I hide my displeasure behind another sip. I don’t want to rock the boat, being the new guy here, but assholes like him raise my hackles. Bo catches my eye and shakes his head slightly.
Okay, so there’s something deeper at play here. I take the cue to back off. “Anyone going to cut me in?”
Darryl grabs the deck of cards and shuffles them sloppily. “She’s a stubborn whore bitch, Fletch. You don’t want to fuck with that.”
Shit. We’re doing this.
“Hey,” I say. The edge of seriousness in my tone must be evident, because Fletch freezes halfway to reaching for his beer, and Demarius looks up from his phone. “I don’t know what things were like around here before me, but on my team, we respect women.”
Darryl opens his mouth. I put up my hand to stop whatever stupid shit he’s going to say next.
“Even if she’s your ex and you think she did you wrong.” I look him right in the eyes. “You got that?”
Darryl glances around the group, rolling his eyes. “Got what, exactly?”
“Need me to repeat myself?” I set my beer down, deliberately slow, and lean back in my seat. “You should know I don’t like saying the same thing twice.”
Darryl stands. His shoulders are set, his fair face flushed with anger. On the field, I’m going to have to watch to make sure our competitors don’t bait him with the wrong taunt. He’ll draw penalties with a temper like this. “You got something to say to me, you tell me to my face. Don’t tip-toe around, Callahan, it’s not cute.”
I stand too. Maybe it’s dumb, but I’m pleased I have at least two inches on the guy. I lean in close, until we’re almost touching. “Fine. Call a girl—any girl—a name like whore or bitch again, and I’ll fuck you up.”
He scoffs. “Like you’d fight me.”
“I won’t fight you.” I look around at our teammates, who are hanging on every word of this interaction like we’re WWE heavyweights in the spotlight. “But I won’t throw to you.”
The threat practically echoes around the room. Sure, I won’t punch him, even if he deserves it. But if I make him invisible on the field? That’s worse than being sidelined. Darryl knows it, I know it, and so does every guy in this room.
“Oh shit,” Demarius says. “He’s serious.”
“You can’t do that,” Darryl says. “I’m one of the best receivers on this team. You need me.”
“You think I can’t?” I tilt my head to the side. “Why do you think Coach recruited me? To be a good little soldier or to be a fucking leader?”
Darryl’s mouth snaps shut.
I glance around at the rest of the boys. “What do you think? Why am I spending senior year here?”
“To win us a fucking national championship,” Bo says.
“Yeah,” says Fletch. “National champs or bust.”
I snap my fingers as I point over to him. “Exactly. And if you want that, you play by my rules. You got that?”
My demand hangs in the air for a long moment. I can hear the music in the background, thumping the beat into the walls. This is the make-or-break moment. Not what I expected it to be, but here it is, and if I don’t get the boys on board now, this season is going to be hell.
Then Bo says, “Hell yeah,” and everyone else is nodding and voicing their assent. Someone claps my shoulder, but I don’t tear my gaze away from Darryl, who is looking very much like he wishes he could take a swing at me.
“Got it,” he says finally. He shoulders past me roughly, heading out of the room.
Christ, I feel bad for the girl that had the misfortune of dating him.
4
BEX
I stand in the corner, watching as Laura dances with her boyfriend, Barry. They’re in the honeymoon stage again after yet another “maybe we’re done” conversation, and honestly, there’s a real possibility of frottage happening in front of half the party. As it is, they’re grinding and making out like they can’t see the other dancers, the spirted beer pong game taking place across the dance floor, or the game of strip poker spilling over from the next room.
I’m about three seconds from ripping off my stupid halo and bolting out into the humid August night.
Darryl arrived a while ago, accompanied by half of McKee’s football team. He didn’t spot me; fortunately, I was in the corner, chatting with some of the girls I’m friends with through Laura. But even though he made his way further into the house, into one of the other rooms filled to the brim, I can feel his presence.
Last year, feeling his closeness, even when we weren’t right by each other, was one of the best parts of dating. I could look across the room and find his eyes on me, even when he was talking to his friends. Whenever I went to one of his games, there would be a moment where he looked back into the stands, somehow found me, and winked.
His attention set my skin on fire in a good way. Now? My skin is still on fire, but out of annoyance and embarrassment.
I shouldn’t have come tonight.
I don’t know which is worse, dreading the moment his drunken ass will try to sweet-talk me back into bed, or seeing him accept the flirtations of some football groupie sorority pledge. I know better than anyone how weak he is for a girl who promises him she’s his biggest fan.
Across the room, the front door opens, and three guys dressed in black suits walk in. Two of them have dark hair; the third’s is blond. He heads into the party right away, and soon one of the dark-haired ones, the one with the beard and a roguish grin, heads to the dance floor with a girl. That leaves the third guy. The one who has my attention. Unlike the guy I’m assuming is his brother, he doesn’t have a beard. I can’t stop staring at his perfect jawline, the way his thick hair curls over his forehead. He’s tall and obviously built, and the way he looks around… it’s like he notices every detail.
Including me.
I swallow, trying to act casual, as I feel his gaze on me. Then Bo Sanders, one of Darryl’s teammates, goes over to say hi to him. Is he a football guy, then? He must be new, since I don’t recognize him, and I spent a lot of time with the team last season.
I down the rest of my warm beer and make my way through the dance floor. Someone stomps on my foot, which knocks me back into Laura. She giggles, gripping me in a tight hug. “Bex! Aren’t you having the best time!”
Barry presses another drink into my hands. “It’s cold!” he shouts unnecessarily.
This beer is blessedly less lukewarm, so I take a gulp. Laura kisses me on the cheek, her arms still wrapped around me, swaying us in a circle. I can smell her signature orange blossom perfume along with the beer on her breath.
“Hey,” I say. “I’m going to head out.”
Her lips, still somehow perfectly black with matte lipstick, curve into a pout. “What? No way! We’re just getting started!”
“Darryl’s here.”
“Darryl?” she says loudly. “Where?”
My stomach pinches in on itself. I pull her away from the dance floor, back into the shadows. “Stop, you’ll summon him.”
She roots her feet in place and refuses to go another step. Even though she’s tipsy, her eyes are clear as she looks at me. “Bex, it’s okay. Don’t tip-toe around him, show him you’re fine.”
My voice cracks as I respond. “But what if I’m not?”
The pain in my words must register to Laura because she throws Barry an apologetic look and drags me off. We go upstairs, past a few different couples in various states of hooking up, and stop in front of one of the doors. Laura pounds on it. Someone shouts at us to go away, but she just jiggles the handle until it swings open, revealing a shirtless dude pulling up his pants and a girl adjusting her braless, backless dress.
“What is your problem?” she shrieks.
“Out!” Laura says with such ferocity they don’t argue. She pulls me inside and makes me sit down on the edge of the tub, locking the door and leaning against it. She blows the hair out of her eyes and takes a deep breath.
“Do you want to get back together with him?” she says.
“No,” I say immediately.
“Do you still love him?”
“God no.”
“Good. Because he’s a jerk. Hooking up with random cleat chasing chicks.”
I grimace. Last spring, I stumbled upon all the sexting, and then the story of his side pieces unraveled, and that had been the last blow in a rapidly unwinding relationship. I met Darryl at a party like this my first semester at McKee, and the prospect of having a real boyfriend for the first time since high school was too tempting to resist. During the football season, it was easy to be with him; he was so busy that he didn’t mind me being busy as well, as long as I went to all the home games. But after the season imploded and the spring semester rolled around, he became clingy, overprotective, and downright annoying—while at the same time cheating on me with a couple of football groupies.