Chapter 13
I’d gone to sleep that night hoping a better option would present itself in my dreams. I’d solved plenty of nightmare scenarios in the comfort of my subconscious. But no matter how many times I hit snooze, my options remained the same:
You should have kept your mouth shut, I scolded myself as I got off the bus at the football stadium’s stop.
I was hunting for David since he’d been ignoring my texts all morning.
He still had his location sharing on from eight dares ago when we’d ventured to a town over for a music festival and crowd surfing.
There was no way for a normie like me to get on the field with the guys unless one of them had given someone express instructions to let me in. So, I was stuck heading for the stands and scanning the crowd of sweaty guys in a shirts and skins scrimmage.
“Yara,” a voice called from down the field.
Hart jogged to where I was in the stands.
Sweat or water, or both, slicked back his black hair.
Shirtless, it was clear he was far larger than I’d ever given him credit for.
He was built like a boulder, wide and impenetrable.
His gaze contrasted with the intimidating reality that he could probably punch through a wall.
Hart’s smile possessed a gentle welcomeness.
I leaned on the stand’s fence, trying to make it easier for him to hear me.
“Morning,” I greeted.
“Good morning.” His smile brightened. “What brings you to our side of town?”
“Looking for…” I trailed off when Hart climbed. It was concerning at first because I couldn’t see a path up. But he moved without abandon, a clear sign he’d done this plenty of times before. I laughed when he reached me, his hands on the outside of mine and his face right in front of me.
“For?” Hart probed with a smile, rocking himself back and forth as he balanced.
“This feels a little dangerous and unnecessary,” I noted. We were close enough that I could smell the grass on him, see sweat in his hairline, and feel the weight of his curious gaze.
“I couldn’t hear you all the way down there,” Hart said, offering me a one-shoulder shrug.
I smiled. “I’m looking for David.”
“Right.” He tilted his head to the side, studying me. “Are you two a thing?”
“No.” I laughed a little. “Never.”
Well, technically never.
“You sure?” Hart squinted with a smile as he pretended he could see right through me. My plans to have David as my plus one for the next three months seemed to be written on my forehead.
“He’s not my type,” I promised.
“So why are you two always hanging out?”
“We’re one another’s karma,” I said simply. It would feel almost unethical not be there to shove David in the direction of optimism. And I’m sure he felt the same about his attempts at flooding my brain with pessimistic sentiment.
“Sounds intense,” Hart noted.
“Only at the beginning. Now, it’s as mundane as a morning shower. I wake up, go to class, and think of ways to make sure David remembers he’s not the center of the universe. It gets uninteresting and repetitive, but someone’s got to do it.”
Hart chuckled. “How long have you two known each other?”
“Since middle school.”
“Really? He never talks about you,” he said voice low, almost as if he were talking to himself. It was a simple statement. One that didn’t surprise me but somehow settled on my skin, making everything hot and unwelcoming.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, trying to sound uninterested, as thousands of questions about what or who David had shared filled my mind. “Would you consider him a friend?”
Because of course David wouldn’t talk about me to an acquaintance—
“I’d say he’s one of my closest friends.” Hart’s declaration gave me pause.
My assumption came toppling onto my head, leaving a swollen bruise to my ego. “You’re joking.”
He shook his head. “He’d take a bullet for me.”
“David Arthur Evans would take a bullet for you.” I laughed because it’s nonsensical to think he’d even take a bus ride for someone.
“And I’d do the same for him,” Hart said without a moment’s hesitation.
My laughter faded, and I’m faced with the possibility that maybe it’s just me who remained at arm’s length from David.
Back home, he’d done that to everyone, but here at Westbrooke, anytime I’d come across someone who knew David, they liked him.
Not in a ‘oh, he’s a decent guy’ way, but in a ‘I really respect and admire who he is’ way.
Where was this respectable and admirable version of David when I was with him?
“Which is why I wanted to be sure you two aren’t seeing each other,” Hart continued while I was still trying to catch up to the whole, David genuinely can’t stand me because he sure as hell would never take a bullet for me, despite knowing me since we were in braces.
“I don’t understand the correlation,” I said.
“Being into the same person can get messy for friends,” he explained.
My stomach flipped once my mind got back on track.
“Before the season starts, the team always has this field day kind of thing,” Hart continued. He scratched the back of his neck. “It’s not exclusive for team members.”
I nodded, too nervous to offer any kind of encouragement to continue on this quest of asking me out.
“Would you be interested in coming?” Hart asked. “With me?”
I took a breath. My fingers tightened on the cold steel of the fence. My hands were still between his, benefiting from the warmth his body radiated.
It had been a year since someone asked me out. I had given little consideration to the prospect of dating. School and the org filled my calendar so well that even my thoughts barely had time off to dream or fantasize about dates, kissing, dorm room sleepovers, and morning afters.
I took too long to answer. But this didn’t feel like something I should rush. Hart was cute, and his beliefs aligned with mine, and I could see us kissing, and me not completely being bored by the idea like I had with everyone else I dated since Ren.
But I couldn’t bring myself to say the simple, easy yes. Not because I didn’t like him, but because I hadn’t had time to consider liking him more.
A sharp, loud whistle called for our attention. One of the assistant coaches was demanding a huddle. Hart let out a sigh but accepted his fate with a simple, “Think about it?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll find you later?” he requested, giving me a chance to say, no, you don’t have to give me a second chance to answer your simple question.
“Of course,” I repeated because my brain malfunctioned. I’d forgotten how to consider romance, to imagine myself in someone’s arms and want to be there. The memory of David’s hand on my waist was a hot, heavy taunt. My throat went dry from the longing the vision tugged straight from my chest.
Hart climbed back down, tossing me one last smile before heading back on the field.
I watched, losing myself in a replay of his proposed date.
With my attention in the depths of delayed embarrassment, David’s appearance below didn’t register until he offered an impersonal, “What are you doing here?”
My heart felt like it restarted from the frozen state Hart had left it in.
I glanced down to find the reason for my appearance in a thin tank, the sides long and wide enough to provide plenty of content for future daydreams. I had to ignore a vision of him shoving me against that large marble island in that tank.
Seeing a side view of his pecs would surely be my downfall.
“You,” I said, trying to make my voice hard. But I’ve now moved on from the ‘why would he ask me’ portion of figuring out Hart’s question to the ‘why did it make me feel soft and vulnerable’? Now, it was just an open wound, ready to be poked and prodded by the one person who never let up.
“That so?” David moved closer to the fence but didn’t climb it like Hart. He didn’t seem concerned about losing my words to the wind.
“You need to help me,” I said as I regained feeling in my fingers and toes.
“I need to help you?” He laughed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Need. A very dangerous word. I don’t think you should use it so flippantly.”
“As much as I would love to delve into the philosophies of word choice,” I said. “I don’t have the time or care to make it.”
“All I’m saying is I don’t need to do anything. You, on the other hand...”
“One day you’ll learn that unsolicited edits aren’t the right way to get to a girl’s heart,” I said dryly.
“You don’t say. Does scaling fences do it for you then?”
I smiled and studied David closer. He’d seen Hart and me talking. No, he’d watched Hart and me talking. And from the wrinkle in his brow and the way his gaze kept consistent hold of mine, he was searching for something. Who was in need now?
“Perhaps.” I rested my elbows on the railing, bending as far as I could to get a better look at him.
David shook his head, feigning disinterest even though I saw his eyes change.
Curiosity was David’s default state. Whether he liked to admit it or not, he enjoyed learning about people.
He pushed buttons because he was interested in the way the gears worked.
It wasn’t always for annoyance’s sake, I’d realized. Sometimes, he truly didn’t understand.
“What do I need to do, Yara?” he asked, still stone-faced, but the hardness in his voice had melted.
“My sister didn’t believe me about the text.”
“Did she listen to the voice note?”
“Yes, and knowing me, she probably considered that maybe you’d made it under duress.”
He laughed. “I’d like to see you force me into something.”
“Well, today’s your lucky day. You’re going to help me fix this.”
“I already did. I can’t control whether your sister believes the truth. Neither can you, so my suggestion would be to let it go. Let it play out.”
“I told them I was with you, David. That we were dating.”
His smile evaporated. “Why the hell would you say that?”
“Because —at the time— it was the smartest way through.”
“That makes no sense.”
I closed my eyes for a second. “David, listen…”
“You’ve made an absolute mess of this.” He released a humorless laugh. “The voice note was fine. I could have recorded a follow-up if things were that fucked.”
“We made a mess of this,” I corrected.
David shook his head. “I don’t remember being at this exchange. I don’t remember giving you the green light to tell your family I’m your boyfriend.”
My fingers curled into a fist as I tried to grasp onto my final semblance of patience. “I’m not going to an engagement dinner, wedding rehearsal, and ceremony with the tiny inception of a text you sent.”
“Get someone else to do it,” he said. “Or, better yet, get an actual partner. You already have one person in line.”
His tone had enough grit in the last sentence to make me do a double-take. “Isn’t Hart your friend?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
The look of sheer annoyance and disgust on his face was what it had to do with everything. He disapproved. He loathed the idea. Maybe I didn’t know his friends or how he spent his free time. But I knew when he was a hairpin trigger away from being pissed as all get out.
“I gave them your name,” I said, trying to reel him back in.
“It’d set off a million and one alarm bells if I showed up on someone else’s arm.
I’m trying to get them to believe me, not push myself deeper into suspect territory.
Besides, I don’t want to taint the possibility of actually dating Hart. ”
“You plan on dating Hart?”
“He asked me out, so it’s on the table,” I said.
The quiet between us was heavy. I waited for a snarky comeback about not being interesting enough for Hart.
“Okay.”
I frowned. “Okay?”
“I’ll do it.”
My fingers unfolded, the marks in my palms getting much-needed relief. “You will?”
“Don’t look so grateful,” he muttered. “It makes me second think.”
I tried to fix my face into something less ‘thank god I don’t have to scramble to come up with a solid Plan B.’ It got easier to frown when I remembered the person he’d been seeing.
“This won’t get in the way of whoever you’re dating… right?” I asked, more hopeful he’d finally tell me who it was, so I’d better work through my odd bout of jealousy.
He was quiet for a beat before shaking his head. “No.”
“No?”
“No,” he repeated, point-blank.
“Alright then.” I removed the joy from my voice, replacing it with the seriousness this deserved. “This isn’t tit for tat, alright? You’re doing this favor because you are the sole reason I’m in this web.”
He gave me a look. “Not the sole reason. But I’ll accept being the catalyst.”
“Call it what you want.”
“This is just until the wedding,” he reminded me. “Not something we’re going to drag on for your family’s entertainment.”
“Of course. Dating a guy like you for too long would be devastating.” I wasn’t confident he was buying it, but I needed to try to put in the effort. “I’ll have to get Haven to cleanse my spirit as soon as possible.”
“Exactly.” He smiled. “Glad we’re on the same page.”