“Don’t coach him,” Tyus warns.
“I’m not coaching, I’m educating. As someone who has taken a lady to the bathroom before, I can honestly say he might regret it.”
“She went to the bathroom with you?”
“Yep.”
“She barely knew you?”
“She knew my name. She knew my jersey number. That was all she needed to know.”
“That was no lady.”
“No,” I agree with a grin. “No she was not.”
“Well,” Colt grunts, standing with effort. He has a trick knee that gives him trouble sometimes. You can see it in his walk when it stiffens up. “That shit was fun in college, but the stakes are higher now. Watch yourself, man. Use your own condoms, never trust that they’re on the pill, and don’t ever leave the condom behind.”
“Why can’t I leave the condom behind?”
“It’s full of your shit,” Tyus tells me as though it’s obvious, because I guess it is. “All they need is a turkey baster to get your boys in their body. After that it’s nine months until the bill comes.”
I chuckle, but neither of them smile. “Are you fucking with me?”
“Dead serious.”
Colt pulls out his phone. “I got a video if you want to see.”
“No, I’m good.”
“Do you want to see that picture of your girl with the OC again?”
“Fuck you.”
“Ooh, testy,” he teases, smiling. “You got a thing for your agent? Because if you don’t you’re gay. She’s hot.”
“I’d hit that,” Tyus agrees.
“See? Tyus would fuck her. I’d fuck her. The OC probably tried to fuck her, but I want to know, Trey, did you fuck her?”
I stare at the strobing lights until my eyes hurt. Until the entire place is too dark to see, along with the expectant eyes I can feel on me.
I kick back my drink, downing it in one swallow. It burns like fire on the way down, making me wince. I cough into the back of my hand as I stand, pulling my wallet out of my back pocket. I toss a couple of hundreds on the table.
“Here’s for the drink and the bet,” I tell them evenly. “Colt, take the hundred and get a hotel room. Don’t be a piece of shit.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I’ll see you later.”
I can hear them laughing as I leave but I don’t look back. Instead I duck my head, hurrying through the crowd across the dance floor, out into the night, and up to the curb where I wait for a cab. The night is warm, the air sitting thick and humid under my shirt where my heart races in my chest, and that unsettled feeling I felt for so long before the Draft creeps inside me until I’m nearly shaking. Until I’m vibrating with anxiety that makes me sick in my burning gut full of whiskey and uncertainty.
But when I finally slide inside a cab and the driver asks me where I’m going, I know the answer without a shadow of a doubt.
Wilshire Regent Condominiums
Los Angeles, CA
It was supposed to make it better. Sleeping with Allen was supposed to make me feel in control, make me happy. It was at least supposed to get me off, and it did, but I’m more wound up now than I was before. Whatever he did to me, it didn’t take.
I could fly to Indiana. Is that crazy? Are the Colts even at home this week? I have no idea. I don’t even know that Kyle would be happy to see me after the brushoff I gave him during the Combine. I disappeared in my obsession with Trey and I haven’t been able to climb back out. It’s no good, this thing between us. We can’t be in a room together without getting stupid and we can’t avoid each other forever. And I don’t want to. That’s the bitch of it. We were getting along too well before the Draft. So well that he became a fixture in my life and now that he’s gone I’m bereft without him. I miss him. I miss my friend and I miss the man. I miss the pieces of him that come together to make the mass of emotions and muscle that are my undoing.
I’m a goddamn chick flick without him.
My phone buzzes next to me on the couch. I check the clock, frowning. It’s after midnight.
“Hello?”
“Miss Ashford, you have a visitor. Mr. Domata.”
I stare at nothing, stunned. But then again, am I? Or did I know this would happen? Is that why I went out with Allen in the first place? Is that why I took him to a bar I know is constantly surrounded by media?
“Let him up,” I answer hoarsely.
I’m already in my pajamas. I think about changing quickly before he comes up, but I decide against it. I won’t change anything about what I’m doing. I won’t be thrown into a fit just because he’s here.
I feel nervous as I undo the chain on my door. My fingers are shaky, pulsing with the beat of my heart that echoes too loudly in my ears. Memories of the last time Trey was here flash through my mind. Memories of what I did when he left, what he asked me to do, flood my body. It’s a familiar sensation born of repetition. Habit. Need.
He knocks on the door once. Just once. Hard and certain. He knows I’m there. He knows I’m waiting.