Pops nodded and kept eating.
Anyway, Baxter and Slade were best of friends.”
“Shawn, have you tried the dressing?” I asked, hoping Mom would get distracted.
Shawn smiled. “I’m listening to the story, man.”
“I remember Baxter,” Cassidy said. “Yeah, he used to follow you wherever you went, Slade. Whatever happened to him?”
I decided to cut this story short. “Baxter died.”
“Oh Slade!” Mom nagged, upset that I’d spoiled it.
“He was a good boy. That was my partner in crime right there.”
Pops put down his cutlery and picked up his beer. “Here’s to Baxter.”
We all raised our glasses, and my dad gave me a wink. I could always count on him to step in when I needed him. He didn’t say much, but he had a presence.
“Well, I don’t know about y’all, but I’m stuffed,” I said, getting up from the table with my plate before Mom started up again. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be out on the back porch for some fresh air.”
“Don’t worry about your plate, dear,” my mom said. “I’ll handle those, everyone.”
“Thanks Mom. Is anyone joining me?”
“Sure,” Shawn said. “I could use a little fresh air.” The tone of his voice sounded confrontational.
The girls followed us outside. Miranda and Cassidy sat on the porch swing, and Shawn and I leaned against the rail.
“So, Miranda,” Shawn started, “what kind of folklore and mythology are you interested in?”
“Primarily supernatural stuff, like vampires and werewolves. Old witch legends and ghost stories are cool too, and Louisiana is full of them.”
“Nice. That stuff used to intrigue me for years back in high school,” he said. “If I weren’t so busy with my pre-med program, it’d probably still be a hobby.”
Cassidy and I shared a look while they started talking about old abandoned houses and some of the stories of haunted plantation homes throughout Louisiana. I never knew Shawn had a supernatural geek side to him, but he was letting that flag fly with Miranda. She seemed to light up at finally having someone to talk to.
“I’m going grab something from my room,” Cassidy said quietly, raising her eyebrows at me.
I nodded, reading her meaning loud and clear. After she was gone for a few minutes, after standing outside with the ghost hunters as long as I could stand it, I patted Shawn on the back. “I’m glad to see you guys are hitting it off. If Cassidy asks when she comes back out, tell her I went up to my room. I’m going to let y’all hang out. See you later, Miranda.”
“Later, Slade,” she said absently before resuming their conversation.
I grinned the whole way up to my room. That was a convenient little match-up. I opened my bedroom door to find Cassidy waiting for me. She sat on the corner of the bed and smiled playfully after I closed the door.
“I never thought I’d get to see this day. Cassidy Greyson in my teenage bed.”
“You had enough girls keeping it warm back then.”
“Ancient history,” I said, getting into bed and positioning her on top to straddle me. “Plus, you wouldn’t want to know.”
I gripped the back of her head and pulled her head down to mine, kissing her as my other hand slipped under her shirt. She grabbed my hand and placed it over her breasts through her bra. Sitting up, I pulled her shirt off and reached around to unclasp her bra. I growled. I could look at her like this all day long. I took her round, firm breasts in my hands, piquing each nipple before I took one between my lips. She arched her back and moaned, already grinding her hips on my rigid erection.
I heard the door handle turn and we both froze, then I turned to my side to let her down beside me, shielding her half-naked body from whoever was walking into my room unannounced.
“Hey, man, you’ll never believe this…” Shawn said when he walked in, then he froze the moment he saw us.
Miranda was with him. “Awkward…”
“I thought I locked the door,” I said to Cassidy. Her panicked eyes searched my face as she pulled the pillow over her bare chest.
“What the fuck are you doing, Slade?” Shawn said.
I stood up from the bed and turned to face my brother. “Get out and let her get dressed, man. What the hell does it look like?”
“Seriously, bro, what the fuck?” He shoved me as hard as he could but all it did was move me back one step. He was raging hard, and I could hear anger ripping through his voice. “Man, you’re supposed to be my brother, man. This is bullshit that you could touch her like that.”
“Dude, what the fuck is your problem?”
“You, man.” You’re the fucking problem,” he shouted. “You’re always the problem.”
Thanks goodness Miranda had the presence of mind to shut the door behind her. If my parents could hear us now, they’d have a fit. She also ducked around us and picked up Cassidy’s shirt, throwing it to her on the bed so she could bring the tension in the room down a notch. Flashing boobs did nothing to calm down men in a fighting mood.
Shawn tried to take a swing at me. I held him off, but his free hand came flying in wide again. I stumbled to recover, then realized one of us had knocked Cassidy over.
We both got anxious looks on our faces and dropped to our knees next to her. “You okay?” I asked her.
“Shit. Sorry, Cassidy.” Shawn muttered. That was guilt in his voice, and a whole lot of other things I’d never noticed before.
“It’s okay. Yes, I’m fine.” She started to look back and forth between us as we helped her to her feet. “Why did you two have to start fighting?”
I shook my head.
Shawn looked down into Cassidy’s eyes, and I knew what he was about to say before he uttered a word. “I’m the one who loves you, Cassidy. You were supposed to be mine.”
I groaned and turned to leave. This was not my deal. Cassidy needed to have a chat with him, but just as I got to the door, Shawn bolted from the room, leaving the three of us standing there looking at each other with our jaws dropped.
21
Cassidy
After Shawn dropped the bomb on us all, Miranda and I left the Clark house. I had to get out of there, and Miranda was smart enough to know there’d be way less tension at my place, which was conveniently short on testosterone this weekend.
Avoidance was my new friend. I stayed away from both brothers all day Friday and Saturday. I needed time to process what Shawn had blurted out in the heat of the moment. I had so many questions. Was it true? How long had Shawn been feeling this way? Why hadn’t he told me? Did Slade know? What was this going to do to our friendship? What did it mean for me and Slade?
Slade was predictable, so I knew for sure what he’d say. He would tell his brother to chill out and back off.
I thought back over all the time we spent together growing up. We’d been best friends for our whole lives. He had his girlfriends, and I had a few boyfriends, and he never once seemed jealous or anything. We were never more than friends. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. This couldn’t happen like this, losing my best friend over his brother. I drifted through Friday and Saturday, ultimately avoiding even my family and Miranda as I tried to figure everything out. I locked myself in my bedroom, surrounded by pictures of the two of us. Everywhere I looked, it was Shawn and Cassidy. We were inseparable.
Maybe I needed to ditch Slade so that we could remain friends. I was really into him, but Shawn and I, I didn’t want to ever lose that.
I was so torn.
It was one of those situations where I knew I couldn’t have my cake and eat it, too, but I had to try because they were both worth fighting for.
Saturday night came, and I knew it was time to do something. Shawn would take a flight back to Boston Sunday evening, and the three of us would drive back to campus Sunday night. I decided to go over there Sunday afternoon before he left to try to talk to him. I would put it off as long as possible to make it ea
sier. That way, if things didn’t go well, there wouldn’t be another dog fight. And I felt that way because I didn’t expect things to go well.
After lunch on Sunday, I excused myself from the table and headed over. I didn’t walk in like I usually did. I knocked on the door.
Slade answered. “Hey.”
“Hi Slade. Can I talk to Shawn?”
“I’ll get him. You want to come in?”
“No, I’ll wait for him out here.”
“Yeah, give me a second.” He disappeared, and I could hear him climb the stairs to get his brother.
It was just like when we were kids, and I would come over to drag Shawn out to play in the yard or bike up and down the street. Except we weren’t playing today. Today’s business was pretty serious.
A few moments later, Shawn stepped outside. “I didn’t think I’d see you before I left.”
“I almost didn’t come over. Can we take a walk?’
“Okay.”
We strolled to the end of our street and took a trail we’d been on countless times. It was a shortcut to our high school. Today the weather put on a show to match what was going on for the three of us. It was a gray, overcast afternoon with a hint of the coming winter in the air. A hint of the end of something.
Once we were away from view, I turned to him. “I’m really sorry if I hurt you, Shawn.”
“Me, too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to when we saw each other next…well…that didn’t happen. I got run over by my brother, that’s why.”
“Come on. Don’t be like that. You know I love you…I’ve always loved you, Shawn. You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose our friendship over this. Not hearing from you these last few weeks was torture.”
He started pacing through the high grass on the side of the trail. “I know. For me too, but it was even worse.” It broke my heart to see him so beaten down by this.
“Listen, I want us to get back to how we were. I don’t want that to change. I…well, I need you, Shawn.”
“Just tell me one thing.”
“Sure, anything.”
He stopped pacing and turned to look at me. “Are you in love with him?”
I took a moment to think about it before answering. “I have feelings for Slade, yes, but I don’t know about the in love part. It’s too soon.”
“Shit.” He pursed his lips and started pacing again.
“Shawn, I don’t see why that has to get in the way of our friendship. You and I are still friends, right? I mean, we can still be best friends even if I’m seeing your brother, can’t we? Why does that have to change?”
He shook his head. “Did you not hear the part where I told you I’m in love with you? Look, I can’t…I can’t be your best friend…not the way you want us to be, and not knowing that you chose Slade—my brother—over me. After everything we had, that you would choose him when it came down to it? I can’t handle it. I’m not okay with that.”
He put his hands in his pockets and returned the way we came, heading back towards the house.
I watched him walk away.
Nothing inside me thought to stop him, and I felt like crap for not doing that.
That was it. The end of our friendship, just because I was seeing his brother. It hurt to realize that the greatest love I’d ever known was so fragile that something like a romantic tryst could destroy it. He was gone with a piece of me that I didn’t think I’d get back. I stood there and watched it fade away, leaving me standing in the middle of an overgrown trail. I wanted to scream. I could cry and stomp my feet like I had when I was a child and didn’t get my way. I wished I could hide in the middle of the bushes and wait for all of this to be over. After a while, all I could wish for was for Slade to come find me and put his big quarterback arms around me and tell me it was going to be okay.
That’s when I knew the world had shifted on its axis and my life had forever changed. I was watching my best friend leave me, and all I could think about was how much I needed his brother to make it all better. And that was the reason my best friend was leaving me out in the middle of the bush.
I took a deep breath, telling myself I had to accept what had happened, and headed back up to my parents’ house. Life used to be so much easier when I thought Slade was a dick. If I had just left well enough alone, this would not have happened. But no, I had to go and sleep with the one person on earth who would change everything. I kept my eyes on Shawn’s house, expecting to see some sign that we would be all right in time, but there was nothing. In a couple of hours, he would be boarding a plane to take him back to Harvard. Slade, Miranda and I would be back on campus and returning to life as we’d known it for the last few years. It hit me that I wouldn’t have Shawn to call when there was news to share or when I needed to hear his voice. Or when I needed an ear. I wouldn’t have his phone calls to look forward to, unexpectedly coming in to make my day better.
That’s when I dropped to the ground and started sobbing my eyes out. A few weeks had been torture, and now I was looking at a life without him. And to think, all this time he’d been hiding his feelings for me. Maybe it would have made a difference if he’d told me before I slept with Slade. Or back in high school, before we decided on colleges. I could have followed him out there to study business so that I wouldn’t be so far away from him, stuck in Bayou central while he was off in the big city making something of his life.
Had there been signs all along? I never got to ask him when he started to feel this way about me. Everyone else thought we were a couple. Was I so clueless that I missed what was right in my face for years?
When the tears stopped falling, I got up, brushed myself off, and got home.
“How’d it go?” Miranda asked when I made it up to my room. She had her bags packed and placed at my door.
The bawling started again. “I think I just lost my best friend in the world,” I blubbered.
“I’m so sorry, Cassidy,” she told me, making me sit on the side of the bed. Which was a good idea because I had nothing left in me. I collapsed onto her shoulder. She didn’t judge me or side with me. She just held me and let me crumble.
“Just let it out,” she said, soothing me with her voice. “It’ll be all right.”
It was too soon to see it at the time, but I’d been so worried about the friend I was losing, I didn’t think about the friend I’d found. I sat up eventually and wiped my eyes. “I’m sorry about all that snot on your shoulder.”
She laughed hard. “Let’s get you packed up. We need to get back to school. It’ll be easier there.”
22
Slade
It was the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and we had our pitch to present. Our meeting ended up happening a lot later than most of the other students, but Dr. Taylor was fine with that. Thanks to Cassidy, we had a meeting with the owner of The Pet Adoption House. I couldn’t remember whether I had ever thanked her for carrying all that weight while I was working. I needed to remember to do that.
I was also wound up because the course, and the semester, was almost over.
The semester-long sentence of busboy indentured servitude to my landlord had become a nightmare, with work eating into school and sleep. Up until now, it caused so many fights between Cassidy and me, primarily because I hadn’t told her the reason for my frequent disappearing acts. She was not the jealous type, so she never went all crazy lady on me. Although, she did admit to wanting to set one of the frat house groupie chicks on fire. Thankfully she’d only said that once, and in jest—I hoped.
With the semester coming to a close, the SEC Championships less than a week away, and our final semester of our undergraduate college career lurking right around the corner, that meant that our future was uncertain too.
I showed up at Cassidy’s dorm room in my best office attire. I went with a sleek black suit with a white shirt and a midnight blue tie. It made me look and feel like I was trying to sell something. And I
was. I always was. She opened her door and greeted me in a skirt suit and a pair of patent leather black heels that made her legs go on for miles. She also went with the sharp black and white look. Together we looked fierce and dominating. We were ready to walk into that meeting and make them pay attention until they wanted what we were offering.
Cassidy didn’t say anything when she opened the door. She looked me up and down before clicking away to her desk to grab our speaking notes, paperwork, purse and a USB.
“Let’s run through it one more time,” she said, not looking up from her notes.
“Do you think we need to?” I asked. “Again?”
“Yes, I do.” She still didn’t look at me.
“Hey, are you still upset about what happened with Shawn over the weekend?”
“Yes…no…I don’t know,” she said, disheartened for a split second. “Let’s focus on the pitch.”
I sighed. We hadn’t talked about the incident. She was avoiding it at all costs, so I wasn’t really sure of my footing with her, other than we were seeing each other, sleeping together and on more or less good terms. From what I could tell when Shawn came back into the house, their little talk hadn’t gone so well, but I still didn’t know what that meant for us.
The tightness I felt in my stomach was not over the meeting. It was about us. I’d left it alone long enough, and even if the timing wasn’t right, I wanted some answers.
“Just tell me what you want, Cassidy.”
She stood up straight and looked at me. “I want you to get it together and go over this pitch with me one more time before we head into our meeting,” she said in a hard professional tone, making it clear there was no room for anything else at this particular time.
“You know, this is close to the end of the project. What does that mean for us?”
Go Deep: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Page 14