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Tackled: A Sports Romance by Sabrina Paige (42)

Cassie

"I'm not sure if it went down the way you think it went down, Cass, that's all I'm saying." Sable dips her chip into queso and shovels it into her mouth.

"And I already told you that I don't want to talk about That Asshole," I huff over the noise on the restaurant patio. New house rule: we refer to Colton King as That Asshole. I take a sip of my margarita. Okay, I take a giant gulp. You'd think I'd have learned after the tequila shots, but what can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment.

Obviously, since I was fucking around with Colton King.

I should have known better.

"I'm just saying that he and one of the guys on the team really got into it that night," she says. "I mean, Colt – That Asshole — was crazy pissed. Tank thought he was going to kill the guy."

I flash to the image of Colton at my door, his lip bloody and a bruise along the side of his jaw, then force it out of my head.

I wonder if it was the guy from the party. It might have been. Colton probably pounded the shit out of him for telling me that he was running his mouth about us. It was probably supposed to be the team's secret.

I shudder at the thought of him telling stories – our stories, goddamn it – in the fucking locker room. Heat surges to my face. It's humiliating. I haven't even told Sable that part of it. Just the part about the girl in his bedroom.

The waiter comes by and I order a second margarita.

Sable raises her eyebrows. "Maybe there's more to the story than you think," she says.

"I said I don't want to talk about it," I spit back. "Can we just sit here on the deck in the sunshine and drink margaritas and talk about celebrities or something?"

"Fine," Sable mutters, crossing her arms over her chest.

We sit in silence.

"You're not talking about celebrities," I complain finally.

"Neither are you."

"Yeah, because I'm sitting here wallowing in self-pity and you're the one who's supposed to be distracting me."

"Fine," Sable grumbles. "Kardashian gossip?"

I shrug.

"Royal family gossip?"

"Boring." I'm being petulant and pissy and bitchy and horrible.

"That Asshole gossip?"

"Screw you, Sable."

"He is a celebrity," she points out. "He's been in gossip magazines. And I think you're being ridiculous, not even willing to consider alternative explanations for what happened."

My new margarita arrives and I suck down half of it while glaring at Sable. "I can't believe you're sitting here defending him."

"Whoa, whoa," she says. "I'm not defending him. If he was screwing around, he's an ass."

"You are defending him. What other possible explanation could there be for a naked girl in his bedroom who was clearly waiting for –" My voice drops to a whisper. "Colton King to crown her?"

"Crown her?" the corners of Sable's mouth turn up. "At least heartbreak hasn't ruined your sense of humor. How long have you been waiting to use that one?"

"A while," I admit.

I don't tell her the rest, which is that if I don't joke about it, I'm going to lose my shit. And there's nothing more pathetic than a tipsy girl crying into her margarita in the middle of a restaurant. Unless it's a tipsy girl crying into her margarita at a restaurant because she thought she was in love with the school's most notorious player and believed he felt the same about her.

That would just make her a stupid tipsy girl.

"There could be lots of explanations," Sable reasons.

"Name one."

"She… got lost."

"Naked. Asking about That Asshole's cock."

"She could have been trying to screw another player on the team."

"Again, saying she was waiting for his cock."

"It could have been a joke," Sable says. "Those guys are basically all overgrown adolescents."

"Yeah, hilarious."

"Maybe someone sent her up there. Like… an end-of-finals prize. One of his teammates."

"Like a prize?" I ask. "Not helping at all, Sable."

"It could have had to do with the guy he beat up."

I exhale heavily. "Why are you, of all people, trying to justify what he did?" I ask. "You're the one who warned me that he was probably hooking up with someone at the party before we even went. And you were right."

"I didn't say probably," she says. "I said it was possible. And… I don't really think that anymore."

"Are you high? Because your perception of reality is significantly impaired. You think he might hook up with someone before we go to the party, but when he actually does have a naked girl in his bedroom, you think he's pure and innocent."

I turn to reach for a chip and see the couple at the table beside us staring at us. The guy leans over. "Guy with a girl naked in his room?" he asks. "Don't go back to that."

"You shouldn't stay with a guy who hurts you," the girl across from him agrees.

I almost tell them to shut up and stop eavesdropping, but I don't. "See? I blurt instead, gesturing to them while talking to Sable. "Complete strangers think there's no justification for it. Total strangers. Meanwhile my best friend is trying to reason away what happened."

Sable gives the couple the nastiest stink-eye I've ever seen. "Will you two mind your own fucking business?"

Their heads snap down and they huddle over their food.

Sable leans forward and speaks in a hushed tone. "You didn't see the look on his face, Cassie," she says. "When we told him you left. It was – I don't know how to explain it. It was like he just watched his dog get put down."

I know that look.

I know it because it was the look he gave me through the barely-open door. The one that pulled at my heartstrings and gave me a brief moment of pause… a second of thought that maybe I was getting things wrong.

I shove that image aside and clench my jaw. Then I grab a chip and bury that feeling under more queso.

"You're a sucker for strays, Sable," I tell her. "I'm not."

"I'm going to write that comment off to you being heartbroken," Sable says, "and not that you're being a big ol' bitch right now."

I sulk in the chair and finish off my margarita, shutting up.

Then, I don't shut up. "It's not just the girl, okay?" I blurt out, my tongue loosened by the alcohol. I can feel a flush moving up my neck even thinking about what that guy told me. I should actually stop thinking of him as a creep. At least he was honest.

"What do you mean?"

I shake my head. "I don't want to say it here."

Sable scoots her chair around the circular table until she's next to me, looking over her shoulder at the couple next to us. "Seriously," she says loudly to them. "Is this what happens when you get in a relationship? You have nothing to talk about, so you listen to other people's conversations?"

The girl shrugs and gives us a sheepish look.

I close my eyes, hardly wanting to think about it, let alone speak the words.

"What happened?"

"This guy – on the team – I was trying to find That Asshole," I explain, "and he told me what That Asshole had been saying about me."

"What do you mean?"

"Talking about 'nailing the virgin'," I spit out bitterly. "Telling stories to the guys in the locker room about… all the things we did."

"What?" Sable exclaims, her brow furrowed. "That does not sound right, Cassie."

"Yeah, well, it is what it is, right? He's a jock. I should have expected it."

"No, no, no." Sable shakes her head. "None of this is right, Cass. I – he wouldn't do that."

"I'm not a dumbass," I say, my words clipped. "It's what happened and I'm not going to be one of those girls who looks the other way when shit like that happens."

"Jonathan would know if he did that," Sable explains, her expression puzzled. Her voice hesitates for a split second when she speaks the word know, and I can see it in her eyes; she's wondering if Tank knew. "Jonathan would tell me."

I lean close to her, my voice a loud whisper. "The guy – the one from his team – he knew I was a virgin," I hiss. "Now, who knew about that, besides you and me and That Asshole? You tell me. It's not like I'm walking around campus with a giant V painted on my forehead."

Sable sinks back in her chair, looking thoughtful. "There's a reasonable explanation, Cass," she says. "I'm sure of it."

"Whatever you say, Sable."

She doesn't look so sure anymore.

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