For Finlay

by J. Nathan

  I shrugged. “Yeah, well, your boy has a way of not hearing people out.”

  He held up his palms, seemingly amused by my tone, which come out harsher than I intended. “Hey. It was just an observation. I wasn’t prying.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “For what it’s worth, guys think with one thing and one thing only. So if that’s all he was thinking with, he wouldn’t be this bummed.”

  I nodded, appreciating him trying to make me feel better. Because in reality, we didn’t know each other. “Where are you coming from?”

  The coolest smirk I’d ever seen swept across his perfect lips, and a dimple dug into his cheek. “Had someone to see.”

  I raised my brows.

  He snickered. “Why don’t you run in the gym,” he suggested. “I’d feel a lot better knowing you weren’t running around some unfamiliar town in the middle of the night.”

  My eyes cast down, embarrassed he felt the need to take care of me. Was I really that pathetic?

  “I’ll make sure Brooks stays in our room,” he assured me.

  My eyes lifted, appreciating his assistance more than I realized. “Thanks.”

  He nodded, before turning and disappearing into the hotel.

  * * *

  Monday morning I hurried out of the fine arts building, feeling exhausted from the weekend road trip. I must’ve been more dazed than I realized because I slammed into the person walking into the building at the same time. I shuffled back a few steps, completely jarred by the collision.

  “Watch it,” a familiar voice warned.

  My eyes shot up. Leslie glared at me as she readjusted the fallen strap on her bag. My eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you watch it? And while you’re at it, stop texting me.”

  An insincere smile pulled at her lips. “You know,” she said, eyeing the people moving around us, “I actually feel sorry for you.”

  A humorless laugh shot from my throat. “Oh, I’ve just got to hear this.”

  “You had a professional football prospect within your grasp and you couldn’t hold onto him.”

  No matter how I felt about Caden, my stomach still roiled at her words. “A professional football prospect?” I blinked hard. “Is that really what you see when you see him?”

  “Don’t try to make this something it’s not,” she snarled.

  “You’re doing a fine job of that all on your own,” I laughed, actually amused by her.

  “Shut up.”

  I smiled. “Why? Because now you realize the first thing that came to your mind was his future career?”

  “Oh, and it’s not what you were thinking when you were trying to worm your way into his life?”

  “Nope. It wasn’t.” I shook my head. “I actually feel sorry for you. Planning your life in some big house with a guy you want for all the wrong reasons. Do you even realize how smart he is? How thoughtful he can be when he’s not being brainwashed by people like you? How his past shaped him into the loyal person he is? Or have you missed that while you were counting your cash—I mean his cash?”

  “That’s not how it is,” she scowled.

  “Then how is it, Leslie?” Caden asked from behind us.

  My body tensed at the sound of his voice. I spun around, expecting him to be glaring at both of us, but his eyes were locked on Leslie’s.

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” she said with the brush of her hand.

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t.”

  I turned from the scene, moving away quickly. If he’d heard Leslie, then he’d heard me. And there was no way I wanted to face him after I’d actually stuck up for him.

  But damn it felt good to put Leslie in her place.

  “Finlay, wait!” Caden called from behind me.

  I quickened my pace, weaving my way through people hurrying to their classes, blending amongst them, and trying to forget about the entire scene.

  I ate my lunch alone under a secluded tree—far from the trees Caden had taken me to. But by ten to three, I’d stalled long enough and needed to get to the field for practice. I passed a few of the guys on my way into the field house, keeping my head down so not to run into the one I didn’t want to see.

  “Finlay!” I could hear Caden’s feet slapping on the tile hallway as he jogged after me.

  I quickened my pace and walked right into the locker room.

  “Just stop for one second,” he said as he entered the locker room behind me.

  I stopped and spun around with my teeth clenched. “What?”

  The players getting suited up stopped, their attention moving to us.

  “Talk to me.”

  The run-in with Leslie and the way he all of a sudden wanted to speak to me after almost two weeks of radio silence pissed me off. I stormed back toward him, stopping only when the tips of my toes touched his. “Why? Because Leslie showed her true colors? I don’t think so.” I turned around and started to walk away.

  He caught my arm. “Wait.”

  I yanked my arm free as I spun back toward him. “You made up your mind about what happened,” I said, trying to keep my voice down and my escalating anger in check. “Why do we need to talk about it?”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I just felt blind-sided.”

  My brows shot up. “Blind-sided?”

  “That you dated Cole.”

  My face fell, my mind spinning with his words—his inaccurate and completely crazy words. “Who told you that?”

  “Finlay,” he sighed. “You have his jersey and his pictures plastered all over your room.”

  The air punched out of my lungs. That’s what he thought I lied about? That’s why he ended things?

  “I deserve to be pissed you didn’t tell me.” His voice cut through my shock. “It all just seemed too convenient you’d now want to be with me.”

  My shock morphed to disgust. “You deserve to be pissed? So let me get this straight. Your ex goes through my stuff. And she didn’t just go through it, she took it. But I’m the wrong one here?”

  His eyes cast down.

  “Then she runs to you in hopes of what? You’d think I’m some lying quarterback groupie? Oh, wait. That’s exactly what you think.”

  “I have no reason not to.”

  Audible winces from the guys in the locker room reminded me we weren’t alone. But their responses only reinforced what I already knew. Caden was wrong. He’d been wrong all along. And he chose to believe a lying bitch over me. How could he not see the truth when it was staring him right in the face? “Screw you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why? Because I found out the truth?”

  Another round of winces spread around the locker room.

  I wondered if any of the guys knew Cole was my brother or if they just thought Caden was a total idiot. I harnessed every last bit of restraint I had. “If that’s what you really think of me, then you don’t know me at all.” He reached for my arm, but I yanked it away. “Don’t.”

  “Who’s ready to go kick some ass out there?” Grady shouted as he barreled into the locker room, pulling the unwanted attention from us.

  I glared at Caden. “Stay away from me.” I shook my head, disgusted and spent. “You are exactly what I thought you were.” With that I turned and stormed into the back room to do my job. The real reason I was there.

  Caden

  “Dude. You seriously fucked that one up,” Grady’s voice taunted me from behind.

  I spun around, ready to throw down. “What’d you say?”

  He lifted his chin toward the door Finlay disappeared behind. “The girl knows football. Puts football players in their place like it’s no big feat. Can drink Miller under the table. And she likes your sorry ass. How do you go and blow something like that?”

  My teeth clenched, the tick in my jaw pulsing. “Says the guy who won’t stop busting her balls.”

  “Dude. You always tease the ones you like. And she’s cool shit. I just knew she needed to toughen up. Didn’t
want the guys eating her alive.”

  I shook my head at his ridiculous rationale.

  “So what’d she do?” he asked, leaning down and unzipping his bag on the floor in front of his locker.

  I glanced around the suddenly empty room. The guys had fled, clearly worried we were gonna go at it again. I looked back at Grady’s ugly mug. Did I really want to be having this conversation with him? “She lied.”

  “Who doesn’t?” He reached into his bag. “Did she cheat?”

  “No.”

  He glanced up. “Sell your shit online?”

  I shook my head.

  He pulled out his practice gear. “Talk to the tabloids about you?”

  I shook my head.

  He shrugged. “Then from where I’m standing, you need to fix that shit before she’s warming some other dude’s bed.”

  Knots of unease formed in the deep recesses of my gut. Was Grady right? Had I lost the best thing that ever happened to me? I thought back to the scene earlier. Even though she hated me, she still stood up for me with Leslie. She didn’t have to. If I’d really just been a replacement for Cole, why would she bother?

  Finlay

  My eyes scanned the packed bar where Sabrina and I had been drinking for hours at a corner table. She claimed our fake ID’s needed breaking in and I needed a girl’s night out like no one’s business. And though I was hesitant at first, being out helped.

  After the run in with both Leslie and Caden, I needed to forget everything. I needed to let loose. I needed to move on. Sabrina was great at helping me make that happen. More than once she’d wrangled in some hot guys to buy us drinks. None of them were great at conversation, but it didn’t matter. It was just nice having attention from guys who didn’t hate me.

  “I still can’t understand why he hasn’t apologized,” Sabrina said over the loud music.

  I took a long swig of my beer. “He still thinks I’m a liar.” Oh, shit. I could hear the slur in my voice and that never ended well. “He thinks I dated Cole and now I’m after him because I have this thing for quarterbacks.” And I was getting loud. Fan-freaking-tastic.

  Her brows met in the middle. “You didn’t correct him?”

  “He judged me before hearing the truth.” I lifted my beer to my mouth and took another long swallow. “He doesn’t deserve it now.”

  Sabrina picked at the label on her bottle. I could see in her way-too-focused-eyes that whatever came next would be a doozy. “Finlay. Sometimes there’s more to the story than meets the eye.”

  I cocked my head, wondering why she hadn’t immediately agreed with me. “I let him in, Sabrina, even when I knew I shouldn’t. Then he didn’t give me the chance to explain because, oh that’s right, he was too busy kicking me out of his house.”

  “I’ve got your back, you know that, right?”

  I nodded.

  “So just think about it from his perspective. Do you blame him for thinking you dated Cole? It does kind of look that way.”

  My eyes flashed away, unsure how to respond. I was the one who’d been hurt. I was the rational one. Caden was the irrational one. He was the one who’d hurt me. He was also the one walking into the bar with Forester at that very moment. Shit. “We need to leave.”

  “What?” Sabrina’s head whipped in the direction of my eyes. “Oh, I think we’re staying. This is about to get good.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Me, too much beer, and him in the same place have bad written all over it.”

  Sabrina laughed. “I think you two have some talking to do.”

  “I’m serious. I’ll talk to him. Just not here. Not with me like this.”

  Sabrina stared across the table at me, her eyes assessing my level of seriousness—and drunkenness—for a long torturous minute. She let out a sigh of resignation. “Fine. But one dance first.” She hopped down from her stool and yanked me off mine, dragging me through the crowd. She grabbed two guys we’d talked to earlier from their table and pulled them with us onto the dance floor. She wasted no time grinding into her dark-haired dance partner, leaving the tall blond for me.

  Dance music filled the bar, the bass much louder than I was used to at the local honky-tonk back home. But I let the liquor flowing through my veins move my hips—or maybe that was just my dance partner who’d grabbed hold of them and moved along with me.

  Sabrina and I spent the next hour out on the dance floor. Sometimes we switched partners, sometimes I danced with Sabrina. All I knew was I laughed and had fun. Caden was there somewhere, but I didn’t care. Why would I? My fun didn’t depend on him. It depended on me. And for the first time in a long time, I was fine just being me.

  Caden

  “Dude. Just go out there.”

  My eyes jumped from the dance floor to Forester sitting across from me. “What?”

  “You haven’t heard a word I said all night.”

  “That’s normal. I usually just tune you out.”

  He laughed and I could see the girls around us getting ready to swarm. Once it hit midnight, girls garnered their nerve and the quiet ones became forward and clingy. Two things I was in no mood for.

  My eyes moved back to Finlay on the dance floor. I’d never seen her that carefree. The way her body moved to the music had me mesmerized. More than once I fought the urge to go grab the guys who were dancing all up in her space and tear their hands off her hips. Then I remembered I didn’t have the right to do that. But had their hands roamed elsewhere, or had Finlay bent and started grinding her ass all over them, I would’ve stepped in. Because that wasn’t her. The girl I knew, no matter how sassy she could get, had boundaries. And, regardless of whether or not we were on speaking terms, I wouldn’t let her go there.

  “You’re both so fucking stubborn,” Forester said, tearing my attention from Finlay.

  “So, now you talk to her?”

  “Dude. She’s a sweet girl. Anyone can see that. Except you.”

  “She lied.”

  His pretty boy face twisted in disbelief. “So what? I lie to you all the time.”

  My head reeled back. “You do?”

  He nodded. “When you ask me where I’ve been.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can. Because no one needs to know everything about me. Just like no one needs to know everything about you. Or Finlay.”

  His statements were valid. So why couldn’t I just swallow my pride and apologize for the way things went down?

  “And for the record, you sounded like an asshole in the locker room. She deserved better than that.”

  I dragged my fingers through my hair. “What am I supposed to do about it now?”

  He tipped back his beer. When he finished, he wiped his mouth with his arm. “The opposite of what you’ve been doing.”

  Forester was the last one I expected a lecture from. But there I sat, being schooled by my own roommate.

  After what felt like hours, Finlay and her friend stepped off the dance floor, all flushed and giddy. They linked arms like drunk girls usually did and staggered toward the door with the two guys trailing behind them.

  “Make sure they get home all right,” I said to Forester who’d already spotted them and jumped to his feet, moving to the door and slipping outside. Knowing him, he probably planned to get her friend’s number.

  I sat there milking my beer. One of many I’d downed over the past hour watching the girl I let walk out of my life—the girl I pushed out of my life—go wild on the dance floor. I’d set her loose. I’d ended things. So why the hell did I care who she went home with? A cacophony of voices swirled in my brain. Grady’s. Forester’s. Leslie’s. Their words mixed with the jealousy brought on by Finlay having fun without me—despite me—taunted me. She clearly didn’t need me. But did I need her?

  Forester returned a few minutes later wearing an smug grin, having definitely scored her friend’s number.

  “Did they get home alright?”

  “Don’t you mean alone?”

 
; I stared him down, in no mood to fuck around.

  He slid into his seat. “They’re on their way home in an Uber. Alone.”

  A relieved breath whooshed through my lips.

  He shook his head. “Makes no sense. You could be goin’ home with her right now if you weren’t so damn proud.”

  “You don’t know Finlay like I do.”

  Forester rolled his eyes. “Exactly.”

  * * *

  With a cotton mouth and a throbbing thigh, I jogged to the sideline during practice. I didn’t dare complain about my recovering thigh or Coach would’ve questioned my ability to get it done. So I did what I always did when faced with a shitty situation. I dealt with it.

  Speaking of shitty situations.

  Finlay stood by the bench with a water bottle in each hand. I walked toward her with my hand extended. She stared me down, the hate in her eyes speaking volumes. Never one to back down, I held her stare. But she conceded faster than expected, placing a bottle down on the bench and walking to the other end of the sideline. Either she was feeling as hungover as me, or she just wanted nothing to do with me.

  After practice, I slipped on my sneakers and grabbed my bag from my locker. When I stood to head out, Finlay walked out of the back room with her backpack on her back.

  “Hey, I’ll walk out with you,” I said, surprising myself as much as I’d clearly surprised her.

  She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to glare at me. “What about our last conversation didn’t you understand?”

  Okay. So I needed a different approach. “I saw you last night.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “So?”

  “So, it looked like you were having a good time.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want, Brooks?”

  Brooks? When the hell did she go back to calling me Brooks? “I’m not with Leslie.”

  “I don’t care.” Given her disgusted glare, she didn’t.

  I was single-handedly blowing it with every word out of my mouth. “I just thought you should know.”