I push against Tank's chest.
"If I let you go, are you going to just go over there and beat on him?" Tank asks, talking to me like he'd speak to a small child.
"I'm getting out of here," I grumble.
"You should do that," Tank says.
I storm across the front yard without a second glance behind me. I don't care if Dillon lives or dies.
The only thing I care about right now is seeing her.
She's got to hate me right now.
I don't want to imagine what the hell Dillon made her think I was saying. Or the look on her face when she walked into my room and saw the naked girl.
She thinks I'm scum. I know she does.
When I get to Cassie's apartment, I pause at the door. I didn't plan what to say. I have no idea what to say. Anything I say is going to sound like I’m trying to explain away my guilt.
I knock on the door and wait. She doesn't answer.
I do it again. No answer.
Fuck, she's probably not home. Or she's inside wishing I'll just go away. I briefly consider kicking the door down.
I knock again.
The deadbolt turns and Cassie pulls the door open, just a few inches. I push gently against it, but she puts her foot behind it to stop it from opening further.
"I need to talk to you," I insist.
"I only came out here to tell you that if you pound on my door one more time, I'm going to call the cops."
"Cassie. You need to listen to me, just for five minutes."
"I don't need to do anything, Mr. King," she says coolly. "You were so offended because I didn't tell you about my thesis, because you're such an honest guy, huh?"
"I am honest. If you give me a minute to explain what happened, you'd see that everything is just a big misunderstanding."
"I'm sure it's a big fucking misunderstanding that you've been bragging about doing me, right? Talking about nailing the nerdy little tutor to your teammates. That makes you feel like a big man, doesn't it?"
I clench my fists by my side. I hope Dillon has to have his jaw wired shut. If he doesn't, I'm going to fix that the next time I see him. "I didn't say anything, Cassie," I protest. "That's the guy who was talking about nailing you before, the one I beat up that night I came here. Remember?"
She laughs bitterly. "He knew I was a virgin, Colton," she says. "Explain how he knew I was a virgin if you weren't bragging about bagging the virgin tutor, huh?"
Fuck. How did he know that?
Then, it hits me. "She's a virgin, you stupid fuck." I said it right before I hit him that night.
"Okay, that I did tell him, but not in the way he told you I told him. And not in the way you think I told him."
She shakes her head and looks at me. She doesn't even look angry. She looks… disappointed. And betrayed.
In that moment, I feel like the wind is totally knocked out of me.
"I have to go, Colton," she says. "Don't come back here. If you do, I swear I will call the cops."
She slams the door in my face and the deadbolt turns.
Shutting me out.
42
Cassie
"I'm not sure if it went down the way you think it went down, Cass, that's all I'm saying." Sable dips her chip into queso and shovels it into her mouth.
"And I already told you that I don't want to talk about That Asshole," I huff over the noise on the restaurant patio. New house rule: we refer to Colton King as That Asshole. I take a sip of my margarita. Okay, I take a giant gulp. You'd think I'd have learned after the tequila shots, but what can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment.
Obviously, since I was fucking around with Colton King.
I should have known better.
"I'm just saying that he and one of the guys on the team really got into it that night," she says. "I mean, Colt – That Asshole — was crazy pissed. Tank thought he was going to kill the guy."
I flash to the image of Colton at my door, his lip bloody and a bruise along the side of his jaw, then force it out of my head.
I wonder if it was the guy from the party. It might have been. Colton probably pounded the shit out of him for telling me that he was running his mouth about us. It was probably supposed to be the team's secret.
I shudder at the thought of him telling stories – our stories, goddamn it – in the fucking locker room. Heat surges to my face. It's humiliating. I haven't even told Sable that part of it. Just the part about the girl in his bedroom.
The waiter comes by and I order a second margarita.
Sable raises her eyebrows. "Maybe there's more to the story than you think," she says.
"I said I don't want to talk about it," I spit back. "Can we just sit here on the deck in the sunshine and drink margaritas and talk about celebrities or something?"
"Fine," Sable mutters, crossing her arms over her chest.
We sit in silence.
"You're not talking about celebrities," I complain finally.
"Neither are you."
"Yeah, because I'm sitting here wallowing in self-pity and you're the one who's supposed to be distracting me."
"Fine," Sable grumbles. "Kardashian gossip?"
I shrug.
"Royal family gossip?"