And They Were Roommates(82)

“I’m not cold,” I say through a chatter.

Jasper spikes an eyebrow.

I huff and wrap his suit coat around my shoulders. “You didn’t have to.”

“What are you doing out here?”

I clench my fist against my lap. “I was waiting for you.”

Jasper’s eyes widen, a light breeze fluttering his left-down hair. His rosy cheeks are already turning brighter. “P.M. wished to speak with me. Apologize, rather, for mistakes he hadn’t known he’d made. And explained some others.”

“Like?”

“Well, he believed I wrote better love letters for STRIP than him. Better poetry than him, especially after the popularity I found after he featured me online. And I ranked at the top when he knew he wouldn’t come close.” Jasper’s laugh is sour, in a way that sounds like regret.

I don’t know what to say at first. “None of that’s your fault.”

“This whole time, I thought P.M. was overshadowing me, yet he felt the opposite. So much that he needed to leave Valentine to escape me.”

“Jasper, that’s not true.”

He just shrugs, sniffs in the cold air.

“Well, I’m not leaving Valentine,” I say.

“Pardon?”

“The board of trustees is getting rid of rank requirements for Excellence Scholars. Because you apparently collected a group of people to convince them. Thank you.”

Jasper’s face falls into something so unbelievably warm and genuine—everything I’ve come to know about who he is in the past few months. Years. “Charlie. Charlie, I’m so—” He steps forward, lifting his arms almost into a hug, but then back again like he’s lost.

“Why did you still do that for me?” I ask.

Jasper doesn’t respond.

My mouth opens. Closes. “Can we talk?”

Still nothing.

“Jasper?”

“I’m sorry, but no.”

My heart drops into my toes. After how I reacted last night, maybe I should’ve expected this answer, but admittedly, I didn’t. “Why did you smile at me in the ballroom, then?”

“Because I—” He looks away. “I’m not sure why I did.”

“Not being honest with me anymore?”

Then my breath catches in my throat.

Because there’s a shine to Jasper’s blue eyes now, and it’s not the reflection of the lampposts or the crescent moon. “I don’t want to talk to you, Charlie, because I’m terrified that whatever it is you’re about to say will break my heart again, and I’m not—” He sucks in a shaky breath, and the first teardrop falls. “I’m not sure if I can survive that again. Not when I love you as much as I do.”

The words shatter me. “You love me?”

“I never stopped.”

So many thoughts zoom through me, but one sparkles brightest. If any spotlights were to shine upon Jasper and me for being together here, he’d make sure I never get hurt—we’d get through it together.

How can I keep thinking otherwise?

“I don’t want to break your heart,” I say, rising off the fountain and stepping cautiously toward him. “I made a mistake. That’s what I was waiting here to tell you. I like you.”

That only pulls a bitter smile out of Jasper. He scuffs his dress shoe along the pavement, kicking a gravel chunk. “I know you like me, Charlie.”

“Then why do you think I’ll—?”

“Because you still don’t like me enough to take the risk.”

The words are a wound in my gut, but I still gently take his hand and lead him onto the fountain ledge to sit too. “I am honestly a bit scared. But I don’t want to be. I want you. I don’t know what to do.”

He nods a few times, but his expression doesn’t change.

A speck of white falls between us, and I look up. Snowflakes flutter through the dark sky. The light from the ballroom doors makes each one flicker.

By the time I look down again, Jasper has slipped his hand out of my grasp. He reaches toward my nose and wipes it. “They like your face.”

He likes my face. He told me.

I yearn to lean forward, to touch him and kiss him until we’re both burning in the snow, and make him mine. Jasper always claims that writing helps him release his love and fears. Things can’t be that simple. But Jasper believes so.

“I assume you’re staying at your aunt’s tonight,” I mutter. “But tomorrow. Do you want to write with me?”

Jasper stares. He’s so close that I can pick out every wispy eyelash. “Write?”

“Like we used to. At camp? Come with me to the lake. Noon?”

He takes another shaky breath. Prepares to say no.

“Right,” I say despite the deepening pit in my stomach. “I under—”

“Okay,” Jasper says.

Shock hits me like a punch. It turns to excitement, bursting through me. “Really?”

He nods again. Gradually.

I’ll take it. I’ll take anything. “Okay. Okay! I’ll see you then.”

“Comrade, are you out there?!”

We look to the ballroom, where Blaze is running down the steps, then tripping as his white sheet tangles between his feet. He tumbles and hits the pavement in front of us.