Chapter 42
forty-two
Cash
Silver and blue foil balloons litter my bedroom floor, limp and half deflated, and I kick a few out of the way as I carve a path from my door to my dresser.
Brushing aside plastic football-shaped confetti, the remnants of the draft party we held last weekend, I pull open my top drawer.
Inside lies a folded Cowboys jersey—a replica Maisy bought me for fun—and I run my finger over the stitched emblem.
It still feels surreal. Come fall, I’ll be a member of an NFL team.
A dream come true. How many times this week have I heard those words?
Any minute now, the truth of them will hit me, and I’ll be on top of the world like my friends are.
I slide on the silver watch my dad presented to me last Sunday before he and Mom headed back home, a gift to say congratulations, though he mentioned a dozen times the watch is a family heirloom, my grandfather’s prized possession, which his father gifted to him when he took over the family business.
My drawers are mostly bare, a mountain of laundry waiting to be dealt with in the corner.
Normally that would stress me out because when we throw a party, I want to look my best, but tonight I don’t care.
I’m not in the mood to talk about the draft—or anything else.
I’m not in the mood for anything but lying in bed with the shades pulled tight.
I find a pair of jeans shoved into the bottom drawer and pull them on.
Smoothing down the wrinkled pockets, my hand closes around something small and hard: Georgia’s house key, the purple plastic dice hanging from the key ring.
I forgot I still had it. The little pips glide over my skin as I rub my thumb across the familiar glossy surface. I should probably return it to her.
Not yet, though. I drop the key into the catchall on top of my dresser next to the assortment of coins and the cuff links I wore to the football banquet. I’ll get it back to her before graduation.
Female voices float up from downstairs, which means the party’s starting. All I need to do is find a clean shirt and go out there, but instead I sink onto my bed next to Jangles and find a toy to dangle in front of her. Stalling. Maybe if I have a drink, it’ll get me going. But I don’t get up.
“Cash?” Lorenzo’s voice sounds on the other side of my door.
“Yeah, come in.”
He walks in and scans me. “Catching some Z’s before the party, or what?”
“Something like that.”
He opens his mouth to say something before thinking better of it, taking a little stroll around my room instead, nudging balloons aside and running his fingers over the laces of the white Dallas football on my dresser.
“Big changes coming. You ready?”
At the excitement in Lorenzo’s eyes, I realize I’ve barely congratulated him on being drafted himself.
After he spent the last year worried his injury would mean he never played another game and that everything he’d worked for wouldn’t amount to shit.
Guilt washes over me that I’ve been so wrapped up in my own problems I haven’t properly acknowledged what my closest friends and I have achieved.
“Can’t say I’d be disappointed if we got one more college season together. But yeah, life’s actually happening. Can’t fucking believe it.” I smile. “What’s the first thing you’re gonna buy with your NFL money? And don’t make me puke by saying an engagement ring.”
“Hey, slow down. I’ll be lucky if I see more than a few games. My cash is going straight to savings.”
“Knock it off, nerd, modesty’s not allowed in this house.”
“But is reality?”
“Know what I’m gonna buy?”
He nods at my bare chest and pretends to cringe. “Guessing it won’t be a shirt of any kind.”
“Diamond fucking studs.”
“What, are you going for a third set of piercings? Because I’m already blinded by the four diamond studs covering your earlobes right now.”
“Real diamonds, man. Not that I’d expect you to know, but these are CZs.”
Lorenzo snorts out a laugh. “If you’re not careful, you’re gonna end up a cautionary tale to future rookies: the talented running back who blew his millions on tacky jewelry and ended up broke at twenty-five.”
“Be a great way to go out, though, wouldn’t it? No house but dripping in diamonds. I want one of those diamond tennis necklaces with the sparkle you can see from space.”
“Please tell me you mean for your mom.”
“Her too.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he shakes his head. “I’ll save a guest bedroom for you.” He continues his little walkabout, but the silence is heavy.
“Something on your mind, or did you come in here to paw through my memorabilia?”
“Eh. I’ve been thinking. You don’t seem as excited as you used to.”
“You serious? I just described to you my future diamond wardrobe.”
“And how long do you think you can sustain this level of excitement about jewelry?”
“Considering how many parts of my body I can adorn with gems and gold, a long time. Did you know you can get diamonds attached to your teeth?”
“Guess ribs will be off the menu.”
“What’s your deal?” I snap. “I’m excited. I’m also worn the fuck out, that’s all.”
He lifts his arms in a stretch, making a show of acting casual.
“Ruby’s on my ass about checking on you.
She says she’s never seen you as miserable as you’ve been since Georgia up and disappeared from your life.
” Hearing her name is like salt in a raw, oozing wound.
“I told her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
Who needs a good woman when you got diamonds, am I right? ”
I swallow the sadness choking me. “Ruby’s worried about me, huh?”
“Her too.” He settles in the chair in the corner, then gives me a sidelong look. “So what happened with you two?”
“You know what happened.”
“No. You told me she cared more about her family reunion than what happened to your sister. That’s all you said.”
“Okay, so you know what happened. She wanted to hear she’s more important to me than Maisy.”
Lorenzo seems to contemplate this before speaking. “She said that?”
Weird how I don’t actually remember what she said.
One of the worst moments of my life, and it’s a blur.
All I can remember is that fight-or-flight feeling, like I was backed into a corner and fighting for my life.
All that, and I don’t think Georgia even raised her voice.
I wish I could remember what she said because maybe then I’d be more sure I did the right thing.
Before I can answer, my door bursts open and Reeve strides in, followed by Cam.
Reeve looks at me on the bed and rolls his eyes. “You would be shirtless. What’s going on in here?”
“Got a sad boy on our hands,” Lorenzo offers helpfully.
“Dude, shut up, I’m fine. Can I be tired after one of the biggest weeks of my life?”
“My week was bigger,” Reeve says, settling on the bed like he owns it and gliding his hand over Jangles. “Cough, number six overall.”
I laugh, which clearly pleases Reeve. “Yeah, enjoy freezing your ass off during those New York winters. Hit me up in Texas if you ever want to thaw out.”
Reeve and I go back and forth a few times, trading insults, but my heart’s not in it. Meanwhile, Cam stands off to the side, leaning against the wall, but his eyes keep drifting my way, and I know he’s getting ready to say something.
“What’s with you over there looking like you’re preparing a big speech?” I finally ask him when Reeve shuts up.
“No speech,” Cam says casually. “Just wondering what you’re going to do about it.”
“Do about what?”
“This sad, miserable state you’re in. Shit, you’re starting to make me look happy-go-lucky.”
“Way to suck the fun out of the room. Look, if you guys were gonna do an intervention, you might have at least brought snacks.”
Cam is unfazed. “No intervention, we’re just sick of seeing you like this and pretending you’re all good.”
“I’m not pretending I’m good, okay? I’m waiting out the misery. It’ll pass.”
“You could do that. Or you could apologize and get her back.”
“How do you know I’m the one who fucked up?”
“I hear things. When you listen more than you talk, it happens.”
I glance at Reeve and Lorenzo, but they’re looking at Cam, apparently as surprised as I am that he has insider knowledge. I wonder who talked. Or maybe he knows nothing, and he’s bluffing to get something out of me.
“So did you?” Cam asks. “Fuck up?”
The answer is crystal clear. He might know everything or he might know nothing, but under my friends’ expectant gazes, all my defenses crumble.
“Yes.” I begged Georgia to believe I’d always be there.
Then left her when she needed me. And I convinced myself her neediness was the problem. I destroyed everything we had.
Reeve, probably stunned by an admission of guilt, blinks at me. “Well…good thing is, that means you can do something about it.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like all I have to do is apologize and we’ll be good. I don’t know how to make up for it or if she even wants me to. Maybe we’re not right together. She doesn’t deserve a fuckup.”
“Not right together?” Lorenzo chuckles. “You’ve spent the last four months crowing about how perfect she is, how good life is, how it’s all finally coming together for you.”
“Yeah, well, it’s supposed to be easy.”
“What is?”
“Being in a relationship. When it’s right, it’s easy. Love and all that bullshit.”
Lorenzo’s jaw drops. “Dude, what? Have you ever seen a movie? Listened to a song? Talked to an adult? Who the fuck told you it’s easy?”
“Have you met us?” Cam asks. “Which of us had it easy with our girls?”
Waving a hand through the air, I dismiss him. “Not my fault you and Lorenzo like a girl who brings a little drama. Georgia’s not like that. And Reeve, you wouldn’t have had a problem if you weren’t too pussy to tell Jade you love her.”
Reeve smirks. “Reverting back to your himbo self again. Zero evidence in the world that relationships are easy, but somehow, you make it your guiding principle in life.”
“Because it was easy. From the second I saw her that first night, it was easy. It was different with her.”
“Uh-huh. So what are you gonna do now? Wait until you look across the room at a girl and feel that way again? And this time hope it stays easy, I guess.”
“Fuck no,” I scoff. “Be single. Go back to the way it was before. I was fine with that life.”
Reeve claps his hands together and stands up. “Great. Then I guess we can go downstairs and party, and you’ll be all good.” His eyes flicker. “Right?”
“See you down there, buddy,” Cam says, scooping a mini football off my floor and throwing it at the wall behind me before he and Reeve head out the door.
Once they’re gone, Lorenzo looks at me. “You heard the man. Let’s go party and find you a new girl to lose your mind over.”
I blow out an irritated breath. “Enough. I get it, Lor.”
“Get what?”
I don’t want to find a new girl to lose my mind over. I never want to feel that again. The only feeling worse than finding the girl and knowing I might never get her is this one: getting her and losing her—and realizing it’s my own damn fault. “That I’m not fine.”
Lorenzo dips his chin and sighs, letting the lighthearted facade drop away.
I’m not going downstairs to the party. There’s nothing inside me that could even pretend to be anything but completely fucking empty right now.
I can’t fake it in front of a roomful of people any more than I can fake it in front of my best friends.
Or myself. Whoever I was before—the man who could walk into a room and convince everyone I was on top of the world with a single look, no matter how lost I actually was—is gone, and I don’t want him back.
The only thing I want to be anymore is her man.
I shift closer to Mr. Jangles and stroke the silky spot under her chin.
Her eyes, soft but alert when Cam and Reeve were in the room, close contentedly at my touch.
At least there’s one girl I loved the right way.
The cat who landed on my doorstep all because I made a promise without thinking.
And look at us now. I backed up my words, took responsibility. And she’s mine for life.