All Played Out

  Dedication

  For the Make-out Bandit—

  You know who you are.

  Thanks for all the non-making-out things you do.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Announcement Page

  Also by Cora Carmack

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Nell’s To-Do List

  • Finish studying for adv. biomech.

  • Buy more coffee. Lots of coffee.

  There’s a half-naked man in my kitchen.

  Well, honestly, he’s more like 90 percent naked with just a pair of black boxer briefs that fit very snugly. So snugly in fact that I’m going to round up to 95 percent naked. I make an inelegant squeaking noise, and he starts to turn. Hastily, I try to step back into the shadows of the hallway, but my flip-flop catches funny on the carpet, and I end up dumping all of the books in my arms instead. A big one lands square on my toe, and I grunt while the rest tumble and splay half open at my feet. I close my eyes against the pain in my foot for a few moments, and when I open them again, Naked Man is there in front of me, and he’s just so . . . naked.

  He’s got messy, golden brown hair that falls artfully around his face, and in an attempt not to look him in the eye, I drop to my knees to start gathering my books. But then, instead of looking him in the eye, I’m awkwardly looking him in the groin.

  “Here, let me help.” His voice is deep, and too close, as he kneels beside me. I make a mad dash to pick up my things, and I get everything but my notes spiral. That’s already in his grip, and he holds it out to me.

  “You must be Antonella,” he says.

  I’m glad he said it because I’m not sure I would have been able to remember in the face of all that skin.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  A door opens in the hallway, spilling light toward us, and I hear my roommate call out, “Silas?”

  I look back, and Dylan is rubbing sleepily at her eyes, a Rusk football shirt falling to the middle of her thighs. She sees me and blinks, then looks past me to her boyfriend.

  “Silas! Where are your clothes?”

  He smirks at her, and the look he gives her is smoldering and so better left in private.

  “You’re wearing most of them.”

  Dylan slips around me, and she looks like she’s trying to shove Silas back toward her room, but he doesn’t budge. She blows out an exasperated breath. “Sorry, Nell. I didn’t hear him get up, or I would have made him put on some clothes.”

  “You could give me my shirt back now.” He grins. “If you’re really that concerned.”

  She swats him, and the smack of flesh draws a ridiculous blush to my cheeks.

  “Silas, stop it. You’re going to embarrass her more than you already have.”

  “It’s six in the morning. I didn’t think anyone else would be up.”

  I shrug, not that either of them is looking at me anymore. “I have a test today in biomech. Gonna cram in a little bit more studying this morning,” I say, giving the explanation for which neither of them asked.

  She shoves Silas back toward her door, and this time he moves, catching her wrists and pulling her with him.

  “Silas.” She drags his name out like she’s complaining, but she doesn’t put up much of a fight when he wraps her in his arms.

  Over her shoulder, she calls out, “He’ll be gone in two minutes. I promise.”

  “Fifteen,” Silas counters.

  “Five.”

  “Twenty.”

  “Five, Silas.”

  He groans, and then Dylan’s bedroom door closes with a quiet snick.

  I breathe out slowly, and press my warm cheek against my shoulder since my hands are full. I can only hope that I just turned a subtle pink instead of my usual glaring red.

  Doubtful.

  I cross to the living room sofa, and dump my books down on the coffee table. The pages of a few are bent and folded from the fall, and I spend a few moments righting them. When you find yourself wanting to apologize and soothe a book, that’s when you know you’re a nerd.

  Back in her room, I hear Dylan squeal and shout, “Silas, don’t!”

  Judging by the few thumps and then silence that follows, I’m betting Dylan didn’t win that particular battle.

  I open my notes spiral and pick up the course textbook for my test this morning. The pages of the book are marked with sticky notes (because writing in books is pretty much my definition of evil). The notes have my thoughts and questions crammed into the smallest handwriting I could manage. I flip to where I left off studying last night, and then search for the corresponding chapter in the textbook, but even when I find it, I can’t seem to focus on the words in front of me.

  My head is back in that bedroom that’s not even mine. Not in a creepy way, but just . . . curious. I’ve known Dylan for over two years now, lived with her half that time, and I saw her on plenty of occasions with her long-term boyfriend before Silas, but now . . . things are different. With her ex, I’d never really felt like I was intruding on intimate moments. But now there’s a hallway and a door between us, and I still feel like I’m too close.

  I should have known based on how little I’ve seen Dylan so far this semester and the way she talks about him that this new guy is different, but even so, I never would have been able to predict the palpable chemistry between them. I think back to the moment when he pulled her into his arms. I’m not really one for emotional displays, and I don’t think I’m prone to jealousy, but looking at them was like flying too close to the sun. Like their gravitational pull is strong enough to disrupt everything around them, including my ability to concentrate.

  I didn’t know that there actually were relationships like that. I’d thought it all some gross overexaggeration by writers and movie studios and marketing executives looking to cash in on people’s gullible need for affection. I live in a world of facts and figures and equations, but Silas and Dylan . . . as hard as it is to admit, something about them goes beyond logic. Together, they’re greater than the sum of their parts.

  I suppose it’s a good thing that I’m graduating early, in about two months, to be precise. Because my instincts tell me I’d be looking for a new roommate soon if I weren’t.

  It’s twenty-one minutes before Dylan’s bedroom door opens, and the two of them return, fully dressed with hair damp from what I’m guessing was a shared shower. My roommate looks sheepish, and the wicked look on her boyfriend’s face makes me think of my nonna’s lectures about the tempting beauty of Lucifer.

  Somehow I don’t think Dylan would appreciate me comparing Silas to Satan, even if the strict Catholic upbringing I received in my family didn’t quite take with me.

  I keep my head down and focused on my books as the two of them say good-bye at the door. There are some definite kissing noises, a few giggles, and a low murmur of words I’m glad I can’t hear. I should be a
ble to ignore them, but for a reason I can’t quite identify, I’m hyperaware of the two of them wrapped up together in my peripheral vision.

  Even when the door closes and Silas is long gone, there’s still a strange otherness in the room, like their relationship leaves behind specters to taunt single people with their glowing happiness. It doesn’t help that Dylan is still leaning against the door, her eyes sort of glazed over and her lips lifted in a smile. Huh. That must be what really good sex looks like. Note to self.

  “So . . .” I say. “That seems . . . serious.”

  She floats over to the couch so serenely, I actually check to make sure her feet are on the ground. She sits next to me and pulls her legs up onto the couch to wrap her arms around her knees.

  “It is. It really is.”

  “And you don’t think that’s fast?” I ask. They’d only known each other for a few months, and they had been kind of together but kind of not. Then they had some kind of split at the beginning of the school year before they worked things out. As far as I can tell, they’ve only officially been together for around two weeks.

  She laughs. “Oh, it’s incredibly fast. But it was never going to be any other way with him. He’s an all-or-nothing kind of guy.”

  “And you’re good with . . . all?”

  Dylan’s eyes meet mine, and something twists in my stomach. Maybe I am a little bit envious. But not of the guy or even the relationship . . . more of the ability to have such a relationship. After a few completely bland liaisons over the years, I’ve decided that I just don’t have that thing in me that lets people fall in love. Nonna says I’m picky. Dad says I’m stubborn. Mom thinks I just need someone who’s as smart as I am.

  I say I’m better equipped for ideas than emotions.

  I can’t picture myself in a satisfying relationship, period, let alone one that forms and flourishes in a matter of weeks. If I were Dylan, the prospect of all would freak me out.

  “I can’t really put it into words,” she says. “At least not ones that don’t sound cliché, but I’m okay with choosing it all with Silas because not to do so feels like I’m wasting time. I don’t know, being with him just feels . . . inevitable. In the best way. And to slow things down or box them in just doesn’t feel natural, you know?”

  I nod my head even though I do not, in fact, know.

  “I am sorry, though,” she continues, “about not giving you a heads-up before bringing him over. You stayed so late at the library, and there were a bunch of people at his house, so we came over here for some privacy. We both meant for him to leave, but we fell asleep. I promise I’m not going to turn into one of those roommates who practically moves in their significant other.”

  I nod again, and I believe her. Dylan is a fantastic roommate, and she has a tendency to put all others above herself . . . to a fault.

  “How about I make you breakfast as an apology? Brain food and all that jazz.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “It’s not a big deal. I was going to make something for me anyway. I’ll just make extra.”

  She stands and lopes off to the kitchen. I should leave it at that and get back to my studying, but there’s something bugging me, and I can’t resist the urge to dig a little. Curiosity and cats and all that jazz. Following Dylan, I lean on the wall just outside the kitchen and watch as she pulls out pans, bacon, eggs, and utensils.

  “You seem different,” I say. “Happier. Not that you seemed sad before, but . . .” I trail off, not exactly sure what she was before. She’d always appeared perfectly content, intelligent, outgoing even. From the outside, her life had looked damn near perfect. So either there was something I didn’t know, or this Silas guy is the superhero version of a boyfriend.

  Or again . . . maybe the sex really is that good. Perhaps she’s just drowning in an overabundance of endorphins.

  “I am happy. Happier.” She grins to herself as she sets about cooking breakfast. “Have you ever been certain you knew something only to be proven completely wrong?”

  I think for a moment. “Not in recent memory, no. I don’t usually think in terms of certainties until I’ve tested a theory multiple times.”

  “I’m not talking about science or math, Nell. I mean . . . about yourself. Have you ever thought one thing about your life only to change your mind?”

  “There was a period in middle school where I thought white eyeliner was flattering.”

  She laughs. And I’m glad for it because her words don’t sit right in my stomach. Because there is something I’ve been questioning lately. Or more accurately, stubbornly refusing to allow myself to question even when I want to.

  “Suffice it to say,” she continues, “I thought I could be happy living just with my head as a guide. That if I made other people happy and accomplished my goals, that would fulfill me. But I never dreamed how much I was missing out until my heart got involved. It’s the little things . . . like going to Silas’s games and attending parties and meeting new people and acting spontaneously. I feel like I wasted the last two years of college trying to grow up too fast, and now I’m playing catch-up.”

  I frown. “If you’ve wasted the last two years, what does that say about me?”

  I’d put my time to good use. Not many people our age can say they’re going to graduate college after only two and a half years. Granted, I came in with a ton of hours from AP tests and summer courses and the like, but no one could say I squandered my time here.

  I’d meant the question rhetorically, but when she remains silent with her gaze carefully directed away, I reconsider my words.

  “You think I am wasting my time?”

  Her reply is slow and careful. “I think that you and I were a lot alike.”

  “Were?”

  “Are. You and I, we both have a tendency to focus on achievements, on checking items and goals off a list. And what I’m realizing is that living isn’t about what you achieve, but how you achieve it. We’ve both moved full speed ahead toward the things we want, but I know I hadn’t lived enough to really know what I wanted. In fact, I was spectacularly wrong about most of it.”

  “And you think I’m wrong, too?”

  Damn. Those questions I’m not allowing myself to formulate? It’s a lot harder not to ask them when someone is basically asking them for you.

  “No, I’m not saying that. I can’t know that. Only you can.” She pauses, and her gaze is speculative. “All I’m saying is college is a time to experiment. If you were trying to solve some equation or test a theory, you wouldn’t only look at it one way. You would evaluate all possibilities, explore different methods, study every variable. So maybe you should look at your time here as an opportunity to explore. Trial and error. Especially since you’re graduating early. Because once you finish here and move on to grad school, I don’t know how many opportunities you’ll have left.”

  I have to admit . . . she has a point. If I am anything, it is meticulously thorough. But I haven’t done that here. I picked biomedical engineering, I put my head down, and I got to work. There’s been no exploring or experimenting of any kind. In my classes and labs, I would never choose a predetermined outcome and railroad my study to meet that expected end. That’s not reasonable. It’s not . . . smart.

  “So, what?” I say. “I should get drunk and dance with a lampshade on my head?” That’s certainly not any smarter than how I’ve behaved so far.

  She pauses in her cooking to laugh, and then laugh some more. “That is . . . not something I ever thought I’d picture. No, you don’t have to do a drunken lampshade dance. Unless you feel like it, then have at it. I just think you should step outside your routine, do some of the normal college things.”

  What does that even mean?

  I frown for a moment, and then point back into the living room.

  “I’m going to study.”

  Except I don’t.

  Instead, I sit down on the couch, and I think about what I’m not supposed to be
thinking about. Two months until graduation. Two months until I’m done with college.

  Granted, I have a research job lined up for the spring semester, and I’m applying for grad schools for next fall, but even knowing I’ve got a lot of education still ahead of me, there’s something so final about it.

  College is this one big transitional period, and when it’s over you’re supposed to have transitioned. You’re not just an adult in age, but in experience. But the thing is . . .

  I don’t feel any different.

  I don’t feel like someone about to embark on the first steps of her career.

  I don’t feel any different than I did the first day I set foot on campus.

  I’ve learned a lot certainly. My high school science and math teachers can’t hold a candle to the kind of stuff I’ve been exposed to here. But me—the me that is not what I’ve read in books or memorized for class or learned in a lab—that girl has hardly changed at all in my two-plus years here.

  And in my quiet moments, when my brain is not occupied with some problem or study, I wonder if I’m ready. And what happens if I’m not?

  Thinking of Dylan’s words, I flip to a new page in my spiral, grab a pen, and write.

  NORMAL COLLEGE THINGS

  I stare at the letters scrawled across the top of the page and think about how Dylan has changed in the past few months, about the “normal” that she found. Then I write down the first item on my list.

  Hook up with a jock.

  I stare at those three words, and I laugh. They’re just so far outside the realm of my existence that I can’t even picture it. Besides . . . it’s not as if athletes have this magic ability to turn girls’ worlds upside down.

  And it’s not as if a guy is the thing solely responsible for making Dylan happier. It was her choices, whatever weird enlightenment she experienced. The guy was just the catalyst.

  Maybe that’s all I need, too. I could try some new things, step out of the realms of my knowledge and comfort. Maybe it will rocket me forward into some previously unknown future.

  Or more likely it will show me that I was right all along. That I know who I am and what I want, and all these doubts are just my brain balking at change.