I had a lot of expectations for my sophomore year at North Boston University.
After winning our bowl game last season and having a winning record on top of it, I expected us to be the team to contend with in The Big North conference. And after having one of the best seasons of my life, I expected to make said team easily, to start every game, and to demolish the records I’d set last year. I also expected us to win, to get not just a bowl game this season, but one of the bowl games — the ones that would serve as semi-finals and take us to the National Championship Game.
What I had not expected was for my girlfriend of five years to dump me.
Any time I thought of it, my chest caved in on itself. It felt impossible, how the girl I loved, the girl I thought I would marry, could walk away from me so easily. It was like being safe onboard a cruise ship one moment, basking in the tropical sun, only to be thrown overboard the next — nothing to hold onto, no one to hear my screams as the ship continued on its course and left me behind in the unrelenting waters.
What was worse was that it wasn’t just a breakup — not the way most of my friends knew them, anyway.
Maliyah Vail wasn’t just my girlfriend, she was family.
We grew up together. Our families were close, weaved together in every way like a thick blanket. Her dad and my dad were best friends in college, and even after my parents split, her mom made sure to keep an eye on mine, to make sure she was okay.
Which she wasn’t often.
What I once considered a fairytale childhood was demolished with just one decision — my father’s. Overnight, we went from a happy family of three to a broken family that consisted of me and Mom, and every now and then, Dad.
When he wasn’t busy with his new family, that is — the one he’d easily replaced us with.
Maliyah had been by my side through all of it. She was there through the episodes with my mom, who didn’t know how to cope after the loss of her marriage and tried to find solace in the worst kind of men after. She understood the abandonment I felt from my dad, and her own father stepped in to take his place, teaching me all the things a father should have as I grew up. More than anything, she was there through all the ups and downs of playing football, reminding me every chance she had that I would make it one day, that I would go pro.
It didn’t feel like losing my girlfriend.
It felt like losing my right arm.
It still hadn’t sunk in that we’d finally made it through a grueling year of long-distance — her in California where we grew up, me here in Massachusetts — only for her to get into NBU, move across the country, and… break up with me.
Nothing about it made sense. I’d tried combing through every word of her breakup speech and had come up empty each time I tried to find reasoning.
“What we had was a great first love, Clay, but that’s all it was — a first love.”
Maliyah’s face crumpled, but not in the way that said she was actually hurt by the statement. It was a collapse of pity, like she was telling a little kid why he couldn’t ride the big boy rollercoaster.
“We made a promise,” I said, thumbing the promise ring on my finger. We’d exchanged them at sixteen, a promise that we’d be together forever — a wedding band in everything but law.
But when I reached out for hers, her finger was bare, the gold band nowhere in sight, and I swallowed as she pulled away with a grimace.
“We were young,” she said, as if that made her breaking my heart reasonable, as if our age somehow disillusioned the love I felt for her.
The love I thought she felt for me.
“But, you’re finally here. You’re at my school.”
That made her frown. “It’s my school, too, now. I’m on the cheerleading squad. And I have… goals. Things I want to accomplish.”
She couldn’t look at me when she said it, and my nose flared with emotion that I struggled to keep at bay. I knew that look. It was the same one she gave when I bought her a dress that she didn’t really like, but didn’t want to tell me so because it would hurt my feelings. It was the look she got from her father, Cory Vail, a powerful tech lawyer in Silicon Valley who was used to getting what he wanted.
And who expected his daughter to do the same.
It was easy enough to put the pieces together, and I sobered at the realization.
“I’m not good enough.”
Maliyah just looked at the ground, unable to even deny it.
And in the blink of an eye, the girl I thought I’d marry and build a life with was abandoning me, just like my father had — even when they both had promised they’d stay.
I was the common denominator.
What I’d done hadn’t been enough for either of them.
“We’ll both be happier,” she said, patronizing again as she rubbed my arm. “Trust me.”
The memory was wiped from my mind with the hard snap of a damp towel against my thigh.
“Argh!”
I cried out, hissing at the sting it left behind as Kyle Robbins howled with laughter. He bent at the waist, the towel he’d wound up and whipped me with falling to the ground in the process.
“You were zoned out man,” he said through the laughter. “Didn’t see that shit coming at all.” He popped up then, looking across the weight room at another teammate. “Did you get it?”
Before whoever he’d tasked with videotaping the prank could answer, I grabbed him by the neck of his tank top and ripped him down to eye level, holding him firm when he tried to squirm away.
“Delete that shit, or I swear to God, Robbins, I’ll give you the biggest wedgie of your life and hang you from the rafters by your shit-streaked, shredding tightie whities.”
He almost laughed, but when I twisted my fist more, intensifying the grip, his eyes flashed with terror before he smacked my arm and I released him. He and I both knew I could have held on longer if I’d wanted.
“Damn, someone’s got their panties in a twist,” he murmured.
One of our teammates returned his phone to him, and I snatched it out of his hand before he could walk away, deleting the video myself before I tossed it back to him.
“You used to be fun,” he commented.
“And you used to have Novo’s name shaved into the side of your head,” I shot back, which made the guys around us break out in muffled laughter that they did a sorry job of hiding.
Kyle’s face turned red, the memory of him losing a game of 500 to our kicker last season, and therefore having to do whatever the team decided as punishment washing over his narrowed gaze.
But he just sucked his teeth and waved me off, making his way over to the bench press, and it felt like a fly finally ditching my picnic for someone else’s.
Kyle Robbins was a prick, and the fact that he’d cashed in on the whole Name, Image and Likeness thing any time he could meant he brought even more attention to the media circus we already had around us on any given day. I hated it, and only tolerated him because he was a damn good tight end and on the same team as me.
I cracked my neck when he was gone, catching the inquisitive gaze of our quarterback and team captain, Holden Moore, as I settled back in place on the squat press machine.
“You good?” he asked, racking the weights he’d been using like he wasn’t all that interested in the answer. I knew better, though. Holden was a born leader, one of the few players on this team I actually looked up to. He was checking in not because he was nosy, but because he gave a damn.
“Good,” was my only answer, and then I was back in position, kicking into the platform until my legs were straight. I released the latch on the weight, squatting my knees toward my chest on an inhale, and grunting as I extended to push the weight back up.
After another ten-rep set, I locked the weight once more, sitting up and wiping my forehead with a towel.
Just as a petite pair of saddle tan flats came to a stop between my Nikes.
My feet dwarfed those little shoes, at least twice the length and width, and I arched a brow as my gaze climbed up the legs they were attached to. Those legs were covered in black mesh tights, see-through but for the areas where the fabric was thicker, creating a polka-dot pattern. The corner of my mouth curled in amusement when those tights ended at the hem of a black skirt with a cat nose and whiskers stitched into the front.
I knew then that it was Giana Jones.
She was always dressed like a quirky librarian, like a mix between a nun and a naughty schoolgirl. For some reason, I’d always found it irresistibly adorable, how she mixed and matched modesty with a covert kind of sex appeal. I wasn’t sure she even realized she did it, that she could catch more stares from wearing a turtleneck than some girls could in a bikini.
She folded her arms across her chest as I took my time bringing my gaze the rest of the way up, noting her pale pink sweater and the collared white shirt she wore beneath it. One finger pressed her oversized glasses up the bridge of her nose when I finally met her gaze, and I smirked even more at the curl that popped out of place where she’d piled her thick hair on top of her head in a braided bun.
“G,” I mused, sitting back a little on the bench so I could appreciate the view more. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Giana,” she corrected, though her voice was soft as she did, almost so much so that I didn’t hear her at all.
My eyes flicked down to the cat whiskers spreading the length of her hip bones. “Cute skirt.”
She rolled her eyes. “Glad to see you’re in a better mood today.”
“Don’t let him fool you,” Holden piped in from his bench. “He had Robbins in a death grip two minutes before you walked in here.”
Giana gave Holden a questioning glance before shaking her head and focusing on me again. “We need to talk.”
“I’m all ears, Kitten.”
Her cheeks flushed as pink as her sweater before she glared at me. It was as if that nickname snapped a new persona into place. I watched as she went from sort of cowering and shy to standing taller, shoulders back and chin up.
“After the stunt you pulled yesterday, my ass is in hot water, and we need to discuss media protocol and on-camera etiquette.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes as I got back into position for another rep of squats.
“I did my time over the summer,” I said, and then I pushed the weight up, beasting out my next ten reps with her still standing beside me. When I racked up the weight again, sitting up, she hit me with a patronizing smile.
“Well, clearly, you didn’t comprehend any of it.”
“I comprehended just fine.”
“After yesterday, I beg to differ.”
I shrugged. “So, I suck at being on camera. Just don’t put me on. Simple as that.”
“No, not simple. You’re a star defensive player with a lot of media requests. And you don’t suck on camera. You were like a fish in water any time I had you interviewed last season.”
“Times change, Kitten.”
She gritted her teeth. “Stop calling me that.”
A teammate somewhere behind me let out a soft meow that made another bubble of laughter burst through the weight room, and I fought to hold back my own.
Giana sucked in a hot breath through her nose before pointing a finger at my chest. “You have a mandatory PR meeting with me tonight after team meetings. The coffee bar by the student union. Eight PM sharp. If you’re late, you’ll have Coach Sanders to answer to — understood?”
Appreciation simmered in my chest at the sight of her standing her ground, at how she raised her voice just a notch and tipped her chin at me while she waited for my response.
“Yes, ma’am,” I purred, and I couldn’t help it.
I glanced at her skirt again.
To her credit, she ignored me if she noticed at all, turning on her heel and sashaying a few steps before she was almost hit by Hernandez doing a tricep strap workout. She dodged his fists just in time, nearly stumbling into a leg extension machine before she did a little spin and avoided that, too.
I watched her pinball the entire way out of the weight room, and didn’t realize how much I liked the distraction of her until she was gone.
And the only thing left to think about was Maliyah.
