3. Grayson
Chapter Three
GRAYSON
“What the fuck just happened?” I asked the empty chair.
My ears rang with his blatant disregard for what I had to say. I mean, I expected him to be a difficult catch, but I didn’t think he would be impossible.
I balled my fists and turned on my heels. Spencer and Cole were snickering when I looked at the table where I’d spent the entire night waiting for the opening.
Fuming from my ears and nostrils, I returned to my table, plopped down into the chair like an armful of wet laundry, and pressed my tall glass of wheat ale against my pursed lips.
A long sip later, I exhaled. “That did not go as planned.” Tension slowly left my shoulders and neck as I focused on the next move.
The stab at my pride was still raw, but it wasn’t a mortal wound. “He’s elusive, that one.”
“You don’t say.” Spencer wore a lopsided grin and shook his head.
“What’s the plan, Cap?” Cole asked over the rim of his glass.
I rolled my shoulders and stretched my neck left and right, joints cracking. “Gotta think about it. I might throw out some bigger bait.” I considered it carefully.
“You should be careful,” Cole said.
“You spooked him,” Spencer said bluntly.
“He’s not a deer,” I pointed out. Then, the voice of David Attenborough came to me and I inhaled through my nose.
“Avery, sensing the impending shift in his night, took a step away from the bar, leaving behind both the stool and the remnants of his untasted drink. A silent cue, perhaps, to the unfolding drama of the human social ritual.”
“Makes you sound like a predator,” Spencer said.
I shrugged. “In the same way cats are, I suppose. Cuddly, but with sharp claws.” Avery was nothing like a mouse. “I’ll get him, though.”
“Sure you will,” Spencer said skeptically.
“Maybe we picked the wrong target. Maybe it should have been Jones after all.” Cole’s dampening mood was going to kill me.
“No,” I said, setting my glass firmly on the table after another sip. The competitor in me awakened to his fullest extent. He wasn’t a quitter, even against the highest odds. “This was a temporary hiccup. How long do I have before you declare me a loser?”
Spencer and Cole exchanged a look. Spencer scratched the back of his head. “We didn’t think about that, huh? A week?”
“Tsk,” Cole cut in. “They’re going out of town, right? I heard them mention some game in Milwaukee. Should be longer than that.”
Spencer narrowed his eyes in thought. “Alright. You have to take him out on a dream date by the end of the month, then.”
I pressed my hands together and bowed to my friend. “How very generous of you.” By the end of October, I would build a happy little family with the fucker.
Nobody dismissed me without hearing my case first. It wasn’t fair. Besides, he had caused me to lose the game and the winning streak tonight. If it hadn’t been for him and his swinging shoulders, I would have kept my eyes on the puck and wouldn’t have let myself get distracted.
I suppose it was the pressure of the bet hanging over my head. I lost my mind when I saw him come out to play the third period instead of Phoenix. My heart had begun racing and I knew immediately that he would come for me without a shred of mercy. He was their secret weapon and my kryptonite.
We finished our drinks and got a cab to take us to our campus and dormitory. Spencer was knocked out the moment his head touched the pillow, but I stayed awake. I thought. I planned. I fantasized.
My eyes had been practically glued to him the whole night. I had kept a vigilant watch in order not to miss him. And when I saw an opportunity, I took it. For nothing.
Not for nothing, my calm voice of reason said. It’s a start.
And in truth, it made things more exciting. The very reason I hadn’t leaped at the opportunity to ask Caden Jones out was the fact it would have happened after a few glances and a quick chat. The guy was on a bender.
Imagine the bragging rights when you actually score this date, I told myself. Spencer will eat his helmet and weep.
My brain worked through all the loops and always returned to the same conclusion.
I knew nothing about my target. I couldn’t plan my moves when I couldn’t predict his responses.
All I knew was that he wouldn’t give me the time to present myself based solely on my swaggering walk, my suave entreé, or my good looks.
My next step was obvious: get to know the guy. But to do that, I needed to get close to him.
I slept on it. In the morning, over a bowl of cereal, I searched the web for clues about Avery Collins.
His Facebook profile hadn’t been updated in seven years.
His Instagram was locked up and displayed zero posts.
If I texted him there, he would never see it.
He did not have a LinkedIn profile, which was a relief.
His TikTok was also postless and private.
And the biggest relief was that I found nothing of Avery in the wasteland that had once been Twitter but had now boiled down to porn and racism.
Stalking him online simply wasn’t going to cut it.
So, I decided to apply myself the only other way I knew how.
Firstly, I discovered a frat party on his campus tonight.
Immediately after that, I ordered a few open invites to be delivered by noon to his team house and a few more to my room.
I added a bunch of other student addresses to the courier all over the Northwood campus as a decoy.
Then, I left a note to my sleeping roommate to make no plans for the night because I would need a wingman at the party.
My morning raced by. I spent a couple of hours at the gym near campus, conditioning and bringing myself to the brink of muscle failure.
It cleared my mind of everything and I spent the energy that would have otherwise gone into tapping my foot and pacing around the dormitory.
After I showered at the gym, I returned to campus, grabbed a bite on my own, stalked Avery some more online to no avail, and returned to my room.
The notes from this week’s lectures had piled up, but I ignored them to first confirm with Spencer that we were going to the party.
“I’m inviting the impartial third party,” he joked, leaving the room to find Cole.
It was a good plan. I had rarely been to a frat party on Northwood’s campus without crossing paths with a few of the Titans.
I could feel his presence already. And in the worst case, I would strike up a conversation with someone who could give me Avery’s phone number, email address, or fax number, depending on how rustic he was.
In fact, I was prepared to send a bird if necessary.
For the rest of the day, I tried to focus on the workload that had been growing exponentially since the semester had started.
Not a lot of it agreed to sink in, so I found myself drifting away into daydreams. He was hot, that Avery Collins, in a fucked up, psycho way.
He could stare you down to shreds. I had never seen him smile.
Not once. And those eyes. Cold like steel.
When it was finally time to go, I pushed the quality stock paper invites into my pocket and joined my friends.
We got a ride to the Northwood campus and walked into the Alpha Kappa Phi frat house with innocent smiles.
I wondered what my parents would have said if they knew how much it cost to print and deliver these fake invites at a moment’s notice. I wondered if they would have cared.
Firmly putting my parents out of my mind, I inhaled a deep breath and waved the invite at one of the frat bros who hosted the party. “Thanks for the invite, man?”
“You too?” he asked, scratching his head. “That’s weird, dude.”
I made a confused expression at him and the guy turned away, shaking his head. He decided to forget about the strange invites by getting kegged on the far end of the sprawling common area of the old colonial house.
My friends and I found drinks and formed a private triangle.
The first round took the edge off my nerves as I looked around the house for any sign of the Titans.
But when I brought us the second one, I was beginning to worry that my plan had failed.
Maybe they were just too busy. Maybe they were staying sober before the out-of-state game.
Maybe Beckett Partridge tightened the leash on his teammates.
Just as I considered that I spotted Caden Jones. He walked in with the newbie, Asher, and looked around the crowd. He waved my fake invite at one of the hosts, who threw his hands up in despair. It made me laugh and I quickly pressed my cup against my lips to conceal it.
The night dragged on. The techno beat of the music pounded through me as I waited.
Cole and Spencer were in a heated debate over Ali versus Tyson if both were in their prime.
I had my own debate. If Avery Collins didn’t enter this house in the next ten minutes, I would have to march up to Caden and demand help.
Or beg for it. Except, I had seen a couple of guys approaching Caden and getting a cold shower of his disregard. He was in a mood tonight.
My heart clenched and I bit my lip. I had absolutely no interest in the uppercuts Cole and Spencer mimicked to prove their individual points.
Instead, I stared at the door. Walk in, dammit.
Walk the hell in. Now. Three… Two… One. Damn.
I rolled my eyes and turned away, licked my lukewarm beer, and decided to exchange it for a fresh one.
People shifted around as I marched to the open kitchen and poured myself a cold one. As I looked around, I decided to risk it. Caden. I knew him better than that goalie, so he had to be my link. Whatever his mood was, I could at least try and get Avery’s number from him.
I plastered on my best smile and walked up to him. His sullen face almost made me turn back. “‘Sup, Jones?”
“What do you want?” he asked.