by Cora Carmack
“So wait . . . the cop followed you guys all the way into the library?”
“Yes! I thought for sure we were going to get caught. And then we ended up hiding back in the stacks and—”
“And let me guess . . . bow chicka wow wow.”
I blush, and lean my elbows onto the table to get closer to her. “I have a question. And it’s embarrassing, but honestly, I think I’m past embarrassment with you. Have you heard of a thing called the Sweet Six?”
“OH MY GOD, YOU DID THE SWEET SIX WITH TORRES?!”
I slap my hand over her mouth as her words echo around the deserted bar. “Shhh! Keep your voice down, would you?”
When she nods frantically, I remove my hand. Then in a whisper, she says again, “Oh my God, you did the Sweet Six with Torres?”
“No, I didn’t. But he mentioned it. And we might have messed around a little back in the library, but that was it. I honestly wasn’t even sure if it was a real thing. I thought he might be teasing me.”
“Oh no. It’s a real thing. Trust me. I’ve still only knocked off one myself, but I always planned . . .” She trails off. “Never mind. It’s—that was something—not really in the game plan anymore.”
I have a feeling her sudden silence connects with all that stupid talk from back at the game. I shouldn’t push. I pride myself on not being a pushy person, actually. But I can’t help asking, “Why?”
She shrugs. “It’s complicated. Everything is so fucking complicated.”
I nod, and eat another mozzarella stick while she fiddles with her silverware.
“I wish I could make a list,” she says. “I wish my brain worked that way, and I could just decide what I needed and wanted, and I could write it all up in one place. But I don’t work that way. Because for everything I want, there’s part of me that doesn’t want it. For everything I think, something in me disagrees. I’m like a pair of magnets in one body, and . . . I’m a mess, Nell. A god-awful mess.”
“To messes,” I say, holding up the vodka cranberry Stella ordered me. “May they always get cleaned up.”
“To messes,” she agrees. “And karaoke and keg stands and beer pong and all-nighters.”
I DON’T LIKE it, but under Stella’s direction we end up at Torres’s house. I guess technically, it’s not only his house, but that’s the only way I can think of it.
“It’s going to be fine,” she tells me. “I’d take you to a different party, but the only ones I know of are frat things, and Dallas and I have a deal that we don’t go to that kind of thing alone. This is the only place I knew of to get you your keg stand and beer pong. And trust me, the guys will be so busy celebrating their win that we won’t have any trouble dodging Teo. I got your back. I promise.”
“Okay, but we do the beer pong and the keg stand, and then we go do something else. I don’t want to hang out any longer than necessary.”
“Deal.”
The party is about the same size as the one on Halloween, but it doesn’t feel quite as intimidating. On Halloween, I’d only stayed in the kitchen for a little while before retreating outside, and I spent the rest of the time . . . well.
Anyway, it’s crowded as we move through the living room, and I don’t see Torres anywhere. It’s dim and loud, and he might not even notice me if he walked right past me. Slowly, I begin to relax.
“I think we should do the beer pong first,” I say. “Unlike the keg stand, it requires a certain degree of skill. I’d rather be fresh for it.”
Stella laughs. “You’re competitive, aren’t you?”
“Incredibly.”
“I guess it’s good for you then that I am a master at beer pong.” She mimics throwing a Ping-Pong ball and says, “I’ve got a light touch.”
We find the beer-pong setup in a room toward the back of the house just off the living room. Stella hesitates at the door, shooting me a look. “Oh, come on,” I say. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Okay. If you’re fine with it, I got you.”
I don’t know why she’s so tentative all of a sudden, but I’m just eager to play the game, finish my list, and get out of here. The two of us call dibs on the next game and wait our turn. I survey the room while the current game wraps up. There’s a bed pushed into a far corner, and a few girls are piled on top of it talking.
The Ping-Pong table is situated in middle of the room, and there’s a group of about seven people hanging around it. A small enough group to manage most of the nervousness I’m feeling about playing. I already knew all the rules (thank you, Internet research). Logically, it seemed like a piece of cake. But since I’ve never played, it was impossible to know the weight of the ball and how much force I’d have to put behind it.
When it’s Stella’s and my turn, we’re up against two guys. Stella knows one of them. He’s tall and lanky with a beanie pulled over a mop of longish hair. He smiles at Stella and lifts his chin in a hello to me.
“Ladies first,” Beanie Boy says.
Stella looks at me and holds out a white Ping-Pong ball. I take it, weighing the thing in my hand. It’s light. So light the air circulating from the ceiling fan overhead would be enough to blow it off course. I miss the first time out, but luckily the other team misses, too, so we’re safe from having to drink anything yet.
Stella sinks her first shot on the next round and winks at me. “Told you. I’m a pro.”
When the guys again fail to sink the ball in one of our cups, the one in the beanie picks up the cup Stella’s ball had landed in, and he downs it in a few long swallows.
On my next turn, I take a breath, analyzing my last throw and adjusting my technique in my head. It’s all physics really. Force. Gravity. Arc. I shake out my shoulders, let out that breath, and send the ball flying. It plops into the cup right at the top of the other team’s pyramid.
Stella cheers, and we high-five, and even though the guys sink their shot, too, so neither of us has to drink, I still feel good.
We don’t miss a single shot for the rest of the game, and by the time I sink the ball into the other team’s last cup, the small group in the room has grown to a crowd, and the cheer they let out makes me jump in surprise.
Stella squeezes me into a hug and cries, “Oh my God. You have to be my beer-pong partner forever. No one will ever beat us.” She pulls away.
The guys we beat have come around the table, and they congratulate us. The one in the beanie gives me a hug. “Impressive game,” he says.
Stella claps and yells, “Who’s next? We’ll take on anybody!”
“I’ll take that challenge!”
My back locks up one vertebra at a time. I can’t see him. But I know that voice. I can’t forget it.
“Nell, do you wanna?” Stella gestures toward the bedroom door at the same time that Torres steps into view.
“No,” I say, placing a hand on her arm. “It’s okay.”
Torres leans on the other side of the table, and he’s so big, his arms so long, that he grips both sides of the table easily. His gaze meets mine, and he raises an eyebrow. “So that was your first time playing beer pong?”
There’s an edge to his voice that I don’t like. It makes it hard for me to swallow, and I’ve got goose bumps even though it’s warm in the crowded room. “It was.”
“Beginner’s luck, I say.”
Stella scoffs. “You wish, Teo. She’s a natural.”
He smiles, and holy crap, it hurts. It hurts that he can stand there like nothing’s changed, like I’m just another girl for him to tease. And the fact that it hurts makes me furious.
“Are we going to play or what?” I ask.
“Who’s on your team?” Stella asks Torres.
“Oh, I think Ryan is around here somewhere. He’ll do.”
It’s Stella who stiffens this time. The blond guy with curly hair that I always see around her steps up beside Torres. His lips are pressed together as he looks across the table at Stella, and I can’t read his expression at all.
/> A few beats of tense silence pass before Stella claps her hands. “Let’s get to it, then.”
I add, “You guys can go first.”
Torres shakes his head. “Oh no, we’ll decide this the official way. With the eyes.”
My brows furrow. I don’t remember seeing this in the set of rules that I read online.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He picks up a ball and gestures for me to do the same. “First throw is decided by eyes. One person from each team gets a ball, and you have to stare into your opponent’s eyes and toss the ball without watching where you aim. First one to make a cup goes first.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. If you think I’m going to believe—”
Stella cuts me off. “It’s true.” I shut up fast. “I’ll do it. Give me the ball.”
“No.” Torres plants a firm hand on the table, and the whole thing sways slightly under the pressure. “Nell and I are doing this.”
I don’t get why he’s being this way, why he’s so tense and pushy. I mean . . . I get that I probably shouldn’t have come to his party. This is his territory, and I’m trespassing. But he could have just asked me to leave. He could have avoided me. Anything but this.
“Fine,” I say, and I hate that my voice is quiet. I roll the ball between my fingers and step to the center of the table. I take a deep breath and face him. His eyes are dark, but more than that, the look he wears is dark.
Shit. He’s mad. Really mad. I should just leave. Screw beer pong and keg stands and my list. This is a bad idea.
But I don’t look away. My gaze stays locked on his.
Ryan puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “Sure you’re up for this, man? You should probably—”
“Oh, I’m up for it.”
He shoots me a cocky grin, and I nearly bolt. Nearly.
I’m not scared of him. I’m not scared of this party or fitting in or being different. I’m not even scared of being scared. I’ve got this.
“You ready?” I ask.
“On the count of three,” he says.
Then he proceeds to give the slowest count in the history of the universe. I swallow because his eyes are piercing. There’s no other word for it. And I’ve never been good at looking him in the eye. I remember that night in the pickup truck when he let me close my eyes so I didn’t have to, and I very nearly give in to the impulse to close them now. But I stay steady, and when he says three, I toss the ball, doing my best to find the rhythm that I’d felt in the last game.
Both our throws end up in cups, so now it’s up to Stella and Ryan to decide.
We end up forfeiting first toss when Stella breaks eye contact with Ryan as she throws. It’s a closer game than our last one. Torres and Ryan are stronger opponents, and their presence seems to have put both me and Stella off our games.
When Torres sinks a shot and mine bounces off the rim of a cup and misses, I have to drink my first beer of the night. It tastes just as bad as I remember, and I have to close my eyes and force myself to chug it quickly. When I set the empty cup on the table, Torres’s expression is drawn in dark edges, and I think he’s somehow even angrier at me than he was before. Which makes no sense because it’s his fault that I had to drink.
Gah. Men.
The game stretches on longer and longer, and the room is now packed full of people. Tension that’s about more than just competition spreads taut between us, and by the time we get it down to one cup on each side, my nerves are frayed. It’s just a game, but it feels bigger than that. As if we’ve all got something on the line. Pride, I guess. Our remaining cup is directly in front of me, and theirs is in front of Ryan.
Torres steps up to take his shot, but his eyes find me instead of the cup. I wait for him to look away, but he doesn’t. He keeps his eyes on me as he tosses the ball, and it hits the rim of the cup and bounces off.
This is my chance. With his miss, I could end the game if I throw the ball into their last cup.
I close my eyes. I’ve had to down three cups of beer in all. They weren’t very full, so I think I’m still fine, but I also don’t want to be overconfident. I blow out a breath and focus in on that cup. I think about the trajectory I want, how soft I want my throw so it’s more likely to bounce into, rather than away from, the cup if it hits the rim, then I let go.
It falls perfectly into the cup, and Stella throws her arms around my neck at the same time as our audience goes crazy.
My eyes pass briefly over Torres, and I could swear he’s smiling, but I don’t let myself look back to check.
“Keg stand, and then leave,” I tell Stella.
She nods, and while she tells the crowd that we’re done for the night, I start making my way to the door. Stella’s small hand grips my elbow a moment later. “You okay?”
I nod. “Yep. I just want to do this and get out of here.”
“The keg’s usually in the backyard. Come on.”
I resist the urge to look back over my shoulder. I’m hoping Torres won’t follow. Stella told everyone we were done for the night, so maybe he’ll leave me alone if he thinks I’m leaving. Even so, I walk a little faster. There were a lot of people in that room, and even if he does follow me, I have every intention of being outside and out of sight before he can catch up to me.
Chapter 28
Mateo
Fuck . . .” She’s long gone when I finally push my way out of my room. I spin, scanning the party for her dark hair, her curvy form. “Fuck.”
It had been such a shock to walk into my room and see her there. She’d looked vibrant and confident and unbelievably sexy. And everybody was watching her, and that asshole friend of Ryan’s with the beanie hugged her, and it took all my self-control not to suffocate him with that beanie.
I hadn’t had any intention of partying tonight. I was coming into my room to drop off my bag, and then I was going to go to Nell’s apartment. And by some miracle that I still didn’t understand, she was already here.
What did that mean?
She certainly wasn’t here at the house to see me. The way she’d tensed up when I volunteered to play told me that. But why would she come here if she didn’t want to see me? Was it to rub my face in the fact that she’s just fine, and I can’t walk or talk or do fucking anything without thinking of her? Because she sure as hell looked like she was doing just fine without me.
I knew she’d gained a lot of confidence and was more comfortable in her skin than when we first met, but I still never would have expected to find her completely at ease playing beer pong at a party like this.
God, I’d spent the whole damn football game thinking about her, aching to go after her. I thought about her as the team’s trainer examined me on the sidelines and went through all our concussion protocols. I’d thought of her when Coach said he’d rather not chance sending me back into the game. She’d been the only thing that kept me sane on the sidelines as we traded points with the opposing team. Our defense had an off game, and our opponent’s wasn’t particularly strong to begin with, so it ended up becoming about who could score the most points.
And in a game like that, you’re never safe. Even when you’re ahead, things can turn around so fast. I paced and paced and paced, and I thought of her. I planned out what I was going to say to her. During halftime, I grabbed a spiral from my bag and wrote it down. Then time ran out, and we won, and all I could think about was talking to her. But Coach wanted to talk after the game, check in on how I was doing, and give me the nonabbreviated version of the lecture he gave me on the field. And all that fucking time that I’d been sitting in his office, she was here in my house. She’s still here somewhere . . . unless she’s already left.
I hear cheering and clapping in the backyard, and follow the pull in my gut to the door. When I walk out onto the back porch, I catch sight of her immediately, hands balanced on top of the keg, and her perfect fucking legs straight up in the air. Stella stands beside her, but she isn’t tall enough to keep a hold on
her, so some other dude I don’t recognize has his hands around her ankles, holding her up.
I see red.
It’s bad enough that she’s in my house, and all these other people are here, so I can’t just grab her and devour that damn pouty mouth of hers. But no one else touches her. No one. Jesus, I’d take a concussion over this any day.
I fly down the stairs at the same time as she stops drinking and the guy starts lowering her feet toward the ground. She’s laughing, and her long hair is wild and twisted over her face. She pulls it away so she can see, and while she does it, Keg-Stand Guy keeps a hand on her lower back like he needs to steady her.
I march over to them and grip both her shoulders to spin her away from him.
“What the fuck, man?” he calls at my back.
But now I’ve got my hands on her. A few locks of hair are caught between my fingers and her shoulders, and I just want to bury my fingers in those thick tresses.
“What are you doing?” Nell asks.
She’s breathing heavy, probably from being upside down and chugging beer, which she doesn’t even like. Damn it, everything about this night is pissing me off.
“That’s two more firsts tonight,” I growl.
She tries to pull away, but I tighten my grip.
“Stella and I were just about to leave. We are leaving. Now.”
“Oh no. Not yet, girl genius. You and I need to talk.”
Maybe she’s all good. Maybe I’ll be making a complete fool of myself in a matter of moments, but I’ve got to do it. I force myself to let go of her shoulders and reach down to take her hand.
“Come with me.”
“But—I—”
“Nell? You okay?” Stella asks from nearby.
“I just want to talk. Then you can come back out here to Stella. You can do whatever you want.”
She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, and I fight off a groan. “It’s okay, Stella.”
Everyone outside is watching us. I can’t just take Nell over to a quiet spot in the yard, not like this. So I squeeze her hand and lead her up the stairs and back inside. We pass through the living room, where the music is thumping to a fast beat, and I lead her back toward my room. There’s not as many people inside as there were when we were playing beer pong, but it’s not empty, which is what I want.
