For Three Seconds (Forbidden Sports Romance)

by C. Lymari

  “Do you want to fuck off everyone else and just go do something else?” I asked Dylan as soon as I got in his car.

  “Do what?”

  “I don’t know, what do people who don’t hang with us do?”

  “Bitch, if you don’t know, how should I?” he said as he looked at me. “Fuck, I’m supposed to pick Audrey up tonight.”

  I liked Audrey. I was kind of close to her, but I stopped taking her calls after my breakdown last year.

  “Scar,” Dylan said. “I think she wanted to hang with you. That’s why she asked me to pick her up.”

  I sighed, leaning back in the seat. I needed a fun night, and going to the lake was not what I had in mind. I didn’t want to look at the people who pretended to care, and I didn’t want to see them together. I just wanted one night to forget.

  “Let’s get her.” I gave in.

  Audrey lived in the nicer part of town. I looked at her huge house, and I closed my eyes because it reminded me of poms. Thinking about dancing made me think about my mom. All the practices, events, fundraisers, she took me to them.

  It didn’t take long for Audrey to come out. She smiled at both of us and ran to the back of Dylan’s car.

  “I’m surprised you picked me up. To be honest, I thought you guys would ditch me.” That was just like Auds to be brutally honest.

  “How bad do you want to go to the party?” Dylan turned back and asked.

  “I don’t care what we do; I just don’t want to be home.” She shrugged.

  Dylan and I both looked at each other at the same time.

  “Target!” we shouted in unison.

  Audrey moved her hand forward, as if telling us to go for it. It was too late to go to the mall, but Target had everything, and we could find what we needed and make it a night.

  An hour and a half later, we walked back into my empty condo with pita chips and taco hummus dip. Beause we had to keep it healthy.

  “Gigi’s going to be pissed you bailed on her,” Dylan said.

  “Gigi is my best friend; she’ll understand,” I responded.

  To which Audrey made a face. I was tired of fighting with her about how Gigi was a good best friend.

  Dylan looked at me with his eyebrows raised because he knew Gigi wouldn’t understand. Sometimes I felt like she didn’t understand me at all anymore. My parents’ deaths had changed me, but sometimes I felt like it also changed her.

  There was knocking on my door, and I wondered why I heard it closer since my room was at the end of the hall.

  “Is everything okay?” I heard my brother ask.

  I didn’t care. I burrowed deeper into the warmth that surrounded me.

  “Damn, no wonder you two were a no-show last night.” I groaned at Jordan’s voice.

  Opening my eyes, I saw him going to take a seat on the sofa next to where Dylan and I had fallen asleep. It was just the two of us since Audrey’s parents had blown up her phone and she had to go home. Since it was late, Nick had taken her home. Best brother ever.

  Forcing my heavy lids to stay open, it took a second to notice Gavin standing in my living room, looking at Dylan and me.

  “Hi,” I croaked.

  Gavin didn’t reply. His eyes trailed over my face, then went up to meet Dylan’s face and then back down to where I was wrapped in D’s arms.

  “We got worried when you didn’t show last night.” His voice sounded scratchy, like he needed water, and I wondered if he was hung over.

  Untangling myself from Dylan’s arm, I sat up. We always kept the condo cool, and I was wearing a hoodie over booty shorts. It looked like I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

  “This keeps getting better and better,” Jordan hooted.

  I glared at him before my brother could come out here and think I had lied to him about not worrying about Dylan.

  “I’ll be right back.” I ran to my room to change.

  On my way there, Nick was coming out of his room.

  “You’re leaving?” I asked.

  He couldn’t leave me alone with Gavin.

  “We have no food, and the guys want to run a few of their plays by me.”

  “Can you get—”

  “Sour cream Pringles,” Nick finished for me.

  I smiled at him and went to my room to look for some pants. As I changed, I didn’t let the fact that Gavin was in my house get to me. He was Gigi’s boyfriend; he would never be mine.

  Once I was changed, I turned around, ready to meet the guys in the living room. As soon as I opened the door, Gavin was right there.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Just using the bathroom.”

  I pointed to the bathroom across the hall.

  Gavin grinned at me and pushed his way into my room. Damn, he smelled nice, and he was tall and lean, his presence taking over my tiny bedroom. He walked in, dissecting everything he saw. His fingers traced the light gray walls to the black-and-white posters of old Hollywood actresses.

  For a moment, I wondered what would it feel like for those fingers to trace my body. My cheeks warmed, and I was glad no one could read my mind. Gavin made his way to my bed and sat down. His elbows were coming to his knees, and his gray eyes were looking straight at me.

  Shit. He couldn’t read my mind, right? When I started to fidget under his gaze, he smiled.

  “You’re gorgeous.”

  He said it like it was nothing.

  He said it like calling me gorgeous wasn’t wrong. For fuck’s sake, his girlfriend was my best friend. Somewhere in the handbook, there had to be a rule about being called gorgeous by your best friend’s boyfriend.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, deciding to ignore his earlier statement.

  “We came to see Nick,” he said, almost dismissively.

  “I mean in my room.”

  He gave me one of his sexy smirks, and I had to remind myself he was Gigi’s. But a part of me whispered that he could have been mine.

  “Am I not allowed to see my wife?”

  My belly dipped. But I didn’t let it show; instead, I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s a stupid project, Gav.”

  His gray eyes flashed, piercing me. “You haven’t called me that in a long time, Scar.”

  Scar and Gav.

  Something we were not.

  Something we never could be.

  Scar and Gav, two halves that would never make a whole.

  “Why are you here?” I repeated.

  “I was…” He cleared his throat. “Gigi and I were worried about you when you didn’t show last night.”

  I swallowed, wondering if he was lying to me. Gigi hadn’t texted me since yesterday afternoon. I didn’t know how worried she was.

  “Dylan and I decided to spend some time alone.” Sure I made it sound suggestive, but he didn’t need to know Dylan was gay and that Audrey had been with us.

  “Like a date?” he asked.

  His eyes were roaming down my body, and it was wrong. I knew we should go out with everyone else, but in stolen moments like this, for seconds at a time, I could pretend he was mine.

  “Sure,” I mumbled. “Now out.”

  Gavin got up, and I went and opened the door for him. He was passing by when he stopped right next to me. I felt him, and I smelled him, and I wanted to get lost in him. He leaned down, and I closed my eyes. Three kisses, three seconds, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for more.

  His mouth was by my ear shell, and I felt his lips moving against my sensitive skin. “Dylan is gay. Unless you grew a dick, I don’t think he’d get what he needs from you.”

  Fuck me.

  When I opened my eyes, he was chuckling and making his way down the hallway.

  I was going to kill Dylan. I was supposed to be the only one who knew. If shit came to a head, I was supposed to be his beard. The only person I was mildly interested in fooling knew Dylan was not into me like that.

  Just my fucking luck.

  I slammed my door and changed qui
ckly, but I stayed in my room for a lot longer. When I came outside, my brother was coming back from the store.

  “Okay, boys, what do you have for me?” Nick asked with excitement.

  My brother loved the game differently than Gavin did. Nick loved plays: making them and watching them being executed. He played in high school, but his passion was in teaching it.

  Having the guys in my living room felt like old times when my parents were alive. My mother would start cooking, Gigi and I would be gossiping nearby. Crazy how life can pull the rug under you.

  I sat there watching them until all their talk bored me, and I fell back asleep. A hand caressing my cheek woke me. Gavin stood there in my living room, looking down at me.

  I didn’t say anything, scared that I might be dreaming and I would ruin it.

  “It was supposed to be you,” he whispered.

  Before I could rationalize what he said, he grabbed his backpack and left. My heart was beating fast and wild.

  What was supposed to be me?

  Jordan came out with a half-eaten sandwich. “Where’s Gav?”

  I pointed to the door.

  “Fucker’s my ride home. Later, Scar.”

  Gav and Scar. We were two halves that would never make a whole.

  If things were awkward between Gavin and me, it didn’t show. He didn’t go to school on Monday, and when he came back on Tuesday, he acted like I was just someone random person sitting in front of him.

  Our group project was uncomfortable, to say the least. I wondered why he’d said what he did, and he acted like he’d never dropped a bomb on me. At the end of the day, it wasn’t like I could say a thing.

  He was my best friend’s boyfriend, and I was nothing of concern to him.

  Eight

  Winter

  The rest of the semester passed rather quickly. A part of me was glad, but the part of me that was selfish hated it. It meant that my time alone with Gavin was coming to an end once the semester ended.

  Gavin wasn’t the only one who pulled away. My best friend was more distant than ever. She drank more, hung out with her cheer squad, and if I stayed home and didn’t go to a party, she went without me.

  Winter had come, and even though it wasn’t the first one without my parents, this one felt worse.

  Last winter, I was still in shock. I was numbed to feeling because the pain was unbearable, and I glossed over the holidays.

  This time I was wide-awake, and I saw everything that went around me. Holidays and grieving went hand in hand. A time of joy and cheer could feel so lonely when you had no one near.

  I looked up from my homework and examined the cafeteria. I sat alone while everyone else was in groups. Dylan and Audrey were out sick, and until now, I never realized that other than Gigi, they were the only people I hung out with.

  When I noticed Gigi walking through the doors, I sat up straighter. Relief washed through me. She didn’t have lunch with me, but she was my best friend, and I didn’t care that she felt distant; she was there for me when it mattered. When my parents’ funeral rolled around, Gigi lost it as much as I did. She’d stood by my side and cried with me.

  “I’m so sorry, Scar. I’m so sorry.” Her pain had felt like it was my own, her voice breaking in agony—for me.

  “Gigi.” I smiled at her as she got near me.

  It had been so long since she ditched a class to see me.

  Gigi turned to look at me, and she smiled. “Oh, Scar, hey, I forgot you had this lunch period.”

  The smile I was sporting faded.

  “Oh…I thought you came here to keep me company.” I waved my hand in the air, feeling like an idiot.

  “I’ll be back. I just have to talk to Becca. She needs to tell me something,” Gigi explained.

  I wanted to tell her that I needed her too. I needed her more than she could know.

  “It’s cool,” I managed to say.

  Gigi stood there, and for the first time in a long time, we were awkward.

  “I’m allowed to have other friends, you know,” she said.

  Ouch. Okay, yeah, that hurt. A lot.

  “Just because you don’t socialize doesn’t mean I shouldn’t. I love you, Scarlett, but you’ve changed.”

  No shit. My parents fucking died.

  I didn’t say anything. Instead, I watched my best friend go.

  After lunch, I went home. I couldn’t take it anymore. It was all too much—the constant pain, and the loneliness. Watching everyone go on with their lives while I stood back and observed them. I was so distraught that I didn’t notice Nick’s car was home. Fuck me; he would not be happy.

  As soon as I walked through the door, he came out of his room. “What the hell, Scar? You’re supposed to be in school.”

  “I’m not feeling well,” I replied in a monotone voice.

  I was starting not to care.

  My brother cursed, and then he walked up to me and hugged me so tight it was a miracle I could still breathe.

  “You’re not doing this again; you’re not putting me through that anymore,” Nick ground out. “It’s not your fault Mom and Dad are gone.”

  But it was my fault. I was the one who went with Gigi to that party. I was the one who got drunk and couldn’t find Gigi, so I called my mom to pick me up. I was the reason they were dead. If it weren’t for me, they would still be alive. I got drunk, and I killed them.

  I held on tighter to Nick, and I sobbed because, at that moment, I just felt too much. My brother soothed me. He rubbed my back, combed his fingers through my hair, and told me everything would be okay. It was a lie. I didn’t know how he could stand to look at me when I couldn’t do the same.

  A day away from school was just what I needed to feel semi-better. Too bad for me, I’d caught whatever bug Dylan and Audrey had. I was lying on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, when there was a knock on my door.

  Thinking it was someone selling something, I didn’t bother to get up. The knock came again, and for a second, I got scared. Nick was at work and my friends were at school.

  “Open the door, Scarlett,” Gavin’s voice boomed through the walls.

  With shaky feet, I made my way to the door. I looked down at myself. I was wearing black sweatpants and a white long sleeved-shirt. I looked like death.

  Then, I cursed myself. He had a girlfriend. Still, I opened the door. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself Gavin was Gigi’s. In my mind, he was also mine.

  And that was dangerous.

  “You look like shit, Davis,” he stated from where he stood. His cheeks looked rosy from the cold wind and his lips were redder than normal.

  “What are you doing here?” I managed to say, my voice coming out scratchy.

  Gavin stared at me for a few seconds without saying anything. His gaze was taking me in. His eyes traveled from the top of my head to my fuzzy socks.

  “You haven’t been to school, and our project is due Friday,” he said.

  Right. It was hard to work on a project when you barely talked to your partner. When Mr. Reeves gave us class time, we sat across from each other, ignoring one another.

  Stepping aside, I motioned for him to come in. As he got settled by removing his jacket and getting his paperwork ready, I went to my room to get mine. Before I went out of my room, it hit me that I was alone with Gavin for the first time in years.

  He was Gigi’s boyfriend, except that excuse wasn’t working. Not when my best friend was starting to feel like someone I used to know.

  When I walked into the living room, Gavin was already on the floor, his paperwork spread out all over the place. Looking at him when no one was around, when no one was looking at what I was doing, it hit me how incredibly handsome he was. As if he felt my stare, he looked up at me, those dark eyes not giving anything away.

  “We going to get to work or what?” he rasped.

  Shaking my head, I sunk to the floor across from him.

  “Do you need anything to drink? To eat? If y
ou want to use the bathr—”

  He cut me off. “I know where everything is.”

  Right, he did.

  We sat in silence as we both worked on our marriage project. I had a feeling we weren’t going to do as good as I had initially hoped. About a half hour passed when I started to have a cough attack. I hated being sick. I could deal with sneezing, even chills, but coughing, I loathed with a passion.

  “Here.” Gavin was right in front of me with a bottled water.

  As I drank, his hand came to my forehead, and I froze. It was like I was twelve again, and I waited for him to kiss me. Our eyes clashed, and I could see the moment he stopped breathing because there was no rise to his chest.

  “You don’t seem hot. Have you eaten?”

  “No,” I said.

  Gav sat up and went to my kitchen. He started moving stuff around, then came back, looking angry.

  “Jesus, you have nothing to eat, Scar,” he growled right before he grabbed his coat and walked out of my condo, slamming the door on the way out.

  I wasn’t feeling too good, so I didn’t have it in me to care. I pulled my blanket from the sofa where I had left it and laid on the floor. I just needed to close my eyes for a second before I continued to work. Gavin might not care about me or his grade, but I did.

  “Scarlett!”

  My name sounded far away. My ears were ringing, and I was hot, which was odd for nighttime in spring. The air was heavy, and my clothes reeked. I shouldn’t have stood so close to the bonfire.

  “Baby, you need to get out the car,” I heard someone say, but the voice was too low and in agony, and I couldn’t make it out.

  “Oh God, Scarlett.”

  I tried to open my eyes to whoever was calling my name, but I couldn’t. I was too weak.

  I know I said it felt hot, but I started to shake, chills all over my body, and I couldn’t control them.

  “Wake up.”

  “Wake up, Scar.”

  “Baby, please wake up.”

  When I opened my eyes, Gavin was looking down at me. His arms were wrapped around me, and I kept shaking.