It’ll be the fifth anniversary of my father’s death, and even though the years keep passing, the loss still plagues me. Not just the loss, but how I lost him … how I found him. I take a large sip of what’s left of my wine and chase the thoughts away. Thinking about death is triggering for me, as it’s not something I like to talk about. Maybe if I were familiar with less traumatic deaths, things would be different, but I’m not. It’s yet another reason I’ve tried so hard to leave Mallory’s death behind.
“I’ll come over and watch a movie with you,” Livie says quietly.
Dame curses, his eyes going wide. “I’ll bring food.”
“I’m fine.” I put a hand up and smile at both of them. “Really. I appreciate it, but I’m totally fine.”
They look like they don’t believe me, and I can’t blame them. They’ve seen me break down time and time again. I don’t even bother to acknowledge Finn, Tiago, or Will. T knows how difficult that day is for me, but he's never actually been there to witness me at my lowest. I've never let him.
“A party might be fun,” Mom says, trying to sound cheerful.
“When does practice start again?” Titus asks, changing the subject. I shoot him a grateful look, and he smiles softly.
“October, but we’re going to start conditioning next week.”
We’re not allowed to practice until October, but our coaches get around that by having us run plays off school property. They’re not actually there when we do it and since it’s just a group of girls playing basketball, it’s technically not breaking any violation.
“God, it’s going to be so hard getting back into conditioning,” Livie says.
“That’s why you should never stop,” I quip.
Hamilton snorts. “Youreallysound like Finn.”
I finally glance at Finn, who’s staring at me with a raw need that makes my pulse race. Every time I’m around him, I feel like I’m back in middle school waiting for my crush to look my way.God, this is bad. From the corner of my eye, I see Titus watching us, so I take a deep breath and focus on my food. I don’t know how I’m going to sit through an hour of this.
20
JOSSLYN
“Dad, you need to make sure Tate doesn’t go to the fundraiser,” Damian says suddenly.
“Really, Damian?” I shoot him a glare.
“Honey, it’s okay if you don’t want to see him yet. I’m sure he’ll understand,” Mom says.
“I genuinely don’t care if he’s there,” I say, picking up my hot dog.
“He’s trying to get her back,” Livie says.
“That’s not true,” I respond before taking a bite of food.
We wouldn’t know if he’s trying to get me back. He just got back in town, and I blocked his number and unfollowed him everywhere. The only reason I didn’t block his accounts on social media is that I know he’ll just go and get a burner account. His only option is to show up at my apartment, and I already took him off my list of visitors, so he can’t even do that.
“He’d be an idiot to think he could,” Tiago responds.
“Have you seen all the comments he’s been leaving on your posts?” Dame asks, scowling.
“Is that what you do in your free time?” I ask. “Scroll through my comments?”
“Sometimes, they ask where your hot brother is.” He shrugs.
That makes me laugh, because he’s not wrong, and his already inflated ego feeds off it.
“Tate will back off if you take a date,” Mom says. “I’m sure Damian can get one of his Blaze teammates to accompany you.”
My jaw drops. “I don’t need Dame’s help to find a date, thank you very much.”
“She really doesn’t. As it is, some of them are already calling Dibs on her since I won’t be there to threaten them.” Dame shoots me a pointed look. “Stay away from Nate Crawford.”
