Present
“I’m just gonna crash tonight, got early practice in the morning.”
Alexis’s blue eyes narrowed. “Are we going to have issues? Now that …”
Jesus. My head was shaking before she could even find the rest of her unfinished question.
“No.” I grabbed the back of her head, placing a kiss on her forehead. “We’ll be fine. I’m just shocked is all.” Which was true. Yet I couldn’t help but worry my lip between my teeth as she pulled back to look up at me.
Daisy showing up at Gray Springs was the last thing I expected. God knows why. We’d planned on coming here together since we knew what college was. I just thought when she cut me out of her life, she’d cut out any plans for the future we’d made together too.
“Okay,” Alexis said. “Text me before you go to bed?”
Nodding, I watched her walk off toward her dorm before getting back inside my truck.
Once she was inside, my head thumped back against the seat, and I stared out the windshield. The night seemed to blacken the stars from the sky. It felt eerily quiet, or maybe my heart was thundering so hard, it was all I could hear.
After scrubbing my hands down my face, I started the truck and began the five-minute drive to the townhouse.
Toby, who played wide receiver on the team, had been living there since we started at Gray Springs together last year. This year, he offered to let me move in with him. His dad owned the place. The rent was dirt cheap, and I was sick of living in the dorms, so I took him up on the offer. Toby was pretty OCD about his things, so he rarely had parties or anything crazy. It also made seeing Alexis a lot easier.
My chest burned, and I sucked down a long breath, trying to smother it.
Why? After all this time, why did she just show up? Planting herself in front of me like I’d been waiting for her to. She should have known I gave up waiting a long damn time ago.
Anger gripped my heart in a fist, squeezing and making my teeth grit.
She could do what she wanted. Didn’t change what she did, or what’d happened as a result of it. We were over long ago. She made sure of that, and I simply cemented it.
Pulling into the drive, I shut the truck off and jumped out, noticing the glare from the television inside. I pushed the door open, closing it behind me as Toby looked over the back of the couch. “Sup, where’s the lady?”
“Dropped her at her dorm.”
“She got her period or some shit? You guys have spent every night together since she got here.”
I tossed a pillow at him, which he caught and tucked behind his head with a shit-eating grin. “We don’t need to spend every night together.” Sitting down on the opposite couch, I kicked my boots off and lifted my feet to the coffee table.
Toby scowled. “Feet off, asshole.”
Smirking, I let them slide off and stretched my arms over my head. “You going to that party this weekend?”
He shrugged, turning back to the TV, where some crime show was playing. “Don’t know, got two essays breathing down my fucking neck.”
I grunted, staring unseeingly at the TV.
You left.
I know.
Take care.
“You take something?” Toby’s voice rocked me out of my head.
“What?”
“Did you take something? Don’t forget, Coach might seem lenient about it, but they’ll still test our asses when we least expect it.”
I barked out a laugh. “I didn’t take anything.”
His blue eyes squinted a little. “Something’s not quite right.”
“Jesus,” I groaned. “Leave it be.”
“You getting over Alexis? Dude, if you are, set her free. Many an asshole in this place would take her off your hands.”
My fists clenched, and I practically growled. “Shut up. Alexis has got nothing to do with it.”
He grinned like the devil we all knew he could be. “But it’s something then.”
“What are you, a fucking shrink?”
His mouth clamped shut at that, and he slumped back against the couch. “Forget it, I’m being a dick. This place messes with my head, and I get bored.”
I watched him for a moment, the way his hands opened and closed beside him on the couch. Toby had always seemed a bit different from my other friends. Some days, he’d barely say two words to me as if he didn’t want to know the world existed, let alone anyone in it. Other days, he wanted to know everything, talk about everything and nothing.
He had two speeds. And the scary thing was, there was never any warning of when he was about to downshift or speed up. It just happened. Like a switch flicked in his brain.
I’d seen the medication in the bathroom. I also knew he didn’t touch it, thanks to the dust coating the unopened packets and bottles.
Whether it was because of the drug testing that came with being on the football team, or whether he thought he didn’t need it, I wasn’t sure. Either way, he’d never seemed too off for me to be too concerned, and it was none of my business. I figured if he wanted to talk about it, once he got into the right mood, he would.
I stood. “I’m going to hit the shower and crash, I think.”
“Whatever, don’t jack off in there unless you’re willing to clean the damn shower.”
“Like you fucking do.”
“True. But your aim is shit.”
Chuckling, I trudged upstairs and grabbed my sweats and a gray t-shirt, heading into the bathroom.
The water was hot, but I couldn’t resist turning it hotter. As if I could sweat the events of tonight out of my skin, let them slide down my body, and disappear into the drain.
Grabbing my cock, I wrapped my fist around it, pumping once, twice. Blue eyes, big tits with dark, rosy nipples, and even darker hair that spilled over them in tempting ribbons. I twitched in my palm, hardening.
Brown eyes, small breasts with dusky pink nipples, and messy blond hair that drove me wild anytime I touched or looked at it. My cock shot up like it just realized it’d slept in way too late. Angry, hard, and throbbing.
Fuck.
My teeth ground together, and my stomach twisted. Dropping my hand, I finished washing and got the hell out, feeling frustrated, excited, and guilty for a crime I had no plans of committing.