Chapter 8 Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn
I have to hand it to Emerson. I thought being a douchebag nepo baby was his only talent, but apparently, he can also easily fill the role of racist prick and grade A vibe killer.
I half expect him to hide for the rest of the night, but he reappears wearing a navy blue cardigan and with Javi in tow.
I know Avery was probably shitting herself with worry that Javi went upstairs to lay Emerson’s ass out, but I know Javi’s too smart for that.
In fact, as Javi walks back into the room and plops down next to me, he seems to be in a better mood than when he left.
“Did you two patch things up and make each other friendship bracelets?” I ask him after pecking him on the cheek. “Give each other matching flash tattoos, maybe?”
Javi rolls his eyes. “No, but—”
“All right, guys,” says another voice, one that grates as opposed to how Javi’s soothes. “I think there’s been enough excitement for the night. Time for bed.”
Apparently, Emerson wasn’t the only trash that Javi brought with him from upstairs. Jay is there standing next to him, and he’s actually trying to cosplay as a teacher right now. How precious.
“I think we’ll stay up,” I tell him. “Not really feeling like bed right now. Are you guys?”
There’s general grumbling. Even Avery’s not leaping to listen to a teacher for once. In fact, she’s acting like Marlene’s sketchbook is the most interesting thing she’s ever seen, refusing to even look at Jay.
Jay sighs. He’s got his sleeves rolled up to show off his shitty tattoos. I can tell he thinks it makes him look like hot shit, but really, I’ve seen kindergartners with better artistic talent than whoever did his ink.
“I’m serious,” he says. “Don’t make me—”
“Get Mommy and Daddy?” I shoot back at him. “Go on. Wake them up. Tell them you can’t do your job. I’m sure that’ll look good.”
“Kait,” Javi says, his voice low so only I can hear him. It’s a warning. I’m taking this too far and should walk it back. I even open my mouth to do so, but I’m interrupted by someone bounding down the stairs.
“Friends, Romans, countrymen!” Lucas says as he appears, hoisting a trunk above his head like a trophy. “I have returned with some serious treasure.”
He crosses the room to Marlene, sets the trunk on the coffee table, and opens it, displaying its contents for all of us to see.
“Oooh,” Marlene murmurs, peeking inside the trunk. “Are these games?”
“Lucas, man, I told you to leave that upstairs,” Jay starts. “Everyone needs to go to bed.”
“You think I can sleep right now?” Lucas asks. “I’m so hyped up, man. There’s no way. Plus, look at all this.”
Lucas takes out each game and sets them before him so we can see all of our options: Operation, Candy Land, Exploding Kittens, Wingspan, Monopoly (Jurassic Park edition), Guess Who?, and a few decks of cards.
I watch the indecision pass over Jay’s face. He’s new to all this shit, and everyone knows that he has roughly half the power of an actual teacher. Plus, he’s out of capital with Dorman and McCullough asleep. This is a fight he can’t win, and even he sees that.
“Another hour,” he says. “Once time’s up, bed.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I say. “We’ll see about that.”
I meet his eyes. There’s more he wants to say to me, more he would say if we weren’t in a crowd. But eventually, he just sighs and heads upstairs, leaving us alone at last.
“Finally,” I say. “Is there anything in here that isn’t kid shit?”
While I rifle through the rest of the trunk, Lucas and Marlene start up a game of Guess Who? They trade questions, smacking down the plastic people in front of them as I dig.
“Does your person look like they’d join a cult?”
“Does your person look like they put Tajín on their fruit?”
“Is your person lactose intolerant?”
“Does your person ask questions during the last two minutes of class?”
I snort. “Avery, you might want to duck.”
She glares at me, and I stick my tongue out.
“Maybe we should go to bed,” she says. “Maybe—”
“I’ve got it,” I say, snatching up the battered box of Jenga. “We do our own game. Truth or Dare Jenga.”
All the eyes in the room turn to me. Emerson’s still standing, watching me, and he looks like I’ve just offered him his own podcast with 100,000 built-in and loyal subscribers.
“That could be interesting,” he says.
Caulder looks from me to Emerson. “Maybe not—”
“Oh, I like it!” Lucas says, oblivious to the tension. “Creative, Kaitlyn. Very creative.”
I grin, then meet Javi’s eyes. He also looks unconvinced.
“Oh, come on,” I say. “It’ll be fun. We’ll keep it simple. If you pull a block successfully, you get to ask anyone a truth or dare.”
“And if you topple the tower, you have to do a truth or dare,” Lucas says, jumping on my enthusiasm. “The last person who went gets to ask you.”
“And we’ll keep it confidential,” I add, seeing Javi still looks like he’s on the fence. “Anything said or done here, stays here.”
“Perfect,” Lucas agrees.
“Surprised you don’t want to film this,” Marlene says, her voice soft and teasing.
“You can never let your filming keep you from living in the moment,” Lucas offers sagely. “Life is life, man. You can never forget that, Mari.”
He reaches out and pats her on the shoulder, and even with her naturally tan skin, there’s no hiding the blush that blooms on her cheeks or the way her eyes flash when he touches her.
And honestly, I can’t even blame her. Lucas is pretty much a celebrity at Coastal Canyon, after all, thanks to his vlogging channel.
He’s also got dimples and a smile that’s easy to see when he’s got his locs pulled back like he does now.
He’s also the kind of guy who really listens to you when you talk, when he isn’t being annoying and shoving his camera in your face.
“Well, clearly Marlene’s in,” I say, turning to Caulder and Avery for approval.
Thankfully, they know that if Marlene’s game, they have to be, too. So they both nod, and I’ve officially got consensus.
While Caulder, Lucas, and Marlene set up the tower, Emerson disappears to the kitchen. Avery worries her cuticles, and I sink into the couch, relishing in the night’s new turn. I’m not surprised to feel Javi lean back with me, and even less surprised when he whispers into my ear.
“This is a mistake.”
I relax into him, watching Caulder as he stacks each piece carefully, putting more thought into this game than he ever put into our relationship.
Not that I’m still dwelling on that. No, I’m over Caulder Grant in every possible way.
That’s why it’s so easy for me to be here, near him.
In fact, if I really think about it, I was never that into Caulder in the first place.
He was a mistake, like when I let the team give me bangs after our first away game freshman year.
A temporary, slightly annoying thing to look back on, but nothing so fatal that I couldn’t shake it off and pretend it never mattered.
A stylist fixed my hair, and Javi fixed my heart. Easy.
“Kait?”
Javi’s hand squeezes mine, his thumb running across that place between my thumb and forefinger.
It draws my attention back to him, to where his eyes are settled on me.
He tucks a hair that’s come loose from my ponytail behind my ear, which is sweet, but it only makes me realize that my ponytail must look like a hot mess.
I pull away from him slightly and extract my hand so I can tug my hair out of containment and flip it back up again.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he says, as if I didn’t hear him the first time. He glances over at the others, but no one’s paying any attention to us.
“Oh, come on,” I say, wrapping the satin hair tie a few times to get a snug fit. “It’s just a dumb game.”
“Yeah, but what if someone asks about—?”
“They won’t,” I say. “They know better.”
Javi opens his mouth to reply but then closes it. I know he doesn’t agree with me. And maybe he’s right. Maybe someone will go there. But if they do, I’ll say what I always say whenever I’m asked about Warren Kane.
He fucking had it coming.
“Are we just about ready to start?” Emerson says, emerging from the kitchen swirling a glass in his hand like some shitty Temu James Bond.
Of course he found alcohol and helped himself.
I look around to see if Jay is watching, but he must still be upstairs, probably seeking the companionship of his vape and unlikely to actually call our bluff.
“Almost ready,” Caulder says, setting his last piece on top of the tower as Lucas does the same. This earns him a grin from Lucas, and they slap hands like old bros.
“I’ll go first,” Javi says, and something in me jolts.
I know, of course, that Javi would never ask me to reveal something I didn’t want to share.
He’d never embarrass me. He’s proven that.
But still. When you date your ex’s friends—the literal catcher to their pitcher—you always wonder, just a bit, where those loyalties truly lie.
A flash of blood in my mind reminds me, though, that I already know.
Javi pulls the first piece out with ease. He scans the group before landing on Lucas.
“Lucas,” he says. “Truth or dare?”
I let out the tiniest breath, so small that no one would notice.
“Truth, obviously,” Lucas says, grinning. “You all know I’m an open book.”
Javi smirks. “Okay, well, that YouTuber you collabed with—what was his name? Keifer Dawson? Is it true that he’s a raging dick?”
“Ah, man.” Lucas laughs. “Unfortunately, super true. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
It’s a soft question, but it’s fine for an opener. It also sets the tone. Maybe everyone will keep it skimming the surface. But when Lucas pulls his piece successfully and turns to me, I can tell he has something juicier in mind.
“All right, Kaitlyn,” he says. “Truth or dare?”
“Hmm,” I say, leaning back and drumming my fingers on the leather. “Let’s go truth.”
“Let’s clear up some gossip,” he says. “Why’d Delaney really quit the volleyball team?”
I still. Judging by Lucas’s easy grin, he doesn’t realize that what he’s asked me isn’t just some fun rumor. He doesn’t know how deep it goes, and I have to make sure I don’t show it.
The truth is the last time I saw Delaney was mid-game, and her nose was bubbling over with blood as she sobbed, begging me to let her stay in. As if she wasn’t a liability. As if I was going to risk not qualifying for playoffs because I felt sorry for her.
“Please,” Delaney had begged. “C’mon, Kaitlyn. I need this. My dad’s here.”
She was hiccupping and imploring me with those big brown Delaney Reid eyes. Eyes that have been the end of many people at Coastal Canyon. Eyes that she’d tested on me, too, though she knew I don’t fuck with teammates.
“Support your team from the bench,” I’d told her. “Or don’t bother showing up to practice tomorrow.”
It was an easy out, the kind of out she barely deserved but I gave her because I felt sorry for her. And because I’d long ago taken up my mantle as a captain and wasn’t about to let it go then.
No weaknesses. No opportunities for weakness. We play for perfection.
Come Monday, though, Delaney had spun it that I cut her because I was jealous. That I’d had a crush on her and she’d rejected me.
If she’d stopped there, we wouldn’t have had a problem. I probably would’ve even let her back on the team, after the right amount of groveling.
But then I heard exactly what she’d said.
“She’s just like her sister,” I heard Delaney telling a few sophomores in the hall.
“You know, Hadley Bendix? A few years ago, Hadley had this huge episode because her boyfriend dumped her. Crying in class, screaming in the halls. They had to hospitalize her. They’re not stable, those girls.
The whole family’s extremely fucked in the head. ”
Honestly, I could’ve done much, much worse things to Delaney.
I could’ve ruined her life the way the entire fucking school had ruined Hadley’s with their lies and their bullshit.
Instead, all I did was let it slip that she’d previously cheated on the girlfriend who had just taken her back.
But the way I see it, if you’re going to spread rumors about me, don’t be fucking surprised when I hand them back to you.
If you ask me, I was goddamn merciful.
“Sorry to disappoint, Lucas,” I say, rolling my neck. “But what you saw was the truth. I kicked Delaney off the team because she couldn’t take being told no by her captain and threw a tantrum. I don’t need a team of girls who can’t take accountability. I don’t have time for weak people.”
I let the words hang there, not caring if the others believe me or not. How could it really matter? I’ve been getting the bitch edit ever since I can remember. Whatever happens tonight, that’s not going to change.