CHAPTER TWELVE
JULIUS
“Yo, Captain, I know you hate everyone and you’re generally miserable as fuck —“ Daniel begins as he walks alongside me after Practice. I didn’t even know he was near me until his voice came.
“Is there a point to this?” I ask dryly. I’m not even offended because I don’t see the point of getting offended by the truth. If he had said I was sunshine personified that’s what would have got to me.
“We wanna have a party tonight.”
“Cool, have fun.” I don’t know why this guy thinks I’m someone he should be inviting to parties. Isn’t the way he just started the conversation an obvious indication of how fun I would be at those things?
“Why do you think I’m telling you this, Captain?”
“I have no idea. I’m not going to a party.”
“It’s a good thing you don’t have to go, then. The party’s gonna be coming to you.”
I stop and move closer to him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
He clears his throat. “We wanna have a party. That would be Nathan and I. Tonight. And, well, seeing as we’re the ones throwing the party, it would only make sense for that to be at our house.”
I glare at him. “You high or something?”
“Does being high on life count?”
Someone needs to get this guy away from me.
“What’s wrong with you as a human being?” I say.
“We’d be here all day if we really got into that,” he says excitedly. “But anyway about this party.”
“There is no party.” My voice is firm, stoic.
“Okay, that’s cool. I kind of did already tell everyone that it was happening, though.”
“You did what?” I thunder at him.
“Where the fuck is Nathan? He said he would be here to deal with telling you this as well.”
I ignore him and immediately continue with my line of questioning. “You…told people you and Nathan were having a party?” I ask, hoping that I’m still in the dream state I thought I was in the other night.
“Yeah,” Daniel says nonchalantly.
“Where?”
“At our house.”
This time I have to believe it.
I still ask, “Are you fucking with me?”
“Not in the slightest, Cap.”
“Don’t call me Cap.”
“We’re not on nickname status, yet?”
“Don’t call me Cap.”
“Okay, but about the party…”
“Call it off.”
“Yeah, so here’s the thing.” He claps his hand together like he’s some kind of evil mastermind.
“You’re not gonna like this one, Cap, but…
you need to loosen the fuck up. We have a great Hockey team this year, a great one, and you and Kaylah make sense when you look at how you both take over on the ice,” he says.
The sound of her name has me fighting to not succumb to thinking up the flashbacks that might have changed me as a man.
“The team’s a little uptight though, I’m not gonna lie.
Because…well, you guys are a little uptight but you know, that’s not coming from me. ”
I lost track of what he was saying somewhere along the line, so all I can say to him now is, “The point?”
“The point is that this party will help you out.” Why is this guy jumping around in my face? “You and Kaylah. Oh, speak of the devil!”
He’s looking behind me and before I can even convince myself not to do the same, she appears next to me and fuck, her scent quickly resurrects the flashback in my head once again.
I have to keep flick my tongue around in my mouth so I don’t think I’m back in that room trailing it over her beautiful dark stomach.
“Why are you speaking about me?” she says.
“I was just telling Julius that we’re having a party.”
I hear my name but all I can think about is that night. Her skin. Her moans. Her cum in my mouth.
I think I hear her say, “Cool, have fun,” but I also hear her moaning my name and that can’t be right.
I force myself to snap out of it.
It’s at that moment Daniel says, “That’s exactly what he said.”
My eyes meet Kaylah’s and I’m instantly reminded of how hazy they were when her orgasm took over.
I wish I knew what she was thinking, whether she’s had to distract herself from memories of my touch.
But that would require her to talk to me, and I think I would know if that’s happened seeing as she’s in my mind every second of the day.
“But yeah, Cap, I don’t think you want to go just yet.
” Daniel says, bringing me back to reality again.
“The party will be taking place at our house, so make sure you guys both wear something nice. And then we can all have a great time…well, some of us will have a great time and you two will simply just be there.”
“What?” she deadpans.
“I invited people to our house.”
“Why?”
“Look, I’m not gonna call you a miserable bastard, but if I just called Julius that, you guys are using the same lines, you’re both Captain, and you just, you know… aren’t really that fun to be around according to people who aren’t me, then please don’t let me have to state the obvious.”
“So you are calling me a miserable bastard.”
“Well, you might not be after this party.” His mouth widens into a smile as if that was funny.
“I don’t want parties in the house,” I cut in.
“Hey, quick question,” Daniel says to both of us. “Why was Traneil’s dad in hospital the other day?
“His dad was in the hospital?” Kaylah asks.
“Point proven.”
This is bad. Fuck. I didn’t know that either which is poor from the two Captains.
My eyes instinctively find Kaylah. It unsurprisingly takes a few seconds before she looks back at me, responding to the question in my eyes with a nod. “Fine, have the stupid party,” I say to name. “But I’m telling you now, if anyone fucks up anything in that house tonight, you’re paying.”
“With money, or?”
I walk away from Daniel and his nonsense.
* * *
I like to set records.
I like it even more when I beat them.
Right now, I’m on the eighth equation I’ve solved within the duration of this song.
But I’m about to make it nine real quick.
I’m letting them come to me randomly and not even moving to write it down on my phone or on some paper somewhere.
It’s a good way to distract me from the music in this house.
I see my phone going off beside me, but all I want to do is finish this equation.
In less than a minute I do, coinciding with the song change and I finally decide to look at my phone that still seems to be going off.
I don’t even know who’s messaging me right now when everyone I know here is in this house and my family think it’s funny to act like I don’t exist so I’m forced to enjoy the party.
Picking up my phone, my eyes immediately catch on to the new messages in the house group chat Nathan started the other day under the guise of having a “Central place where we can keep up with all things 245 Tonda Place.” Who the fuck puts that in a group chat description?
245 Tonda Place Let’s Go!
@Julius, everyone’s asking for you, Cap, you gotta come out!
Even Kaylah is here being the life of the party, you’ve got no excuse my guy.
I’m on my feet instantly. I was going to forced myself out anyway, so I don’t need to give credit to him for speeding up the process. It’s not like there’s anything about his message that got me up and out.
There are people all over the hallway, leading into the kitchen where I find myself going. It’s not long before I see her and…one of the guys on our team who I heard calling her cute the day she walked in.
He seems to be leading the conversation, but she’s not ignoring him like I expected she would. A few nods and eye rolls from her seems to be all he needs for that smile to be on his fucking face.
Is she really enjoying this guy?
My eyes are fixated on her so hard that I don’t even catch the moment they connect with hers.
I know it’s too late to pretend I wasn’t watching her, and clearly she knows it too with the way she cuts me a glare before turning her body away so she’s facing…
Melvin or Kelvin or whatever his name is fully.
Fix the fuck up Julius, and learn the names of everyone on your fucking team.
I at least manage to check with Traneil on how his dad’s doing when I see him.
“Fuck, I don’t think I can do it,” I hear when I end up standing alone in the corner.
“But it’s so easy.”
“It isn’t. I really don’t think I can, J.”
“All you have to do is say a two letter word.”
“It’s so hard, though.”
“But it’s two letters.”
I welcome the distraction of the conversation happening behind me as much as I don’t want to, because it has me fully turning my body away from the sight of anything I saw in the last five minutes, and now I’m hoping I can forget about it for the rest of the night.
I don’t know why I was looking there anyway.
It had been a while since I had sex, so I got a bit carried away after my session with Kaylah.
But I’m back to normal now, so no more flashbacks.
I don’t expect my eyes to have to trail down, where I find two women hunched on the ground.
“Can I help you?” I say.
“Oh, fuck!”
They were clearly looking somewhere beyond me, but now I’ve got their attention both of their eyes are on me as they rise up from the ground, one of them pulling her friend up with her along the way.
“Um don’t mind us. Just didn’t see you there,” the girl with the braids says.
“Why were you on my floor?”
“Your floor?” I have no idea why this girl is wearing a large hat. “Wait, you’re that Julius guy, aren’t you?”
“Oh, from the team? Never mind, that was dumb.”
“I’m Mimi and this is Jalissa,” hat girl says. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Thanks,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Oh, they’re not good things.
” “My Dad has not been impressed with you so far this year. I mean, to be fair he wasn’t really impressed with you last year because he said trying to have a conversation with you was like trying to draw blood out of a stone, but he definitely had great things to say about your Hockey skills, so at least you have that going for you, huh?
“Your Dad? Your…Coach,” I say.
“Not my coach, just my dad.”
“Yes, I know. I just meant…” I think back on the last few minutes. “What were you doing on my floor?”
“It’s really weird when you call it your floor.”