Page 22

CHAPTER 22

ZANDER

I’m so gutted and ashamed, I can hardly stand up straight. I want to bolt from this conversation so badly. If she knew the whole truth about my freshman year, she’d never speak to me again.

But I can’t leave things like this.

“Sienna, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I hurt you.” I’m seconds away from dropping to my knees and begging her forgiveness. “I wasn’t over you. I came back for you.”

“What?” Her head snaps in my direction. Her frown is deep with confusion.

“I was missing you so much.”

“Obviously.” Her dry retort burns me, and I take a step toward her.

“I was . I… all that shit left me empty, and I came back. And you were gone. You were…” My words trail off and I shake my head, scuffing the floor with my sneaker and mumbling, “I get why now. It just…” I let out a dry laugh. “You think I let you go so easily, but you left without warning. No goodbye. Nothing. ”

Her blue gaze is bright and fiery.

“I’m not blaming you. I’m just…” Shaking my head, I look to the floor again, unable to stand her hot glare.

A somber silence fills the room, and then my watch starts beeping. Fuck! I really have to go.

But…

Looking up with a silent apology, I try to think of something to say, but Sienna’s still glaring at me.

“You need to go.”

“Yeah.” I nod, hating myself for turning toward the door.

I stop just before reaching for the handle and notice a square notepad and pen on the side table. Reaching for it, I quickly scribble down my number.

“Call me anytime and I’ll be there, okay?” Holding out the paper to her, I silently beg her to take it.

After a thick, uncomfortable beat, she pushes off the wall and walks toward me.

The paper shakes in the air between us before she snatches it from my fingers and reads the digits.

“Anything. Small, big, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be here for you and Zoey.”

She doesn’t nod, but she does tuck the note into her back pocket.

Her blue eyes graze over me once more, and I whisper a final apology before slipping out the door.

It’s not enough.

It’ll never be enough.

The scene she walked in on… what she saw me doing…

Fuck. That must have destroyed her.

I was on that bed with two chicks I don’t even remember. I was oblivious to the only one who meant anything to me.

If I’d known she was there, I would have dropped everything, chased after her, done all I could to make it right.

But I was such a fucked-up mess that year.

Going to Kelsey U was the biggest mistake I ever made.

That, and breaking up with Sienna.

But maybe if I’d come straight to Nolan… if I hadn’t gotten roped in by my reckless roommate and the rest of the team…

Don’t blame them. You were the one who gave in to the pressure.

I shake my head, my mind jumping back to that first night I boarded a one-way ticket to my own demise…

I was missing Sienna like crazy, doing everything in my power not to text her every minute of every damn day. But we’d agreed on a clean break. I was here to play football and study hard, to prove myself—and show Coach Watkins from Brighton College that not wanting me was the biggest mistake he’d ever made.

It was my time to shine and be the best. I was only a freshman, but I’d get time on the field. I was determined to get noticed, to fit in with the team and do everything in my power to make my reasons for breaking up with Sienna worth it.

Dad—my entire family, really—had convinced me that I was too young to be tied down in a serious relationship. It was holding me back. We were holding each other back. And I was out to prove that they were right, even though everything inside me was pining for her.

I’d already made the decision that if I was missing her this badly when I went home for my Christmas break, I was going to get in touch with her, see how she was doing. Maybe talk about trying the long-distance thing. Would she be into it?

I may have missed my chance.

Shit, I probably had.

She was the hottest catch in the school. Some other guy had probably swooped in and stolen her from me.

“Fuck.” I banged the desk, growling as I pulled my textbook toward me and tried to wrap my head around stuff I didn’t even care about.

“Just leave it.” Miguel slapped me on the shoulder. “Come on, man. Let’s go. Party’s started.” My roommate opened our door, and I glanced over my shoulder at him.

“I have to get through this shit. The test is next week.”

“Fuck that.” Miguel laughed. “We’re college athletes. We don’t have to pass tests to be here.”

“But Coach Jones told us?—”

“Screw Coach Jones. That guy has his head up his ass.”

I frowned. “I don’t want to be riding the bench all season. I came here so I could get some field time.”

“And you will… as long as you don’t isolate yourself from the team.”

I swiveled in my seat to face him. “What do you mean?”

Rolling his eyes like I was a clueless loser, my sophomore roommate walked back over to me and rested his hand on my desk. “Coach Jones doesn’t run our team. He’s not even the head coach.”

“He’s the offensive coach,” I softly argued. “He’s pretty damn important.”

“Coach Filmore is the only one who really counts. And he likes to give Cap as much responsibility as possible. He’s always consulting with the players and making them feel like we’re valued members of his team, you know?”

My eyebrows wrinkled, uncertainty swirling through me. I’d never played on a team like that before. Coaches ruled. That was just the way it went.

“You want field time, you need to get in good with Williams and Hodgkins. They’ll be the ones telling Coach to give you a shot. If they don’t like you, you’ll be riding that bench, dude. I promise you. Just ask any of the guys who are warming that seat every damn week. It took me a while to figure it out last year, but I’m telling you, after one party with Williams, I was in. You have to prove yourself to those guys if you want to get on that field.”

My stomach sank, twisting uncomfortably as Miguel started flipping my books closed. “So, you get your ass out of that chair and come party with me, man.”

I wasn’t sure what to do, but the thought of coming all this way only to ride the bench like I would have at Brighton College forced me out of my chair. I was there to impress and get my ass on that field. And if that meant I had to get in good with the senior players… the ones with the most influence… then I guess I had to do it.

It took twenty minutes to walk to the party, and when we got there, it was in full swing. Music was reverberating so loud that I could feel the floor vibrating beneath me. The off-campus house was packed with luscious eye candy that was impossible not to stare at. A couple girls were dancing topless near the couches, and another was in the kitchen, lying on the table, covered in shot glasses and laughing as guys took turns plucking them off her stomach with their mouths.

I’d never been to anything so wild, and I felt instantly on edge. Miguel shoved a beer in my hand and told me to loosen up before taking off after a brunette with long curls and a back tattoo.

I nestled myself into a corner, sipping my beer and wishing for Sienna, second-guessing my decision to leave her.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“Hey, tiger.” A sultry voice curled around me, and my head snapped to the right.

“Uh… hi.” Heat shot down my spine as my eyes traveled the length of this sexy-ass woman dressed in a string bikini and red heels. What the fuck? Did this place even have a pool?

She draped herself against me and whispered, “Wanna dance?”

“Um… I…”

Before I could finish my reply, she dragged me onto the floor, gyrating against me while I tried and failed to get into it.

Was it seriously worth all this?

Partygoers pressed in on me from every angle as I moved my body in a half-hearted dance and fought the urge to bolt for the door… until a cup of beer was launched across the room and I was soon covered in sticky alcohol. The girl dancing with me threw her he ad back, laughing hysterically, then started licking my face.

Okay, too much. It was too much.

I eased away from her with a polite smile. “Gotta go.”

“What?” She frowned at me while I shimmied through the crowd.

I’d nearly made it to the front entrance when a large body stopped in front of me. I jerked back, looking up at Hodgkins and trying for a cool, calm grin. “Hey, man.”

“Where you going?” He lightly pushed me back toward the dance floor.

“It’s, uh… getting late.” I swallowed. “I’ve got to get some studying done.”

“Bullshit.” He laughed, nudging me back another step, his eyes glittering with something dangerous that I didn’t fully understand. “You’re part of this team now, and if you want to stay that way, you play by our rules. It’s party time, lil’ freshman. So you party.”

He flicked his fingers, and a girl holding a tray of shots sashayed over to us. Hodgkins grabbed two of them, handing me one and holding the other up in the air.

“To hot women!” he yelled, throwing back the drink, then looking at me expectantly.

I gazed at the glass in my hand. I’d never had hard liquor like this before.

I’d drunk beer at high school parties, but that was as far as we took it.

Gripping the tiny glass in my hand, I looked around me, feeling every expectant gaze like a laser beam. Glancing up at Hodgkins once more, I caught that hardening in his expression and held up the glass with a weak smile .

“To hot women.” Throwing back the liquor, I struggled to hide the fact that it was burning my insides raw.

I let out an awkward cough and Hodgkins started laughing, then pounded me on the back. “That’s our boy!” He raised his hands, and the entire party cheered for me as Hodgkins ordered another shot down my throat.

I took it, because what the fuck else was I going to do?

I was all too aware that every eye was on me. The pressure was intense, and as I downed my third shot, I had to remind myself that I wanted to spread my wings. I needed to fit in and become part of this team. I had to prove I belonged there, so I partied it up, acting crazy and winning my way into Hodgkins and Williams’s good books.

And it did feel kinda good.

I don’t remember all of that night, but I’m pretty sure I was having a fucking fantastic time.

Until I woke up the next morning, lying naked in a room full of passed-out bodies. I felt like total shit, my head pounding, my brain a fuzzy mess. A girl I didn’t even know was draped across me, and the condom I’d obviously used was stuck to our stomachs. I peeled it off, nudging her away from me and staggering into the kitchen, reeling that I’d had sex with a girl I didn’t even recognize. I eventually found the trash, and as I threw that wrinkled rubber away, I tried and failed to remember everything that had gone down the night before.

It was the worst hangover of my life, and I didn’t know how I was going to perform at practice that afternoon. I fell asleep in one of my classes and was nudged awake as everyone was leaving. I felt like throwing up most of the day, but just before practice, Williams took me aside and gave me a combo of No Doze and Red Bull. Fired up on the energy buzz, I worked my ass off at practice and didn’t crash until later than night, when I staggered to my room in a haze.

Running into the Nolan U stadium, I shed my jacket, slipping into the back of the briefing room as the coaches start up their run-through of our upcoming away game. They talk strategies and tactics most of the time, and guys flip through their playbooks. I scan the backs of heads as I lean against the back wall and wish like anything that I’d started my college career here.

Thank fuck Coach Jones took me with him when he left.

I would have been sunk without him, and I swore I’d never go that low again.

When I came back from Everett that Christmas, I dove headfirst into the party lifestyle. Angry and confused over Sienna’s disappearance, I threw myself into becoming a core member of the team… until I found out just how sick their games were getting, and I couldn’t play by their rules anymore.

Shit.

Crossing my arms, I try to shove down my past, wishing like hell it’d never happened. Wishing I could bypass that year of my life and pretend that Nolan U is the only college I’ve ever attended and my Football Frat brothers had my back from the start.

I know they have my back now. Grady was my salvation when I first started here, and I love him like a brother.

Glancing over his shoulder, he can obviously sense my gaze on his back, and he gives me a questioning frown.

Shaking my head, I glance at Wily, who is also silently checking on me.

A big smile spreads across his face, and the second the meeting breaks up, he saunters over with a high five and asks me, “How’s papa bear doing? Did you get your little cowgirl down for a nap?”

“What the fuck?” Carson jerks to a stop beside him. “What the hell did you just ask him?”

“Subtle. Thanks, man.” I lightly punch the blond giant in the arm and then have to explain his weird-ass question to the only Football Frat guy who didn’t know.

We walk to the locker room to get taped up for practice while Carson gapes at me, all bug-eyed, and then hounds me with a constant stream of questions.

By the time I’m running out onto the field, he knows as much as I do… except for the part about Sienna seeing me lost in a threesome and all the shit that followed.

None of the guys can know about that.

They’ll never look at me the same, and I’m their captain, dammit. I need them to trust and respect me… and how can they ever do that if they know what an asshole I was?

Shaking it off, I throw myself into practice, giving football everything as I prep for our upcoming away game and try to dodge my undying shame… and the look on Sienna’s face this afternoon.