22. Cecelia
TWENTY-TWO
CECELIA
“Do you plan to get your face out of your phone anytime soon?”
“One sec,” I mutter, barely registering what Vega just said as I type out a response.
“No, no, it’s cool,” she says. “I’ll just sit here all by myself with no one to talk to. You keep making moony eyes at your boyfriend’s texts.”
I finally blink up at her. “Sorry, did you say something?”
She tosses a napkin at me and I laugh. “I was listening to you. Sol and the boys are headed to the food court so he wanted to know if I needed anything.” I grin to myself.
I asked him for a Dr. Pepper just because I knew it would cause him to go into trainer mode and remind me about my meal plan and how too much sugar makes me sluggish for afternoon practice.
He’s totally going to bring me one anyway.
Violet appears at our table in the commons and plops down next to Vega. “Thank God that’s over,” she says, reaching for Vega’s fries. “I’m pretty sure I almost died.”
“Uh, huh,” Vega says drily. “Vi, we all know you aced your Chem test.”
“It was really hard, though!” Violet complains, propping her feet up in the chair across from her.
“Well, the boys are getting in line in the food court,” I tell her. “If you want Ash to grab you anything you should tell him now.”
She pulls out her phone to text her twin before looking back at us. “So, what’d I miss?”
“Just CeCe being disgustingly adorable about her boyfriend. Again.”
“Aw.” Vi reaches over to tug on the end of my braid.
I bat her hand away. “I was not being adorable. I was just sending a text message.”
“But you get this look on your face,” Vega argues, fixing her own face in a soppy expression I’m sure I’ve never worn a day in my life.
Honestly? It’s hard to get worked up about her teasing. Not when I feel this happy.
It’s been almost three weeks since the away game in San Jose.
Since then, I’ve been playing some of the best soccer of my life.
I’ve scored in every game since, and the team is at the top of our conference.
The team doctor wasn’t concerned when he checked out my knee, just told me to keep an eye on things and keep my trainers in the loop.
So Solomon has been like a dictator about my treatment.
Every once in a while, I’m able to convince him to save the soft-tissue massage for when we get back to his apartment. Those nights are my favorite.
You’d think I would start to get sick of him, with how much time we’ve been spending together.
Every week we spend hours on the field or in the weight room or in the treatment room.
After training, we’re careful to not be alone on campus, or to indulge in any PDA, but, like today, he’ll usually sit with me and my cousins at lunch, or I’ll join him and Jay.
Apparently, all of that time isn’t enough for me, because we end up sleeping at one of our places almost every night.
When he’s at mine, we usually hang out with my cousins in the living room, watching movies—with incessant commentary from Cade and Vega—or playing cards.
Our nights at his place tend to be a bit quieter.
We argue over what sports to watch on TV (he’s still trying to get me into baseball) or work on a LEGO set.
There’s something about seeing Solomon all casual at home in the evenings that always gets to me.
Him padding around his apartment in bare feet wearing sweats—and he always switches to his glasses at night, which continues to drive me crazy for reasons I can’t quite express.
We make dinner together, or order in, and I spend a lot of time trying to convince him to join me in breaking my meal plan.
He tries to act like a responsible trainer but he always gives in.
We tease each other a lot. When I first met Sol, I thought he was too stoic, grumpy and serious all the time.
But now I can see that he actually has a really dry sense of humor, a lot like mine.
One time he made me waffles and, without thinking, I blurted out that the best waffles I ever had was at a hotel in Belgium during Ransom’s European tour when I was in middle school.
Solomon had stared at me. “A European tour.”
“Um, yeah?”
“So your summer vacation in middle school was a string of luxury hotels across Europe?”
I cleared my throat. “It was that year. The next year it was Asia.”
Sol just shook his head, but I could tell he was amused. “You are physically incapable of sounding normal.”
Ever since then, he’s been mercilessly teasing me about how not normal my rock and roll childhood was. I tease him right back about being a cowboy, and something about it makes me so happy. Maybe my love language is shit talking?
And then we have the nights together. I had no idea sleeping with the same person for more than a few nights could be so exciting, but there’s not a single part of me that feels bored with our sex life. In fact, I basically can’t get enough of him, and it’s pretty clear he feels the same way.
Pretty much the only time we’re not together is when we’re in class.
He’s even traveled to our other away games, despite the fact that his program only required him to get that experience once, because Coach and Devon have been so thrilled with how well Solomon has been managing my injury.
They want him working with me all the time, even switching one of the other student athletes under his care to a different student trainer to free up his schedule.
We don’t argue with the opportunity to spend even more time together—though we’ve refrained from sneaking into each other’s hotel rooms after that first time.
Things aren’t perfect, of course. We’ve hung out with Emery a few times and while she’s always polite, I can’t help but feel like she doesn’t really like me. And I can’t shake the thought that she’s watching me with Sol whenever she’s with us, like she’s waiting for me to mess up somehow.
I also get the sense, sometimes, that Sol isn’t completely honest with me when it comes to social situations.
We don’t go to parties together—too much chance someone from the team will see us—but we do hang out with all of my cousins quite a bit, and I know they can be a lot to deal with.
Or sometimes, when we’re all out at a loud bar or restaurant, I can tell that he’s getting tense.
Any time I bring it up he insists that he’s fine but his smiles seem a little forced.
He still hasn’t told me what exactly happened when he saw his mom that night in San Jose.
Or why he reacted the way he did after the punch fiasco at the Sigma party.
I mean, I can make some logical guesses.
He clearly has issues with sensory stuff—loud noises, crowded rooms, the feel of a wet, punch-soaked shirt sticking to his chest.
I’m pretty sure he struggles with anxiety.
I’m not a stranger to that. Ash has been dealing with anxiety and depression for most of our lives.
His mom had issues with that, too, and so did our Uncle Lennon.
Our parents have always made it a point to be open about that kind of thing—our family is not the type to be judgmental when it comes to mental health issues.
But Solomon seems determined to not talk about it, no matter how gently I bring it up. I’m torn between wanting him to trust me with more and not wanting to push him about something he’s clearly sensitive about.
And then there’s the whole guilt issue. Namely, the guilt I feel every time I spend more than a few nights at his place. In other words, more than a few nights away from my cousins.
It’s ridiculous. I know that. We’re in our early twenties. In a few semesters we’ll graduate and go on to find jobs and probably live in different places—even though I can’t think about that for too long before I start to feel panicky.
My cousins have always been the most important people in my life. And I don’t really understand how I’m supposed to let someone new in.
But at the same time, I really, really want to let Solomon in.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Vega says, and I force my attention back to the conversation. I refuse to be the person who starts flaking out on her girls because she’s distracted by a guy. “Santana is going to be in town for the Ruby Roads show!”
“Nice!” It feels like ages since I’ve seen Vega’s older sister Santana but it makes sense that she would want to be here for the concert, since their other sister, Presley, will be on stage.
Ruby Roads is the band my brother Silas started with our cousins Lyric, Presley, and Phoenix.
They’ve been having some decent success over the last few years.
My brother Will’s wife Eva, who happens to be a huge pop star, invited them to open for her last tour, and ever since then they’ve been pretty much living on the road.
The LA concert will be the first time I’ve seen my brother in a few months.
“We should probably figure out plans for that, right?” Violet says, pulling out her phone to open the notes app. Vi is all about planning and I’m pretty sure the five of us would miss half our commitments if it wasn’t for her keeping our calendars for us.
She looks up from the screen. “I’m assuming we’re adding Solomon to the guest list? We’ll need to get him a backstage pass.”
“Oh.” I shift in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m not sure if he’ll be there.”
“Why wouldn’t he be there?” Vega asks. “You’re completely obsessed with him.”
“I’m not completely obsessed with him,” I mutter, and they both laugh.
“Uh huh,” Vega says. “Sure.”
“Has a single day passed without you seeing him since you came back from San Jose?” Violet asks.
“No,” I mutter. “But that doesn’t mean he wants to come to my brother’s concert.”
“Well, did you ask him?” Vega presses.
I fidget with the sleeves of my hoodie—which is actually Solomon’s hoodie that I stole from his room a week ago because it smells like him. So maybe they have a point about the completely obsessed thing.