Shawn Stetson was asking me out.
So why was my throat shutting down at the thought of saying yes?
“Hey, I’ll behave,” he promised, smiling when he saw the worry in my eyes. “Just friends. We can hang out as just friends, right?”
I let out a long breath. “I don’t see why not.”
His smile widened. “Great. I actually have a Friday night without a gig for once. What do you say we keep it low key… you come over to my place? We can talk, get to know each other, maybe watch a movie?”
My cheeks warmed with that last part, because we all knew what watch a movie meant in college.
But this was what I’d been planning for, what I so painstakingly wished for. Even now, the thought of Shawn leaning in to close what little distance was still between us, the idea of him kissing me? It was intoxicating.
Maybe I was just reading too much into everything with Clay. Maybe I’d let my feelings get caught up in something we both agreed to keep feelings out of.
Everything we’d done, it was all fake.
The public appearances, the hand holding, the kissing, even the nights he’d shown me how to please myself, how to please him… it had all been a ruse.
Clay had Maliyah now. He’d proven Friday night when he’d walked away from me that that was what he wanted.
He wasn’t caught up in feelings for me.
I was a fool to stay tangled up in mine for him.
“I’d love that,” I finally answered, holding my chin higher. “I really would.”
And just like that, I had a date with Shawn Stetson.
Clay
I looked like an absolute idiot as I walked across campus, the bouquet of flowers in my hand blowing precariously in the wind. More and more petals blew off and joined the decaying leaves rapidly covering the grass, and try as I did, I couldn’t shield them enough to save them.
“Giana, I know I don’t deserve it, but I want to explain why I left Friday night,” I mumbled to myself, reciting the words I’d planned out in my head. “It wasn’t because I didn’t want you. Trust me,” I breathed. “I wanted you so fucking badly I could barely breathe when I left.”
My chest stung with that, the memory of leaving her, of her wide eyes and quivering lip when I turned my back and walked out of her apartment. It wasn’t my brightest move, but then again, I knew if I stayed, I would have taken her. I wouldn’t have been able to resist her, not with her bare before me and begging me to have my way.
It had hit me like a sledgehammer to the head, my feelings for Giana, and it had taken me all weekend to untangle them.
Yesterday, football was my focus. It had to be. As a student athlete on scholarship, I had one job to do, and for the hours that stretched before the game until I was showering after the game last night, that was where my head was. We secured another win, steering us closer and closer to another bowl game.
This year, we wanted the bowl game, the one that would lead us to the championship.
If it was possible, we were on fire even more so than last season. We’d had a lot of new blood, myself included, and had to learn how each other worked, how to jell. This season, we were becoming more and more comfortable, running plays like we knew them better than the back of our hands.
It was all falling into place.
But the second the game was over, my mind shifted gears, and all thoughts were wrapped up in Giana.
Or should I say, ninety percent of them — the other ten were reserved for Mom, especially when I applied for a student loan late last night. It hadn’t been something I’d needed up until this point. My scholarship covered my tuition, books, dorm, and fees, and even gave me enough to live on — especially considering most of my meals were at the stadium.
But I had drained my savings helping Mom pay bills and get by, and rent was due next week.
It was a small loan, one I hoped I could pay off easily once I was drafted with a signing bonus. Still, my ribcage ached when I hit the submit button, when I got the automatic approval and realized I was in debt for the first time in my life.
It was so easy to do, and now, I understood why so many people were crushed beneath the weight of it.
“Don’t worry,” I’d told Mom after the loan was secured. “I will take care of you.”
“You always have,” was her response.
I still wasn’t over my anger with my father, either. I couldn’t understand how he could so easily turn his back on his family when we needed him.
But then again, we weren’t his family — not his primary one, anyway. We were a past life, one he clearly wanted to leave behind.