Foes & Cons by Carrie Aarons (i am malala young readers edition .txt) 📗

me that bad, you could have just asked,” Nate jokes with my best friend, and Glavin just wiggles his eyebrows at him.

“Ugh, I hate this game,” Laura whines, though she’s staring daggers at Matt.

Those two might not be exclusive, but I see a drunken argument in our future if either one of them goes into the closet with another person.

I, however, just glance across the rapidly forming circle at the most beautiful girl in the room. Blair catches my eye and shrugs her shoulders, a flirty smile playing at her lips. It’s almost three years ago now that we found ourselves in this exact same position, and the outcome was catastrophic. That moment set us on a course that ended up changing our relationship and both of our lives. But we’re solid now, completely in love. The only thing that could come from us going into that closet would be a very R-rated show.

“You’re up first,” Glavin tells me as we all sit down in a circle and he places a Coors Light bottle in the middle.

“You’re too predictable.” I roll my eyes, knowing what he’s trying to do.

Even so, I spin, and the bottle whirls around and around as everyone in the circle holds their breath. It slows to a stop and lands on … Nate.

“Aw, cute, lover boy, but you’re not my type.” He flutters his eyelashes at me and then redirects the bottle, pointing it right at Blair. “There, I think that was the result you were looking for.”

Blair chuckles quietly, and I offer her my hand, just like I had three years ago.

“I’m having such a bad case of déjà vu.” I hear Laura laugh as we head for the closet in Matt’s basement.

“I promise I don’t bite,” I whisper to Blair, taking her by the hips as she walks in front of me.

She presses back, her curves whispering over all of the places that only she knows how to turn on. “In your dreams.”

We’re echoing our words of seven minutes in heaven-past, and the foreplay is only making the anticipation stronger.

Our desired destination looms closer, and I’m having flashbacks. I hope that inside her own overactive mind, Blair isn’t associating this with any bad memories.

So I tell her the truth, the one thing that I know for certain. “I love you. I’ll love you forever.”

She squeezes my hands where they firmly hold at her middle. “I love you, too.”

As soon as the closet door closes, my palms are cupping Blair’s cheeks and my mouth moves on hers.

I made the mistake of not doing this once before. That won’t happen ever again.

Any chance I have to love her, I’m taking it.

Epilogue

Sawyer

Four Years Later

The graduation march plays over the loudspeaker in the football stadium, and thousands of students donning black robes and maroon caps file into the rows and rows of white chairs below.

My eyes scan the heads, looking for the cap decorated in glittery gold letters. Blair put a Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote on her cap, to honor her late hero before she tries to take Washington the same way the former Supreme Court justice did. I’m searching, searching, until I finally spot her amongst the crowd. She’s walking next to two of her political science major friends, and her smile is so wide that I can make it out from my seat in the bleachers high above.

On my right, Todd is trying not to weep like a baby about his daughter graduating college. His girlfriend, Cecily, holds his hand and smiles knowingly. They’ve been together for almost two years now, and she knows how Blair is practically his whole world. She respects that, and she and Blair have developed a really nice friendship.

To my left, my parents sit waiting for Blair’s name to be called and her degree to be put in her hands. Mom has her cell phone held up to shoot a million pictures already as Dad leans over to me.

“Next year, that’ll be you.” He pats me on the shoulder.

I’m not down on that field today because I’m in a five-year program, one that won’t see me graduating until next May. That’s right, I got into the architecture program after all. Three months into our freshman year, I finally came off the wait-list and was granted a spot in the major. I’d already made peace with the fact that it might not happen, and was enjoying my first semester, but that was just the cherry on top.

Since that day, I’ve excelled at my courses. I’ve worked harder than anyone in the program and even landed an internship in New York City last summer. It didn’t change my decision to work at the family firm, but the experience opened my eyes up to so much possibility in the way I design and plan.

Meanwhile, Blair had been a four-hour ride away in Washington, DC. She interned for one of the New Jersey senators in her office, and each night when we talked on the phone she’d chat my ear off excitedly about policy and laws. My woman is going to change the world someday.

The past four years have gone by in a blur of late nights, difficult exams, making new friends, drunken strolls home from the bars, and moving into our first apartment together. Blair wouldn’t live with me until junior year, when she said we’d established a strong friend group and wouldn’t miss out on the independent joys of college. I was kind of glad she enforced it, though we still slept in each other’s tiny dorm beds almost every night.

Throughout our college years, our love has only grown stronger. We’ve laughed a lot, cried some, supported each other through wrong decisions and amazing triumphs. Blair, as she’s always been, is my best friend and the woman I’ll be in awe of forever.

“I can’t believe she’s graduating college.” Todd’s voice is pure fatherhood pride. “I remember like yesterday when she was a little girl, begging me for a popsicle after dinner.”

“I’m