Tackled, Page 25

  37

  Colton

  "You're chopping those veggies like they did something to you," my mom says, her back to me as she stirs a pot on the stove.

  I look down at the onion that I've minced into pieces so small it practically looks like it's been pulverized. "Nope," I say. "Just chopping vegetables."

  "Is Cassie coming for dinner this time?" my mom asks, her voice innocent.

  "Nope." I clench the knife tightly in my hand, my other hand balled into a fist at my side.

  "Are you going to spend the night sulking?" my mom asks.

  "I'm not sulking. I'm irritated because you won't lay off about Cassie."

  "Have you forgotten that I made it through you and Drew's teenage years?" she asks. "I know sulking when I see it."

  "Well, this isn't it," I say, the edge in my voice unmistakable. "I'm just standing here chopping vegetables."

  "And sulking," my mother adds.

  "I'm not sulk—"

  "He made her cry." Tank appears in the kitchen out of nowhere.

  "Shut up about shit you don't know anything about, Tank," I growl.

  "You did what?" My mother whirls around and crosses her arms across her chest.

  "I'm not talking about this," I say. "Especially not in the middle of the goddamn house. It's none of your business. That goes for both of you."

  "It's my business when I see her crying," Tank says.

  "What did you do?" my mother asks me, glaring at me with her hand on her hip.

  "Stay out of it, both of you," I say.

  Tank shakes his head. "Cassie says she fucked things up," he starts, addressing my mother.

  I set down the knife on the counter and clench my hands. "Leave it alone, Tank."

  "But I'm not seeing how a girl like her did something to mess things up," Tank says. "Did you fuck a cheerleader and make her think it was her fault?"

  "You fucked a cheerleader?" my mother asks.

  I push Tank hard. "I didn't screw anyone except her. So fuck off."

  Tank pushes me back, sending me stumbling backward across the kitchen. "She told me not to kick your ass tonight."

  "Screw you, Tank," I spit. "You think you know anything about her because you're fucking her roommate?"

  "I know you're here acting like a shithead and she's over there crying and saying she loves you. I don't need to know any more than that."

  She loves me.

  The statement stops me in my tracks for a second, but I quickly shove that thought aside.

  "You don't know shit," I spit back, a flood of anger bubbling up inside me from somewhere that I can't seem to contain. I'm pissed off at my mother for not letting up about Cassie. I'm pissed off at Cassie for not telling me about her thesis – and for assuming she knows jack shit about football players. Or me. And I'm pissed off at Tank for fucking walking in here and dropping that little bombshell like it's no big fucking deal when I'm pissed off at her.

  She loves me.

  I'm not sure why I lunge at Tank, but I do, and then he pushes me backward hard against the door and it cracks loudly.

  "Boys, not before dinner," my mom yells.

  We stumble outside and Tank pushes me. "Quit being a dick," he says. "You want me to hit you or what?"

  "Bring it on, Tank," I yell. "Since you want to run your big fucking mouth all the time."

  A blast of water hits us.

  My mother stands a few yards away, holding the garden hose. "Cut it out, both of you," she says calmly. "Now the two of you can fix the kitchen door you broke."

  "Yes, ma'am," Tank says, giving me a dirty look before walking toward the house.

  I follow him, still irritated but not as much now. My brother and I used to fight all the time, and my mom used to spray us with the hose or dump a pitcher of water – complete with lots of ice cubes – over us. Sometimes she'd walk up close to us and blast an air horn in our ears. It's a fucking wonder I don't have hearing loss.

  "Fix that door and both of you get to peeling me some potatoes."

  38

  Cassie

  "Oh, God, what is that pounding sound?" I ask, peeling my face off the sofa to look around.

  Throb. Throb. Throb.

  Oh hell. That's my head pounding.

  Sable is passed out on her back on the loveseat, her mouth open and snoring loudly. A half-empty bottle of tequila and a cutting board with lime wedges and salt are scattered across the coffee table, along with open bags of snacks.

  My stomach lurches just looking at the food.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Shit, it wasn't my head making that sound. "Just a second," I yell.

  "Huh?" Sable asks, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "Why is it so fucking bright in here?"

  "It's not," I say, stumbling to the door.

  It's Colton's mother.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  I stand there staring at her, because frankly I can't think of what to say with my head throbbing like it is.

  "You girls look like death warmed over," Doreen says, pushing herself past my arm without waiting for an invitation to come inside.

  "Tequila," Sable says, her hand on her forehead. "I'm never drinking it again."

  "Jonathan said as much," Doreen says. "Go take showers and I'll make you some coffee and pancakes. You need something in your stomachs to soak up the alcohol."

  "Doreen, I –" I start, then stop.

  "Go," she says, waving me in the direction of the bathroom. "Now."

  After I brush my teeth and sit on the floor of the shower with hot water beating down on me for twenty minutes, I feel considerably more life-like than I did before.

  When I come out of the bathroom, Sable is in her bathrobe, her hair wrapped up in a towel, sipping coffee. The bags of snacks and tequila have disappeared from the coffee table, and the house smells like bacon. Doreen is in the kitchen, humming to herself.

  The fact that she's here right now cooking us breakfast makes me feel worse than ever.

  "Take this," she says, thrusting a cup of coffee into my hands when I walk into the kitchen. I sip it, grateful for the caffeine and for something to focus on other than the fact that Colton's mother is standing in my kitchen. "Go sit down," she orders. "I'll bring you girls food."

  A few minutes later, she sets plates of bacon and pancakes down on the table, and Sable pops a piece of bacon in her mouth, munching happily. Doreen sits down at the table with a cup of coffee and takes a slow sip.

  Then she looks at me. "Now. What the hell did you do to my son?"

  Oh God.

  Beside me, Sable coughs. "You know what? I think I'm going to take these delicious-looking pancakes into my bedroom because… reasons. Thanks for the breakfast, Mrs. K."

  Sable scurries away from the table, practically speed-walking to her bedroom, leaving me here by myself with Colton's mother. Doreen looks at me expectantly. "So?" she prompts me. "Spill the beans."

  "I don't know what to say." My voice trembles. "Or where to start."

  "Let's start at the place where he's head-over-heels for you," she says.

  Head over heels.

  "That's not true," I say, my voice cracking. "There's… nothing between us."

  "Oh, cut the crap," Doreen blurts. "I'm not your employer. I don't care about whether or not you're supposed to be dating my son."

  "We're not dating," I shoot back quickly.

  She raises her eyebrows. "Let's not argue about semantics," she says. "I've never seen Colt moon over anyone as much as he moons over you. You make him happy, which makes me happy because I'm an old woman who wants grandchildren."

  I nearly spit out my sip of coffee. "Whoa, now. Who said anything about grandchildren?"

  "Forget the grandchildren," she says. "Fast forward to whatever happened yesterday that's got Colt sulking around the house and fighting with Jonathan."

  "Oh, that." I exhale heavily.

  "Yeah, that. Jonathan mentioned that Colt might have screwed a cheerleader but
that you said whatever happened was your fault."

  "He didn't screw a cheerleader," I say. "That I know of."

  "Didn't think so," she says. "My son might be an ass, but if there's one thing he is, it's honest. He's not one to sneak around behind someone's back. So if he were going to screw a cheerleader, you'd know it."

  "That's…oddly comforting." Then the full impact of her words hits me. If there's one thing Colton is, it's honest.

  Unlike me.

  My eyes well up again and I blink back tears. Damn it, am I about to have my period or something? I can't stop crying. I'm not a crier. I can't remember the last time I cried.

  Doreen puts her palm on mine. "What happened, honey?"

  So I tell her. I tell her the whole story about how I was working on a different thesis topic, but I hated it and wasn't making any headway, and then when I agreed to tutor Colton the new topic popped into my head.

  "I wasn't trying to hide it," I say. "Shit. Who am I kidding? I was trying to hide it. I convinced myself it wasn't a big deal. I wasn't putting anything in it about the players, nothing about Colton or the team, I would never do that – and it was really just a literature review and proposal of a study. I didn't tell him, though. Which is basically lying. And then Colton read the first bit of it yesterday, which was really a bad place to read because I was summarizing some theories about aggression in sports that made it really sound like athletes are overgrown children just throwing tantrums or compensating for –"

  "That's it?" Doreen interrupts.

  "That's the whole story," I say. "It was terrible of me and I should have told him from the beginning."

  "So my son is all bent out of shape because he read a few lines of your thesis and decided that it's about him and that you've been trying to screw him over this whole time?" Doreen asks.

  "Sort of, I guess," I mutter. "Not exactly. He has a point. It probably feels like a huge violation of privacy – and trust – because it is. And people do have ulterior motives around him, and that's only going to get worse, you know? I didn't mean to hurt him. If he would have listened, or read further, I could have explained that what he was reading was just theories and I go on to explain the current research –"

  "Stop," Doreen says, putting her hand up. "I've heard enough."

  Shit.

  "My son is the most stubborn, hard-headed person you'll ever meet. He was that way even as a baby. He was worse than his brother and his brother was pretty pigheaded. They used to get in some awful fights when they were kids," she explains. "They got that stubborn streak from their father. Lord knows it wasn't from me."

  Not from her. I feel a laugh bubbling in my throat and I squelch it for fear that Doreen will kill me.

  "Don't think I don't see that look on your face, Cassandra," she says, raising an eyebrow. "He did not get that stubborn streak from me."

  "I said nothing."

  "His father was the same way," she goes on. "Used to drive me crazy when we first got together. I don't know where I'm going with this except to say that my kid is being an idiot and going high and to the right about something that's clearly been blown way the heck out of proportion."

  "I did screw up though."

  "So what?" Doreen exclaims, standing up and taking my empty coffee cup. "Where'd you get the idea that if you screw up something, it's done with?"

  "I don't think that's exactly my choice. Colton was pissed and he stormed out of here."

  "I know," she says, returning with coffee. "I had to be in the same room with that sulky shit. You need to woman up and go see him and explain. And while you're there, tell him that his mother says his stupid ass needs to listen to you."

  "I don't think he's going to want to see me," I start.

  "I don't care what he thinks he wants or doesn't want," she says. "I care about what's good for him. And you're good for him. My boy's not dumb enough to think otherwise. So that's that. Then you both can forget this whole misunderstanding and get on with making grandchildren."

  This time I do choke on my coffee, sputtering as the hot liquid goes down the wrong pipe.

  "Oh, and I want to see this thesis that caused all of this trouble," Doreen adds. "I'm going to need some light reading anyway."

  39

  Colton

  I'm on my third plastic cup of beer, sitting in a lawn chair by the pool, listening to the thump-thump of the bass pouring out of the speakers inside the house and thinking that I really have a massive fucking headache.

  And another five or six beers might start to take it away. Another twelve might make me forget all about this bullshit with Cassie.

  Pretty much the entire team is here for a post-finals blowout. Every hot, slutty girl on campus is going to roll through here, too.

  Speaking of which…

  A girl with bleached blonde hair and enormous tits pouring out of her tiny yellow bikini materializes right in front of me. "Colton King," she says.

  "Yep." I look past her at the lawn, my eyes scanning the crowd for whatever. A small part of me is hoping that Cassie will just show up here, that she'll push through the bodies in one of her skirts and high heels, far too overdressed for a pool party,