by K. A. Linde
“I’m surprised you have time with football.”
Tony chuckled. “He thrives most when he’s swamped. You should have seen him in high school. He played football, ran track, held down a job with his dad, volunteered at a nursing home, and kept a 4.0.”
My eyes widened. Thanks, Marley. Somehow, I was learning more about my own boyfriend through this conversation. I’d known he was a double major. He’d schooled me about that on our second date. But all the rest, I wasn’t aware.
“Yeah, fine,” Cole said, “I like to keep busy. Nothing wrong with that.”
“You were salutatorian without trying. You had to turn down an academic scholarship,” Tony said, crossing his arms. “You’re a monster.”
“You turned down an academic scholarship?” I asked.
Cole shrugged. “I had to. I was offered a football scholarship, too, and there are all these weird NCAA rules. The academic scholarship could go to someone else.”
“Whoa,” I muttered.
“Oh, so you’re smart!” Marley said with a smile.
“Well, I don’t need help on my Intro to Kinesiology paper if that’s what you mean,” Cole said, winking at me.
I stuck my tongue out. “It was a fair question! Most of the jocks aren’t writing their own papers. How was I to know that you’d turned down an academic scholarship?”
“It was cute.”
Marley nodded as if she saw the pieces fall together. “Sports management for you and physical therapy for Lila. You’ll recruit the players, and Lila will piece them back together.”
“Big dreams,” Cole said.
“I like your big dreams and big brain,” I told him.
“Is that a euphemism?” Cole asked, rubbing his nose against mine.
“Maybe.”
“You two are disgusting,” Tony said. He leaned away from our very public display of affection.
I didn’t mind being disgusting. I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Hours later, the house was packed. Everyone must have invited more and more people until I was sure that the police were going to be called for noise complaints. Not that I cared too much as we cheered on Marley doing an upside-down margarita. Marley sat on a chair with her head tipped back while one person simultaneously poured a bottle of tequila and a bottle of margarita mix into her mouth.
The crowd counted for her. “One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”
She waved her hands helplessly, swallowing down the contents and grasping for a lime wedge. Everyone applauded for her as she wobbled back to her feet.
“I’m never doing that again.” She clutched my arm and pulled me away as another victim took a seat. “Why did I do that?”
“Because you’re drunk, Mars.”
She giggled and stumbled a step. “I am not.”
“Yes, you most definitely are. Maybe that last upside-down margarita was a bad idea.”
“No,” she said, waving me away. “It was fine. I’m fine. It’s your birthday! Plus, I rarely drink at Duke. Mostly dance rehearsals and basketball games.”
“Same,” I said with a smile. “I miss having you with me.”
“I know. It’s not the same. Though performing in Cameron has to be better than Georgia basketball.”
“Not an unfair assessment.” Duke basketball was unequivocally better than UGA, but I still loved watching the Georgia games.
“But,” she said, her voice dipping as she leaned into me, “do you know who I saw before I left?”
My stomach dropped at the insinuation. I only knew one other person who went to Duke. “No.”
“Yes, you do,” she teased. “He wanted to come see you for your birthday, but I told him no.”
Ice ran through my veins. “He didn’t say that.”
“He did!” she said, her voice rising.
“Shh,” I hushed her. “Ash hasn’t spoken to me in a year. He’s not going to suddenly want to show up for my birthday. That’s absurd.”
“Fine, don’t believe me. But he said he was going to text you.”
My hand immediately went to my phone. I pulled it out and showed her the blank screen. “Look. Nothing.”
Marley shrugged. “That’s just what he said.”
“What’s going on over here?” Cole asked.
He appeared as if out of thin air, and I jumped nearly out of my skin. I hadn’t been expecting him. My mind had been on Ash, and I definitely didn’t want to be thinking about him.
“Marley’s drunk,” I told him.
“I’m not drunk,” she countered. Making her point by trying to push off of the wall she was currently leaning on and failing spectacularly. “Oof!” She latched back on to the wall. “Maybe I am a little drunk.”
“We should get you some water.”
“On it,” Cole said, heading back into the busy kitchen.
“He’s in Athens tonight,” Marley continued when he was gone.
I closed my eyes and took a breath. “Ash is here?”
“He offered to drive with me. Then, we wouldn’t have had to drive separately.”
“What were you going to do with your stuff?”
“I don’t know. It’s Ash. He probably had his stuff flown home.” She waved her hand. “You know how he is.”
“I do,” I whispered.
“So anyway, yeah, I think he’s downtown.”
“Downtown?” Cole asked as he reappeared with a water. “I don’t think that sounds like a good idea for you, Marley.”
“Not me. Ash.”
I closed my eyes and sighed heavily. Cole didn’t know what that name meant to me. We hadn’t talked about deeper topics yet in our relationship. I hadn’t wanted to tell him about what had happened with me and Ash in high school … the good or the bad. And I really didn’t want to talk about it on my birthday.
“Who’s Ash?” Cole asked.
Marley’s eyes widened. “Um … nobody.”
Cole looked to me with raised brows.
“My ex,” I told him. “He goes to Duke with Marley, and I guess he’s also in town.”
“The football player?”
I nodded.
Marley sipped on her water and eyed us. “Sorry. I hadn’t planned to tell you.”
“It’s fine.” I patted Marley’s shoulder. “Maybe you should sit down for a bit, Mars.”
After I got her into a chair to continue to drink her water and made sure she was comfortable and watched by one of my dance friends, I returned to Cole. I ran a hand down my face. “Sorry about that.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me. I’m still friends with my ex. Jess actually called to wish me happy birthday yesterday. It’s not weird.”
Right.
Not weird.
Except that he had no idea about me and Ash. Or else he probably wouldn’t have said that.
“Jess is the girl you dated before me?”
The one Channing said had gone down in flames?
“Yeah. She was in love with the spotlight.” He tugged me closer, dropping a kiss to my lips. “It’s why I like being with you so much.”
“Because I don’t give a shit?”
He laughed. “Yes. One of the many reasons.”
“Perhaps you could elucidate the others.”
“For one, you use the word elucidate.”
I snickered and kissed him again. Glad that our discussion of exes was coming to an end. I did not want to talk about Ash. So, any divergence was for the better.
“Actually, I do have something for you.”
My eyes widened. “You said no birthday presents!”
“I know.” He shot me a sheepish look. “But I couldn’t resist getting you something small.”
“Well, now, I’m a bad girlfriend because I didn’t get you anything.”
“You won’t feel that way when you open it. And anyway, we’re still going to Last Resort on Friday night for our official celebration,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me up the stairs, away from the cro
wds.
“That was the plan. Memories over gifts,” I reminded him. “Now, you’re saying memories and gifts!”
“Lila, just open the present,” he said as he forced a small box into my hand, covered in blue Christmas wrapping paper.
“A little out of season,” I teased.
But I was already peeling back the wrapping paper and finding the dark green gift box underneath. I popped the lid on the thing, wondering what in the world he could have gotten me when we’d both agreed not to do this. When I saw what was inside, I immediately started laughing.
“You didn’t!”
He grinned broadly. “Told you.”
I reached inside and retrieved the small keychain of a can of Coke.
“Now, you can have your superpower with you everywhere.”
“Thank you,” I said, flinging my arms around him. “It’s perfect.”
“Phew!” He wiped his hand across his brow. “I was worried that I’d look stupid, giving my girlfriend a keychain.”
“We’re still going to Last Resort,” I reminded him. “But it’s thoughtful. I like it.”
He dragged me harder against him, dropping his mouth onto mine. Promising so, so much more.
He groaned and pulled himself back. “I want to keep doing this.” He adjusted his pants, proving his point. “But I also have surprise cake.”
“Cake!” I gushed. “Chocolate?”
“And strawberry.”
“My favorite.”
He kissed me again. “I know. So, we have to go downstairs for that. Then I’m bringing you back up here and giving you your real present.”
I licked my lips. “Maybe I’ll give you my present.”
“Fuck,” he breathed.
“Cole!” his roommate Barry called from the other side of the door.
“Coming!” Cole yelled. He shot me a look of pure lust.
“I’m going to put this in my purse.” I’d left my purse in his bedroom hours ago, and I didn’t want to lose my new keychain. As small and insignificant as a keychain was for a birthday present, it made my insides squirm with excitement.
Cole went back downstairs while I attached my keychain to my keys. Then I grabbed my phone and glanced down at the screen one last time before I joined my boyfriend for birthday cake.
I froze in place.
I had a new text message.
My stomach dropped out of my system. My heart stuttered. I could barely swallow around the knot in my throat, and my hands shook. I hadn’t seen that name on my screen in nearly a year. And I hadn’t believed Marley when she said that Ash would text me. It had seemed impossible.
And yet … Ash had texted me.
Happy birthday, Lila. Missing you tonight.
5
Savannah
December 8, 2006
My arms pumped to the time of the cheerleading chant at the Holy Cross football game my senior year of high school. I executed a little hop step, pressed my body forward, and shook my pom-poms. “Holy Cross! Holy Cross! Holy Cross!”
It was the last play of the game. The Holy Cross Academy boys had the ball, and the quarterback had just gotten into position. The crowd died down from our side as we anticipated what Ash Talmadge was about to do. I shivered in the cold. My fingers had long ago gone nearly blue in the unseasonably cold Savannah winter. But still, my eyes were glued to the number four on his jersey.
They hiked the ball. Ash stepped back, ball in hand, and searched the eligible receivers. Then with one beautifully arced ball, he threw downfield. His wide receiver caught the ball in the end zone at the last second of the clock, and the stands erupted into cheers.
We’d won!
My heart was going to burst out of my chest. I couldn’t believe it. It had come right down to the wire. And though some of the girls on the cheerleading squad for St. Catherine’s Academy—the school that resided across the street from the all-boys equivalent, Holy Cross—had never cared about football a day in their life, we were all celebrating together.
“We did it,” Shelly cried, throwing her arms around me.
We jumped up and down together. My face ached from smiling so hard.
And I couldn’t even believe this moment.
Not that Holy Cross had won. They’d won this game the last two years that I’d attended St. Catherine’s. But that I was standing on the sidelines as a cheerleader, celebrating with Shelly Thomas of all people. Though I’d been going to St. Catherine’s for three years, this was my first season cheering, and I was loving it.
“Hey, stay after. I want to talk to you,” Shelly said.
I nodded. “Sure.”
Shelly winked at me, immediately stepping back into her position as captain. “Okay, girls, let’s close out this game.”
We moved back into formation, spending the next half hour cheering as the marching band played from the stands and all of the audience dwindled to nothing.
Shelly called it a wrap, letting the other girls leave to see their families who had been waiting patiently for us to finish. When it was finally just the two of us, she waved me closer.
“Delilah,” she said as she slung her cheer bag over her shoulder, “I am so glad that you joined the squad.”
Honestly, it had always surprised me that I’d even made the team. St. Catherine’s only had three hundred and fifty high school students. Cheerleading was coveted among the girls. But there was no dance team, which was where my real passion lay. I spent most afternoons and all weekends at the dance studio with my best friend, Marley. But my mom had thought cheering would be good for my social life.
Considering I’d gone to public school until my mom got the job at St. Catherine’s the summer before sophomore year, she wasn’t wrong. I could use any help I could get, trying to fit in with these uber rich girls who had known each other their entire lives. I hadn’t even been fortunate enough to join the school freshman year. Nope, sophomore year instead. And only because my mom got a shockingly huge tuition discount for working for the Catholic school. Which did nothing for my social standing.
I must have made some sound of assent because Shelly continued, “But I have bad news.”
“Is everything all right?”
Shelly had been having some issues at home. I knew that despite her wealth, life wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine. It wasn’t like that for anyone even if they tried to project that.
“With me, yes. Don’t worry about my parents.” She flashed her teeth. “But we can’t go on the ski trip.”
I jerked to a stop next to her. She took another step before seeing I’d stopped. “What? Why not?”
I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t been anticipating this trip all semester. My mom had taken up another job as an overnight caregiver for the elderly to help pay for cheerleading, and I had to help pitch in at the studio to cover everything else. I’d used up a sizable amount of my savings to pay for the pants, jacket, goggles, gloves, and hat. Shelly’s parents had offered to cover everyone’s lift passes, which was the only way I could make it work.
She winced. “I guess some of the other girls’ parents found out that my parents weren’t going. That it was going to be a bunch of high school senior girls with my twenty-one-year-old brother.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
We’d all known this. A lot of the other girls had been excited about it, hoping that they’d get to hook up with college boys.
“Once my parents got wind of the other parents’ displeasure, they canceled the whole thing. They won’t even let me go visit Shane.” She rolled her big brown eyes.
My mind was racing back to when I’d purchased my ski clothes. Was I still within the thirty-day window? Would I still be able to return them in time to get my money back?
“That’s terrible,” I told her because she clearly wanted me to say something. “I’m sorry you don’t get to see your brother.”
“I’m sorry that you don’t get to go! I was looking forward to seeing you on those
bunny slopes.” She flipped her strawberry-blonde curls. “I still can’t believe you’ve never been skiing.”
“Right,” I said with a forced laugh.
“Well, I’ll see you after break. Now that I’m forced to go with my parents to New York City,” she said with a scoff. “I mean, I’ve been there enough times at Christmas. Couldn’t we at least ski the Rockies or Alps if they’re going to force me to hang out with them?”
I swallowed back the bitter taste in my mouth. It always hurt to be reminded that Shelly and I lived on different planes of existence.
Shelly waved as she jogged over to her shiny, new Lexus to head home. The rest of the cheerleading squad had already left. And the football players were trickling out of the locker rooms to head home.
I plopped down onto a bench in front of the football field and sent my mom a text to let her know we were done. I didn’t have my own car. We couldn’t afford it since my older sister was in college and had to have one. But if I could return the ski clothes, then I might be back on track to buy a car for graduation.
I shivered in the chill as it got later and later and colder and colder. My mom hadn’t returned my text, and when I called, it went straight to voicemail. I huffed angrily. She must have forgotten to charge it again. She had said that she’d raised three other girls without cell phones and didn’t understand the big deal with me. Well, right now was the big deal.
The game was outside the city. Normally, I could walk anywhere around Savannah to get to where I was going, but it was too far to walk, and everyone was gone. Crap.
“Hey,” a voice said behind me.
I jumped up and found Ash standing before me.
It should have been impossible for him to be as hot as he was. Most of the guys I knew were tall and gangly and just getting used to their new almost-man body. But not Ash. He had the aristocratic air as if he always knew precisely where to belong and who he was. He towered over me as he approached with the build of someone who spent too much time in the gym. His dark hair was wet, making it appear nearly midnight black in the faint light with blue eyes so light in contrast that I could swim in them.
