Page 34

THIRTY-FOUR

lenni

“That thing you do with your hips is unreal,” Cam tells me as we lay in his bed naked except for the thin sheet covering us. He slides his hand over the curve of my waist and down my hips. “I’m not gonna ask where you learned that.”

I like his assumption that I had wild sex before him, so I don’t tell him I didn’t learn it anywhere, it just happens when I’m with him. “Just trying to keep up with you.”

I reach for my phone and realize Cam and I have been in bed for almost two hours. “Shoot, I’m going to be late.” I hop out of bed and grab my clothes off the floor.

“For what?”

“I’m meeting Jade, remember?”

He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me back onto the bed. “You live together. She can’t spare you for another few hours?”

“She didn’t come home after her date last night.” I wiggle my eyebrows. “I need to find out what happened.”

“Sam’s in the rearview mirror, huh?” He almost sounds sad.

“What, you liked him?”

“He’s a smart guy. You know I love my meathead friends, but Sam was interesting.”

I wiggle out of his grasp and start getting dressed. “If you really want to get on Jade’s bad side, you’re welcome to strike up a friendship with him.”

“Yeah, right, and get my nuts chopped off.”

“Oh, don’t exaggerate. She’d only cut off one ball, max.”

He grabs his crotch and groans.

“I’ll be home after dinner. Come over and keep me warm?”

He shakes his head regretfully. “Can’t. I’ve got that exam tomorrow.”

“The Intercultural exam? You’ve already got that in the bag, cutie.”

“I need to study.” He gets up and steps into a pair of jeans.

“You know there’s nothing higher than a 4.0 GPA, right?” I joke.

“I don’t have a 4.0.”

“What do you have? Three nine five?”

“I don’t know, 3.8 maybe.”

“Whoa, I didn’t realize what a dumbass you are!” I tease. I step closer and run my hands up his bare chest before he can put a shirt on. “So study while I’m out with Jade and then come see me. You could spend ten minutes on the material and still ace that exam.”

His mouth is tight. “Coach wants me to rest up anyway. A sleepover probably isn’t a good idea.” He moves past me and reaches for his T-shirt, which I’m standing on. He gives it a tug but doesn’t say anything.

“After your last game? I would have thought Coach would want you to celebrate.”

His eyes linger on mine like he’s trying to decide whether I’m accusing him of something.

“I mean, you played amazing. You saved the game.”

“Right, what about the other fifty-nine minutes?”

“Come on. What are you even worried about? You’re one of the best receivers in the country.”

He gives a humorless laugh. “What do you know about football, Lenni? Seriously?”

“I know what they write in the school paper.”

“You mean Hero Worship Weekly?”

“What are you getting so mad about? I was?—”

“I’m not mad.” But his clenched jaw says otherwise. He turns his back to me and buttons his jeans.

I replay our conversation in my head, searching for the words that set him off. “All I was saying is relax a little. Your grades are amazing, you’re playing great; you don’t have to be perfect.”

He whips his head around to look at me. “No? Because I thought that’s what you liked about me. That I’m fucking perfect.”

“What are you talking about?” I take in the flushed skin on his bare chest. I’ve never seen him upset like this.

“That’s what you said, that I’m the perfect guy.”

I huff out a laugh, not because it’s funny but because it’s ridiculous. “And? Am I supposed to apologize for that? It was a compliment.”

His eyes latch onto mine, and a flash of pain passes through them. It’s gone by the time I blink. “Well, you’re wrong.” Cam yanks his shirt over his head. “Don’t make that mistake.”

“Okay. I’ll try to be more cognizant of your flaws.” I can’t help the snarkiness in my tone.

His nostrils flare. He’s itching to say something back, but of course he stays silent. Annoyance surges inside me. He’s always so in control, so cool under pressure, so...perfect.

I taste the words I want to say, trying them out, knowing they’ll piss him off even more. I’m afraid of an argument, but wouldn’t I rather his anger than his silence? His composure is a wall I don’t know how to break through, and I’m sick of being on the wrong side of it.

“You know what?” I put my hands on my hips. “I’m not going to apologize for how I feel. I’ve never known anyone that even comes close to you, Cameron, so maybe perfect is the only word in my vocabulary that I have!”

“Fine. Just don’t expect me to apologize when you end up disappointed.”

I move close so he has to look at my face. “What the hell is it? Go ahead, disappoint me right now and let’s get it over with.”

He looks at me, trapping me in the storminess of his gaze.

“What is it?” I repeat, but my voice has lost its fire. “What, are you morally opposed to being called perfect, or do you need to confess something?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

I freeze, my heartbeat pulsing in my throat.

“I thought I could wait until I knew for sure but...” His voice is tired and defeated. “I’m not sure of anything.”

In the three seconds of silence that pass, my mind fires up a dozen different images of the ways he’s about to break my heart. “Well?” I whisper.

He swallows. “I don’t know if I want to play pro football. I mean, even if I got the chance...I still might turn it down.”

I wait for more, but Cam’s anxious gaze is on me. That was the whole confession. “That’s it?”

His brows draw together. “It’s a big deal. I’ve never told anyone.”

“So you’re . . . quitting football?”

“Quitting?” he repeats, his voice an octave higher. “No, Lenni. God, no. I want a chance at the pros as badly as I ever have.”

I’m still confused. “I don’t get it.”

“I’m saying maybe that’s all I want. The chance to turn it down.”

I feel light with relief. “Why would you think you have to keep that from me?”

“Turning down an opportunity like that? For something I’ve been working toward since I was twelve?” He scowls. Apparently he’d hoped for a bigger reaction. “It’s settling.”

“Not if it’s what you really want. And did you think I didn’t already know you might have other plans? Your hints aren’t subtle.”

He shrugs. “I thought you’d be disappointed.”

“For wanting something different?” I take his face in my hands and kiss him. “You don’t owe me perfection, Cam. You don’t owe me anything.”

He closes his eyes for a long second, then nods.

“So is that all?”

Silence for a beat. “Yeah,” he says as a flicker in his eyes instantly tells me otherwise. Of course that’s not all. This tiny confession doesn’t balance out against the simmering anger that consumed his whole body just minutes ago. The anger that I still feel just under his skin, cooling and hardening into something too solid to spill out of his control again. I swallow the lump in my throat and try to pretend I don’t know this.

We don’t say much as he walks me downstairs to the front door.

“Catch up tomorrow?” I ask. “After your exam?”

He nods, then places a brief kiss on my lips. “Have fun with Jade. Be safe.”

I turn to go. Before I can pull the door shut behind me, he reaches for my wrist.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “Come over late tonight? I need you to do that thing with your hips again.”

I smile. “If you’re sure Coach would approve.”

I’m already running late to meet Jade, but I don’t hurry. She’s always late, and I don’t want to show up with the sick, unsettled feeling inside me written all over my face.

I think about how Mom always used to tell me to date around before getting serious with someone, and I finally understand why. I have no idea how to do relationships. I was meant to be practicing on dime-a-dozen frat boys who ignore me in front of their friends and need a roadmap to find the clit. I was meant to be so sick of bullshit fuckboys that when a man like Cameron Forrester came along, I’d know exactly how to hold on to him.

Instead, I’m waiting around for everything I don’t know about him to fall down on me, and I have no clue how to get out of the way.

I’m in the newsroom toiling over edits for an article I wrote about the school’s new scuba diving club. And actually, it’s pretty good. So good it makes me want to join the scuba diving club even though wearing a swimsuit in front of my peers sounds as traumatic as it was the summer before eighth grade when Mom forced me to join the swim team.

Out of nowhere, Darren plops down on the desk next to me. “Well, your story’s got legs.”

“The volleyball one?”

He leans closer. “The photo. Looks like there might be facts to back up the rumor.”

I swivel toward him.

“Someone else sent in an anonymous tip saying they’ve seen a nude photo of a female student who definitely didn’t know her picture was being taken. They might even be entertaining the idea of talking to us as long as no identity is revealed. Apparently, they’ve got texts that could implicate the original source.”

“So it’s real.”

His knee bounces up and down. “It’s far from proven, but we obviously can’t ignore it any longer. Have you heard anything else?”

“Not a word. I was starting to think it was all blown out of proportion.”

“Could be, but I don’t think so.”

“So . . . I’ll see what I can dig up?”

“Nice try, but when I said, ‘your story,’ I was being facetious. Every source so far is crystal clear about this going back to the football team. That hits a little too close to home.” He gives me a questioning look. “You’re still dating Forrester, yes?”

“Yes. Would things be different if I weren’t?”

Darren laughs. “You mean if he were your ex? That’d take conflict of interest to the next level. Sorry, Lenni.”

“And if some information happens to come my way?”

“Facts? You send them to me to verify. We can’t publish locker-room gossip.” He offers me a conciliatory smile as he gets up. “I know it sucks when you can’t have the story you want, but don’t think your tenacity goes unnoticed.”

An hour later, Cam is waiting for me outside the building. I tell him I have a headache and he should get dinner without me. I have to ask him about the photo again, but not with my emotions running high. If I questioned him now, it would only come off as an accusation.

While he walks me home, I make a furtive study of him.He looks the same as always, not like a man guarding a secret that could take down his entire team. Even as team captain, it’s entirely possible he hasn’t heard the rumors. But his words run through my head, warning me he isn’t as perfect as he seems.

After he drops me at home, I try to tackle some homework, but my conscience is working overtime. I can’t let the story go. A good journalist doesn’t shy away from a tricky lead, and she doesn’t take direction from an editor who would just as soon assign the story to one of the many dudes on the paper who are little more than Shafer football worshippers with decent writing skills.

I could make it a story not about suspended football players or a perfect season coming under threat, but about the real victims. I’d write about the danger every woman on campus faces because she pays thousands of dollars every semester to attend an institution that values the athlete over the student. So much so that the men in question don’t just think they’re above the law, they don’t even bother to consider the humanity of those who live within its limits.

Dramatic? It might be, but I’m not wrong. This story has been inside me since that awful night in high school. I want to tell it.

Sam looks suspicious when he finds me at his door just after nine that night.

“This isn’t about Jade,” I assure him before he can say anything.

“Then it’s the other thing.” He doesn’t sound relieved. “I don’t know anything more than I already told you.”

I believe him. Integrity—not personal loyalty—is what motivates Sam. “Can I come in?”

“Just for a while. I have someone coming over. For tutoring.”

“At nine-thirty? Let me guess. She’s pretty.”

Sam just steps aside for me, stone-faced.

Once inside, I waste no time. “You saw the photo, right? With your own eyes?”

“Well, yeah. It was on my phone.”

“And it was a regular girl? Not something from the internet, but an actual Shafer student?”

“How can I know that? It wasn’t a professional photo, but I don’t know the girl.”

“But you saw it. So you know it’s real.” Sam’s looking at me like I’m crazy, so I add, “It’s just that I need to verify the photo actually exists if I’m going to do anything about it.”

“I said I saw it.”

I hesitate. I know what I want to ask next, but it feels wrong. “You erased it from your phone?”

He nods.

“From your recently deleted too?”

He pauses, then realization hits him, and he sighs. “Guess I overlooked that.” He pulls out his phone. “Let me get rid of it.”

“Wait.”

Sam glances up from his phone.

“Do you think I should...?” I trail off. “Because I’m supposed to—you know, to verify.”

“Hold on, Lenni. Everything I know about that picture suggests it was taken without consent. I’m not going to be caught passing it around.”

“You’re not passing it around. And do you really think I would turn you in? You know I love you, Sam.”

He eyes me, and I can guess what he’s thinking. Breakups happen and alliances change. But Jade or not, he and I have been solid since the day we met. “I just don’t want any involvement with it. Period.”

“You already involved me by telling me. And now I have to do something about it.”

Sam looks irritated by my logic. “So you want to see it?”

I really don’t want to see it. I don’t want to be one more stranger looking at this girl’s picture without her permission. I look at Sam. “Do I?”

“You know I can’t answer that.”

I think about the story I want to write. Can I justify invading someone’s privacy in order to verify a fact?

“Look, just go to your deleted folder and delete it permanently. And before you do, let me glance at it for one second. I just need to know it’s real.”

He makes a show of being put out, sighing as he looks down at his phone. “By the way, does Jade know you’re here?”

“Yeah, I’m going to run right home and tell her all about my secret meetings with her ex,” I say impatiently. Then, to remind him where my loyalties lie, I add, “You broke her heart, Sam.”

He avoids my eye, tapping and swiping on his phone while I wait. Music bubbles in from another room, something soft and jazzy. I twist my fingers around my necklace to keep from snatching the phone out of Sam’s slow hands. My heart pounds like mad, afraid for reasons I can’t explain. Maybe it’s not about the football team or a story for the paper or what Cam does or doesn’t know. Maybe it’s about me.

“Here it is,” he finally says as he holds up his phone for me.

But in the half second he gives me to look at the picture, it offers no insight.It’s a blond girl asleep on a bed, her breasts exposed, her naked butt partially covered by a bright-blue sheet. I’m hit by some faint sense of familiarity. Do I know her?

“Satisfied?” Sam taps his screen and deletes the picture.

“Yeah,” I say. I’m not at all. “Thanks.”

There’s something off.

I know no more than I did before. The picture is real, the girl exists, and she’s a stranger to me. Nothing has changed. But with the image burned into my brain, my heart keeps up its quick, uneasy beat all the way home.

It doesn’t hit me until I turn out the lights and lay back on my pillow, but when it does, it’s like running into a brick wall. I know those bright-blue sheets that the girl was lying on, and the curved, black, ’80s-looking headboard behind her. Not long ago, I lay in that same place trying to seduce a guy I didn’t know or even like.

That photo was taken in Reeve’s bed.