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CHAPTERTHREE

CHARLIE

“Please tellme you’re joking, Aunt Lindsay.Please. This can’t be happening. What am I supposed to do?” I cry.

We arrived at the sorority house—and, yes, I’d forgotten to call Aunt Linds on the way. I was too distracted, trying to ignore Beck. Otherwise, I would have known that my room wasn’t ready. Or rather that they had overfilled the house and were rapidly trying to come up with a solution for me.

“Charlie, honey, I know. I’m so sorry, and I promise you, I’m working on it. We’ll get this shit straightened up,” she says while pacing the gigantic foyer. “Maybe you can squeeze into Arbor and Lily’s room. We might have to bring in a cot, but I think I can make it work.”

I can hear it in her voice that she’s already thinking about where she’s going to get a cot from. She probably has an extra at her house. She and her husband, Andy, also own a few properties around town that they rent out throughout the school year. I’m sure she’s taking inventory of where there might be an extra.

“I’m not going to do that to Arbor and Lily. I wouldn’t feel right about it. Plus, I haven’t spent a lot of time with Lily yet. I know she and Arbor are tight, and I don’t want to feel like I’m intruding.”

“Sweetie, no, it’s fine. In fact, Casey, why don’t you and Beck start taking Charlie’s stuff out of the truck and put it in Arbor’s room?”

“Oh, no, absolutely not. I’ll figure something out. Let me just call Mom and Dad. How long do you think it will take to get the room ready? A week? A month?” I ask.

I feel a little out of my element at the moment. I need to figure out what to do. It’s too late for me to get a dorm room, not that I’d want to. Dorm life was not for me.

Looking over at Casey, I can see he’s thinking this isn’t promising.

“Why don’t you just stay with me until this gets fixed? Aunt Linds, we’ll take the cot, and I’ll just put it in my room at the house,” Casey asks. “Char, I think you would be more comfortable staying with me until this gets figured out, yeah?”

I’m listening to what Casey is saying, but my eyes immediately find Beck’s. His eyebrows rise, and he clears his throat, kind of like he’s choking a little. But in a non-life-threatening way.

“Uh, Case, even though we don’t live in university housing, you might want to check with Coach Pettys before you make plans like this,” Beck says.

“I mean, yeah, I’m not sure I would want to live with your teammates, even temporarily. You guys stink, and you would have to ask Archie and Pitz if they were okay with it too. You can’t just move your sister in. They might think I’ll ruin their game or something,” I say with a slight panic in my voice, which my brother notices immediately.

Casey and Beckham live with two other football players—Archie Griffith and Liam Pitz. I love both of these guys, but I’m not sure I could live with them for any length of time.

Archie is a total man-whore. I really don’t want to share a bathroom with him, especially with the parade of girls in and out of his room. And Liam is just as bad as Archie.

“Seriously, I think it will be okay. I’m going to step outside and call Coach now and tell him what’s going on. You call Mom and Dad,” Casey says.

“Already calling your mom, kids. We’ll get this worked out. Charlie, you can even stay with us at our house. We would love to have you,” Aunt Lindsay says, walking out of the foyer.

Casey looks over at me and reads my face immediately. He knows I don’t want to stay there. Not because I would be uncomfortable, but because I just want to get settled into campus life. Plus, Casey’s house is only two blocks from the sorority house, so I can still attend the meetings easily and hang out here in between classes. And I wouldn’t have to rely on Aunt Linds to bring me to campus every day and pick me up. Urgh, just the thought makes me cringe. I hope she doesn’t see it on my face, but she seems too preoccupied with talking to Mom.

“It’s all good, Aunt Linds. I have Coach on the phone now. I’ll be right back,” he says with one last look my way.

Walking toward where Aunt Linds is standing, I say, “I’m just going to use the bathroom real quick while Casey’s on the phone. Can you tell my mom I’ll call her once we have a plan?”

“Sure, yeah. She’s saying you would probably prefer to stay with Casey.” Then she tells my mom, “Yeah, Carol, he’s on with the coach now, and I think that’s what they plan to do if Coach is okay with it.”

I nod and walk out of the room toward the common space bathroom. I really do have to go, but I also need a minute to get my shit together before I have a meltdown. Today is not going how I imagined it. First, I got stuck in a car with Beckham for two hours, and now I have no place to live.

I take care of business in the bathroom, wash my hands, and push the door open. Beckham is standing in the hallway across from the bathroom. He’s leaning on the wall with his hands in his pockets and his head down. I can tell he’s thinking about what he wants to say, but I beat him to it.

“Look, I’m sure you aren’t happy about this, and I’m sure as shit not either, but I won’t get in your way if you don’t get in mine.”

“Charlene, Charlene, Charlene. You just don’t get it.”

“What? What don’t I get?” I ask him.

He lifts his head, looks me directly in the eyes, and says, “Casey just got off the phone with Coach. You can stay with us. But here’s the thing … Casey doesn’t have the biggest room. I do. Which means you’ll have to put the cot in my room.”

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” I deadpan.