5. Reese
Who the fuck is playing drums in my head? Everything hurts, and I think my dick is broken. What the fuck happened last night? The last thing I remember is drinking and staring at the door, waiting for Winnie to arrive.
I shoot up and instantly regret it when my body cries out against the sudden movement. My head spins and my stomach swirls so much that I’m wondering if I need to head to the bathroom or if I could even make it there before it all spews out of me.
“Well, good morning, sleeping beauty.”
I jolt at the voice next to me. Not realizing how close to the edge I am, I fall off the mattress and groan when my back hits the floor. Schmidt pops his head over the edge.
“Rough night?”
“What the fuck happened?”
“You were a dick.” Sawyer sits up from the floor at the foot of my bed.
Emma pops up next to him. “A huge one.”
“Why the fuck is there a sleepover in my room right now?” I lie back down and rub my aching temples. “And why is my jaw sore?”
“Not just sore, bruised. Same as your dick and probably your dignity. At least it should be,” Schmidt says as he steps over me. I don’t open my eyes, but a second later, his piss stream can be heard from my bathroom.
“Shut the fucking door, there are girls around,” Sawyer demands far too loudly, and I have to shush him.
“Girls?” Is one of them Winnie? But if so, why would she not be in bed with me?
“Yeah,” an unfamiliar voice squeaks. I peek one eye open to look at who the voice came from. A petite girl with warm-blonde hair, big blue eyes, and a nervous smile waves from the other side of Emma. My eyes snag on the scar across her nose, directly under her eye. “I’m Laney. Emma’s friend.”
“Best friend.” Emma squeezes Laney’s face between her thumb and fingers.
“Great. Why are you all in my room?”
“To stop you from escaping—again.” Schmidt wanders back into the room, rubbing his eyes.
“Again?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Emma giggles. “I woke up to you in the hall, shouting about how you had to go get a frog.”
What?
“You insisted on going to the pet store to get a frog, but they didn’t have any,” Sawyer tells me. “So you got a turtle.”
I follow his pointed finger across my room to the small cage and the turtle inside it. What the fuck did I drink last night? Jack and Coke hasn’t made me black out in a long time. I rarely even drink, but the nerves of waiting for Winnie got to me.
“Well, how much was it?”
His smirk is enough to make me want to hurl. “Only seven eighty.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Nope,” the three of them reply simultaneously.
Unable to stand, I crawl over to the cage with the turtle inside, and the others move next to me.
“He’s cute at least,” Emma’s friend—whose name I forgot already—offers, I assume trying to make me feel better about the entire situation. “Did you decide on a name?”
“I don’t know, did I?”
My friends look at each other and swap grins. “Uh-huh. You named him Eeyore.”
Fuuuck me. I named a turtle after the cringey nickname Winnie used to call me just to annoy me? How pathetic am I?
“Yeah, you tried calling it Winnie, but the pet store owner said something about it being a boy.” Sawyer chuckles.
“Well, did she ever show up? Winnie, I mean?”
They swap looks again, but it’s not with a grin this time.
“Yeah, she showed up.” Sawyer flattens his lips, meaning whatever went down isn’t good. “With her brother.”
Really not good.
“He punched you,” Emma blurts as if it was killing her to hold it in.
That’s not surprising. And not the first time I’m sure he’s wanted to do that, but what pushed him over the edge?
Seeing my questioning gaze, Schmidt slaps my back. “Why don’t you get cleaned up, and then we will fill you in.”
Good idea. Alcohol’s oozing from my pores, and it’s making me more nauseous than I already am.
“The entire room saw her ass?” My voice booms over the apartment—probably clear down the hall too.
“They did,” Sawyer says. “Amy is going to be pissed I saw another woman’s ass. No one tell her.” He eyes each of us individually with a wannabe-threatening glare.
“Yeah, because we want to hear her insufferable crying,” Emma grumbles, and he shoots her a frown.
I once heard Amy crying for two straight hours, and Sawyer’s apartment is across the hall from mine. Beckett—our teammate and Sawyer’s roommate—ended up sitting at our place because it was so loud. I don’t know what her issue was, but whatever Sawyer did, I hope he never does again because it was brutal. She must have a pussy made of gold for him to stick with her as long as he has. She’s nearly as bad as Zoey, and if Amy wasn’t so jealous all the time and Zoey wasn’t such a skanky bitch, they might be good friends. So I’m glad Emma said something, because we were all thinking it.
“Back to last night. What else happened?”
Schmidt sighs and glances at Sawyer in a way I don’t like. The first half of this story was bad enough. What the fuck else could have happened? I can’t imagine Winnie handled being pantsed in front of a room full of strangers all that well. Some kid pantsed her in middle school, and she was mortified.
“She kicked you in the balls.” Emma giggles.
I’m glad I was drunk for that. The soreness I’m feeling now is painful enough. I’ve never been kicked in the balls, so the fact Winnie was the first is both surprising and also not. She’s the only girl I would ever piss off enough to lead to that point.
“Was it hard?” That should tell me how mad she was.
“You should check to make sure you can still have kids, bro.” Sawyer cringes.
Damn. I heard everything they said. Mentioning that night together in such a casual way to her brother was uncool, and pantsing her was worse, but that was an accident. So there must be something more they aren’t telling me.
“Then she left?”
“Yeah.” Schmidt shrugs. “She said something about you acting like a young Robert, but—”
I stop listening. She compared me to my dad?
What the actual fuck, Winnie?
If anyone knows how much that would bother me, it would be her, and she just threw it in my face in front of everyone. Like I did about our night together… but it’s not the same. My dad is… fuck, there’s not a word to describe that man. He’s the worst. A drunk asshole with anger issues.
A drunk asshole with—
Fuck. Am I my dad? Did I really spend so much time hating him only to turn out just like him? Maybe not entirely, but I know Winnie, and she doesn’t say anything she doesn’t mean, even when she’s upset. Meaning if she saw my dad in me, she meant it.
Her saying that wouldn’t make sense to anyone around, because no one at college knows my dad’s name. The only thing I’ve ever said is he’s never been in the picture and that he died because, in my mind, he did.
“Was Eli around when she said that?”
“Eli?” Sawyer’s eyebrows pinch. He knows who I’m talking about, but it’s probably surprising hearing me call a guy who hates me by a nickname. Old habits and all that. “But no. He left after punching you.”
I fall back into the chair and groan inwardly.
I fucked up. Big time. Convincing Winnie to be mine after I walked out on her two years ago was going to be hard, but after last night… it’s going to be damn near impossible.
“I feel like it should also be mentioned that she thinks you’re dating Zoey.”
“Oh, yeah. Good point,” Emma tells her friend. I don’t know how Emma and Laney got involved in all of this, but whatever, I guess. Maybe having female opinions could be useful.
“Yeah, you wanna tell us what that’s all about?” Sawyer suggests.
“No. I was stupid and bumped into Winnie at the store yesterday morning, right before I asked you to throw the party. Anyway, Zoey was up to her same shit and was acting all cuddly with me, and I didn’t put a stop to it.”
“Bro,” Schmidt groans. “I just fucking got her to leave me alone. Don’t tell me she’s going to be here all the time now.”
“No.” I sigh and drop my head to my hands. My temples are pounding, and as much as I want to blame the hangover, I have a feeling it also has to do with everything I was just told. “Fuck no. You know me better than that. But there is a history between Winnie and me—”
“Obviously,” they say in unison.
“Yeah, well, I liked how jealous she looked.” After all this time, I still had her. But is the same still true? There’s a pit in my stomach that says it might not be.
If there is anything in this life I’m sure of, it’s Winnie Lewis.
“Newsflash, dumbasses.” Emma scoffs. “Making a girl jealous is never cute and only pushes us farther away. If you want to show us how much we mean to you, do something nice. Thoughtful, even. The whole being mean when you have a crush is so 2007.”
Nice? Thoughtful? I can be those things. At least when it comes to Winnie. I’m not the most approachable guy to everyone else, but she’s my girl.
“You fucked up.” Sawyer slaps me on the shoulder on his way to the door. “Don’t forget we have an open practice tonight. Coach says it’s not mandatory, but we both know it is. Especially for captains.”
Fucking shit. I did forget. I’m in no state to skate around a rink for four hours, but Sawyer is right. If I want to be a captain this year, I gotta go. Even if it kills me—and it just might.
I guess it’ll be punishment for last night.