Tackled

  glasses perched on the end of her nose. And then she'll look at me and say –

  "Do you need to blow off a little post-finals steam?" the blonde asks, and I blink for a second, somehow surprised that I'm hearing the sound of her voice and not Cassie's. "Because I really, really like to blow… off steam."

  "I'm all set," I say, hardly able to hide the disgust in my tone. "Thanks anyway."

  "There's the offending document." A ream of papers lands in my lap, and I look up to see my mother standing beside the chair giving me a murderous glare. She turns her attention to the blonde. "And you are?"

  "Trixie," she says. Then she wraps a lock of blonde hair around her finger and gives my mother a vacant look.

  If I wasn't so generally irritated, I'd be amused by the fact that my mother is going to eat this girl alive.

  My mother looks back and forth from me to the girl. "This is how you're choosing to console yourself?"

  "Hey!" the blonde sputters.

  "Bless your heart, honey," my mother says to her. "I'm sure you're very smart and quite the catch. What are you studying?"

  The blonde looks at her. "Um… maybe fashion?"

  "Of course you are," my mother murmurs. "Walk away, please."

  The blonde's mouth falls open and she huffs as she retreats.

  "Are you finished here, mom?" I ask, irritated.

  Emmett passes us, and my mother grabs his arm. "You like the bimbos, don't you, Emmett?"

  "Hells yeah, Mrs. K."

  "There's one right over there who's up your alley."

  Emmett holds up his hand and my mother hi-fives him. "You rock, Mrs. K."

  "Don't mention it." My mother turns her attention back to me. "Now, you."

  "I'm sitting here enjoying my beer, ma," I say, holding up my cup. "And then I'm going to enjoy another one."

  "I read that thesis, the one sitting in your lap," she says. "All of it. There's not one thing in there for you to get all butt-hurt about, so either you're just as pigheaded as you were when you were three and refused to wear clothes outside the house, or you're in love with her and terrified so you're picking a fight so you can screw up the entire thing. Either way, find your balls and go fix things with that girl."

  "Damn it, mom," I groan. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

  "I know exactly what I'm talking about. You know who was stubborn just like you? Your father."

  "Yeah, well you never lied to dad and pretended to be something you weren't," I say bitterly.

  "That girl didn't pretend to not know you just so she could get with some football star," my mother says. "If that's not obvious as daylight to you, then I don't know what to do with you."

  I cross my arms over my chest, the papers piled every which way underneath. "Then I guess you don't know what to do with me."

  "You know what's sad?" my mother asks.

  I grunt a response, looking behind her at the people walking around the lawn. She doesn't know what she's talking about. She has no idea about what's between me and Cassie.

  "What's sad is that you're going to have everything," she says. "I've known that since you were ten years old. Your father knew it too. You've always been great at football. It was written all over you the day you picked up a ball. But you're going to get everything you want and then realize it's really damn lonely at the top."

  I sit there in silence, her words ringing in my head.

  It's lonely at the top.

  I don't have a response for her.

  She doesn't wait for one. She kisses the top of my head. "I'm going to get out of here. I've seen more breasts at this party in the past fifteen minutes than I care to for one evening. I hope you figure things out, because I love you, Colt."

  "I know, ma," I say. "I love you, too."

  It takes me twenty minutes and another beer before I look at the thesis.

  40

  Cassie

  "Smoking hot," Sable says, evaluating my outfit. I just spent an ungodly amount of time putting on eyeliner, which I never wear, and fussing over hiding the dark circles under my eyes that are a result of last night's tequila binge. "He's not going to be able to resist an apology in that outfit."

  "Well, I don't want him to forgive me just because he wants to bang me." I look in the mirror, noting the fitted jeans, sandals, and a black tank top of Sable's that she insisted on loaning me. "I should rethink the shirt."

  "You will not rethink that shirt! Because there's nothing to rethink about it. Displaying your boobs during an apology should practically be mandatory. Actually, that's probably a good negotiation tactic in general."

  "You should be a diplomat," I deadpan. "And in no way would you set women back a hundred years with those kinds of tactics."

  "Use what you got is what I say."

  "How are you in a graduate program in sociology again?"

  "Seemed like a good idea at the time," Sable says. "The parental units hated it. Especially my mother."

  "Always a great reason to get a Ph.D."

  "So let's go," Sable says.

  "I don't need an escort," I say firmly. "I should really do it on my own."

  "I want to see Jonathan. And because, well, you know there will be a party. So just in case you need moral support…"

  "You don't think Colton is going to be hooking up with someone?" The thought hadn't even crossed my mind when I decided I was going to "woman up", as Colton's mother put it, and fix things.

  The thought makes me really want to vomit.

  "Nooo," Sable assures me. Except it's one of those falsely bright no's, the kind you say when your best friend asks you if the designer magenta tube top she paid five hundred dollars for was too expensive.

  "You do think that," I say. "I don't know if I can handle seeing that, Sable."

  "I don't think that, not really."

  "You totally do."

  "I just want you to be prepared… in that eventuality," she amends. "He's a jock who has women throwing themselves at him all the time. And he's pretty pissed at you."

  "Well, I'd rather know," I say firmly. "If he's hooking up with some girl after a tiny fight, then I know he's a dick before things go any further."

  "Then we go to the house," Sable says.

  "We go to the house."

  I have one more panicked moment when we pull up to the house, but I resolve to not let it get the best of me. I'm going to see him and say my piece and explain. And if he's stuck on it, then I'm going to walk away.

  I take a deep breath.

  The party is pretty much just like the one I walked in on the first time I met Colton, except this version is more crowded and louder, if that's possible.

  "I don't know where we're going to find him in this mess," I yell.

  "Go look outside," Sable yells. "You know how he likes that roof slide. I'll find Jonathan. He might know."

  "Okay," I yell, pushing through bodies on my way out the back door.

  When I finally make it outside, I pause, breathing in the air that seems a million degrees cooler than the inside of the house. I stand by the kitchen door, scanning the lawn for Colton.

  This was a stupid idea. How was I planning on finding Colton here, exactly?

  "You're the tutor." A low voice beside me makes me jump, and I turn to see a big guy standing there holding a beer.

  "Um… yeah," I say. Not creepy at all that he knows that. He's not one of Colton's roommates but he's unmistakably a football player. The fact that he's ginormous is a dead giveaway.

  "Colton's told us all about you," he says, giving me a look that immediately puts me on edge. He smiles at me, but there's something off in the way he smiles that makes me think he's less friendly than he seems. "Beer?"

  He holds out the plastic cup in his hand.

  "No, thanks," I say to creepy guy. Yeah, right. Sure, thanks, I'll take your roofie-laced beer. "What has Colton said exactly?"

  "You're the virgin," he says, leering. "He'll tell anyone who will list
en about how he's fucking the virgin schoolteacher. Not a virgin anymore. The opposite of that now, with what Colton's been doing to you."

  My head is spinning. I feel like I can't breathe. "Colton said that to you?" I ask in disbelief.

  "Well, yeah, not just to me," he says. "More like the whole team. In the locker room, mostly. He tells us a lot of stories about you."

  "That is not true," I say, shaking my head. "Colton wouldn't do that."

  I have to get out of here.

  Screw apologizing. I just want to get out of this house before I lose my lunch. Or faint.

  "You didn't know?" the guy asks. His eyes travel up the length of my body – he doesn't even bother to hide that – and I feel filthy under his gaze. "Oh, shit. Colton said you were totally cool with him sharing stories. I mean, he usually hooks up with the kinds of girls who don't care about that kind of thing."

  "I have to get out of here," I say, more to myself than to him. If this guy says another thing to me about Colton talking about me, I'm going to knee him in the balls.

  "Front door is that way," he says, pointing toward the kitchen.

  I don't say anything else. I push my way through bodies, weaving and winding through the kitchen and into the living room, fighting back tears and nausea.

  Colton would not do that, I tell myself. There is no way. I know him.

  Or maybe I don't. Do I really know he's not bragging in the locker room about debauching the virgin?

  It takes me a while wandering around before I find Sable, and only because I see Tank first. She waves to me from across the room, and I slowly make my way to her and Tank. "I need to get out of here," I say immediately before they can tell me where Colton is.

  "We haven't seen Colton," Sable yells. "Tank said he was sitting outside in a chair all night but you didn't see him out there, did you?"

  "No." I feel sick. "I'm going to leave. You can stay if you want."

  "I'll go with you," Sable insists.

  "Stay, stay," I yell.

  I just want to get out of here and go somewhere I can think. I don't want to tell Sable what Colton's teammate said. It's too humiliating.

  I wonder if Tank knew. Maybe they're all assholes.

  I don't want to think about it right now.

  I'm making my way out of the living room when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I whirl around to see Creepy Guy standing behind me. "You're looking for Colt, right?" he yells. "He went up to his room."

  I glance upstairs. Do I go up there?

  I don't want to see him right now.

  "I'd be pissed off," he yells over the noise. "I feel terrible now that I know you didn't know."

  I look upstairs again. If I march up there right now and give him a piece of my mind, it's over. Clean break and closure.

  Woman up and confront him.

  "You sure he went up there?" I yell.

  "Yeah, a few minutes ago. Just saw him."

  "Thanks." I wade through people to get to the stairs, my thoughts racing. The irony of Colton getting so pissed off at me about my thesis when he was apparently revealing intimate details about our sex life isn't lost on me. I'm furious.

  I knock once before turning the knob on his bedroom door and flinging it open.

  Standing in the middle of the room is a woman in a beach towel with her back to me. When I open the door, she speaks. "I thought you were never going to get here," she says. "I'm ready for that massive cock of yours."

  She spins around and drops the towel.

  She's stark naked, all big perky tits and freshly waxed hoo-hah and long legs.

  "You're not Colton," she says stupidly.

  "No shit," I say. I'm so angry I think my head might actually explode. "Wrong room. Tell Colton I said hi, though."

  "Sure!" she says brightly. "But I don't know your name."

  "Just tell him his former tutor stopped by to wish him luck," I say bitterly.

  "Oh, wow, you get to tutor Colton King? And you make house calls!" she adds enviously.

  "Not anymore."

  41

  Colton

  I swear to God I'm hallucinating.

  I was almost sure I saw Cassie here, but I looked up where I thought she was standing and she was gone.

  I've had too much beer.

  This is not the place I want to be tonight, especially after I sat there for the last hour in a lawn chair reading Cassie's thesis. I understood about half of it, but my mom was right. There wasn't anything in there about me or the team. It was all just past studies.

  She still avoided telling me about it for months. Who knows what else she's hiding?

  The thoughts pop into my head and I banish them. I need to go to her and tell her I overreacted.

  She loves you.

  She's in love with you.

  I don't know if I'm in love with her. I don't know if I can love someone. I don't know what the hell it feels like.

  Fuck it. I don't know what I'm going to say or what I even think. I just know that I need to see her.

  I push my way through the crowd, stopping only when I see Tank and Sable. "Is Cassie with you?"

  Sable shakes her head. "She said she was leaving."

  "Is she upset?"

  Sable nods. "She wasn't happy when she left," she yells. "We were trying to find you."