Page 24

I don’t owe them, or anyone else, anything.

Hopping off my bed, I fling open my closet door and reach for the top shelf. My fingers brush over the hard wood and I grab the box I’d stashed up there months ago, before the season started. I’d been saving it for a special occasion.

My fingers wrap around the box, the ink on my knuckles taunting me.

YOLO. That’s the motto I’ve held since I walked out of my father’s house.

You only live once, and I plan to live it to the fullest.

7

Nadia

Swipe.

Swipe.

Swipe.

With the TV as background noise, I flip through the guys on BadgerUp, a Wittmore athlete dating app. Even though I’m not swiping right on anyone, that doesn’t mean I can’t look, does it? It’s habit, mostly. A thing to do when you’re at home by yourself, bored, and rewatching the same rom-com for the fifteenth time.

That’s the justification I’m giving myself as my thumb lingers over Caleb, a sophomore on the water polo team with abs made of steel. I checked him in at the gym a few weeks ago. His face is cute enough, but who cares about his face when he’s got a body like that? I zoom in, able to actually count the ladder of muscle.

“What the hell, Caleb?” I say out loud. “Were you made in some kind of laboratory?”

I flip through his photos, landing on another shirtless picture, this time he’s slick with water on a dock by the lake. Normally, I wouldn’t be interested in someone that plays on anon-varsity sport like water polo, but the urge to feel something—someone—is getting harder and harder to resist.

Especially when they look like a Greek god.

“Fuck it,” I say, thumb hovered over the screen. So I’ll swipe right. See how this goes?—

The sound of a loud thump against the front door makes me pause. I hold still, waiting to see if that was a knock or something else. We live on a busy street. It’s mostly foot traffic, but more than once a random, drunk frat boy has stumbled up the steps and passed out on the front porch.

I set the phone on the coffee table and stand, walking to the door. Pushing up on my toes, I peer out the peephole.

“Jesus!” I jump when a face appears distorted from the glass. I exhale and look again, getting an eyeful of a familiar sharp jawline.

Yanking open the door, I glare at the man on my porch, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Axel leans against the railing, dressed in a thick Wittmore U hockey jacket, black sweatpants, and scuffed sneakers. A brown wooden box is clutched to his chest. “Thank god,” he says when he sees me, thrusting the box at me. “Take it.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What? What is it?”

“Take it,” he says again, grabbing my hand and manipulating it to hold the box. “Please, before I do something I regret.”

Reluctantly, I open the box and look inside. A baggie of weed, a pack of rolling papers and a lighter are stuffed into the small space. Understanding dawns on me. “You’re trying not to smoke it.”

He nods, pushing past me into the house.

“Hey!” I call, chasing in after him. “You can’t just barge in here! Twyler could–”

“Twyler’s at my house,” he tosses out. “Probably getting her pussy eaten out by Cain right about now.”

Well. Get it girl. “I still didn’t invite you in.”

“I almost caved, T.” He sinks onto the couch, hands in his hair. “I tried to commit an epic fuck-up. I was this close, but I started walking, hoping the cold air would snap me out of it. I ended up here.”

I sigh, snapping the box shut and shutting the door behind me. “Coming here wasn’t a great idea. I’ve got to get up early for work.” I don’t add that I was one thumb swipe from committing my own epic fuck-up. Although, when I turn back, he’s sitting on the edge of the couch staring down at my phone, it’s clear he’s on to me.