Breathless #2 (The Breathless Romance Series - Book #2) by Claire Adams Page A

could ask without betraying my total lack of knowledge. I didn’t even really
know where he was playing, what school our team was up against.
    So sitting in class, I sent Johnny a text. Hey, babe, thinking of you! How many days
until you come back to me? I kept my phone in my lap and waited throughout
the rest of class to hear from him; I got a buzz that nearly made me jump out
of my seat—a totally unrelated text message from one of my high school friends,
sharing an inside joke we’d had. I tried not to be disappointed, but I couldn’t
help but feel like I would rather my friend have thought of the joke after I’d
heard from Johnny. I forced myself not to text Johnny again. I was not going to
be the kind of girl who couldn’t trust her boyfriend when he was away from
home. Is he even my boyfriend? The
thought shocked me. I realized that I had been taking things much more
seriously than anything that had happened gave me any right to do.
    I somehow managed to get my notes written down, and I
absorbed maybe one word out of every five that the professor said in the
lecture, and I knew that it was going to be just as bad as it was my first
week. It had been so much easier to deal with when everything had been good and
I had had no knowledge of Johnny having anything like a past. I had had a brief
moment of complete ability to concentrate on my work, on the classes I had. I
would have to work harder. I would have to put any thoughts about Johnny—good
and bad alike—aside whenever I was in class, or I would doom myself to failing
half my classes; I would never have to worry about my English or Writing
classes, and Introduction to Academic Life I would have to put actual effort
into failing in order not to pass. But Math, and a couple of the other required
freshman classes, I would absolutely have to learn how to pay attention.
    I tried not to read anything into the fact that Johnny
hadn’t replied to me as the class ended; if the bus was full of rowdy college
boys, if they were all hanging out and roughhousing on their way to their away
game, then he probably wouldn’t have heard my text or even noticed it. He
probably wasn’t even thinking about his phone at all.
    I reminded myself that we weren’t even technically
serious—we’d had one real date, and just because I’d slept with him and just
because he’d told me it meant something to him, it didn’t mean that he even
considered himself my boyfriend yet. Let’s
be real, he’s a frat boy and an upperclassman, I thought bleakly. Hold onto him for a month if you can and
then you can start worrying about whether or not he’s your boyfriend. I
scolded myself for thinking more about Johnny than he really deserved after
only knowing him for a couple of weeks at the most; he probably wasn’t thinking
about me at all—and I couldn’t be mad at him for that. It wouldn’t be fair to
him to expect him to be as involved as I was—not when he’d probably been with a
slew of girls. I didn’t mind the idea of him being with other women before me,
as long as he wasn’t with them still. I remembered the nasty girl from the
dining hall and the party telling me that Johnny was a well-known player.
    I had just about convinced myself that I wasn’t going
to even think about it anymore as I was walking across campus, headed back to
the dorms. I’d eat a snack, maybe watch some TV and get some studying done, and
then I would see if there was any way that I could find out when Johnny would
be back. I was thinking that there had to be a way to ask Johnny what his
connection was to this Claire White girl without making him think I was being
nosy or accusing him. As far as I knew, the girl was just trying to scare me
off of a guy she had privately decided was “hers.” I started feeling better,
thinking that I would just ignore her comments and move on with my life; I
would have to get used to girls being petty and jealous about Johnny.
    I spotted the girl from the dining