Jett laughed at something Gray said to him. The two brothers were similar in looks and height, as you would expect for brothers, but not necessarily for twins. Although as I watched Jett duck his brother’s playful punch, I did think the universe had been kind to every one of us for not giving usidenticaltwins. Gray was slightly smaller than his brother, his hair cut close to his head, his face more rounded, making his cheekbones not as prominent as Jett’s were. Basically, neither was too shabby to look at. I groaned out loud. Who was I kidding? Both were what my mom would say, “Look twice, ’cause twice is nice,” meaning you would see them and look again to make sure you saw their hotness.
At six-four, Ash stood taller than them both. He played tight end on the team, and due to my love of the game, I knew their stats. Ash’s hair was always messily styled, and in the warm summer afternoon, his guns were out in honor of the sun shining above us. Actually, all three of them were showing the goods today. Even from my spot under the tree, I could see the definition of their muscles, my eyes running over Jett’s heavily tattooed arm. I was not complaining about the view the guys were happily providing.
Still, as I watched them, I wondered how the hell I had ended up being in the same bed asthosemuscles? I had absolutely no recollection of evenspeakingto Jett on Friday night, never mind getting up close and personal. God, I’d been more than up close and personal. My cheeks reddened as my whole body burned at the thought. Despite myself, I shrank down against the tree, trying to disappear. Which was ridiculous considering, from what I knew and had heard from his bed on Saturday morning, Jett was no clearer on who I was or how he had ended up with me either. My ears had been pinned back all of this morning for any gossip involving Jett hooking up with a girl at a party on Friday night. It wasn’t uncommon; the guy was never with the same girl twice, and he didn’t appear to care that he had a reputation as a manwhore.
I had been drunk,sodrunk. I knew I was. Even though I’d only been drunk a few times, that wasn’t my first time where I got wasted and had no recollection of what had transpired. However, I had the uncanny drunken ability to appear completely sober. I’d been told before that I didn’t seem drunk; my words, my actions, my behavior, all were exactly the same as when I was sober. The only thing that was different was that my inhibitions were lower, and I had absolutely no immediate memory of the evening once the alcohol took over.
Which is one of the main reasons me and alcohol didn’t mix. Rarely would I drink if I went to a party. I was happy as the designated driver or sober buddy.
However, on Friday, Mia had been sad because her most current love interest had been promoted tonumero unoon the douchebag list. Mia had a shit track record with guys. She always picked the too handsome, the too-perfect looking, the blinding-white teeth toothpaste model wannabe, whose looks hid that he was less than perfect underneath.
But, in true Mia style, she was never moping about a guy for long. If they pissed her off, she went out and found a new one, and she was so darn friendly and enthusiastic that she ended up with no hard feelings toward her most recent breakup.
I knew all this. We’d been best friends since forever when our moms shared a babysitter to keep costs down.
When Mia said to me on Friday that she wanted to forget the recent number one, she caught me at the right time. I had received another rejection from a publishing company about my short story. No reason given, just the genericthanks but no thanks. I’d been ready to drown my sorrow at a college party. The fact that I’d annihilated my sorrow was perhaps a question for later.
Jett caught my eye again. I’m not sure he haduncaughtit, to be honest. I looked him over curiously, as the idea of me being in bed with him was just so ludicrous. I was close to believing aliens had abducted us both and put us in a sticky situation.
And sticky I had been.
I gulped audibly.
Jett may have used multiple condoms in ourtryst, but I had remnants of a night of passion on my body that left me with no doubt that we had beenactivewith each other. My lower body had ached in a way that I hadn’t expected. I knew the stories of how good Jett Santo was in bed. His bed-hopping expertise wasas legendary as his quarterback skills, and I’d heard the girls in his group gossip about his “blessed” size. After I had finally stopped throwing up on his bathroom floor, I’d ignored his warning and crawled into his shower to clean my skin of sweat, of everything, but mostly ofhim.I’d found my clothes scattered about his room, and I had slowly gotten dressed. It was game day for the Saints; he wouldn’t be returning anytime soon.
His room was clean, neat, almost obsessively so. It was bigger than my bedroom, but then it would be. The Santo brothers were legacies. This college was named after them after all, Cardinal Saints College. Their “dorm” house was an old plantation style white building with numerous rooms, which stood proudly among the trees at the edge of the sprawling college grounds.
As I had looked around Jett’s room, I’d realized that the only thing messy was the bed, which I’d tried to avoid looking at, but eventually I’d approached the wide double bed and saw the evidence of our night. The faint bloodstain on the sheets marked the end of innocence, in body if definitely not in spirit.
Over the weekend, flashes of us together began to seep through, beginning to fill in the blanks. Slowly, I remembered his touches, his kisses, his lips, which had been . . . everywhere. My cheeks heated even more as I watched him now making his way to the cafeteria, completely oblivious to who I was and what we had shared.
I lost my virginity in a night of drunken sex with a guy I disliked, and I only had a fuzzy recollection of what had happened.
Some girls said they wished they could forget their first time. The irony was that I really wished I could remember mine.
Chapter 2: Jett
“Santo. My office, now!”
All three of us turned to the coach, and I saw him huff out a frustrated sigh as his eyes met mine. “You. Now.”
“What the fuck’s up his ass?” Gray asked as he watched our coach disappear into his office.
“Who knows,” I answered as I bent to pick up my book bag. “I knew Monday mornings with him would be a bad idea,” I grumbled as I started to make my way to the office. Glancing over my shoulder, I looked back at the two of them with a grin. “Wait for me, I’m starving.”
Ash nodded as he sat back down and pulled out his phone, content to wait. Gray scowled, but I saw him sit beside our cousin as I turned back to walk into the office.
“Coach,” I greeted as I closed the office door behind me. He sat behind his huge desk, which seemed to take up the whole space of the room. Accolades, certificates, and pictures of past stars littered his walls. I found the room almost suffocating each time I was in here. It felt crowded, and every time I left the office, I would take a deep breath as if I could finally breathe again. Coach Bowers was a small, thin man, clean-shaven, with thick dark hair peppered with silver, small beady eyes, and a heavily lined forehead because he was constantly frowning. He had been the football team’s coach for six years and was perpetually pissed off because we had yet to achieve a championship victory.
However, he was confident that he had the winning combination this time with me, my brother, and Ash. I’d heard him tell my father that the reason he stuck with the college was because he had been promised the Santo boys. I was a quarterback, Gray a running back, and Ash a tight end; we basicallywerethe Cardinal Saints’ offense, and according to Coach, we were all he needed to make the championships. Ourdefense was also shaping up to be shit-hot, and already our freshman year had progressed us further in the league than the football team had done for years. Coach was sure we would be lifting that trophy before our senior year, and I was in full agreement with him. In this, we shared an understanding as we had the same goal.
The three of us trained relentlessly. We would play in the NFL, hopefully drafted to the same team, but the odds of that were slim. However, all three of us were aiming for the draft, and each of us working together was how we were going to get there.
Coach Bowers looked at me, and I felt a moment of confusion as to why he looked so pissed off this time.
“You’re not stupid, Jett,” he began, and I knew that was more rhetorical than an actual question. “You have a perfect four-point-oh average, so I know you have the smarts. You’re ambitious, you train as hard as anyone on this team. You’re a leader, I see that when you’re training. You motivate this team, which is why you are captain.”
“Coach?” I could feel the unspokenbut.
