Chapter 9 #2
Because the only thing more terrifying than being here with her and around them is the predictable social annihilation that would occur if they find out I faked being with her and then ran away. So, instead, I just raise my hand and wave at them.
Cass must sense my rising panic, because her fingers find mine for a single, fleeting second. It’s a quick, almost imperceptible squeeze. Then, still hand in hand, she just starts walking toward the booth, and I follow because the alternative is standing here alone like an idiot.
As we get closer, Stiles grins. “Well, well, well, look what the Sasquatch dragged out of the woods.”
Nash snorts into his beer, and Rook lets out a bark of laughter that’s more approving than mocking, but it doesn’t matter.
The heat in my face cranks up another ten degrees, a slow, crawling burn that spreads from my neck to my ears.
I want to say something, to tell Stiles to go to hell, but the words stay locked away.
Cass, however, doesn’t even blink. She raises a single, unimpressed eyebrow, her expression deadpan. “Sasquatch? Is that because he’s got a giant… you know…”
The direct shot lands like a slap shot to the face.
Stiles’s grin falters for a split second, his brain visibly scrambling to process the fact that she just flipped his joke into praise of me. Nash’s smirk freezes mid-formation, his beer halfway to his lips, and for a beautiful, golden moment, the entire table is silent.
Rook, on the other hand, lets out a booming, appreciative laugh. “Oh, I like her,” he announces to the table, his grin getting wider. “Kell, she’s got teeth.”
Nash recovers first, leaning back in the booth with a smirk that’s half admiration, half challenge. “Yeah, good one,” he says, echoing Rook.
Cass’s gaze flicks to him, her expression cold and utterly dismissive. “I didn’t know they let parrots in here…”
The table roars, and Nash blinks, his smirk flickering like a bad connection.
And I’m just standing here, a six-foot-four statue of social incompetence. My brain is screaming at me—say something or do something—but all I can manage is to stand here like a malfunctioning robot while Cass handles the entire interaction by herself.
It’s just like with Mia, my brain screams at me. You’re so scared of sticking out you’ll let her fend for herself…
But this is different. With Mia, I’d been paralyzed by the fear of being socially ostracized by my teammates. But now, I want to say something, but I can’t. Even though I’m supposed to be her boyfriend, my throat is sealed shut and my tongue feels like it’s made of concrete.
Seeing me flounder, Cass takes control.
“He was just getting me a drink,” she says to the table, her tone casual but with a finality that makes it clear this particular audience is over for now.
I’m still floundering, despite the out, so she hooks her arm through mine and pulls me from the booth toward the relative anonymity of the bar. Her grip is firm, decisive, and I let myself be led, grateful for her and annoyed at myself for being weak.
As we lean against the sticky bar top, Cass murmurs to me, her voice low enough that only I can hear. “They bought it, and now we’re just the weird new pandas at the zoo. They’re all staring now, but give it five minutes and they’ll get bored.”
I stare blankly at the row of liquor bottles behind the bar, their labels a blur of color and text I’m not processing. My palms are slick. My face is still hot. I can feel the weight of the guys’ stares on the back of my neck like a physical presence, a pressure that makes my shoulders hunch.
“I thought you were used to this,” she continues, her gaze sweeping the room. “Don’t 10,000 people watch you play every weekend?”
“I’m usually wearing a helmet,” I mutter back, the words escaping before I can stop them. “And there’s not usually a hot girl on my arm…”
It’s the most honest thing I’ve said all night.
Her head turns toward me, and I catch a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Fair,” she says. “Boyfriend.”
Before I can reply, a guy in a PBU Lacrosse polo shirt materializes next to us like he’s been waiting for his cue. He’s got that effortless, all-American thing going on: square jaw, white teeth, the kind of easy confidence that comes from never being told no in his entire life.
His bright, toothy smile is directed exclusively at Cass, and he leans against the bar with a kind of casual territorial swagger. “You new around here?” he says.
Do something.
The thought arrives like a command from mission control, bypassing all rational thought. This is it. This is the test. The guy is ignoring me, hitting on her right in front of me, and if I don’t do something—anything—the entire charade collapses.
Because the guys are watching.
They’re watching to see if I can actually pull this off, if I’m the confident guy who sent that selfie or the stammering disaster they’ve been mocking for two years. But more than anything, they’re watching to see if I’ll be the boyfriend and do something when something needs to be done.
I decide, in a split second of panicked inspiration, to go with the classic possessive-boyfriend move: arm around the girlfriend. It is a catastrophe of motor control. I aim for her waist. That’s the target. The safe zone. The socially acceptable location for a fake boyfriend’s arm to rest.
But my entire nervous system is overloaded—adrenaline, terror, the hyper-focused awareness of my teammates’ eyes tracking my every move—and my body just… miscalculates. I’m tall. She’s short. My hand lands high. Too high. And slightly to the side.
The back of my hand makes contact with something impossibly soft and warm.
For a single, stunning, horrifying split second, before my brain can catch up and identify the precise geography of my mistake, my body registers the contact simply as pleasure. The thin fabric of her well-worn band T-shirt does nothing to hide the full, perfect curve beneath it.
It’s—
Then my mind catches up.
Oh my God.
That’s her breast.
The full, perfect, unmistakable curve of her breast.
I just groped her.
The pleasure—that traitorous spike of pure physical attraction—curdles instantly into white-hot, nauseating horror. The jolt that shoots up my arm is a dizzying, contradictory mix of sensations I don’t have the vocabulary to process: electric heat and profound shame, arousal and terror.
It’s like touching a live wire.
I just groped her in public. Oh God, she’s going to kill me.
She’s going to scream. She’s going to punch me.
She’s going to walk out and the entire deal is over and I’m going to die right here on the floor of O’Neil’s and they’re going to find my body next to the peanut shells and someone’s going to have to call my mom and—
My eyes dart to the lacrosse player, whose condescending smirk is still firmly in place, oblivious to the catastrophe unfolding two feet away from him. Panicking, I try to yank my hand back, my brain screaming at me to abort, abort, abort.
But then she moves.
She doesn’t pull away.
She doesn’t slap me or make a scene.
Instead, she subtly shifts her weight, leaning back into my hand. Pressing that exact point of contact—the curve of her breast, the warmth of her skin beneath the thin fabric of her T-shirt—more firmly against my palm, her intent crystal clear.
She’s leaning into it. She’s encouraging me.
The sensation is electric. Terrifying. Arousing. I can feel the soft weight of her, the heat of her body, and the unmistakable fact that she is allowing this, that she is using this, that she is somehow turning my catastrophic failure into a deliberate, calculated move.
My jeans are suddenly, uncomfortably tight.
Her hand comes up and covers mine, her cool fingers lacing through mine, holding me in place with a grip that’s firm but not forceful.
To the rest of the bar—to the lacrosse player, to my teammates watching from the booth, to the bartender who’s pretending not to notice—it looks like a bold, intimate claim.
A couple comfortable with each other’s bodies.
The casual possessiveness that says we do this all the time.
She just turned my fumbling disaster into a weapon.
The lacrosse player sees the gesture. His condescending smirk falters, his eyes flicking from Cass’s hand over mine to the firm, unmistakable press of my palm against her chest. He reads the signal perfectly, his expression shifting from cocky interest to wary respect in the span of a heartbeat.
“All right, man,” he says, his tone cooling. He gives a little nod, the universal bro-code acknowledgment of territory claimed. “She’s all yours.”
He melts back into the crowd, disappearing into the noise of the bar like he was never there. And even when he’s gone, Cass presses my hand into her breast just a little more, then releases my hand as if nothing happened and as if this sort of thing is routine.
As if nothing happened.
I turn to her, my voice a horrified whisper. “I am so—”
“Breathe, Kellerman,” she says. “We have to be convincing, right?”
I nod. “Uh, yeah…”
She smirks. “That felt pretty convincing to me. Unless you didn’t like it?”
“No, uh, I did—” I stammer. “I mean, I know it’s fake, but you have good… I—”
“Good boobs?” She raises an eyebrow.
I can’t formulate a response. All I can do is stand there, my mouth slightly open, my thoughts a chaotic loop of oh God, oh God, I touched her breast, she didn’t punch me, she used it, and now she’s joking about it, and oh God, I’m still hard and she probably knows and—
“Look…” She gestures over my shoulder with her chin, back to the table with the guys.
I turn back toward the booth where my teammates are still watching. Stiles catches my eye and raises his beer in a slow, emphatic salute, then gives me a thumbs-up. Rook and Nash are grinning. Even Leo nods, which is like fireworks from him.
The victory is complete.
The guys are convinced.
And the mockery will stop.
I turn back to Cass. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“Oh, Sasquatch,” she smirks. “You ain’t seen nothing yet…”