Chasing Sunshine: A New Adult Sports Romance (NE University Book 1)

by Hannah Gray

  “You want some clothes to wear?” he says as he walks out of the bathroom, wearing sweatpants that sit dangerously low on his hips.

  I shake my head. “That’s okay. I’m fine.” Although oversize sweatpants and a shirt sound amazing after this long night.

  He watches me for a moment and then turns toward his dresser. After rustling around for a minute, he hands me a pair of gray sweatpants and a long-sleeved NEU football shirt. “Put this on. You’ll be comfier.”

  I give him a small smile and nod. I make my way toward the bathroom. Once changed, I look in the mirror.

  What would Anna think of this? Oh shit. Anna.

  I rush out of the bathroom and grab my phone. “Shit! She’s called five times and sent me seven texts. She probably thinks I’ve been abducted.”

  I hit some numbers and then put the phone to my ear. “Anna! I know. I’m sorry. I should have let you know I was leaving. Oh, you are? Well … that’s awkward. I guess I’ll see you shortly.” I put my hand on my forehead and then run it over my face. “Well, Anna is here with Mason, watching a movie. Apparently, after she couldn’t find me, she began freaking out. Mason saw her and told her he also couldn’t find you, so they connected the dots. I look like an idiot. I’m sure they all know you were with that prostitute-looking girl today. Wow. I’m a dumbass.”

  I’m actually ashamed that I’m even here. Then again, I had planned to hook up with Carter in some last-ditch effort to unattach myself to Trent. How does that make me any different?

  Trent

  She sits down on the edge of the bed.

  “Sunshine, please. Come talk to me.”

  She sighs. “You are very persuasive. And as much as I hate to admit it, you’ve got some sort of power over me. I don’t know what it is or why. But what you did tonight was cruel. To be with someone else and then do that to me? That’s so messed up, Trent.”

  My stomach clenches. I know what I did was fucking pathetic. I feel like a monster. I didn’t even want Layla; that was just me being me. Trying to stop whatever this thing is that’s continuing to grow for the girl in front of me. Sabotage it before it can actually become a thing. And she thinks she’s the fucked up one.

  “I’m so sorry, Cameran. I wish I could take it back more than anything in the world. I saw you at The Atlantic with Carter, and before you could hurt me, I hurt you.”

  “It was one thing to go off with someone else. After all, we aren’t anything.”

  Her words send a spike of pain through my heart. I try to hide my flinch.

  “But it was another to trick me into doing that with you the very same night. That’s gross.” She cradles herself with her arms. She looks so small in my clothes.

  “I know. I know, Sunshine. Please, forgive me.”

  I see her mentally and physically pulling away.

  “I’d better go. Anna—”

  “Red won’t mind waiting,” I cut her off.

  “Just so you know, she hates that nickname. A lot.”

  I narrow my eyes and sit up in my bed. I lean against my headboard, arms folded over my chest. “Stop avoiding. I’ve been avoiding my whole life. I can spot it a mile away.”

  Pain crosses her face for a second, and then she scooches back on the bed, so she’s at the other side. “We talked about it. It’s a shit idea for either of us to catch feelings. The timing isn’t right. My own therapist even suggests I shouldn’t start a romantic relationship at this point in my life. Yeah, that’s right. A shrink! I go see a shrink! I don’t fit into your world. I’m not even sure what I want to be when I grow up! I’m here for teaching, and I don’t actually know if it’s what I want to do. You’re going to be a big star, traveling the world with women throwing themselves at you. I don’t belong in that type of world. I am in the shadows, and I like it here. I have nothing to give you, Trent. And you deserve someone who can give you everything. I mean it. I have been around you enough to see that.”

  “I’m not saying you have to agree to fucking marry me, Cameran. I just want to see what this is. Because it’s something. I feel like I have gone through my life asleep, and now, I am finally awake. You did that, Cameran. Nobody else. You don’t think that I’d rather have a less complicated life? Go back to feeling numb? Be angry like I always was? Use the anger to feed my football profession? My anger fuels me, and without it, I am terrified that I won’t be half the football player that I am now. But I can’t let you go, Sunshine. I tried to ignore you, tried to be your friend, tried to be an asshole. You have burrowed yourself into my soul, Sunshine. If I’m being honest, part of me thinks you were already there.”

  Tears well up in her eyes, which is not what I wanted. It rips my heart out to see that. I reach over and wipe them away with my thumb and then pull her to my chest. She comes to me easily.

  “I know I’m complicated. I have a lot of emotional baggage. I go through times of being really low and times when I’m all right. I’m not a normal girl, Trent. I never will be.”

  I put my hands on the sides of her head and bring my lips to her forehead. Then, I pull back and look at her eyes. “And I’m not a normal guy. I have anger problems, and I’m short-tempered. It’s been the only feeling I have felt in a very long time. Other than that, I’m numb. Numb to the world. The girls and the fighting? It’s just part of the territory. It helps to pass the time. But you, Sunshine, you make me feel shit I forgot existed. And suddenly, I’m the corny fucker who believes in soul recognition. You see a girl who isn’t normal? I see a girl who has been through some shit and is still fighting. You see someone who is dark? I see sunshine on a dark day. Those days where it’s raining and storming. Then, a small part of the sky opens up, and the sunshine in that one tiny spot is so damn bright, it lights up the world. That’s what I see. If you want me to leave you alone, I will. But don’t do it because you think you’re not good enough for me because that’s fucking bullshit. Give me a chance.”

  She opens her mouth to say something when her phone vibrates. She looks down, and I see the panic in her eyes. This time, she doesn’t try to hide it. She hits Ignore and continues to stare at the phone.

  “Sunshine, are you in trouble?”

  Looking down, she laughs sadly. “Yeah, Trent, I think I am.”

  thirteen

  Trent

  “Well, maybe I can help?”

  She looks up at me and then bows her head back down again. “Trent, I knew you’d be that guy. It’s another reason why I didn’t want to tell you.”

  “What guy is that?”

  “The guy who knows I’m in trouble and rides in on his white horse to help. The knight in shining armor who doesn’t even really know me but loves the idea of me becoming his damsel. We’ve hung out a handful of times, yet I already know that you’d be that guy for me. And I don’t want it, Trent. I’m not a damsel in distress who wants to be rescued.”

  “Of course I’m the guy who helps people I care about, Cam. I’ll never turn a blind eye on my friends. And you’re a friend.”

  She takes a deep breath. “I came here from California,” she practically whispers. “I lived in the state of California my whole life. But I moved to Lincoln, California, my senior year of high school.”

  She stops and fidgets with her hands. I want to hear more, but I also don’t want to spook her. So, I gently rub circles on her back, hoping, in some way, it makes her feel even just one percent better.

  She wipes her eyes. “My parents died a month before my senior year of high school. A car accident. It was all my fault.”

  Instinctually, I pull her closer and whisper against her hair, “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, Sunshine.”

  She pulls away slightly so that she’s sitting up and turns around to face me. Pulling her knees to her chest, she rocks softly. “It was my fault. It was going to be my last year in high school, so I wanted to experiment with drinking, parties, boys, weed—all the ‘cool stuff,’ as my friends told me.” She puts her fingers up when she says “co
ol stuff.”

  The tears keep rolling down her face, but she has stopped wiping them away. Part of me thinks that she doesn’t even realize she’s crying anymore.

  “I got pretty messed up one night at a party and ended up getting roofied.”

  She’s crying so hard now. All I want to do is comfort her. But her body language is telling me she needs space. So, I reach up and take her hands in mine.

  “It’s okay, baby. You can tell me.” I take one hand and push her hair behind her ear. Then, I wipe her tears away with my thumb.

  “I woke up in a hospital bed. I looked around and saw that my best friends were in the corner. Their eyes were red, so I could tell they’d been crying. I figured they were crying for me. Maybe I’d gotten raped? Or had alcohol poisoning and scared them or something.” She pauses a moment. It looks like she’s mentally gone to a different place.

  “When I went to sit up, I felt like someone had smacked me over my head with a frying pan. Once I could speak, I said, ‘You guys, my parents are going to kill me. You didn’t call them, did you?’ You know, normal teenage shit.

  “They both looked at each other, and then they just kept saying how sorry they were. I had no idea what they were sorry about. That’s when they told me that my parents were hit head-on by a drunk driver when they were on their way to the hospital to get me. Because my friends had had to call them and wake them up in the middle of the night because of me being stupid. So, it is my fault. If I hadn’t gone out and been so careless, they’d still be alive. I’ll never see them again, and that’s something I’ll always have to live with. It’s my biggest regret.”

  Her eyes look straight ahead. There’s nothing in them. They look so empty and lost. I pick her up and hold her in my arms. She puts one arm around my shoulders, her legs off to one side. And then I pull the blankets over us.

  “Shh, shh. You’re okay, Cam. I’m here. I’m right here.”

  She’s quiet for a long time.

  Then, she whispers, “But that’s not why I’m in trouble. That’s just one of the reasons why I am … so broken.”

  I put my lips to her forehead and wait to see if she’ll continue on. She doesn’t seem like she opens up easily. I want to let her do it at her own pace.

  “I moved to Lincoln to live with my aunt. I had never met her; my mother had never allowed me to. But she was the only living family I had left. Well, let’s just say that she liked drugs and she liked men, and she didn’t mind using men to get drugs. It was rough. Luckily, I worked my butt off in school, and I was able to get an academic scholarship to Carver University. They had a top-notch teaching program.” She pauses.

  “One year in, I got a job in town at a high-end restaurant. The tips were really good, and I only had to work a few shifts a week. The owner of it didn’t even live in California full-time, so I didn’t meet him until after about four months of working there.”

  I get a sick feeling in my stomach. She said “him,” and I know how skittish she seems around men at times.

  “You have to understand. I had nothing. I ate ramen noodles and shopped at thrift stores. My upbringing hadn’t been that extravagant, but I had grown up in the upper middle class.” She stops for a moment. She closes her eyes and takes a breath. “Alex seemed so sweet. He was twenty-eight and already owned half a dozen restaurants similar to this one. And the first time I saw him, he was so charming. He said all the right things at the right times. Always.”

  She takes a deep breath, seeming to be talking herself into continuing on. “After a few months, he convinced me to move into the townhouse he had. I wasn’t sure at first. I felt like it was way too soon. But he told me if I didn’t move in with him, he’d break it off with me. I was stupid and thought I loved him. So, like a pathetic little dog, I did what he’d asked.” She pauses. Picking at her fingernails.

  “It was okay the first month. But not long after that, I began to notice that he acted different. At first, he wouldn’t get home till really late. He’d be really agitated sometimes. Anything would set him off. Then, he got paranoid. He began telling me not to go near any guys in my classes. He’d ask me about who I talked to when I got home. He’d tell me he had people watching me.

  “One night, he came into the restaurant right before closing, and Matt, the dishwasher, was helping me load up dishes from the dirty tables. When Matt turned around, Alex grabbed me by my arm and squeezed and told me to wait in the car or that he’d fire Matt and say I’d said Matt made me uncomfortable. As off his rocker as he had been the past few months, he had never physically hurt me. But as I got in the car, I noticed that my arm was already starting to form a bruise. He got in the car a few minutes later. He didn’t speak to me the whole ride home.

  “When we got to the house, I followed him inside. I said, ‘I’m not sure why you’re upset with me, but you cannot put your hands on me or else I will …’ I was going to say I’d leave him. Before I could get the words out, he grabbed me by my throat and pushed me up against the wall. He was pushing so hard on my neck, I could hardly breathe.” She runs her hand up her neck and shakes her head, tears pouring out of those beautiful grayish-blue eyes. “I tried to tell him to stop, that he was hurting me. But the words couldn’t come out. I was so scared that I was going to die. I didn’t leave that night, and I will never forgive myself. I’m a poor excuse for a woman—a person for that matter.”

  I tilt her chin up to me so that she’s looking at me. “No, you’re not. You’re a fighter, a survivor. You have been through way too much awful stuff. Yet here you are, still trying to live your life.”

  She shakes her head. “How am I a fighter? I didn’t leave. I let myself get physically and emotionally abused for two years.”

  “You’re here now, aren’t you, Sunshine? That took a fight of a lifetime I’d bet.”

  She doesn’t answer, just wipes her eyes again, which are now so red that it looks like they are sore. “Anyway, college was hard. I couldn’t talk to anyone. The friends I’d had freshman and sophomore year, I had now distanced myself away from them so much that we no longer spoke. I had no one. I tried to leave a few times, but he always caught me. Sometimes, I thought, This is it. He’s going to kill me. Then, I began to wonder if maybe that would be better. I also knew it was only a matter of time before he stopped allowing me to go to school. Honestly, I was surprised he hadn’t already.

  “He made sure to never leave marks on my face, where someone could see. I had to cover my entire body anyway to keep him from lashing out, so it wasn’t much of an issue to hide the bruises. Other than my neck. For those, I had to wear a scarf.

  “About a year into the relationship, he told me I was no longer working at the restaurant. He didn’t need me there, acting like a ‘slut.’

  “A month before classes ended, I snuck to the pharmacy and got a pregnancy test.”

  I try not to show how shocked I am. I know the outcome of this isn’t going to be good. My heart feels like someone ripped it out and then put it in a fucking blender.

  “Wouldn’t you know it? It was positive.” She laughs sadly.

  “Something inside me clicked. I knew then that I needed to escape. He would kill me and this baby inside of me too. I was sure of it. He always said he didn’t want kids because he didn’t want to share me. I had taken the pill faithfully, but I had read that these things could happen. I tried to act like everything was normal.

  “I began to sell off things that he had given me at the pawn shop. I would pretend I was getting groceries in town if he called to see why he hadn’t been notified by the cameras that I had gotten home. Luckily, that month, he was away for three weeks of it. I was able to save ten thousand dollars because of all the expensive gifts. He wasn’t set to arrive back for three more days. He was in Florida for the opening of his newest restaurant. I snuck out at three a.m. through the back window, where I knew that no camera would catch me. I left everything I owned, except my favorite book, a few changes of clothes, my license,
and the money I had. Oh, and a picture of my mom and dad. I caught the campus bus straight to the airport, and I got a plane ticket to Boston.

  “The last day of classes, I had used the library’s computer to investigate colleges. This one seemed like a perfect fit. The pictures of the campus brought me comfort.”

  I softly stroke her hair. Letting her know I’m here. I’ve never been a sensitive guy, but with her, it just comes naturally.

  She continues, “So, I found a motel close by, and after a ton of phone calls, I transferred here. I finally got a new cell phone with a new number back in August. But every time this one number calls me … I don’t know, Trent … I just know it’s him. He’s going to find me. If he hasn’t already.”

  I ball my fist up and try to control my breathing. It won’t help her any, seeing me go apeshit right now. But if I ever get my hands on this fucking Alex, I’ll fucking kill him. My Sunshine. My sweet, broken Sunshine. She’s been through more than people could even experience in their worst nightmares. Yet here she is. But I know there’s more to say. She hasn’t said anything about the baby.

  “I knew this campus had a great daycare that was free for students who couldn’t afford to pay. Also, I would have been able to get an apartment for extremely cheap since I would have a baby and obviously couldn’t stay in the dorms. I had it all figured out. I thought, You know what? It will be hard, but I can do it. I had no family, so I was happy I’d have someone who had my genes. But there were mixed feelings too. What if it was a boy? And every time I looked at him, what if I saw Alex? What if they had his genetics and turned out to be this vial human being?

  “Two weeks after getting here, I had some spotting. When it didn’t stop after a few hours, I decided I would go to the ER. They told me what my heart already knew. I had lost the baby.” She puts her hands over her face and cries.