Chapter 1 #2
He’ll get eaten alive eventually if he keeps playing that role. Might as well start now.
I turn the corner of the arena, still in the grass, close to the massive gray building, and I nearly collide with someone.
Hands come to my chest, jolting me back, and my fingers instinctively find thin wrists to stop whoever it is.
But they were running, and when I looked down, she’s looking up.
Green-brown eyes, long lashes, her pink lips parted in a surprised O.
Our bodies are too close, and I feel her pulse race under her skin.
Blond hair. Long.
Pale face.
A hoop through her nose.
Eyeliner, a white hoodie.
She blinks up at me and I don’t know why we haven’t let go of each other. Her fingers are still splayed over my chest, and I’m still gripping her wrist. In the crisp October night, I inhale her scent.
She smells like incense. Catholic mass. I’ve only gone once, to my uncle’s funeral last year.
It brings me back, but she’s entirely different from a corpse in a jeweled casket.
Her eyes are wide, the whites vivid under the arena’s lights.
Then I hear, “Neve, I’m going to fucking find you.”
And it doesn’t sound like a playful taunt.
My fingers grip her wrists tighter and a small breath escapes her lips.
But then she jerks away and reluctantly, I let her go.
“I…” She speaks, her voice low and soft. There’s an accent I can’t place with the single word. She looks over her shoulder, and I watch her long, straight blond hair hit nearly to her waist. Jeans, black Uggs. The most comfortable, basic wardrobe in the world but it fits her slender frame well.
She’s tall, though.
Not as tall as me, but I’d say five nine?
“Neve!” A man’s voice. Definitely angry.
She spins to face me, and for a moment, it looks like she’s silently pleading. But then she narrows her gaze, and without another word, she sprints behind me, disappearing when I turn to track her, somewhere in the parking lot around the building, back by the player’s entrance.
I want to chase after her for one wild, reckless second. But before I can pull myself the fuck together, I hear heavy breathing, and when I turn again, a man is screeching to stop in front of me, puffs of cold leaving his parted lips as his eyes widen at the sight of me.
He’s wearing flannel, jeans, a Drayton Dragon’s hat, red and black with Drewie the Dragon on it.
Fuck. A fan.
He lifts up his palms, but I can see it still, the cloudiness of his expression. He isn’t fully sober.
He glances past me, like he’s looking for her.
Neve?
The only time I’ve heard that name is from Scream.
Neve Campbell. She was—is—gorgeous. Canadian, too. The girl looked nothing like her, and with that accent, she’s definitely not from Canada.
“You’re Darling… Shit. Faust Darling.” The man gasps out, panting now, like he’s chased her a long ways.
I tilt my head and stare down at him, the way his jaw is slack, his eyes bugged out.
I hate this part, the gawking, and I don’t say anything.
Was he in the locker room?
But that wouldn’t make sense. He doesn’t look like staff. He must have come from the front of the arena, like she did.
“Shit, wow.” He puffs out his cheeks and his hands end up on his hips. He’s older than me. Than that girl. Maybe late twenties? Early thirties?
I should just walk around him.
Go home.
I’m tired in my fucking bones.
Friday is two days away. Game day, and I want the Lynx’s to fucking suffer. Lanell University is full of a disproportionate number of handsy, American assholes.
So I need sleep, and besides, I don’t have to be nice to anyone, fan or not. Not right now. I’m not on the clock.
The man snatches his hat off his head and squeezes it between his fists. He’s got a shaved head, pale olive skin, and his gaze keeps darting between me and the spot over my shoulder.
He’s looking for her, and it’s annoying me.
“I would ask you to sign my hat but…” He trails off.
I don’t offer anything.
He swallows.
“I’m looking for my girlfriend. Neve?” He says her name like he thinks everyone knows her. “Blond, tall.” His cheeks flush pink. She’s taller than him and I can tell he hates it. “She was wearing a white sweatshirt?” He’s studying me now, waiting for me to say something.
His girlfriend? I fucking doubt it.
“Did you happen to see her, man?”
I don’t respond for a second. Two. Three.
She doesn’t want him to find her.
She wasn’t playing a game.
And he doesn’t look like he’s going to sweep her off her fucking feet when he gets his hands on her.
“Sorry,” he mutters in my silence. “I’ll just…” He puts his hat back on and gestures toward the back of the arena.
Then he tries to step around me.
And I know I should fucking let him go.
Let them deal with their shit.
She didn’t look injured. She was running, yeah, but I’m not sure she was running for her life.
He steps past me.
I squeeze my eyes tight shut.
But just as I pop them open and move to shoulder check the guy, another—familiar—voice startles me.
“Nah,” Sylvan Connor says from behind me. “I don’t think she wants to be found.”
When I turn my head, Sylvan is shoving the guy back, full on, in the chest.
Into me.
Sylvan meets my eyes over the guy’s head, and a dimple pops in his perfect face as he asks, “Does she, Faust?”