“Drayton,” Ellie scolded with a spoonful of soup hovering in front of her mouth. My phone vibrated in my pocket while she was talking. “No phones during the meal. We talked about this last night.”
His bored stare was directed at his plate as he ran his hand through his hair. It was obvious that he’d sent that text to me but after watching Drayton get scolded for using his phone, I wasn’t about to check mine. He gestured with wide eyes but I subtly shook my head and pushed beans around on my plate. This hiding thing sucked, but it was for my benefit, and I was grateful that he didn’t just come out and expose us in front of the she-devil at the end of the table.
After the meal, Leroy let us all know that the Cowboys game against the Miami Dolphins would be on in the theater room. I thought the television in the living room was large enough. Gabby and I helped Camilla and Ellie wash up.
Gabby stood at the island and wrapped leftovers. She whispered, “Josh said that Becca and Emily weren’t invited. Maxon and Austin brought them.”
I smiled and nodded with understanding as I scraped scraps onto one plate. I supposed I could check the text now, but I finished with the washing up first. The moms poured themselves some wine, and Gabby and I went and found Josh in the rec room, where there was gaming and a pool table. The girls were nowhere to be seen, and Maxon and Drayton were playing pool while Austin gamed.
I sat down on a single armchair and checked my phone. I could feel Drayton watching me as I opened his message.
I didn’t invite them. Mom always invites Maxon and Austin. They brought the girls. I’m real sorry. Go upstairs? I’ll come up after?
I closed the message and leaned back in the seat. The game would be on soon, at four, and I wasn’t upset with Drayton. We could wait until everyone was gathered in the theater, and no one would come and look for us. I met his piercing stare and shook my head but smiled. He looked frustrated. Gabby and Josh excused themselves and disappeared, again. After a few minutes, Austin looked over at me.
“Come and tap in to a game, Ch—Dallas?”
I stared at the bloodshed on the screen and frowned. Gaming didn’t interest me, but I shrugged and stood up, wandering past Drayton, who leaned over the pool table with his cue lined up. I bumped into him and quickly apologized.
“It’s all good,” he said. I hoped that I was the only one who could hear the teasing in his tone.
Austin showed me the ropes of the game but it was still hard. Each time that I died, it affected him because we were on a team or something. I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I was just tapping buttons and attempting to aim the gun. Each fail that I made, Austin became more restless, his tone shorter, and I was sure that the pace at which he was sinking his beers was not helping.
“Fucking hell, man.” He shot up out of his seat and dropped his controller. I watched him with amusement. “It’s not that hard to get. Are you stupid?”
“Dude,” I said. “Calm down. It’s a game.”
I looked at Drayton and Maxon, who were watching their friend throw a tantrum. Drayton’s knuckles went white as they twisted around the pool cue.
“Exactly, it’s a game. Not rocket science, you idiot.”
I stood up. “Get a grip. Childish brat.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he scoffed and sat back down. “Dumbass.”
“Bro, relax,” Maxon said, amused.
“Quit talking to her like that.” Drayton sounded dangerous, like he was attempting to keep in control.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Fuck off, Drayton.” Austin started setting up a new game, without me in it. “She’s an idiot. The hell are you even doing here? Piss off back to the diner, grease girl.”
I exhaled, jaw clenched, and leaned down to rip the controller out of his hands before storming over to the console and switching it off.
He stood up fast and stormed straight for me. For a moment, I wondered if I’d taken things too far. “You fucking bitch. That loses progress.”
He stopped in front of me, towering over me, and I couldn’t believe it when he shoved my shoulder. Was he seriously this worked up over a game? He opened his mouth, no doubt to spill more insults, but he didn’t get the chance because he was grabbed around the back of the neck and shoved into the wall.
“Did you just touch her?” Drayton held him by the throat and my heart sped up at how fast things had taken a turn.
Sort of hot, though.
Drayton looked so angry. I hadn’t seen him like this before. Not even after the incident with Nathan. He shoved Austin back into the wall. “Don’t ever put a hand on her again, Austin. I swear to God—”
“Dray.” Maxon stood beside them and tapped his shoulder. “Come on. Ease up. She’s all good.”
“That’s not the fucking point.” Drayton shoved Maxon back with his free hand and pointed at Austin, who was struggling against Drayton’s grip, staring at him with rage. “Talk to her like that again, touch her like that again, and I’ll fuck you up.”
He let Austin go and stepped back. Austin rubbed his neck and the two of them locked in a menacing stare as Austin wandered off. He passed me and raised his hands with a taunting wave before he gave me a light shove in the shoulder again. It wasn’t aggressive. It didn’t hurt. But testing Drayton’s promise wasn’t the best idea.
Drayton took one step forward, gripped Austin’s shirt, and punched him so hard in the jaw that he went straight down, collapsing on the floor.
“Bro.” Maxon knelt beside Austin and started helping him up. Drayton watched them, unfazed.
“You can fuck off out of my house.”
Maxon supported Austin, who looked dazed as a red welt started forming on his cheek and jaw. “I’ll drive him home.”
“Bye.”
The two of them were gone before Drayton turned to me and his anger morphed into a splitting grin.
I shook my head with amusement. “I’m sort of aroused.”
I wasn’t sure where Becca and Emily were, but I was relieved that neither of them had seen that. Drayton approached me, fast and swift, and pulled me in at the waist. “Well thank fuck we’re alone.”
He kissed me and I raised myself on my tiptoes to deepen it, sliding my fingers into his hair. The way that he handled himself never ceased to amuse me. He was so protective and fierce. It made me swoon and feel safe. We heard someone clearing their throat behind us and turned around to find Gabby and Josh.
“Just saw Austin and Maxon leaving,” Josh said, his mouth lifting at the corners. “Looks like we missed something.”
“Something.” Drayton shrugged as his hand slid down my spine and came to rest above my bum. “We’ll be fine when he’s sober and apologizes.”
Gabby looked confused but didn’t ask. I would tell her later. “Where are the girls?”
Josh gestured behind him. “Flirting with Nathan in the theater. It’s embarrassing. Want to watch?”
I nodded and went to step forward, but Drayton kept his hold tight and tucked me into his side. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
They left us in the rec room and we reveled in a little time alone before we joined the others to watch the Thanksgiving game. It was one of the best holidays that I’d had.
Chapter 19
On the afternoon before my audition at CalArts, Nathan and I were sitting in the hotel restaurant eating an early dinner. The hotel that we were staying at was the Hilton Garden Inn. It was nice and just six minutes from CalArts. Palm trees covered the grounds and there was a pool—although I doubted that we’d use it. The outdoor court was nice at dusk. Blue fairy lights wrapped around the palm-tree trunks. There was a small gym as well, which I considered using for a light workout before the audition.
Nathan sat across from me in the cozy establishment. The carpet was a patterned brown, the room was long, and dark wooden tables sat in rows. Windows stretched along the left wall and offered a view of the enchanting outdoor court. I glanced up from the open-faced steak sandwi
ch in front of me and found Nathan grinning at his phone screen.
“What?”
He snapped his head up.
“What’s so amusing?”
“Oh,” he chuckled. “Nothing. I have a date tonight. That’s all.”
My shoulders fell and my glare narrowed. “We’ve been here for four hours. How?”
“I’m prepared.”
“You’re a ho,” I mumbled, shoveling a forkful of focaccia bread and steak into my mouth.
His laugh was disbelieving. “A ho?”
“I have to be at the school first thing in the morning. Are you going to be there?”
“Yes.” He seemed confused that I would even ask.
I was disappointed that we’d come to California together and he had already organized himself to go out and leave me alone. We finished our meal with a significant drop in conversation and he suggested that we wander the grounds for a while. The Christmas lights were festive. It was light-sweater weather. I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. No snow was a serious reprieve from home. A text from Drayton popped up.
It’s so cold here. My balls need their own tea cozies. Come back and cuddle me soon. Okay? Good luck for tomorrow. You’ll nail it. Just like you nail me. HAHAHA. I’m done. I swear. Miss you x
The message made me giggle. He was such a goof. But it warmed me all over to know that he was missing me as well. I knew that I’d messed up the no commitment plan—not that we’d talked titles—that I had in place. But with Drayton, I sort of had no choice. He was impossible not to love.
“Is that Drayton?”
I nodded.
“How’s that going? King and queen of the school yet?”
“No.” I gave Nathan a brief side-on glance as I tapped out a response to Drayton. “No one knows.”
“What?”
“We’re not out. Or public. Or whatever.”
“Why?”
I groaned. “Because my cheer captain is a huge bitch who wants to dictate the happiness of others. That’s all.”
The conversation came to a pause when we arrived back at the hotel reception. We headed through the reception area and out into a square court. Our room was on the bottom floor of the two-story hotel. The room was nice. Clean. There was a narrow space between the end of the two double beds and the dresser. A desk, a computer chair, and an armchair sat at the end of the room beside a small window. It was enough for one night.
Nathan closed the door behind us and I fell back onto one of the beds. It groaned in protest, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, which was a relief. I needed to be well rested for tomorrow.
Nathan sat down on the corner of his bed beside the window. “What’s the deal with the cheer captain?”
“She’s a bitch,” I mumbled, staring at the ceiling. “She’ll screw my chances of getting CalArts if she thinks that I’m dating Drayton.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” I sat up and began shuffling through my duffel bag. There wasn’t a whole lot of space in the room but I’d use what I could to practice for the audition. “I need to get CalArts since, you know, I didn’t get an audition for SMU or Colorado College.”
“You didn’t?” Nathan almost followed me into the bathroom until he realized that he was following me into the bathroom. He seemed somewhat distressed.
“I didn’t,” I continued talking from behind the bathroom door, pulling off my jeans and shirt, and pulling on the shorts and T-shirt. “I’m not sure why. But it means that I need this to go well tomorrow.”
“How come I didn’t know about this?”
“You’ve been sort of distracted. You’re out a lot. Plus, it’s not news worth talking about. If I don’t get accepted into CalArts, college gets pushed back another year. I’m focusing on the positive.”
“What do you mean I’ve been distracted?”
“It means that you’ve been distracted.” I tied my hair back. “You’re out all weekend. You’re late home after work. Like, damn, I sound like a nagging wife. But whatever. You’re dating a lot. It is what it is.”
Nathan didn’t like being cornered. He didn’t like being called out, but when I opened the bathroom door, I noticed that his cheeks had turned dark red. After Drayton shouted at him for forgetting me at work a month and a half ago, he apologized. But for a week or so, he also brought it up in conversation whenever it seemed “natural.” He wanted to know if Drayton was still upset with him.
“You’ve never seemed to have a problem with it before?”
“Yeah.” I started stretching. “Because I don’t have a problem with it. But planning a date on our first trip to California together seems a little shit.”
“You could have said something.”
“Why should I have to?! Why wouldn’t you just give it up for one damn evening so that we can hang out and experience this together?”
“I thought that you’d be practicing all night,” he defended himself, waving at the room and my outfit in a frantic state. “I figured that you wouldn’t want me hanging around.”
“Well … I do!” I shouted. “I need my brother. For two days. That’s all. But if you’re too obsessed with your dick, forget it.”
“That’s a bit uncalled for.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Is it? Is it uncalled for? Why don’t you just get sorted and go.”
“I can’t go now.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t,” he argued. “You’re upset.”
“Fantastic observation skills.” I straightened up from a calf stretch and stepped into a side lunge. “I’ll be fine, Nathan. Like you said, I’ll be practicing all night. And then I suppose I’ll need some sleep. I’m not panicking over my future. I’m super calm. I don’t need support at all.”
“Dal,” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t realize. I didn’t know that it made you so upset.”
The springs squeaked and the white comforter wrinkled as he sat down again. “You’re independent as hell. You always have been. If I’d known that you … well … needed me, I would never have arranged a date. I mean, is this just tonight? Or all of the time?”
“I mean, the fact that you’ve slept with half of Castle Rock and never had a follow-up date is a little gross. You know, being served groceries as well as looks at the store because you didn’t call the cashier back is a bit shit. But that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“Sometimes, when it’s important, think about someone else. Is it that hard? It doesn’t seem that hard to figure out, Nathan.”
We didn’t argue often, but it did feel good to get that off my chest. I wanted him to know how I felt. But I didn’t want him to feel bad.
“It’s not hard.” His smile was tight and he stood up from the bed. “I’ll cancel tonight and we ca—”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” He slid his phone out of his back pocket. “I’m here. We’re going to embrace our evening in California. Even if we don’t leave this room.”
I laughed.
When I was born, Nathan was eight. When I was eight, he was sixteen. He suffered his shoulder injury that year. And when he turned seventeen, just after accepting that he wouldn’t play professional football, our parents died. He went from being a teenager without a care in the world who had the freedom of college at his fingertips to the caregiver of a child. He had to learn balance and maintain an identity. He’d done well. I was proud of him.
And it seemed that he was proud of me too, or so he told me while I practiced my routine for hours on end. He convinced me to take a break at one point. We had a hot coffee from a quaint cafe near our hotel. We snapped a few photos and selfies, and when we got into bed at eight, we talked. The lights were off. Our beds were side by side and there was a low but persistent thrum coming from the small bar fridge.
“Nathan,” I said, “have you ever been in love? I mean, I know that you date around a lot. But ha
ve none of them caught your interest further than just a one-night stand?”
There was no response for a moment. I wondered if he’d fallen asleep faster than should have been possible. But then he sighed. “Sort of. Well … it could have gone there. But she didn’t reciprocate the feelings. She didn’t see it working out long term, anyway.”
“Who was she?”
“Just a girl I went to school with, I’m over it now.”
“Sure about that? You do a lot of sleeping around for someone who’s over heartbreak.”
“I’m over it.” I could hear his mattress as he shifted around. “Anyway, how about you? You in love?”
While the thought of being in love terrified me, it also turned me inside out. “Yeah. Which is sort of something that I wanted to avoid, but it seems to be happening.”
“Why would you want to avoid it?”
“Because.” I tucked the sheets up around me. “I guess things are sort of uncertain at the moment. We’re on different paths to different colleges, and we haven’t even talked titles. How can I transition a discussion about long-distance relationships into that conversation when we haven’t even defined what we are?”
“You’re overthinking it.” Nathan sounded tired. “Long distance works. You’re obviously in love. Don’t make things more complicated than they need to be. Just go with the flow. You’ll be happier if you embrace whatever happens.”
What he was telling me made sense. A lot of sense. But it was easier said than done.
The theater was enormous. It was intimidating and the seats weren’t even full. There were three women and two men sitting at a panel in front of the stage. Red velvet curtains were raised. A single light illuminated the spot where I stood, feeling as if my heart was going to beat out of its chest.
I had never felt pressure like this. I couldn’t remember the names of the five judges. My stomach was in knots, my future a moving mirage that could slip straight past me if I didn’t perform the correct steps, lost forever.
The QB Bad Boy and Me Page 23
