10. Scott
CHAPTER 10
Scott
A troop of monkeys are playing with cymbals in my brain. My tongue feels vaguely furry and is stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I have no idea how I got to my room, never mind my bed.
Attempts to lift my head from my pillow are unsuccessful. The room spins like I’m on a ride at the fair, and there’s a throb escalating to a jack hammer in my temples and the base of my neck.
Did I wrestle with a bear last night?
After a few moments of swirling nausea in my stomach, I make it up to my elbows and force some deep breaths through my nose and out my mouth.
Memories start flickering back to me. Hockey house party. We most definitely had a house party here last night.
The blanket slides down my bare chest, and even that seems too loud. I wince, then look down at my chest. It really is bare. A peek under the sheets tells me I’m as naked as the day I was born, and a glance at the floor shows no pile of tangled clothes, no pools of vomit, and no sign of how I got into my bed.
My eyes widen as a possibility makes its way through the fog in my head. Did I strip off downstairs and make my way to my room this naked?
I groan, momentarily consider flopping my head back down onto the pillow but if I do that, I’ll stay there. As much as I’d like to spend the day unconscious and sleep off the zoo animals’ chaos inside my skull, I think there’s somewhere I need to be today, but I have no concept of anything other than the fact I need a drink.
Was past-Scott smart enough to bring a drink to bed? Unlikely. No matter how sensible the cure, I never seem with-it enough to actually action the damn thing.
Except when I scooch my butt up to sit straight, there’s one of the gym bottles from downstairs filled with water on the table next to a bottle of acetaminophen and a granola bar.
Thank you, past-Scott. He’s never been so well-intentioned before, and there’s no way my choppy stomach can handle a granola bar.
Popping the top off the bottle, I study it. It’s not mine, in fact, I think it’s Artemis’s bottle. Would drunken Scott have stolen Artemis’s water bottle and declared some passive aggressive war with his best friend?
I take a long drink of water, savoring the feeling as it cleanses my mouth of what feels like layers of cinnamon. Fireball? Fuck sake. Even Drunken-Scott should know that’s a bad choice.
I rake a hand through my matted hair. I’m going to need to have a chat with Drunken-Scott and make sure he makes better choices going forward. I can’t seem to remember bits of the last twelve hours, and if Coach finds out I was underage drinking last night, my ass would be on the bench. Or worse.
Frustrated at the gaps in my memories, I wash down two pills with some water, lean my head back on the headboard and close my eyes. Flashes of dancing on the coffee table, beer pong, and setting up a game of tic tac toe on the kitchen floor come to mind.
An hour later, I wake up, wolf the granola bar and take a shower to rinse off the filth and shame of last night.
By the time I’m ambling downstairs, the cramping in my stomach has abated, I’m at least a little more hydrated, and the drilling in my brain has eased off to a manageable tapping.
Not a bad job all things considered.
When I get to the bottom of the stairs, the twins are back, or maybe they never left. I take a moment to study their clothes and general appearance. They’ve both showered and changed, so either they went home and came back, or they stayed and are in someone else’s clothes.
It’s all far too much mental gymnastics for my brain, so I inch around the back of the couch and plonk myself between two of my favorite people with a heavy plop.
They look at me as I sink into the comfy cushion, and they give me a slow clap.
“He lives,” Apollo booms.
I dig him in the ribs with my elbow and shush him. “Can you just… not?” I press my finger and thumb into the space between the top of my nose and my eyebrows and rub. It doesn’t do much of anything, so I try massaging my temples.
“A little delicate today, are we?” Apollo’s voice is charged with amusement.
I nod.
“I suppose now is a bad time to give you a lecture?” Artemis’s serious voice is much lower in tone than his brother’s when he’s being a burly, surly buzzkill.
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “I’ll wash your bottle and return it as soon as possible. It’ll be like it never left your side.”
He arches a brow like he has no idea what I’m talking about. “I guess I borrowed one of your protein shake cup things for water last night?”
I look between them as they share one of those twin-stares that feels like they’re sharing information from one brain to the other. “Athena,” they say in unison.
What about Athena? She bought him the protein shaker? It’s a weird gift for Bright Eyes to have given to her brother, but maybe as a stocking stuffer or an emergency something on her way home if she forgot a birthday… I almost laugh, there’s no way on earth Athena de la Pena forgets her brothers’ birthday.
“What about her? It’s her cup?”
Artemis rolls his eyes and groans. Apollo laughs, shaking his head. “She must have gotten it for you last night after she put you to bed.”
My stomach lurches, threatening to bring up the granola bar and twenty-four ounces of water I just consumed. “She… what?”
My fingers and toes go numb.
“You don’t remember?” Artemis’s judgy McJudgerson face is in full effect as I shake my head.
“Athena.”
They nod.
“Your sister?”
Another nod.
“Was here.” I point at my crotch but that’s not what I mean.
A third nod. Artemis’s expression is concerned, like I drank so much alcohol last night that I’ve washed away my memories. Apollo, on the other hand, stares at my face like he’s waiting for the penny to drop.
A flash of her gorgeous face giving me an epic eye roll standing over two towers of plastic Solo cups breaks through my headache. Oh, she was here.
We sit in silence for another moment, and in that time, I recall taking shots right there in front of Athena, whose “stop fucking around” look is seared in my mind. I guess I should thank her for saving me from myself with her angry death glare. If she hadn’t intervened, I may have continued.
Drunk-Scott clearly doesn’t know when he needs to stop.
Another flash from last night comes to mind, Athena swooping in to save me from falling on my face. If it was me, I’d have let me fall and learn a lesson, but she didn’t. And the reminder she was so close to me sends a shiver through my body.
“You okay?” Apollo tips his head.
I nod, slowly so I don’t wake the monkeys back up again. “She hauled my ass up the stairs?”
It’s not really a question because bursts of memories of leaning on her as she dragged us both up the stairs by herself. Why didn’t one of the guys help?
Bet she told them she was fine, not realizing how much of a dead weight I could be.
“She did, indeed. She ordered us to clear out the house and get started on tidying up. Just as well, because August got home from a date and missed the explosion of bodies.”
What he doesn’t say was that he missed seeing me drunk off my face. If the captain saw me acting out like that, I’d be in big trouble, maybe even bigger trouble than if Coach had busted my ass.
Fuck.
“Fall in line, Scottie.” Apollo claps a hand over my shoulder.
My head bobs up and down, but my stomach falls out of my body as a memory sparks something in my brain. Getting tangled in my shirt. Dropping my underwear to the floor. Climbing into bed and staring up at Athena like some kind of backlit Florence Nightingale as she tucked me in.
My face is on fire, my skin is hot and the pulsing in my brain has returned.
“What?” Apollo calls attention to what can only be horror painted on my face.
I shake my head.
“If you’re gonna hurl you better move your ass.” Artemis has a mixture of irritation and caution tangled together in his tone.
“I don’t think he’s gonna hurl.” Apollo regards me with a curiosity that says he might be able to peer inside my brain like he can with his brother, too. Fuck, I sure as hell hope he can’t.
I purse my lips together and keep shaking my head though the monkeys are starting to raise their cymbals again like they’re ready to party.
Shit. Athena de la Pena saw me naked. Like, all-the-way naked. I mean, I’m not worried about my body. Despite the occasional binge-drinking session and entire XL pizza all to myself, I stay in good shape. Upside to being an athlete is I don’t have much chance to sloth out and let myself overeat too often. The amount of gym time, ice time and game time keeps us pretty busy.
Though, I do have a sweet tooth… or three.
I’m more concerned with the fact she may have thought it was some kind of drunken striptease, like I was hitting on her.
I groan.
Fuck, was it a drunken striptease? I have no idea because I’m only remembering fragments, not full picture reruns of what actually happened. But it probably could have been. I’m down for pretty much anything at the best of times, never mind when I’ve had a drink… or a lot of drinks.
Shit. I highly doubt she consented to have my schlong assault her pretty eyes while trying to usher me to bed. Did I just… strip?
Christ. My stomach lurches again. Did I helicopter my cock at her?
Did I make jokes about my full moon as I climbed into bed?
Jesus, did she have to like… literally manhandle me into bed?
I have so many questions, and precisely zero answers. Her twin brothers are staring at me with varying degrees of concern and intensity in their eyes waiting for an answer. If I say their sister saw me naked—unsolicited full body nakedness is way worse than sending an accidental dick pic—there’s a 94% chance I’ll instantly be unalived by both of them, at the same time.
What the hell do I do? Do I message her? What the fuck do I say? Hey, Bright Eyes, just wanted to make sure you know last night wasn’t some kind of erotic dancing come on?
Under normal circumstances, I’d ask the guys how to handle the rare dating-situation nightmare I find myself in. I don’t know how to do that , the talking-to-girls-and-not-being-a-total-idiot-around-them thing.
But this? This is way worse. Aside from almost kissing her in the car a couple years ago, I’ve made a very concerted effort not to throw myself at her or put her in a compromising position of having to say ‘no’ to me. I’ve done so fucking well. And the first week at college I just whipped out my dick.
Never mind her brothers wanting to kill me, there’s every chance she’ll dismember my member the next time I see her.
As if by magic, one of the older players opens our front door, and she’s there in all her goddess glory. She’s gorgeous, as always. She’s wearing skin-tight yoga pants that seem to be having an impact on my closing-over throat.
Are yoga pants always that tight? Did they make the pants around her body while she stood there? I have questions, mostly because I have embarrassment, shame, disgust, and did I mention embarrassment?
She’s walking toward us, but I can’t meet her eyes, I’m terrified that all I’ll see is disgust, anger, or worse, disappointment.
She comes straight over to the couch and hands me a bottle of blue Powerade. I look up, daring to lock my gaze with hers. Her expressive, brown eyes are swimming with concern. “Ice?”
I hop to my feet. “Sure. I’ll get it.”
She nods, waving a bulging, plastic Target back at me. “I brought a couple things.” She pauses, glancing at her brothers with an assessing, caustic stare. “Either of you go too hard last night and need rescuing?”
They both shake their heads, and it’s Artemis who speaks up. “We had non-alcoholic beer and left it at that.” There’s no accusation or judgement in his voice but I feel it all the same. Shame spreading through my limbs like melted butter. I need to do better. I need to be better.
I can’t take the chance that I’ll get kicked out of this college for being an unsociable asshole. Athena stares at them both for a long moment, flicks her eyes to me then back to them, like she’s silently berating them for not stepping in and stopping me from getting myself into a state.
No matter what she thinks, or even says to them, they aren’t responsible for me. I should have done better by myself. I chalk last night up to just another reason why I’m not good enough to be with her. I should know better. She’s always so well kept, so poised, so professional.
I’ve never seen her drunk, or out of control, hell, I’ve never even seen her with out-of-control hair after sleeping on it for a night. She’s always… perfect . And she deserves perfection in return.
I hear her come into the kitchen behind me, but I can’t bring myself to turn and face her yet. I take my time putting the bag on the counter and getting a glass from the cabinet. Then I load my glass with obnoxiously loud ice from the dispenser on the fridge door that ignores my scowling at it.
Fucking rude if you ask me. Can’t someone design a hangover-proof machine that makes and shoots out ice very quietly?
I shake the bottle of Powerade with my free hand before pouring it into the glass, taking a long, looooong, okay maybe too long chug of the cool, fruity liquid. I’m buying time; precious, but all too quick, seconds pass before I have to turn and face her.
When I eventually rotate so we’re face to face, I train my eyes on her nose, that cute button nose can’t make me feel like the piece of shit her deep swirling pools of chocolate eyes can. Nose is safe.
She waits patiently, but there’s a crackle in the air between us like a string pulled just a little too tight right before it snaps.
“Thanks for this,” I mumble, jiggling my glass and making the ice clink as it rattles around the bright blue liquid.
She nods. “There’s Pedialyte in the bag, you should take a couple of those. Fruit snacks, bananas, coconut water and some crackers with hummus.”
These are a few of my favorite things . My brain sings around the clashing of the metal discs from the now sugar-high thanks to Athena’s drink monkeys. I’d hoped the ice would have caused a brain freeze to numb the annoying little bastards, but it turns out that a hangover headache trumps freezing cold liquid.
Ugh.
Starting to feel sorry for myself now. All I want to do is make my way back upstairs under my blanket and sleep.
“Thanks. I love fruit snacks.”
Fucking idiot. She knows you love fruit snacks, asshole. That’s why she fucking brought them.
I need adult supervision.
Resisting the urge to knead the muscles at the bottom of my neck, I finally meet her eyes. Still no anger, only concern and uncertainty.
What the hell did I do last night?
“Are you okay? Do you want to talk?” I give in, sit my glass on the counter, and rub the back of my neck with my now cold palm.
She shakes her head, watching me like I’m a frightened animal that might take off at any moment while she nibbles at her lucky bottom lip.
Ah. Stop it. Go back into the box from whence you came, you annoying little feelings.
I’d slap myself in the head to try to clear out the thoughts but she’s already staring at me with a strange look in her eyes.
“Just making sure you’re okay. You’re not usually the one I have to worry about.” Her eyes sear into me as she doesn’t say what we both know she’s thinking. The youngest of the de la Pena quartet is the problem child, the drinker. In fact, he does way more than drink, but no one really seems to know how to handle him.
I shrug, still working the muscles in my neck. “I’m okay, just got carried away on the first week of school. It’s what we do, right?”
She looks at me but doesn’t say that her brothers kept themselves from underage drinking to excess last night.
“You were pretty out of it…”
I nod. “I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t even know you’d been here until the guys…” I gesture toward her. “Then I got fragments back…” My face is so hot it could melt the ice floating in my drink. “I remember… eh…” I clear my throat and motion my arm toward her as though that may save me from the humiliation of this conversation.
“Taking my clothes off.” If aliens could come down from outer space right now and take me away that would be fucking peachy.
While I love the way her nose twitches when she laughs, I hate that she’s giggling at me right now because I have no fucking clue what she’s giggling at.
She crosses the short distance between us and pats me on the chest. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”
I roll my lips between my teeth before shaking my head.
“You gave me a lap dance,” she deadpans but the blood drains from my body.
She pats me again, and my heart thump-thumps in the same tap-tap pattern she’s drumming on my chest, like it’s answering her. “I’m kidding. You were very well behaved.”
Oxygen pushes its way through my clenched body and slowly fills my lungs with a shallow breath.
“I mean, you stripped off right in front of me without a care in the world, Gizmo. Ass. Naked.”
“You fucking did what?” Artemis’s voice booms from behind me, and my lungs seize yet again, squeezing out any last molecules of oxygen I’d managed to let in. I’m pretty sure I can hear Apollo snickering, but my body is creeping into fight or flight mode. When it comes to Artemis de la Pena, he’d kick my ass all the way from here to Moline. And back again.
“It’s not what you think.” I toss over my shoulder. Not sure who I want to have my back to, Athena or her brother, but the amusement dancing in her eyes is the last thing I want to see if I’m going to die right now.
She nods. “He was drunk and getting into bed. Apparently, his clothes were offending his delicate sensibilities. He stripped everything off and climbed into bed. No show.” She addresses me like she’s trying to comfort my insecurities. “It would have been online by now if you’d done anything of note.”
The dizziness threatening to overcome my whole body starts to subside ever so slightly. I’m still alive, so the twins must not be too offended by her explanation.
“I’m so sorry.” I whisper, not to anyone in particular. “I don’t remember any of it.” I hold up my palm. “I know, that doesn’t make it better.” I drag my hand over my face. If anything, that just adds to how off my face I was last night and how I need to get in line.
Apollo chuckles again behind me, and if I’m not mistaken, I can feel Artemis’s vibrating anger receding just enough for the invisible straps around my chest to ease off.
She shrugs. “You didn’t proposition me if that’s what you’re worried about.” She tips her head to the side. “You didn’t offend me, Scott. You just got naked.” She snorts. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Her brow twitches almost imperceptibly as a wave of pure jealousy washes over me.
I’m not ignorant enough to think no one has ever seen her naked but I’d like a list and a sharp object so I can gouge out all their eyeballs so they can never see her naked again.
Please and thank you.
She can never be my girl, but that doesn’t mean I want anyone else to have her. No one deserves her, no one is good enough for her.
“I should have at least kept my briefs on.” I force the words out past the embarrassment crackling in the back of my throat.
Someone behind me growls. Twenty bucks says it’s Artemis.
She approaches me and pats my shoulder, not dropping eye contact. “You have a very nice penis, Scottie.”
I don’t have time to pat myself on the back for impressing her with my cock. She winks at me, that mischievous gleam dazzling under the kitchen lights. Ugh. She totally said that to rile up her brothers, who rise to the bait.
“Can you please, please stop talking about our best friend’s dick, Hen?”
She smirks. “But I love how it makes your face do that twitchy thing.” She flicks her finger in their direction.
I turn to look at the twins, their faces are both kind of green like the idea of their sister seeing my cock makes them queasy.
Apollo snorts. “I can’t believe you flashed my sister, man.” He shakes his head.
Artemis winces at his brother’s words.
I don’t blame them; it’s one thing to see each other naked at the rink or whatever. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. But this is their sister, and their best friend. Nary the two worlds shall intertwine.
And from the look on everyone’s face, that’s exactly how it needs to stay.