“Let me guess. You had a one-night stand with that Emily girl,” I said as we waited for Bax’s truck to warm up enough to defrost the windows.
“Nope. I drunk-kissed her at a party—can’t remember which one—and she made sure that even in my inebriated state I could figure out she was a clinger. I didn’t even try for second base.” He blew on his hands and rubbed them together.
The steam from our breath made it hard for the defroster to keep up, and he revved the engine a couple of times to build more heat.
“Guess that explains why you struggled to come up with her name.” I slid him a sly grin. “Might have been easier to escape if you’d told her you didn’t have a clue who she was.”
“‘Asshole’ is not a reputation I want to cultivate, Finnegan.” His tone had an eye roll in it as he put the truck in gear and took his time pulling out of the icy parking lot. “Good on you to think so fast though. Team-bonding on New Year’s Day even sounded plausible to me.”
Grinning, we fist-bumped over my quick-witted awesomeness. Then I cranked up the radio, and we drove the rest of the way home to the sounds of Lainey Wilson and Kane Brown, each of us in our own heads.
After the second week of break, I wanted to climb the walls. Bax and I played so muchCODwe finally had to take a break from killing zombies and each other and switch toMadden. Hitting the gym on the daily helped to relieve some of the boredom, but more than once I wished our coaches remembered we weren’t preparing for a national title. It would have been nice to have spent a little more time at home on the ranch.
Sure, I had no interest in horning in on my sister’s domain, but that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy checking on the cows, bucking hay, and eating all of Mom’s luscious food. Hanging out with my family also meant I had a lot less time to think about a certain blonde physics major with eyes so blue I could swim in them.
It didn’t help that following our collective return to the house after Christmas, Callahan and Jamaica spent all their free time holed up in ’Han’s room with occasional forays to the kitchen where I caught them on more than one occasion lip-locking while their food came perilously close to burning. Danny wasn’t any better, spending all his time outside the gym either at his part-time job at the tire shop or over at his high-school “friend” Taryn’s place. From the way he smiled to himself when he thought no one was watching, I could tell he was making progress toward moving from the friend zone to the end zone.
Then today, Bax bailed on me too. Piper had finally given him her number sometime over break—hence the video on New Year’s Eve—and she was back in town. Now the king of one-night stands was going on dates, for fuck’s sake.
Being the odd man out sucked. Big-time.
I flopped back on my bed, shoved my hands beneath my head, and stared at the ceiling. I’d always thought the inevitability of my friends finding someone special would happen after we finished college. While we played for the Wildcats, we’d all hang out together, party together, have the occasional one-night stands with consenting ladies who knew the score. Common sense said guys with NFL aspirations needed relentless focus on the game, and serious romantic relationships stole some of that focus. I should know after the ay my ex, Hannah, had fucked with my head all of freshman year.
Besides, jersey chasers didn’t stop chasing players once they left the college ranks to enter the pros. It stood to reason players should show up to the NFL single until they figured out the league and how all the travel and community service and endorsements expectations would play out. Take advantage of some of the fun before settling down with someone whose life they’d have to uproot if a trade happened or if the player asked for a different opportunity.
Honestly, what was the deal with jumping the gun and pursuing a relationship in college?
Quick on the heels of those dark thoughts, heat warmed my chest and climbed my neck to my cheeks as a sudden memory of Chessly kissing me floated through my head.Fuck!Why couldn’t I stop thinking about that girl? Hadn’t I just laid out all the reasons why I shouldn’t give her a nanosecond of headspace?
Punching my fists into the mattress, I sat up and stared out the window at the fat flakes of snow fluttering down outside as though nothing in the world mattered. With all my roommates out somewhere with their women, the house was so silent I could almost hear each little crystal as it joined the others on the ground.
“Fuuuck!”
The word echoed in the unnatural quiet of the house. I tugged at my hair and jumped up from the bed. After pulling my last clean hoodie over my T-shirt, I dropped down the stairs two at a time, stuffed my feet into my boots without bothering to tie them, and headed out the door. Even if I was the only one sitting in our usual booth, at least other people would be around.
Hitting Johnson’s number on speed dial as I waited for my truck to warm up, I hoped he and Fitz were bored enough to join me for a beer at Stromboli’s. Relief flooded through me when he picked up on the second ring and said they’d beat me there. At least I still had some friends left who weren’t mothered up.
As I strolled up to the front door of the pizzeria, I saw Johnson and Fitz headed in my direction from the opposite end of the block. Grinning, I raced for the door, jerked it open, and rushed inside. With a nod to Jason, the bouncer who sat on his stool in the foyer, I kept moving. Behind me I heard my friends jostling as they tried to walk through the door together. Tossing a glance over my shoulder, I shook my head at the sight of Fitz squeezing Johnson against the doorframe.
I slid into our usual booth at the back a second before my friends joined me, Johnson scowling at Fitz as he rubbed his shoulder.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Tarvi. When are you going to learn that in close quarters, size trumps speed every time?” I laughed and bumped Fitzy’s fist.
“What he said,” Fitz echoed.
“Fuckers,” Johnson muttered as he slid into the booth. “Where’s Bax and ’Han?”
Tilting my head with a narrow-eyed stare, I said, “Out with their girlfriends.”
“Wait. Since when does Bax have a girlfriend?” Fitz asked as he signaled a passing server.
After we ordered a pitcher of beer and a double order of wings, I answered Fitz’s question. “Bax has a girlfriend since his unicorn turned out to be that purple-haired hottie he dedicated a pick-six to at the end of the season. She’s the one who spent the night after our party celebrating our win over the Golden Bears.”
Our server appeared with a pitcher and three glasses, and I busied myself with pouring a glass with a perfect head. After passing it over to Fitz, I poured a second and passed it to Johnson.
As I poured my own glass, Johnson asked, “What about ’Han?”
“That’s a whole other deal. He and Jamaica met each other’s families over break.” I shuddered.
