Chapter Six
Macallan
“Man, Coach had it out for you earlier today.” My buddy Jace knocks his shoulder into mine, though I’m not sure if it’s intentional or if he’s just so wasted he can’t walk straight.
“I seem to remember him screaming at you, too,” I remind him.
“What the fuck crawled up his ass today?”
“Perhaps it had something to do with that bullshit you and Trev pulled in the locker room.”
“Oh, come on, you have to admit that was pretty hilarious. I still can’t believe he didn’t see the plastic wrap. He just walked right into it.” He barks out a laugh as if reliving the moment again in his head.
“Wasn’t all that hilarious when he was chewing us all out, and I didn’t even have anything to do with it.”
“The way he treated you at practice says he thought otherwise.”
“No shit. Because, for some reason, I always get blamed for the bullshit you pull.”
“To be fair, you usually are to blame.”
“Fuck off.” I shove his shoulder, walking several steps before I realize he’s no longer beside me. Stopping, I turn, finding him flat on his back on the ground.
“Why’d you push me down, man?” He says it like he’s as stoned as he is drunk. Then again, he probably is.
“Get up.” I walk back to him, taking his hand before pulling him to his feet.
“You’re so pissy today.”
“Pissy? What the fuck are you, a teenage girl?”
“Why, yes.” He bats his eyelashes dramatically.
“Remind me the next time you need a babysitter to get home, to delegate the task to someone else.”
“If you hadn’t skipped the party, you would have already been there, and therefore you wouldn’t have had to pick me up.”
“You’re right. I’d be as drunk as you and someone would have to take care of both of us.” I roll my eyes when he sways dramatically to one side.
I track the movement, half expecting him to hit the ground again, but he’s able to right himself seconds before he trips over his own two feet and face-plants into the grass.
“Owwwww.” He groans, rolling to his back seconds before he howls in laughter.
“Fucking hell,” I grumble, extending him a hand... again. “Come on,” I say when he makes no attempt to take my hand.
“Nope. I think I’m just going to stay right here.” He lets out a sigh of contentment, closing his eyes.
“Jace, you cannot sleep out here. You’ll freeze your fucking balls off.”
It may be warm during the day, but we’re at that time of year when it gets pretty cold once the sun sets.
“It’s not cold.”
“No, but it will be at three a.m. when you wake up half frozen.”
“Leave me. I’m good here.”
“Damnit, Jace. I am not leaving you here.” Movement to my right catches my attention and I look up just in time to see Maisie Rose cut the path in front of us.
There’s no doubt in my mind that she saw us here, but she continues on like she’s completely alone on the lawn.
“Mais,” I call after her, not missing the way her back goes ramrod straight at the sound of her name. “Little help here?”
She turns slowly, irritation plain on her expression as she looks from me to Jace and then back to me.
“Pass.” She lifts a single shoulder in a shrug.
“Oh, come on, Mais. I can’t just leave him here, and I can’t carry him by myself.”
“That sounds like a you problem,” she states flatly.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. She just told you.” Jace openly laughs, though his eyes remain closed.
“Shut the fuck up or I really will leave you out here.” I hiss down at him. “Please, Mais.” My gaze once again finds Maisie, and I take a brief moment to really look at her.
Short, ripped jean shorts. Fitted white tank that shows about an inch of her midriff.
Her hair is up in a pony, hanging in big, beautiful curls that fall down the center of her back.
I’m momentarily transported back to two years ago, when I had a handful of that thick hair twisted around my hand as I fucked her from behind.
I was pretty shitty to her afterward, though I’d never admit that to her.
I had my reasons, even if they seem rather childish and trivial at the moment.
But anyone in my situation would have been rather skittish around someone who openly pursued me.
And she did, pursue me, I mean. Or at least, that’s sure as hell how it felt at the time.
“Why should I help you?” She finally answers after a long moment.
“Well, technically, you’d be helping Jace.”
“And why would I want to help Jace?” She cocks her head slightly to the side, her expression unreadable.
“Because he’s amazing,” Jace slurs, waving his hands in the air like he’s reaching for the sky.
“Because he needs help,” I say as if it should just be that simple. “Our apartment is just there.” I lift my chin to the off-campus apartments that stand about two hundred yards from where he’s currently on the ground, with little intention of getting up, it would seem.
She seems to think it over for a long minute before she lets out a frustrated sigh.
“Fine,” she concedes, crossing the space between us.
“Thank you.” I offer her a smile, which only further pronounces the grimace on her pretty face.
“I’m not doing it for you.” She dips down and takes Jace’s right arm while I take his left. Together, we hoist him to his feet.
He’s no more than standing before he shifts, all but falling into Maisie, who’s barely able to keep him upright before I step in, throwing his arm over my shoulder as I wrap mine around his middle.
Maisie does the same on the other side, careful not to touch me, which is painfully obvious.
And no surprise, but Jace is absolutely no help as we begin to move.
His head droops, lolling from one side to the other as we all but drag him toward the building.
“You’re a heavy fucker. You know that?” I grumble, a semblance of a snort the only response I get.
It takes us ten minutes to get him to the building and up to the second floor, where we share an apartment with two of our other teammates, Joey and Trev.
Joey is actually the one who called me to come get Jace after he pulled out his dick and pissed off the front porch in front of several onlookers.
Apparently, they were annoyed enough to call me to come scrape his ass off the front lawn, but not enough to leave the party themselves.
Normally, I would have been right there with them, but as of late, I find myself enjoying such things less and less.
After over three years, it all just feels a little.
.. pointless. The parties. The drinking.
The waking up next to a girl whose name I don’t even remember.
Being so drunk I don’t even know if I enjoyed myself.
“Here we are.” It takes me longer than it should to get my keys out of my pocket and even longer to unlock the door as I fumble with said keys while trying to maintain my hold on Jace.
Finally, I get the door open and we all but stumble into the living room, Jace’s dead weight nearly dragging both me and Maisie to the ground.
By some miracle, we manage to get him to the couch before Maisie dips out from under his arm, giving me the brunt of his weight as I shift and drop him onto the cushions.
When I turn around, Maisie is already heading toward the door.
“You could stay,” I call after her. “Hang out.”
She turns toward me as soon as she reaches the open doorway.
“Don’t confuse my kindness with something else. We aren’t friends, Macallan.”
“That much you’ve made abundantly clear.” I cross my arms over my chest, not missing the way her eyes dart toward the movement for the briefest of moments. A hint of a smile tugs at my lips. She’s not nearly as unaffected by me as she would like me to believe. Of that much, I’m sure.
“Good.” She spins back around, stepping out into the hallway.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Oh, and, Mais... Thank you.”
She looks over her shoulder, meets my gaze, nods once, and then she’s gone. Just like that.
“You’re late.” Maisie scolds as I climb the steps to where she’s sitting near the top of the stadium seating.
Today she’s wearing black pants that fit her like a second skin and a soft pink crop top that I have no doubt, if she were standing, would show off nearly half of her lean stomach. Her hair is tied back in a loose pony, some strands having escaped, blowing gently across her face in the breeze.
Denying how incredibly beautiful she is, is about as pointless as saying the sun isn’t bright. Not that I would give her the satisfaction of admitting that out loud.
“Coach operates on his own schedule. As an athlete yourself, you should know that better than most.” I collapse down into the seat beside her, absolutely fucking exhausted.
“Pretty sure I watched you leave the field almost an hour ago.”
“So that was you watching me.” I smirk.
“I wasn’t watching you. I was waiting.”
“For what, nearly two hours now?”
“Practice finished early, and it made no sense for me to walk all the way back to my dorm, only to turn around and leave again. Figured I’d get caught up on some schoolwork while I waited. Not that I owe you an explanation.”
“Didn’t look like you were getting much work done to me.”
“Let’s just get this going. I don’t have all evening.” She groans, cracking open the notebook sitting in her lap.
“For the record, I didn’t keep you waiting intentionally. We had a brief meeting after practice and then I had to take a shower.”
“Which is appreciated.” She gives me a look of disgust, like she can still smell the sweat that clung to my skin just a few short minutes ago. A practiced response, one I have learned to expect from Maisie Rose.
“So where should we start?” I stretch my legs out in front of me, well, as far in front of me as I can, given how narrow the walkway between rows is.
“Cognitive tests are listed first, so I figured we could just start there. According to the syllabus, there are eight sections to be covered. I thought we could begin with short-term memory since again, it’s the first section listed.”
“So basically, you just want to go down the list in order.”