by Angel Lawson
As I walk across the soft grass, I suddenly realize I’m not the only person in this part of the quad. Someone else is lurking around the base of the tower. I wait, feeling nervous about being out here alone. Now, all those absurd warnings my mother gave me about the buddy system come rushing back. What am I doing out here, all by myself? This is the perfect time and place to get snatched!
I stumble over a thick tree root, my lame leg faltering. I press my back against the trunk and wait. Whoever it is can’t be hanging around long. What are they doing, anyway?
That’s when I see the blue light of a phone cast over their face. My stomach clenches at the sight of Reynolds, leaning lazily against the stonework of the tower. His hair’s wet and his eyes are blank, fixed to the screen of his phone. There’s something wary in the way he holds himself, hand pushed tight into the pocket of his low-slung jeans, shoulders curling inward.
I wonder what he’s doing there, but just as quickly as I ask the question, I know the answer. I’m not surprised that he’s already found someone here to hook up with. I’ve been here for years and no guy has ever expressed the slightest interest in me, but him? I’ve overheard enough bathroom conversations and whispered classroom discussions to know that Sydney and I aren’t the only ones who have noticed that Reynolds is good-looking. Any number of Preston girls would be willing to bear a Devil’s mark from him.
What does surprise me is the sudden boulder of disappointment that crashes into the pit of my stomach.
I instantly cringe away from it, heart twisting, because I refuse—refuse—to find where those breadcrumbs lead me. Even if I were jealous—and even if that night had never happened—it’d be laughable. Embarrassing. Pathetic. Wanting Reynolds is something my thirteen-year-old self would do, because that person was young and stupid and hopelessly naive. The person I am now feels physically sick at the thought of it.
I wait another few minutes before I leave, not wanting to run into him. He lingers around the door, and for a second I think maybe he’s getting stood up. But that idea is heartily squashed when the door finally opens. It’s hard to make anything out except a shadowy figure standing in the doorway, but Reynolds bumps fists with whoever it is. He vanishes into the bell tower a moment later.
I realize my heart is racing as the door closes behind him. I take a deep breath before walking as quickly as I can back toward the stadium parking lot.
One thing nags at me as I reach my parents.
Guys don’t bump fists with a girl.
Who the heck was Reyn meeting?
I wait until it’s late, house quiet and still, to flip through the photos on the memory card slowly, taking in every face, each moment, as if I’m not looking for one photo in particular. Determinedly—almost stubbornly—I take my sweet time clicking the ‘next’ arrow. I feel a swell of jubilation when I find the touchdown photo, a still frame of number 32 just as his hands make contact with the ball. It’s not exactly framed professionally, but it’s clear and crisp, a nicer snapshot of an action moment than I thought myself capable of, and I feel a bright spike of satisfaction.
Crushing it!
I flip through more—Emory, Sydney, Afton Cross, Ben Shackleford—until I reach The One.
The second his dimpled face fills the screen, I almost click back to the previous picture. Seeing him like this feels wrong somehow, like at any moment my parents are going to jump out of the shadows and start asking a whole lot of questions that I’m in no way prepared to answer. It makes me curl closer to the screen as I look at it, not at all unlike I’ve seen Reynolds curled around his lunch tray—a vaguely possessive, shielding move.
It’s a fantastic picture. There’s something strangely guarded in the way his eyes are trained off into the distance. Sweaty hair clings to his forehead in chaotic slashes, and his mouth is parted with his smile, like he’s still trying to catch his breath.
It’s a seemingly perfect mixture of the old Reynolds and the new.
I can only look at it for a few moments before the anxious fluttering in my stomach becomes too much. I close it all out before shooting a wary glance toward my window.
I blame the insomnia—or all the caffeine—for turning me into a nosy neighbor, or at least that’s what I tell myself as I sit here on my bed, watching his dark window for signs of activity. It’s already past midnight and he’s not the only one who hasn’t come home yet. My brother hasn’t returned either.
I check social media, scanning Emory’s account and even Aubrey Willis’, but if they’re together, they’ve kept it on the DL. I yet again restrain myself from seeing whether or not Reynolds has an account. That’s like the isosceles triangle of slippery slopes. But I do scroll through a dozen other accounts of Preston Prep classmates hoping he’ll pop up. He doesn’t, even in the photos from a party where Sydney is claiming to have the time of her life.
I close the laptop and fall back on my bed, sighing.
I drum my fingers against my stomach. FOMO isn’t something I’m used to feeling so acutely. The meds usually dulled those kinds of things. But now it’s just frustratingly, achingly obvious that I’m the only one at home on a Friday night, sitting in my room, creeping on the off-limits neighbor I can barely even manage eye contact with. Jesus, the realization that I need a life has never been clearer.
I decide to risk going down to the kitchen. It’s late enough that Mom and Dad should be asleep. Dad snores like a freight train and my mom has started sleeping with a noise machine. It’s given me a little more freedom to move around at night, but I still play it safe, not even daring to turn on a light to illuminate my way down the stairs, through the house.
At the refrigerator, I open the freezer and stick my head in so that the cool air blasts across my face. I dig out an ice pop and am in the middle of tearing the package with my teeth when I hear a meow at the kitchen window. Firefly’s climbed the flower box and is peering in at me with his shrewd eyes.
“Hey bud,” I say, mostly to myself. It’s not like the cat can hear me. He continues to meow, louder and a touch more obnoxiously than normal. At the door, I pause, because I know my cat. Usually, that much noise means he’s brought a ‘gift’. I ease the door open, just a crack, and look down. Sure enough...
“Ugh, Firefly, are you kidding me?”
Firefly is holding the brown, striped body of a chipmunk in his mouth. I know if I let him, he’ll dart in, probably leaving the thing somewhere horribly inconvenient. Instead, I squeeze out to confront him.
“Let go of that!” I hiss. “Drop the chipmunk!”
Firefly isn’t having it. As soon as I get near enough to grab him, he’s jolting away. I chase him across the yard, grateful that no one’s come home yet, because I can’t even imagine how stupid I look, hobbling around after a cat and his chipmunk. I ultimately pick up a pinecone to chuck in his direction. Predictably, it misses, Emory having clearly sucked all of the throwing talent from our particular end of the gene pool. The yard is wet, coated in slippery dew. I throw another pinecone, which lands close enough to both alarm and piss the cat off. He gives me a surly, betrayed look, as if to say ‘I’m trying to feed you, woman!’
Having done this song and dance before, I know from experience that, half the time, the chipmunks are still alive—just stunned into submission—which means if I can grab the cat, I can probably save the pitiful creature. I pick up one more pinecone and throw it. This one skitters across the driveway, producing a long hissing sound that scares Firefly enough to drop the chipmunk.
Once it’s out of his mouth, that sucker dashes away.
Knew it.
“You’re welcome,” I mutter to its wake, working now to lunge for the cat before he can go after it.
I corner him behind an azalea, clutching the cat to my chest. Despite the loss of his prey, Firefly still deigns to bless me with an affectionate headbutt to my chin. “Yeah, yeah, you’re a fierce predator,” I pant, still catching my breath. That’s about when I hear the sound of an appro
aching vehicle, unable to do much more than blink before the driveway is awash in a flood of headlights. My brother’s truck—and I would recognize the bass from his sound system anywhere—comes to a slow stop.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I freeze, trying to decide what to do. Run? I physically can’t do that—not well, at any rate. He’s sure to hear my shuffle-limp across the driveway. I could just step out, admit I was out here with the cat. My mind runs through all the questions that will lead to; why were you in the kitchen, is something wrong, why aren’t you asleep, do I need to tell Mom and Dad? It wouldn’t even be a threat. It’d be concern. I realize it’s stupid—insane, even—how ridiculously overbearing my family has become. But it’s true, nevertheless. Getting up for a popsicle could land me back in twice-a-week therapy.
That’s what leads me to option three: hide.
With the cat clutched to my pounding chest, I stay hidden behind the thick azalea and wait for my brother to head into the house. His door opens and shuts. Then... opens again? The second set of footsteps is what makes me realize he’s not alone.
I close my eyes against the tide of horror.
“So what do you think?” Emory says, voice low but echoing in the silence of the driveway.
It takes Reynolds a long moment to answer. When he does, his voice is low and reluctant. “Collins made it pretty clear at my meeting that this kind of stuff is off limits.”
“Well, that’s what those assholes get for trying to shut down a long-standing tradition,” my brother says.
There’s a shuffling sound. The jingle of keys. Firefly twitches. “Come on, be straight with me,” Reynolds says. “Is this just you being pissed that you couldn’t be leader of the Devils this year? Because I’ve seen the way these people act around you, Em. You don’t need it.”
Emory scoffs. “Dude, fuck what the Devils used to be. The way Hamilton and the guys before him ran shit? It was petty posturing. This is how we reclaim it, don’t you see? We’d be putting our own mark on Preston Prep, ushering in a new era for...” A thread of significance deepens Emory’s voice, “for the people we leave behind.”
Reynolds makes a soft scoff. “So that’s what this is about.”
“I’m not like Hamilton Bates,” Emory says. “He left and never looked back, but I don’t have that luxury. I know the Devils were stupid, okay? But I also know this school, and I know what the student body is like. Preston needs a group of upperclassmen—the right group of upperclassmen—to lead them. Because if they don’t, someone else will, and those people won’t be like us. It might be a bullshit power structure, but that’s still what it is—structure.”
“What it is,” Reynolds says, “is full-on secret society shit.”
“Which makes it infinitely cooler!” I dare a peek through the dense limbs and see Emory holding something in his hands. It looks like a book. “It’s all here. Every ritual. Every tradition. The way it was always meant to be. This—” I see Emory hold up the book, “—is legacy. Don’t you want to be known here for something other than...” Emory trails off, and the driveway fades into a tense stillness.
“Other than being a fuck-up?” Reynolds finishes, voice so flat and lifeless that it chills me.
“I didn’t mean it like—" Emory sighs. “Look, I just know you’re bigger than that. I know it.”
“And if I get caught doing this, then that’s all I’ll ever be.”
“No one is going to find out, that’s the whole point. I’m not dumb, dude. Not anymore.” Emory explains, “In here, there are precautions, okay? Insurance policies. I know what’s on the line here.” Emory shifts on his feet. “Bro, I need to do this. And I really want you to do it with me. It’ll be like old times, you know? Before everything went to shit.” There’s another stretch of silence so long and loaded that I risk another peek.
“Christ, Em.” Reyn’s face is cast to the side, shadowed gaze trained off into the distance. I watch as his fingers flex around the strap of his equipment bag, knuckles going white, and I unconsciously mirror him, tightening my grip on Firefly. There’s something dark and hunted in the curve of Reynolds’ brow. Whatever struggle he’s locked in makes his voice come out low and defeated. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Yeah,” Emory says, like this much is obvious. “We have some time, no problem.”
I watch them bump fists before Emory walks toward the house, taking the sidewalk on the other side of the bush I’m hiding behind. The cat senses his presence and, being completely over my embrace, squirms right out of my arms.
I watch helplessly as the cat darts away, and now it’s my turn to shoot him a surly, betrayed look. It’s not long before I hear the door to our house open and close. My feet are wet and coated with dirt, and my leg is trembling, struggling to hold my crouch, but I stay there, listening for the sounds of Reynolds’ retreat. I feel the surge of worry seizing my chest as I wait.
What the hell was my brother talking about? It sounded serious.
Like serious trouble.
“Guess old habits die hard,” Reynolds’ low voice suddenly rings out from the driveway. I cast my eyes around, wondering if someone else has arrived. Jerry, maybe. Or maybe he’s just talking to himself. But then, he adds, “Isn’t that right, Baby V?”
I stop breathing, eyes clamping shut in denial.
He sighs, voice is breezy and bored when he says, “I can see your foot.”
My eyes fly open, shooting a glare to my dirty toes. I ascend slowly, carefully, in stages, forcing my bum leg beneath me. When I limp out from behind the bush, I see Reynolds leaning against the truck. His legs are crossed at the ankle, a gym bag slung over his shoulder. His dark eyes sweep over me.
“What are you doing.” This is not phrased as a question.
“Uh.” I pull my sleeves over my fists, gesturing weakly toward the yard. “I was just getting my cat. He had a chipmunk, and I—”
Reynolds is tall and thin, which is probably what makes him so fast on the field. He pushes off the vehicle, bringing himself to full height, and his face is that same shadowy, hard-edged blankness from the other night. “You’re still a bad liar.”
I feel a rush of indignation, Sydney's words floating back to me—your territory—and I pull myself to my own full height. “I’m not lying.”
His face remains emotionless, even as his chest bounces with a silent laugh. “Lesson number one about eavesdropping; it’s all about the cover.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Look,” he says, the light from a distant lamppost bringing his tense features into sharp relief. “I know you’re not happy about me being back. It’s really obvious. And that’s...” He works his jaw for a moment, fingers flexing. “That’s fine. I deserve that. But I’m doing my best here to stay away from you, and let you be. You nosing around like this?” His dark gaze drops to my bare leg, something sharp and troubled in the curve of his brow. “It’s just going to get you hurt again.”
I feel the weight of his eyes on my leg so intensely that I actually stumble back a step, heel dragging across the ground as my muscles lag just a moment too slowly. I breathe in sharply, anticipating the tilt of the fall.
It never comes.
Reynolds, who only a moment ago was ten feet away, somehow manages to leap over the distance, lunging to catch me before I topple backward. His arm around my torso feels as solid as steel, pulling me upright, right into the wall of his warm body.
It takes me a moment to reorient myself, still half expecting the collision against the pavement. Instead, I feel Reynolds’ slow, relieved exhale against my temple. Over his shoulder, I can see where he’s dropped the gym bag, which is the last bit of sense I recognize before my lungs are filled with the clean, undeniably masculine scent of him. My belly twists in a humiliating tangle of bright-hot want that’s so sudden, I immediately shove him away.
Reynolds instantly complies, lurching back with his palms up. His lips are pressed into a tig
ht, grim line, and when he mutters a rough, “Fuck, sorry,” I wrap my arms around my middle and turn away, eyes feeling hot and prickly.
I walk as fast as I can toward the house, and when I get there, I don’t have to look back to know he’s still standing in the driveway, watching. I don’t turn around to confirm whether or not the heat of his gaze on the back of my neck is real or imagined. I just step inside, exhaling raggedly when the door is closed, and press my back against it.
I knew Reyn and I were going to have to speak to one another sooner or later.
I just didn’t expect it to go like that.
6
Reyn
Even though it’s past midnight, I know there’s no reason to be quiet when I walk in the house. My dad’s car is gone. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that he spends more time out than at home these days. It’s just one more weird adjustment, going from being cramped up in tiny dorms with hundreds of other guys to finding myself constantly alone in this huge, silent house.
I slam the back door loud enough to wake up every dog in the neighborhood, which is probably not the smartest move coming from someone who’s been ducking Fucking Jerry for three days. I run my hands through my hair, frustration thrumming through my veins.
Goddamnit!
Why’d I have to touch her?
It’s not like I could just let her fall. It was instinctual, involuntary. The second I saw her stumble, I was clutched by panic, jumping forward to catch her. She was small and warm and solid, and I just wanted to carry her into her fucking house and tuck her meddlesome ass into bed, and then lock her in there. Safe. Away from all this. Away from me. Why does she have to make this so difficult? It’s easy. She stays over there, I stay over here, and I won’t get into trouble.