10. Blake
BLAKE
If someone directed a movie about my life at Mosaic Falls High and D'Arthur University, it would be a classic trope: high school football prodigy, popular, and a player. I’d pushed academics to the side to focus on sports and pretty girls, earning myself the title of dumb jock.
But I’d embraced the label until my second act in college.
Still a football prodigy, still popular, and admittedly, still a bit of a player.
I liked to think I hooked up in a cooler, more mature way than I had as a hormone-addled teenager, which made me the guy viewers loved to hate.
Until the plot slowly revealed my backstory: abusive father, wine-drunk mother, and a hidden fear of letting down the people I loved because I wasn’t enough.
I became the guy they hated to admit they loved, and I fully embraced that role, too.
Thanks to Addie’s excellent guidance, I spoke with my professors, let her tutor me to fill the gaps in my coursework, and successfully kept my grades up.
I even met my advisor, who turned out to be a pretty cool dude. His father had also wanted him to pursue a fancy job in the family business over his true passion.
With his understanding and help, I’d secured my position as a freshman on D'Arthur University’s football team. While I was only the backup, I still got time on the field. And when I did, I owned it. People on campus had noticed.
Now, I walked around like I owned the place. Earning myself a reputation. Playing into the part the crowd wanted me to fill. And doing it all with a smile.
The only people who truly knew the real me were the Barrows. They also happened to be the only people willing to call me on my bullshit.
“You’re strutting again.”
I breezed past Addie’s observation and continued walking.
“Still strutting,” she deadpanned.
“I do not strut.”
Adam snorted, and I whipped my head in his direction. He hiked his backpack strap higher on his shoulder and shrugged. “You kind of do, man.”
“You’re like a peacock showing off its pretty feathers, hoping to secure a mate.” To prove her point, Addie gestured at my hair, which looked incredible, and then she reached up to tug on one of the strands.
Swatting her hand away, I kept walking. “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful, Addie. Hate me because your best friend thinks so.”
When a giggle snuck past her lips, I narrowed my gaze on her.
“It’s like watching a zoo animal in its natural habitat.” She widened her eyes dramatically. “So fascinating.”
I bristled. “No one said you had to come with us, you know?”
Addie smirked and skipped ahead, entering the lower level of the football stadium. From a few paces away, she called out, sure we could hear her. “Oh, and Adam has always been more Tessa’s type than you, Blake. Sorry!”
“What?” Adam said, his voice carrying to her despite his normal volume. “She what?”
“Don’t worry, Adam. She put you both on her DNF list back in high school.”
At that, Addie took off.
I stared after her, slightly annoyed by her parting remarks and thrown by her refusal to rise when I baited her now.
She’d made an effort to join us at the stadiums and she never missed a Sunday dinner, but her presence had been unusually scarce for a while.
Initially, I’d tried to pinpoint when it began, wondering whether starting college and the attention she got from the guys in our apartment complex had boosted her self-confidence slowly enough that I hadn’t known she’d drifted until it was too late.
Or if it had been midterms.
Maybe once she’d helped me boost my grades to keep from failing and getting kicked off the team, she’d realized she didn’t have to be nervous around dumb jocks like me, like she’d been most of her life.
Neither of those seemed likely, which left the worst-case scenario. Also, probably, the most likely:
That night Becky had thrown my place with them in my face, I’d paused. I’d doubted them, even after all the times they’d shown up for me. Adam had been fine after, but then he wouldn’t have noticed the brief flash of doubt that kept me from meeting their eyes. Addie would’ve.
And she did.
I thought I’d reassured her after, but she’d left that night.
And then he had happened.
She met and started dating her first college boyfriend, the douchebag who wanted to be a poet and wrote her fucking sonnets while introducing her to the female orgasm.
That information, which no one had asked for, I’d unfortunately overheard the next day, when she’d been talking to Tessa on the phone.
Since then, Addie had been different.
And I refused to believe it was because Finn, who I affectionately referred to as Flynn no matter how many times she corrected me, was that good in bed. The guy was a fucking tool. I’d called it the first night he’d shown up at our apartment.
Adam had noticed it, too.
Even if Addie didn’t see it yet, he rubbed me the wrong way.
Beside me, Adam shoved his hands in his pockets, staring at where his twin had disappeared to start her first lap around the stadium’s lower level. He sighed but said nothing.
Even if he noticed the change in Addie, too, he wouldn’t comment on it.
Not to her. It wasn’t his style to dive into people’s behaviors in general, but his twin sister’s sexual awakening—again, a detail I hadn’t asked to overhear—was on the expansive list of things Adam refused to think or speak about unless threatened with death.
I hadn’t stopped thinking about it.
And I wanted to talk about it.
For her sake, of course.
Addie was perfect. Of course, some prick with a Vespa and record player had been interested in her from day one. But how he’d managed to sink his tobacco-stained claws into her, I had no idea.
She was smarter than that. And I didn’t understand why she wasn’t acting like it.
“Listen, brother.” I eyed Adam carefully as I stretched. “I know you don’t want to talk about this, but don’t you think we should?”
“Talk about what?”
Oblivious. I swear to fucking God.
“Addie! She’s going to end up hurt. Or worse. And who’s going to be there, picking up the pieces?”
His eyebrows knit together.
“Us! That's who, Adam!”
Adam’s eyes widened. He swiveled his head between me and staring after Addie. After three passes, he settled back on me, cocking his head to the side and squinting. The corner of his mouth twisted with uncertainty.
I bent my knee, reaching back to grab my ankle and stretching my quad as Adam worked through whatever he was trying to process. When he opened his mouth to say something, I dropped my right leg and switched to the left.
He shut his mouth a moment later.
“What?” I said through a groan, my muscles tight after a season of pushing my body on the field. “Spit it out, Adam.”
He’d yet to start stretching, which didn’t help my growing impatience as beats of silence passed.
Finally, he slung an arm across his chest. Not the muscle group we were working today, but it was something. “So…you want to tell Addie that her boyfriend sucks?”
It wasn’t exactly what I’d said, but it also wasn’t far from the truth. I almost took it and ran with it, but Adam didn’t wait for me to respond.
“You want to tell Addie…Addison Barrow, my twin sister, who’s the same age as us but with ten times the emotion and attitude that her boyfriend, the one she’s super happy about—the one who has her running around all empowered and shit—you want to tell her he sucks?”
I frowned. “Well, I did.”
“You think that would go over well?”
“No.” I kicked the toe of my shoe into the ground.
“Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, though.
The guy’s a creep. What is he, like twenty-two, and he can’t find a girl his own age to date?
I’m eighteen, and you know what I’m like about girls.
Do you really think it gets easier to think without using your dick as we get older?
Especially here, where he’s surrounded by willing college chicks. ”
Adam blinked a few times after my tirade before nodding slowly. Then, without stretching and without another word, he took off running.
Eyes shooting toward the heavens, I prayed for patience and ran after him. As we went through our first lap, his mouth stayed pinched in thought.
I didn’t know what was so revelatory about what I’d said, but I gave him space to sort through it. He didn’t speak again until Addie came into view ahead of us, her pace slightly slower than ours.
“Are you into my sister?”
I stopped in my tracks. “What?”
Adam turned around, jogging in place only a few paces in front of me. I glanced past him at Addie. For a second, I thought she might stop, but she continued on ahead of us.
Adam tilted his head again as he observed me, looking at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “You heard me.”
I scoffed, brushing off his question and passing him to continue our first lap.
He didn’t force a confession out of me, but his question hung between us like a noose as we ran, itching to tighten around my neck.
I needed to say something, but denying it outright would only make him more suspicious.
We smiled at Addie as we passed her, with Adam calling out that we’d meet her by the entrance when we were done. Veering to the left, I followed him through the alcove to start our first climb up and down the stadium steps.
Addie waved us on, huffing something under her breath about cardio being the devil.
A smile tugged at my lips.
I instantly flattened them into a thin line.
Refocusing, I jogged down the first line of steps, ran across the row of seats to the next staircase, and ran back up. Each time we reached the top, we went back under the cover of the lower level, where we’d begun our run.
At the end of our first lap, we were drenched in sweat, my hair remained incredible, and we jogged in place waiting for Addie to catch up.
“Just so you know…it wasn’t meant to be that hard of a question, Blake.”
I lifted my head from where I’d bent at the waist to catch my breath, having pushed myself harder than usual today.