Chapter 6
Liam
He wanted to lean over and read what she was writing. His eyes kept getting pulled down to her busy hand that was sweeping across her notepad. What was she writing? There was defiantly more going onto the page than what he was saying. Her eyes jumped up from the page and met his. God, she was so fucking beautiful. The dim lighting in the bar diminished nothing. Her pale skin was flawless. Her dark eyelashes framed her eyes in a mysterious way that reminded him of when girls wore liquid eyeliner. “So,” she held her pen poised, ready to take down every little detail. “What are your plans after you finish St. Bernard’s?”
“I’m going to go on to college. Hopefully I’ll be playing football.”
“Is that it?” Cassie asked him with a surprised look.
What did she mean by, is that it? What else did he need? He shrugged. “What else do I need?”
“What if football doesn’t work out? What are you going to do then? Don’t you have any, you know-real plans?”
Liam was surprised with how blunt she was being. He laughed. “Real plans?” he leant forward, so he was entering her half of the table. “You’ve clearly never watched me play.” What was he doing? Was he flirting with her? He watched her startled reaction over his sudden proximity.
“I’m sure you’re great,” she said, flustered. “But, it’s not a certainty. I mean what if you break a leg or get cursed with bad luck or something?”
“Cursed with bad luck?” Liam’s eyebrow arched. “Who is going to curse me? I’m the campus hero,” he flexed his arms out jokingly. Cassie didn’t look very amused. She looked concerned. Liam wasn’t sure what to say to her. He’d never really had anyone question his future before. He’d never really even questioned it himself.
“I guess you’re just going to have to make sure you don’t drop your basket,” she shrugged.
“What basket?”
“You know the one you’ve put all your eggs in?” Her eyes met his. She had a strong look of disapproval brimming in them, which made Liam feel uncomfortable. Who was this girl to judge him? Who was she to disapprove over his future?
“Do you have many more questions?” he asked sharply. His beer was nearly finished. He didn’t want to sit around all night being made to feel bad about his choices. If he wanted to spend the night bored, then he could go to Lucy’s party.
“No, not really,” Cassie shook her head softly. “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything,” she told him, reading his body language.
“Don’t worry about it,” he brushed off her apology. It didn’t matter what she thought. He knew what he was doing. He was the star player. He was captain of the football team. He was going to play football in college. He was going to get spotted. He would leave college with an offer from a decent team. That was the plan. He didn’t need another one. If he planned for failure, then that was admitting that failure was a possibility. “So, I heard you got kicked out of your room tonight?” he said, changing the subject.
“Apparently so,” Cassie finished off the bottle in front of her. “I’ve been told not to go back until morning.”
“So, what are you going to do?” he asked her. There wasn’t a hotel or a bed and breakfast around for at least twenty miles. She’d already had a beer and she wasn’t exactly a big girl. Was she really going to drive through the night for somewhere to stop?
She shrugged. “I don’t know. The bar doesn’t shut until pretty late though, so I’ll probably just stay in here until they kick me out.”
“Do you want me to get you another drink then?” Liam asked, before he could stop himself. Two seconds ago he’d wanted to leave, but now the conversation was back on lighter topics, that urge had gone.
“Um, yeah, if you don’t mind,” Cassie nodded. Liam watched, as she tucked her notepad back into the back pocket of her jeans. It was his excuse to look at her ass. It was a great ass. It curved at just the right angle. The thought of her bent over in front of him entered his mind. Did she have a dip where her spine was? Would he be able to run his fingertips across it?
“I’ll just go to the bar then,” he mumbled turning, so that she wouldn’t be able to read his thoughts. What was he even thinking? If Lucy found out she’d kill him. Crap. He needed to calm down. How was Lucy ever going to find out? It had only happened in his head. He wasn’t actually guilty of anything. He managed to get his breathing back down to a normal rate, before he reached the bar.
Cassie was looking down at her phone, when he walked back over. She looked sucked into whatever she was reading and he wondered for the first time, whether she had a boyfriend. He put the bottles down on the table and she jumped. “Sorry,” he said sitting down. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she shoved her phone back in her pocket.
“Was that something important?” Liam couldn’t keep his curiosity at bay.
“No, not really,” she shrugged.
Liam tried to get the answers he wanted from her expression. He cursed himself for asking the wrong question. It wasn’t whether the text was important that he was wondering about, it was whether it was from somebody important. Her expression made it impossible to tell. She was back in the room, fully invested in what was happening around her.
“I guess there must be people missing you back home, huh?” he asked. He didn’t want to ask her outright. He didn’t want to make it obvious that he wanted to know about her relationship status. He couldn’t have asked her outright anyway, Lucy would have him killed.
“Sure, my mom isn’t used to me being away, so it’s pretty hard on her.”
Her mom, was that who the text was from? “Did you have many friends or anything?” Liam pushed for answers. “I mean, like at school or whatever?”
Cassie shrugged. “I was more of a stay home and study kind of girl,” she smiled thoughtfully. “It’s how I managed to get into here so quickly,” she took a drink from her beer and put it back down. “I have really good grades.”
“So, you’re like really smart?” Liam asked. He was pretty sure that he had his answer. He’d given Cassie every opportunity that she’d needed to tell him about any boyfriends she had.
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