I was typing a replay to Bianca’s text when the doorbell sounded. I was just about to send, not yet, when Dre opened the door and made a choking sound. “Uh, Saint.”
My dumb fingers. I tapped send and looked up as my phone made that little whoosh sound. “Yeah?”
Bianca stood in the doorway, wearing a pair of skin-tight jeans, high heels, and a low cut purple tank top. Everything about her clothes was simple but she made them look like a fucking million dollars.
I had no words. Or function over my body. She'd found my phone and my address and thought nothing of showing up at my door looking like that. I didn't even care. If she was stalking me, then I was all for it.
Standing up, I ran my hands over my hair, which was still a little damp from my shower. Bianca's eyes dipped down…down…down, and then a slow grin spread across her face as she met my eyes again. Dre cleared his throat and Shane coughed. Bianca parted her red lips and curled her tongue around her upper teeth. “Nice bod, Lavin Saint.”
Nice bod? I looked down at myself, and my stomach dropped into my bare toes. Because I wasn't wearing clothes. Nope. I remembered belatedly I hadn't dressed yet in a silent protest against the party.
Oh, and my boxers? They were patterned with Scottie dogs. Yes. Little Scottie dogs with red bow ties. Pop had bought them for me because he was half-Scot.
Fuck. My. Life.
I immediately placed my hands in front of my crotch, knowing my skin was flushing a deep red. Dre was making big eyes at me from behind Bianca's back. If this happened to him, he would have placed his hands on his hips, dark skin gleaming with bulging muscles, and been all suave, saying something like, “See something you want, baby?” But I didn't know how to do that. I didn't have a suave bone in my body. But standing there like a teenager wasn't cute either. So slowly, I released my death grip on my crotch and let my hands hang at my sides. Then I raised one fist and in the dorkiest move of all dorkdom, flexed my bicep. “I'm ready for the gun show.”
Dre slapped his hand on his forehead. Shane groaned, and Zac woke from his nap to say, “Looking good, Saint. Must be stepping up your weights.”
Bianca laughed. Not an I'm-just-laughing-because-I-don't-know-what-else-to-do laugh. No, this was an actual surprised laughter bubbling up like she found me funny. Me. I'd always been the funny guy, but it seemed like I had the kind of humor that only dudes found funny. From girls, I got eye rolls.
Not Bianca, though. She walked toward me and slapped my stomach with the back of her hand. “As much as I enjoy looking at you right now, it's a little cold for just boxers. Go get dressed.” Then she sank down onto the couch next to Shane in an elegant array of limbs.
The queen had spoken, so I took my ass upstairs and got dressed. In my room, I dashed around looking for a pair of clean jeans. I pulled them on along with a pair of boots and a long-sleeved shirt. After running a quick comb through my hair and some of this paste shit Shane was always telling me to use, I jogged back downstairs.
The queen was holding court. Shane lay with his head in her lap. Dre sat on the arm of the couch next to her and Zac was sitting on the floor at her feet. I stopped and stared, listening as she talked. “It's not so bad living with him.”
“What about his cat?” Shane asked. And I knew he was talking about Coach. Because Coach had this super weird fucking cat.
Bianca ran her fingers through his hair. Through his hair. I was so jealous of his fucking hair. “The cat hates me. She sends me death glares everywhere I go, because I’m taking the attention away from her, but it's not too bad.”
“So you’re staying with Coach?” I asked.
She looked up, seemingly startled that I was standing there. Her expression faltered for a minute when she looked me, then she quickly smiled. I was starting to not like that smile so much—the one that was a little too much like a mask. I liked it better when she was laughing at my dumb jokes.
“Yeah, I'm staying with him,” she said. “My parents live in the Philippines, so he’s the only family I have in the states. Tonight, he thinks I'm studying at the library.”
“He keeps tabs on you?” Dre tapped his foot on the side of the couch. “You're a grown-ass woman.”
She shrugged. “It's just the way he is.” I didn't think that was the whole story, but I didn't pry. She turned to me and this time, her smile was a little less wooden. “Shame you had to cover all that up.” I resisted the urge to place my hands in front of my crotch again. “You boys ready to go?”
The guys grumbled and got to their feet. “You know the football players are going to be less than happy to see us there, right?” I said.
“Less than happy?” Shane said. “That's an understatement.”
“Who cares what they think?” Dre asked.
Zac picked at a loose thread on his shirt like he couldn’t care less about the conversation.
Bianca placed her hand on the doorknob and turned around. “What's that about anyway? This thing between you guys and the football players.”
“It's this campus rivalry. Started long before we were students,” I said.
“Supposedly,” Dre explained. “Years ago, there was a former soccer player who was the place kicker for the football team. He was good and got a lot of attention, but he was still friends with the soccer team. Then the place kicker lost them a big game and the whole football team got into this fight with the soccer team. There were punches and shit. And ever since, it's like… a thing.”
Bianca blinked at him. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “Uh, yeah.”
She rolled her eyes and muttered as she opened the door. “Boys and their pride.”
The football house was about five blocks away on the south side of campus. The house sat at the end of what was called Frat Row. Travers wasn't a big university and the town wasn’t rich. The frats didn't live in mansions. They lived in row homes or houses that smelled like eau de hops. When we started down Frat Row, Bianca slipped her arm in mine and gazed at the buildings. “In the movies, these houses always look much more glamorous,” she said.
I laughed. “Yeah, because in movies, they go to rich schools in rich towns. This is Travers in Parksburg, Pennsylvania.”
She didn't answer, but when we got to the last house and made our way down the cracked front walk, I tried to get her to back out. “Look, the inside is even worse looking than the outside.” I pointed to a gutter that was falling off. “We can totally just turn around and—”
Her head whipped to me, eyes bright, cheeks flushed. “Come on, Lavin,” she whispered. “Nothing bad'll happen. It'll be fun.”
Famous last words, I thought, when Dre pushed open the door ahead of us.
The party was in the basement, and the stairs were to the right of us as soon as we walked into the house. As we descended the stairs, the heat of bodies and the smell of alcohol was overwhelming. I hated parties. And I hated the football team. But Bianca's hand was warm on mine, and her body was pressed to my side. I had my boys with me. And as much as the football players hated us, no one really wanted to mess with Dre. His hands were big enough to palm a linebacker's skull.
A big dude bumped in Shane's shoulder, then sneered down at him. He said something, and I couldn’t quite make out the word, but I knew it wasn’t something nice.
I bristled, but Shane completely ignored him, his gaze darting around the room like he was looking for someone. He normally avoided the football players like they all had herpes, so I was curious why he hadn't protested more vehemently coming here. I made a mental note to ask him later.
Zac appeared out of the crowd with a drink for everyone but Dre, who didn't drink. I took two cups from him. “You watched them pour, right?”
“Straight outta the keg,” he said.
I handed one to Bianca. “Beer okay?”
She nodded and took the cup from me.
I expected her to be focused on the other people in the room, the wallflowers along the wall, the people already
dancing in the center of the concrete basement. But her attention was on me. She held out her cup. “Cheers?”
I laughed and knocked my cup into hers, sloshing some over the side onto my hand. “Cheers.”
We each took a sip, and I led her over to a free space along the wall. Dre had found a girl to chat with—no surprise there—but he kept his eye on us. Zac had managed to insert himself into a game of beer pong and Shane… was nowhere to be seen.
I pulled out my phone and texted him, You all right?
He texted back immediately. I'm cool. Just hanging with a friend.
I frowned, but shrugged and put my phone back in my pocket.
“Who are you texting?” Bianca asked.
“I wanted to check on Shane. The football guys aren’t cool to him.”
“Because he's gay?”
I cocked my head. “How'd you know?”
“He told me. Otherwise, I wouldn't have let him put his head in my lap. Or maybe I would have anyway.” She winked.
“Oh. Well yeah, they are jerks to him because of that.”
“Assholes.”
“Absolutely.”
“You're a good friend then, to check up on him.”
I thought about Shane's pep talk. “He's a good friend to me. He's a Pisces, so we're a good friend match.”
I stopped myself before I got too crazy and sounded like Dad. I thought about changing the subject, covering it up with something else, but Bianca was watching me intently. “Wait, what did you say?”
“Uh, nothing, just—”
“Are you into astrology?”
I thought there was a little bit of hope in her tone, so I took a chance. “Uh, yeah, I am actually. My dad and I both are.”
Her mouth dropped open and she placed a hand on her chest. “Me too! What's your sign?”
I couldn't believe I was having this conversation. “I'm Cancer.”
“I'm a Scorpio,” she said, and now that I knew, a lot of her actions made sense. Scorpios were passionate and dynamic. I wracked my brain thinking of compatibility between Scorpio and Cancer. I was such a dork. “So,” she said. “Tell me about your dad.”
That was easy. Talking about my parents always made me feel like home. “Uh, well he's really into… uh, the Earth and stuff, you know? Organic foods, natural textiles. Drives my Pop nuts but we let him do his thing.”
Her brows furrowed. “I'm sorry, Pop?”
I nodded. “Oh yeah, I have two dads. They're married. I was born via surrogacy.”
She smiled. “You seem so happy when you're talking about them.”
“Yeah, they're the best. They always support me and love me and…” God I was getting sappy. Was it the beer? “I'm lucky.” Enough about me. “What about you? Coach is your uncle, but what about your parents?”
“They're great too,” she said. “They live in the Philippines, like I said earlier, so I don't see them as much as I'd like.” Her mouth turned down, a little moment of sadness, and I imagined she missed them a lot.
“Where did you transfer from?”
“Hmmm?” She tapped her cup, avoiding my eyes.
“Oh, uh, Coach said you transferred.”
“From New York,” she said quickly.
A cheer went up on the other side of basement as apparently someone won flip cup. When I turned back to Bianca, she finished the last of her drink and rolled the empty cup between her palms.
I grabbed us each another beer from the keg and handed one to her when I reached her side again. “So why'd you want to come here?” I asked.
That brief glimpse of vulnerability crossed her face. She didn't cover it up though, not quickly like she'd done before. She let me see as her gaze met mine. “I had a lot of stuff going on in my life and I wanted a change. New York wasn’t for me.”
“That’s a big change, from there to here. Is everything okay or…?”
Her quiet laugh cut me off. “It's okay. Or… it will be, I hope.” She smiled at me then, the one that looked genuine, and lifted her cup. “But for now, this helps.”
“About that. You can go mingle. I’ll be okay.”
She stepped closer to me, right up into my space. “Nah, I’m fine talking with you.”
This was really fucking confusing. “Why'd you want to come to this party with me? You could be…” I pointed to a wide receiver all the girls on campus wanted. “You could be talking to that guy right now. Everyone wants to talk to him.”
She didn't even look where I pointed. “Well I'm not everyone.”
I didn't know what to say to that. “But why me?”
She ran one finger down the vein on my forearm. “Why not you?”
“Because—”
She chewed her lip “I have a thing for soccer players.”
I couldn't have heard her right. “I'm sorry. What did you just say?”
She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes. “I have a thing for soccer players!”
“What do you mean you have a thing for soccer players? No one has a thing for soccer players. I mean, unless you look like Cristiano Ronaldo or Giroud Olivier and I look nothing like them.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You're saying I can't have a thing for soccer players?”
“I'm saying I think I'm in opposite world right now—”
“You look a little like James Rodriguez to me.”
I blinked at her. My birth mom was Colombian. Still, I did not look like James Rodriquez. “No, I do not.”
“Oh, so I'm blind now?”
“I—”
She stepped closer to me, so close the heat of her body seared my chest. She parted her lips and her gaze drifted down to my mouth for a moment before returning to my eyes.
“I like that I can see the expression of players. There's no helmet, nothing to obscure my view of every emotion, every exaltation, and every frustration when you play the game. I like the smell of grass on skin. I like how those shorts make your ass look. And best of all, I love when they ride up a little and I get an eyeful of thigh.” By the time she finished talking, she was so close every word was a puff of air warming my face. Her hair was a curtain around us, and I didn't know whether I wanted to kiss her or kneel at her feet. “Thicc thighs save lives,” she murmured with a sultry smirk. “Thicc spelled T-H-I-C-C.”
My thighs had a mind of their own right now, and were screaming to bust out of my jeans just to prove I could be what she wanted. She tilted her head and leaned forward so that I thought she'd kiss me, but instead moved her lips to my ear. My body urged me to grab her and claim her, so I had to curl my hands into fists to keep them to myself. Her breath ruffled the hair around my ears. “I like the game. I like the players. And right now, I like you.”
I swallowed despite my dry mouth and the growing pain in the groin area of my pants. Jesus Christ, if she got any closer to me, I might blow. How did this conversation go from friend-zoned—or so I thought—to this? Was I being punked? Maybe Coach was testing my loyalty by siccing his niece on me. Were there hidden cameras? Was he going to jump out of a dark corner and kick me off the team for standing this close to her?
I cleared my throat but it didn’t seem to do any good. “But there are other soccer players.” My voice had gone hoarse
She leaned back and her eyes met mine again. “Sure there are. Look, I haven’t always been a good judge of character but I’ve learned quickly over the last few years. You seem honest, and unaffected, and I like being around you.”
This woman was crazy. “Lady, I think you’re drunk.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Nah. See? You make me laugh. And that makes me like you.”
“You like me?” Did my voice just crack? What. Was. Happening?
She licked her lips. “Do you like me?” She flung the words out there with a carefree tilt to her lips, but there was something about her tone that made me think she cared about the answer.
I nodded.
“Why?” she asked.
Oh shit,
I needed to talk now. I opened up my mouth and licked my lips, somehow managing to get out words. “I like your confidence.”
She blinked at me, like she hadn't expected me to say that. “What?”
I sighed. “I mean, you're beautiful, but I think you're beautiful because you have this comfortable-in-your-own-skin thing. I'm a little envious of it. The only time I feel confident is on the soccer field. That's it. Off of it, I feel like I'm floundering.”
Her eyes were a little wet. “You're not floundering now,” she said softly.
I shook my head. “No, I guess I'm not. I think you're rubbing off on me.” She smiled and I took a chance, curling my hand around hers and tugging her to me until our chests brushed. “Right now, I like you too, Bianca.” I felt like I was in grade school, handing her a paper that said Do you like me? Check yes or no.
She laughed, and I thought about asking her if this was a dream. If this was all a joke and someone was going to jump out of the shadows and sneer, You actually think this girl likes you?
Okay, so she liked me. That wasn’t an admission she wanted to jump my bones. It was the fact that she enjoyed my company. As friends wasn’t said but so very clearly implied. In my mind. Entertaining more was insanity.
Fights at college parties went from zero to sixty. I'd seen it happen before and this was no exception. One second, there was drunken shouting and the next there was utter chaos. Beer cups were flying and punches were being thrown. I couldn't see Zac and Dre in the melee, but I knew I had to get Bianca and I out of there before we got caught in the crossfire or before the cops came.
Because I was underage. And I'd had a couple of beers. And getting caught at a party was grounds for dismissal from the team. I gripped Bianca's hand tighter, casing the joint for an escape. “Follow me,” I said to Bianca, taking her hand and pushing my way through the crowd. It took us a couple of minutes to cross to the other side of the basement, and panic set in when I heard the police sirens. “Bianca, shit, we need to get the fuck out of here.”
FALSE 9: Red Card Series Page 3