Shameless King

by Maya Hughes

  What the hell is that supposed to mean?

  “I’ll take your word for it.” The crush of the crowd quickly surrounded us. Heath’s mop of blond hair quickly disappeared deeper into the party like a man on a mission. Someone shoved a beer into my hand before I even got to the keg. It was good to be king.

  “Declan! Why weren’t you at practice?” A girl sloshed a beer as she raced up to me.

  “I’m doing some solo practices for a while, but don’t worry, I’ll be back with the team when it’s game time.”

  Slaps on the back and fist bumps from everyone as I worked my way through the party.

  “Dec! You’re up for beer pong!” one of the football players shouted over the pounding music and crowd of people.

  “I’ll be there later.” I cupped my hand around my mouth and called out into the group assembled around the Ping-Pong table covered in red plastic cups. Beer, pot, and liquor flowed from all corners of the jam-packed house. As I wove my way through my fellow classmates, there were more than a few hands deep in my pockets. The numbers were always overflowing after a night out. The Hey, Declans, notes, subtle breast brushes, and hair twirling meant I’d have my pick of whoever I wanted tonight. But I wasn’t feeling it.

  I’d come to get out of the funk of having the weight of my future hanging around my neck like an albatross, but Heath’s workout had made me want to crawl into bed and sleep until midterms. That would be admitting defeat or that anything had changed, and I was determined it wouldn’t. Temporary setback aside, this was my fucking senior year.

  “Can’t wait to see you out on the ice again, man.” A guy I didn’t know came up and gave me a handshake back-thumping hug combo. “Another national champion right here, everyone!” He lifted his hands, pointing to me, and sloshed beer on the girl beside him. I laughed into my beer and steered clear as she punched him in the arm.

  I also needed to get out because my nerves were kind of a mess to see Makenna tomorrow. My cage was not easily rattled. I’d kept my cool in front of Archer—barely. I’d faced off on the ice against guys known to collect teeth and break noses at the drop of a hat. Skating off against them was never anything I had a second thought about, but man, Mak threw me off my game.

  Not only because of our little moment in the study room, but because she’d be judging every single thing I did when it came to the class. Pretending I didn’t care was fine and all, but I did. I didn’t want her to think I was a complete moron. There were enough people in my life who felt that way. Failing the class had been a fluke.

  I made it to the kitchen, and a few people called out my name and passed me some jello shots. Nothing like some boozy kids’ snacks to distract me from the fact that a person who hated me had my life and career in the palm of her hand.

  Downing the jello shot, I let the smooth burn slide down my throat. Someone put another full beer in my hand. I didn’t even bother looking for Heath. He’d float around, wandering from spot to spot like a troubadour of happiness until he passed out somewhere. There would be a trail of women following after him like little ducklings, but he never looked twice. Well, maybe twice.

  If he was feeling it, he might bring someone home, but that was it. He didn’t do relationships, at least not ones he didn’t have to work for. That was his thing. Go after the chick he had no business with, like our student teacher back in high school. He’d be relentless until she caved, and then he was finally satisfied.

  If I weren’t hanging with him most days, I’d swear he was high all the time from how mellow he was. He was a freak of nature that way. But on the ice, there was no one who skated harder or lasted longer. He left it all out there.

  Another cheer came from the front of the house. Head and shoulders above most other people, Preston, the redheaded menace made a beeline straight for me with people pointing in my direction to lead his way. I glanced around the kitchen looking for a place to hide, but there were too many people between me and the back door to make a break for it. Damn it!

  His hand landed on my shoulder as I stepped out the back door onto the deck. The warm summer air soaked up the noise from the other parties on the block, and the humidity clung to the side of my cup.

  A lecture from Preston was not what I needed right now. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get it.

  “My sister is in another one of Alcott’s classes, and she said you guys have an assignment coming up.”

  “Are you my mother now?”

  “No, but you know how important this season is, Dec. Don’t throw away this time.”

  “I’m not throwing anything away. I’m having a little fun. I’ve done my work for the week. Mak and I are meeting tomorrow to finish our paper that isn’t even due until Wednesday. She will ride my ass even harder than anyone can imagine, so you don’t have to worry. I will not fuck up this semester. Although I’m sure you think I’ll try my best.”

  “I’m glad to hear you have a responsible partner.”

  I nearly threw my hands up in frustration. He treated me like some little kid, and I was a month older than he was.

  “You don’t think I don’t want to be out there practicing with you guys instead of Heath, who seems to have no issues with the two-a-day torture he’s running with me.” The stiff pain in my legs had transformed into a gentle ache after a few beers, but I had no idea how I’d feel in the morning.

  Preston squeezed his hand along the back of his neck.

  “I don’t want something stupid to screw you up. You’ve got a shot not many people get.” He looked at me, and the simmering anger melted away.

  Preston wouldn’t be going pro after graduation. He hadn’t been picked up by a development league out of high school, and despite his talents and his leadership, for some reason he thought the pros were out of his reach. I didn’t understand it, but I wasn’t going to bust his balls over something he’d made his mind up about.

  “I know.” I leaned onto the worn and warped wooden deck railing. The kitchen door flew open, and the music and laughter burst out into the relatively quiet bubble on the deck.

  People spilled into the backyard and scurried down the deck steps into the crab grass–covered, stamp-sized backyard. “Looks like it finally got too packed in there for them.” More people flooded outside, and soon the party surrounded us.

  “Hey, Preston. Hey, Declan!” A perky voice came from behind us. We both turned, and there was a petite, glassy-eyed girl teetering on her high heels, sloshing two beers everywhere as she tried to balance. “I got these for you!” she shouted. She had no idea how to meter her volume, thrusting the cups at us and pouring half the beer onto our shoes. We gingerly took the cups from her hands to avoid being drenched.

  “I’m so excited to see you play this season.” She swayed, and Preston shot out a hand to grab her arm. “I came to the practice, but I didn’t see you there. Where were you hiding?” Her slurred words were matched by her droopy eyes. I scanned the people in the house behind her, looking for a girl herd that had lost one of their own.

  “She is bombed, dude.” I glanced over at Preston. He had on his best dad face, even more stern than the one he used with me, which was saying something.

  “I know.” My lips were a thin grim line. Getting buzzed was one thing, even drunk, but trashed meant trouble.

  “I’m not bombed. I’m perfectly fine.” She shrugged off Preston’s hand and tried to walk down the stairs, tripping over the first one. Grabbing her around the waist, I pulled her back from the verge of a head and neck injury before setting her back on her feet.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tiffany.”

  “Where are your friends, Tiffany?” I tried to hold her bobbing-head, drunk-girl gaze. Where the hell are her friends? Wasn’t that part of the girl code? Never leave a drunk chick to her own devices.

  “They are inside.” She pointed behind her, but the weight of her bird arm must have been too much for her because she stumbled backward. Tiffany was going to get h
erself killed if we didn’t find her friends soon. Or some asshole might try to take advantage of her.

  “Let’s go find them.” I looped my arm through hers, and Preston got the other. People parted as we nearly carried our new ward through the party.

  “Lucky me. Look, ladies, I’m in the middle of a man sandwich!” She smacked her lips together as we walked through the house. Preston and I caught each other’s eyes. It was a valiant effort, but he couldn’t help but crack a smile. After about ten minutes of who does this drunk girl belong to? we got Tiffany reunited with her flock who promptly decided she needed to go home.

  Tiffany fought them the whole way.

  “But they were gonna bang me into next week!” she whined as her friends apologized and pushed her out the front door. A giant guffaw shot through the room so loud it made me jump over the thumping music. I whipped around to see Preston bent over with his hands on his thighs, laughing through the tears in his eyes.

  “Finally!” I wrapped my arms around his shoulder.

  “Finally what?”

  “Finally, you’re having some fun. Who knew all we needed was a pint-sized drunk girl to throw herself at you to loosen you up.”

  “Did you see the look in her eyes?” He wiped the tears from his face.

  “Do you mean when she was dragged away kicking and screaming?”

  “She seriously thought we were going to sleep with her…together.” Preston wiped at his eyes as we both shuddered at the thought.

  “I know we’re close and teammates are almost like brothers, but it’s bad enough almost seeing your balls in the locker room. I don’t need to see them in action.”

  Preston shoved against my shoulder, trying to catch his breath from his laughter.

  “The party hasn’t even been going on that long. That girl must have started drinking at noon.”

  “I think she was a sophomore.” I vaguely remembered seeing someone who might have been her during my Sophomore Seminar trek of doom.

  “A sophomore?” Preston’s head whipped up, and all the blood drained out of his face. “Becca’s a sophomore. Do you think she’s out? Is she drinking?” And just like that, fun Preston was gone as he whipped out his phone, ready to go into military tactical mode to locate his little sister. Poor girl would never have a wild night out until he graduated, and even then, I didn’t put it past him to hide in the trees, keeping a watchful eye on her until she graduated. I bet she was regretting her transfer from a school down South right about now.

  With the phone pressed against his ear, Preston rushed out of the house. I shook my head and went back to the kitchen to grab another beer. Someone thrust one into my hand, and then everyone pushed past me, flowing out the back door.

  “Heath’s on the roof.” A couple girls giggled, racing out past me. What the hell?

  Shouldering my way out the back door and down the steps off the deck, I stood among the crowd staring up at the roof. It only took a matter of time for him to get an insane idea in his head, and then there was no stopping him.

  Heath sat cross-legged on the roof of the house, staring up at the sky. He glanced down and smiled right at me.

  “Declan, check it out!” Heath called down like I wasn’t in a sea of fifty other people watching him up on the roof. He pointed back behind the crowd, and everyone tried to follow the direction of his finger. The tall trees behind the house were all anyone could see.

  “You’re going to have to be more specific, Heath,” I said, cupping my hands around my mouth.

  “It’s the moon! I told you.”

  There were murmurs in the crowd about him being drunk, but I was ninety percent sure he was completely sober, just not completely sane.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I called out again, and he stood from his spot on the roof. Some girls leaned out the second-floor window. Apparently, none of the girl flock had decided to follow him out. They craned their necks to get a look at him from there.

  “You should see this.” He shook his head like I’d missed out on a trip from Vegas. Glancing down again, he stopped midstride, like he’d realized the backyard was packed with people. I started shaking my head before he even did anything, because I knew how much Heath loved to play it up for a crowd.

  “Don’t do it,” I said under my breath, but I couldn’t drag my gaze away as his arms went out in front of him and he bent his knees, throwing himself back and up in the air at the apex of the roof into a backflip. The collective gasp of the crowd when his foot slipped was only matched by the cheer that screeched through the night sky when he caught himself in a perfect surfer pose. The house was his board, and the world was his ocean.

  Somehow I felt like the only sane one on the team. Preston was so tightly wound he might actually strain a muscle in his brain, and Heath was so chill he risked floating off into space.

  Maybe I needed new friends…

  10

  Makenna

  After checking my phone for the fifth time in three minutes, I gave up. The old, musty smell of the place did nothing to calm my rising anger. I should have known not to trust him. It was a good thing I’d planned for this and after we’d outlined everything, I’d done the rest of the paper anyway. Sick of hanging around in the study room when the library was a ghost town, I packed up my stuff and headed out ten minutes after the hour.

  Sitting there for thirty minutes silently seething, wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time. Relief washed over me as I stepped out into the humid late summer air and took the path leading to off-campus housing.

  The walk back to my apartment was short and sweet. Having a library so close to the apartment was a bit of an occupational hazard. There was no excuse not to go study, not that I usually needed excuses.

  The course work was already piling up, and what should have been my easiest class, Sophomore Seminar, was the one that filled my brain the most. Everything else was something I could control. The lab work would get done. The papers would be written, but I couldn’t control Declan.

  Sticking my key in the door, I opened it to what looked like a trail of glitter snaking its way from the back bedroom right out the front door. What the hell were they doing? Holding perfectly still, I craned my neck, and there was no movement in the place. I didn’t even know if I wanted to find out what this was about. There was glitter all over the couches too.

  I got into my running gear but didn’t feel like leaving. Being outside, pushing through the droves of people on their way to parties, didn’t hit near the top of my list just then. That was probably where he was. Our meeting forgotten as he did keg stands or played beer pong or whatever else he did to shirk his responsibilities. I flipped on the TV, tried to dust some of the glitter off the couch and searched for something good to watch. A sharp knock broke me out of my streaming video scrolling trance.

  I hopped up and opened the door, ready to tell whoever it was that Fiona and Tracy weren’t here, when the words died in my throat. Declan stood at my front door with his backpack on his shoulder. My shock turned to anger at the stormy-eyebrow look on his face.

  “What the hell, Mak? Standing me up for our session.”

  The rage bomb I was about to drop on him stuttered and paused as I processed what he’d said.

  “What? I didn’t stand you up. I was there. I waited in the study room.” I jammed my fist into my hip.

  “For how long? I showed up at five minutes after because I had to come from across campus, and you weren’t there.”

  “No, you didn’t. I left ten minutes after. Don’t lie to me.” My fingers tightened around the edge of the door, and I was tempted to slam it in his face.

  His annoyed look turned to confusion, and I’m sure it matched my own.

  “I left at seven ten. You were ten minutes late.”

  “I was five minutes late for our seven thirty meeting.”

  “We were not meeting at seven thirty.”

  “Yes, we were. I had another study session that ended at seven t
wenty p.m. I told you that when you rescheduled this. Twice.” He pulled out his phone and handed it to me. The calendar invite I’d emailed him showed up on a big block from seven thirty to eight thirty. I glanced from the phone up to him. His smug look was firmly back in place.

  “Wrote me off that quickly, didn’t you?”

  I opened and closed my mouth a few times. The tips of my ears burned like they had been singed by the glowing satisfaction on his face.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling about two inches tall. How did I screw that up? “Come in.” I stepped out of the way so he could walk into the apartment.

  “Had a fight with a fairy?” He craned his neck to stare at my ass as he passed, and my cheeks were on fire. I turned my head to see what he looked at. The entire back of my body was covered in rainbow glitter. Trying to dust it off, my head snapped up at the clinking of bottles.

  Declan produced a six-pack from behind his back and slid it onto the kitchen counter.

  My gaze jumped from him to it as I tried to figure out what exactly he planned on doing with the drinks. Maybe for wherever he was going next. Until he took one out and opened and closed a few drawers in the kitchen like he had no trouble making himself comfortable.

  “Where’s your bottle opener?” He closed yet another drawer.

  “I don’t know. We might not have one.”

  “How does a college student not have a bottle opener?” He glanced up at me with his eyebrows pinched together like this was some Nancy Drew mystery. I was a second from throwing my hands up in the air and letting him off the hook for all the assignments.

  “I don’t know. Fiona and Tracy like the twist-off top, hard lemonade things and go out most of the time, and I’ve never had a need for one.”

  “I’ll have to put one on my keys or something if we’re going to be studying together this semester.” His voice had a teasing edge that grated my nerves.

  “We won’t be needing these.” I plucked the beer out of his hand, stuck it back in the carton, shoved it in the fridge, and slammed the door shut.