by Ginger Scott
“All right. Well, we have extra tickets, so if you—or your brother—you know…have anyone special you’d like to invite? We’d love to host them. And have them join us for dinner, of course,” she says, her voice in that super syrupy tone that she started to have the first time I went to a junior high dance. My mom loves the idea of her boys meeting the right girls. She’s a romantic. And it’s always driven me nuts, which is why I never take the bait and always show up alone. Every time…except this time. Maybe. I think?
“All right, we’ll see,” I shrug her suggestive questioning off because I haven’t asked Cass yet. And I still might not. I feel like I need to mean it—like Cass would say—if I were going to toss her into the equation with my parents. And I’m going to need to think that through a little more before I plant the seed in Cathy Preeter’s fairytale imagination.
“Nate, too,” she says, adding that last part because she knows how burned Nate was after his breakup with his high school girlfriend, Sadie. She was a bitch, and she proved me right about her when she cheated on my brother with his best friend.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. Sometimes, I think my mom forgets that her offspring are men, and we have a low tolerance for the gushy, mushy shit. “Hey, I gotta go, okay? Send cookies. And by cookies, I mean money. Love you!”
“Love you too, Tyson,” she says, and I hold out hope. “Oh, and bake your own cookies…sweetheart.”
Damn. Worth a try.
Cass
I have that hopeful grin on my face. I wore it all the way back to our room, and as much as I want to straighten out my lips and come across indifferent when I open our dorm-room door, I can’t. I’m just too…happy.
“Looks like someone had a good night,” Paige teases, still primping herself at the mirror. I saw her slip out of Nate and Ty’s room a little before me. I almost left then with her, but it felt too good to be there, warmly tucked under his heavy blanket with my back pressed against his chest. He did that thing where a guy strokes a girl’s hair; at least, I think that’s a thing? I read about it, and I’ve seen it on TV and movies. But I’ve never had a guy do that to me. All of my intimate scenarios have been…less personal.
I don’t answer Paige, but I don’t lose the grin either. Tossing my shoes to the corner, I pull my backpack from the seat of my desk chair, setting it down on my bed with me so I can start sorting through things and getting ready for class this week. I’m keeping my hands busy, and my mind occupied, because I don’t want Paige to ruin this.
“What are you doing, Cass?”
She’s going to ruin this.
I huff. I literally huff, because the pressure boils in me so fast that it has to come out just as quickly. Whooosh, the air blasts through my nose as I shake my head. My sister, the protector—she will never understand. “I like him, Paige,” I say, challenging her with my stare, and waiting for her to tell me about all of his flaws.
“Seriously?” That’s all she can say in return, and the way she’s looking at me makes my stomach sick.
“Paige, unlike you, I don’t rule people out of my life based on superficial physical shit,” I say sternly. I’ve ramped up to pissed off now.
“Oh, fuck you,” she says, surprising me a little that she’s really going to spar with me over this. Raising my eyebrows, I ready myself for one hell of a one-sided debate, but she moves to sit next to me and grabs my ankle, which is folded over my leg in my lap, disarming me.
“I’m not talking about the fact that he’s in a wheelchair, Cass. My god, give me a little credit,” she says. I purse my lips tightly, trying to force myself from launching into all of the reasons I shouldn’t give her credit when it comes to how she sees other people. “I’m talking about his rep—everything I’ve heard about Tyson Preeter…the stories you have heard. What other girls said at that party. What the sororities said when we took the tour our first day.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie.
“Don’t bullshit me, Cass. You like him, but that doesn’t give you a good enough excuse to go blind to everything about him that screams douchebag. He’s charming, and then he’s a dick. That’s Tyson Preeter in a nutshell—and I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let him use you like that. You’ve been used enough!”
Her last comment bites. She winces a little when she realizes what she said, and I feel the apology coming.
“I didn’t mean it that way, Cass,” she starts, but I unwrap my headphones and put them in my ears to drown her out. I get it. I was the slut in high school. I’ve got notches on a bedpost, and was voted most likely to sleep her way to the top in the unofficial yearbook. But I’ve taken my lumps. Believe me, I’ve felt the wrath of what I did, and Paige has no idea how bad things got. My guard is up, and I’m willing to wait for Ty to wear it down—to earn it. And I believe he will.
“Cass,” Paige says, tugging one of the ear buds from my head, forcing me to look at her. “I just don’t think he deserves you. That’s all. And I mean it.”
I push my earpiece back in place and quickly return my focus to the class list in my lap, pretending to read. Paige walks back to the mirror and returns her focus to making everything on her perfect. And in my head, I twist the words she said to how I really feel.
“And I don’t think you deserve him.”
An hour ago, I walked out of Ty’s room feeling like the princess in a Disney movie—cartoon birds and butterflies whistling around my head as I tiptoed barefooted along rose petals. Now, I feel dark and sick and ugly. I feel just like the girl I was my senior year of high school—like the girl who let any guy make her feel better, feel special for the then and now. It’s the same way with drugs. The high lasts in the moment, and then the lows crash over you after, and the shame becomes so unbearable, you lower your standards to find the high again even faster. I lowered my standards to almost non-existent.
I was popular, and I had such a great story—the star soccer girl who was overcoming the limitations of MS. I was on the shots my senior year, and while they were supposedly helping me to keep the number of MS flare-ups down, they often left me feeling wiped out and tired. But worse than that were the red welts left behind on my stomach, thighs, and arms from the needles. I didn’t mind at first, and was only happy to be rid of the constant worry of a flare-up, when actual cell damage was occurring in my spine and brain. But the summer before our senior year, I joined Paige on a lake trip to Palm Springs. She wore her typical bikini—her body smooth and perfect, and the only thing every guy we came in contact with could look at. I wore board shorts and a long T-shirt, because despite being thin and toned, I knew when guys looked at me, the welts would be the first things they saw.
After that, upon my urging, my parents switched me to the oral meds. And when the popular and hot Jeff Collins started to flirt with me at the end-of-the-summer bonfire down at the beach, I let him take my virginity the same night. I did it because it felt good to be wanted and looked at the way Paige was. When he didn’t call the week after, and started dating someone else as soon as school started, I turned my attention to his best friend Noah, thinking I would make Jeff jealous. I waited a week before I slept with him. And then I waited—waited for word to get back to Jeff, for Jeff to get jealous, for the both of them to fight over me and want me to be theirs. That fight never happened—they both moved on, leaving me behind. The pattern of making myself feel loved and wanted by being easy became an addiction, until it almost ruined my life.
Maybe Paige is right. Maybe I’m falling into old habits. Being in Ty’s arms, being the object of his desire—it feels good. But maybe that’s not enough.
I’m absorbed in my own doubt and thoughts when I hand my student ID over to the woman at the front desk at the rec center. The beeping sound, when she passes it under the scanner, finally wakes me from my trance.
“Back so soon?” Ty’s voice comes from behind me, like the finger of the devil scratching at my soul and beckoning me to come to him.
&n
bsp; “What can I say? I’m dedicated to my workouts,” I say, not turning fully to look at him, not wanting to get locked under his spell.
“Well, I don’t have any clients for the rest of the day. How about we workout together? Maybe get started on your conditioning?” he asks. He’s actually serious about training me, and the hungry competitor deep inside is even more attracted to him because of this.
“You were serious?” I ask, allowing myself to turn to face him. He’s wearing a black ball cap turned backward and a gray T-shirt that’s tight enough to curve with every peck and ab muscle on his torso. He’s also wearing black sweats with a white stripe down the side of each leg, and I realize I’ve never actually seen his bare legs. He even wore his sweatpants to sleep last night.
“I know my body’s hot, baby, but if you wanna touch it all you have to do is ask,” he smirks, and I flush red now that I realize exactly how long I’ve been staring at him.
“Didn’t we have a conversation about this whole you calling me baby thing?” I change the subject.
“That’s right. You hate babies,” he says, and I laugh on instinct. I hate that he makes me laugh so easily. And I love it.
“I’m just going to get in a quick workout. Really, I won’t be here long,” I say, caught somewhere between wanting him to take my hint and let me go—and wanting him to challenge it, to challenge me.
“Chicken,” he says, and my tummy fires up with giddiness that he’s chosen door number two.
“I’m so not chicken. And oh my god, could you be more of a third-grader?” I ask. He’s followed me to the cubbies by the weight room. I push my small gym bag into one of the shelves, not even bothering to get out my iPod, because I’m totally transparent; I want Ty to stay and talk to me.
“I’m an awesome third-grader. That was my favorite grade. First kiss, class clown, record number of detentions. Yeah, I was king in third grade. So, are we conditioning or what?” he says, getting right back to his point without pause. He stares into me, his eyes taking a brief second or two to roam down to my waist before coming back to my face. I can feel my lips tug at the corner wanting to mimic the smirk he’s giving me. We’re flirting, and it feels good. But Ty’s also messing with my biggest weakness by dangling the soccer carrot out there in front of me like that. And I may not be strong enough to refuse his challenge—no matter the shit storm it will cause with my parents.
“What did you have in mind?” I relent, and his smirk grows into a full-blown smile.
Ty pulls a folded paper from his pocket and flattens it against his chest before handing it to me. I can’t help but gawk at his chest muscles for a split second before bringing my attention back to the paper. It’s a workout plan, a good one, completely customized to me. My heart melts that he’s serious about turning me back into a competitor—so serious he spent time and energy devising a plan. My muscles actually jolt with a tiny charge, the familiar desire of wanting to push myself settling deep inside me. But there’s also a faint stabbing sensation in my side, the one that comes from responsibility.
“I want to do this,” I say, sucking in my bottom lip, and holding my breath, trying to stave off the sting of tears in my eyes because I miss soccer so goddamned badly. “But I just can’t.”
I fold the paper along the same creases and toss it back to him, but he only stares at it in his lap, snickering once.
“Seriously, Ty. That time…my time. That part of my life is over. I can’t work at that level any more,” I say. I don’t even realize I’ve started to chew on my thumbnail until Ty reaches up and pulls my hand away from my face, tucking the workout plan back inside my fist.
“Yes, you can,” he says, squeezing my hand closed around the paper and looking at me, determined to get me on his side. My heart started kicking the instant he touched me, and the longer he holds my hand in his palm, the faster my pulse races. I haven’t begun my workout yet, but I feel a single drip of sweat form at my neck and race down my spine. My conscience is screaming at me: you can’t do this! I can’t do this because I’ll be breaking a promise I made to my mother, and because I told the doctors I would quit pushing myself so hard, and because Paige promised my parents she wouldn’t let me go overboard.
“Yes you can,” Ty repeats, squeezing my hand a little tighter, almost as if he can hear my inner battle. But he doesn’t understand. I have limits. I have responsibilities. And my body…it can’t handle any more pushing. It gets tired.
“I have MS.”
I say it so fast, I don’t hear the words leave my lips. But my breath is stripped away—it’s panic, the kind you get when you’re terrified, or when someone rips a painful bandage away.
“I have MS.”
I say it again, just to be sure I hear it this time. I won’t look at him because I don’t want to see the sympathy on his face. I don’t want to see that moment he gives up on me. I don’t want to see it, because I like the way he looked at me before—the flirting, the wanting, the desire, the kiss. Goddamn it, why did I tell him?
“Pussy,” he says, squeezing my hand even harder, and shaking it to get my attention. My eyes go to his on instinct, and there isn’t a single trace of pity on his face. His lips don’t twitch, and I can tell this isn’t a front. He isn’t trying to put on a strong face for me. He isn’t pretending that he doesn’t care what I just said. He honestly and truly doesn’t. He’s just calling me a pussy.
“Ty, did you hear me?” I ask.
“Yeah, I heard you. You have MS. I can’t feel my legs. La di fuckin’ da. Are we training or what?” His expression hasn’t changed once, and the armor I just started to build up around my heart is already cracking.
I pull my hand from his and unfold the paper again to really take it in. Everything on here—every exercise and the time associated with it—is familiar. I know I can do it. I’ve done it before. I also know I may experience setbacks. And I know my body will be tired. But I want this. Maybe it’s because Ty’s the one believing in me, and maybe that’s making me want it even more. It’s probably the wrong decision based on a medical plus-and-minus chart, but it’s the right one in my heart.
“Where do I start?”
The way his mouth slides into a prideful smile melts any remaining doubt away, and I take a slow, deep breath, my chest almost puffing at feeling strong and wanted all at once.
“We need to get your miles back up,” he says, grabbing my bag from the small shelf and tossing it to me. “No weights today. Today is all about the treadmill.”
I follow him to the aerobic machines, and everything feels lighter, yet nothing between us has changed. And I think I like that most of all. “Oh, by the way,” he says, glancing at me over his shoulder, “my parents have a suite for the first home game. They’re taking Nate and me, and we have extra seats. I’d like you to meet them. Wanna go?”
It may not be the right move, and I may be blowing any future strategy, as Paige would say, but I smile and let my eyes light up anyway, because Ty is actually doing it—he’s earning me, like I’m something to be earned. “I’d like that,” I say.
He nods in response, like it’s no big deal, but I also hear him exhale heavily, and I can tell asking me made him nervous. I make him nervous. And I like that, too.
Chapter 6
Ty
I have never done a load of laundry in my entire life. Not once. Ever. Nate calls it my gift, my one super power.
Mom always takes care of it when we’re home. It’s her thing. She always says she loves the smell—the way the fabrics feel when she pulls them from the dryer—and the warmth. I get it. When I was a kid, I used to love tagging along with her while she did the weekend chores, and we’d always end up in the laundry room. I would sit in the corner, in the basket filled with freshly dried towels, and eat a bowl of grapes. Something about the dryer sheets lulled me to sleep. To this day, when I’m at home, Mom practically bakes my blanket and pillowcases in the dryer, and I swear to god I sleep like a damned baby.
You think my addiction to the smell of warmed lavender would be enough to learn how the whole process works. But as much as I love the end result, I absolutely loathe the manual-labor part of laundry. It’s just so…tedious! It’s not like dishes or vacuuming, not that I do any of that often either, but at least when you do the dishes, it’s done…in like…fifteen minutes. Or you put them in a machine and just come back later and pull the dishes out when you need them. Laundry, though—laundry requires waiting. And carrying. And folding. And sorting.
While I was in Florida, I was usually able to get someone to do my laundry for me. Nate’s taken care of it for the last month, throwing my laundry in with his. He says I’m so good that I even have him trained. I know he’d do it again. I know he’d do it every week, for the rest of the semester. But I just saw Cass go into the laundry room, and suddenly here I am, halfway down the hall with a full basket of laundry in my lap.
“Hey, fancy meeting you here!” I shut my eyes and release a breathy laugh when I hear myself speak. I’m so fucking lame.
“Oh, hey,” Cass says, jumping at my voice. She’s sorting her laundry, so I pause and watch.
She’s wearing tiny running shorts and this thin T-shirt that makes me want to toss water on it just to watch it stick to her skin. We haven’t really talked much since our training session a couple days ago. I have a feeling she thinks I’m freaked out because she told me about her MS. But I’m not. I haven’t gone to see her because every time I do, I want to kiss her. But then I think about her one stipulation, and I wonder if me—and all of my crap—won’t find a reason to hurt her once I’m done. That would be the end of it, too. No more training sessions, no more not-so-random laundry room run-ins. I don’t think I want to be done with that.
I’m starting to realize there’s a difference between wanting her and needing her. Problem is, I’m victim to both. I want her, God do I want her. But lately, I need her too. I like needing her. It feels…I don’t know. It just feels. But if I blow one side of the deal, I’ll lose the other. It’s a delicate balance, and kissing her—that would tip the scales for good.