Getting Him Back by K. A. Mitchell Page A

location, none of us were looking at the lake.
    “I call foul,” Whitney said, tapping a highlighter on her psych text even harder than she’d been for the past half hour. “You’ve known about this prime boy-watching spot all this time and you’re only telling us now?”
    It did seem like most of the more attractive males on campus passed through the three-way intersection ten yards from our blanket. The third branch led toward the library and the El.
    “I just found it.” Which was sort of true. I’d picked it because I could cover the most likely route Wyatt would take going to or from his dorm.
    “Oooh, him.” Whitney pointed with her highlighter.
    “Kind of schlubby,” Makayla said.
    “Grad student probably.” I’d noticed they all looked harried and sleep-deprived.
    “Not him. He’s passing the lamppost now.”
    I looked. Medium build, brown skin, cute face, jeans and a V-neck T-shirt. His eyes swept over us, then stopped on me. He held my gaze for a second, looked away and then a quick glance back. He never broke stride.
    “For who?” I asked.
    “Me,” Whitney said.
    “Sorry. Gay.”
    “Why didn’t I have you around in high school?” Makayla rolled into a sit up. “Would have saved me so much time and effort.”
    “How can you be sure?” Whitney was still watching him. She looked for my phone. “Grindr?”
    “Don’t need it. We totally just did each other.” There was nothing like being clocked by a cute guy to bring some confidence back.
    Makayla and Whitney looked at each other in confusion while I smirked in my best imitation of Wyatt.
    “Whatever.” Makayla shrugged. “What about him?”
    In between grading the doability of the guys who went past our intersection, we did some studying. Whitney complained that she’d heard her psych prof had questions on the footnotes. Makayla showed me something that worked with parabolas, but that was only a small part of my problems. Makayla couldn’t remember anything about the wave velocity I was trying to figure out.
    “Makayla, artsy one coming for you, three o’clock.” Whitney interrupted us.
    I knew him immediately. He was wearing the Coborn hoodie I’d bought him, though he had the sleeves shoved up. The sunshine and boring subject had made me drowsy, but seeing Wyatt headed down the path from the library jolted me like a triple espresso. Everything hit at once, him stroking my hair, what he sounded like when he came, how it felt to be inside him, what his real smile looked like.
    And how it had felt to come back to that empty bed.
    “Not my type.” Makayla barely glanced up.
    “He is mine.” I hadn’t meant it to come out like that, with such a hard edge, but it did. Both girls turned to look at me.
    “Ha. Was that who was helping you drive the bed frame against the wall last night?” Makayla jabbed at me with a mechanical pencil.
    Even the hot flood of embarrassment didn’t stop me from watching him. He didn’t do much looking around. I imagined his eyes under his hoodie and hair, staring forward, focused on the obstacles made up of students congregating on the path.
    I’d been hoping Wyatt would come over to us, now I hoped he stayed far away. The last thing he needed was to be the object of Makayla’s curiosity. In fact, the whole plan to come over here had been a colossal mistake. If Blake thought I was clingy, a guy like Wyatt probably thought I was a freaking tumor. Ethan: My Pushy Gay Tumor.
    Maybe it wasn’t too late to vanish behind one of the girls? But a skateboarder came down the path and Wyatt looked up to dodge him. I knew the exact moment he saw me and I cringed. He made it obvious with that disgusted head shake thing.
    Then he waved and kept walking.
    A wave? My shame vanished in a flash of irritation. I had my dick in you last night and you wave ?
    “Aren’t you going to go talk to him? Especially since you made us carry our shit all the way over here?” Makayla asked.
    “No.”
    “But you told