We’re now the couple every one secretly hates. I steal kisses before I drop her off at every class, and she wears my jersey to school on game days.
I can’t believe that once, I tried to push her away. Tried to ignore her and make her feel worthless. And Harper had come to me all the same, knocking down my defenses and working her way in so that I would accept her comfort.
That bad part is, I wanted her to. I wanted her to not put up with my whining, with my treatment of her. I wanted her attention and kindness. And after she’d slept in my bed, after I’d held her all night, I knew that there was no untangling her from the way she’d wound around my heart.
She was embedded, and I was completely giving over to it. It wouldn’t be easy, and although I hadn’t even talked any of this through with her, I knew we’d make it work. I’d never wanted someone so bad in my entire life … and I was anything but a quitter. I was going to work as hard at this relationship as I did at football. Was going to give it two hundred percent.
Which is what I was giving to football right now. The locker room shakes with the cheers of the crowds above, the huge stadium at a nearby college was the neutral site for tonight’s state championship. Somewhere up there, Harper sat with my grandfather and her mom, grandma and Michael Mills. My knees shook, not with nerves, but with the anxiousness of wanting to get out onto that field.
But, there is a tinge of sadness that my dad couldn’t be here for this. I’d finally gotten in touch with him; he’d been on a covert mission that he hadn’t been able to tell me about until it was over. He was perfectly fine, safe and in one piece, and he’d been stoked to hear that we’d made state.
Once the locker room had mostly cleared out, with most of the players meeting in the conference room in this swanky facility to pump each other up, I addressed my finger. It ached and hurt each time I touched it, but I hadn’t told a soul except for Harper. I wasn’t letting one fucking finger ruin the rest of my life.
I’d downed six Advil, put a numbing cream on it, and was going to tape it to high heaven and then claim I liked to tape my wrist and hand for big games. I’d play it off as a superstition instead of an injury, and pray nobody questioned me. We were going to win this game, and I was going to throw that ball even if it meant pain radiated through my arm with each launch.
I joined my brothers, my teammates, as Coach walked in to give us his speech.
“Tonight is not about winning or losing. Tonight is about leaving your mark on this game, for this school, in your state, forever. For you seniors, this is your last game together as the band of brothers you’ve created over these last four years. Go out there and play like you’ve trained. Be better than you ever have before. Be invincible. Be gods.”
We all look at him, his wisdom golden fuel pumping through our veins.
Everyone turns to me, and I nod. “Hands in. Haven on three. One, two, three—”
“HAVEN!” The word rings out, and then we’re running, sprinting while the adrenaline pumps through the group like a drug.
We break out onto the field, cleats slapping against turf, the first of the players breaking through the banner that the cheerleaders are holding up. Immediately, I turn on the part of my brain that banishes everything out but the game.
The pain, the noise, the fans, the pressure … I push it all out until the only thing I can see is that football in my hand after we win the coin toss and decide to receive on the first kickoff.
As soon as I get the first play in my helmet radioed from Coach, I bring my boys together, rifling off instructions like a drill sergeant.
I’m not usually such a stickler, but I want this game to play out with surgical-like precision. My hand is throbbing underneath the tape, and every time the ball is hiked into my hands, I have to bite the inside of my cheek from crying out in pain.
But I grin and bear it. I throw pass after pass, the tingling sensation of painful pins and needles moving up my arm as the quarters tick down on the scoreboard.
I tune it all out. The crowd. My team. The coaches’ voices. The defensive plays that happen when I’m on the sidelines.
The only things I think about are myself, my arm, the ball, and spotting my retrievers or running backs. If I run myself like a machine, let the years of training and drills take over my body, then I will carry us to a win.
If I bring us a victory, I’ll have unlocked my future.
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t want to celebrate with your teammates? I feel bad.” Harper turns her face to me, the moonlight illuminating her iridescent blue eyes.
“I told you, the only person I want to celebrate with is you.” I wrap my arms tighter around her.
We’re lying on top of a blanket on the banks of Lake McCray, my favorite spot out here. The fact that I’ve brought Harper to my spot, the one I usually only drive out to alone, is a big step.
You would think that telling each other we loved each other would be the biggest step of all, well, of course besides sex. But there was something about showing another person the quiet, dark places of yourself. Harper had seen my fear over the absence of my dad, and I had seen the sorrow inside of her from losing her’s at such a young age. I’d invited her to my house, to sleep in my bed … which were two things I’d never done with a girl before.
And now we were here. Lying entwined on the shores of my favorite spot, celebrating our win at state. I’d taken off after the bus dropped us back at Haven High, kissing Gramps and saying hi to Blanche and Clara before taking Harper by the hand and hurriedly jumping in my Jeep. My teammates had been shouting about parties and The Atrium, but all I wanted to do was be alone with the girl I love.
All I wanted to do was bask in the quiet glory of this night, to look at the open Texas sky and just be Cain Kent, high school football legend, for one more night. Because after the clock struck twelve, I was property of the media, the college system, and the scouts all over the country who would be tracking my progress until I decided to declare for the draft. But right now, I could lie on this blanket under the stars in my hometown with the most beautiful girl I know. Right now, I could be a human kid for just a little while longer.
“I’m so proud of you.” Harper lifts my injured hand, kisses the tender skin and bones there.
I try not to wince as she does it. “Knowing you were up in those stands made me want to perform harder. I think you need to come to college with me. You’re my good luck charm.”
Her eyes go wide as saucers. We haven’t talked about what will happen after graduation … at least not yet. It’s still months away, and I haven’t wanted to burst our bubble. But now that I’ve said it, I don’t want to take the words back. I want her to come with me. I want to spend all my time with her.
“I’m not sure I want to go to college. But I do know that I want to be with you,” she says quietly, a muffled thought into my neck.
I don’t feel like talking about such big things on a night like this, where I feel invincible. So I bridge the gap between us, sliding my tongue into her mouth. Harper melts into my lips, her sigh has become the most erotic song to me.
Quickly, things escalate. Her hands are pulling at the hem of my T-shirt, my fingers are slipping the jersey over her head and unfastening her bra. Both sets of pants come off, and suddenly, we’re naked down to just my boxers that Harper is trying to slide over my hips.
I break off the kiss, hovering over her slim body as my breath comes out in hard gasps. “Let’s slow down.”
“I don’t want to slow down.” Harper pushes the last shred of clothing between us away and takes me in her hand.
Stars erupt in the corners of my eyes, and I have to stiffen every muscle in my body not to give in to the sensation she’s bewitching me with.
“Baby … we don’t have to do this tonight. I know you want to wait.”
“But I love you. I’m ready and I’m in love.” She pants underneath me.
“And I love you enough to wait. I lov
e you so much, Harper. And I want you to be sure about this. I don’t want to pressure you.”
Looking up, I see that she’s biting her lip. The indecision is clear in her eyes. I make it for her.
“Let me love you in another way. I promise it will feel just as good.”
Before she can answer, I slide down her body, kissing each inch of creamy, soft flesh as I go. I start at her knees, leaving airy pecks along the inseam of her legs. She’s writhing beneath my exploration, and moaning so loud that she’s going to wake the fishes. But I don’t mind, no one is around to hear us. And even if they were, her lyrics of pleasure are music to my ears.
I haven’t even tasted her yet, but I can see the gleam of her arousal between her legs in the moonlight. Slick and hot, I know she’ll taste like the best dessert I’ve ever sunk into when I put my lips on her.
My lips come to hover right over her clit, and I breath a hot breathe on it.
“Cain, I need …”
“I know, baby.”
And I lick, one long hot stroke of my tongue from the center of her all the way to the bundle of nerves strung tight.
She whimpers, as if it’s the best pain and the best pleasure. I go at her again, slowly feasting on her until her hands are in my hair and she’s crying out for release.
When she finally does come, with my name on her lips, that feeling surges through me again.
Invincible. Only this time, I know it applies to her and me.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Harper
I wave to Grady and Paul as I pass them on the stairs. “Hey, guys.”
They wave back at me. “’Sup?”
It’s more of a rhetorical question, and I smile as I go down and they walk up. Cain’s friends have become my friends by way of being in a relationship. And since I’d become his girlfriend, it seemed that everyone in school knew who I was, even teachers. I’d been freaked out the other day when his football coach, who was the head physical education teacher, had nodded his head to me during my gym class.
The bell was going to ring at any moment, and I did not want to be late to seventh period. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I could barely focus with the images of Cain and me by the lake a couple of days ago swimming through my head.
“Do you think I can tap that after Cain? She has one sweet motherfucking rack.” I hear Grady’s voice lilt down from the top of the staircase.
They think I’ve exited the stairs, that I’ve gone down the hallway to my next class. I’m not sure what makes me stay, glued to the second to last step while they climb the ones above me, but I’m fixated to the spot.
“Nah, man, he has some weird territorial shit with that one. Plus, she wouldn’t count toward your ten. Remember, no repeats was a rule. Or else we could just all fuck the same ten easy girls. We would know that they put out and then no one would win the competition. It would be a dead tie.” Paul speaks in a hushed tone, but I can still hear them.
What the hell? What are they talking about? Competition?
“Oh yeah, you’re right. He’s so close to winning, just has to bag her. Whatever, I’m still trying for ten before graduation. Do threesomes count as two girls? Was that a rule?” Grady talks as they walk off, their voices fading.
Oh my God. Oh my God. A competition … for what? Sex? That’s sure what it sounded like. And Cain was close to winning? So I was … what? Some medal to be hung around his neck?
My cheeks heat, because I knew it. And yet, I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. I text Cain to meet me in the library. Five seconds later, he let me know he’d be there in three minutes and added a wink face. He thinks I want to make out. No wonder it was always about the physical with him.
All he was trying to do was fuck me and win some sick contest.
I walk among the stacks, waiting to see the tall, dark and handsome figure stroll through the door of the library. After about two minutes of pacing, he appears, smiling as he takes me in.
I don’t wait for him, but walk farther back, all the way to the end of a row and around the corner, where no one will be able to hear or see us.
“Getting horny at school, huh? I knew you couldn’t resist me, darlin’, but this is a new level. I’m proud.” He winks, and dives in to pull me close to his body.
I hold a hand against his chest, pushing back on the muscled force just a bit. “What is the ten girl competition?”
His eyes snaps up from where they were ogling my cleavage, and his entire body goes rigid, the hairs on his arms standing up.
Gotcha.
It’s all I can think, I’ve caught him in some bold-faced lie that I don’t even know what to make of yet. Cain opens his mouth and then closes it, like he’s assessing how to proceed from here. Like he’s formulating the lie that’s going to come out of his mouth.
“Look, Harper—” he starts.
I cut him off, knowing full-well he can usually charm his way out of anything. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t you dare. What was I, just some kind of touchdown to you? Another thing you could score?”
Cain wrings his hands and then faces them up to me, as if praying for me to understand. “It was a stupid thing that we made a bet on freshman year. Way before I met you, baby. It … it was all a dumb, stupid guy thing. And after I got to know you, I didn’t even consider the competition anymore. You know how I feel about you.”
My mouth drops open and I know I’m going to cry. “You have a competition with your friends to see who could have sex with ten girls first? And what, I was number ten? I was going to be your winning token? How could I be such an idiot!”
Cain goes to talk, but I cut him off again, tears now spilling down my cheeks, hot and angry.
“And what kind of person are you to make a bet like that? You think women are objects, that much is for sure. Who wants to use sex as a game? Someone who is a piece of shit, that’s who!”
My voice is at an ear-splitting level, and a couple of people have poked their head into the row where Cain and I are fighting, but I can’t even pay attention to them. Not with my heart literally breaking there between the shelves.
“Harper, calm down. I know it was wrong, it was so stupid and wrong. I’m sorry that I ever decided to take part in it. But that’s before I met you. Before you showed me a different side, showed me that I was capable of caring for someone. Before I fell in love with you.”
I whisper, gasping on my sobs, “Don’t. Don’t say those words to me. You don’t care about me. I told you that I was in love with you and all you wanted to do was get in my pants. I can’t believe I almost gave you that. I can’t believe you told me you loved me, too.”
Cain goes to wipe away a tear, and I jerk back. “Baby, please … I stopped us the other night. I stopped us because I wanted to show you that you’re more important to me than sex. Than anything. You and your heart, that’s what I care about.”
Tears slide down my cheeks. “Yeah well, you have an awful way of showing it. I can never trust you again.”
“Harper—”
I can’t bear to hear anymore. “No. Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. I never want to see you again.”
“Baby …”
I walk away from Cain, leaving him standing among the shelves in the back of the library.
It’s impulsive, but I walk straight out of the library and through the back doors of school. I’m cutting class, but what matters more right now is that my heart was just crushed under the weight of a thousand lies. I couldn’t possibly sit there and learn about the Civil War while trying to hold back tears.
The sobs wrack my body the entire way home.
Chapter Thirty
Harper
The week between the football championship and Thanksgiving sees the drama and gossip mill at Haven High School pushed to the max.
Apparently, someone overheard Cain and I arguing in the library, and after that, the talk spread like wildfire. About the competition … and eventually, which girls had been marks
in it. There was practically an alert sent out, girl wide over the entire student body, not to sleep with Cain or any of his friends.
While they were still the most popular guys in school, it was clear that they had a stain now, that the young females of our town were avoiding them.
I thought it was disgusting. Taking myself and my heart out of the equation, I couldn’t wrap my mind around how someone could propose such a bet. That they got their kicks from it, from tallying up girls and banging anyone who was willing … it was gross. It made me want to take a shower.
And I had. I’d practically scalded my skin. Knowing that Cain was a part of it, again taking my heart out of it, and his hands had been on me. I felt dirty, like there were spots of filth on me now that I couldn’t get off.
When it came to my feelings for him … that was a whole other issue entirely. Every time I started to think about it, my cheeks heated with shame and embarrassment. My heart would sink, the tears and bile rising up the back of my throat to form a mixed lump. He’d tricked me so deeply that I’d fallen in love with a boy who was incapable of anything but bedding girls blindly.
I’d known his reputation. I knew I had not been the first girl he’d wooed, or even the first one to slide her bra straps down her shoulders. But … he’d pretended to care about me. Had asked questions, wanted to know about my books and my thoughts. He quoted classic authors to me, had held my hand when we jumped off the bridge together, had so tenderly held me that night at the lake.
Cain had stopped himself before we went too far. What kind of sick game was he playing that he acted like a gentleman to get me to fall farther into his trap? Was it so that I would finally give up the one thing I said I would wait to do? Because I have to admit, then his game had worked. I’d wanted to lose my virginity to him that night on the banks of the water.
The Tenth Girl Page 14