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CHAPTER THREE

CHARLIE

“Please tell me 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.

“You know Casey will never let you do that. He’ll take the floor first.”

“There’s no way I’ll allow him to do that. I’ll sleep on the couch then.”

“Trust me, you do not want to sleep on that thing.”

“Bathroom? Never mind. It sounded gross as soon as it came out of my mouth.” I run my hand through my hair. “You mean to tell me, out of a four-bedroom house, there’s nowhere for me to sleep other than your room?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

It makes sense. Casey’s room is the size of a shoebox, and with his dresser and desk, there is no room for a cot. I’m not sure why I didn’t think about this sooner or why Casey didn’t mention it either. Dammit, this is a mess.

“I’ll see if Casey will sleep on the cot in your room and let me have his room while I’m there. Surely, it will only be a week or two,” I say hopefully.

I feel like I might cry, and I definitely don’t want him to see me tearing up.

He just nods, turns, and walks back to the foyer.

I take a deep breath and place a hand on my stomach, trying to calm my nerves.

It’s going to be okay. I will be moved into my room here as soon as possible. I will survive living with Beckham. I will not strangle him or poison his food. I’m trying to manifest this all becoming my reality.

I mean, I won’t really harm Beck. I think .

But seriously, being around him on a daily basis again isn’t going to be easy because I’m not sure I’ll ever be completely over him. I’m trying to stay positive, but I can’t help but feel like something is going to change, and it might make things worse than they already are. I learned my lesson with Brit. I never felt right about going to Chandler State with her, and I won’t ignore my gut this time. So, I guess I need to pull up my boss pantaloons and take care of shit.

When I walk back into the foyer, Aunt Lindsay is standing there with Casey, Beckham, and now Arbor. Per usual, Arbor is salivating over Beck, which irritates me to no end. I know she always thought he was hot. It never bothered me in high school because he was mine. Now, he’s … not mine. She’s giving off flirty vibes to Casey, too, but she knows he looks at her like a cousin, so she doesn’t push that too hard and keeps her attention on Beck.

I walk over to Arbor and give her a hug—sort of to distract her from Beck, but also because I do love her. “Hey, Arbs.”

“I know this isn’t a great start to the school year, but I’m so happy you’re here at Walker.” She squeezes me tighter in response.

We have always been pretty close because our families spent a lot of time together. I’m hoping we’ll get to hang out a lot once I move in. I could really use some girlfriends.

Arbor and I let go of each other, and I turn to face my brother.

“Hey, Charlie,” Casey says. “Coach is totally fine with you staying with us. We’ll figure out the sleeping arrangements when we get there. It’s all good. Plus, I promised Mom and Dad I’d keep an eye on you. You know, fulfilling my big-brother duties,” he says with a laugh.

He’s actually three minutes younger than me, but because he’s so much taller, he likes to take the big-brother title.

I roll my eyes at Casey, which just makes him laugh harder.

“I texted Arch and Pitz, and they’re cool with it,” Becks chimes in.

I turn to Aunt Linds and say, “Okay, can you just keep me posted and get me in here as soon as possible? I love my brother, but I’d rather be here so I can actually focus.”

“Hey … I take offense to that. Aunt Linds, we’re extremely studious at our house. No shenanigans at Casa King,” Casey claims.

She just laughs and pulls him in for a hug while Arbor still stands there with doe eyes, looking at Beck.

Time to break that up …

I turn my gaze to Aunt Linds. “Okay, so if you can just bring the cot over to Casey’s sometime today, that would be amazing. We’ll get out of your hair now so you can get to work on whatever it was you were doing before we got here.”

I step in to give Arbor a hug goodbye. She hugs me back.

“See you later, Arbs.”

“Totally. And you can sleep over in my room with Lily and me anytime. It’ll be so fun to have you here this year, Charlie,” she says sincerely. “It’ll be just like our family get-togethers when we were kids. Except we won’t have to beg to stay at each other’s house anymore!” she says with a lift to her toes and a little clap.

“Thanks. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow for chapter,” I laugh.

Turning, I walk to the door, following Casey and Beck, and turn to say goodbye to Aunt Lindsay, but she is already on another call, so I’m not sure she even hears me.

I shoot my mom a text while walking to the truck.

Charlie: MOM. MOM. MOM. I cannot believe this is happening to me. Like, OMG!

Mom: *sad face emoji* I’m so sorry. It’ll all work out. Just be glad you have somewhere to go instead of turning around and coming home. Not that I wouldn’t be happy with you coming home! You know I love you. Aunt Lindsay will take care of it. Just give her a few days. You know she gets shit done.

Charlie: You don’t have to write complete sentences in texts. I’ve told you this 1000x. You could just vm me if ur reply is that long.

Mom: Well, since you’re picking on me, I guess you’re okay?

Charlie: Urgh, I’ll call you later.

Mom: Love you.

Charlie: Love you.

When I pull open the rear cab door, Casey turns to look at me while Beck types on his phone. I don’t care who he’s texting with. Really, I don’t. But, gawd, this means not only do I have to deal with Archie’s whoriness, but Beck’s too.

He probably has a whole harem of coeds at the house every night.

I think I might be sick.

With a smirk and a bit of sympathy in his eyes, Casey says, “It’s going to be okay, Char. And it’ll be fun. Like a big sleepover.”

“A sleepover? What are we, ten? Case, you do realize she’s going to have to stay in my room since I have the most space, right? What the fuck are we going to do about that?” Beck sounds irritated, which makes me defensive.

“Well, fuck you too, Beckham. Do you think I want this? This is my worst nightmare.” I grab the handle and pull myself into the truck.

“Okay, okay. I’ll just sleep on the cot in Beck’s room until you can move into the sorority house. No big deal. I can’t have two of my favorite people killing each other. I’d miss you both too much,” Casey says with a laugh.

“Case, you can’t sleep on a cot. You’ll be destroyed, and that will just piss Coach off. You worked so hard last year and in training to earn a starting position. You can’t fuck it up. It’ll be fine. I’ll be nice, I promise,” Beck says.

“Charlie, do you promise to play nice with Beck?” Casey asks.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, thinking. “What if I put the cot in the living room? There’s plenty of space there.”

Casey sways his head. “It’s a possibility.”

Beckham shifts in his seat and lifts a hand, about to talk, yet he stutters a touch before speaking. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“Why? Because I came up with it?”

“To start,” he says and then looks up, as if trying to find the answer. When one comes to him, he points his finger. “There’s always someone in there with the TV blaring. You’ll never sleep. Sometimes, the room is packed with random guys who come over to watch a game.” He moves his attention to Casey. “Not to mention, she sleeps in those damn boy shorts and T-shirts. You don’t want Archie walking in when she’s waking up without a bra.”

“Absolutely not,” my brother says without missing a beat.

“Exactly. At least I know how to be a gentleman and look the other way. And besides, it’s nothing I haven’t seen already.” He grimaces as soon as the words leave his mouth.

Casey turns his head and looks at me in the rearview mirror. “Beckham makes some good points. I know it’s not ideal, but do you think you could rough it on the cot in his room for a few days?”

I blow a huge breath out of my mouth, making my lips vibrate.

Can I rough it? Yes.

Will I like it? Not one bit.

“I mean, do I have a choice? I’ll stay out of his way if he stays out of mine,” I say with a glare at the back of Beck’s head since he’s looking at his damn phone again.

Seriously, who is he texting anyway?

“Perfect. That’s settled. Be nice. Stay out of each other’s way. And put a sock on the door if either of you has a visitor.”

That makes Beck and me both snap our heads toward Casey.

Beck says, “Like fuck is she bringing some dickhead to my room,” while I say, “That’s disgusting. There will be no randos while I’m there, Beckham.”

Casey doesn’t say a word, but there’s a smirk on his face and a look in his eye that makes me wonder what he’s thinking.