Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
reeve
“Dalton!” someone screams. “Dalton! Wake the FUCK UP!”
I turn around to find my offensive coordinator staring at me with his hands in the air and a wide-eyed What the fuck is wrong with you?
look on his face. “Sorry, Coach.” I nod at him and turn back to the field, but not before I catch my teammates giving me uncertain looks.
I’ve gotten used to it these last two weeks.
It’s not just that I’ve never played worse in my life—just ask the two interceptions I threw on Saturday. It’s that I’m a zombie.
I’m not used to second-guessing myself, but it’s all I do anymore, question whether I handled everything with Jade wrong.
I didn’t blame her for being hurt that night at the pizza place or for thinking I didn’t care about our relationship like she did.
But I laid it all out for her—all I want is you—and that still wasn’t enough for her.
She still went ahead and ripped my heart out, still took away everything that’s made my life good the last few months.
Maybe I should have said those three little terrifying words to her.
But fuck it. What’s done is done. If Jade understood me, she’d have understood what I meant when I said all I want is her.
I was never trying to own her or control her life.
And if she can’t see the difference between her jetting off to Spain and me playing pro football, she doesn’t know me at all.
I glare at no one in particular; if I look angry enough, my teammates won’t look in my direction again.
I know someday I’m going to feel bad that I’m not what this team needs and has come to expect from their captain. But right now I can’t feel much of anything.
“Titty bar tonight,” Cash announces after practice.
I groan. “Please no. I thought we were doing something chill for once.”
“If I have to be around your miserable, mopey ass all night, at least let me watch a parade of girls shake their tits in my face.”
“Like you couldn’t get that in the privacy of your own bedroom? I’m not spending money I don’t have on strippers.”
“I’ll spot you,” Cash offers. “You can pay me back next year when you’re wiping your ass with hundreds.”
At nine, we pile into a car: me, Cam, Lorenzo, and Cash. Cam and Lorenzo hate strip clubs but are keeping their lips zipped and pretending to be okay with the plan, which shows how desperate my buddies are to pull me out of this personal hell I’m in.
The club smells like flowery perfume, stale cigarettes, and old carpet.
I never thought a stripper would make me think of Jade, but that’s what happens as soon as we sit down in front of the topless chick gyrating on stage.
My brain is flooded with memories of Jade’s body.
For weeks, I knew every inch of it, where to touch her to draw a soft, shuddery breath out of her, how to stroke her to make her lose her mind.
It can’t be real that I’ll never touch her again.
To know I’ll never run my hands through her soft hair or pull her to my chest seems impossible, but it’s not.
Already I forget what her mouth tastes like.
I feel it with a bone-deep sense of loss.
I don’t know what to do with these feelings. You spend your whole life hearing about heartbreak in songs and movies and from people who have lived real lives, but nothing prepared me for this gutted feeling. It’s shocking pain and numbness at once, something words are useless for.
I take the beer our half-naked server hands me, realizing belatedly she’s smiling at me, but I turn away. I never knew how smart my old approach to girls was. Maybe jumping from one jersey chaser to the next did get boring, but I’d take boredom over this misery any day.
Did I do it to myself? I talked Jade into taking a chance on me, and then I talked myself out of being honest with her when it mattered.
Maybe if I’d told her how much I wanted a future with her, we wouldn’t be here.
I hate myself for that. I hate that my honesty came too late, but at least I was honest. Was Jade ever once completely honest about what she felt for me?
No, she hid her feelings. Either that or she never really gave a shit about me in the first place.
I swallow down what’s left of my beer, but it tastes bitter.
“Someone smells a baller,” Lorenzo says into my ear, nodding at the blonde dancing on stage a foot from us.
She’s staring at me openly, her “fuck me” eyes watching me from under her fake, fluttery lashes.
But I feel nothing. No interest, no attraction, not even a little high at thinking she might have mistaken me for someone with money to burn. She only makes me hate this place more.
“I’m outta here,” I tell my friends, standing up. “Catch up with you later.” I’m moving toward the door before they can respond, but Cam is already on my heels, like he’s been expecting this escape attempt.
“Hang out a little longer,” he yells over the music. “I’m done after this drink too.”
Lorenzo and Cash have caught up to us, and both look like they’ve had enough of my shit. I feel a pang of guilt—I hate being this guy. “Stay,” I tell them without stopping. “Enjoy the show. The smell in here is giving me a headache.”
“Are you really pulling this bullshit on us?” Lorenzo demands, but I don’t stop. We spill out into the cold night air, and he keeps bitching. “We haven’t even been here an hour.”
“Like you want to be here any more than I do, Lorenzo?”
He grabs me to stop me, irritation flashing in his dark eyes. “We’re here to show you a good time. Can you fucking relax and enjoy it?”
“I told you I didn’t want to be here. You want to have a good time, then don’t invite me somewhere I don’t want to be. I didn’t ask anyone to try to cheer me up.”
Cash nudges Lorenzo out of the way, stepping up like he wants to get in my face. “Come on, man, enough of this sad-sack shit. Sorry you’re hurting, but we’ve all been there. It sucks. Now get over it.”
I huff out a laugh. “You’ve been there, Cash? With who, the chick you dated for a record-breaking three weeks?” He doesn’t know this feeling. None of them do. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
“Okay, you got burned and you’re bitter about it, but nobody wants to be around that. Ain’t no excuse to turn into a crybaby bitch.”
Lorenzo and Cam knock into each other in their hurry to step between us, but it’s the old Reeve they’re afraid is about to drop the gloves. I don’t even have it in me to get angry. “Yeah, I know, you only want to be around me when I’m laughing and joking and being your cheerleader, right?”
“Oh, fuck that,” Cash spits. “How about just showing up for your team, Reeve? Or did you forget about the other ninety of us? Two games left. Fucking show up already.”
I stare back at him, waiting for Cam to say something in my defense; he’s never not had my back. But no one says anything, and a deep sense of shame slowly unfurls inside me. I take a step back and look at Cam, needing him to say something.
He shakes his head slowly. “Wake up, brother.”