The day Theresa Campbell walked into his life, Brian Littrell was having a red-letter day. He’d just finished the last final of his senior year of college, found out that he’d snagged the title of valedictorian with or without the grades from his finals, and his dream job had landed in his lap that morning. After graduation and a well-earned stint on the infamous booze cruise, he was headed to Boston and a job at the Globe. He was finally going to be the renowned, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist that he’d always dreamed of becoming. And the Globe was going to be the first step on his way.
The sun was shining, the leaves were a brilliant green on the trees, and the warm May weather had brought out shorter sleeves, shorts, and anticipation for the end of term buzzed through the air. As much as most of the students loved their tiny school at the foothills of the Rockies in western Colorado, they were eager for freedom from academia, too.
Brian bounced along down the main thoroughfare of campus with his best friends, Alex and Charlotte. He could barely contain his excitement at everything that had happened to him already that day, and his friends were patient enough to listen to everything he said—even when he’d already repeated it five times.
“We’re good friends,” Charlotte muttered to Alex and received a wink and grin in response.
Brian didn’t see or hear the exchange as he dribbled a basketball ahead of them and chattered a mile a minute about anything and everything. When he finally took a breath, Alex interrupted. “So have the two of you heard about President Campbell’s family coming to Commencement?”
“Are you kidding?” Charlotte stole the ball from Brian and made a face as he scowled at her. “It’s all the deans and professors will talk about. Apparently, his wife is the President at some big school back East.”
“NYU,” Brian supplied. “She’s the President at NYU, and I think it’s kind of cool that he wants our school to impress her. If she talks about Duray at some of those bigshot conferences, it’ll bring much-needed publicity our way. Duray would finally be known on the top levels.”
Charlotte twirled the ball on her fingertip and rolled her eyes. “Duray’s already well-known. I mean, come on, Bri. Didn’t the Boston Globe guy say one of the reasons he hired you was because he’d heard of Duray’s rep in producing incredible journalists?”
Brian’s blue eyes narrowed in concentration for a moment before clearing. “Yeah. Yeah, he did. Either way, though,” he continued, “it couldn’t hurt.”
Alex slipped the ball away from Charlotte and tugged on her curly fall of hair. “Neither could all the really good, really free food that’s bound to be around while the Campbells are here.”
Brian dropped his bag at the foot of a giant boulder and hitched himself onto it. “Do you think of anything but food?”
Alex grinned and patted his nonexistent belly, brown eyes sparkling. “Occasionally. Food is life, Brian. Why think of anything else? Right, Char-Char?”
Charlotte rolled eyes of a shade caught somewhere between gray and green. Plopping onto the boulder next to Brian, she gave Alex a hand up. “I don’t know how you do it, Alex. With all the food that goes into you, you should weigh three hundred pounds.”
“What can I say?” Alex pulled out a can of Pringles from his bag amid groans from the other two. “It’s good metabolism.”
“Maybe you could pass some my way,” Charlotte joked.
Brian nudged her. “What are you talking about? You’re just as bad as he is. Do I have to remind you of how you pack away as much as he does?”
“I run track. It keeps all the food from sticking to my ass.” She patted her bottom affectionately. “Alex doesn’t do any of that, and he’s still okay.”
Brian simply shook his head and lay back on the rock, his head cushioned by his arms. “Today couldn’t get any better, guys. Finals are over, I got valedictorian, and the Globe gave me a job. In one week, we’ll graduate and start our great lives.”
“Together,” Alex added.
“Together,” Charlotte and Brian echoed in agreement.
As they sat in the midday sun atop their favorite boulder on campus, Brian could nearly see the way his life was going to be. He’d start work at the Globe in a few weeks, find a great apartment in Boston, and become the cosmopolitan urbanite that he’d secretly always dreamed of becoming. In the meantime, he’d be able to see Charlotte whenever she had a little free time at Harvard Law, and Alex would fly out whenever he could to see them. Of everything that would happen in the coming years, the only dark spot Brian could see was the fact that Alex had been hired by a consulting firm in Denver and would be thousands of miles away from he and Charlotte. The trio had been together since their first day of freshman English at Duray. They’d clicked over a mutual dislike of James Joyce. Since then, a lot had happened, but their friendship hadn’t changed.
Stronger, Brian corrected himself. It had changed, but only because he knew it was stronger today than it had been four years ago.
“Can you believe it’s been nearly four years since we first met?” he asked the other two as he balanced himself on his elbows.
Charlotte flipped a page in the catalogue Harvard had sent her before glancing up at Brian. “It feels like I’ve known you forever.”
“A lifetime,” Alex agreed. “Imagine if we’d known each other from elementary school.”
“It’d be the same,” Brian decided. “We’d just have more memories. Like the time Charlotte’s bathing suit fell off in the surf when our families would have gone to the beach together.”
She swatted him with the book. “Why my bathing suit? Alex is the skinny one. I bet his trunks fell off really easily, and you and I had the time of our lives laughing at him.”
“How about the time Brian tripped on the chair leg and fell, face-first, into his tenth birthday cake?” Alex suggested, getting into the game.
“Ugh. Food again?” But Brian was grinning. “Like I said, it would’ve been the same, but with more amusing memories.”
Charlotte stuck her book in her bag before resting her elbows on Brian’s chest. “We’ve had plenty of great memories either way. And we’ll keep having them, whether it’s in Boston or Denver.”
“Absolutely.” Brian flicked one of her curls off his nose where the wind had blown it.
The sound of a throat clearing had the three sitting up straight and looking down. The President Campbell that they’d been speaking of now stood staring up at them expectantly. He was a tall, formidable-looking man in his mid-fifties. His nearly black hair had liberal streaks of white running through it, and his dark brown eyes studied the trio as they slid off the boulder looking like children who’d just been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
When they stood in front of him, waiting, he smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to yell at you.”
Brian grinned and dramatically wiped a hand over his brow. “Well, whew! That was a close one. You really had us going there, Mr. Prez.”
“I do what I can to instill a healthy amount of respect into the students here,” Campbell replied with a smile. “I hear congratulations are in order for you, Brian.”
“I could hardly believe the news myself,” Alex joked. “I mean, who would’ve thought our little Brian would grow up to be the valedictorian and get a job at the Boston Globe?”
Campbell held out a hand and clasped Brian’s. “I did. It’s been a pleasure watching all three of you,” his gaze swept over Charlotte and Alex, “grow and have wonderful experiences here at Duray. Now, it’s time for us to unleash you upon the rest of the world, knowing you’ll do wonders wherever you go.”
Brian shook his hand. “Thanks, President Campbell. Really, that means a lot coming from you.”
“Yeah,” Charlotte and Alex echoed.
Before Campbell could reply, another voice interrupted them. “Dad?”
Campbell turned, and Brian’s eyes fell upon the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Chocolate brown eyes framed by a straight fall of black hair outlined a face the color of alabaster. A pixie nose topped a bow-shaped mouth painted a delicate pink. She wore a baby doll-sleeved dress the shade of new leaves, and her expression was a mix of curious and pleasant.
Campbell slid an arm around her shoulder and ushered her into the circle. “Theresa, I’d like you to meet three of my favorite students at Duray. Brian Littrell, Charlotte Winthrop, and Alex McLean. Guys, this is my daughter, Theresa. She just graduated from Vassar.”
While Charlotte and Alex politely greeted Theresa, Brian discovered that his voice had run off on him. He was simply mesmerized by everything about her. The way her hair fell over her shoulder, the way she laughed at something Alex said, or the way her voice sounded when she complimented Charlotte on her earrings. It was as though he’d been struck by lightning, and Brian vaguely wondered when the shock would wear off.
When he did manage to find his voice enough to hold a conversation with Theresa, he missed the way Charlotte narrowed her eyes at the expression on his face and the excited tone of his voice.
All he could see was Theresa.
Author's Chapter Notes:
I really couldn't help myself...I have a whole slew of stories that need to be finished and, yet, here I am starting another one...I really liked the idea behind this one, so I decided to just write it! I hope you enjoy!
