Chapter Twenty-Four Saylor
Chapter Twenty-Four
Saylor
Cash wasn’t wrong about how nice his parents were.
Ian and Mary Donovan were two of the most awesome people I’d ever met.
Cash’s sense of humor obviously came from his dad, who sprinkled dry one-liners throughout our conversation.
Mary was the one who provided Cash his stunning handsomeness: her eyes repeated in his face, and she had the same raven-black hair and high, sculpted cheekbones.
Though I worried he was going to give them the wrong impression about us, Cash introduced me as the girl he was hanging out with right now, and he managed to keep his hands off me during dinner.
Plus, we were celebrating the Wildcats’ win with Cash running the offense and being named offensive Player of the Game, so the conversation was focused mainly on football.
When Mary asked about my major, I shared my summer internship experience and my excitement for making a career out of following and filming major music acts.
While I caught his parents exchanging a quick glance as I gushed about my future plans, no one said anything.
I let it go, hoping they assumed from the casual way Cash and I were together that we were exactly that—casual.
Dinner lingered into drinks at the bar in The Divide. The bar and restaurant covered the first floor of one of the upscale hotels on main street, which was where I gathered Cash’s parents were staying. At some point, Cash checked his texts and grinned.
“It appears we’re being summoned, babe.”
I shot him a narrow-eyed glare at the endearment—his first slipup of the evening.
“You mean you’re being summoned. I’m just another Wildcats fan,” I said. “Are we late for the party?” I pulled my phone from my pocket, startled to discover we’d spent the past four hours conversing with his parents.
“Apparently.” Cash grinned again. Standing, he slid around the table to hug his mom. “Though we earned a bye over Thanksgiving, we don’t get time off from practice and meetings. I’ll let you know when we can FaceTime,” he said. Then turning to his dad, he hugged him too. “Thanks for dinner.”
“Yes, thanks very much for dinner. It was nice meeting you,” I said as I extended my hand to his mom.
Mary pulled me to her and enveloped me in a hug. “I’m glad we finally got to meet the girl Cash has been talking about since last spring,” she said. “We’re looking forward to seeing you again.”
I had no idea what to do with that, but Ian didn’t give me a chance to process. Wrapping me in a dad hug, he said, “You’re exactly who I thought you’d be. Keep our boy on his toes, Saylor.” His eyes twinkled with mischief.
Before I had a chance to contradict them, Cash grabbed my hand and tugged me behind him and out of the bar.
“You’ve been talking to your parents about me since last spring?” I asked as we headed over to Jock Street. “What the hell, Cash?”
“Right after our rafting date, they asked if I was seeing anyone.” The side-eye he shot me held more annoyance than guilt. “We are dating, Saylor.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “For now.”
A growl rumbled deep in his throat, but all he said was, “Today was a great day. Let’s carry that into the night, shall we? Party with our friends—and each other.”
He dropped his voice on that last part, because, yeah. He’d figured out I had trouble resisting him when he let loose with that low, gravelly rumble.
Jerk.
All I wanted was a fun boyfriend-for-now without all the angst and entanglements of future plans.
More than once I’d reminded Cash of that, and he’d gone along with me.
After the stunt he’d pulled with meeting his parents, and after Ian and Mary’s comments as we were leaving the bar, I was starting to have a bad feeling he wasn’t on board with the plan.
After parking his rig in front of his house, Cash laced his fingers through mine and led me through the back yard, across the alley, and over to the party house where Bax, Callahan, Finn, and Danny lived.
Good thing the neighborhood was mostly inhabited by athletes—most of whom were in attendance at the post-game party if the decibel levels were any indication.
“Cash Money! ’Bout time you got here!” Callahan shouted across the kitchen as we walked through the back door.
The guys did some kind of complicated fist bump/handshake thing before pulling each other into a one-armed hug.
“Feels good to win that one, yeah?” Callahan asked as they stepped away from each other.
“You have an idea, I bet.” Cash let loose with his megawatt grin.
“Drink up, man. You’re way behind the rest of us,” Dally interrupted as he handed Cash a Solo cup filled to the brim.
Cash tipped back some beer and ran his tongue over his upper lip to catch the foam.
I couldn’t help but track that tongue, wanting to kick myself for it—and for the spark of excitement that move generated in my core.
I wasn’t convinced that Cash thought of us as only a good time, and I had absolutely no intention of becoming part of a couple before I stepped out into the world to chase my own dreams.
A Solo cup of beer materialized in front of me, and I gave Dally an automatic smile as I took it from him. At least he hadn’t filled mine to overflowing.
“Hey! You made it!” Piper said as she and Bax wandered into the kitchen from the living room.
Pulling her to my side, I said in her ear, “Cash tricked me into meeting his parents. I’ll tell you about it later.”
The speculation in her unusual violet-colored eyes did nothing for my peace of mind.
Word must have spread that the star of the game had finally arrived because only a few minutes after we showed up, the kitchen was full to capacity.
People poured in from both the living room and the dining room to congratulate Cash on his stellar play in the big win.
The fact the Wildcats had beat our cross-state rivals was more important than winning the conference championship, which was typical of Mountain State football.
Beating the Golden Bears was the Holy Grail of every season for the Wildcats, exactly the same as beating us was for the Bears.
The fact that Cash hadn’t folded under the pressure of the biggest game of the year but had actually thrived in it, delivering his best game of the season, was another issue niggling the back of my brain.
No way could the pro scouts miss the way he’d handled himself in that pressure-cooker environment.
After a while the crowd thinned out, with people returning to dancing in the living room or playing beer pong in the dining room.
Apparently, the basketball team thought they had a better shot at beating the football team at beer pong than flip-cup, so they’d taken visitors’ prerogative and changed the game.
From where we were watching in the corner of the room, the basketball team’s gambit wasn’t paying off.
The high from winning such a massive game with playoff implications had followed the team into other competitions too, it seemed.
Once the basketball players had finished their obligatory shots of bad whiskey for losing the game, they challenged the football team to a second round.
This time, someone decided Cash needed to help his teammates, and just like that, I was commandeered into cheerleader duty “for my man,” as Josh Mitchell so gleefully sang out.
I pasted on a smile at his comment and laughed at the antics of players on both teams. As it turned out, Cash was a ringer for his boys, though Enrique Simms of the basketball team forced Cash into downing his fair share of beers.
When the game was over, the football players were the victors once again, but a glassy sheen glazed Cash’s eyes.
As he joined me along the wall, he dropped a heavy arm across my shoulders, though he remained upright.
His lopsided grin as he watched his teammates demolish the basketball team in yet a third round of beer pong left no doubt he’d drunk himself into tipsy—or maybe further.
By the time the party was starting to break up somewhere after 2 a.m., Cash was “a chocolate mess,” as my SCR brothers liked to call each other when they’d over-imbibed.
So many people had wanted to congratulate him, which usually included a toast or a shot.
He’d played so well, I wasn’t surprised by all the attention he garnered, but I’d never seen him twist off and party like he did.
Dally and Taco basically carried him between them back across the alley to their house, and I called an Uber to take me home.
The night hadn’t ended the way Cash had promised it would after we’d left his parents.
As I tossed in my bed until the first blue rays of dawn slipped under my curtains, I wondered if maybe that was a good thing.
Maybe it was a sign we needed to take a step back and reassess what we were to each other.
Of course, that was not at all where my friends were when we met for our usual Sunday morning brunch date.
“That was such an incredible game yesterday.” Jamaica brushed a wayward curl from her forehead as she slid into the booth beside me. “For two guys who only started playing together this year, Callahan and Cash sure make a great combo.”
Chessly laughed as she slid into the booth across from us, Piper scooting in beside her.
“You are hilarious, Jamaica. Until you met Callahan, you couldn’t tell an end zone from a T-zone.” Chess ran her finger across her forehead and down her nose for emphasis. “Nowadays you’re a football analyst or something.”
“It’s a game, and games are easy to figure out.” Jamaica sniffed as she picked up her menu.
“What I want to figure out is what’s going on with Saylor and Cash.” Piper’s sly expression made me want to squirm, but I held myself still.
“We’re hanging out, having great sex and a good time. It’s not complicated,” I said as I lifted my water glass to my lips.