“My name is Eloise Mason, and I’d like to just let everyone know that I think Colton Reiter is a hunk. Not only is he a hunk, but I rather fancy him, and I’d like to climb him like a beanstalk.”
Snickers ring out, but I’m only looking at him. Please don’t reject me. It’s my innermost thought, the fear that I never let bubble to the surface getting the best of me just this once.
But instead of embarrassment, my strapping golden boy is beaming. The smile that paints his face is one of pure amusement and adoration.
I walk closer to him. “So, because I think all of these things, it would only be right if we were a couple. Colton, will you be my boyfriend?”
I almost get down on one knee, just to sell it to these ladies more.
He tilts his head to the side, trying to figure out what I’m up to. I try to raise an eyebrow, give him any sign that this is a task and if he’ll just agree here, we can talk about this nonsense in private.
“Only if you’ll be my girlfriend.” His grin is totally infectious, and the next thing I know, his gloved hands are on my cheeks and he’s kissing me in front of the entire crowd at Mountain Day.
Students around us erupt into applause, as if we just got engaged or something, and I can’t help but let out a ridiculous, confused laugh.
“What the heck is going on?” He laughs into my ear.
I whisper into his, “I was challenged to ask you to be my boyfriend in front of all of these people. We can talk about it later, if you want.”
Blue-green eyes meet mine, and I thumb the dark stubble on his jaw with my white mitten. “I don’t care why it happened, just know I’m not letting you out of this now. We’re a couple, and you can’t say anything to undo it. Whatever I did, I’m a smart man to make you tie yourself to me.”
I roll my eyes. “Great, I think I’ve given you an even bigger ego than you already had.”
Turning to the side, I spot the Charter House girls standing close by, some of their mouths hanging open. I can tell by their faces that they had no clue I had been mingling with their golden boy, and Nina and Ciara are so jealous that their normally brown eyes were practically green. Gretchen just arced one perfectly-sculpted eyebrow, her only sign of congratulations on a task well completed.
“Oh my God!” I squeal, the world suddenly turning upside down.
Colton has picked me up and thrown me over his shoulder in front of the entire student body.
“What are you doing?! You’ve gone bonkers!” I slap at his butt, loving the way it firmly shapes to my hand when I hit it.
“I’m taking my new girlfriend for some alone time, out of the cold and away from all these drunk hooligans. We have to commemorate the day Eloise Mason asked me to be hers.”
The blokes of Keil House cheer as he carries me up the front steps, and I can’t do anything but hang there and laugh.
And think about all of the delicious ways he’s about to celebrate me.
Twenty-One
Colton
While she couldn’t say that she was pledging Charter House, of course I had already known that’s what Eloise was doing.
It just so happened to work out in my favor that she was forced to openly admit her feelings for me, and that I could now hang the titles of boyfriend and girlfriend over our heads.
After I’d dragged her up to my room and used my tongue to write the alphabet over her clit, we’d laid in bed while Mountain Day had grown rowdier into the darkness outside.
“You know we don’t actually have to be a couple. It was a dare.” Eloise was all but confirming that she was pledging, which I knew was against the rules, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone.
“A dare that got me exactly what I wanted.” I nuzzle into her neck, wrapping my long limbs around her petite ones.
She hits me lightly on the right pec, her accent becoming even more crisp with a flare of temper. “I’m serious, Colton. Boyfriend? Girlfriend? We haven’t even spent that much time with each other.”
I shrug, tracing my fingers down the skin of her arms. “I know that, but honestly, I’m not interested in seeing anyone but you. I don’t want you to be doing this with anyone else. Titles are just that, titles. We can take it slow, but I don’t regret you asking me out there.”
“You’re just gloating that I asked you, you cheeky boy.”
I grin at her. “Maybe.”
And I’d meant it. Sure, it might be fast to put a label on things, but I’d been interested in her since the day I’d walked into that party in January. We’d talked, flirted, blown each other’s minds in bed … we knew we were compatible and that we enjoyed each other’s company. Who cared if we held the title, as long as it meant we were exclusive and I only got to spend time with her. The rest would figure itself out.
A niggling voice in the back of my brain told me to let her go, keep her out of my fucked-up web of lies. But every time I got around her, I ignored it, just digging myself a deeper hole.
“Black out Bigham!” Someone runs down the hall outside of my door, and I can’t help but whoop a celebration call back.
The Bigham game was the biggest game of the regular season. Our rival from across the valley, their college was a bunch of assholes, in my opinion. No-talent assclowns. I, along with the rest of my team, couldn’t wait to pummel them on the court.
Around campus, school colors had been flying all week. There had been donor parties and ceremonies honoring Jade Mountain players of the past. This was a huge week, and the parties after we won would be even more epic. I knew that Eloise had come to a couple games, but I couldn’t wait for her to feel the electricity running through the arena tonight.
My phone buzzes as I pack my gym bag, ready to head out for early warmups and dinner with the guys. It was tradition, a huge pasta bake in the gym before we spent four hours prepping and spending time together before the whistle blew.
Mac: You need to throw this game.
No. No. Fuck, no.
Colton: Not this one, the next one.
He had to know what the game tonight meant to the school. To my team.
Mac: No, this one. Odds are three to one in Jade Mountain’s favor. If I bet against you, I’ll win a shit ton. And so will my people. You throw this game, or I’ll come looking for my twenty grand.
Goddammit, I can’t …
I throw my water bottle against the dresser in my room, the cap cracking off and the empty plastic bottle rolling onto the floor. This game means more to this college than any other during the season. Sure, it won’t really matter much if we lose it, we’re still in the tournament and being seeded at number one by all of the major sports network. But we’re undefeated … we’ve worked so fucking hard for this.
And losing this game, to Bigham, will be devastating. It could change the attitude of the entire season. It could break people, not to mention I’d be really fucking pissed.
But what could I do? I’d taken that money, it was already half gone on mom’s treatments. If I didn’t do this, they’d … hell, I didn’t want to think about what they would do to me.
I don’t answer, and I’m sure he takes that as my complicit agreement. How the hell I’ll do this, I don’t know. I’m going to hell in a hand basket, and taking everyone with me.
I’ve played like shit.
Gotten fouled left and right, missed free throws, flopped, and missed easy passes to me from my teammates.
“Reiter, what the hell are you doing?!” Coach hurls at me, his face angry and red.
I run back down the court, trying to look disappointed in myself. I don’t really have to try though, I’m fucking mortified. We’re losing by twenty points in the second half, to Bigham. Bigham.
“Come on, man, look alive. What is up with you?” Larry runs by me, patting me on the ass.
I’m such a prick … a selfish asshole who doesn’t deserve to play on this team. I’ve let them down, I let me down.
I don’t even bother looking up into the stands, feeling
the shame burning onto me from the thousands of eyes watching our downfall. Is she watching, embarrassed by my performance?
The only thing I want to do is get in the car with her and drive far away, bury myself inside her somewhere where no one else can hear us, see us.
The final seconds tick down on the clock, everyone besides me busting their asses to drive down the court, shoot baskets, kill themselves to try and pull this game out as a win for us.
And then the horn is sounding, signaling our downfall, our defeat. The crowd boos, and I know that somewhere up there, Mac is smiling a devilish, horrible grin.
Twenty-Two
Eloise
It takes two days of never leaving his bed to even get Colton to form actual sentences.
We shag, we sleep, we eat, we watch TV. We really shag, in every position, so much that my legs shake and my girly-parts are so sore I can barely take him when he rolls me over this morning and enters me slowly, rocking us to orgasm.
The loss hit him hard, and watching it, made my heart weep for him too. He’d played poorly, no explanation because he didn’t want to talk about it. From all of the games I’d been to, I could tell something had been off. There had been no rhythm to his game, honestly, he looked like a different player than the one I’d seen.
From the whispers I’d heard coming out of the locker room, the whole team blamed themselves. And from outside this room, when I’d ventured out while Colton was sleeping, the guys just all felt awful. Asking if there was anything they could do for him, trying to make jokes or send up presents in beer and food to cheer him up.
This morning, he’d finally looked at me and said he wanted to go out for a run. I’d breathed a sigh of relief, but hadn’t agreed to join him … because, come on, running wasn’t really my thing.
I’m not searching for it, only a T-shirt of Colton’s to swim in so I can walk down the hall to the bathroom. Except as I open a drawer in the built-ins installed in his closet, something green catches my eye.
Moving the clothes out of the way, I pick up a wad of cash. And not just any wad … stacks of hundred-dollar-American bills. Next to where I pulled them out sit about ten more stacks, and I can see others underneath.
The door behind me creaks open, and I hear his deep voice. “So, I managed to wrangle some French toast and bacon away from the animals downstairs since the chef is here, and we didn’t have tea but I did bring coffee. Sorry if that offends your British sensibilities.”
I’m still dumbstruck, and turn, holding the money out to him. “What is this?”
He pauses, the tray in his hands loaded with breakfast food, and I can tell by the look on his face that I’ve both caught him, and he’s trying to develop a cover up story.
“Do not lie to me.” I want to hear the truth, no matter what he’s involved with.
Suddenly, the whispers and rumors about that pledge at Charter House last semester fill my mind, and I’m not sure why. Have I always had an underlying fear that Colton could be involved with that?
“It’s not what you think, Eloise.”
I hate words like that. Hate the lying, and the secrets. Why was it okay for everyone in my world, and seemingly everyone in this world, to bury the truth?
“It’s not what I think, Colton!? I’m no stranger to money, I know what a lot of money looks like. Hell, I’m sure my father has something akin to this in a safe in our home … but in the drawer of a frat house bedroom? This isn’t above board, this is sneaky money, dirty money.” I throw it back into the drawer. “It is exactly what it looks like. Why do you have it?”
Please don’t say you’re involved in the assault of that girl. It’s the only thought that runs through my mind. That, and that I have no idea who this boy is at all.
He puts down the tray of food, and walks over to the bed, collapsing on it and burying his head in his hands. “I’m in so deep, I don’t see a way out anymore.”
My heart thumps dangerously, dryness coating my throat. “Talk to me.”
“If I talk to you, I drag you into it. I never wanted anybody to get hurt.” His voice is so pained, and he still won’t look at me.
I sit beside him, laying a hand over his, waiting him out.
With his head still tucked into his chest, he speaks after a few minutes. “It started when I was a junior in high school. At first, it was just a few weird moments, a few out of character moves that I didn’t even question. She had left the stove on all night once, and another time, she’d been drunk as a bum when I’d gotten home from school at three in the afternoon. It didn’t get really bad until she freaked out on another parent at one of my games senior year, threatening to slash her throat.”
What was he talking about? I just sat as still as I could, trying not to spook him.
“Bipolar, manic depressive, there are many words for it. Basically, what it means, is that my mother is now a stranger. I can’t figure out why she’s crying one moment, and then buying a fifty-thousand-dollar car for my birthday in the next. And over the last two years, it’s gotten so much worse. So bad that I’m scared she’s going to hurt herself, more than she already has.”
“Oh God, Colton …” My stomach sinks to my toes, everything in my soul wanting to soothe him. I wrap my arms around him, trying to provide any comfort I can.
He keeps talking, vomiting the story up. I can tell he’s never spoken these words out loud before. “That’s why I left, why I chose to attend a college half a day away from my hometown. I couldn’t do it anymore, and yet … I have to support her. We need money for her doctors, her treatments, her aides. And my family, Eloise, they aren’t like yours. We don’t have two pennies to rub together.”
I point to the closet where I found the money, needing to hear it all. “Where did you get that?”
Finally, those blue-green eyes look up, grief and shame begging me to understand. “It only started with my own gear. It’s harmless, and it was given to me anyway, so what was the trouble with selling it? That is a stupid rule sent down by men who don’t understand what it’s like for our families to have nothing, while we’re given everything for free as superstar college athletes. But then … the guy I deal with told me that I could get more if I brought him more memorabilia. And then it turned into betting, just shaving a couple points here and there. But it was never enough, my mom always needed more to stay afloat, to remain healthy. So the Bigham game …”
He chokes on the words, wringing his hands like a man accused of murder.
I understand then. He’d lost on purpose. For his family, to try to earn the money to save his mother.
“It’s an impossible position,” I mutter out loud, and he nods.
“What am I supposed to do? She doesn’t want anyone to know about her condition. I can’t be one of those guys who goes on a major network and pleads to raise money for his sick family member, she would hate me even more than she does for leaving her there alone.”
I’m not sure what to say. Sure, my family has had rough times, but never a crisis such as this. “You can’t keep doing this, though, Colton. Couldn’t this … if it got out, couldn’t this threaten your chances at ever playing again?”
He throws his hands up, exasperated. “And then there is that. If it got out, I would never be able to play for Jade Mountain again. It would jeopardize any chance I had at a career in the pros. What do I do, Eloise? What can I do?”
I had no idea how to solve this, except offer what I had. “I have money. I’ll give you whatever you need.”
I didn’t even need to think about it. If he was in trouble, I wanted to fix it.
He wraps his arms around me. “No. I could never ask that. No … I’ll get out of this, myself.”
I let him hold me, scared out of my mind at how he would accomplish that. And in my own head, formulating a plan.
Twenty-Three
Colton
The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
After spilling my guts to the bea
utiful girl who now never left my side, I knew I had to change something. What I was doing, stealing, lying, gambling … it was going to catch up to me.
I’d never felt the urge to tell anyone, to expose myself, but something about the way she’d looked at me, as if I was lower than scum, made me want her to see me in the same light she always did before. The secret was out there, no longer trapped inside of my gut, poisoning my organs and making me sick. It had wings now, it had life … there was no going back.
So I had to tell someone … or fix this. I still wasn’t sure how, but every chance I got, I was looking for a way to undo the horrible mess I’d gotten myself into.
Case in point, tonight. A Friday night about a week after Eloise had found my secret money stash, the night of a game that held tournament ranking potential.
I get Mac’s text an hour before tip-off, while I’m sitting in the locker room shooting the shit with my teammates. My phone vibrates and I look down, expecting the instructions but still anticipating the shame that burns a hole in my stomach.
I won’t throw this game.
“Earth to Colton …” Nial throws a towel at me.
I look up, he and Larry are staring at me with goofy smiles on their faces. “Huh?”
“I asked if you watched the new episode of This Is Us?” Larry looks at me.
“Aw man, I can’t believe you guys watch that show … it’s a tear-jerking love fest. No blood, no action … of course I didn’t watch it.” Although I had caught a few episodes when the guys had it on in Keil House, and I had to admit I had paid attention to the storyline. And Mandi Moore was pretty hot.
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