Reese

 

“Are you a magician, honey?” Vaughn asked Gemma after laying a kiss on her hand. “Because when I look at you, everyone else disappears.”

Gemma went into a fit of giggles and did her finest Scarlett O’Hara impression. “Why, you silver-tongued devil. That might just be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Actors.

Vaughn bowed like a gentleman and waved his arms around the house full of bodies. “Enjoy yourselves, ladies. And if there’s anything I can get you please don’t hesitate to ask.”

He left us to our own devices as Gemma, Syd, and I beelined for the kitchen where all the alcohol was. Syd had said only a million times that she was positively not drinking this time and to not give her a drink even if she started begging for one. But she hadn’t brought Caleb. So...yay.

The second I’d entered the house I was immediately searching out Cam.

“Don’t make that too obvious or anything,” Syd said wryly.

“Just scoping out the scene.”

“Yeah, we know who you’re scoping for,” Gemma chimed in.

I flicked her ear, something she hated. “Put a lid on it, will you? The goal is to not broadcast it to everyone within a fifty mile radius.”

“Not broadcast what?” a male voice asked from behind us. We all three turned as one to take a look at the owner of the voice.

Boyd.

I saw Syd patting down her hair out of the corner of my eye and stifled a chuckle. She was so smitten but wouldn’t admit it. Matter of fact, so was Boyd. The guy hadn’t looked anywhere but at her since he approached, wearing the most adorable smile I’d ever seen. If Syd was smitten, he was already over the moon. And with those baby blues, that strong jawline, and a body sculpted from years of physical labor, our roommate didn’t stand a chance.

“The fact that I’m on my period,” Gemma blurted out.

We all slowly turned our heads to her, expressions aghast. Gemma appeared nonplussed. Poor Boyd looked downright uncomfortable.

“Um, that sucks,” he said, shifting his booted feet around. “Good to see you again, Sydney.”

“You, too.” Her voice was soft with affection.

“You up for a game of darts?”

I gave her a little nudge with my elbow when she took too long to answer. “Yeah, sure. That sounds fun.” They walked off together, Boyd leading her with a hand on her lower back.

Well, she was taken care of for the night.

“Really?” I said to Gemma. “Your period?”

She tapped my nose. “It’s called improv, darling. All the best actors do it.”

I sipped my beer as I once again checked out the rooms in front of me. I still couldn’t see Cam, but he had to have been here by now. I’d texted him twenty minutes ago, telling him I was on my way and he’d said he was ten minutes away. I fingered the hem of my silver sweater, suddenly regretting my decision to wear anything that was the slightest bit cropped. There was only a sliver of skin showing above my white skinny jeans, but I thought Cam would appreciate it.

“Not that you’re not thrilling company and all,” Gemma said as she stood on tip-toe, craning her neck to see over the crowd, “but I see something much more fun across the room. I’ll see you later.”

“Keep your phone on you!” I yelled. She gave me a thumbs-up in response.

I tracked her across the room and smiled when she honed in on Jesse, heading straight for him. He greeted her with a bashful smile, something I wouldn’t have expected from him. I figured he’d be just as brash as Colt, but maybe he wasn’t. I was about to go find some place to sit down when I saw him.

Cam was playing beer pong with Colt and a few of the other bench players.

That cheerleader—Rachel—stood at his back with her arms dangling over his shoulders. Or at least, trying to. He kept shrugging them off, but he didn’t lose his smile. Everyone was laughing it up, acting like they were having a fabulous time. Judging from his movements, Cam had a buzz going on but he didn’t seem drunk. Rachel stood on her tip-toes to say something in his ear, bringing her body much too close to his. He shook his head at whatever she said, but didn’t react other than that. He wasn’t exactly shoving her away.

Jealousy burned in my gut, quickly turning into something supremely ugly. I chugged the rest of my beer and was very tempted to throw the empty bottle at her head—I had pretty good aim. Instead, I just grabbed another one and chugged half of it down. I’d known this wasn’t going to be easy. I’d agreed to go along with the secrecy. But I hadn’t been handling the situation too well today, especially after I’d seen that interview on TV this afternoon.

Cam had been giving some sort of interview for one of the sports networks. He talked about how the first and second round games went and his expectations for the rest of the tournament, but the questions eventually turned to his personal life. He addressed his mom’s influence on his life, but the reporter really seemed to be after his relationship status. He acted all shy about it, not wanting to reveal anything.

Until he finally admitted he was single.

When asked if he was looking, he’d responded, “If the right girl comes along, absolutely.”

I tried not to be frustrated, but who was I kidding? That was like a dagger to the heart, even though I knew he hadn’t meant for it to be. I honestly hadn’t realized until that moment how much it bothered me that he wouldn’t claim me publicly. It had nothing to do with me wanting to be “Cam Donovan’s girlfriend.” I simply wanted all these bitches to know that he was off the market. And okay, yeah, maybe a small part of me wanted him to be proud of dating me.

My pride could be a pain in the ass sometimes, what can I say?

Seeing this stupid cheerleader fawn all over him pushed me to my breaking point for one day.

Of course, that had to be the moment—as I was mentally eviscerating Rachel and castrating him—when his head whipped up and his eyes locked with mine. I couldn’t ignore the way his widened like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. That really sent me over the edge.

I darted out of the room, anything to remove myself from that scene. I heard heavy footsteps behind me and knew he’d followed. I made it out onto the front porch before my arm was pulled back, stopping me.

“Reese, where are you going?” he asked, concern clear in his tone. He got one look at my face and asked, “What’s wrong?”

I glared. “Do you really have to ask?”

His jaw tightened and he glanced back inside the house. “That was nothing. We were playing and Rachel just walked up to me.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah, you looked really bothered by it.”

“I wasn’t going to tell her to take a hike in front of everyone,” he said tersely. “You know I don’t like people involved in my business.”

I snorted. “All too well.” I purposefully took in the people around us as I lowered my voice. “But, hey, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. I mean, it’s not like we’re a couple or anything, right?”

He scrubbed his hand down his face. “Don’t do this, Reese. I thought we agreed to keep us on the down low until the season was over. You said you were okay with that.”

“I didn’t know that meant you could flaunt your fake single status wherever you went!” I snapped a little too loudly.

“It’s about keeping up appearances,” he insisted. “I start acting different, that’s when everyone will start asking questions, which is exactly what we want to avoid.”

“So, you’re allowed to flirt with any pair of tits that approaches you and feels you up?”

He threw his hands out to the side, clearly pissed off. “Nobody was feeling anyone up!” Now, he had to fight to control his own voice. “I was looking for you as soon as I got here, and then Colt asked me to play. I figured you’d see me and come talk to me.”

I clicked my tongue. “Didn’t look like there was room for me.”

He pushed out a breath. “Why are you being like this? You knew how this was going to be.”

“Yeah, some of it.” I sounded sad even to my own ears. “I guess I still thought it would be…different.”

“I don’t want to fight,” he said adamantly. “Not here. Not now.”

That wasn’t really what I wanted to hear. He made it sound like I was a huge inconvenience for him. Well, if that was the case, then fine. I would make it easy on him and not make a nuisance of myself.

“You go hang out with whoever you want, Cam. And I’ll do the same.”

He snatched my arm back before I could disappear inside the house. “What does that mean?”

I wiggled my arm to loosen his grip, but he wasn’t letting up. “If you’re allowed to flirt, then so am I.”

I was so full of shit. I doubt I’d even be able to bat my eyelashes at another man. That’s how screwed up Cam had me. Ruined me for anyone else. The bastard.

He leaned down and put his face right in front of mine. “If I see even one guy getting too close to you, I will beat the shit out of him. Don’t test me, Reese.”

I patted his arm. “But sweetheart, that wouldn’t be keeping up appearances.”

I dashed off before he could singe anymore of my skin with that penetrating glare. I was probably being unfair. Hell, I was even being a bit of a bitch. But there were a million things he could have said to me right then that would have reassured me of our relationship, and he hadn’t said a one of them. He’d just been defensive, which had only fueled my anger.

We hadn’t had a fight since that first night we’d had sex in my bedroom, and it wasn’t pleasant. You know that really uncomfortable feeling after you ride a wet ride at an amusement park and you have to spend the rest of the day walking around in wet clothes? It was like that. All I wanted to do was strip my clothes off, dry off, and go to bed. Not literally, of course. I wanted to forget everything that just went down with Cam and dodge anymore drama for the rest of the night. I decided the best way to do that was to make sure my mind couldn’t remember most of the night.

Yep, I was going to get drunk.

It was a semi-good plan at first.

What I didn’t know at the time was that unfortunately, drama was bound and determined to find me that night.

No matter how much tequila I drank.

 

***

An hour or so later, I was well on my way to being blackout.

Cam kept his distance from me, but not enough that he couldn’t see what I was doing. Or who I was talking to. Even through my tipsy haze, I felt his eyes follow me everywhere I went. I talked to several of the guys from the team, met some of their friends, and eventually dragged Gemma onto the dance floor where we shimmied away for a good ten songs in a row. We hadn’t seen Syd in a little while, so we assumed she was still mingling about with Boyd.

It was probably somewhere around my sixth beer that I walked out to the backyard for some fresh air. There was a fire pit with a roaring fire and some empty chairs sitting around it. I plopped down in one of them—fell down would have been a more accurate description—and warmed myself by the flames, allowing the tequila to work its way through my system.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite little sarcastic trainer.”

I turned to the chair next to me with a big smile. I recognized that voice. “That isn’t one of your usual cheesy lines,” I told Vaughn.

He took my hand in his in his signature move. “When I first saw you, Reese, I knew we could win the Stanley Cup in tonsil hockey.”

I burst into laughter, feeling tears escape the corners of my eyes. “Better. I feel special again.”

He let go of my hand and sat back in his own chair, beer in hand. “Glad I could be of service.”

I studied his profile as he stared at the billowing fire. He really was a very good looking guy with cropped blond hair, caramel colored eyes, and a dimpled smile that was almost too cute. He wasn’t built as sturdily as Cam, but he still had a nice lean body with toned muscles that looked good through his fitted button-up shirts. He was kind and smart, too. It was really too bad I wasn’t into him.

Nope. Instead, I had a huge thing for the former man-whore of Calhoun.

“Why do you do that?” I asked out of nowhere.

My excuse for the word vomit was the alcohol making all the thoughts in my head spin around and I just randomly pulled one out of there. Like Powerball.

His head swung around. “Do what?”

I waved my hand around, as if that would tell him exactly what I was talking about. “The whole corny pick-up line thing. You’re charming without all that when you want to be. Where did all of it come from?”

“Let me ask you this, does it make you smile? Maybe even laugh?”

“Yes.” Pretty much every time.

He nodded, satisfied. “That’s reason enough for me right there.”

“That’s it? It’s just a way to make girls smile?” I wasn’t buying it.

He sighed. “No one’s actually asked me that question before. You’re too damn perceptive, Reese.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“The truth is,” he said, “I used to be really shy in high school. Like, really shy. Especially around girls. I could never talk to them because I was always too nervous. When I was a junior, there was this girl I really liked and I’d been wanting to ask her to go to prom with me. We had some classes together and she tried talking to me, but I always sounded like an idiot. She was always too nice to make me feel bad about it, though. After months and months of working up the courage, I finally got up the nerve to ask her.”

“And?” I prompted. “What happened?”

“Another guy had already asked her,” he answered. “And she told me she’d feel bad cancelling since she’d already told him yes. They even dated for a while after prom. It may just all be in my head, but I had a feeling that she would have said yes to me if I’d asked her first. That was when I made the decision to change. Shed my shyness and actually learn how to be confident. The whole experience just taught me that you can’t go through life being scared or nervous all the time because it won’t get you anywhere.”

“So, you chose ridiculous pick-up lines as a way of gaining confidence?”

He chuckled. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was a blush on his cheeks. “Those just began as a conversation starter with girls. They were meant to be cheesy so they would know I wasn’t really serious, and if I was lucky, I’d get a smile out of them. It started working, too. Girls would relax around me once they knew I wasn’t coming onto them in a skeezy way. After a while, it just sort of became my thing.”

Wow. I couldn’t imagine Vaughn ever being the shy type. The whole story just made me like and respect him that much more.

“The only problem,” he continued, “is whenever I actually am interested in a girl, I have to switch my tactics around. So she knows I’m not just playing around.” His gaze focused on me, his eyes growing intent. Uh-oh. “Earlier, when you said you felt special again... I do think you’re special, Reese. I like that you’re different.”

Ah, geez. Why couldn’t I have felt the same way about him? Seriously, it was such a shame.

“Vaughn, I think you’re special, too,” I said softly. “You’re a great guy and the girl that eventually lands you will be very lucky. And as your friend, I hope you find her soon.”

That was the gentlest way I knew to deliver a rejection. He seemed to understand and graciously accepted.

“And as your friend, Reese,” we both smiled, our easy comraderie restored, “I highly doubt you’ll have any trouble finding yourself a good guy who’ll treat you right. Of course, the fortunate bastard will have to have my seal of approval. As well as the whole team’s, I’m thinking. Like it or not, you’ve adopted twenty older brothers who will all be ready to throw down for you if he disrespects you in any way.”

My laugh came out a little nervous. He had no idea how close to home the “fortunate bastard” actually was.

Would the guys be ready to turn on one of their own?

“You’re sweet, you know that?”

He took a long pull of his beer. “Says every girl I’ve never had a chance with.”

I chuckled. “Oh, come on. I’m sure it’s not that bad—”

“Son of a bitch,” he spat.

My ears perked up. “What is it?”

He pushed to his feet. “Look who just showed up. Cam’s going to lose his shit.”

I squinted my eyes in the direction he was now glaring, toward the front yard. My beer goggles made this task exceptionally harder. Three guys had just stepped out of a Range Rover, but there were too many people in the way and I couldn’t get a good look at them. As they made their way to the front door of the house, enough people cleared, offering me a glimpse of their faces. I didn’t recognize the two guys on both ends. But the guy in the middle…

“Son of a fucking bitch.”

Trey.

He was here, at the party.

And Cam was inside.

I had a feeling I was about to witness the start of World War III.