Right of First Refusal (Radleigh University #2)

by Dahlia Adler

  But still, there are a few points at which we can’t help working together, and it feels like clockwork when we do. The way we anticipate each other’s bodies, our awareness of the other’s forms…it’s made us very good at a lot of things in the past. But of course, I’m not thinking about anything other than basketball. Not when he slaps me five after I sink a beautiful three and an obnoxious little tingle trails down my arm. Not when he hoots proudly after I steal off Carlos, the same proud way he used to the super occasional times I’d manage it off one of the other basketball players in camp.

  I’m not noticing any of that at all.

  We play until we’ve had the chance to cycle all the kids in, and by the end, we’ve all gotten a good workout. When Jake slaps me five, he’s glistening with sweat. Somewhere along the way he tossed off his shirt, and the sleeveless undershirt he’s wearing does an admittedly nice job of showing off sculpted biceps. “Nice job, girl,” he says, startling me with a showy kiss, followed by a wink.

  My instinct is to whack him right in the chest for that little display, but I can’t resist glancing in Mase’s direction…and noticing that Jake may have had a method to his madness after all. Iciness practically radiates off Mase, and my lips twitch with the effort required not to smile at the set of his jaw.

  Mase thinks Jake and I are together.

  And he is so. Fucking. Jealous.

  “Off to the showers?” I say to Jake brightly.

  “I like the way you think,” he says with a warm grin, waggling his eyebrows, exactly as I knew he would. Then his eyes dart to Mase. “I’m kidding, Coach. I’m always well behaved around kids.” He flashes me a conspiratorial smile I’m only too happy to return. “I’ll meet you out front and drive you home.” He jogs off to the bench with his stuff, and I move to do the same.

  “Jake Moss?” Mase asks, keeping his voice low. “Really?”

  I shrug my gym bag onto my shoulder. “What can I say? I’ve always liked basketball players.”

  And then I leave him behind.

  • • •

  It’s a little childish to let Mase believe I’m hooking up with Jake, but whatthefuckever; he has a girlfriend, and for some reason I give a shit, and if this makes me feel the tiniest bit better about it, then I’m gonna go with it. Doesn’t hurt that it helps Jake, too.

  But back in my dorm, poking at a grilled chicken wrap and looking at the reading for my Communications seminar without really seeing the words, all I can really think about is how good it felt to be back on the court with him.

  I remember so well the first time I saw him. I was chilling on the bleachers with the other lax girls the summer after my freshman year of high school, talking and laughing about a game we’d just won against a rival camp. I was chugging a bottle of blue Gatorade with one hand while wiping the sweat from my forehead with the other when the guys a year ahead of us rolled out on the court. A couple of the guys were as tall as Mase—well over six feet even though they were only sixteen—but he stood out so strongly I nearly choked mid-drink.

  He was on the team that’d drawn skins, and he looked like a fucking onyx statue. It was ridiculous. There wasn’t a single guy in my high school class of four hundred kids cut to look like him, and it was obvious from the reverent silence that came over the lax girls that I wasn’t the only one who noticed. For the next half hour, we snuck glances at the game—at him—without acknowledging we were doing it; for the hour after that, we dropped the pretense.

  By the time the game ended—with Mase as the high scorer—landing the new guy became the goal of the summer. For the next few weeks, we showed up religiously at his games, lurked around their year’s parties…basically, we nailed the teen girl stereotype. But I had the benefit of an older brother who’d taught me everything from how to open a beer with my teeth to how to take a beautiful jump shot. I had Cammie, who was both a master flirt and master pool player. Eventually, I started to stand out in the crowd, and one night, after a co-ed game played just for fun under the bright lights of the court by the lake, Mase brought me a cup of water and asked my name.

  We ended up talking for hours afterward—about Philly and Burlington, about basketball and lacrosse, about being away from home, about his secret affinity for Reba McIntyre and mine for Elton John. And though we didn’t so much as kiss goodnight, the next day, he was on the sidelines at my lacrosse game, whistling when I scored once, twice, three times.

  That night, there were fireworks, and we made out below them until the last spark fizzled from the sky.

  I don’t realize I’ve drifted off somewhere during my reminiscing until the sound of my phone ringing jolts me awake. I’m having dinner tonight with Lizzie and Frankie, so I assume it’s one of them when I hit the “Talk” button with my thumb, seeing a moment too late that I’ve just answered a call from the very person I’ve been avoiding the hardest. I debate hanging up, but it’s not like I can avoid him forever.

  “Hey, Dad. What’s up?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about something. Do you have a minute?”

  I glance at Andi’s bed; it’s empty. “Yeah, I can talk.”

  “Good. I’ve been thinking about what you were saying, and you’re right. This was all very sudden, and it’s very far away to move, and it’s not fair to keep you across the country from your new little brother or sister.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s not “I realized it was absurd to marry a woman you don’t even know and that I barely do either,” or “Whoops, turns out she’s not pregnant after all! So much for that,” but it’s a start. “I’m so glad to hear that, Dad. It just wouldn’t be the same if you guys weren’t here, and I’d never get to know Abigail—”

  “No, sweetheart, we are moving, but great news—you can join us! I’ve looked into UCSD and I think it’ll be perfect for you. They have lacrosse—”

  “Not D-I, they don’t.”

  “And just about all of your credits will transfer,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken. “We’ll only be twenty minutes from campus, and just think of how close we’ll be to the beach, and how great your tan will be.”

  As if I have ever given a fuck about my tan, but that’s not even the most perplexing part of this whole arrangement. “I’m here on a lax scholarship, Dad. You know, that thing I needed to get in order to be able to afford college at all?”

  “That’s for me to worry about, Cait.”

  “Actually, being that I’m the student, that’s for me to worry about, too. If we couldn’t afford Radleigh, how can we suddenly afford UCSD, especially when you have a baby coming?”

  “Can’t you just trust me?”

  “No.”

  He does not like that. “Caitlin, for your information, Abigail’s grandfather is on the board. It’s taken care of.”

  Oh my God, that’s just perfect. His child bride’s rich family is the solution to all our problems. Only the fact that I possess any respect for my father keeps me from sharing my thoughts right now. Instead, I just say, “It really doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You aren’t even going to consider it?”

  “What’s to consider? My lax team is here. My best friends are here. Mom is way closer to here, and so are Cammie and Matt. I’m not following you at the expense of everyone else in my life.”

  “Actually, Matt will be joining us here for his senior year next year,” Dad says, trying and failing to keep an edge of smugness out of his voice. Clearly he’d been saving that particular trump card for last.

  I shouldn’t be surprised Matt wants to go—he’s always loved the beach, and was likely gonna move to Florida or California after graduation anyway—but I am. Who transfers for just senior year? Especially if doing so comes with living with Dad, Abigail, and a new baby?

  Then I realize: someone who’s been working for years and taking out loans to go to Ohio, but wouldn’t have to for UCSD. I may be in school on scholarship, but Matt is not, and it’s hard to argue how awesome
it would be for him to finally give up waiting tables after five years of busting his ass.

  How much money does Abigail’s family have, anyway? Or is the tuition discount if you’re board-spawn just that good?

  Either way, this isn’t gonna make me give in. It’s just manipulation. Matt can still spend as much of winter break at our mom’s house with me as he always did. He can still come in for the lax finals if we make it, like he did last year.

  But your baby brother or sister will know him and not you, an obnoxious little voice nags at my brain.

  The call-waiting beep is perfectly timed to save me from having to respond. “That’s Lizzie on the other line,” I tell him after a quick glance at the screen. “We’re making dinner plans. I have to go.”

  “Just think about it some more, Cait,” he says, voice softening. “We can all go visit together for your spring break. Get nice and tan for the wedding.”

  “I’ll go to a tanning salon when you pick a date,” I say flatly as the phone beeps again. I picture Lizzie huffing with annoyance on the other end; patience is so not her virtue. Sure enough, she hangs up a second later.

  “We have picked a date,” my father says. “May twenty-sixth. In San Diego.”

  All thoughts of Lizzie fly out of my brain.

  May twenty-sixth.

  He must be fucking kidding me. That is the only possibility.

  “Dad—”

  “Honey, I know it’s your lacrosse finals—”

  “Championships, Dad. It’s the fucking championships.”

  “It’s also Abigail’s grandparents’ anniversary, and it would mean a lot to them—and to her—if we made it ours as well.”

  “Would those be the UCSD-funding grandparents?”

  “Don’t be snide, Caitlin.”

  “What else should I be? Did you really think I was gonna be okay with this?”

  “I’m your father. This is my wedding. That is a game.”

  “It’s the game that allowed me to go to a good college years before Abigail’s rich family came along,” I remind him. “It’s a game you used to care a lot about me playing.”

  “I still do—of course I do—but honestly, we’re talking about the championships. Am I supposed to say no to the date on the small chance your team makes it there?”

  “You’re supposed to think there’s better than a small chance, for one, especially since we got pretty close last year,” I spit. “You’re also supposed to recognize that when your daughter is up for captain, nothing will kill her tenuous chances like ‘Hey, guys, just FYI, I decided the odds of us making it to the championships are so low that I’m gonna bail to watch my dad make it legal with his spoiled child bride.”

  “That’s enough, Caitlin Rebecca.”

  I exhale sharply. “Yeah, Dad, you know what? It really, really is. Good luck with your tan.”

  I slam End Call so hard, I nearly bruise my thumb.

  My dad has the nerve to email me that night while I’m with Frankie and Lizzie, just as we’d finally moved on to a different subject after half an hour of my ranting over takeout at their apartment. The subject line is Wedding Details, which is enough to make me want to puke without even opening the missive.

  I try to put my phone back down, but Lizzie grabs it from me. “Dude, you can’t ignore this. It’s ridiculous. You’re not actually skipping your father’s wedding and you know it, so you may as well see what you’re in for.”

  “I am too skipping it,” I declare childishly, gnawing at a drumstick. “Just put the phone away. I want to hear more about Frankie’s new tattoo plans.”

  “Give her a few minutes to let her brain be free of her dad,” says Frankie, and Lizzie reluctantly hands it back. I slip it into my pocket with a grateful smile, even though I suspect half the reason Frankie’s backing me up right now is because she really does want to talk about her tattoo plans more than anything else.

  Fine by me.

  Frankie drags two fingers over the inside of her forearm to indicate where the two lines of poetry will go in a font she apparently spent hours picking out. “I think it’s gonna look awesome,” she declares. “I just need to sell a few more sketches online and it’s all mine.”

  She has a pretty thriving website of drawings, and her specialty when she’s really short on cash—which is pretty often—is recreating any photograph you send her in pencil. It’s pretty awesome, and I kinda miss watching her do it like I used to when we lay around the dorm room in our pajamas on lazy Saturday afternoons I didn’t have games.

  “It doesn’t strike you as a little creepy to steal lines from a classmate’s poem and permanently embed them in your skin?” Lizzie asks.

  “I asked her permission,” says Frankie with a sniff. “I’ll have you know she was honored.”

  “What are the lines again?” I ask, looking at the exposed skin of Frankie’s arm to imagine them.

  “‘This is the story of a woman who had done it all wrong,’” she recites. “‘She couldn’t do it over, but she could do it differently.’”

  “That’s what you want on your arm?”

  She shrugs. “I like it.”

  “I do too, actually,” Lizzie says thoughtfully. “It’s honest.”

  “Wanna get matching ones?” Frankie asks.

  Lizzie laughs, spraying crumbs of jalapeno cornbread. “Pass. I am not a glutton for pain. The second hole in my ear is about as dramatic as I get. Take Cait with you.”

  “What do you say, Cait? You wanna get matching tats?”

  “If I were going to get a tattoo, it wouldn’t be that,” I say, taking a bite of my grilled chicken salad.

  “Oh? What would you get?” Lizzie asks.

  “Probably the lacrosse logo, on my foot or the underside of my wrist or something,” I say with a shrug. “We did all agree that if we ever won the championships, we’d do it.” Just mentioning the championships turns my stomach back into a ball of lead, and I push the salad away.

  “Boring,” says Frankie, reaching for a pork rib. “Come on—you never thought of getting a more interesting tattoo than that?”

  I don’t know if it’s any more interesting, but back when I used to lie on Mase’s chest in the grass, staring at the stars, I used to think I wanted to get one of those constellations tattooed on me somewhere—a way to make those memories indelible, permanent.

  Turns out, they were; we just weren’t.

  “Maybe a 12, for Tom Brady,” I say with a shrug.

  “There are certainly less hot men you could’ve chosen to brand yourself with,” Lizzie concedes.

  I know she means Tom Brady, but when I say, “no kidding,” I don’t.

  “No ink for you, Lizzie B.?” I ask.

  “Connor’s name on your ass in gothic letters?” Frankie suggests.

  She throws back her head and laughs. “God, can you imagine? ‘What is that, Elizabeth?’ Followed by a half-hour lecture on the history of the Goths.”

  “You guys have the most fucked-up foreplay,” says Frankie. “Speaking of which, Cait, how’s it going with that basketball guy?”

  I open my mouth to insist there’s nothing going on between me and Mase, but then I realize she means Jake. I’m not sure how word spread around campus that Jake Moss and Cait Johannssen are the newest jock It couple (though I suspect it involves some locker room talk I’d rather not know), but somehow it got back to Double Trouble over here. I hate lying to my friends so much, especially given how upset I was when Lizzie hid her hooking up with Connor from us last semester, but this is Jake’s secret to tell.

  “Fine,” I mumble, the lie like dust on my tongue.

  “When are you guys going out again?” Lizzie asks. She pops the last piece of cornbread into her mouth and follows it with a long swallow of beer. “I assume there’s a thank-you date coming in exchange for your livening up this morning at church.”

  “It wasn’t actually at church, and he doesn’t owe me a thank-you,” I say, eyeing her beer enviously
while I sip my own glass of water. After my less than stellar performance lately, I’m taking a break from all reflex-slowing and hangover-inducing libations. “It was fun. I’m thinking about going back next week.”

  “I thought you said the guys only had to do it one weekend a month.” Lizzie eyes me suspiciously. “Did you talk him into going back?”

  Shit. I forgot I’d told them that part. Before I can figure out how to recover, Frankie stabs a rib sauce-stained finger in my face. “You’re about to lie. You are wearing your fucking ‘I’m about to lie’ face. Don’t even think about it. Out with it, Caitlin.”

  I sigh. “Mase was there, okay? It’s nothing. We just played a little basketball and had fun, and I thought it’d be nice to do it again.”

  “With your ex-boyfriend,” says Frankie. “Who’s dating your roommate.”

  “Man, after all the shit you gave me for hooking up with Trevor when he was dating Sophie,” Lizzie muses.

  “This is so not the same thing. I’m not hooking up with Mase; I’m just trying to rekindle our friendship. Guys and girls can be friends, you know.”

  “They can,” Lizzie agrees. “You two just can’t.”

  “Watch me prove you wrong.”

  “Watch you get in way over your head with a guy you should be distancing yourself from,” she counters. “Jake seems like a nice guy; why don’t you just focus on him? Trust me from experience—messing with another girl’s boyfriend is so not worth it.”

  “I’m not doing that,” I argue. “I know he’s with Andi. I just want to be friends.”

  “Why?” asks Frankie. “You’re friends with a bunch of guys on campus. Why do you need one more? Why do you need to be friends with him?”

  “And why would you risk screwing things up with a guy who’s actually single?” Lizzie adds. “Stick with Jake. And if you’re not really into him? Look for someone else. But don’t make that someone else Mase. It just cannot end well.”

  In theory I know they’re right, but of course they don’t know why Jake is a non-starter. And I can’t explain why I feel such a pull to have Mase back in my life, but I do. I’d never make a move on him—I know that. I am not the kind of girl who goes for another girl’s boyfriend, and certainly not my roommate’s. I trust myself.