Tackled

  Cassie clears her throat. "Four years," she answers. "Maybe three. I'm taking summer classes and adding an extra class during regular semesters here and there."

  Four years. Damn, that's a lot. I find myself suddenly irritated by the fact that my mother has known Cassie for all of five seconds and she knows more about this girl than I do.

  "Four years?" my mother asks.

  Cassie nods. "Sable and I are getting our Ph.Ds."

  My mother practically beams with approval, casting a meaningful look my way. I already know full and well what that look means — that's the look that says, "You had better snap this girl up right now."

  "So you'll be doctors," my mom says. She gives me the same look, but with raised eyebrows this time, as if I wasn't already clear on her meaning.

  "Not the medical kind," Sable clarifies. "But yeah. Cassie will be a professor in a few years."

  "You won't, Sable?" my mother asks.

  Sable shrugs. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she admits. "I might set up a foundation or run a non-profit or something. That's pretty much what people in my family do."

  Tank finally speaks. "That's cool," he says to her. "A foundation. Helping people is cool."

  Cassie wants to be a professor. My mother asks her questions about what sociologists do and when Cassie speaks, she's so enthusiastic about what she does – and so damn sexy explaining it — that all of us jocks who don't give two shits about academics are sitting around the table practically slack-jawed listening to her talk.

  She really likes teaching. I can tell.

  And not just in the way she's been teaching me.

  * * *

  "Cassie!" I catch up with her outside the house where she's walking with Sable toward their cars.

  Sable waves. "I'll see you at home, Cass," she yells before ducking away quickly.

  Cassie pauses at the door of her car, looking around. "Don't, Colton," she warns me before I even try to touch her. "It's not even dark outside. Someone will see you."

  "What if I don't care if they see us?"

  "I lose my job if someone sees us," she says, her lips pursed. "So it matters to me."

  "All right." I suddenly feel badly for pushing her like I have been without considering the consequences for her. I'm not used to thinking about them. I do what I want and let the chips fall where they fall. Being a star athlete means you get away with a lot of shit. I definitely don't think about them when it comes to women — easy hookups with no strings attached mean no consequences.

  "Okay," she says, nodding. "I had fun. At dinner, I mean, not ... the other part. I mean, I didn't not have fun in your room."

  I think this might be her way of blowing me off and suddenly I feel defensive.

  "Yeah, totally fun," I agree with a careless shrug. "I mean, you know, it was no big deal. If you want to do it again sometime, text me."

  Shit. The words sounded okay in my head, but as soon as I hear them, I realize I sound like a total asshole. And what's worse is that I realize I don't want her to think I'm an asshole.

  She gives me a weird look, then opens the car door. "Yeah. No big deal."

  Back inside, my mother gets right on my case about Cassie as I help her load the dishwasher.

  "Cassie is a catch," she says.

  "She's my tutor," I remind her, irritated. That conversation by the car set me on edge.

  And I keep fucking things up with her.

  "Uh-huh," my mom says. "I saw the way she was looking at you tonight."

  "There was no look, mom. There are rules about that stuff."

  "Did I ever tell you about how my parents hated your father?"

  "Your parents hated dad? I thought they loved him." My parents were high school sweethearts, married when they were eighteen. My father died at the beginning of my senior year in high school, twenty years later.

  "Well, they did. Eventually," my mom concedes. "But your father wasn't exactly the kind of guy they wanted their daughter dating, much less marrying."

  I don't bother to hide my laugh. "Dad was what, a juvenile delinquent?"

  My parents are the definition of straight-laced. They're farmers, for shit's sake. Or were farmers before my dad's heart attack. I can't fathom my father being anything except the rule-abiding man who worked the family farm.

  "Don't laugh," she says. "Your father was trouble in high school."

  "What, did he steal a candy bar from a convenience store?"

  "He was bootlegging alcohol in ninth grade," she says. "Selling it after school. Had his own label and everything."

  "Are you kidding?" I let out a laugh. "That's awesome. How did I not know that about dad?"

  "It's not something I was going to tell you boys about. Anyhow, my parents found out," she goes on. "That was the end of that. They forbade me from seeing him, but your dad was persistent. He didn't stop seeing me, although he did stop bootlegging. And he wore my parents down bit by bit."

  "I get your point," I realizing it. "Breaking the rules worked out for you. This is different, mom."

  "I don't think it's that different."

  "What you and dad had, that's not how things are anymore, ma."

  "Some things don't change, Colt." She takes a plate from my hands. "When you go pro, women will be throwing themselves at you for all the wrong reasons."

  "Maybe that's what I want, ma," I tell her. "I'm just having fun. I'm not stupid. I'm not getting involved with any of the girls here at school — they're all after the same thing. I'm a meal ticket or a way to be in the limelight."

  She looks at me, her expression stern. "I don't care how many girls you have fun with," she says. "But that girl isn't a girl you just have fun with."

  20

  Cassie

  "Aren't you ready?" Sable asks. She's dressed in jean short-shorts that show off her tanned legs, and a cleavage-revealing tank top, her hair pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head that looks simultaneously effortless and chic.

  "Ready for what?" I'm sitting on my bed with various books about football open. "I'm working on my literature review for my thesis."

  "Oh." Sable gives me a funny look. "Right. Um. Are you and Colton okay?"

  I shrug. The last time I saw him was last night at dinner at his house where he was sending me dirty text messages and running his hand up my leg. Well, the actual last time I saw him was during that awkward conversation near the car. "There's no me and Colton," I say. "We're friends."

  Sable cocks her head to the side as she looks at me. "You guys hooked up."

  "I regret telling you that now."

  I didn’t tell her exactly how we hooked up. I’m sure she assumes we just made out. No big deal.

  No big deal.

  I also didn’t tell her about the awkward conversation by the car after dinner.

  "I'm your best friend," she says. "You’d better not regret it. And you shouldn't regret hooking up with him, either."

  "Where are you going, anyway?"

  Sable gives me a sheepish look. "I thought you were getting ready," she says. "I didn't even think to ask if you were going. I assumed you were."

  "Stop dancing around whatever it is you're talking about and just spit it out," I demand. "You're acting weird."

  Sable exhales heavily. "There's a house party," she tells me. "At Colton's place."

  Oh.

  A party that I wasn't invited to.

  I make a face. "Oh yeah," I say casually. "I forgot about that. I had to work on my thesis tonight, so I wasn't going to go."

  It’s definitely no big deal that Colton didn’t invite me to a stupid house party.

  A stupid house party where there will be half-naked girls everywhere.

  "I should really work on my thesis tonight, too," Sable says quickly. "I'm so far behind and you know Dr. Talbot is really up my ass about mine. We can totally do work together."

  "Is Tank going to be there?" I ask.

  Sable blushes.

  "Oh my God, did you jus
t blush??" I ask. "I don't think I've ever seen that happen."

  "I'm not blushing," Sable spits back, running to the mirror on my wall to examine her face. "It's just warm in here, that's all."

  "You're blushing," I insist. "When I mentioned Tank, your cheeks turned pink."

  Sable shrugs. "It's no big deal."

  "You like him," I tease, laughing.

  "I think he's cute."

  "I think that's probably the first time Tank has been called cute. The guy is massive. Built like a, well, tank. He's not the kind of guy you call cute. Unless you're Sable.

  "He is cute," she says. "I was talking to him after dinner. I think he's really nice."

  "Holy balls. You're standing here telling me you think a guy is nice and cute. How many assholes have you dated? This is like the first time I've ever heard you say a guy is nice and that you're interested in him."

  "I'm not interested in him," Sable says. "Okay, I'm interested in him. But I'm going to text him and tell him I'm staying in to work."

  "No, you're not. You're going to the party. I have to insist."

  "I really thought Colton invited you," Sable complains. "Are you sure he didn't text you? It has to be a mistake. I'm positive he would want you there. Why don't you get dressed and come with me?"

  I look down at what I'm wearing — flannel pajama pants and a tank top that's raggedy and worn out, with a faded pink stain on the front from last fall when Sable and I made a giant pitcher of strawberry margaritas one night.

  "No," I say with false brightness. "I'm doing work. You should go have fun. I want you to see Tank.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?” Sable asks. “If I see Colton, I’m going to hit him for being a dick.”

  “It's no big deal,” I insist, despite the pang in my chest. “We just hooked up. That’s it. He’s under no obligation to invite me anywhere. And I’m busy anyway.”

  Sable groans. “The two of you just need to start banging. All of this denial and back-and-forth is really exhausting.”

  “There’s going to be no banging,” I huff, grabbing one of the books and opening it to demonstrate how incredibly busy I am. Alpha Male Behavior in Athletes. I think it was written in the nineteen thirties.

  I slam it closed. The last thing I want to do is think about alpha male behavior.

  “There’s going to be banging,” Sable promises me with a look. “The two of you should just admit it already.”

  She turns to leave.

  “Hey Sable?" She stops at the door. “Be careful, okay? The football parties… I think they get kind of crazy. At least the one I saw in the afternoon was anyway.”

  Sable laughs. “Honey, I can out-party a bunch of beer-guzzling football players,” she insists. “Besides I always bring this when I go out.”

  She reaches into her demure little purse and pulls out a knife that she opens and brandishes proudly. It’s gold and covered in glitter. Or rhinestones. I can’t tell which.

  “Oh my God, is that a switchblade? How many other weapons do you have in your room?” I ask. “Is there an arsenal in there?”

  “I like to be prepared,” Sable says nonchalantly, closing it and returning it to her purse.

  “I feel like maybe I should worry about the safety of the football players instead of you.”

  “That would be advisable.”

  21

  Colton

  It's ten p.m. My mom is off at her hotel room, but she made sure to lecture us before she left, since she has some idea of the kind of parties that happen at the house. "Condoms, boys," she yelled at us before she left. "And don't do anything really stupid. Like slide off the roof into the pool, Colt."

  I'm sitting in my room listening to the music pounding downstairs. The house won't fill up for another couple of hours, but practically the whole football team will be here now playing beer pong in the yard or running a roll of plastic through the house onto the lawn as a makeshift slide. Normally, I'd drink too much and hook up with some chick whose name I won't remember two hours later, then feel like shit tomorrow. Rinse and repeat.

  Except this time, I'm not downstairs with the guys. This time, I'm sitting in my room wondering why the hell I don't really feel like going down there.

  And I'm thinking about Cassie. The look she gave me at dinner when my hand grazed her leg, like she's pissed off and turned on at the same time. Her hair falling around her face as she held herself above me. The expression she made when she came, when she let go for just a second without worrying about everything…

  And her expression when I said it was no big deal.

  I should have texted her today. Or called her. But what my mom said about her kept running through my head all day: She's not the kind of girl you just have fun with. And I'm a just have fun kind of guy. I'm not a relationship guy, which means I'm a total asshole if I go any further with Cassie. She'd think this was something it's wasn't, and I'd be a dick to lead her on.

  "Colton King." I hear Sable's voice followed by a loud knock on the door.

  Shit. Sable is here. That means Cassie is here.

  I jump up, kicking my dirty socks and boxer shorts under the bed and shoving some crap into the closet just so it doesn't look like a filthy pig lives here. When I open the door, Sable is standing there with her hand on her hip, looking at me like I'm scum.

  "Is Cassie —" I start.

  Sable barges into my room. "It smells like socks in here."

  "That's cause there are socks in here."

  "I can't believe Cassie fooled around with you in this room."

  "She told you that?"

  "Not the details," she admits, rolling her eyes. "And she didn't tell me that you apparently treated her like a dick last night. I figured that out all on my own."