Right of First Refusal (Radleigh University #2)

by Dahlia Adler

  I can’t even imagine what I’d do if I had to watch her take my place in every single game.

  I sure as hell wouldn’t sit on the sidelines and watch it. Especially not without a flask handy.

  “You need to stop obsessing over him,” Frankie murmurs in my ear, startling me. I hadn’t realized she and Samara had stopped talking. “It’s getting really obvious, and I don’t think you want your suitemate to notice.”

  I blink and look away. “I’m not obsessing,” I lie, heat rising into my cheeks. “I’m just…sad for him. He’s supposed to be playing. Apparently he got sidelined by an injury, permanently. I’m sympathizing.”

  “You’re sympathizing a little too hard, considering he’s banging your roommate.”

  “Are y’all talking about Law?” Samara asks.

  Law. God. “We just…uh…”

  “He’s really tall,” says Frankie smoothly, a born bullshitter. “We were just noticing.”

  Samara gives us a funny look but doesn’t push it. “So, where’s your third Musketeer tonight?” she asks, and I love her for changing the subject. “I’ve heard y’all usually travel in a pack.”

  Frankie laughs. “Ooh, our reputation precedes us? Nice!”

  “Our third is currently in a nauseatingly happy new relationship with her former TA,” I say, turning back just in time to see Jake sink a three from the top of the key. I jump up and cheer with everyone else, and sit back just in time to hear Frankie end her elaboration on my statement with “…fuck like rabid bunnies.”

  Which is a pretty accurate description.

  Of course, it’s nice to see Lizzie happy, and I’m a big Connor fan, too. But between her being off with him tonight and all the electricity crackling between Frankie and Samara right now, I can’t help feeling a little lonely.

  Not that I’m dying to be in a relationship, or even to hook up; lacrosse and Econ take up pretty much every waking hour of every day. But every now and again I do miss that feeling of having someone at my side, of feeling fingers wrap themselves around mine. I miss frantically tearing at someone’s clothing because you just can’t wait to see what’s underneath, even if you’ve seen it a hundred times. I miss sinking my teeth into someone’s broad shoulder, my nails into a hard, toned back.

  I miss having a guy show me stars.

  Yelling explodes from the court, disrupting my totally inappropriate thoughts, and I straighten up to see a fight breaking out. I see at least two of our white home jerseys and three of the Panthers’ black ones, but from this distance, I can’t tell exactly who’s involved. I do know that if Jake’s in there, and he’s dumb enough to throw a punch, I’ll kill him.

  “Whaaaat the heck is happening here?” Samara murmurs.

  “I don’t know, but it’s kinda hot,” Frankie says gleefully, craning her neck to see over the crowd. “There’s just something about sweaty men with cut biceps throwing punches…”

  A quick glance at Samara makes it pretty clear she doesn’t agree with Frankie’s assessment, but before I have a second to read any further into that, I hear someone calling my name. Searching for the source of the voice, I lock nervous eyes with Jamie Ferrara, one of my lacrosse teammates and girlfriend of Ryan Pfeffer, a bench-riding small forward. I’m guessing from her expression that Ryan’s butt isn’t on the pine at this moment. “I’ll be right back,” I say to Frankie and Samara, then make my way down to where Jamie’s nervously yanking on the cuffs of her sweater while the refs fruitlessly try to break up the rapidly growing cluster of sweaty ballers.

  “He won’t listen to me,” Jamie says, stepping back to avoid an elbow to the shoulder. “I don’t even know what happened. There was a foul, and then—”

  “Fuck you, motherfucker!”

  I yank Jamie back as a fist flies in our direction, aiming for Ryan’s face, and thankfully missing. I don’t know how this game has gotten so completely out of control, but Jamie’s right to be freaked out. On the court, Coach Williams is fighting with the Panthers’ coach, ignoring the players, and Mase…is completely frozen.

  I open my mouth to yell out his name, and then remember that isn’t his name anymore. “Law!” I yell instead. “Do something!”

  If he hears me, he gives no indication, just keeps gaping at the mess on the court as if unsure where to begin.

  This is beyond fucked up. “Mase!”

  His head jerks up and he turns, his dark eyes narrowing into a glare as he spots me. The anger that flashes across his face throws me off balance, but it’s only trained on me for a moment before he turns back to the court. And then, like lightning, he springs into action, pulling players off each other and making threats I can only half make out from this distance.

  “Huh.” Jamie clutches my arm. “So that’s the new assistant coach, huh? That was weird.”

  I don’t say anything. I don’t even know what to say. This night got really weird, really fast. Or maybe it was weird the whole time.

  “What’d you call him? Mase?”

  “Just…nothing.” I shake her off gently. “I gotta go back up to my friends, but Ryan’s gonna be okay. I’ll see you at practice in the morning.”

  I head back to Frankie and Samara, and I don’t look back—not at Jamie, and most definitely not at Mase.

  • • •

  By the time the game ends, though, I haven’t been able to get him—and all his weird behavior since coming to Radleigh—out of my head. Frankie’s never been the world’s most perceptive friend, but apparently, Samara has Obsession Radar. “You gonna to talk to him or what?” she asks as we get up and start gathering our things.

  “Who?” Playing dumb’s worth a shot, right?

  Her lips twitch. “I’m starving. Anyone up for a bite to eat?”

  “Yes, definitely,” says Frankie, patting her tummy. “Well. You coming, Cait?”

  “No,” Samara answers for me. “Cait’s sticking around here for a while. She’ll meet us there. Or text you that she isn’t.”

  Wow—Samara is one bossy bitch. I do like her. And, judging by the appreciative way Frankie grins, so does she.

  Only my eyes aren’t dropping to her V-neck.

  I sigh. “Fine. I’ll meet you there. Diner?”

  “I thought we’d go to Tate’s,” says Frankie. “The diner’s too far. It’s fucking freezing.”

  “Tate’s will be packed after a game. Brave the cold if you want a table. I’ll call you when I’m on my way out.”

  She grumbles for all of two seconds before realizing she’s got a walk with the newest object of her affections lying ahead of her, and knowing Frankie, she’ll figure out a way to get warmed up by the time they hit the diner. While I don’t actually know that Samara’s into girls, I do know Frankie’s pretty great at getting women to forget they aren’t for a night.

  I watch them leave, then turn back to Mase, who’s talking to each Radleigh Renegade before he heads out. I keep my eyes on him while he gets his stuff together, and everyone else files out of the room. Soon, there are just a few stragglers. And him. And me.

  I head down the bleachers and stand in his way before he can avoid me any further.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Cait?”

  “What am I doing here?” I stand up to my full five foot eleven, though I still barely hit his shoulder. “I go here, Lawrence. I’ve been going here for a year and a half. I go to these games. I have friends on the team. I’m not the surprise here.”

  He doesn’t respond, just lets his eyes flash with anger, as if that’ll make me back down—a sure sign he doesn’t know me anymore. That maybe he never did.

  “I asked you about basketball.”

  “You asked if I was here to play,” he snaps. “I’m not.”

  “And you should’ve told me that, too. You should’ve told me all of it. Why didn’t you, Mase? We used to tell each other things.”

  “We used to fuck, Cait.”

  The harsh words feel like a punch to the gut, but that’s wha
t he was going for, and I won’t let him know he succeeded. Yeah, we used to fuck, but that doesn’t negate that we were close friends, too. That we had conversations late into the night for weeks before we even kissed, let alone took it further.

  Enough relationships and truths are being rewritten in my life right now, and I’m not letting him have this one, too.

  “We used to do a lot more than fuck, Mase, and you know it. You sat with me in the hospital for hours when I was so dehydrated I needed an IV, remember? And I was the one holding you when your grandfather died. I know you hate spiders. I know the scar on your forehead’s from when you tripped in the Stone Creek 10K, trying to avoid a frog that’d jumped in your path.”

  “You know little-kid shit about me, Cait. You have no idea who I am now.”

  “I know you got injured and can’t play,” I say firmly. “I know that must suck harder than anything. I get sports being your life, Mase. You know I do.”

  “You still play lacrosse?”

  “You know I do.”

  “You still love it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You plan to do it at least until you graduate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you don’t know shit.”

  He grabs his bag from the bench and stalks off, the slightest defeated slump of his shoulders the only thing marring his otherwise confident, angry stride.

  “He was such a dick,” I grumble to Lizzie and Frankie the next morning over breakfast at the main dining hall. “Like no one in the world’s ever had shit happen to them before.”

  “Want me to make him feel like a real asshole?” Lizzie offers wryly.

  “Kind of,” I mutter, though even Mase doesn’t deserve Lizzie’s Dead Parents Card. Not yet, anyway. “I just don’t understand why he’s pushing me away so hard. We used to be able to talk about things. If you suddenly found yourself in school with someone you used to be close to, and you were having a hard time, wouldn’t you wanna talk to her?”

  “Not to rub salt in any wounds,” Frankie says delicately, plucking a couple of blueberries from my fruit parfait to make a face out of her waffle with a smile of syrup, “but he’s kind of already got that here. Maybe he’s already set on the confiding front with his current girlfriend.”

  She’s right, of course, but it doesn’t stop the words from stinging. “Whatever¸” I mutter, swatting her hand away so I can take a bite of my breakfast. “There’s still a huge gap between not confiding in me and being a total dick.”

  “Why don’t you sniff out from Andi what his deal is?” Lizzie asks. “If you’re so curious.”

  “Because that’s super awkward? And a little pathetic. And she’ll probably tell him, on top of that. Let’s remember that I have to live with her. Like, close-quarters live with her, as you’ll recall from before you two ditched me. Mase and I never even told her we know each other.”

  Frankie snorts. “Well that’s brilliant. How long do you think she can possibly go without finding that out?”

  “I’m certainly not telling her. And I’m not telling Samara, either.” I narrow my eyes at her. “Speaking of which, are you seriously gonna try to bang my suitemate?”

  “Wait.” Lizzie puts down her fork and folds her arms across her chest as she smirks at Frankie. “You’re trying to fuck your own replacement in the suite? I’m impressed, Frank. That is literally the most narcissistic thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Frankie does a little bow over the table. “Not that it’s working. Girl’s a little uptight. Also, possibly straight. For now.”

  “For now,” Lizzie and I echo, rolling our eyes at each other.

  “What happened to you last night, anyway?” Frankie spears a piece of waffle. “I thought you were gonna come after you talked to He Who Shall Not Be Named.”

  “I was too pissed,” I admit, dragging my spoon through the yogurt. Despite a lengthy practice this morning, after which I’m usually starving, the sick feeling in my stomach I get thinking about my fight with Mase last night makes everything look unappealing. “I went straight to bed. Well, no,” I add, recalling that my dad called yet again while I was doing my nighttime stretches, “I got into a fight with my dad, too, and then I went to bed.”

  “About what? Don’t you and your dad have the perfect father-daughter relationship, or whatever?” asks Lizzie. “You guys are a Hallmark movie.”

  “Not when he’s getting remarried to a woman expecting his baby and moving across the country,” I say sourly. Just pushing the words out in the open makes me nauseated, and I drop my spoon with a clatter.

  “Oh, Cait—” Lizzie starts, but I hold up my hand and cut her off. The truth is, I don’t want to talk about any of it.

  “Okay,” says Frankie. “So, apparently Cait’s Do-Not-Discuss list has quintupled in length overnight. I’m not feeling at my smoothest since last night’s non-date. How about you, Lizzie B.? How’s married life?”

  “Bite your tongue, Francesca,” says Lizzie, narrowing her eyes as she butters a piece of toast. Her lips are curving up, though, totally betraying her.

  Frankie’s not fooled either. “Please, I saw you two snuggled on the couch when I got home last night, watching a movie like an old married couple. If I hadn’t heard two orgasms through the wall before I fell asleep, I’d be extremely worried about you.”

  “God, Frankie!” Lizzie tosses a packet of Splenda at her. “I told you—stop listening!”

  She snorts. “Pretty sure they can hear you guys in Canada, Lizard. Just be glad I don’t mind.”

  “Don’t mind?” I ask, eyebrows raised. “Or take advantage of it?”

  Frankie wiggles her fingers in the air before wrapping them around her coffee and taking a long sip. “I plead the fifth,” she says with a grin.

  “My Life as My Roommate’s Jack-Off Fodder: the Lizzie Brandt Story,” Lizzie says with a sigh. She rips off a piece of toast and pops it in her mouth. “But, since you asked, things with Connor are quite lovely, thank you.”

  “Meaning you guys are still boning fifty times a day?” I ask, shaking a little more sugar into my coffee.

  “Precisely.” Lizzie smiles smugly before chomping off another bite of toast. “And I should not be the only one here getting regular ass. Are you sure you don’t wanna talk about this guy?”

  “Very sure.” Or maybe that’s not exactly true. What I want is to know what to say. And right now, I have no clue. “I don’t wanna talk about Mase, I don’t wanna talk about my dad, and…yeah, I could probably do without talking about all the sex you’re having and all the sex Frank thinks she’s gonna have with my new suitemate.”

  “Well then,” Frankie says, putting down her mug. “How ’bout them Yankees?”

  • • •

  The next day doesn’t go very far in clearing all the drama from my head, and the stress throws me totally off my game so that lax practice kicks my ass. “You sure you’re all right?” Tessa Young asks me for the third time that hour as the team files into the locker room after a particularly grueling hour of drills. “I don’t think you’ve ever let me whack you that hard before.”

  “I didn’t ‘let’ you,” I utter, but I guess effectively I did. I’m a fucking slug out there right now. I know I can’t just fight with my dad forever, and now I’m ignoring calls from Matt and Cammie, because I don’t wanna hear Cammie’s self-righteous rage or Matt’s pleas for me to just suck it up, when he’s so far away from all of us that this barely affects him. I clearly can’t keep Mase out of my brain, especially when I hear Andi flirting with him on the phone at night, or see him staring at me from the picture of the two of them over her desk. And the stress of fucking up play after play and lagging on my run times is just a vicious cycle of misery at practice. “And yeah, I’m fine, thanks. Just some stupid shit on my mind.”

  She shrugs. “If you insist.” She slips away then, which of course gives Coach Brady the perfect opportunity to slide right in, take me aside, and try to have the exact same conver
sation with me.

  “Seriously, Coach, I’m fine. I’m sorry I’ve been playing like shit this week. It’s just a little personal stuff.”

  “You need to get it sorted before this weekend,” he says firmly but kindly. “You can’t scrimmage like this. Cortes will you destroy you.”

  “I know, I know.” I wipe sweat off my brow with my forearm, though I’m not sure what’s causing it more—the practice or this stare-down. “I’ll be better, Coach. I promise.”

  He nods and tells me to hit the showers, and I do so gratefully, anxious for the pounding pulse of the water on my skin. The water pressure in the Radleigh Athletic Center could take an eye out at the wrong angle, but I’ve always loved it that way. It has exactly the cleansing effect I need.

  By the time I get out, most of the girls are gone, but Tessa and a couple of others are still lingering, blow-drying their hair or applying makeup. I take my time, waiting for everyone else to file out so I can have a little time alone in the quiet before I have to head back to my suite, but though Nora and Latisha and Jamie eventually leave, I get the distinct sense Tessa is actually waiting for me.

  I sigh. “I told you, Tessa. I’m fine.”

  “I know you’re fine,” she says mildly. “I was just hoping for some company on the way back to east campus. No one else lives the same way.”

  “Kendra does.”

  “Kendra went straight to a date with Robbie. Must be nice, huh? To be so familiar with someone you can just roll out of the locker room and meet them at a movie? No worrying about your hair being frizzy or the billion ways your outfit is all wrong. I can’t even imagine what that’s like.”

  Funny how different priorities can be. I don’t give much of a shit how I look on any given night. My skin’s thankfully clear and my hair dries stick straight, so admittedly those aren’t big concerns, and being an Amazon doesn’t leave me with a ton of cute clothing options anyway. But it does sound nice to have that comfort with someone. It certainly was nice when I did, once upon a time. “Yeah.”