Chapter 18
Don’t Blame Me
Ali
“Oh my gawd Abigail! Have you lost your ever-loving mind!?” Ali whisper-shrieked to her bestie.
Abigail gave a casual shrug as she sipped her champagne flute, “Not at all. Girls’ Weekend for Shelf Indulgence!”
“An NFL game is not a ‘girls weekend Ab!”
“Ashley would disagree.”
“She doesn’t count. She like sprays her hair and paints her face when she goes to the Atlanta games. Also, I highly doubt she would give up one of her Sundays for the Tritons. You know she’s a season ticket holder in Atlanta.”
“Oh honey, she’ll definitely give it up for you.”
“This is not for me. I’m not even going.”
“There’s four tickets. Four book club members. It’s a no-brainer. Discussion closed,” Abigail declared, like she was an idiot or something.
The final cheer erupted as the auctioneer announced the last winning bid, and the DJ eased back in with something poppy and nostalgic— Lana Del Rey or maybe a cover of it.
Ali couldn't tell over the buzz of laughter, clinking glasses, and the sound of people returning to mingling, but she could feel the shift. The party was back on.
Meanwhile, her ears were roaring. She was literally going to throw up. She couldn’t believe Abigail bought those damn tickets to his family's suite. She made a mental note to tell Kellan to hide Abigail’s Diet Cokes from her for a whole week.
She smiled politely at Abigail as she sipped the last of her cherry blossom martini. “Bathroom,” she lied with a little wave of her clutch.
Abigail arched her brow knowingly but said nothing, just gave her a nod and turned back to chatting with a table of other donors.
Abigail wasn’t an alum, she went to Georgia U in Macon.
And while she knew that Ali went through something while at MBU and dating Dylan, but obviously she had never told her the whole story.
She did not need to relive that moment ever again.
Ali didn’t head toward the bathrooms though.
Instead, she veered toward the balcony doors, blending with a small crowd stepping outside to cool off.
The air hit her like a breath— hot but breezy and a little salty, the lights of Russell Stadium glowing below like a memory you couldn’t quite forget.
She followed the edge of the balcony, heart hammering a little harder than she wanted to admit, before slipping quietly down the stairs that led to the field access.
It wasn’t that she was avoiding Dylan.
Well… okay. Maybe it was exactly that.
She just needed air. Distance. Space from the eyes that might have seen her reaction during his speech— raw and real and a little too close to the truth she’d buried. The turf felt soft beneath her sneakers as she wandered onto Stowers Field. The Reef. Ten years later, and it still had magic.
She wrapped her arms around herself, looking up into the bright halo of stadium lights. Everything looked the same. And nothing did.
Behind her, the party was building to life. But she heard footsteps coming down the steps. Fast.
She didn’t have to look.
She knew.
“Ali.”
His voice reached her, soft but cutting through the quiet like a thread she’d once held too tightly. She tensed but didn’t turn. Not yet.
Quiet footsteps, closer but now muffled by the turf.
“I was hoping I’d get a chance to—”
“Mac!” A high-pitched voice broke in, and she heard them before she saw them— two women, glossy hair and glossy lips, both in jewel-toned dresses that clung like they still lived on Greek Row. Two of Daisy’s former sorority sisters. “Selfie with the MVP?” one giggled, already holding out her phone.
Ali turned just slightly and saw them intercept him, all teeth and nostalgia and perfectly filtered memories. Her stomach dropped.
Dylan— Mac— looked past them for a second. Toward her.
Their eyes locked.
Panic surged. She bolted, ducking toward the far side of the field where the shadow of the building gave her cover. Her sneakers didn’t exactly make for a silent escape, but she moved fast, weaving around the edge of the structure like the old days when she knew every inch of this place.
But he was a football player.
And he still knew how to chase.
“Ali, wait— please.”
She stopped cold.
Her back against the warm brick, eyes squeezed shut.
It was happening. After ten years.
The gravel crunched under Ali’s sneakers as she twisted, intending to run, breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a curse, when he caged her in.
He opened his mouth, whatever he was going to say, she really didn’t want to hear it.
She couldn’t hear it. She panicked and her mouth was suddenly on his— urgent, familiar, devastating.
His hands gripped her waist like he still knew exactly where she broke, and her body betrayed her completely.
Ten years. Ten years and still, this.
Her fingers threaded into his hair, pulling him closer like she hadn’t once built her whole life around staying away from this exact moment. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t slow. It was teeth and lips and memories colliding under a Georgia sky that smelled like salt and pine.
When he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered her name—“Ali”— like it meant something again, that’s when her heart finally buckled.
The heavy door swung shut above them, muffling the music from the ballroom. Ali barely registered the sound before Dylan was pushing against her— so close she could smell the warmth of bourbon and something sharply clean, like soap and stadium air.
“Ali,” he breathed. Just her name, but it wrecked her.
She didn’t answer. Didn’t trust herself to.
Instead, she grabbed the lapels of his blazer and pulled him in like something primal had taken over.
Their mouths collided in a kiss that felt like a fire alarm— urgent, loud, and impossible to ignore.
He groaned softly against her lips, his hands finding her waist like they’d been waiting ten years for the chance.
“You shouldn’t have come back looking like that,” he murmured against her mouth. “You look like something I dreamed up.”
“Shut up,” she whispered, breathless. “Just— shut up and kiss me again.”
And he did. Harder this time.
Her back scraped against the brick wall as his body pressed into hers. The heat of the masonry combining with the heat of their kiss, grounding her for a half-second before his hands were pulling up the hem of her dress. His fingers skimmed the skin of her thighs and she gasped, arching toward him.
He hissed in a breath. “Still so soft,” he muttered. “You used to— God, I remember exactly how you sound.”
“Don’t say that,” she warned, her voice breaking. “Don’t pretend like this is still—”
But then his mouth was on her throat, and the rest of the sentence vanished. She tilted her head, letting him taste the curve of her neck, the hollow of her collarbone. He tugged her dress up higher, and she helped, hitching it until it bunched around her hips.
Her hands were just as greedy— pulling at his belt, unfastening his pants with more desperation than finesse.
“You’re shaking,” he said, touching her cheek.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I don’t care.”
Something like pain flickered in his eyes, but it was gone just as fast. “Then let me make you forget.”
And then he was pushing her panties to the side to push inside her— fast, deep, and so achingly familiar she could’ve cried. Her back arched, hands clawing at his shoulders as he moved, thrusting hard enough to knock her breath loose with every snap of his hips.
“Ali,” he rasped, burying his face against her neck. “So fucking tight,” he groaned. Then he was whispering in her ear, “Tell me this is real. Tell me you feel it too.”
She didn’t answer— not with words. She couldn’t.
She just kissed him like he was the last mistake she’d ever make. He grabbed one of her legs and hitched it around his waist, and she held on like she might fall apart without him.
The sound of the party was a distant hum now— muted by the pounding in her chest, the soft grunt of his voice in her ear, the wet, heady sound of skin on skin.
And when she came— his hand slapped over her mouth to silence her screams— he followed, hips stuttering, breath ragged, and groaning her name.
They stood like that for a moment, tangled and trembling. The air between them thick with things unsaid.
She was still breathless, unmoving, when she heard a crunch on the gravel.
“Mac?” a woman’s voice called. “Have you seen my phone?”
Ali froze. His hands were still on her hips. Her dress was still bunched.
He turned toward the voice. “Kallie?”
That was all she needed to hear.
Ali shoved away from him so fast she almost stumbled. Her dress fell back into place as she backed up a step, eyes wide, lips still parted.
“Ali— wait—” Dylan reached for her.
But she was already gone.
She was moving. Fast— shoving her way past the building, heart in her throat. Inside, the party spun by in streaks of light and sound, but all she could hear was her own pulse pounding.
Kallie. Of course.
She didn’t know why she’d assumed he was here alone. Of course they were close— his friend, his agent. Fuck, what if they were more? Ali had just made herself the punchline in a story she swore she wouldn’t rewrite. Not again.