Beautiful Oblivion Read Free Page B

for Christmas, so we now had a nice dinnerware set and a rustic, mahogany-stained coffee table. But the apartment still mostly looked like we’d just moved in, even though I’d lived there going on three years, and Raegan more than one. It wasn’t the nicest property in town, but at least the neighborhood had more young families and single professionals than loud, obnoxious college kids, and it was far enough away from the campus that we didn’t have to deal with a lot of game day traffic.
    It wasn’t much, but it was home.
    My phone buzzed. I rolled my eyes, thinking it was Trenton, and leaned over to check the display. It was T.J.

    Miss you. We should be snuggling in my bed instead of what I’m doing right now.
    Cami can’t talk right now. She’s hungover. Leave a message at the beep. BEEP.
    You went out last night?
    You expected me to stay home and cry myself to sleep?
    Good. I don’t feel so bad, now.
    No, keep feeling bad. It’s really okay.
    I want to hear your voice, but I can’t call right now. I’ll try to call tonight.
    k.
    K? Seems like a waste of a text.
    Work seems like a waste of a weekend.
    Touché.
    I guess we’ll talk later.
    Don’t worry, the groveling will be sufficient.
    I should hope so.
    T.J. was difficult to stay mad at, but he was impossible to get close to. Granted, we’d only been dating for six months. The first three were amazing, and then T.J. was assigned to head this critical assignment. He warned me what it might be like, when we decided to try to make the distance work. It was the first time he’d been put in charge of an entire project, and he was both a perfectionist and an overachiever. But the assignment was the biggest he’d ever worked on, and T.J. wanted to make sure he didn’t miss anything. It—whatever
it
was—was important. As in, if it ended well, he would get a huge promotion. He mentioned one late night that maybe he could get a bigger place, and we could discuss me possibly moving out there the next year.
    I’d rather be anywhere else but here. Living in a smallish college town when you’re not exactly in college isn’t that great. There was nothing wrong with the college. Eastern State University was quaint, and beautiful. I’d wanted to go there for as long as I could remember, but after just one year in the dorms, I had to move into an apartment of my own. Even if it provided a safe haven away from the ridiculousness of dorm life, independence came with its own difficulties. I was down to only a few classes a semester, and instead of graduating this year, I was only a sophomore.
    The many sacrifices I had made to maintain the independence I needed was exactly why I couldn’t resent T.J. for making sacrifices for his—even if I was the sacrifice.
    The bed dipped behind me, and the covers flipped up. A small, icy hand touched my skin, and I jumped.
    “Damn it, Ray! Get your cold, nasty hands off me.”
    She laughed, and hugged me tighter. “It’s already cooled off in the mornings! Kody is scrambling his dozen or so eggs, and my bed is like ice now!”
    “God, he eats like a horse.”
    “He’s the size of a horse.
Everywhere
.”
    “Ew. Ew, ew, ew,” I said, covering my ears. “I did not need that visual this early in the morning. Or ever.”
    “So who is blowing up your phone? Trent?”
    I turned over to see her expression. “Trent?”
    “Oh, do not play coy with me, Camille Renee! I saw the look on your face when he handed you that drink.”
    “There was no face.”
    “There was definitely a face!”
    I scooted back toward the edge of the bed, pushing Raegan until she realized what I was doing and squealed as she fell to the floor with a thud.
    “You are a mean, awful human being!”
    “I’m mean?” I said, leaning over the edge of the bed. “I didn’t toss a girl’s beer just because she wanted her table back!”
    Raegan sat with her legs crisscrossed, and sighed. “You’re right. I was being a huge bitch. Next time I promise