With his mug, ’Han gestured at my shirt. “I’m only wondering if you’re living your slogan.”
Since I’d dressed pretty much in the dark so as not to wake Piper, I hadn’t paid attention to what I had on. Glancing down at my chest, I read “Better living through denial.” Snorting a laugh, I said, “This is about having to leave my bed for stupid-early lifts when I’d rather be snuggled up tight to a stunning woman who knows how to keep me warm.”
“Two syllables, Bax. Re. Bound.” The troubled expression in his eyes gave me a bad feeling as a similar conversation I’d had with Finn weeks ago flitted through my head.
After wrapping the burritos in paper towels, I handed him one and set mine beside my coffee to grab a hoodie off the hook beside the back door. From its clean smell as I tugged it over my head, I figured out I had the luxury of wearing it first for once rather than after Finn borrowed it.
“Look, I get where you’re coming from. After all I had a front-row seat to the mess you were in after Jamaica dumped your ass before the semifinal game.” Holding my coffee and burrito in one hand, I headed to the front door. I shouldered my backpack and stepped out into the frigid darkness of an early February morning. When I slid into the passenger seat of ’Han’s truck, I continued. “But Piper is different. Honest. She’s not using me.”
“Maybe not intentionally—”
“Would you shut the fuck up, already? I’m not her rebound, all right?” Shifting in my seat, I said, “Maybe the first night we hooked up when that asshole wouldn’t leave her alone in the bar, but right now, we’re only in the second quarter of a long game.”
Callahan slowly navigated the fresh snow on the streets. “Does she know that?”
“Yeah.” At least I hoped she did. Staring out at the tracks in the road, I changed the subject. “This.” I pointed to the unplowed street. “This right here is why Coach should move lifting to the afternoons.”
“Riiight. The condition of the streets is why we’re going to be the last ones to the gym today. Not you taking your sweet-ass time rolling out of bed.” His smirk filled the rearview as he checked behind us before turning into the team facility.
Once we were on the benches pressing bars loaded with forty-fives, that word echoed in my head, setting a rhythm that pissed me the hell off.Re-bound. Re-bound. Re-bound. Over and over, until I smashed the bar into the rack with a clang.
“Something I said?” Finn asked as we switched out for me to spot him.
I ran a towel over my face. “Something ’Han said.”
“’Han’s a dick.” Finn smirked as he situated himself under the bar. “But he lit a fire under you. You didn’t even slow down on that last set.”
“Just do your fuckin’ reps, already,” I snarled.
As usual, Finn wanted the last word. “Touchy.” He pulled the bar from the rack and I started counting his reps.
Usually, weight training was my happy place, my meditation where I could zone out as I counted reps, mine and my partner’s. But that seed of doubt Callahan had planted as we left the house kept interfering. By the time I left the gym for my eight o’clock class, I was so amped up I could have blown up an entire offensive line all by myself, like some character in an old cartoon I saw once tossing guys up in the air as he ran the ball through them right on down the line.
Sure, I’d only met her a few months ago, and yeah, nothing had happened outside of hookups until she gave me her number. But she had given me her number—for Christmas. That meant something. After she told me the whole sordid story about her asshole ex and her spoiled little sister, things between us had shifted. I was already all-in with her, but after that first date, I sensed she was all-in with me too.
We’d passed a month of official dating, exclusive dating and had awakened in the same bed together three or four days a week. During the week, we usually stayed at my house. The weekends we spent at hers. Though the boys and I didn’t party as hard outside of football season as we did during it, we did host a rager the week everyone returned to school. Afterward, Piper said she’d rather not wake up to passed-out people downstairs, so I said if one of us was sober enough to drive, we’d stay at her place on party nights. The point was, we’d established a routine, one I was completely on board with.
We were like that. We enjoyed being with each other. Didn’t sound like a rebound to me.
When I arrived home after my last class of the day, I texted my girl. Since it was Thursday, she should have finished up about an hour ahead of me. I expected a quick response as per usual. Once she’d shared her number and we’d started texting, we never left each other hanging. But an hour passed. Then two without a word, and I started to worry.
Rebound. Rebound. Reboundechoed in my head like an earworm.
I tugged at my hair and yelled at the walls of my room. “Would you shut. The. Fuck. Up!”
Snatching my phone from the middle of my bed where I’d tossed it after I’d checked for the seventieth time, I typed out:You okay? Do you need me to pick you upsomewhere?
A sigh of relief gusted out of me when I saw the three little dots at the bottom of the screen. Then they disappeared without a word from her. I stared at my phone, willing her to respond. At last she replied:Can’t see you tonight. Something’s comeup.
Me: Everything allright?
Piper: I’ll catch you this weekend. MaybeSunday.
Me: MAYBE?
Piper: Gottago.
Sunday?Maybeshe’d see me on Sunday? Was she going out of town? Was she in trouble with something? Was she seeing someone else?
