Fuck Drew Dumontier.
“I was so hurt and angry. I went back to my friends and called him a loser. Said he was pathetic and I’d only been nice to him because I felt sorry for him.” I finally looked up. “I didn’t know he was standing right behind me. That he heard the whole thing.”
The room was quiet.
“Wait,” Sam said slowly. “So you both said awful things about each other? On the same night?”
“And neither of you talked about it?” Abby asked.
I shook my head. “Why should we? That night proved what my family had told me about Dumontiers all along. After that, we just avoided each other, until the pranks started and it escalated, and by the time we got to highschool, we’d been enemies for so long that neither of us remembered how to be anything else.”
Sam leaned forward. “Harper, I grew up with three brothers. I know what it looks like when someone genuinely doesn’t give a shit about another person. They don’t come up at all. But you and Drew? You come upconstantlyin each other’s conversations. That’s not normal enemy behavior.”
“Maybe we’re just that good at making each other miserable,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended. “Not everything has some deeper meaning, Sam. Sometimes people just hate each other.”
The look she gave me suggested she didn’t believe it for a second, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t interested in psychoanalyzing my relationship with Drew Dumontier.
We’d inherited seventy years of hatred with no end in sight.
TEN
The living room was packed wall-to-wall with people, and the bass from the music was thumping so loud I could feel it in my chest. Red Solo cups covered every surface, and the air was thick with beer, cologne, and sweat from too many bodies crammed into one small space.
This was usually my element. Our parties were legendary, and I was always right in the middle of it all—beer in hand, surrounded by girls who were more than happy to help me blow off steam with a good, hard fuck.
But tonight, I couldn’t muster up the usual excitement I felt at these parties.
I leaned against the wall next to the kitchen, nursing a now-warm beer while watching Gordy try to keep people away from his good whiskey. Across the room, some drunk freshman was arguing with Sam about whether basketball was better than hockey. Foster and Abby were here somewhere. I’d seen them when they arrived. Liam was too, probably flirting his ass off right now. We’d won our sixth game in a row and were going all out on the celebration.
But the looks I kept getting were really killing my mood.
Harper and her goddamn posters with that stupid review site were the worst cockblock of all time.
It was like I’d turned into the campus leper. No girl would get within two feet of me. Despite my attempt at damage control, word—and snaps—of the posters had gotten around.
“Yo, Monty!” Liam appeared at my elbow, grinning like he’d won the lottery, or already had one beer too many. “Ya gotta meet Jessie and Megan.” I fought back a smile at how his Irish accent always thickened whenever Liam got wasted. His mom was born and raised in Ireland and her accent had rubbed off on him, but he’d gotten good about hiding it most of the time. Usually there was just a subtle Irish lilt—like a watered-down Jamie Dornan—when he talked. The only times I heard it come out super pronounced were when he was drunk or got emotional. “Jessie there was just saying hockey players are way hotter than football players.”
I looked over at two blondes by the beer pong table. One was tall and willowy, the other shorter with bright blue eyes. Normally, I would’ve been all over this—Liam had excellent wingman instincts—but I really wasn’t in the mood tonight.
Fuck, he might as well just shoot me where I stood. What twenty-year-old male with blood flowing through his veins wasn’t in the mood for sex?
“I don’t know, man,” I started, but Liam was already steering me over.
“Ladies,” he said with his trademark Irish charm, “meet my boy, Drew. Best defenseman in the conference and an all-around good guy.”
“Hi, I’m Jessie,” the taller one said with a smile. She had the kind of confidence that usually did it for me.
“Hey,” I managed, trying to summon some enthusiasm.
“So you play hockey?” Megan asked, looking me up and down. “That’s cool. My ex played lacrosse, but hockey seems way more intense.”
“Yeah, it can be.”
These girls were hot. Why couldn’t I muster up any interest? What the fuck was wrong with me? Hell, I should’ve been over the moon that they hadn’t immediately been repulsed by my mere presence since that’s what I’d been dealing with nonstop since those fucking posters.
Jessie leaned closer, her hand landing on my arm. “I’ve been to a few games this season. You guys are really good. Do you ever?—”
“Oh my God, wait,” Megan interrupted, her eyes going wide. “Are you the guy from the posters?”
