Sweat dripped into my eyes as I braced my core, all my focus zeroing in on where my hands held the bar as I pressed it away from my chest. My arms shook with the force, and Clay’s hands hovered under the bar just in case I needed a spot.
“Come on, one more,” he said, watching me carefully as I lowered the bar back down.
I inhaled, knee bouncing a bit before I held everything steady again, and with my arms and chest burning, I let out a grunt and pushed the bar up one more time.
“Nice,” Clay said, helping me set it in the metal grooves at the top once I was done.
I sat up with my arms feeling like rubber, barely able to reach up and wipe the sweat from my brows.
“You going to tell me why you’re putting yourself through a torture session today?” Clay asked, helping me stand as we switched positions. He took one plate off each end of the bar before lying down on the bench and getting into position.
“Nothing out of the norm,” I lied.
Clay pursed his lips telling me he saw right through it.
Still, he let the lie stand, at least long enough for him to get in his first set of ten reps. Then, he sat up, chugged water, and spritzed a little bit of it into my face.
“The fuck!?” I toweled off my face, looking at him like he was insane or had a death wish or both.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Other than you being a prick and spraying me with water.”
A few of the guys training on the leg press machine beside us glanced our way, but Clay gave them a look that told them to mind their own business before his eyes were on me again.
“Look, I’m glad you’re getting out whatever frustration this is here and not letting it get inside your head at a game, but it might help to talk about it.”
“Talking is overrated. Let’s go,” I said, nodding to the bar.
Clay flattened his lips, but laid back and got in position, repping out another set.
When he sat up again, he balanced his elbows on his knees, glancing up at me as sweat beaded on his forehead.
“It’s Riley, isn’t it?”
My nostrils flared just at the sound of her name, and I looked around to make sure no one had heard him say it.
Clay laughed a little, like my reaction was answer enough. He shook his head then, lowering down for his last set. When he finished, he stood, wiping down the bar and bench with a wet wipe before he slugged me in the arm.
“Come on. Let’s take a walk.”
I was silent as he led us out to the field, and we walked the sidelines of it, a brisk pace that was more like a jog than a walk. For a while, he let the silence linger, but when we were out of earshot from anyone else, he called me out again.
“It would drive me mad, too,” he said, arms swinging in time at his sides. “Living with her, pretending like she’s just your teammate.”
“She is just my teammate.”
“Right. But that’s not all you want.”
I gritted my teeth, picking up our pace.
“Have you tried talking to her?”
I wanted to just keep ignoring him, to pretend like I didn’t hear him or make it clear I didn’t want to talk about it. But obviously, he saw what no one else did — or at least, what I hoped no one else did.
And if I was being honest, I needed advice.
I had no fucking clue what kind of shit I was in.
“This stays between us.”
It wasn’t a question, wasn’t a request — it was a threat, and Clay gave me a look like he was offended I’d even insinuate otherwise.
I sighed, feeling sick as I gave life to the words that had been beating around in my head all week. “She’s only barely started talking to me at all.”
Clay clicked his tongue. “Ah. She did kind of seem like she hated you there at the beginning of the season.”
“Not sure those feelings have changed.”
“You guys went to high school together, didn’t you? Did something happen? Why the hostility?”
My heart stung so fiercely in my chest that I stopped running altogether, hanging my hands on my hips as we pulled to the side of the field. I focused on my breathing, squinting against the setting sun as my eyes trailed the empty stands.
“Shit… that bad, huh?”
I shook my head. “Worse than you can imagine.”
“Did you fuck her best friend or something?”
I snorted a laugh. “I would have preferred that, honestly. I would have preferred anything but what actually happened.”
Clay just waited, not pushing, his massive arms folding over his chest as he watched me.
“Her brother is my best friend,” I said after a minute. “Has been ever since we were kids. When we were sophomores, we were out at a party. I was supposed to be our designated driver.”
Clay’s shoulders sagged. “Shit…”
He already knew where it was going.
I shook my head. “Gavin had been talking to this girl… Kaylee. And they got in a fight at the party, and Kaylee made out with one of the wide receivers on the team — a guy who Gavin never got along with because he was a pigheaded asshole.”
“A real Kyle Robbins, huh?”
I couldn’t even laugh, but I nodded. “Exactly.” I swallowed, shaking my head. “Gavin was messed up over it. He started drinking heavily, and wanted me to drink with him. So I did.”
I knew how it sounded. There was no excuse for the designated driver to drink — regardless of who wanted them to. I could have said no. I should have said no.
“It wasn’t long before he just needed out of there,” I continued. “I tried getting us an Uber, but he didn’t want to wait. He was like… shaking, all fired up.” I paused. “I think he didn’t trust himself to stay any longer without fighting the guy Kaylee made out with, or fighting with her, or something else he’d regret.”
Clay nodded in understanding.
“He grabbed my keys, said he was fine to drive — which we both knew was a lie. I tried fighting him on it, but he insisted. But we didn’t even make it three blocks before he hit a curb.”
“Did he wreck?”
“No, but I made him pull over.” My chest ached. “He was a mess, man. Emotional. And I’d only had a couple drinks. So, I figured if anyone should drive… it should be me.”
Clay closed his eyes, letting out a slow exhale before they opened again. “What happened?”
“There was a stop sign that I didn’t see,” I said, voice shaking. “We got T-boned, his side of the car taking the worst of it.” I looked him in the eyes then. “Lower spinal cord.”
I couldn’t even say the words to tell him what happened next, how we found out Gavin was paralyzed from the waist down, but I didn’t have to. Clay swallowed.
In football, we knew what a lower spinal cord injury meant.
“Gavin… he never blamed me. He went through all the stages of grief, yes, but he… God, he forgave me so damn quickly, like it wasn’t my fault at all. He just instantly thought of how to make the most of the situation. That’s the kind of guy he is. I mean, he plays wheelchair basketball now and is one of the best on the team.”
Clay smiled.
“But Riley…” I continued, fighting through the difficulty of managing a swallow. “Riley blamed me for all of it — his paralysis, the stress on her family, the pain I put them all through. I ruined his life in her eyes. She hated me, and rightly so.”
“What changed?”
“Nothing,” I said, but I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe something. I can’t tell. It doesn’t feel like she hates me as much, but…”
I fell silent. I had no idea how to explain what had happened in the last month or so, how we’d somehow mended the broken bridge between us and found something that felt a little like friendship.
“I think, even through the hate… there’s a part of me that feels comfortable to her.”
“Like home,” Clay finished for me.
I nodded, throat tight, and it closed in even more with his next question.
“When did you realize you wanted her?”
I released a long breath from my chest. “Honestly? I think I’ve always known. Somewhere deep down, maybe ever since we were freshmen in high school. I could tell she had a crush on me, too. But then everything happened, and this wedge was driven between us, and I couldn’t even think about anything past my promise to her brother.”
Clay arched a brow.
“That I’d protect her.”
He nodded, blowing out a breath through flat lips as he looked out over the sun setting on the field. After a while, he reached out and squeezed my shoulder tight.
“Look, man — maybe she still hates you. Maybe she doesn’t hate you, but she doesn’t want anything more than to be friends. Or maybe,” he said, adding a shrug. “She wants you, too.”
Hope clawed at my throat like a caged animal on the verge of escape, but I swallowed it down.
“You’ll never know if you don’t tell her what you’re feeling.”
“We’re teammates,” I reminded him. “Hell, we’re goddamn roommates. Doesn’t it seem a little selfish for me to put that at risk by complicating what’s obviously still very fragile between us?”
“There’s risk in every decision we make,” Clay said. “You just have to decide which risk is worth taking. Would you rather tell her and chance things getting a little awkward or being rejected? Or would you rather not say anything and drown in the unknown, wondering if she maybe feels the same?”
“I just… I don’t see a scenario where she ever would. Where she ever could.”
“Then you’re fucking blind,” Clay said with a laugh. “Man, if you don’t see the way that girl looks at you, the way she reacts when you so much as breathe in her vicinity, let alone touch her?” He shook his head. “Then you’ve got bigger problems.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I feel like I’m going to vomit.”
“Well, if you do, do it over there,” Clay said, pointing toward the sideline. “I just cleaned these sneakers.”
I chuckled, letting out a long exhale as I assessed his advice.
I told her I’d be out all night — a little because I knew she felt awkward after what happened, but mostly at her request, since she said she needed a quiet night to study.
I didn’t miss the way she couldn’t even look me in the eyes after our last study session and how that’d turned out.
But we didn’t have practice tonight, which meant I had the chance to have her alone for a while, to talk without all the distraction that was always around us.
I didn’t know what I would say, didn’t know what I would do, didn’t know if I would be worse off at the end of it all, or if it’d be the best decision of my life.
All I knew was that I had to try.
I had to see her.
I had to test the waters and see if she felt what I felt, too.
“Say a prayer for me, man,” I told Clay, clapping him on the back as I jogged off toward the locker room.
His laugh echoed behind me as he called out, “I’ll say a few.”
Riley
Chance Hughes stood in front of my desk, hands in the pockets of his khaki slacks, his bright blue eyes fixed on the Dalí print that hung on my wall. He wore a casual smirk, along with a navy-blue polo with his fraternity’s emblem on the chest pocket.
“This is cool,” he remarked, tilting his head a bit to look at it from a new angle. “And kind of creepy.”
I smiled. “That’s Dalí for you.”
He turned to face me with a soft smile, gaze wandering the length of my room before it settled on me again.
Chance Hughes was a junior. He was the Athletics Chair for his fraternity, loved to golf with his buddies, went to a timeshare in Myrtle Beach with his family every Christmas, and went to EDM festivals like it was his job.
That was all I knew about him, and as he crossed the room to me with hungry eyes, I had a feeling it was all I’d get to know about him.
And I was fine with that.
This was why I got on Minglr in the first place. This was what I’d been trying to make happen.
But now that it was actually happening…
I shook with nerves as he made his way to me, and he smiled a little more, tucking my hair behind one ear before he cupped my neck there.
“Nervous?” he asked.
A nod was all I could answer, because if I opened my mouth, I knew I’d ruin it. I knew I’d confess to him that casual sex wasn’t something I’d ever done or even considered before, and that the only reason I was even thinking about it now was because I was having unwanted surges of heat between my legs any time my roommate so much as looked at me, and I was clearly sexually frustrated, and that seemed to be tied into my performance on the field, and therefore I was just looking to have a little fun and relieve a little stress, but the act of having fun and relieving stress like this just stressed me out even more.
I clamped my mouth shut even tighter to keep from saying even a word of that.
And then, Chance Hughes kissed me.
It was… nice, that kiss. He cradled my neck still, free hand wrapping around my waist and pulling me into him as he groaned and deepened the pressure against my lips.
My eyes were still open, but his were closed, so I closed mine, too, and tried to mimic his noise, to moan like I was really into the kiss, too.
Fake it until you make it, right?
Chance backed me up until the back of my knees hit the bed, and I sat down, looping my arms around his neck and bringing him down with me. We bumped against the wall in the process, which made me laugh, and he smiled, too, slipping his hand under my shirt.
I shivered, only because his hand was ice cold against my warm stomach. He smirked wider though, like his touch was unraveling me as he kissed along my neck.
“You’re so fucking hot,” he whispered.
“Thanks,” I whispered back, then I flushed, cringing at myself. Before he could look at me and see said cringe, I kissed him again, putting as much oomf into it as I could manage.
Relax, Riley. Have fun.
Chance rolled until he was between my legs, and he let out another guttural groan as he rolled his hips against me.
I, on the other hand, had to bite back a wince and groan of pain as his hip bones dug into my thighs, the seam of his pants too hard where it rubbed against my shorts.
Chance took it as a sign that I loved what he was doing and did it again, and this time I yelped, pushing him back a little and readjusting.
“Sorry,” I whispered, smiling and pulling him back down.
God, I’m so terrible at this.
But Chance didn’t seem to mind, and he balanced himself between my legs, slipping his hand up my shirt again. That freezing cold palm cupped my sports bra, and I only had a split second to be self-conscious about my lack of boobs before my bedroom door flew open.
It slammed against the wall, and I broke the kiss with Chance, looking over his shoulder to find Zeke towering in my doorway.
“What the—”
I didn’t have time to get the next word out before Chance was ripped off me — literally ripped off me by the collar of his shirt from behind. It choked him, and he coughed against it as Zeke flung him into the wall, nearly causing one of my paintings to fall in the process.
“Zeke! What the hell is wrong with you?!” I squealed, covering my mouth with my hands. I watched in horror as he grabbed Chance by the shirt again, peeling him off the wall and steering him toward the doorway, instead. He tossed him through it, and Chance stumbled back, barely catching himself before Zeke was right there pushing him again.
“Zeke!” I tried, but he ignored me.
“Out,” was all he said, shoving Chance toward the door again.
Chance looked wide-eyed at me, and suddenly, all that nervous energy was replaced by a bundle of absolute rage.
“You don’t get to tell my guests to get out,” I told Zeke.
He ignored me, his murderous glare steady on Chance, whose surprise slowly turned to suspicion and anger. He gathered his bearings and smoothed his hands over his polo before squaring his shoulders. “We got a problem, man?”
Zeke just stared at him.
Chance looked at me, hooking his thumb toward Zeke. “He your boyfriend or something?”
“No,” I seethed, charging over to Zeke and pushing him toward his room.
He barely budged, and his eyes didn’t leave Chance as he sucked in a deep inhale like a fucking dragon.
Chance shook his head, looking from me to Zeke and back again. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. You said you wanted to have fun.”
“I do,” I said, reaching for him. He stiffened a little, but then he slid his arm around my waist.
And Zeke glowered.
“Get your hands off her,” he warned.
“Zeke,” I whisper-yelled, giving him a look that said he was dead if he said one more word. But he wasn’t looking at me. And when Chance’s grip on my waist tightened, Zeke gritted his teeth.
Then, he flew across the room.
I barely broke contact with Chance before Zeke pushed him into our front door, his back hitting it so hard that it shook the whole dorm. Zeke towered over him, and any fight Chance had in him faded in an instant.
He shook his head, glancing at me like I was a psycho before he shook his head and shoved Zeke off him.
“I’m out of here,” he said, and then he twisted the door handle and disappeared into the hall, the door shutting behind him with a loud thunk.
The silence that engulfed our dorm room next was like a hot, wet blanket, and I stood gaping underneath it at the door Chance had just run out of, blinking over and over like I had to be dreaming.
Then, I turned on Zeke.
He stood in the middle of the living room, chest puffed and brows bent as his dark eyes met mine. A thin sheen of sweat lined the muscles of his arms, of his neck, of his chest, his t-shirt sticking to it slightly.
I shook my head, roaring as I stormed toward him. “What the hell is wrong with—”
But before I could finish the sentence, Zeke rushed me in equal measure, closing the distance between us. Shock washed over me like an earthquake, sudden and unexpected, and the words died on my lips as I watched him descend on me.
His heavy footsteps echoed in the chambers of my heart.
His hot breath silenced any attempt of me telling him to stop.
His hands slipped into my hair, tugging tight and tilting my chin up.
And then his mouth claimed mine in a kiss of thunder that beckoned the storm inside me to rage.
His lips were warm but firm, demanding as they captured my own and stole any hope of my next breath. Time stopped, teetering on the edge of an abyss as every nerve in my body went up in a blusterous cloud of flames. I melted into him on a whimpering sigh, and he swallowed it up, his fingertips curling in my hair, thumbs gripping my jaw tight enough to bruise as he kissed me harder.
My hands landed in the middle of his chest, lightly at first, like I was going to pull him into me. But then recognition hit me like a bus, and I pushed with all my might, both of us stumbling back and away from each other as the kiss broke and the world seemed to crash down around us with it.
My back was against the door, his against the wall, both of our chests rising and falling in a rhythm akin to a soldier at war. Every breath blew out of his nose like fire, and his hands gripped the wall behind him like he had to hold on to keep himself from descending on me once more.
He licked his lips, dragged his teeth over the bottom one, and waited.
But his eyes never left mine.
And I stood there, panting, on the verge of crying or screaming or shredding every article of clothing I had on.
And I waited, too.
I waited for the words to come to me, for the reasons why I should be angry with him to fly off my tongue. I waited and waited for awareness to hit, for me to remember why I hated him, to remember why the last thing I should want was for him to kiss me like that again.
But nothing came.
Without rhyme or reason or a single prayer that I could stop myself, I closed the space between us with three long strides, launching myself into his arms.
And he caught me with another kiss that stole any argument left hanging on.
