30. Bailey
30
Bailey
I pulled my hair out of its braid. The pool was full of players and students throwing foam footballs at one another. I dove into a clear spot, under the hundreds of floating plastic balls, and as I swam through to the shallow end, I ran my fingers through my hair. I was relieved when the green goop dissolved easily in the water. I came up for a breath and was sandwiched between three large bodies. Sam, Wes, and Charlie were chanting and jumping around me, not exactly touching me. I laughed at their antics. Maybe some girls would’ve gotten annoyed at all this, but I was still having fun. It was a show of camaraderie; they had accepted me as their own. Even now, as they jumped around me, hooting and hollering, I couldn’t help but feel the gesture of acceptance. Eventually, they moved on, and I was able to swim under and make a quick getaway.
I moved to the stairs and looked up at Lachlan’s smile while he watched me. “Having fun?” I asked.
“Yes.” He held the towel out again, and I got out, stepping into it. “Your clothes are back in the pool house.”
He walked with me as we weaved through everyone. “I want another drink,” I announced. “Another shot?”
Lachlan laughed. “Sure, get dressed, and we will show you a good time.”
“We?” I asked.
“We.” Nolan stepped up beside me, already dressed again and completely void of slime.
No one was in the pool house as I stepped in. There was the same TV and the same couch that had been there years ago. A bar that was empty. I saw my clothes folded on the bar and grabbed them, stepping into the bathroom to get dressed.
Once I was out, I used the towel to squeeze the excess water out of my hair. “Need help?” Lachlan asked. He took over drying my hair, then began braiding it.
“Where’s Ethan?” I asked.
“He said he would be right back.”
“Bailey!!!” Beth ran through the room and wrapped her arms around me. “I can’t believe you did that!”
I chuckled. “It was a lot harder than it looked.”
Lachlan finished with my hair, and as soon as I pulled on my cap, Beth began tugging me toward the house. “Come on, let’s go dance!”
One of the large rooms had been completely emptied of furniture. There was a DJ set up at the edge of the space, with a huge sound system. Multicolored lights were rotating and alternating. It must’ve cost a fortune to do this, but really, it was nothing to Chase. I used to hear about the parties he would throw here. I never thought I would actually go to one, though. Why would I? For years, my life had revolved around Ed.
Beth pulled me directly onto the dance floor, like she thought I would know what to do. Some of the other girls she hung around with danced with us, but I was awkward as anything. Most of my dancing involved swaying until she grabbed my hand and started twirling me and moving me this way and that. Bodies bumped into me here and there as the DJ kicked up the tempo of the music, and soon, I was moving with everyone else. Jumping, raising my fist in the air.
Wes appeared behind Beth and began dancing with her, so I decided to take a break. I walked off the dance floor and spotted Ethan, Nolan, and Lachlan standing together against the wall, talking.
I moved to make my way over to them when a large guy stepped in front of me. “Hey, you’re the new chick player,” he said, though he definitely wasn’t a high school student. Maybe in his second or third year of college. I took a step back. “You played pretty good today.”
I gave a polite smile. “Thanks.”
“I’m Tatum, used to play for the Panthers a few years back. Do you want a drink?” He reached out for me, but his hand was intercepted. Ethan stood beside me, bumping Tatum’s hand away. “Hey, Eth! Long time.”
Ethan nodded to him.
“I didn’t mean, I mean, is she yours?” he asked.
I scoffed, am I his? Like I belonged to someone. Ethan didn’t even look at me, just kept his eyes on Tatum.
“No. How long are you in town for?” he asked.
“Few more days. I have to stop at your place sometime. You going to be there?”
Ethan stood a little straighter, taking a step between me and Tatum. “Probably not.” I could tell the guy was getting uncomfortable under Ethan’s stare. He looked away, waved to someone, and left. Ethan finally looked at me. “Go with Lachlan and Nolan, I’ll be back.” And then he left, heading in the same direction Tatum disappeared to.
The room was overcrowded, I was getting bumped and pushed from every direction. I could feel sweat break out across my back. The interaction, standing in the crowd without Ethan, made it difficult to concentrate. I knew I should make my way to Lachlan and Nolan, but when there was a break in the crowd, I saw Chase slipping out the French doors leading to the porch, and I found myself following him. I didn’t really have a reason to talk to Chase. If anything, I shouldn’t talk to Chase. Since the incident in the parking lot, he had been avoiding me as much as possible, but when I’d been having a total freak-out before the game, his words helped me get it together. I just wanted to thank him for that. Could we go back to being best friends? Maybe not, but he was still my teammate.
I slipped through the crowd and out the door, closing it behind me as Chase had done. It was cold outside, which was likely why hardly anyone was out here anymore. A few people were in the hot tub, and a small group sat smoking and chatting in a circle on the porch, but for the most part, the party had moved inside.
I skimmed the faces, some familiar, some not so much, but I didn’t see Chase. I walked to the edge of the porch, leaning against the railing and looking out into the empty yard. It was the glow of a phone amongst the trees that caught my attention. I knew the layout of the trees from years of playing hide and seek within them. I also knew there was a bench back there, in between rose bushes and decorative flowers.
I took my time. The fairy lights’ beam reached only so far into the trees, but the bench I was thinking about was lit by a streetlight lantern. I paused when I heard Chase’s voice.
“I heard you!” he hissed into his phone. Even I heard whoever was yelling on the other end of the call. I couldn’t make out any words, but I could tell they weren’t too happy. “But it will never be enough,” Chase whispered. I caught sight of his face in the light of the lantern; he seemed so broken. “I said it won’t be enough. No matter what I do, I will always be under your thumb. My life isn’t mine. It will always be a game for you.” Chase scoffed. “Yeah, an ungrateful teen.” He paused, listening. “I know. October second…I’ll be out. You won’t have to worry. Bye—” He stopped, pulled the phone away, and looked down at it with so much fury. Clutching the phone in his hand, he raised it up and threw it…toward me.
“Whoa.” I jumped out of the way as the phone grazed past me. I picked it up from where it landed in the soft grass.
“Really? Spying on me?” Chase asked, standing from the bench.
“No, I wasn’t.” I walked over to him, holding his phone out. “I just— I didn’t— I-wasn’t—”
“Chill, Bailey.” Chase took his phone from me, his voice gentler than it had been. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He sat back down on the bench, staring at the screen, brushing the grass off.
I relaxed and sat next to him. “I know you won’t hurt me.”
“Do you, though?” He looked at me, and it was the first time his eyes had actually met mine since the game.
“It’s not—” I sighed. “It had nothing to do with you. Was that your dad on the phone?” I asked, quickly changing the subject.
“Eavesdropping now?” I winced, and he shook his head, looking across into the trees. “Yes, it was. Just Dear Old Dad dropping in to remind me how temporary living is.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “Don’t sweat it. You shouldn’t be listening to other’s conversations. If your looking like you were bracing for me to hit you wasn’t about me, then who was it about?”
“No one. I just wanted to come over and say thank you, for helping me on the field. It was a lot to take in at first.”
He let out an airy laugh. “Still change the subject whenever you don’t want to talk about something. I guess some things didn’t change.”
I frowned. “You’re one to talk. What do you mean, living is temporary?”
“It has nothing to do with you.” Chase, always one to go on the offensive, always the one to feel like he was in a battle, raised his voice slightly. “Damn, Bailey, not everything is about you. It hasn’t been for years.”
I rolled my eyes and stood up, seeing this conversation was going nowhere. “Yeah, well, my being scared of some random guy coming at me, yelling, had nothing to do with you.”
Chase got up. The once short kid who was waiting for his growth spurt, so he could be taller than me, now towered over me. “I’m not some random guy to you,” he growled.
Refusing to let him see how hurt I had been, I didn’t back down from his anger this time. I met him head-on. Something about Chase always sparked life inside of me, and I was ready to burn. “No? Then who are you to me? Because, according to you, nothing in your life has been about me for years.”
“The conversation was between my father and me.” He took a step forward, and out of habit, I retreated, preserving my personal space.
“Why are you scared of me?”
“I’m not! Why is living temporary?”
“My life here is,” he snapped. “I’m getting kicked out, happy? Tell your pals and have a good laugh. So glad you were able to get the group back together.”
I glared at him. “I tried with you.”
“Who are you scared of?” He took another step forward, and I took another step back.
“No one!” I yelled.
“So, it is me.” Another step forward, another step back.
“No!”
“It’s your boyfriend.” Another step forward…my back touched the trunk of a tree.
All bravado left me in one exhale. “What?” My voice dropped.
“Your ex.”
“How…” Lachlan didn’t. He wouldn’t have. But he’d told Nolan, right? That didn’t bother me, but why would he tell Chase? Betrayal settled in my chest.
Chase leaned down close and whispered, “That was supposed to be my kiss.”
He must’ve seen the confusion in my eyes. “What?”
“Twenty-four hours, Bails. We sat right here, behind this tree, hiding from Lachlan. I told you if we had twenty-four hours left, I would kiss you. And then you promised me your first kiss.” He moved his hands, holding my hips.
“We were kids. It was a game—if we had twenty-four hours left to live. There’s no apocalypse.” I became breathless as one of his hands slowly slid up my body, settling on the back of my neck.
“My world ended when you left me. I’ve been living twenty-four hours for years now.” He leaned in close. “Are you afraid of me?”
I could stop him. I knew I could, but I didn’t want to. His chest brushed mine, my nipples hardening almost instantly under my sports bra. My breath came out in pants, and the only thought, the only feeling I could find within me, was how do I keep him from stopping? “No.”
“No, what?” His voice was low in my ear.
“No, I’m not afraid of you.”
“Then, prove it, Bails.”
So, I did just that. Chase met my lips with the same need, the same ferocity, our teeth nearly clashing together. His hands gripped my thighs, and mine grabbed his shoulders, bracing myself as he lifted me up. My back pressed into the tree trunk as he ground his pelvis up into mine. I gasped, my head falling back against the tree. Chase’s lips didn’t leave me as he sucked and kissed his way across my chin, down my throat, my fingers grasping in his hair.
His hair…his hair that Hadley often ran her fingers through. “Stop,” I whispered, breathless. What was I doing? Holy shit, Ed was right. I was a whore. Those boys would take and take and take until they screwed me, and I would be nothing but a whore. What was wrong with me? “Stop!” I said, louder this time.
Chase stopped, his eyes glowing as he met my stare. “Bailey…” He slowly set me down. “I’m sorry, I thought you—”
“What the fuck?” If I’d thought the cold stares Lachlan gave anyone who touched him were scary before, this was a different kind of scary. Lachlan was murderous as he glared at Chase’s hand on my shoulder.
“Are you all right, Bailey?” Nolan asked, but I couldn’t answer.
Chase stepped in front of me, blocking my view of them.
“I’ll fucking murder you,” Lachlan growled. Chase tensed, and that’s when I quickly came out from behind him. Nolan was holding Lachlan back, but he was struggling.
“Let him go, Reeves. You’ll be doing me a favor,” Chase spat.
“Chase.” Nolan struggled. “Leave.”
“Someone better tell me what the fuck is happening.” Ethan’s voice was low and steady, the perfect facade of calm.
“He attacked Bailey, had her pinned!” Lachlan yelled, still struggling against Nolan’s hold.
“She wanted it,” Chase said.
Nolan froze, and then he threw his hands up, off Lachlan. “Fuck it.”
Lachlan launched himself forward, fists ready. Chase braced himself, but I stepped in front quickly. “I did,” I quickly said. Lachlan stopped mere inches from me, his eyes inspecting me, as if looking for any harm. “I’m sorry,” I said shamefully.
Lachlan reached up and gently brushed the hair that had come loose from my braid out of my face, but his eyes remained cold, like he hadn’t quite reined himself in. “If it’s what you wanted, you don’t have to say sorry,” he whispered to me.
“Great. Nice. So what, are you her handler now?” Chase scoffed.
“Go your separate ways,” Ethan said. “Nothing happened here.”
Chase chuckled. “Not how I’ll remember it.”
I felt sick to my stomach. Lachlan wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Yeah, make sure to tell your girlfriend that,” he said while guiding me in the direction of the house.
Nolan didn’t say anything, his eyes just shifting between the four of us. Once we broke out from the cover of the trees, I pulled away from Lachlan. “I need a minute.”
He seemed hurt but let me go. “You did nothing wrong, Bailey.”
I faced him. “He has a girlfriend, Lach.” I was an idiot. “The last few days, I’ve been leading you and Nolan on. He was right, I’m a whore.”
“Who said that? Chase?”
“No, just forget about it. I need a moment alone.” I turned away from him, walking the long way around to the front.
I had almost made it to my truck. I wouldn’t leave without Nolan and Ethan, but I could sit and wait until they were good to go.
I heard a noise behind me but ignored it, figuring it was Ed, his voice still mocking me in my ear. Then someone grabbed me from behind, and a burlap sack was shoved over my head.
“Stop!” I screamed, but it didn’t deter them. Them . Multiple hands had hold of me, shoving me to the ground, tying my hands together. “Help!” I screamed even louder, rocking back and forth to dislodge them from me, but no one heard me. The music in the house was still so loud, I could hear it from out here.
No one would hear me.
No one would know.