We crowded our way through several screaming fans and out to the tailgate area behind the stadium. With the noise of the game and the people milling around the concessions beneath the seats, my friends had no chance to interrogate me. That all changed once we hit the Alpha Delta Rho tailgate. Saylor was a little sister to the ADRs, so she had free access to their tailgate, which was situated several down the row from the stadium. At this point in the game, it was relatively quiet. Unfortunately.
Chess went first. “Exactly how do you know Wyatt Baxter?”
I’d just taken a sip of my White Claw and made a show of needing to swallow. The shake of her head said she didn’t believe my stalling tactics for a second.
“We’re going to pry it out of you sooner or later, so spill,” Saylor said, a speculative gleam in her eyes.
Sucking in a deep breath, I spilled. “I failed a stats quiz on Thursday.”
“What?” they exclaimed in unison.
The three of us—me, Chessly Clarke, and Saylor Davis—had met freshman year in the dorms and bonded over our mutual nerdiness. While we all wanted to fit in with the cool crowd, we also wanted to maintain our academic scholarships. Probably, I was the first of us to fail anything.
Clearing my throat, I said, “After Phillipa texted me Thursday morning, I couldn’t concentrate.”
“Your sister texted you?” Saylor scrunched her brows. “I thought you blocked her.”
“She borrowed—or stole—our cousin Ben’s phone.” The memory of that text soured the sip of black cherry deliciousness on my tongue. “Anyway, she managed to get in my head, and I blew a quiz. I was feeling sorry for myself and didn’t want to drag you two down with me, so I hit a bar alone.”
Saylor waggled her brows. “And met Wyatt Baxter.”
Hunching my shoulders, I said, “Yeah.”
“I hope he’s not as clueless as his roommate.” Chessly rolled her eyes over the rim of her drink.
A picture of Wyatt plumping my breasts, a happy grin stretching his full lips as I ground myself down on him, flashed through my head. “He’s not even a little bit clueless,” slipped out before I could stop it.
“You don’t mean Callahan O’Reilly?” Mercifully, Saylor’s attention snagged on Chess’s comment, not mine. “If he hurts Jamaica...”
“No. The other roommate, Finn McCabe, but that’s not what’s important here.” Chess narrowed her eyes. “From the dreamy look on your face, Miss Piper, something happened when you met Bax in the bar the other night—without us.” Censure hung on those last two words.
Saylor huffed out a laugh. “Did our girl manage to put herself out there without our help?”
“Let’s just say he made me forget about my sister, my quiz, and my jerk ex-boyfriend flitting around me.”
“Wait. What?” Chessly did a double take. “Charlie was there? What bar did you go to?”
I slumped against the side of the big dually pickup truck making up one side of the ADRs’ tailgate space and fortified myself with another swallow of black cherry alcohol. “The Molly.”
My friends wrinkled their noses in unified disgust.
“Why?” Saylor packed a mountain of disdain into that single syllable.
With a sigh I said, “I thought I’d be anonymous at a bar I never go to and have a quiet cocktail by myself.” I tossed back another mouthful of White Claw. “Turns out, Charlie and his buddies like the place for watching Thursday-night football. Guess I should have paid more attention to what he and his friends liked to do when he and I were still a thing.”
As I sipped my beverage, a roar went up from the stadium followed by the telltale cannon shots that signaled another Wildcats score.
Saylor studied the back of the stadium. “We probably should have stayed to the end of the half. What if Bax scored another touchdown for you and you missed it?” A naughty grin accompanied her words, and I straightened up from my slouch against the pickup.
“It was only a hookup. A one-night stand. For all we know, he was pointing that football at some other person in our vicinity.” My stomach churned at my words, but I ignored it.
Chessly’s eyes took a circular tour of the immediate area. “Oh, please.” Sarcasm dripped from her mouth. “Bax stared directly at you, pointed the ball directly at you, and said ‘For you.’ before the rest of the defense mobbed him. Don’t act like we didn’t see it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I shrugged. “It was a one-time-only deal. He made a shitty day a little better and we went our separate ways. End of story.”
“Nah.” Saylor’s knowing tone zinged my eyes to her. “I don’t think it’s the end of the story at all. Not when he’s making big plays and dedicating them to you in front of twenty thousand people on live TV.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she added, “You’re keeping important details to yourself. Obviously, the two of you made an impression on each other.”
I buried my face in my hands. With my attention riveted on Wyatt, I hadn’t even thought about the Jumbotron or the fact that if the stadium videographers had caught that little exchange, ESPN2 might have run it too. If they saw it, I could imagine how well my family and a certain ex-boyfriend would react.Gah!On top of everything else going off the rails in my life at the moment, I did not need to add notoriety to the list.
