Longing For The Beach Billionaire Daddy
Chapter 71

Shelby

“I think snow is useless after Christmas,” Lin said as she linked her arm with mine.

“I don’t think you get to decide when the snow has to stop,” I laughed as we trudged through the soft downpour leaving our first lecture of the semester.

“Well, I think I should. You know what else I think?” Lin asked.

“Oh no, do I dare ask?” I said in a teasing way,

“I think we head over to that little coffee shop to weather out the storm. We only have an hour and a half before the next lecture starts, and I don’t want to walk all the way back to our apartment,” Lin said.

“I agree with you on that one,” I said, and we immediately changed directions making our way to one of my favorite places on campus.

We walked in the front door, and the warm air inside felt like it enveloped us. The smell of coffee and pastries filled the small shop, and the warm-toned wood walls created a cozy feel in the space. Large, worn-out armchairs dotted the dining space mixed among two-person tables. Each one was filled with students doing homework on their laptops, reading books, or chatting quietly with friends.

I loved the unspoken rule that kept this place from getting too loud. There was always a soft, constant mumble of people talking. The perfect white noise. I’d spent many late nights and early mornings at a corner table studying, and I honestly couldn’t wait to start that again now that a new semester was starting.

“What can I get you two?” the barista asked as we got to the front of the line.

“Two hazelnut lattes, please,” Lin answered for us.

“Actually, make that three,” a voice sounded behind us.

Lin and I both turned around to replace Jerrick Hastings standing there.

“I’ll get these,” he said, setting his credit card on the counter.

“Oh, you don’t–” I started before Lin’s elbow caught me in the rib.

I turned to shoot her a glare, but she ignored me.

“Thanks, Jerrick, that is so nice of you,” Lin said, and all three of us side stepped to the other end of the counter to wait for our drinks.

“It is really no big deal,” Jerrick answered, flashing a smile of perfectly straight teeth.

I hadn’t noticed how nice his smile was the first time we talked. Of course, I was a little preoccupied with Lin emptying her stomach on our shoes.

“It is, though. Really, thank you, Jerrick,” I said, turning to face him.

“Oh s**t, Shelby. What happened to you?” Jerrick asked, lifting his hand as if he was going to brush my cheek before thinking better of it and dropping it down to his side.

It had taken the rest of winter break for the bruise on the side of my face to begin to fade. Now it was a soft shade of brown, which I tried my best to conceal with makeup, but there was still noticeable discoloration.

“Oh, that? I got into a car accident over the break, but it really wasn’t that bad,” I said with a small shrug.

“Don’t let her kid you. She had to stay in the hospital for a few days after the wreck with a horrible concussion. When I saw her after the accident, that whole side of her face was dark purple,” Lin filled in for me.

“Lin,” I huffed in exasperation.

I turned back to Jerrick, who was watching me carefully.

“She is making it sound worse than it was.”

“Well, I’m so sorry, Shelby; I’m glad that you are okay, though,” Jerrick said, just as the barista slid the drinks across the counter to us.

We each grabbed one of the coffees in brown to-go cups with little coffee beans decorating the sides. An awkward silence filled the space among the three of us, so I sipped carefully at the hot liquid.

“Would you like to join us?” Lin asked him, gesturing at a table in the corner that’d just opened up.

“I wish I could, but I have to get to my next class. I’ll see you two around, though,” Jerrick answered.

“Thanks again for the coffee,” I repeated.

He said nothing but offered another smile before he walked to the door. After he opened it, he turned one last time to look back at us, smiling again that we were watching him leave. My cheeks burned pink at being caught staring. Lin, however, didn’t seem to mind that we had gotten caught.

“Hot damn!”

“What?” I said with a slightly nervous shake to my laugh.

We took a seat at the empty table in the corner, tuning out the rest of the coffee shop as we did.

“You know exactly what I mean. Jerrick is more than easy on the eyes. I definitely wouldn’t complain if he looked at me like that,” Lin said with a raised eyebrow.

“Lin stop; he didn’t look at me in any sort of way. It’s just because I have this bruise on the side of my face. He was just being nice,” I said, as I sipped my coffee again to keep from rambling.

“If he is just trying to be nice, why have I heard that he’s been asking around campus about you?” Lin stated, with her ‘I win’ smile.

“He has not!” I quipped.

I felt slightly guilty that my stomach did a somersault at Lin’s words. I needed to quickly stomp that down before I did something stupid. I wasn’t ready yet to think about anyone romantically yet, and I wasn’t sure when I would be.

“Oh, but he has. Maybe it would be good for you to go for it. You know what they say. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” Lin offered like she was quoting Gandhi.

“Lin, no one says that but you,” I said with a sigh.

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“That also doesn’t mean that you are right. I’m just not ready for anything like that right now. It’s only been a couple of weeks. I’m just coming to terms with the fact that my relationship with Michael is really over. Everything happened so fast and out of nowhere,” I said, looking down at the coffee cup in my hand.

“I know this has been really hard on you,” Lin’s tone changed from teasing to caring. “Has he reached out to you since everything happened?”

“No. It isn’t like he can with my new phone number,” I said, even though I knew if he wanted to get in contact with me, he would replace a way.

I hated to admit that the fact he hadn’t tried to reach out to me still stung. However, even if he did reach out, I wouldn’t have anything to say to him. I’d run through the night of Christmas Eve in my head over and over again. I tried to come up with what I should’ve said in response.

Some nights, I lay in bed thinking of all the things I should have screamed at him that night, but in the end, I always realize that nothing I could’ve said would’ve made me feel any better or made this breakup any easier.

“I don’t want him to reach out. It’s best that I just move on from that point in my life. It’ll take some time to feel okay again, but until then, I just want to focus on school and getting that internship at Brunnings and Hawthorne,” I said with finality, eyes stuck on my cup still.

Lin reached over and squeezed my hand, “You will be okay.”

I looked up and smiled at my best friend. She always knew exactly when she needed to bring her soft side out, and I was immensely grateful for her.

“We should go,” I said, picking up my to-go cup. “I want to get a good seat.”

“Only you worry about getting a front-row seat to a lecture,” Lin said with a soft laugh.

“Well, I hate when we have to sit in the very back of the lecture hall. Those kids who sit back there don’t pay attention, and I don’t want the professors to think I’m a slacker,” I said, linking my arm back into Lin’s as we braced ourselves to go back out into the snow.

“I promise you, Shelb, no one thinks that you are a slacker.”

“Hey, I have to do all that I can to get that internship,” I said.

“You’ll get it, and everyone knows it. You are the only one who really deserves that spot,” Lin replied, trying to bolster my confidence.

“Yeah, unless someone can use their daddy’s money to swoop in and take it from me,” I retorted, thinking back to Jerrick and wondering if his father really would use his money to get his son the internship. When we’d met in Hawaii, his father didn’t seem like that kind of person, but you never knew what people were willing to do for their kids.

We shuffled into the lecture hall, taking our seats at the very front of the class. Lin and I made small talk while our classmates slowly meandered in, replaceing their own seats. Just as Lin finished telling me about a party that she heard about the following weekend, the lecture hall went silent.

I looked up to see what caused the commotion. A tall girl had just walked in the door; her tight skirt and blazer clung to her every curve. I could understand why everyone stopped to figure out who it was. She’d turned to greet the professor standing at the podium, so all I could see was the back of her head, blonde curls falling in ringlets down her back.

Even without seeing her face, I knew immediately who it was.

“Is that?” Lin asked without finishing her entire question.

My jaw fell in shock. What was she doing here? She turned, facing the entire lecture hall, and there was no mistaking exactly who it was.

“No way!”