Boyfriend bargain, p.22
Boyfriend Bargain, page 22
“Come on,” I say. “Really?”
She shrugs. “Actually the hockey guys kind of scare me. I need a nice, quiet Viking.”
Taylor points a finger at her. “No, you need someone who isn’t like you at all. You need someone to teach you the mighty ways of the sword, grasshopper, and by sword, I mean stick, and by stick, I mean dick.”
Laughing, I get up off the bed to dig around for another bottle of Prosecco in the closet. “Girls, girls, stop bickering. Obviously, we need more alcohol.”
Before long, I’m pouring us all new glasses of wine as I retell the story of Frat Boy and Pixie Girl. Taylor has started what he calls his FBPG Watch where he takes random photos of students on campus and then texts them to me, hoping he’s found them. They are nowhere.
“I wonder if he got rid of the clap,” Poppy muses, and we burst out laughing just as Julia walks in the door, still wearing her silver corset and tight bikini bottoms—with no coat. Shit. Her hair is sticking up in crazy directions, and she looks like she’s been mauled.
My eyes widen from my side of the room and I stand up. “Hey. Uh, is everything okay?”
“No.” With a tight headshake, she tries to keep her face averted from us, but I see dried tear tracks on her cheeks.
I frown. It takes a lot to get her to cry.
Taylor and Poppy have both come out of their slouched positions, and I quickly reintroduce them. Julia and I have become…well, maybe a little bit closer since she started working at BB’s.
“Gah, I look horrible,” she says breathlessly, her voice a bit shaky as she looks in the mirror and wipes at the mascara under her eyes. “I don’t even care.” Her shoulders slump.
“What happened?” I ask.
She yanks a cheap tiara off her head. “Football team came in tonight and the guy I hooked up with at the Kappa party saw me—” She shakes her head and bites her lip. “He called me a slut then got into a fight with one of the suits who was sticking money in my bikini.”
“Dude,” Taylor and Poppy say at the same time, sucked in.
“Can’t a girl just strip and not be called names for it?” Julia grits her teeth. “It’s an honest, hard job and I need the money.”
We watch Julia, who’s moved to stand inside her closet, and we hear her yanking clothes around. A sparkly corset and a pair of bottoms come flying out. Glitter goes everywhere.
“It’s the outfit that keeps on giving,” says Taylor.
She comes out dressed in a Snoopy shirt and leggings and curls up on my bed next to us.
Taylor leans in and strokes her hair. “I know we’re not besties—yet—but you gotta tell us the backstory here.”
“How about some Prosecco? Or Patron Silver?” I ask.
“Both.”
Okay.
I’m getting her drinks and she’s talking, telling them about the quarterback she met at the Kappa house. She picks up a brush on the bed and yanks at her hair, silver and pink glitter falling from the strands. “The worst part is, I think Mara might fire me. Parker—that’s the quarterback—he was throwing tables, breaking glass, and punching shit—”
I grimace. “Julia, he’s a drunk asshole. That’s not your fault, and she won’t fire you for it.”
“I’m not sure he was trashed.” She shakes her head. “What’s ironic about the whole damn thing is there was a girl with him, and just because I dumped him and never called him back, he thinks he has the right to get angry. Men are such fucking douchebags. Football players can suck it.”
“You’re my hero,” Poppy says, her eyes wide.
“I like you,” Taylor says, eyeing Julia’s long sleek brown hair. “Would you let me French braid your hair?”
She looks at my hair. “Did I interrupt girls’ night?”
“We’re celebrating,” Taylor says, giving me a nudge. “Sugar inherited a shitload of money, but she isn’t telling anyone, nor does she want to take it. Crazy girl.”
Julia gapes at me, and I shake my head, regretting my decision to tell them about the upcoming will reading in April.
I pop him on the arm. “I haven’t even been to the reading.”
“You’re like an heiress now,” Poppy says.
No. I’m not.
I clear my throat, feeling uncomfortable. “But, I do have good news. I sent out more applications for law school today.”
“Hold on now—what about Vanderbilt? And isn’t that why you and Z are together?” Poppy asks, hands on her hips.
Taylor’s lashes flutter. “Girl, she is with him because she’s crazy about him. There’s no boyfriend bargain going on anymore. That whole thing was a joke.” He laughs at my expression.
“I can’t even argue with that,” I murmur, feeling my face burn.
Poppy frowns. “Are you really giving up on Vandy? I mean, it’s all you’ve talked about since I met you.”
I stare down at my comforter. The truth stings, but I just wasn’t what the admissions committee wanted. While my grades and LSAT score were stellar, my lack of community service and extracurricular activities may have been the reason I was waitlisted. “I’m moving on.”
Poppy is confused. “But Z is willing to go to Nashville with you and meet the dean at that thing…right?”
“At the waitlist event, yes, but perhaps it isn’t fair to everyone else if he’s on my arm.”
“But he really is your boyfriend!” she exclaims.
I take a sip of my drink and think about our written agreement, which is folded up and tucked inside my box of keepsakes in the closet. I’ll always treasure it, but over the past few weeks, the idea of influencing the dean that way has started to feel…unfair.
How would I know if I got in because of Z or on my own merit?
I keep thinking about my mama and something she told me when I was devastated in sixth grade because I wasn’t chosen to be in a stupid social club. You are worthy, and you don’t need anyone else to tell you so. Someday you’ll face other obstacles, tougher ones, but you must hold your head high and carry on. Be true to you, Sugar, and happiness will come.
The truth is, the biggest reason for going there was to shove it in my father’s family’s faces, but I have to let that go. And perhaps, deep down, part of me knew I was grasping at something I never would have been able to follow through with.
But, I did meet Z because of it, and I can’t be upset about that.
Poppy, who’s been checking the score of the game online, jumps up from her seat. “Guys! HU just posted an update.”
I dart over to her. Concord State University is part of our conference and one of the teams we need to beat.
She’s reading quickly. “Holy cow. Hawthorne lost by one goal.”
A collective sigh of disappointment ripples across the room—except for Julia.
“We were supposed to blow them out of the water.” I stand up and click the TV over to the local coverage of hockey, and the first thing I see is the score: Bears 3, Lions 2.
I adjust the volume to hear the commentators.
“It’s a disappointed Hawthorne group leaving the arena to head back home. A tough loss indeed as power center and number one draft pick Zack Morgan practiced with the team this morning but didn’t come out for the game, and we still have no word on if there was an injury.”
A cute brown-haired reporter is on the TV next, a microphone in her hand. “It was a tight game and you could tell the Lions had heart, but losing a key player was just too much. It’s a huge disappointment for the team.” She levels the camera with a serious look. “We aren’t sure if this is related, but questions are being raised, especially since Morgan wasn’t able to finish out a home game against Minnesota-Duluth earlier in the season. A statement from the team said that incident was the flu, but rumors are swirling that tonight it might be something more serious. Some are claiming Zack collapsed.”
I click the TV off and feel the weight of everyone’s gaze.
“Is he okay, Sugar?” This is from Julia.
I look around at each of them, and I know we each have secret hurts, but Z’s is not mine to share. “I don’t know.”
Was it one of his panic attacks?
I’m dashing across the room to find my phone. Please, let him be okay. I have my phone out and I’m calling him.
“Hey,” he says, and my eyes close as I step into the bathroom for privacy. His voice is low and I figure he’s on the bus, teammates everywhere. “You saw the news?”
“Yeah. Are you okay?”
A long sigh comes through the speaker. “I couldn’t hold it together, Sugar. Maybe I could have made it…” His unsteady voice tugs at everything inside me. I picture him leaned back against his seat, eyes closed. “I passed out and Coach wouldn’t let me play.”
“What can I do?”
He sighs again. I can hear his deep breaths through the phone and I want to hold him.
“I need you. Just…go to my house and wait for me. Please.”
“Done.”
33
Sugar
A while later, after bidding the party in my room farewell, I’m heading to the Krispy Kreme drive-through and getting donuts for the guys. I’m eating one when I pull up to his house and park on the street. Wrangling the box up to the back deck, there’s a bounce in my step at the thought of seeing Z, and I’m hoping I can cheer him up. There’s a knot of worry in my chest about what happened at the game, but he says he’s more centered when I’m around, and I want to be here for him.
I let myself into the house with a key he told me was hidden under a dead plant. It’s about ten at night as I open the back door.
Long John Silver flashes by and gives me a mean meow.
I flip on the lights. “Bad cat,” I say back at her, but my voice is sweet. She hasn’t quite decided if she likes me yet, and I figure it’s because Z and I aren’t here enough for her to warm up to me.
She looks over her shoulder, gives me a glare, and then stalks off to his bedroom.
But that isn’t the only cat in the room.
I flinch when Veronica comes around the corner from the den. Dammit. I must have missed her car parked somewhere along the street.
She frowns. “What are you doing here?”
In full makeup and dressed in jeans and a cropped black and gold HU hockey jersey with Reece’s number that looks custom-made, she looks a hell of a lot better than I do in my braid, grey joggers, and black sweater. I have zilch makeup on—Z doesn’t care for it anyway—except for a swipe of Make Me Hot red lipstick, which I wore especially for him.
“Why are you here?”
Her expression is stark. “I’m here to feed the cat—like I always do when the guys are out of town.” She prances around the kitchen in her stilettos and turns to face me at the counter. I eye the knives next to her. I don’t think she’d go for one, but there’s so much anger that oozes from her that sometimes I wonder. I get that she’s the queen of the jersey chasers, but she isn’t in charge of me.
“Z asked me to wait for him.”
She raises a brow. “Do you have any clue how many girls meet him here at this house?”
I cross my arms. “None since me.” And I happen to know Z isn’t the womanizer people like to say he is. I know him. Sure he has the healthy sexual appetite of a twenty-one-year-old male—hell, I love that about him—but she likes to exaggerate this idea of a horde of females being all over him. And I get it. He’s the number one draft pick and he’s beautiful and women want that, but over these past weeks, I’ve seen another side of him. The softness blended with the dark, the man who saves cats and puts up with his brother’s hateful girlfriend. Is she even his girlfriend? I don’t know.
She gloats. “Oh, I’ll give you that. You are the one right now, but if you only knew…”
I take a step toward her, and I’m taller, looming over her. “You’ve been itching to tell me the dirt on Z since the moment we met, but the truth is, I know him.”
“You know about Willow?” I nod and her gaze rakes over me. Then she smiles. “Did he ever tell you what she looked like?”
I frown. He hasn’t, but in my head I see her as a young, pretty high school girl who idolized him. I haven’t asked too many questions about her appearance because, well, it felt intrusive. “She was beautiful.”
She sneers. “She was way more than just beautiful.”
My nerves clang at the insinuating tone she uses.
“You should see your face right now.”
“I’m going to his room for better company.” I walk down the hall.
“If you really want to know what Z sees in you, just open his nightstand drawer,” she calls out from behind me as she follows.
“I don’t go through people’s private things.” But I do recall the look on his face when he looked at his nightstand a few days back.
Before I can shut the door, she comes into his room, circling around me until she’s standing next to his bed. She sits on the navy duvet, her hand stroking over his pillow, and I want to jump on her, but I grit my teeth instead.
“What do you want, Veronica?”
She looks around the space and laughs. “That night at the Kappa party when he first saw you, it was like you were a ghost, and then he just had to have you.”
Ghost?
“So?” I feign boredom.
“Just open the drawer. See what’s there and all will be revealed and you can quit being the stupid dumb blonde who thinks the hockey player is falling for her.”
A tingle of dread crawls along my spine. “No.”
“Fine. Let me do the honors.” She leans over with a flippant attitude and pulls the drawer out, her expression lighting up at whatever she sees, and I guess this isn’t the first time she’s been through his things. She pulls out a small gold box and dumps the contents on his bed. Dozens of folded yellow pieces of paper fall out along with a lone photograph that floats around and lands near the end of the bed, closest to me. I don’t look at it.
“Afraid?” She smiles.
“No. I assume those are the letters he writes to Willow for therapy.”
She shakes her head. “It’s sick how he’s fooled you.”
My resolve cracks, but I trust him. Don’t I?
“Still not curious about those letters?” she asks, running her hands through them.
“No.”
“Chicken.” With a sigh, as if she doesn’t have a care in the world, she plucks one of the letters out of the pile and unfolds it. “Oh, look, this one’s dated a week ago. Let’s see what he says to her.” She clears her throat and begins to read.
“Willow,
Another nightmare. Remember that time we went camping for the weekend with only a tent, a few bottles of water, and a pizza? Reece was determined to spend the entire night, but somehow you talked him into us ditching the whole idea and taking off for Denny’s and you ordered an everything omelet without anything in it but cheese. I still laugh about that night. I’m lost here in the real world, yet you’re the one who’s dead. I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry for doing you wrong. If you were here, my whole life would be different. I love you. Forever, Z.”
Her eyes flash up at me. “Wow. He loves her forever, and you’re just the poor substitute.” She grins. “And if she were here, there’d be no you in his life. I find that hilarious.”
“He writes those for a reason,” I say, maintaining control, but my hands are wrapped around my stomach. I love you. Forever. I hang on to the dresser for support. “You shouldn’t go through his private things,” I manage to say, but my voice is wispy. Weak.
“Maybe.” She rummages through the pile and pulls out the photograph. “See anything interesting?”
I know I shouldn’t, but I take it from her.
First, I notice how handsome both Z and Reece are, their faces leaner than they are now, vibrant with youth and vitality. The girl…she’s small next to them, petite and gorgeous with long hair that’s flowing over her shoulders, the color a shimmering white-blonde.
I finger my own hair, taking in her face, the way it curves, the shape of her eyebrows and how they frame her face. That sick feeling inside me grows, spreading.
“It’s eerie, right?” Veronica says softly, watching my face. “You could be her sister.”
I tear my eyes from the picture and my hands tremble. “We aren’t sisters.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Veronica says, her face triumphant. “How does it feel to be the B team?”
I look down at it again, and my stomach turns. The truth batters at me, even as I try to deny it, but…her hair color, the length, the way our faces are shaped…my hands curl at my sides.
God. What is happening?
I’m falling down a deep, vast hole…
A bitter laugh flows out of her. “You can’t compete with her. You can’t be better than a dead girl. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
I let the photo fall to his bed, and I turn and make my way to the kitchen. I hear her behind me as she goes into Reece’s bedroom and shuts the door. Mission accomplished, I guess. She’s been dying to tell me this since she first saw me, and now…
I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen, my heart pounding like crazy, trying to piece it all together when the front door opens and Eric, Reece, and Z come in with long faces.
“Ah, my favorite blonde—just the welcome home I need,” Eric says, making a joke that comes off as forced. He jumps ahead of Z teasingly, gives me a quick hug, and then steps back, giving me a quizzical look. “Hey, we’re the ones in a shitty mood. What’s your excuse, babe?”
Z’s at my side, easing me away from Eric. A furrow knits his brow as he stares down at me. He tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. “What’s wrong? Did something scare you?”
I wonder what my face must look like.
“Veronica’s in Reece’s room,” I say, swallowing. “But when I got here, she followed me to your room and told me—” I stop myself. I can’t do this in front of Reece and Eric.
Z gives Reece a dark look. “Can’t you control her?”
“Fuck you,” Reece mutters as he drops his duffle and heads back to his room.
