Love, Utley (Love Letters #1)

I’m at the right house. Even if there wasn’t a giant football-shaped flag attached to the porch railing, one of my coworkers described the Football House to me in detail, so I know I’m at the right place.

But when another minute passes and no one comes to the door, I accept that I have to make a decision.

I can ring the doorbell again and again, hoping someone is home. And then I’m the annoying person who woke them on a Saturday morning. Or I can stick the letter in the mailbox and hope someone checks it sooner rather than later.

Maddox and I aren’t supposed to meet until this evening, but I’d hate for him to go to the library looking for me when I’m not going to be there.

Even if he finds the letter tomorrow, I’d hate for him to go one single night thinking I ditched him.

That tightness from before slithers around my rib cage, and my fingers tighten around the piece of paper.

I lift my hand, aiming for the doorbell, but pause.

Maybe no one is even home. The people who live here are all on the HOP U football team, so they could all be at practice or the gym or something. I don’t know what their schedule is like, but I doubt they get the weekends off.

A clock ticks loudly in my mind.

I have a bus to catch, and I’m running out of time.

Biting down on my lip, I lower my hand and turn away from the house.

Last night was great. Amazing. A dream.

And I think Maddox feels the same way.

But what if he doesn’t?

What if he just did a good job convincing me?

What if he’s home, and I keep ringing the bell, and I wake him and his house up, and I have to tell him face to face that I’m leaving? Moving home, hours away, but that I still want to have a relationship.

What if I do all that, and he turns me away?

He’d be nice about it.

I don’t think he’d laugh in my face. But it would still be rejection. And his roommates might be there to watch. They might react.

And I don’t know if I could handle that. Not right now. Not with Mom…

I swallow.

It’s not worth the risk.

I turn away from the door and hurry down the front steps and across the yard.

When I pull the mailbox door open, I see a few letters inside. There isn’t a lot of mail, so hopefully that means someone checks it fairly regularly.

Not wanting the mailman to get mad about me hand delivering a letter, I tuck the folded piece of paper between two of the envelopes in the pile.

I wish I had an envelope to put my letter in, but I don’t, so it’s just a piece of paper folded in thirds and taped shut.

Not exactly private, but it was the best I could do.

With one last glance up at the house, I shut the mailbox and turn away.

“That everything?” the bus driver asks, like the two suitcases and three boxes containing all my college dreams weren’t enough.

I nod.