Chapter 34
Ethan
‘I hope you’re ready for this.’ Josh, one of our defenders, throws a grin over his shoulder as we roll up to the ref, the entire first team together. ‘We’re going to be drowning in pussy in five minutes flat.’
‘I only wish he meant it,’ Michael says under his breath at my side. ‘Josh Clarke, he died as he lived, being a twat.’
‘And doing what he loved,’ I add, and Michael scoffs.
‘He talks a good game but if he was shagging as much as he says he is, his knob would’ve fallen off by now. I know there’s no shortage of Hemden froupies but have you ever actually seen him with one of them?’
‘No and I don’t want to. I’ve seen enough of his pasty ass and uncut dick to last me a lifetime.’
Michael tuts and shakes his head. ‘The struggles of the American exchange student. Did no one tell you most people aren’t circumcised here? I’m sure it’s more of a shock for the ladies. Someone ought to take Mia to one side and let her know before it’s too late.’
It’s almost enough to make me turn around and head straight back to my room, but I made a deal with myself.
Mia doesn’t want me. Mia wants the douche.
I don’t want Mia completely out of my life so I will try to be her friend, and since the last time we hung out we literally baked cookies, I don’t think there’s any danger of things getting physical between us ever again.
I have never been so wholesome in my life.
If my old friends could’ve seen the two of us, dunking a freshly baked chocolate chip in a glass of cold milk, they would’ve dragged me away and had me committed.
The party is already alive when we roll in, the crowds parting to make room for me and the rest of the team, and as soon as I see all the cool costumes, I’m even more pissed that I let them talk me into wearing our uniforms. The whole point of a costume party is to dress as something you aren’t, so you can behave like someone you’re not, and that’s exactly what I plan to do tonight.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say I’m planning to behave like someone I used to be.
Showered, shaved and subtly manscaped, I need to do something or someone to get my mind off Mia.
A girl wearing nothing but an IKEA bag and fuck me heels looks at me in a way that suggests there’s room for two in her costume, but I sidestep her and make my way to the edge of the room.
Too much, too soon. When you’ve been out of the game for a minute, you don’t start running straight towards the goal. Gotta warm up first.
The team has already dispersed, divide and conquer, half the boys filtering across the dance floor and the other half heading towards the back of the room where I assume they’ve set up the bar.
For such an intense academic institution, Hemden sure knows how to throw a party.
If we had this much alcohol – any alcohol – on campus at Marshall, no one would ever accomplish shit.
I can’t imagine an eighteen-year-old Ethan thriving in soccer or class with a subsidized bar right outside his dorm room.
Hell, almost-twenty-one-year-old Ethan struggles enough as it is.
‘It’s Ethan, isn’t it? Ethan Taylor?’
The brunette in the IKEA bag took my avoidance as a challenge and is now standing in front of me, twirling a strand of dark hair.
They really do sell everything at that place.
Her costume is so short, her heels so high and her legs so long, it’s literally impossible not to wonder what kind of underwear she has on, if any at all.
‘Yeah, hi, nice to meet you.’
I reach out my hand to shake hers and she laughs.
‘So formal,’ she says, doe eyes blinking slowly. ‘I’m Jemima. I’m such a big football fan, all my friends are.’
She glances over her shoulder to a group of equally hot girls in barely-there costumes, hanging all over each other and giggling in our direction.
‘That’s my roommate Shannon, my friend Kirsty and my girlfriend Jennifer.’
I swallow hard when she makes a distinction between friend and girlfriend, and she notices, drawing closer.
‘I was at your game on Saturday.’ She runs a scarlet red fingernail down the front of my jersey, stopping at the waistband of my shorts. ‘I thought you might want to come and play with us.’
‘You play soccer?’
She grabs the drawstring on my shorts and looks me dead in the eye.
‘No.’
Fuck me. I only just walked through the door and one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life is inviting me to something I am almost certain would qualify as an orgy. This could be just what I need to shake me out of this funk. It would for sure shake something out of me.
And if I didn’t see another group of girls dancing right behind her, me and Jemima could’ve had a time.
Alice, Jenna and Mia are all grinding to the beat, hips swaying, and Mia is wearing nothing but a towel.
I’ve fantasized about this moment, a soaking wet Mia knocking on my door because the hot water went out in her shower.
It’s only one of the hundreds of ways I’ve dreamed of getting her back in my room minus her clothes.
But seeing my fantasy brought to life in the middle of the refectory is more than I can stand.
‘I’m gonna go get a drink,’ I say, gently disentangling the drawstring of my shorts from her hands. ‘Maybe I’ll come find y’all later?’
She looks disappointed, almost as disappointed as the voice in my head screaming at me to change my mind.
Okay, not my head but there is a very loud and usually convincing part of my body that thinks we should dance with Jemima and see where it leads.
But I can’t. Not even the promise of a five-way is enough to distract me now that I’ve seen Mia.
So much for my plan to move on.
Tequila feels like the best solution to this situation but the bartender doesn’t have any, so I’m stuck with beer.
It’s probably a good thing. Tomorrow is a Sunday and even though we don’t have a game, we do have practice and I don’t want to show up hungover.
Or at least not hungover enough for Clive to notice.
Bobbing through the crowd, I say hi to the people I recognize, a little surprised there are so many.
Between the team and the kids on my course, I’ve pulled together a decent number of acquaintances in the last few weeks.
People who seem genuinely happy to see me and not because I’m some hotshot soccer player.
That doesn’t have the same currency as it does at home.
Everyone loves to watch the games and yell on the sidelines, but I’m not on anyone’s pedestal and none of my teachers are giving me an easy ride.
Dr Vine isn’t about to massage my grade up a couple of points just so I can lace up my boots on a Saturday afternoon.
I’ve always been popular and I never questioned it until the shit hit the fan and it all disappeared.
The few people who made the effort to call only wanted details I was not prepared to give.
Most everyone didn’t care enough to even try or maybe they found it easier to pretend I didn’t exist, I don’t know.
I don’t want to know, especially since the one person who knew the truth, Breanna, was gone fastest of all.
At the beginning of the year, she was talking pre-engagement rings and scaring the living shit out of me.
Now she had me blocked on all forms of social media and her dad said if I came within one hundred feet of her, he’d kill me himself.
I’ve never been a big fan of Mr Kershaw, the world I grew up in hasn’t exactly encouraged me to be trusting of politicians, but I didn’t have him down as a violent man.
At least not until that moment. The man was practically foaming at the mouth when he walked into the hospital, but it is an election year.
Can’t have a scandal messing up his campaign.
But here at Hemden? Here I’m the same as everyone else, just Ethan, and that’s fine by me.
It’s more than I deserve, this is still exile after all, and people could still find out.
Mia could find out. The thought stops me in my tracks and I tip back my head to chug my drink.
Stronger than the stuff back home but not nearly strong enough to chase that thought out of my mind.
I work my way back to the dance floor, less in the mood for a party than ever before.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great night, but even after downing two drinks and walking around for a while, I just can’t.
‘Don’t feel bad,’ I mumble into the neck of the beer bottle. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’
I’m about ready to give up when I see a band coming onto the stage. I love live music, haven’t been to a show in forever, and I’m moving to the front of the stage when the lead singer walks out, guitar strapped across his chest.
This fucking guy.
When I see Mia pushing through the crowd to get closer to the stage, I know it’s my cue to leave.
‘All right, Hemden,’ I hear him say, the microphone squealing with feedback. ‘I’m Oliver Jenkins and I’m going to play you some songs.’
The band launch into a Bon Jovi song, a classic I must’ve blasted a thousand times in my car, but I’m not hanging around to listen. By the time Oliver Jenkins opens his mouth to sing, my beers are in the trash and I’m out the door.