17. Deacon
Chapter seventeen
Deacon
It was our fourth weekend going out to the bars, but everything about this night felt different. I was looking forward to Lyla coming over and being out with someone. I understood this relationship was fake, but discovering someone new excited me. I knew what to expect when I went out with Cassie. I knew very little about the bar version of Lyla Brooks.
Lyla and Charlie would be here any minute, and a rowdy pregaming crowd was already out in the living room. I threw on a black V-neck shirt and a pair of jeans. I placed a hat on my head but, at the last minute, decided against it. I was already pushing it with jeans when it came to the heat index in the bars.
Music bumped through the soundbar on the TV, and a game of beer pong was underway in the kitchen. I shook my head at the familiar scene and snagged a beer from the fridge.
Familiar scene? The Deacon from last year wouldn’t recognize me. After spending so much time with Lyla this week, I had a good amount of homework I needed to catch up on. Last year I would’ve stayed in, stressing about due dates and getting shit done.
“Can I get next?” I asked Andre over the music.
He swatted a pong ball as it flew toward the last cup. “Yeah, man. Is your girl comin’?”
It felt like decades since I heard that question. “She should be here soon. Charlie is coming too.”
“Fuck, that’s right.” Andre smiled and took his shot. The ball bounced off the rim and onto the floor. “Charlie’s cool.”
“Closer” by Ne-Yo filled the apartment just as Lyla and Charlie arrived. I hid my smile behind my drink. My natural reaction to Lyla wearing a black leather jacket and a shirt that showed her stomach was a quick lip bite and a smirk. Then I remembered I didn’t have to hide anything , so as her crazy-about-her-boyfriend, that’s exactly what I did.
Her black jeans hugged her hips as she made a beeline to where I stood. She rolled her eyes in a way that only I would notice, picking up on the energy I was throwing her. There was nothing fake about how sexy she looked standing in front of me. Lyla was cute in the mornings after a night out, but the before image drew the eyes of everyone in the room.
Everyone watched as she pulled a white shirt from the back pocket of her jeans and stood on her toes to kiss me on the cheek.
“You left this at my place,” she said with a wink. She patted my chest on her way to the fridge, and my mouth dangled open.
Andre raised his eyebrows, eyeing Lyla as she walked to get a drink. I smacked him on my way to the kitchen, and he burst into hysterics. My fake girlfriend was hot, but just because we weren’t actually dating didn’t mean that guys could eye-fuck her when she wasn’t looking.
Lyla smiled and twisted the top off her beer bottle. “That was good, right? Girlfriend shit?”
Last night, we had composed a list of things we could do in front of people to make this more convincing. We had no idea how long this would play out, but Lyla needed certain obligations from me to uphold my end of the bargain. When her dad came to see her for Thanksgiving, we needed to have this relationship down pat. I looked into her dad’s website and watched a few of his interview videos. The man had to read people to help them with their finances for a living. People trusted him with thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. Whether he knew his daughter well or not, he could spot if this was real or fake.
I tucked her hair behind her ear with my free hand. It fell in loose curls around her face and her green eyes popped against her makeup. She really was a gorgeous girl.
“Yeah, Brooks, that’s some girlfriend shit. Play the next round of pong with me.”
She pulled out her phone and eyed me as she typed. “You should know, Deacon Scott, that I don’t lose in beer pong.” She ran her hand down my arm as she passed me.
I watched her walk to the table where Andre was standing. He smiled and made room for her to stand beside him while she motioned for me to come over.
“Do we have next?” she asked Andre as I approached the table.
“One second, and you will!” Nathan announced and shot his ball. It landed in the cup right in front of Andre, and the room exploded with excitement.
Lyla cheered along with the rest of the crowd, and I loved how carefree she made everything seem. She didn’t waste time trying to find a space to fit in. She made room for herself wherever she went, and I admired the hell out of her for it.
Lyla and I went back and forth with Nathan and Maddie for a while before it started to get interesting. Neither team was hitting, and the more alcohol that flowed around the table, the more intense the game became. Both teams were down to three cups in the same position. No one had reracked, which meant that the first team to clear their side of the table won the game.
“We should do a triangle,” I insisted, rolling my ball between my palms.
Lyla pursed her lips. Her eyes showed a slight glaze because of the shots she insisted we take with every cup we made. She bumped my hip with hers. “We got this. They haven’t hit a cup in like four rounds.”
I laughed as her ball bounced off the rim of the middle cup. “Neither have we, baby.”
I tossed my ball and made the cup on the right. People around us cheered and went back to their side conversations. I ran my hand through my hair and took a deep breath. I was officially buzzed and needed to stop drinking until we reached the bars.
The song changed, and I felt a light bump to my hip. Lyla swayed to the music, and her fist shot into the air as the tempo picked up.
“Am I okay to call you that, by the way?” I smiled adoringly at her dance moves. “I realized I never asked.”
She tossed her empty beer bottle in the trashcan. “Call me what?”
I cupped her chin so she would take a second to focus on me. Her eyes darkened, and the slight curve of her lip let me know I had her full attention.
“Baby,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Am I allowed to call you baby?”
“There’s that fucking B-word again.” She leaned closer so she could rest her hands on my chest. “It’s fine. I told you I would let you know if something bothers me, remember?”
“You did say that. ”
“Relax, sweetheart. Everything is fine. A pink master bedroom is still in your future.”
I chuckled as a ping-pong ball flew between us.
“Two more cups!” Nathan exclaimed, throwing his arm around his partner. Maddie could barely stand with his weight on her shoulders, and they had to grab the table for support. The cup next to Maddie spilled over the side of the table, prompting “boos” and “ahhs” from the crowd around us.
Lyla pointed to the water on the floor. “Party foul!”
I threw my arm around Lyla’s shoulders. “We won!”
Nathan tried to talk his way back into the game, but the rules were simple. A party foul equaled immediate disqualification.
Andre’s voice came over the crowd a few minutes later. “Last call! We’re leaving in fifteen!”
I retreated to the kitchen for water. I was nearing the fine line between buzzed and drunk, and I still wanted to accomplish some things tonight. They all involved Cassie, but the road to recovery needed to start somewhere.
The first item on the list was to find out where Cassie was. That wouldn’t be hard since she habitually documented her life on social media nowadays. The second item was making sure she saw me with Lyla, and the third and final item left Cassie with the impression that I was happily dating Lyla. It wasn’t a complicated plan.
I grabbed another water from the fridge and weaved through the crowd until I found Lyla. I smelled her floral perfume as soon as I came within a few steps of her. When I approached her, she was giggling with Charlie over something on her phone .
“Drink this.” I handed her the water, and she took it. When she noticed me staring at her, she rolled her eyes and took a hefty sip. “Atta girl,” I murmured.
Her lips curved into a naughty grin. “Deacon Scott. I had no idea.”
“What?”
She eyed me suspiciously. “I had no idea there was this side to you.”
“There’s still a good bit you don’t know about me yet.”
She nodded slowly, taking my answer as a challenge instead of a statement.
Nathan threw his arm around my shoulders and looked between me and Lyla. “Brathaus?”
I checked Cassie’s Snapchat story. From what I could gather, she was at The Attic, which surprised me since it was only eleven-thirty. Most people ended their night at The Attic, and it appeared she was starting hers there.
“Attic?” I suggested, and Nathan grinned. I could’ve told him I wanted to drive to California, and he would’ve agreed. The man was hammered.
“Attic!” Nathan yelled, signaling for everyone to drink up.
I held out my hand to Lyla.
“Let me text Jake back really quick,” she said.
Yeah, I definitely heard that correctly. “Who’s Jake?”
“September,” she answered without looking up from her phone.
“September . . . what?”
She gave me her full attention. “Oh, Mr. September. He’s the guy I’ve been seeing.”
My game plan to make Cassie jealous burst into flames. I scanned the people around us to see if anyone overheard. “Wait, what? ”
She continued when she saw we were in the clear. “Rule number three, Deacon. We can see other people as long as we keep it private.”
I didn’t need a reminder of our terms and conditions, but I decided to entertain her casual approach. “And if we run into Mr. September tonight . . . how are you gonna explain who I am?”
She grinned. “Oh, I’ll tell him you’re my boyfriend. Not everyone has such a closed mind when it comes to monogamy, Deacon. It is twenty-sixteen, after all.”
“Lyla—”
Andre threw his arm around Lyla. “You guys coming?” His eyes narrowed when he noticed my slack expression. “What’s up, D?”
Lyla smacked his chest. “Oh, I just leave him speechless. That’s one of his favorite things about me.”
While Andre thought he had just witnessed some type of foreplay, I knew the game that Lyla was trying to play. I was aware of rule number three, but she wanted the best of both worlds. It took one wrong person in the audience to ruin everything we agreed on.
Speechless. Speechless was one way to describe how I felt about tonight, and it hadn’t even started yet.