“I came with Reggie.” Sort of. But he didn’t need to know that.
Was it my imagination, or did his face fall a little?
And why wasn’t I taking advantage of this? It was the perfect way to shut down this conversation. I’m dating your teammate, sorry. Have a good night, and keep your masculine wiles to yourself. Oh, and I’m going to get total revenge on you. ’K, thanks, bye.
Instead, I added, “He did it as a favor to Nia. I’ve heard about the Jacks’ parties, and I wanted to see one for myself.”
“That’s good, given that Reggie’s longest and most serious relationship has been with his cell phone.”
Why did I want to laugh?
Evan Dawson is not charming. He’s not. Not charming.
“Do you want to get out of here?” he asked, shocking me out of my internal mantra.
“And do what?” Because if he was telling the truth, he didn’t mean that the way other men usually did.
He shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever you want. What do you say?”
Why was I tempted by his offer? What was going on with me? Why was some small part of me ready to throw away the past and see where this would lead?
If I didn’t snap out of this, it was going to lead me straight to unemployment.
But I still didn’t want to deliberately offend him.
“I say it would be really rude of me to ditch my friends. Have a good night.”
I moved to walk past him, and he reached out, gently grabbing my wrist. Fireworks exploded up and down my arms. That reaction stunned me. It had to be a fluke. Static electricity. Jupiter moving through my seventh house. My body’s trigger warning that something awful was about to happen.
“You know, you haven’t told me your name.”
It reminded me that despite being this all-consuming figure in my teen years, he didn’t remember me at all. And then I realized that he hadn’t bothered to introduce himself. That I was just supposed to already know who he was because he was oh-so-important to all us little people and our pathetic lives.
That I totally knew who he was before I ever even saw his face was beside the point.
It was enough to restoke my anger, which had been slowly dying out.
I jerked my arm away. “It’s Ashton.”
“That’s not usually a woman’s name, is it? Although I used to know a girl named . . .” His voice trailed off, and I finally saw recognition dawning in his eyes. “Ashton? Ashton Bailey? Is that you?”
To be fair, I looked nothing like I had when he knew me. I’d had frizzy carrot-orange hair that had deepened over the years to a much darker shade of red. I’d grown at least six inches and now had curves where I was supposed to have them. LASIK eye surgery instead of glasses. No more braces.
He stood up quickly, like he wanted to hug me or something, and I flew backward, hitting the backs of my knees on the coffee table and falling butt-first onto its surface. Where I knocked over his Awesome Dawson drink on Nia’s dress. “Just great,” I muttered.
Evan offered me his hand, intending to help me up. I didn’t need his assistance. “I’m fine,” I told him through my clenched teeth, trying to brush off some of the pink drink. It didn’t seem like it was going to stain, but now I’d have to get the dress dry-cleaned. I scooted over and got up, putting the couch between us.
As if he sensed my concern, he stayed put, his hands in his pockets. “I can’t believe you’re here. I tried for a long time to get in touch with you. To apologize.”
It was true. About a year after he’d graduated from high school, he reached out to me on Facebook, and I blocked him. Not only because I didn’t want to hear his excuses, but also because I was worried that I might be tempted to cyberstalk him.
Then there was the email he’d sent me. “So Sorry” had been the subject line. I deleted and then undeleted that email multiple times over the course of several months before emptying out my inbox’s trash once and for all. Then I changed my email address.
Admittedly, he probably could have tried harder if he’d really wanted to get in contact with me, but he didn’t. And I’d done everything I could to keep him away.
“Now the hostility makes a little more sense. Come to dinner with me on Thursday. Let me explain and make this right between us. Please.”
I should have agreed. It would have been the perfect opportunity to grill him without him realizing it. But I’d been holding on to my anger against Evan for so long that I didn’t know how to let go of it.
His calling me hostile did not help.
“On Thursday I have to help my sister plan your ten-year high school reunion.”
“Aubrey, right?” When I nodded, he continued. “What about tomorrow?”
“Isn’t Wednesday your hardest day?” Many an NFL player had complained about it.
“It’ll be easy to get through if I know you’ll let me take you out and talk to you.”
He was so cheesy, but sadly enough, some part of it was sickeningly charming. At the very least God could have made him boring and stupid. So that there’d be an easy way to resist him. Oh no, Evan Dawson had to be the ultimate winner of the human race’s genetic lottery.
I wouldn’t fall for it again. “I have an intramural basketball game tomorrow night.”
“Really?” His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “That’s what you’re going with?”
It did sound like a bad excuse, but it was the truth, and I didn’t owe him an explanation. “That’s what I’m going with.”
He considered me, the right side of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “I’m guessing if I ask you out for Friday night, you’ll be busy then, too. I don’t know that this has ever happened to me before. Like we’ve already established, usually I’m the one who spends my time saying no.”
I couldn’t help myself. I rolled my eyes so massively hard it could have been seen from outer space, which made him laugh. Even his stupid laughter was rich and velvety and melted another micro fraction of my defenses.
“Come on, Ashton. Have dinner with me.”
“Do you hear that?” I asked him, cocking my head to one side. He went still, listening. “That’s the sound of this, never happening.”
I strode out of the room, head held high. It was the perfect note to leave on. Or it would have been, if he hadn’t been laughing.
I couldn’t believe I’d just had a conversation with Evan Dawson. Where I’d said and done stupid things that amused him. On the plus side, pink drink spillage aside, I looked amazing. So at least I’d always have that.
I nearly ran right into Nia and the very blonde woman I assumed was Tinsley. Nia made the introductions, and I shook Tinsley’s hand. “Those are such cute shoes!” I told her.
I had no idea whether they were fashionable or not, but I’d learned at an early age you could never go wrong with other women by complimenting their style choices. Especially footwear.
“Thank you!” she said, grinning. Tinsley looked like a stereotypical ex-professional cheerleader. Tan, in great shape, perfect waves of long hair cascading down her back, blinding white smile. “Nia tells me you’d like to become involved with our Jumping Jacks program.”
“I can honestly say it’s my favorite charity.”
“Perfect. I’m having tea here this Saturday with some of the other committee members to give out assignments, if you’re interested.”
“Yes!” I needed to rein in my enthusiasm, given their startled expressions. “Definitely. That sounds great. What time?”
She told me to be at the penthouse at two o’clock. In the middle of saying our goodbyes, Evan walked out behind me, brushing past me as he did so.
“Excuse me, ladies. Nia, Tinsley, always a pleasure to see you.”
The two women said their hellos and goodbyes as Evan shot me a look that made it pretty obvious we knew each other. After he walked away, it took less than a half second for Tinsley to ask, “You and Evan?”
“No. Nope. No. There is no me and Eva
n. I just ran into him. In there.” I waved my hand over my shoulder. I was supposed to be here to impress her, not to give the image that I was looking for a player to nab. I also needed to keep my I HATE EVAN DAWSON metaphorical T-shirt to myself. “He’s not my type.” That was a total lie, as he was the type for every breathing woman on the planet. “I am not interested in dating him. At all.”
I was protesting so much it was like I was a freshman at a liberal arts college.
“You’d be one of the very few women here who could say that,” Tinsley said with an enthusiastic smile. “Evan is the Jacks’ white whale. Nobody ever lands him. And given the size of his, er, contract, many women have tried and failed.”
I doubted that but knew enough not to say so. I just smiled back. I hoped it looked real.
Maybe every other woman had tried and failed to get what they wanted from him.
I planned on being the one who succeeded and exposed him as a lying fraud.
CHAPTER FOUR
Early in the morning I sent off an email to Brenda, letting her know that I’d started my quest to expose Evan and giving her what little information I had gathered.
It wasn’t much, and her terse, curt reply let me know it.
I got Nia’s dress dry-cleaned at a place with a two-hour turnaround and texted to ask if I could bring it by. She said sure, and I made the long drive out to her home. It was weird not having to show up to work. I liked being able to do what I wanted when I wanted.
Don’t get too used to it, I told myself. It wouldn’t be long before I’d be making my way up to the big show, getting to announce for the Jacks.
Before I could even knock on Nia’s door, she threw it open. “Come in! We have so much to talk about. Such as how Evan liked your photo. Because he’s into you.”
What? What photo? Oh, right. Instagram. My whole body scoffed at the idea that Evan Dawson could ever be attracted to me. “That’s a little far-fetched. Just because he likes the picture doesn’t mean he likes me.”
“Maybe not. But it’s still a click in the right direction. Or maybe I jumped to my far-fetched conclusion because of this.” She held out her phone to show me one of my Instagram photos. With a comment from Evan Dawson.
He called me gorgeous? Why did that both thrill and infuriate me at the same time? What kind of game was he playing?
Did he really feel that bad over what had happened in high school? He should. But it wasn’t my job to absolve his guilt. He could live with it, as far as I was concerned.
I’d certainly had to.
“I’m guessing you hadn’t seen that yet. Which means he’s not trying to slide into your DMs.”
I nodded. “He kept insisting he wasn’t trying to slide into anything.”
That made her smile. “Come inside. Would you like some tea?”
“Sure.”
She took my winter coat and her dress and hung them both in the same place as she had last night. I followed her into the kitchen, where she had a darling pink-and-green-porcelain tea set on the table.
I had barely sat down when she pounced on me.
“Gorgeous? Fiery personality? Okay, you need to tell me what really happened,” she said as she poured some herbal tea into my cup. “I know what you said last night, and I don’t believe a word of it. What is going on? Because there were some serious vibes happening between you two.”
“There were no vibes,” I told her.
“Please. I am a professor of vibeology and know it when I see it. I want the whole story.”
I hadn’t told anyone the Evan Dawson story in a really long time. I blew on my drink and took a small sip.
“Come on, I’m dying of curiosity. Spill!”
I put the cup down. “I skipped first grade.”
She shot me a “what does that have to do with anything?” kind of look.
“Apparently I used to finish worksheets before the teacher even finished passing them all out and constantly begged her for more to do. The school worried about me becoming bored and wanted to keep fostering my love of learning. They met with my parents and recommended that I be skipped into second grade. Because I was so tall, smart, and mature for my age, everybody agreed. And it was fine. Until I got to high school.”
Nia’s brown eyes were wide, her chin resting on her hand. “And what happened in high school?”
I included the age/grade-skipping thing only because my entire family thought it was relevant to the story. “When I was a freshman, I was thirteen years old. Which made me five years younger than my older sister and her friends, who were all seniors. Including Evan Dawson. My home was the place to hang out for the cheerleaders and football team, and one day while I was in the basement playing Madden, Evan asked if he could join me. I gave him the extra controller, and we played for hours.”
I remembered how we had laughed and joked, the way he’d ruffled my hair when I said something he thought was funny.
While I had thought it wildly romantic at the time, I later realized it was how you’d treat an adorable pet.
“We played video games almost every day. We spent a lot of time together. I thought we were into the same kind of stuff, but he probably thought of me as some kid sister. Then the school year started, and I auditioned to be one of the announcers for the varsity football games. I got the position. When everybody came back to the house to celebrate the wins, I was the one Evan sought out and talked to about the games. He made me feel special. Important.” When he’d talked to me, he’d made me feel like I was the most interesting person in the entire world. That nothing else mattered to him but that moment and being there with me.
And I had convinced myself I was in love with him. Now I recognized it was just a really gigantic crush, but I had deluded myself into thinking we were Romeo and Juliet, only with less dying in the end.
“You fell hard, didn’t you?” Nia asked, and I noticed her expression had shifted from interested to sympathetic.
“The hardest.” I nodded. Back then I had done nothing but think about Evan. My grades slipped, and I didn’t care. I just knew he and I were meant to be and someday would run away together. Preferably after I got boobs.
I took another sip of my considerably cooled-down tea. Nia stayed quiet, just letting me ramble.
“Did you know I’m the one who gave him his nickname? He came running out onto the field, and I said, ‘He’s so awesome,’ in this ridiculously dreamy voice, and it stuck. Everybody started calling him ‘Awesome’ Dawson after that,” I told her. “I was so proud of being the person who’d started it.” I had doodled “awestruck” on the covers of all my school folders. A way to admire him without anyone else knowing.
“I didn’t know that.”
Nobody seemed to know where his nickname had originated. Except for me. “More than anything else I wanted him to take me to a dance. To have that teen romance moment, you know? Walking down the stairs with the handsome guy at the bottom waiting for you, only able to say, ‘Wow,’ because you look so amazing. Homecoming came and went. A couple of others, like an autumn-themed one and the Halloween dance. Still nothing. I even got so delusional that I thought maybe he was waiting for a really special dance to ask me. Like the prom. Then Sadie Hawkins was coming up. If Evan wasn’t going to ask me, I decided to ask him. To finally tell him how I really felt. I thought maybe he was just shy or didn’t know I liked him, too, so if I said it first, it would make it easier for him.”
“Oh no,” she groaned, covering her face with her hands, peering at me from between her fingers. “What did you do?”
“I wrote him a letter. A handwritten letter that was, like, six pages front and back, all about how in love with him I was and how I knew we’d end up together and then inviting him to the Sadie Hawkins dance.” I had poured my little teen heart into those pages. Exposed my soul in a way that had made me beyond vulnerable.
“What happened with the letter?”
“I left it in his locker. I remember how sick to my st
omach I felt the entire day, waiting for him to say something, do something. I looked for him in the halls and couldn’t find him. When school ended, I knew he had to have seen it by then. I waited by the locker room, knowing he’d be there for practice.”
Nia let out a frustrated sigh for me.
“He finally showed up and stopped smiling as soon as he saw me. He told his friends to go ahead, friends who were all snickering as they passed me. Which I didn’t really pay attention to because all I cared about was Evan. My voice shook so hard when I asked him if he’d gotten my letter. He wouldn’t make eye contact but said he had. I asked if he wanted to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me. And then he finally looked at me with so much pity in his eyes and said, ‘You’re just a kid, Ashton. It’s not going to happen.’ That was the last time we spoke.” Until last night.
Nia stirred her tea absentmindedly. “I mean, that sucks to get your hopes dashed, but it doesn’t seem that bad. All of us have had our fair share of rejection.”
“Oh, that’s not the bad part. And I wish it was only about rejection. I spent that entire weekend crying my eyes out. The following Monday when I got to school, it felt like everybody was laughing and pointing at me, but Aubrey told me it was all in my head. Turns out it wasn’t. Evan had taken pictures of my letter and forwarded them to the entire school. People kept quoting lines to me and calling me ‘Stalker.’ At first it was funny to them, then it turned mean. Like I became the school’s official punching bag.”
“That is so sad.” Nia put one of her hands on top of mine. She must have heard how my voice turned thick as I fought back tears.
“Yeah. He was the shining star. The prom king. The kid who walked on water, who would take them to state. A god among men at that school, and I was some nobody freshman who didn’t know her place. Everybody wanted to make sure I remembered I wasn’t good enough for him. I tried to talk to Evan about it, to ask why he’d done this to me, but he avoided me. Didn’t come over to my house anymore. Until one day out of the blue, he sent me a text. He asked me to meet him on the football field at the fifty-yard line after the game, at midnight. Said he had something he wanted to say to me.”
#Awestruck (A #Lovestruck Novel) Page 4