Chapter 24
Dustin
I didn’t make it far before I started freaking out.
I just walked. Fast. No direction. Every few seconds, I dragged a hand over my hair because I could still feel her against me — warm, shaking, answering every damn thing I did like she’d been wired for it.
My pulse hadn’t slowed, and my breath hadn’t steadied. My body hadn’t caught up with the fact that I’d stopped touching her. My hard-on was still at half-mast, like it was waiting for the second half.
And my brain? My brain was a fucking riot.
Over and over, I asked the same question.
What did you just do? Because someone needed to explain to me what the hell that was.
I lost it. I never fucking lost it over a woman.
I was always the one who decided when and how far things went.
But with her? I’d kissed her like . . . like I owned her.
In the goddamn street. I had her on her fucking knees in a filthy alley because when I touched her, I forgot where I was, and all I needed was to feel her pussy clamp around my fingers as she rode my hand.
I swore under my breath — for the tenth time in as many minutes — and kicked the nearest thing I could find.
Unfortunately, it was a trash can. Even more unfortunately, it fought back, clanging loud enough to echo across the quad. I froze, jaw tight, waiting to see if anyone heard.
Of course someone heard. Why the fuck not? It was the night for the universe to say, ‘What the fuck is wrong with you, Dustin?’
The voice drifted from somewhere behind me. “Dustin? You good?”
No. Not even remotely. But I forced out, “Fine.” I turned around, fake smile ready, which instantly faded as I looked at . . . “What the fuck is your name again?”
She looked startled and then relaxed when she saw my reaction to my own question. “Briar.”
“Hey, look, I’m sorry. I’m really bad with names,” I mumbled.
“It’s fine, I don’t mind.” She looked across the quad. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
“Because you looked like you were trying out to be on the punt team the way you tried to send that can into orbit.”
I laughed and tried to act natural, turning on the charm, because some things were just reflex. “Yeah. What do you think? Do I have potential?”
She shoved her hands in the pocket of her hoodie and shook her head. “As a punter, no. None at all. Stick to the wide-receiver position.”
“Yup,” I nodded. “That’s what I thought.” I looked around, and the quad was unusually quiet. “You alone?”
Her hair was loose, still wild looking, but I noticed in the low light that the severe, dark hair suited her.
“Yeah.” She held up her iPad. “I was getting some aesthetics for research.”
A sense of panic swirled through me. “You been anywhere else?” I asked, forcing myself to be casual.
Briar nodded. “Library.” She pointed to the top floor. “If you angle it just right, you get a really good view of the stadium; it’s kind of ethereal, half lit, sun going down. Want to see?”
“Sure.” I waited as she found what she needed, and she showed me her iPad. “Wow.” I gave her an appreciative look. “You’re right, that’s a hell of a shot.”
“Thanks.” She pushed her hair behind her ear, flipping her iPad toward her and then back to me. “What about this one?”
It was a picture of me, on the sidelines, taken earlier today before Dante told me Savvy and Hadley had fucked off on an adventure. I had my helmet pushed back on my forehead, laughing at whatever shit Noah had just said. I was sweaty, trouble-free, and loving every minute of spring training.
“I think this is a really true representation of who you are,” Briar said quietly. “Uninhibited on the field. You look—”
“Alive,” I murmured.
She closed her iPad. “I was going to say ‘free,’ but that works.” She checked her phone. “Well, I need to head off. But I saw you and wanted to catch you.”
“Why?”
“To show you these.” The faint smile she’d had was gone. “I want to start posting tomorrow, and I wanted you to see that one because I think it’s a great candid shot for us to start with.”
“Yeah, sure.” I took a step back. “Go ahead.”
“Cool.” She pushed her hair back again, then shook it free immediately. “See you tomorrow.” She hesitated. “Actually, don’t look for me. It’s better if you aren’t, you know . . . posing. I want the images to look natural, not orchestrated.”
I laughed before I could stop myself. If she’d seen me five minutes ago, she’d have seen something definitely not orchestrated. “I won’t look for you.” I gave her a wave and headed back to the dorm. I felt more like myself. Calmer.
When I went in, the living area was empty, Dante’s door firmly closed, and I heard Savvy giggling. I bypassed my room and went to Noah’s. I opened his door without knocking; his head was bent over his textbooks like earlier.
“Tell me they’ve left,” he said, taking out his AirPods.
“Nope.” I closed the door. “What are you doing?”
“Doing better since you spoke to me earlier,” he admitted, looking pleased with himself. “I’m probably dumbing it down too much, but basically, I’m treating every question like it’s a defensive move, or the line of scrimmage.”
“Cool.”
I sat on his bed again.
Noah dropped his pen and leaned back. “You’re freaking out,” he said simply.
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He hesitated, then looked at his watch. “Well, you haven’t been gone long enough . . . Have you?”
“I didn’t have sex with her,” I told him, then checked my own watch and scowled. “I definitely did not have sex with her.”
Silence.
“Not like full sex.” I inhaled sharply, chest burning, and Noah groaned, his head dropping into his hands. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Nope,” he cut in. “Do not finish that sentence.”
“But you need to talk to me about it.” I gestured to the door. “I’d tell him, but he’s busy.”
“You tell Dante about your hookups?” Noah asked.
“Yeah. Sometimes. Why do you look so surprised?” I scowled at him again. “You’re going to say I’m insensitive or something?”
Noah shook his head. “No. Honestly, I didn’t think Dante would care.”
Well . . . that hurt. I thought about it. It was likely Dante didn’t care. But he still listened.
“Okay.” Noah straightened his shoulders as he sat upright. “Hit me with the feelings. Let it out. I’m listening.”
“I don’t have feelings,” I snapped at him.
He rolled his eyes. “Then why are you being all . . . needy?” he asked. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because you finally let go of the shit you’ve been pretending you don’t feel about her.”
A muscle in my jaw jumped. “That’s not—”
“It is, though,” he said. “And now you’re in here, because your bro’s busy and you’re making me listen to your . . . stuff.” He shrugged. “You like her. It scares you, and that’s all I got.”
“I’m not scared of Hadley,” I said with a groan, getting to my feet. “You’re terrible at this, by the way.”
“I didn’t say you were scared of her. It’s the fact that you feel something for her that scared the hell out of you. It’s kind of obvious, dude.”
I clenched my fists, avoiding his gaze. He was completely wrong. But I could still hear her — the gasp, the way she said my name, the way she didn’t push me away. That was the part I couldn’t stop replaying. Not that I lost control, but that she didn’t want me to stop.
Noah waggled his eyebrows at me. “You like her.”
“I don’t,” I grumbled.
He gave me a look. “Try again without lying.”
I stared at the carpet. “I can’t . . . I don’t want her like that.”
“Why?”
Because one kiss, and I lost every ounce of sense I had left.
But I just said, “Because I don’t get involved.”
Noah sighed. “Yeah. That’s not going to stop anything.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “I crossed a line.”
“Did she look upset?”
“No.”
“Did she tell you to stop?”
No, she practically begged me to keep going. “No.”
“Then you didn’t cross a line,” he said. “Maybe you just need to admit you actually give a damn.”
I pressed my palms against my eyes, heat prickling at the back of my neck. “She’s a problem,” I muttered.
I heard his snicker. “Maybe,” he said, “or maybe she’s finally going to be the one who makes you honest.”
I laughed — one sharp, humorless sound — as I got to my feet. “Not a chance in hell.”
Noah didn’t have an answer.
I was already spiraling again, hands on my hips, pacing like an animal too big for its cage. “I shouldn’t want her.”
I said it softly. Admitted it like a confession.
“But you do?” Noah asked, and I nodded grimly. “And I think you’re in deep, and either you’re in denial or you’re blind.”
I closed my eyes, my hands behind my head, my head bowed. And for one dizzy, brutal moment, I let myself remember the way she said my name against my mouth.
Yeah. I was screwed.
Completely, irreversibly screwed.
* * *
I avoided her for almost three days.
I’m not proud of it. But pride wasn’t exactly something I had access to after . . . that night.
So yeah. I avoided her. I left early for practice. I stayed late. I ate lunch on the field with Mike and Noah like a coward. I even took the long way around the journalism building, which I hadn’t done since freshman year when I was avoiding Intro to Media like the plague.
But this? This was worse. Because every time I even thought about seeing her, I felt that same heat ignite, low and sharp, and my brain short-circuited like someone had yanked all the wiring out.
And the worst part? My body remembered. Her mouth. Her breath. How she sounded when . . . Nope. Nope. No. Not going there.
“Dude,” Dante said as we walked off the field after drills, “you cannot keep doing laps around campus like you’re outrunning a demon.”
“I’m not avoiding her,” I said automatically, knowing no one believed me.
“You ducked behind the vending machine in the economics building when you thought she walked past the main office.”
“I was hungry.”
“You didn’t buy anything.”
“Nothing looked good.”
He stared. “There were chips, Dustin. Chips always look good to you.”
I grunted and shoved my water bottle into my bag.
He kept going. Relentless. “She’s going to notice, you know.”
“She won’t,” I muttered.
“She will,” he countered. “Because obviously you two are—”
“Don’t say—”