The Crush Collision

by Danielle Ellison

  “You’re going out with Griggs?” I say when I get close to Haley. She rolls her eyes. “I thought you bid on me.”

  She sighs, her face red. “The recruitment Belles were supposed to help up the bids. For charity. Trust me, I did not bid on Shane Griggs intentionally.”

  “So you wanted me?” I ask.

  She gives me a look but doesn’t answer. Her hand is resting on the table, and I swoop it up into mine. It’s the first time I’ve really touched her like this, intentionally, and I can’t even explain why. I just felt a need. Haley bites that lip again, and I feel this pulse between us. Touching her makes me want to kiss her. I’m already playing with fire here. Anything more than this, even this, is dangerous for both of us.

  “I still want to take you on a date.”

  I guess I like to be burned.

  “Jake,” she starts with a whisper.

  “Haley, will you please let me take you out?”

  Her eyes search mine, like she’s looking for an escape that doesn’t exist. Does she want this? Doesn’t she? I don’t know. I’ve never known someone like her.

  “Let’s make it through these two dates first.”

  “Is that a no?”

  “It’s not a no,” Haley says softly.

  Georgia Ann clears her throat, suddenly behind us, and I drop Haley’s hand.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Abby is looking for you for cleanup.”

  “Right,” Haley says. Then to me, “I’ll see you later.”

  I nod, and before she walks off, Georgia Ann gives me this look of warning.

  I don’t need a warning, though. I know I’m in trouble.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Haley

  I glare at Shane with my arms crossed; I only bid on him because he asked me to.

  Well, he didn’t ask me to do anything, so much as told me if I didn’t then he’d tell Chris about me and Jake. Not that there is a me and Jake. Not really. But even hinting at it was enough to make me play along. I want to know what he knows.

  Shane gives me a pretty darn smug smile. “Hello, date.”

  I give him the biggest scowl I can. “I’m not really interested in dating you.”

  “Oh, because you’re going after Lexington now, I know, but come on. I’m way better than him.” He has this way about him, always has. He’s cocky, first of all. Most football players are, but Shane is the kind of full of himself that doesn’t advertise it unless you get to know him.

  I shake my head. “Wow, that’s your teammate.”

  “On the field. In life right now, he’s competition.” Shane leans into me. His breath smells like everything bagels. “Come to Hoops’s party with me at least. Then you’re free.”

  That sounds like the worst night ever. “I really don’t want to go to Hoops’s party.”

  He takes my hand, and I pull it away. I don’t want him to hold my hand ever again. “Come on, Hals. I’m not that bad.”

  “You didn’t used to be,” I say. And once upon a time, he was a good boyfriend and person. I’m not sure when that shifted for us.

  “We used to have fun,” he says to me, flashing his signature smile. All smooth and confident. It always used to do something to me. He used to. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  Before he cheated, Shane and I were pretty inseparable. We’d become a single-named person: GriggsandHaley. He was always at the house, and we spent a lot of time being together and goofing around. But it didn’t matter. Nothing we had was real, not if he could throw it away. “I haven’t forgotten, but was that before or after you broke my heart?”

  “I was young and stupid. Trust me, I didn’t mean to.”

  I snort. “You blackmailed me into bidding on you, Shane.”

  “Because I knew it was the only way. Look, come with me to the party. Have a drink. Dance a dance. Let’s go from there.”

  I sigh. I need to be careful with Jake, for so many reasons. No matter how much I like him, there are other people at stake. I should at least find out what Shane knows, or thinks he knows. “Fine, but I’m not staying very long.”

  “Great,” he says, opening the door to his car.

  “Don’t do that,” I say, pointing toward the door. “I still don’t like you that much.”

  “I know,” he says. “But at least pretend like you don’t hate me.”

  I don’t really know what to say to him about it. He gives me these big puppy eyes, like he used to before, and even though I know who he is, who he really is, it tugs at me. “I’ll give you a half hour of non-hatred, but you have to earn anything else.”

  “I’ll take it,” Shane says, closing the door after I get in.

  We’ve been at the party for a while, and Shane has not been horrible. I’m kinda shocked. “Let’s go outside,” he says. He guides us through the crowd, and he puts his hand on my lower back, which I am not okay with, so I swat it away. I don’t want anyone to think we’re here together.

  “Sorry, old habits I guess,” Shane says as we walk out onto the patio. “You never minded it before when we were together.”

  “Shane, that was a long time ago now.”

  He stops and looks down at me. “I messed up then. I know I was an ass. I did you wrong. I don’t want you to hate me forever,” he says, and when I look at him, he actually seems to mean it.

  “It’s not like we’re friends. Or that we even were before we dated.”

  “Could we be?”

  I laugh, and he looks at me, confused. “I’m not confused by the niceness, Shane. I’m literally here with you because you threatened me.”

  “Okay, that seems kind of intense for the situation.”

  “Why not talk to me like a normal person? Friendship doesn’t really get built this way.”

  He points across the yard. My eyes follow his aim to where Jake watches us, eyes bright with anger, with a red cup in his hand. “For that look, right there.”

  “There’s nothing even going on between us.”

  Shane chuckles mockingly. “Then why would you agree to come with me thinking I had something to expose you?”

  “I was curious about what you were up to.”

  Shane shakes his head. “No, you were curious if what I had was real. I was curious if what I saw was true. I guess I got my answer.”

  I swallow down a lump in my throat. “What did you see?”

  “You hugging him. The way you light up around him. I know what you’re like when you’re interested. I needed to know for myself.” Shane shakes his head. “Lexington of all people. Why?”

  “It’s not.”

  “Haley.”

  I stand and move away from him. “You’re so unbelievable. News flash: you don’t really have any say in my life.”

  He shrugs. “You know, Howell may not feel that way.”

  “Stop it.”

  “You know that if me or anyone else pulled some of the shit he does, we’d be off the team and out of the school. He gets free pass after free pass.”

  “Maybe he deserves it.”

  “He gets one, but I don’t?” Shane yells so loudly that another set of girls looks over at us.

  I’ve had enough of this now. I’m done with him, with this whole idea. He doesn’t have anything on us. “Which is really your own fault, so no, we could never be friends,” I say. I shake my head. “Thanks for the date.”

  I walk away from him, but I don’t see Jake anymore, so I wander around until I’m closer to the kitchen. My brother is in there playing beer pong with Reyes. They have quite the crowd gathered around them, cheering them on in a death match. Georgia Ann waves at me to sit with her and Beau, and I nod in her direction.

  As soon as I make it to her, Abby throws her arms around my neck.

  “Hals! I get to go on a real date with Jake!” She squeezes a little too tight and then lets go. “I can’t believe I won!”

  Georgia Ann exchanges a look with me, and I ignore it so I don’t feel like a total asshole and smile as big a
s I can.

  “Yeah, that’s super awesome, Abs. I’m excited for you!” I really am. My own feelings aside, I love seeing her happy.

  “I can’t believe it. We’re going to wait, though, since I’m going to see Nana tomorrow, but eek!” She squeals. Her smile is so big and genuine, her excitement explosive, and I know right then it’d kill her if I told her anything about me liking Jake or us hanging out. I should’ve told her a long time ago.

  “So dish, please, on how you got a date with Shane? That was, like, a total train wreck last time,” she asks.

  “I wondered the same thing,” Georgia Ann says.

  “It’s nothing. Coming here in the same car was our date,” I say.

  “Good. I was worried that as your best friend, I’d missed something major,” Abby says. I feel Georgia Ann’s eyes burning into me. Who am I right now? She is missing something major, and I need to tell her. “Okay, I gotta make a round and go. Love you!”

  “Love you, too,” I say to her, but she’s already too far gone into the crowd.

  As soon as I can’t see her anymore, Georgia Ann grabs my arm and gives me an intense stare. “Girl,” she says with a long pause. “What in the love of all that is holy is going on?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

  But Georgia Ann crosses her arms. “Come on. After the summer I had, I know when someone is in something smelly up to her neck. I saw that little”—she waves in the air—“hand thing with you and Jake.” She looks at me for a long second, but before she can say whatever annoyingly accurate thing it is, Beau comes back and wraps his arms around her.

  “Excuse me,” I say.

  “Hey now, don’t think this is over.”

  “I wouldn’t dream it, Georgia Ann,” I say to her, but it doesn’t keep me from walking on. I don’t want to talk about Jake because that means talking about Abby and how I’m keeping this secret.

  I follow Will’s familiar voice to the rear of the dining room where the keg is.

  “Did you come here with Griggs?” Spencer Newman asks me. I glare at him, but he doesn’t get the hint. “Are y’all getting back together?”

  Will is staring at me, too, waiting for my answer. “No,” I say.

  I see Jake out of the corner of my eye, cornered by Abby. What would Jake do? He’d make this party not suck, and right now it sucks real bad.

  A couple kids I don’t know squeeze between us to fill up their cups with beer. “I want one,” I say, but no one hears me. The music is so loud, and I have to yell. “I want one!”

  Will looks at me, confused. “You want…a beer?”

  “Yes!”

  Spencer and Will exchange a look. That’s annoying. “What? I can’t have a beer? You have a beer. Everyone has one.”

  “You’ve never drank a beer in all the time I’ve known you,” Will says.

  I cross my arms. “Maybe I want to try one!”

  “Get the girl a beer!” Spencer yells back to Will. He shrugs and hands me his, then goes to pour another. I take a big gulp. That stuff smells horrible and doesn’t taste much better.

  I say thank you, and Will studies my face a little too intensely. “What?” I ask.

  “You good?”

  “Yeah,” I say. Before he walks away, I grab his arm. “Do not tell my brother I’m drinking this. Either of you—you got it? If you do I will hunt you down, cut out your throats, and wear your ears as necklaces.”

  “Got it,” Spencer says.

  I smile, and then let go of their arms. I take another drink and ignore the looks they give me before they walk off. The more you drink of this stuff, the better it tastes.

  I’ve been dancing for long enough that my head spins when I stop, so I don’t stop. It’s better to keep going.

  Dance and drink, dance and drink.

  Someone is touching me, and that usually means they want to dance with me, so I turn. But it’s Jake.

  “There you are!” he says, smiling big at me.

  “Here I am!”

  “I’ve been looking for you for a while,” he says.

  “I’m here,” I say, taking the last sip that’s in my cup.

  Jake looks down at me. “Are you drunk?”

  “Am I?”

  “I think you are.” I look at my cup. Am I? Jake shakes his head. “All right, well, I’ve been nursing the same one all night.”

  “You’re not drinking?”

  “I was earlier, but no.”

  “Well, I am!” I say. “Or I was. I should be. More.”

  I stumble across the living room, and Jake tries to help me, but I swat him away. I don’t want anyone to see us. Not now with Shane and Georgia Ann already being suspicious.

  Abby wraps me up in a hug. “I’ll see you later!” I don’t say anything back because I’m really focused on the spinning room, and then she’s already gone, too.

  “God, the beer is gone,” I say once she’s left me, trying to get something out of the tap and failing.

  “I thought you didn’t like beer?”

  “I was told to take more risks now, so that’s what I’m doing. Being less predictable.”

  “You are certainly that.”

  I hand him my cup. “Do you want some?”

  “No,” he says. “I’ve got one.”

  “Well, it’s grown on me.”

  “It does that,” he says, and I try to drink again, but it’s empty.

  “You’re the expert.”

  “Hey,” he says softly, and he pulls my chin up to look at him. “What’s going on? This isn’t you.”

  “You’re right. It’s you. I asked myself WWJD if a party sucked, and this was my answer.”

  “If the party sucks we can leave.”

  “No, I don’t want to leave.”

  I see Shane again, and he points between us and smiles. I roll my eyes.

  “Is he why you’re drinking?” Jake asks me.

  “I feel sick.”

  “Then let me get you out of here,” he says to me, and the room is spinning but somehow then we’re outside in his truck. I rest my head on his shoulder there, and he tells me I’ll be okay.

  Before – Haley

  “He’ll be okay,” Chris says softly. Whether it’s to himself or to me doesn’t matter. We’re both in this now. My brother rubs his head, trying to think.

  Jake Lexington is passed out in the corner of a barn, and I’m forcing him to drink some water. Even with a straw, most of it spills out of the cup and all over him, but I know he gets a sip every now and then because he smacks his lips. He mumbles, but it’s more like noises than words.

  “We should just take him home with us,” I say.

  I wipe Jake’s hair back out of his face. It’s stuck to his forehead, which is still bruised from the car accident. It’s an ugly shade of yellow now, with the stitches still there along his hairline. Mom was working that night, and she personally did them to try to keep him calm. She still won’t talk about it.

  “You’re right. Let’s take him home with us. I’ll text his dad from his phone,” Chris says.

  “How are we gonna get him to the car?” I ask.

  My brother looks around the party. Almost everyone is passed out somewhere or staggering around. “Montgomery is here somewhere. Let me go find him.”

  Chris leaves us for a minute, and I sit, stroking Jake’s hair. I know it’s too intimate. I know no one can see or they will all know something is up. But it’s hard to watch him hurting. He’s been spiraling over the last month, since the accident. I have to assume his friends have seen it if I have.

  Jake opens his eyes and looks at me. “H-hey,” I say. “You’re awake. Chris is here. We’re gonna take you home.”

  He reaches up and puts a finger over my lips. “Shhh,” and then he closes his eyes again and his head falls limp.

  So much for that.

  My brother comes back with Will Montgomery. Chris whispers Jake’s name in his ear. “We’re gonna mov
e now, buddy.” Jake mutters a response of some kind. “Will, you get on his left, I’ll take his right.”

  I walk behind them as they haul Jake to Chris’s old Suburban. They make it look easy to carry a drunk teenager across a field, but there’s no way it’s that effortless. At the Suburban, they can’t figure out how to get him in. They’re trying to lay him inside, so I run over the back door on the passenger side and hop into the seat.

  “I’ll hold him up,” I say. They give me a weird look, but I don’t waver. They get Jake into the back seat, and I support his torso while they shove in his legs. He groans the whole time. Chris closes his door, and then suddenly Jake snuggles into me. My heart is exploding right now. I can’t believe I’m this close to Jake Lexington.

  Chris gets in the driver’s seat and looks back at me. “You’re not moving to the front?”

  “I’m kinda stuck here.” Jake is wrapped around me somehow, and I could disentangle but I don’t really want to. He looks comfy. “Shut my door?”

  He nods, and then we’re headed home. Chris is quiet, only the soft sound of old Hank Williams drifting through the speakers, songs about heartache and loss.

  “I should’ve come with him,” Chris says.

  We make eye contact through the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?”

  My brother releases a sigh. “He wanted me to come, and I told him no. He didn’t want to be at home. I just needed some alone time.” He shakes his head. “I should’ve.”

  “You’re here now. We’ll take him home, and it will be okay,” I say.

  “I think it’s far from okay, Hals,” he says, looking past me at Jake.

  At home, somehow we get him inside together. We make it to the couch, barely, and it takes twenty minutes to go ten feet. Chris runs upstairs to get him some pillows and blankets, and I take off Jake’s shoes. He wakes up and mutters, looking around, confused, before he focuses on me.

  “You’re okay. You’re on our couch,” I say.

  “Other Howell?” He whispers my name, his voice like sandpaper.

  I smile. “Yup,” I say. “I’ll get you water.”

  I rush off to the kitchen and pour some not-very-cold water in a glass. I doubt he will care that much if it’s ice cold. I get back to find him holding his head in his hands. I extend the glass to him, and he looks at me, eyes red and puffy, before he takes a sip.