“Are you absolutely sure?” Sable asks. “If I see Colton, I’m going to hit him for being a dick.”
“It's no big deal,” I insist, despite the pang in my chest. “We just hooked up. That’s it. He’s under no obligation to invite me anywhere. And I’m busy anyway.”
Sable groans. “The two of you just need to start banging. All of this denial and back-and-forth is really exhausting.”
“There’s going to be no banging,” I huff, grabbing one of the books and opening it to demonstrate how incredibly busy I am. Alpha Male Behavior in Athletes. I think it was written in the nineteen thirties.
I slam it closed. The last thing I want to do is think about alpha male behavior.
“There’s going to be banging,” Sable promises me with a look. “The two of you should just admit it already.”
She turns to leave.
“Hey Sable?" She stops at the door. “Be careful, okay? The football parties… I think they get kind of crazy. At least the one I saw in the afternoon was anyway.”
Sable laughs. “Honey, I can out-party a bunch of beer-guzzling football players,” she insists. “Besides I always bring this when I go out.”
She reaches into her demure little purse and pulls out a knife that she opens and brandishes proudly. It’s gold and covered in glitter. Or rhinestones. I can’t tell which.
“Oh my God, is that a switchblade? How many other weapons do you have in your room?” I ask. “Is there an arsenal in there?”
“I like to be prepared,” Sable says nonchalantly, closing it and returning it to her purse.
“I feel like maybe I should worry about the safety of the football players instead of you.”
“That would be advisable.”
21
Colton
It's ten p.m. My mom is off at her hotel room, but she made sure to lecture us before she left, since she has some idea of the kind of parties that happen at the house. "Condoms, boys," she yelled at us before she left. "And don't do anything really stupid. Like slide off the roof into the pool, Colt."
I'm sitting in my room listening to the music pounding downstairs. The house won't fill up for another couple of hours, but practically the whole football team will be here now playing beer pong in the yard or running a roll of plastic through the house onto the lawn as a makeshift slide. Normally, I'd drink too much and hook up with some chick whose name I won't remember two hours later, then feel like shit tomorrow. Rinse and repeat.
Except this time, I'm not downstairs with the guys. This time, I'm sitting in my room wondering why the hell I don't really feel like going down there.
And I'm thinking about Cassie. The look she gave me at dinner when my hand grazed her leg, like she's pissed off and turned on at the same time. Her hair falling around her face as she held herself above me. The expression she made when she came, when she let go for just a second without worrying about everything…
And her expression when I said it was no big deal.
I should have texted her today. Or called her. But what my mom said about her kept running through my head all day: She's not the kind of girl you just have fun with. And I'm a just have fun kind of guy. I'm not a relationship guy, which means I'm a total asshole if I go any further with Cassie. She'd think this was something it's wasn't, and I'd be a dick to lead her on.
"Colton King." I hear Sable's voice followed by a loud knock on the door.
Shit. Sable is here. That means Cassie is here.
I jump up, kicking my dirty socks and boxer shorts under the bed and shoving some crap into the closet just so it doesn't look like a filthy pig lives here. When I open the door, Sable is standing there with her hand on her hip, looking at me like I'm scum.
"Is Cassie —" I start.
Sable barges into my room. "It smells like socks in here."
"That's cause there are socks in here."
"I can't believe Cassie fooled around with you in this room."
"She told you that?"
"Not the details," she admits, rolling her eyes. "And she didn't tell me that you apparently treated her like a dick last night. I figured that out all on my own."
"What are you talking about?"
"Why isn't she here tonight?"
I groan in exasperation. "She's... this isn't the place for her."
Sable raises her eyebrows. "How noble of you to protect her honor," she says sarcastically. "I'm sure she appreciates the gesture. What you really mean is that you didn't invite her."
"I wasn't being a dick," I protest. "Why the hell are you even here?"
"Tank," Sable says.
"I didn't know he invited you."
"Yeah, well he did. So now you look like a real ass because you didn't invite Cassie," Sable points out. "So I came up here to tell you to stop being an ass. I don't know why the two of you have this hot-and-cold bullshit going on, but you really just need to get over it and start fucking already because you're both on my last nerve."