With a snort, he said, “The third string freshman who walked on this spring. You should have been drilling our second-best guy, and you couldn’t get past Donahue, who you’ve owned for the past year.” Running a hand over his head, he sighed. “I don’t know who put out your fucking fire, but you need to move past that shit.” He pulled up short. “It’s a woman, isn’t it? Fuck. Some little co-ed is fucking with your head, isn’t she?”
“Nope,” I answered honestly. Chessly hadn’t done one damn thing to my head. I did that all by myself. “All the fucking up is on me. Like I said, I’m working on it.”
He stood from his chair, which I took as my cue to leave. “Show up tomorrow ready to play, or I’m starting Jones in the scrimmage this weekend. Got it?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir. Understood.”
Though I wanted to slam the shit out of his office door when I walked out, I held back and left the damn thing open as I headed down the hall and out the doors of the facility. It wasn’t Coach’s fault I hadn’t been practicing like a starter. Nope, that was all on me too. Jesus. I didn’t suck this bad even after Hannah told me what a big, dumb, awkward fuck I was when she ended it with us. That said everything that needed saying about how I felt about Chessly.
Even as my eyes registered the tree-lined sidewalk and rows of buildings between the facility and campus, what I couldn’t stop seeing was the devastation on Chess’s face when I’d accused her of being like Hannah. It was a knee-jerk reaction to that witch who’d made me feel about an inch tall for most of our relationship and for too long after it ended.
Intellectually, I could work through my ex’s comments and label them for what they were: emotional abuse meant to strip me of all my self-confidence. If I’d played along like a good little boyfriend, we’d probably still be together, but I wouldn’t have a single NFL prospect. When I wouldn’t let her penetrate my game, she attacked my skills in the sack. The year of celibacy following our breakup only ended when the jersey chasers came along and made me feel better about myself.
After what Tory Miller put Callahan through last semester, I saw where my experiences with her and her girls weren’t real either. But what went down between Chessly and me that glorious weekend? Nothing fake about that at all. She was as into me as I was into her. Maybe some girls fake it with guys sometimes, but there was nothing fake about her expressions as she’d stared into my eyes and let go when I was inside her. The playfulness during our date, and again after we’d rocked each other’s worlds in my bed, was real too. Never before had I felt so relaxed, so able to be myself, as I had with Chess.
Jesus, I missed her something fierce.
As usual, I started scanning every study carrell in Hillman the second I walked through the doors. As usual, she wasn’t in any of them. Guess she’d found somewhere new to go for quiet study time. But like a sucker, I headed upstairs to her favorite carrell only to find the geeky guy sitting there again—as usual. He nodded to me as I strolled by, his expression one of commiseration rather than ridicule, which told me what a pathetic sap I’d become.
I threw myself into a chair in a carrell at the end of the hallway, one beside the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Union. I didn’t bother unloading my books from my backpack and pretending to study. Instead, I pulled out my phone and stared at my texts, willing her to respond to even one of them. But exactly like the other thousand times I’d checked, mine were the only ones onscreen. At least she hadn’t blocked me—yet. Pathetic sap that I’d become, I took comfort in that.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of bright pink and all but pressed my nose to the glass. A blonde in a puffy coat was trudging up the steps of the Union. I didn’t need to look twice to know it was Chess. Shoving my phone in my pocket, I snagged my bags and wasted no time racing down the stairs and across the courtyard into the Union.
I was out of breath when I slid through the doors into the cafeteria, scanning the place with a laser focus. She wasn’t in line for coffee, and I didn’t see her seated at any of the tables, so I speed-walked through the space and into the lounge on the off chance she might be there. I slowed down enough to check out every couch, love seat, and wingback chair in the room, but with the exception of some bearded guy in a tweed jacket sitting in front of the cold fireplace, the room was deserted.
Wasting no time in passing the offices lining the hallway on the other side of the lounge, I made my way to the stairs, dropping down them two at a time to the lower level. I couldn’t imagine why she’d be down in the gaming area, but maybe she was meeting someone. The idea gave me heartburn, but I shoved it down and kept moving. Checking out the bowling alley, I only saw a couple of pairs of players flipping each other shit as each team rolled gutter balls. The usual gamers manned the foosball table and the video games. Nowhere did I see that distinctive coat or that perfect blonde hair.
When I rounded the corner to the Sweet Shop, I thought I caught a glimpse of her inside. Slowing my ass down, I worked to steady my breathing so I wouldn’t come across as a total stalker and strolled up to the shop. Inside, the store was tight, and I accidentally knocked over a display of monster-size chocolate bars on a table to the left of the door.
My face heated as I dropped my duffel and pack and knelt to pick up the mess. A pair of feet came into my peripheral view, and I glanced up into Jamaica’s laughing eyes.
“Don’t worry about it, Finn. I’ll get that.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make a mess of your place.” I stacked the chocolate back on the table and hoped I hadn’t broken too many of the bars. “But, fuck, this place is kinda packed.”
The whole store was about the size of my bedroom. One wall toward the back was stacked from a waist-high counter halfway to the ceiling with long tubes filled with a rainbow assortment of candies. In front of it were rotating displays holding bags of everything from gummy worms to cinnamon bears. How one weaved through the tables with their stacks of chocolates and fancy boxes of who-knows-what without knocking something over was more of a mystery than my clumsiness at accidentally knocking off a display with my backpack.
“What brings you to the Sweet Shop? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here before.” She rearranged the chocolate on the tabletop.
I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to come up with an excuse since we were the only people in the store. I guess the pink-puffy-coated blonde I thought I’d seen had been a figment of my imagination.
Jamaica stopped messing with the chocolate to give my forearm a fleeting squeeze, her tone soft and sad. “She was here a few minutes ago to drop off a Pickle Barrel for me since I’m working a double today.”
We both knew who she meant.
“Fuck.” Shoving my hands in my pockets, I caught myself. “Sorry, Jamaica.”
“No apologies needed, big guy.” She patted my shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, she’s as much of a hot mess as you are.”
“Not helping.”
Her brow shot up and her eyes took on a wicked gleam. “But I bet Icanhelp.”
“Look—”
“You still going to be on campus in a few hours?”
I shrugged. “Dunno. Probably. Why?”
