by J. Sterling
“It’s all true,” he said, “but you’re welcome anyway.”
“Chance?” Mac’s voice dragged me back into the present. “You good?”
“Yeah, man. Sorry. Just got lost there for a second.” I went back to unpacking.
“So”—Mac grinned at me, and it was the kind of grin that told me I was going to hate whatever he said next—“end-of-summer party before school starts?”
“Are you asking me?” I cocked my head toward him because it had sounded like a question.
“I’m not asking, dude. It’s happening.” He wiggled his brows, and I realized that even though he was legit the most girl-crazed guy I’d ever met in my life, I’d missed hanging out with him.
“When?” I wasn’t in the mood at all to have a party at the house, but I knew I’d be in the minority.
The guys loved having people over. Correction: the guys loved having girls over. And girls were the last thing I wanted. If it were up to me, we’d never host any parties or have any single females here.
“Later.”
“Tonight?” I blew out an exasperated breath. All I wanted to do was sleep. I was exhausted.
“Yep. And don’t even think about staying in this room all night, or I’ll fill it with pussy. And I don’t mean cats.”
“Get out.” I pointed at my door with a laugh, and he stood up and walked backward, his hands in the air, still whispering under his breath.
After looking around at the things I still had left to organize, I fell backward onto my bed, knowing that Mac would follow through with his threat if I tried to hide in here without at least making an appearance.
Guess I have a party to get ready for.
Pre-Fall Party
Danika
“The guys are throwing a party tonight,” my roommate announced as she bounced into our tiny living room, where I had been sitting and reading a book quietly just moments before.
She was always ridiculously happy. I guessed that was what happened when you had a name like Sunny. You had to live up to it.
“What guys?” I asked because there were thousands of guys on campus, and without being more specific, I had no idea who she meant.
“The baseball team!” she exclaimed, and her smile grew even wider.
Like I’d said, Sunny was the epitome of her name.
If there were an opposite to her light, it would be me. Sunny was all blonde hair and fair-skinned, where I was dark-haired and olive-toned. She had been born and raised in the suburbs of Southern California, and I had been born and raised in the city of Manhattan. We were as different as night and day, but somehow, our friendship worked. What I liked most about Sunny was that she was genuine and honest—two things that I respected more than anything else when it came to girls who were my friends … or when it came to anyone actually.
“Okay. And your point is?” I folded my book, my hand tucked between the pages to hold my place as I waited for her reply. I couldn’t have cared less that the baseball team was throwing anything, much less a party.
Don’t they celebrate themselves enough?
It wasn’t that I didn’t like to go to parties on campus because I absolutely did. I loved the freedom that being away from home gave me, and I intended to enjoy it for as long as I was still living in California—away from the watchful eye of my father. My dad wasn’t a bad guy by any means, but he worried about his only child—me. And after my mom had died the summer before my senior year of high school, his worry had turned into a serious bout of overprotectiveness. One I needed to escape before it suffocated the life out of me completely.
“My point is that it’s the baseball team! Make an exception this one time. For my sake? Please,” Sunny begged, her pretty smile now turned into a full-on pout. “Jared isn’t back from New York yet, and we never go to the baseball parties when he’s here.”
She wasn’t wrong. I usually avoided the athletic parties and only went to fraternity-hosted ones … with my boyfriend, Jared, by my side. For whatever reason, guys in frats seemed easier for me to handle. I wasn’t sure why because fraternity guys were in a class of their own, especially when they were drunk, but they felt like pieces of cake to deal with when I compared them to the athletes at Fullton State.
Maybe it was because the athletes on this campus tended to be arrogant pricks who were above the law. Even worse, they all knew it. I didn’t trust them. So, I pretended like they didn’t exist—unlike every other female on campus. Where most girls chased the players here, I walked the other direction, hoping like hell they didn’t follow.
I’d been dating Jared since high school. We moved here from New York together after Jared suggested we go together on a whim one night during dinner. I wasn’t sure if he’d even thought it through or not, but the way my dad’s face had relaxed, like the idea was the only thing in the world that gave him any semblance of peace about my wanting to move across the country for school, made me unable to say no.
Plus, the idea of my boyfriend and me moving across the country without anyone else was exciting. My only stipulation was that we didn’t live together even though Jared had mentioned it once. I thought we were way too young to really start playing house. Moving to attend the same college was one thing, but living together was another thing entirely. Thankfully, my dad and Jared’s parents had all agreed. Our two families had been friends for as long as I could remember. Even though I would have sworn up and down that I didn’t need anyone to go to California with me, it was comforting, having Jared here. He was a piece of home who always understood me when it felt like no one else did.
I’d been lost in my own thoughts as Sunny continued her pitch, “I want to hang out with the team so bad. Maybe make out with one of the players. Or two. I will go alone because that’s how much I want to go, but I really don’t want to go by myself. Come onnnnn,” she whined.
I removed my hand from inside my book and placed it on the coffee table. I was obviously done reading for the day.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, and she jumped up and down like a grand-prize winner on the Wheel of Fortune.
“That means yes.” She did a little dance, her hands waving in the air. “Thank you, Danika. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You won’t be sorry.”
Even as she said the words, I knew they were a lie. I would end up regretting this. And that wasn’t me being pessimistic even though Jared and Sunny both constantly tried to tell me that I was. I was a realist. And realistically, this party was going to suck because the athletes at this school were total assholes, and I was sure the baseball team was no different. Matter of fact, they were probably the worst.
I was hating this already. Sunny was dressed to impress. Well, as much as it took to impress a college guy, that was. The rule was basically this: show as much skin as possible. The end. She was in a tiny crop top that barely covered her girls and painted-on skinny jeans full of rips and tears. I wore my usual ensemble of black leggings with shit-kicking combat boots and an off-the-shoulder black cropped sweater. You could take the girl out of New York, but you couldn’t take New York out of the girl.
We pushed through the front door and were greeted by a ridiculous amount of people. All the lights in the house were on, and from a quick sweep of the room, I could see there seemed to be an equal ratio of guys to girls, which was surprising. Usually, at any party, one gender outnumbered the other by a significant amount.
“Woohoo! I can’t believe we’re actually here,” Sunny shouted over the noise in my direction.
I hated that she was so starstruck over these guys.
“It’s a college party. We’re in college.” I leveled her with a hard stare. “Where else would we be?”
“But it’s the baseball team. I mean, Mac Davies and Chance Carter are somewhere in this house right now! So are Colin Anderson and Dayton Mawlry. Hello! How are you not excited?”
She waved a hand in front of my face, but I refused to blink and pretended to be bored.
I wished I’d had no idea what those names meant or who she was talking about, but I did. I’d recognized every single one as she rattled them off. I could have blamed the fact that I’d worked in sports tutoring for the last three years before I stopped, but it was more than that. There was no way that someone could go to school here and not eventually learn the names of the athletes who were likely to go pro. It was literally unavoidable, no matter how hard you tried.
Posters of the teams littered the campus walls at every turn, changing out, depending on the season. But in the meantime, they were everywhere—on the buildings, in the girls’ restroom, wrapped around light poles. The art department spray-painted graffiti depicting certain players outside their halls. Even the campus bookstore had their walls strewn with the faces and names of various athletes. And they sold postcards of the teams that you could buy and mail out. Postcards! For mailing! Who the hell wanted a postcard of a bunch of guys they didn’t know?
“Ladies.” The voice pulled both of our attention.
Mac Davies. I knew who he was the second my eyes followed his voice. He was actually adorable—as far as surfer-looking, light-haired guys went. But he wasn’t my type. I liked my guys tall and dark. Not that I was looking since I had a boyfriend and all that.
“I’m Mac. Your host for this evening.” He winked, and before he could say another word, I started to leave, accidentally ramming into his shoulder on my way out. He grabbed me, most likely to help steady me on my feet, but I didn’t like it.
“I’m not interested,” I said before maneuvering out of his grip. “But she probably is.” I thumbed toward Sunny, who was standing there, blushing like a schoolgirl with a major crush.
I knew I came across abrasive to some people, but I honestly never really meant to. It was just that the attitude here was so different from back home. No one was ever offended by my remarks or opinions in New York. But out here, they acted like I’d slighted them somehow or hurt their feelings when I was just being honest. I wasn’t the type to beat around the bush or act fake, and that seemed to be what Californians had been raised on. Sunny always encouraged me to deliver my words in a softer tone, but I didn’t know how.
Walking away from Sunny and Mac, I looked around the space, wondering where the best place to escape might be. I knew I couldn’t hide in a bathroom all night even if the idea sounded good. Someone would eventually need to get in there, and I didn’t want to be lounging in the tub, reading a book, while they broke the door down to get in. After seeing how crowded the kitchen and the living room were, I decided to wander into the backyard, hoping for a dark corner. I wasn’t trying to be antisocial, but I usually went to parties with Jared, and whenever he wasn’t around, it looked like I was single and ready to mingle. Some guys didn’t take no for an answer very well, especially when you added alcohol and egos into the mix.
The backyard had little twinkling lights hanging all around, and instead of being annoyed by the cheesiness of it, I found it endearing and almost calming. A small group of people were standing around a keg, but a knee-high concrete wall ran the length of the yard, away from the lights. I made my way over toward it and sat down, hoping to blend in with the bricks or the dark night sky.
“You purposely sit here?”
I turned to my right and jumped. How hadn’t I seen the guy sitting less than ten feet from me? He wasn’t even dressed in all black, like I was, but he seemed to want to hide even more than I did.
“Shit. You scared me.”
“I scared you?” he huffed out an annoyed laugh. “You didn’t see me here?” he asked with disbelief in his voice.
He obviously assumed that I had sought him out on purpose, hoping to be near him. Arrogant prick of a baseball player.
“I actually didn’t, or I would have sat somewhere else,” I bit back, trying to make it crystal clear that my being anywhere near him had been purely accidental.
“Parties not your thing?”
“Baseball players aren’t my thing.”
“Then, you’re in the wrong place,” he added, actually sounding a little amused.
“Trust me, I’m aware. This wasn’t my idea.” I angled my body away from his, not that I could see him that well anyway and he wasn’t making any moves to change that fact.
He sat perfectly still in the dark, and to be honest, I was okay with it.
“Let me guess. Overenthusiastic roommate who didn’t want to come alone?” He had nailed my situation far too easily.
“How’d you know?” A small laugh escaped from my lips as I realized that he was way too familiar with how we girls worked.
“I’ve heard that excuse once or twice before,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to be insulting or not. Did he think I was making things up just to get close to him? He probably did. He was a baseball player after all.
“You think I’m lying?”
“I don’t know you, so I don’t think anything.”
“You know, you’re kind of a dick,” I said, my accent growing as thick as my irritation. It always came out stronger whenever I started to get fired up.
He laughed, his voice throaty and gruff. I hated that I liked the way it sounded when I was supposed to be irked by his very existence.
“What’s your name?” he asked, and I took it as my cue to stop whatever this was before it started.
“I have a boyfriend,” I said before pushing up from the wall and heading back inside toward the chaos, leaving Shadow Guy in the dark.
Sunny was still with Mac, his hand on her waist. I figured she didn’t need me around anymore and wouldn’t care if I went home to finish reading my book. Which was exactly what I planned on doing after I made sure she was cool with it. Why? Because the boys in books were way better than any guy at this party could ever be.
Meetings
Chance
I watched Miss I Have a Boyfriend walk away from me and laughed to myself. She was feisty and had an attitude and an accent that had instantly pulled at something in me.
My family had spent a lot of time in New York when I was growing up, so I’d always had a soft spot for it. The people there were so different from the people here. They were more direct, honest, straightforward, and forthcoming. At least they always seemed to be. LA was filled with fake people trying to use you, and they would do anything to anyone in order to get ahead. New Yorkers might have had that kind of attitude in their blood, too, but I was fairly confident that they’d stab you in the stomach to make sure you saw it coming, as opposed to stabbing you in the back, like they did out here.
The girl never looked at me again as she stormed across the yard, her long, dark hair moving with each step. When she’d first sat down, I could have sworn that she’d seen me here and done it on purpose. Most girls did. But when I said something to her, she practically jumped out of her fucking skin, and I knew I was wrong. I’d actually scared her. And what did I do? I’d acted like a jerk instead of apologizing.
My mom would have kicked my ass if she’d heard me just then. She was always telling me to stop being so closed off and that I needed to learn how to trust girls and let them in. The problem was, she’d also raised me to keep my wits about me, to think with the brain in my head and not to trust too easily, so the lessons were contradictory at best.
Pushing up from the wall, I wondered why I was still hiding in the dark when I could be in my room. Mac had threatened me earlier, but he’d be distracted with girls by now, and he wouldn’t care where I was or what I was doing. I needed to catch up on sleep before school and six a.m. workouts started, so I planned on spending the rest of the party alone, in my room, doing exactly that.
When I stepped inside the crowded party, I found myself searching for the girl from outside. Why do I care where she is?
Before I could question myself any more, I spotted her, talking to a blonde girl attached to Mac’s hip. She scowled, her face animated as she gave Blondie a quick hug before heading out the front do
or.
She’s really leaving?
I didn’t want to care or be intrigued that she was leaving a baseball party alone, but I felt a little of both.
I unlocked my bedroom door and quickly closed it behind me before checking around to make sure no one had gotten in while I left it empty. Poking my head under my bed, behind my shower curtain, and inside of my closet, I blew out a relieved breath when the coast was clear. It sounded ridiculous, but girls sneaking into my room had happened more than once. Grateful that the lock had done what it was supposed to, I fell back onto my bed. My head hitting the pillows was the last thing I remembered.
I woke up the next morning, once again grateful for the lock on my door and the fact that I’d turned off my phone alarm for practically the first time in my life. My body felt like I’d slept more in one night than I’d slept in months. To be honest, I probably had.
Reaching my arms over my head, I stretched before adjusting my erection and heading into the bathroom for a quick shower. Every guy on the team had a meeting scheduled with Coach Jackson today, and I needed to get ready for mine.
I walked through the locker room and headed toward Coach’s office. He was waiting for me, and the second his eyes met mine, he motioned for me to close the door and sit down. Up until that point, I hadn’t been nervous at all, but looking at the expression on his face now changed all that.
“Coach?” I said with a question in my voice.
He didn’t look happy, and I had no idea what I’d done wrong.
“How was your summer?” he asked even though we both knew that he already had the answer to that question.
There was no way in hell that Coach hadn’t stalked my stats all season long and read the write-ups online. He’d kept in contact with my summer ball coaches every year since I started playing for him.
“Great. I felt really good out there,” I said, feeling a little more confident. If there was one thing I never questioned, it was my ability to play this sport.
