Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
jade
It’s dawn when the cool, aquatic scent of Reeve nudges me out of sleep. I wrap myself tighter in the warm cocoon of sheets and blankets but force my eyes open. Meanwhile, he’s bright-eyed as he sits on the edge of the bed in his workout gear.
“You’re leaving already?” I croak. Shafer plays at home later this morning, and Reeve is starting, which explains why he looks like he’s been up for hours.
He nods. “So guess where we’re going tonight?”
“I’m guessing the Phantom so you can have praise lavished upon you and a dozen blow job propositions like every other Saturday night?”
“We’re going to the woods.” He waggles his eyebrows.
“The woods.”
“Yep. Annual tradition, baby. Lorenzo’s lake house, Shafer football’s four biggest studs. Oh, yeah, and whichever lucky girls we feel like bringing along with us. You’re in luck this year.”
“Is that right?” I laugh. “And which lucky girl was your pick last year?”
“I don’t remember her name.”
I grab his arm. “Bullshit.”
He takes my hand and kisses me from my palm to my elbow. “Okay, how about this? I don’t care about her name.”
“Much better.”
He pulls the blankets off me, slaps my thigh, and stands. “Now get up, beautiful. You have a bag to pack and a game to attend. Car leaves as soon as we walk out of the locker room.”
“Wait, really?”
“Really.”
I sit up on one elbow. “Um, thanks for the advance warning. I’m covering Lori’s shift tonight.”
“I like to keep my girl on her toes.” He winks. “No worries, I’ll get Jorge to take your shift.”
Even though I could use the money, I don’t argue, too intrigued by the sudden invitation. “And what am I supposed to pack?”
“Warm clothes and a swimsuit.”
“A swimsuit? It’s October.”
“Skinny-dipping is also an option, and I can promise you Cash will opt for that one and insist the rest of us do too. But I don’t want my friends drooling over your insane body, so I vote swimsuit.” He leans down and kisses me. “I gotta go. Will I see you in the stands?”
The way he pauses to look at me, hope in his eyes, would make me melt if it didn’t break my heart just a little bit. “You know you don’t have to ask.”
His expression warms. “My girl.”
The game’s a nail-biter, even for me, but the boys manage to eke out a win after Reeve throws a touchdown pass in the last minute to put us ahead.
As soon as the guys are showered and dressed, we pile into two cars: me, Reeve, Lenni, and Cam in Cam’s truck; Maisy, Lorenzo, Ruby, and Cash in the sedan Maisy and Cash share.
But before we can pull out of the parking lot, Cash hops out of his car and opens the door to the rear cab of Cam’s truck where I’m seated with Lenni.
“You mind scooting over, honey?” he asks me. “I can’t do ninety minutes in the car with my sister.”
“But you’re going to do ninety minutes sitting thigh to thigh with Jade?” From the front passenger seat, Reeve puts a protective hand on my knee, stopping me from sliding into the middle to accommodate Cash.
“I’d be more than happy to take the middle seat and sit thigh to thigh with both ladies if that’s better.” Cash winks at Lenni next to me.
Cam smiles. “Dude, until you or Maisy have a girlfriend, you’re the fourth couple this weekend. That’s how it’s always been.”
“Fucking gross. I’m sick of being mistaken for an actual couple when I’m with my sister.”
“Like the man said, get yourself a girl,” Reeve tells him.
I slide into the middle seat and wave Cash in. “Come on. Plenty of room.”
“Thanks, darling.” He tips an imaginary hat at me. “That blond asshole doesn’t deserve you.”
By the time we reach the town where Lorenzo grew up, dusk is settling in.
Ruby has already warned us the town of Lakeside is boring, the lake is cold, and the citizens are nosy—Ruby and Lorenzo were neighbors growing up, best friends long before they fell in love—but Lorenzo’s house is adorable, a cedar-shingled Craftsman set on a long, narrow lot with an evergreen-studded backyard that stretches down to the lake’s pebbled shoreline.
As soon as we arrive, the boys unload the bags, and then Ruby pushes them into the backyard to grill up our dinner and gather wood to build a bonfire.
“Good, now we’re rid of them!” she declares, closing the sliding door between the kitchen and the deck. “I know our boys are athletes, but is anyone else sick of hearing about sports? Please, for the love of god, let’s talk about something that doesn’t involve balls.”
Maisy grins, opening bottles of beer in assembly-line fashion. “Balls of any kind.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I say.
Ruby lets out a whoop, Maisy hands out the beers, and we cheer, laughing as our bottles clink and foam dribbles to the tile floor.
Dinner is chicken, a mess of grilled vegetables, and a few loaves of bread eaten from paper plates, plus more beer around the impressive bonfire the guys built at the far end of the yard.
Reeve nods along with the conversation during dinner, but he’s subdued.
I noticed he didn’t have much to say on the ride here, either, but I’d figured that was because we were in close quarters with Cash, the only man on earth who can outtalk Reeve Dalton. But clearly it’s more than that.
When everyone heads inside after dinner to clean up, I hold him back.
“Fireside make-out sesh?” he asks, eyebrows raised.
“Hmm, enticing. Can I ask a question first?”
“Shoot.”
“You’ve been quiet since we left home. Are you having a medical emergency? Do I need to call an ambulance?”
He gives a small smile. “I’m okay.”
I squeeze his hand. “But . . .”
“Same shit as always. I’m just stressed about football.”
“You’re not happy about how you played today?”
Reeve glances toward the screen doors of the house, beyond which our friends bustle in the kitchen. “You want to take a little walk?”
He takes my hand as we stroll toward the lake, a cold breeze stirring the long limbs of the pine trees around us.
“I played fine today. But fine isn’t good enough, not when the clock is ticking.
I wanted to be on fire, have everyone questioning why the fuck Beltman was given the start last game when I was good to go.
I’ve gotta be perfect or else . . . I don’t know what. Everything I’ve done is for nothing.”
I should have known he’s thinking far beyond today’s game. “There’s no way you don’t get drafted, right?”
“Yeah, unless I fall to pieces the rest of the season, I can get drafted. Getting drafted was a foregone conclusion when I was eighteen. That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
He holds my hand tighter as we step onto the dock that stretches out into the water, the old boards lit only by small pagoda lights atop the wooden posts.
“I’m a top quarterback looking at the second half of my senior season.
I need to be perfect and I need to make it look easy.
Anything less is a total disappointment. ”
“To you? Or to the rest of the world?”
“What’s the difference, really?”
To me, of course, the difference is everything; Reeve is everything. The rest of the world means nothing. I turn to him as we reach the end of the dock. “No one can take your talent away from you. The world knows what you are. And if they ever forget, I promise I won’t.”
“Aww, shucks,” he jokes. “I’m sorry to be a downer tonight.”
“Will you stop? You’re allowed to have feelings. Besides, I love being the one you talk to.”
“Really? You don’t wish I’d get a therapist already?” He curls his hands around my waist.
“Really.”
“You’re a sweetheart, you know that?”
“A sweetheart?” I scoff. “After all the nice things I just said to you, you go and call me a sweetheart? I’ve never been so insulted in my life!”
I throw a playful slap at his chest, and he catches my wrist, cackling. “I apologize. You’re right, you’re a total badass bitch, Jade Kelly.” He takes my other wrist and draws me against his chest. “Now let me make it up to you in the way only Reeve Dalton can.”
He wraps me up in his arms and does exactly what he promises, kissing me in the way only he can, making the October chill and the water lapping at the shoreline fade into nothingness as he becomes everything.
“Hey, none of that!” a voice cuts through the air, and we turn to find Cash crunching over a bed of fall leaves toward the dock, the rest of our friends straggling behind him. “I don’t need to be reminded I’m the only dude not getting laid tonight.”
Reeve sighs irritably at the interruption. “You’re used to that by now, aren’t you?”
“For five fucking minutes can we not talk about sex?” Maisy appears behind her brother and holds up a bottle in each hand, vodka and bourbon. “We’re about to get into something way better.”
“Nothing is better than sex,” I say, earning a quiet “Fuck yeah” from Lorenzo. “And yes, let’s tip back those bottles.”
We head back toward the yard and gather around the bonfire.
“Full moon, guys,” Ruby says as Maisy and Lenni pour shots into plastic cups and pass them around. “The crazies always come out during a full moon.”
Lorenzo smirks and points a tattooed finger at his girlfriend and Cash in turn. “The crazies are already here.”
Someone turns on music. The boys insist on boring us all to death talking about the football team’s records throughout the years they’ve been at Shafer until Lenni politely interrupts and suggests that if they don’t change the subject, the girls will have to find a topic of discussion that’s equally unrelatable, and it’ll probably be periods.
Somewhere along the way, the cups are abandoned and the bottles get passed around instead.
Reeve has come back to life, telling stories, making everyone laugh, competing with Cash to be the biggest and most obnoxious loudmouth possible.
If all he needed was to unload his worries on me, what has he been doing all these years?
It hurts to think of him all alone with his problems up until now. Or in the years to come.