Chapter 11 Chloe
chloe
My favorite purple Vans stick to the floor as we make our way through Rowdy’s.
Cheap beers and bad lighting seem to have brought the entire campus out tonight.
This kind of turnout is normal after any game, and tonight is no different.
Everyone here is hoping for some face time with the Linden Creek football team after winning their fourth consecutive game this season.
“Alright. I lasted all the way through coffee this morning, and the entire walk here,” Savannah says, slapping her palms on the high-top table in front of her. “I might actually explode out of my skin if we don’t talk about it now.”
I take a slow sip of my drink, buying myself just one more minute, but Savannah’s eyes bore into me so hard, I half expect them to spark a flame.
I was able to avoid her yesterday with an early morning tutoring session, and she worked late enough last night that when I faked being asleep by nine o’clock, it was somewhat believable.
But I know she hasn’t forgotten about the bomb Nathan dropped the other night.
“Okay, well.” I shift, tugging at the hem of my jeans shorts, suddenly too aware of the backs of my legs sticking to the stool beneath me. “I guess I should start by telling you about Nathan…” I hesitate.
“Nathan?” She rears back. “What—”
I must look like a guilty puppy because I see the second Savannah catches on. “Aw, Chlo. Again? I thought you were done with him?”
“I was. I am! I just…” I glance down at my napkin, tearing the wet spot in the corner with my thumb.
“I saw him when he got back from summer break, and I swear I went over there just to prove to myself that I was over him, and that he didn’t have the same effect on me anymore.
” I’ve told myself this story so many times, I think I actually started to believe my own lie.
That might have been what I wanted, or what I wished I was doing, but if I take one single second to be honest with myself, I know that I went over there with the hopes that maybe that time would’ve been different.
“Anyway, hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that, but when I saw him, we just picked back up like no time had passed. It was like nothing had changed.”
“And that’s the problem.” She flings both arms in the air the way I imagine an Italian mom would do.
My napkin has turned into a small pile of confetti, and I use my fingernail to comb it all into a straight line. “Are you mad?”
“I’m bummed you didn’t tell me.” Her voice is soft despite the loud bar.
“I just didn’t want you to pity me,” I say, finally able to look at her.
She reaches a hand across the small round table and squeezes my clenched fist. “Chloe Addison Cooper, you know I think you’re the greatest thing since AbFab.
I would never pity you. I would have whacked you upside your beautiful blonde head, showed you thirst videos of Charlie Hunnam, and reminded you of all the reasons Nathan’s not the guy for you.
” She spits the words out so fast it’s like one long, unstoppable sentence.
I nod my head, twisting my lips into some sort of smile.
“But if you still wanted to go and be with him, I would have been there for you in the morning to listen when you wanted to talk.”
A laugh bubbles from me, and I blink away the moisture I hadn’t realized started pooling in my eyes.
I feel so stupid for not telling her sooner.
I’ve wanted this soul-crushing, all-consuming love my whole adult life, while ignoring my first and favorite love that is the one between my best friend and me.
“Real quick, though, can we circle back to what this has to do with Maverick Hall?”
I roll my eyes, reaching for my drink that I’ve done nothing but swirl around for the last twenty minutes.
“I made the mistake of telling Maverick the wrong pieces of information about Nathan. He thought he was helping by telling Nathan that he was my boyfriend. Long story boring, we’re dating now.”
I lift my glass to her, take a gulp big enough to already regret, and wince as I let the vodka set fire to my insides. When I set the glass down, I expect to find Savannah staring wide-eyed at me in horror, but to my own shock, a mischievous little grin is tugging on her lips.
“What?”
“You’re dating Maverick Hall.” Her grin grows wider with each word.
“But it’s fake! Did I forget to mention that part? It’s all part of a plan.” I wave my hands around, not fully understanding my own dumb idea. “We’re going to stage a breakup before the end of the semester.”
“Sure, babe.”
“I’m serious, Sav. I just didn’t want Nathan to think that all of a sudden, now that he’s shown the possibility of having real interest in me, that I would breakup with my boyfriend.
” I finger quote boyfriend, and my eyes are starting to get tired from how hard they’ve been rolling lately.
“I don’t want him to think I’m like a fair-weather lover or something. ”
“If Nathan took more than two minutes to get to know you, he would see the endless depths of your loyalty.”
The line of napkin crumbs begins soaking in the condensation pooling under my glass.
I poke at it, trying to force down the emotions now clogging my throat.
Savannah’s personality isn’t a very sentimental one.
I’ve known this about her since we met almost ten years ago, so when she verbalizes things like that, I’m not prepared.
“Do you think pretending to date Maverick is safe?”
I turn my head to look at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well.” Her lips purse and her shoulders lift. “You’re just such a lover girl. And I love that about you,” she rushes to add. “I just worry about feelings getting involved and how messy that can get.”
The image of Maverick hovering in front of me yesterday floods my memories.
The setting sun burning behind him, the soft orange light hitting the corner of his smile warm enough to make even the strongest girl melt.
But as I’ve come to realize with these moments with him, it’s not the way he looked at me that lingers, it’s his whispered request that I hold onto the most. I should feel relieved knowing that catching feelings isn't even in his realm of possibilities.
Instead, something uncomfortable settles in my chest at the thought, that to him, this is all just a game.
“It won’t get messy. We’ve both agreed. It’s all just an act.”
“Well then.” She raises her glass, lifting her chin toward the front of the bar, and I follow her gaze to the group of hockey players that are now filling the doorway. “Let the show begin.”
“Oh, God. Be cool.” I point a finger at her, and she holds both her hands up.
“I’m Frank Sinatra, baby.” Her smile is teasing and then quickly morphs into one of pure happiness when Noah appears at her side, wraps his arm around her shoulder, and without any shame as to who might be watching them, he kisses her.
His free hand cups her jaw, holding her face to his and I look away.
“Hey, Coop,” Noah calls over the M.I.A song now playing.
“Congrats on your win the other night,” I say, returning his contagious smile.
“Thank you.” He dips his chin. “Mav said you’re coming to the next one.” He grabs the drink in front of Savannah, bringing the straw to his lips.
I feel my eyes narrow as I try to figure out what exactly his buddy has told him, but his face gives nothing away. I open my mouth to tell him he might have got the wrong information, but his chin lifts as he waves to someone behind me.
“Milly!”
My shoulders tense, and I don’t move. If Noah just called Silas Miller over, I know the third musketeer isn’t far behind.
“Beer?” Silas carries five bottles by the neck between his fingers before setting them on the table between us.
“Or shots?” Maverick’s voice sends goosebumps down my neck as he comes up from behind me, setting down the tray of shot glasses. “We wouldn’t want you having to sucker some poor unsuspecting fellas tonight.”
I roll my lips between my teeth at the memory of meeting Maverick last year and conning him into buying Savannah and me tequila shots.
Maverick leans his elbows onto the high top, lowering himself until he’s eye level with me. “Plus, I figured we could use something to help take the edge off our first date.”
My first reaction is to scan the table to make sure no one heard him, but for the life of me, I can’t pull my eyes away from him.
His eyes are so blue, they shouldn’t be able to shine the way they do in this bar.
They should fade out the same way everyone else’s do under the single neon heart sign and the dingy stained glass light fixtures.
“Tell me, Chloe. Do you kiss on a first date?”
“This isn’t a first date,” I whisper.
“No?” He leans in close enough that I can feel his warmth, and all it takes is a simple grin and a snap of his gum to somehow dismantle all my composure.
“No.”
“Good. That means I don’t have to follow the rules.”
Heat creeps up my neck and I stare at the condensation sliding down my glass, focusing on the chill of my palm instead of the warmth coming off him. He’s just a hot guy in a bar. I try to justify the reaction to the close proximity and a little bit of alcohol.
“I brought you something else, too.”
When he stands to his full height, I feel like I can finally draw a breath, and with a clear head, I’m able to look around.
I’m not sure where Silas has gone, but after scanning the crowd, I find Savannah leaning against the wall on the other side of the dance floor.
Noah towers over her and they have moved their make out party from our table to a dark corner.
When I look back at Maverick, he extends a thick piece of black and green fabric, and I think I physically recoil.
“It’s my jersey. So you can wear it to my games.”
“Oh.” I choke. “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be needing that.”
“You don’t plan on coming to my games, or you don’t plan on wearing my name across your back?”
“I don’t think we wrote that anywhere in the rules.”
“Well, get out your Pilot G2 or whatever your favorite pen is, and scribble it down somewhere, because I know Nathan. That dude shows up to every one of our games when he’s not playing his own. Even football players know hockey is the superior sport.”
My neck heats, and I’m not sure if it has more to do with the mention of Nathan or that Maverick knows I’m the type of girl to have a favorite pen. Not only that, but exactly which one it is. He might have a cocky know-it-all attitude, but I’m not ready to admit he’s right.
“I’m more of a Pentel EnerGel kind of girl,” I lie.
He eyes me skeptically, and I know it shouldn’t, but it unnerves me.
“You ready for a shot?” he asks, reaching for my drink. He holds the straw out of his way, brings the glass to his lips, and takes a sip of the clear liquid.
The thick column of his throat works as he downs the rest of my drink, and barely a day into pretending to date him, I’m already breathless.
“I actually think I’m going to get going soon.”
He lifts his wrist, checking the time on his watch. “It’s barely past ten. Friday movie night at Creekside parties harder than you.”
My shoulders drop and I feel a tug at my lips.
It shouldn’t make me feel any sort of way about him that he remembered tonight’s movie night, but the more I’m around Maverick, the more I see pieces of who he really is.
Unfortunately for me, everything he’s showing me is nothing like I expected, and everything that I like.
“I’ve just had a long day, and I’m kind of tired.” It’s not a total lie. I have had a long day. The way my body is humming just being on the receiving end of Maverick's attention, though, is anything but tired.
“Tell me about it.”
I shake my head. “You wouldn’t care.”
“You think I ask about things I don’t care about?”
I hesitate and he doesn’t rush me—just reaches for one of the beers while keeping his elbow on the table being patient as hell.
“Okay, well, I had a tutoring session this morning, and then I had two back-to-back classes.” I comb my fingers through my hair, flipping it all over to one side.
“Then I went to the library to get some studying done, but I ended up working on my manuscript, and before I knew it, four hours had gone by and I still hadn't cracked open a textbook or completed a single practice quiz. "
“What do you mean by manuscript?”
I shake my head, suddenly startled when I realize I’ve said that outloud. It’s one thing to get drunk and tell him about Nathan. That part of my life lives at the forefront of my brain at all times. But my manuscript is so far on the back burner, I hardly even talk about it with Savannah.
My stomach twists a little and I try to cover it. “You know what? I’m probably just hungry. I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast.”
“Let’s go get some food.”
“What?” I pause mid-way off my stool.
“There’s a pizza place around the corner, they give out slices the size of your torso.” He points to me. “Let’s go.”
“I—” I look around, either to remind him that he came out to the bar tonight, or for an answer, I’m not sure.
When I turn back around, Maverick is standing directly in front of me, and I have to crane my neck back to look at him.
That warm scent of his cologne consumes me again, and despite the blaring music, the steady buzz of voices, and the pounding of the base, I get lost in him.
There’s no stopping him when his hand finds the small of my back, and my chest flutters as he turns me around, guiding us to the front door and out into the chilly night air.