“We made a promise,” I said, thumbing the promise ring on my finger. We’d exchanged them at sixteen, a promise that we’d be together forever — a wedding band in everything but law.
But when I reached out for hers, her finger was bare, the gold band nowhere in sight, and I swallowed as she pulled away with a grimace.
“We were young,” she said, as if that made her breaking my heart reasonable, as if our age somehow disillusioned the love I felt for her.
The love I thought she felt for me.
“But, you’re finally here. You’re at my school.”
That made her frown. “It’s my school, too, now. I’m on the cheerleading squad. And I have… goals. Things I want to accomplish.”
She couldn’t look at me when she said it, and my nose flared with emotion that I struggled to keep at bay. I knew that look. It was the same one she gave when I bought her a dress that she didn’t really like, but didn’t want to tell me so because it would hurt my feelings. It was the look she got from her father, Cory Vail, a powerful tech lawyer in Silicon Valley who was used to getting what he wanted.
And who expected his daughter to do the same.
It was easy enough to put the pieces together, and I sobered at the realization.
“I’m not good enough.”
Maliyah just looked at the ground, unable to even deny it.
And in the blink of an eye, the girl I thought I’d marry and build a life with was abandoning me, just like my father had — even when they both had promised they’d stay.
I was the common denominator.
What I’d done hadn’t been enough for either of them.
“We’ll both be happier,” she said, patronizing again as she rubbed my arm. “Trust me.”
The memory was wiped from my mind with the hard snap of a damp towel against my thigh.
“Argh!”
I cried out, hissing at the sting it left behind as Kyle Robbins howled with laughter. He bent at the waist, the towel he’d wound up and whipped me with falling to the ground in the process.
“You were zoned out man,” he said through the laughter. “Didn’t see that shit coming at all.” He popped up then, looking across the weight room at another teammate. “Did you get it?”
Before whoever he’d tasked with videotaping the prank could answer, I grabbed him by the neck of his tank top and ripped him down to eye level, holding him firm when he tried to squirm away.
“Delete that shit, or I swear to God, Robbins, I’ll give you the biggest wedgie of your life and hang you from the rafters by your shit-streaked, shredding tightie whities.”
He almost laughed, but when I twisted my fist more, intensifying the grip, his eyes flashed with terror before he smacked my arm and I released him. He and I both knew I could have held on longer if I’d wanted.
“Damn, someone’s got their panties in a twist,” he murmured.
One of our teammates returned his phone to him, and I snatched it out of his hand before he could walk away, deleting the video myself before I tossed it back to him.
“You used to be fun,” he commented.
“And you used to have Novo’s name shaved into the side of your head,” I shot back, which made the guys around us break out in muffled laughter that they did a sorry job of hiding.
Kyle’s face turned red, the memory of him losing a game of 500 to our kicker last season, and therefore having to do whatever the team decided as punishment washing over his narrowed gaze.
But he just sucked his teeth and waved me off, making his way over to the bench press, and it felt like a fly finally ditching my picnic for someone else’s.
Kyle Robbins was a prick, and the fact that he’d cashed in on the whole Name, Image and Likeness thing any time he could meant he brought even more attention to the media circus we already had around us on any given day. I hated it, and only tolerated him because he was a damn good tight end and on the same team as me.
I cracked my neck when he was gone, catching the inquisitive gaze of our quarterback and team captain, Holden Moore, as I settled back in place on the squat press machine.
“You good?” he asked, racking the weights he’d been using like he wasn’t all that interested in the answer. I knew better, though. Holden was a born leader, one of the few players on this team I actually looked up to. He was checking in not because he was nosy, but because he gave a damn.
“Good,” was my only answer, and then I was back in position, kicking into the platform until my legs were straight. I released the latch on the weight, squatting my knees toward my chest on an inhale, and grunting as I extended to push the weight back up.