ride isn't nearly as awkward as I thought that it would be. Noah is actually pretty funny and it's surprisingly easy to talk to him despite our awkward situation. When we get to the apartment, I thank Noah for the ride and tell him that when I get inside, I'll tell Conner that he's outside waiting for him.

Inside the apartment, I hear deep giggling from upstairs in Jasper's room so I shut the door loudly so that they know that they're not alone anymore and I text Noah that Conner might be a while.

"Jo?" Jasper called down.

"Yeah, it's me," I confirm. "Noah's waiting downstairs."

"We'll be down in a minute," He replies and I leave it at that. I then turn on the TV so that I can't hear the kissing sounds coming from upstairs and I wait for them to come down here so that I know that it's safe for me to get to my room without interrupting anything.

When they finally do come down, Conner is obviously preparing to leave and Jasper is right behind him, shirtless with a stupidly wide grin on his face. Conner waves and says hello to me and I just politely say it back before he and Jasper kiss goodbye and then he's out the door to go home with his brother.

"Good night?" I wonder from the couch.

Jasper grins at me before walking into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. "You have no idea."

"Anything juicy?" I ask him.

"Nothing that you want to hear," He says.

"Really," I say with a small teasing smile. "So when are you actually going to ask him out? Like, for real?"

"I don't know," He shrugs, leaning against the counter in the kitchen. "Soon, I think."

"Good," I decide. "I'm excited for you."

"Well, how'd your night go with Noah?"

It's my turn to shrug as I lean back on the red couch. "It was nice. It's not going to happen again though, so that's disappointing."

"Really?" He frowns in confusion. "Did something happen?"

"No, not really," I mutter. "I just don't want things to get complicated, you know? And the whole friends with benefits thing just isn't my type of thing."

Jasper turns to the counter and pours two cups of coffee into two of our mismatched mugs, carrying them both into the living room and joining me on the red couch to watch the TV show. "Do you want to know what I think?" He asks me.

"Sure I do," I nod, blowing on the coffee so that it cools down faster.

"I think that it's because of Scott," Jasper tells me with a side glance from the TV. "I think that you like him and now that he doesn't have a girlfriend, you really like him."

"No."

"Yes."

"I don't," I insist. "I just... he has this tattoo."

"Noah or Scott?"

"Scott."

"Continue."

"So he has this tattoo of the crayon comet that I drew him the night before Sienna took us to California. It looks identical to the one that I drew and when I gave it to him, I promised that I was going to come back," I explain, trying to get him to understand what I'm thinking. "So the fact that he got that tattooed onto his skin is kind of like remembering that promise, you know? Like he always knew that I'd come back. And I couldn't stop thinking about it, even last night when I was with Noah. And that made me feel icky since I was thinking about another guy while with Noah. I wasn't thinking about Scott in that way, I was just thinking about the meaning of that tattoo. I mean, Noah is great. Like insanely amazing. It's just that I don't want to feel icky when I have sex because it isn't supposed to be icky."

Jasper takes a few moments to consider my story and then he takes a sip of his coffee before saying, "So you're telling me that while you were sleeping with Noah, you were thinking about Scott. But you're also telling me that you don't like Scott? Can you see where this is misleading?"

I let out a loud sigh. "It wasn't like that. I just... I don't know, I guess that I can't explain it very well. It just really shook me, that tattoo."

"Good or bad?"

"Good," I decide. "Really good."

"Don't try anything, Jo," Jasper says to me with his level-headed voice that he uses when he thinks that I'm being irrational or that I may be irrational in the near future. "He just got out of a relationship. A long one at that."

"I'm not going to try anything," I say with a roll of my eyes. "I told you that I don't like him like that and I mean it."

"You were ogling yesterday," He points out.

"Just because I think that he has Adonis abs and a tattoo and I think is equal amounts sentimental and dangerously sexy doesn't mean that I like him," I refute with a shake of my head. "It means that he's just the hottest guy that I've ever met."

This makes Jasper laugh and I just take a sip of my still-too-hot coffee.

"Shut up."

"Are you ready for class to start tomorrow?" Jasper asks me. "I still haven't gotten my books together yet."

"Me neither. I have to go do that," I mumble with a short yawn. "And God, I hope that I don't have any classes with that guy. Remember that one that I told you about?"

"Ah. Yeah, the competitive one."

"Felix," I say his name with a distasteful crinkle of my nose. "I only met him once and he already gets on my nerves. I can just tell that he's going to be trouble."

"Because he was hitting on you?"

"Because he's arrogant and he's way too competitive. If you saw his face when I told him that I was going to be in the student expo next month, you'd understand. Dreadful."

"Dreadful," Jasper mocks me. "I'm sure that you can handle it."

"Of course I can handle it," I say. "It's just that I don't want to have to handle it, really. Like, in one moment, he wants to sleep with me but in the next, he's trying to eliminate me as competition."

"Hate sex," He decides with a small shrug. "Isn't an awful idea. I mean, well now it is considering the thing with-"

"Don't say Scott."

"With Scott," He ignores me and continues. "So yeah, I think you should just stay away from him."

"I'm going to try my best," I say, elbowing my best friend lightly as we watch the TV show.

I finish my coffee and then rinse my mug out in the sink before I go upstairs to make sure that everything is ready for tomorrow. My green book bag has all of my text books in it, my clothes are clean and ready, my schedule is memorized and folded in the front pocket of my book bag just in case.

That night, I call Sienna and I talk to Annabelle, who is just learning to talk so most of the conversation is her mumbling and giggling which is always really cute. And, like most of our calls, it's cut short when Bennett starts wailing in the background and she has to go take care of it because Penn is still at work. So, I say goodbye to both my sister and my niece and then I debate on whether I should call my mother or not.

I should want to. She is my mother after all, it's just really exhausting having her nag me just to try to make me afraid of living on my own which is really mean, I think, because moving across the country is scary no matter what. Especially when you're only eighteen. But I'd done it and I did it well but even though it's too late to turn back even if I wanted to, my mother is set on making me feel miserable about my decision. Who knew she could be so bitter? I love her to death but seriously.

So I don't call my mother and promise myself that I will call her tomorrow after my first day of school so that I'll at least have something to tell her about instead of just letting her talk my ear off about how I'm not ready for this. Even though we've already been here in Atlanta for a few weeks and I think that it went extremely smoothly.

"Don't forget your ID," Jasper calls up to my room as he's packing up his stuff in the bedroom below mine with only the blanket muffling his words.

"It's in my wallet which is in my bag. Check," I say. "And what about your Drawing 101 book?"

"Yeah, I've got that. I think we're ready to go," He confirms as I start getting dressed in my pajamas- shorts and an old raggedy crop top. Or maybe just a too small t-shirt, I'm not too sure anymore. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Jas. I love you," I sing in a chirpy voice as I crawl into bed with my laptop to spend a little while on the internet before I drift off to sleep.

I'm woken up the next morning by a loud alarm pounding on my bedside table at 6:00 in the morning, giving me plenty of time to get ready. Jasper, being the sleeper that he is, won't be getting up for another hour because he'll just roll out of bed and already look adorable. I, however, have to work for it.

I take a shower, blow dry my hair, put on a pot of coffee, and then go back up to my room to get dressed before Jasper wakes up to his alarm that I can hear through our blanket barricade. I throw on some jean shorts and a black baseball tee with a pale gray Aztec pattern and my black lacy bootie flats. It's more casual than I'd prefer for a first day of school but this isn't high school. Nobody really cares how you dress anymore.

That doesn't stop me from putting on a light layer of makeup and straightening my hair in the bathroom while Jasper takes his shower, whining the whole time about how tired he is and how much he regrets signing up for an eight o'clock class. I'm sitting downstairs with a cup of coffee watching the morning news and ready to go when Jasper slumps down the stairs, looking like he's dead on the inside but ready to start the day.

We have twenty minutes before our first class and it takes ten minutes to walk to the building so I stand up and throw my dark green vintage school bag over my shoulder before rinsing out my mug in the sink.

"Ready to go?" I ask him, pouring the rest of the coffee into a to-go cup, adding some creamer, and snapping the lid on it, handing it to Jasper because I know that he can't survive the mornings without his coffee.

"Sure," He yawns, taking the coffee and following me out the front door. "Don't I look just so excited?"

"Thrilled," I say with a chirpy grin, really excited to be starting our college career today. I'm not a huge fan of mornings but I also don't hate them either. I'm no Jasper.

We're holding hands down the sidewalk as we walk toward the big white building as Jasper reviews his schedule so that he doesn't forget anything.

"My last class ends at one," Jasper tells me. "When is yours over?"

"A quarter after noon," I inform him. "So we can get lunch after your class is over. There's a cute deli just around the corner that sounds interesting."

"And you're going to walk all the way to the apartment and back just to wait forty five minutes?" He wonders.

I just shrug. "I'll figure something out."

"Why are you so happy?"

"Because you're so grumpy and I have to be happy for the both of us," I say, laughing. "Come on, wake up! This is the first day of us being college students. That's exciting!"

"Your voice," Jasper mumbles, taking a sip of his coffee. "Is so loud."

"And your attitude," I refute. "Is so boring."

"I'm tired."

"I hadn't noticed," I roll my eyes at him. There are a lot of tired people already strolling into the building when we get there so we follow the crowd and then look down the hallways for the room that we need for our first class, which is Observational Drawing- as if Jasper's morning grumpiness wasn't bad enough.

However, the professor doesn't make us draw anything at all, she just introduces herself and then hands out a syllabus that explains how the course will go and there's a grading rubric on there too that explains how the grades are divided up and the exam dates are on the bottom. She goes through a bunch of policies and welcomes us all to the class and then, just like that, our forty-five minute class is over.

"See? That wasn't so bad," I tell Jasper when we leave the classroom. I have forty-five minutes until my Intro to Photography class but Jasper has a class in fifteen minutes so I decide that I'll just walk him there and then maybe just roam the halls or go exploring or something while I wait for 9:30 to arrive.

"It'll get worse," He assures me, now fully awake now that he's gulped down all of the coffee. "But I'll just make you do all of my assignments for me."

I scoff. "You wish. I can't even draw that well myself, I'm just not butt hurt about having to take the class."

"You're not a bad drawer," He denies. "Better than me."

"Probably true," I concede jokingly as we start looking for his classroom, which is Design Fundamentals. "Anyway, I will see you at 11:30 sharp for Digital Color Theory."

"Oh, right, I forgot that we had that one together. Why do you need to take that one?"

"For the same reason that we need to take drawing. It's a fundamentals course," I explain to him. "And it's kind of related to photography a little bit too. Okay, this is the room. Good luck."

"Thanks, Jo," He sighs and I step on my tippy toes to kiss his cheek. "Good luck to you too."

And then he's disappearing into the room and I have half an hour to kill. I find a bench in the lounge area to sit at and I start going through my phone but nobody is awake yet. Scott's classes haven't started yet so I would text him but he still has the luxury of sleeping in. And then I remember that I have to get a job while I'm here and I think that the best job would be here in the building that way I don't have to go far at all to get to work.

With twenty minutes to spare, I go into the main office and ask the secretary there if there are student jobs available in the school and if I could apply. She hands me an application and explains that some professors have teaching assistants and when they're hiring, they'll look through the applications and email me if they're interested. It's worth a shot.

By the time I fill out the application, it's time to get to class so I head up to the third floor where my Intro to Photography class is and I find a seat in the middle of the rows of desks, where I've learned is the best place to sit in a college classroom.

I'm only sitting down for probably not even a minute when I hear a familiar voice and I immediately just want to punch him.

"What a coincidence seeing you here," Felix says with a grin as he sits down in the seat beside mine, to the right.

"Considering we're both photography majors, I'd say that the chances were pretty unfortunate," I mumble. I don't know why I don't like this guy but there's just something about him that makes me want to kick him in the throat. His arrogance is probably part of the problem.

"True," He concedes with a shrug. "How's your first day going?"

"Just fine," Until now, I think but I wonder if that's too mean so I don't say it out loud.

"I'm surprised that you don't have every single class with your boyfriend," Felix tells me, leaning back in his seat.

"My boyfriend..." I trail off neither denying nor confirming his assumption. I don't know if he genuinely thinks that I have a boyfriend or if he's only making the assumption to see if I'll correct him- a thing that guys sometimes do because they think that they're being sneaky but we know.

"Yeah, the guy that I saw you all hugging and bonding with at orientation. You were holding hands with him earlier in the hallway," He reminds me slowly, as if I really do have a boyfriend and I'm just crazy so I forgot about him in the time that it took me to get from his graphics class to this one. "And I'm assuming he's the one who gave you that nasty hickey."

Of course, I look down and of course, there's a dark bruise on my collar bone that I had noticed earlier this morning but my shirt covers it pretty well, it's just when I'm leaning a certain way that it is visible so I adjust my shirt and laugh a little bit at the fact that he thinks that Jasper is the one who gave it to me. Oh God. "Right," I say to Felix. Although, I can understand why he assumed that Jasper and I are a couple. I think that because Jasper's homosexuality and my heterosexuality don't mesh in the romantic sense, we're a lot closer than two straight people of the opposite sex usually are.

I'm not sure why that's true but I think that it is. Like, we hold hands and link elbows and we kiss cheeks and sometimes, we'll even cuddle on movie nights and it just isn't weird. Sometimes, I forget that people on the outside don't really understand that though and just assume that we're a couple because in some ways, we kinda act like it. Oh well.

"Am I wrong?" He wonders with his dark bushy eyebrows raised in a curious manner. "That's just scandalous."

"What's scandalous?"

"The fact that you have a boyfriend and yet, he doesn't know about the hickey. Or does he? Does he know that you're a slimy cheater?" Felix goes on and on.

With an incredulous laugh, I say, "You sure do have an imagination."

"So what's going on?" He invasively wonders.

"I don't have a boyfriend," I sigh with an annoyed eye roll just so that he'll hopefully leave me alone after I set him straight. Although something tells me that it's doubtful. "I'm not a 'slimy cheater'. So calm down."

"So then who's the lucky guy?" Felix prods persistently and when I glance over at him, he's waggling his eyebrows at me in a really creepy way. "Or girl?"

"That's none of your concern," I say, crossing my legs underneath the desk as the professor stands in the front of the room and starts class, which I am so grateful for because it ends Felix's interrogation. I notice in my peripheral vision that he keeps glancing over at me as the professor goes over the syllabus but I just face forward and ignore him.

When we're released from the classroom, I try to hurry to the door before Felix can try to start up another invasive conversation but of course, no luck. Right when I get out the door, he's right there with me with a craptastic grin on his face.

"We should get lunch," He tells me as I start walking toward the lounge, where I'm meeting Jasper since we have Digital Color Theory together in forty-five minutes and then my day is over.

"Why? So you can continue asking invasive questions about my personal life?" I wonder with raised eyebrows. "I'm good. Thanks."

"I'm just a curious person," He shrugs. "I want to know who my competition is."

"We aren't competitors," I tell him, growing snappy and losing my patience rather than I'd like to admit. "We are students. And I promise you that the hickey on my neck has nothing to do with my photography career."

"Doesn't it?"

"No," I say harshly. "It doesn't."

"I feel like all of life's experiences shape a photographer's final products," Felix explains, keeping up with me down the hallway and then down the stairs and then down another hallway toward the lounge. He's a fast walker, I'll give him that.

"You consider a hickey an experience?" I wonder with a sarcastic little chuckle.

"It is if you do it right," He smirks. "Seriously, let's go to lunch."

"I have plans," I tell him as I walk into the lounge and he, of course, follows. Jasper is sitting on a chair in there, looking down at his phone when I approach him with Felix on my tail.

"Ah. With your non-boyfriend," Felix says from behind me.

Jasper gives me a curious look and I just point to the annoying pest behind me and say, "Felix."

"Oh. Hi," Jasper says and when I see that there are no more available seats in the lounge, I just sit down sideways on his lap.

"You talk about me?" Felix wonders, leaning against the table beside the chair. "I'm honored."

"Not good things, I can assure you," I fire at him. "Anyway, it was nice talking to you. I'll see you Wednesday."

"I thought that we were getting lunch."

"I have class," I say to him. "And then I have lunch plans."

"Maybe Wednesday then."

"Maybe not."

"Jo," Jasper says with a small laugh which is way of telling me that I'm maybe being too harsh on the guy and maybe I am but he's just so incredibly annoying that I can't help it.

"No thank you, Felix," I reword my reply just for Jasper's benefit.

"Sure," Felix grins, glancing between me and Jasper. "I'll see you around then."

"See you around," I say and then I pray that this will be the end. Will he finally walk away and leave me in peace? I watch in relieved awe as he waves and then turns around and leaves the lounge in the same doors that we came in and then he's gone.

"That man," I say. "Is insufferable."

"He's adorable."

"Shut up," I mumble and Jasper shakes with laughter.

"So I take it that your class wasn't so good?"

"No, I liked the class," I say to him and it's true- the syllabus actually seems kind of interesting. "It's just the class mates that don't seem to awesome. That girl that I met at orientation, Haven, she wasn't even in there. It was just that Felix guy. He thought that we were a couple, you know."

"I think that everybody thinks that we're a couple," Jasper tells me with a small smile. "Does that bother you?"

"Not really, no," I shrug. Even right now, we look like a couple with me sitting on his lap and his arm loosely hanging around my waist. "It bugs me when he starts asking invasive questions though. 'Do you have a boyfriend? How'd you get that hickey? I need to know your life story. Why are you a slimy cheater?' I honestly can't stand it."

"I think that you just need to ignore him," Jasper says to me. "You have enough guy trouble in your life as it is."

"I know," I mutter in exasperation. "But you have no idea how hard it is to ignore him. He's so persistent."

"I think that he likes you," He informs me. "Which is why I'm putting emphasis on ignoring him until he goes away."

"You're right," I sigh. "I'm just going to ignore him until he goes away. With you and Noah and Scott, I don't need another guy around."

"I'm pretty sure I'm out of the race for your romantic companionship," Jasper laughs.

Rolling my eyes, I shove his shoulder lightly. "I mean as friends. I don't have any romantic prospects right now, now that I cut things off with Noah."

"What about-"

"Don't you say it."

"Scott," He finishes, ignoring me (yet again). "It's okay if you like him, you know."

"It's not," I sigh. "We're just friends."

"For now."

"Just friends," I repeat. "My point is that I just cut Noah off so I don't need to bring more complications into the equation with this Felix guy. Especially considering how badly I just want to rip his head off and feed it to the lions."

"Aw," Jasper chuckles. "You're just so adorable when you get angry."

"I'm annoyed," I correct him. "Not angry."

"Kind of the same thing with you."

I let out another long sigh and then rest my cheek on his shoulder and close my eyes for a minute, calming myself down from how irritated I had become. I can already tell today is going to be a long, long day, and it has just started.