Wait, no, no, there can’t be a next time.

For starters, I am not attracted to football players. Never have been. I dated people in the photography club and music department when I was in high school. I lost my virginity in the black box theater, for god’s sake.

And secondly, he’s a Slate. He’s Dennis Slate’s son. Letting him touch me— hell, letting him speak to me betrays my entire family, especially my aunt. When I haven’t been able to shake the thrumming happiness of my experience with Sebastian from my memory the following morning, I decide to Google Sebastian’s name, to see just how he feels about his father’s role in my aunt’s death.

I’m fairly certain that all of Dennis’s sons have sided with him in no uncertain terms. But I still have some small hope that maybe Sebastian is different…

But no.

Sebastian— and his brothers— have all publicly declared their father to be totally, one hundred percent innocent. They don’t even use my aunt’s name in the various interviews or statements they’ve given; they’re focused on their dad, like he’s the victim here. Even if they think their father is innocent, couldn’t they at least care about the fact that a woman died? That someone murdered her? How can they not even question their father’s flimsy alibi (that he was out driving alone, collecting his thoughts)?

Sebastian didn’t kill my aunt, but he doesn’t seem to care that his father might have. What the hell am I doing, wanting him? I feel sick, twisted around, the nightmare version of the orgasm Sebastian coaxed out of me. I’ve got to get control of myself. I’ve got to forget about Sebastian Slate.

Except, that’s going to be pretty hard at a school like Berkfield.

“Are you still coming with us?” Maddy calls through the door. “Because we need to leave like…now.” She’s growing impatient, and I know it’s only a matter of moments before she flings my bedroom door open.

I’m lying in bed, staring at my laptop, at the dozens of articles on the Slate family I’ve got pulled up. I’ve been reading, Googling, bookmarking, berating myself since almost six o’clock. It’s now nearly ten— about twelve hours since Sebastian and I hooked up— and it’s time for my roommates and I to head to the football stadium. We all entered the same dates in the student ticket lottery, figuring that if nothing else, we’d always have someone to go to the games with.

So now I sort of have to go to the football game with them. Because if I don’t, it’ll be incredibly obvious that something is going on. After all, I came home just a few days ago wearing a football player’s jersey.

“I’m almost ready,” I lie, then spring from my bed, throwing on a mustard yellow sundress and twisting my hair into a topknot. It’s fine, I tell myself. It’s great research for the New Recruits Week case.

Which, by the way, I really regret getting involved with, now. How did I go from barely knowing a thing about the football team to hooking up with a star player in less than three days?

I burst from my room a few seconds later; I can tell my roommates are not impressed by my lack of makeup, but whatever— I’m choosing my battles, today. We make our way to the stadium with what feels like the rest of the college, everyone a sea of burgundy and yellow-gold. I’ve never been to a college football game before. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have even entered the ticket lottery if it weren’t for my roommates’ enthusiasm.

“You should have worn Sebastian’s jersey!” Maddy says in a way that tells me she’s been wanting to nag me about this since the moment I stepped out of my bedroom. “Why didn’t you? You’re probably the only one in the school that has one.”

“I just didn’t think about it,” I lie. “Besides, I’m sure he’s given one to someone else. He didn’t act like it was a big deal.” That second part is true, at least. He had a drawer full of t-shirts he could have given me; impressed as my roommates were by the jersey, it must have been decidedly un-special for Sebastian to select it. I mean, he did so before he started looked at me like…

Well. Like the way he looked at me last night, on the patio, when I came in his arms, staring into his eyes.

I feel my breath quicken, and fight off the memories, instead trying to focus hard on what Emily is saying.

“He doesn’t date. I’ve heard he doesn’t even hook up, but there’s no way that’s true,” Emily says, looking to Maddy for confirmation.

“Yeah, no quarterback has ever turned down the amount of ass I’m sure gets thrown Sebastian Slate’s way,” Maddy says through a snort. “I’ve heard he only started not hooking up after his dad became a suspect for killing that lady.”

“That’d make sense,” Becca says, always the most introspective of my roommates. “I mean, your dad goes to jail for maybe killing a lady he was having casual sex with. That can’t make casual sex look too appealing, can it?”

I shake my head in agreement with my other roommates, hoping my face doesn’t give anything away. There’s so much to give away, after all: My hookup with Sebastian, sure, but also, my aunt’s death— my roommates have no idea that the “lady” they’re talking about has anything to do with me. My aunt’s last name was Miller; mine is Sawyer. My mother and I mostly stayed out of the press after my aunt died— our lawyer said it’s best we save everything for the actual court rather than the court of public opinion. Plus, Aunt Tessa died a few weeks before my high school graduation, and I was pretty eager to get to college and not be “that girl whose aunt got killed by that famous football guy”.

So, I didn’t tell anyone at school about my aunt. It’s been easier, this way, but it also feels weird— like I’m living some kind of double life. Aunt Tessa’s death was— is— such a huge part of my life, and here I’m just smashing it down, keeping it quiet, save using it as my motivation to join the student advocacy group. Worse yet? I sort of…like it. It’s nice not thinking about her every single hour of every single day. The downside, of course, is that all that not thinking about her seems to catch up with me at once. Like last night, for example, when I sat in my room for hours berating myself for what I’d done with the son of the man who killed her.

I’m about to fall into another pit of guilt and regret when we enter the stadium, and the crowd’s energy makes it impossible to feel anything but excited— they’re so loud that they drown out my thoughts, and the world becomes a blur of school colors as we creep closer and closer to kickoff. We’re in the student section, which smells like cheap beer and smoky cool air and freedom. Maddy leaps up on her seat to whoop when the camera pans over us, and I laugh at her enthusiasm.

I catch it, though, when the crowd roars for the team— the players are coming out of the tunnel, clean white pants and strong shoulders, heads held high, helmets on. I immediately begin looking for Sebastian, but I’ve never actually seen him from a distance. I scan the players, growing frustrated, when I suddenly remember he’s got a giant number 11 on his chest. That’s literally the way they identify them on the field, Ashlynn, I nag myself as my eyes lock on the number.

He’s in the front— he’s the captain, I think. He’s a senior quarterback, so that seems to make sense. He’s walking in long, confident strides, and even though I know he’s just walking toward the benches, it looks a little like he’s walking toward me. My stomach flips, and I bite my lip as my eyes drift down his arms. I was in those arms last night— he held me last night, lifted me up against him, never tiring, moving my body around him, moving his fingers into me—

God, it felt so good. I want it again. I want it now. I know he won’t be able to pick me out of the crowd, but I fantasize for a moment about him doing just that, about him calling me down to the field, taking me somewhere secret in the stadium and fucking me like he promised he would—

“You totally have a thing for him,” Maddy snickers, poking me. “Stare much?”

I jump, but then flush— the more I deny it, the more she’ll tease me. “He’s hot, that’s all.”

“Maybe you should try to see him again,” Emily suggests. They know nothing about last night, of course.

“He probably wouldn’t remember me. I’m just some pizza pig he gave a jersey to,” I say quickly.

“Then you could remind him. In a state of undress,” Maddy says, laughing devilishly, and I join in, hoping it hides the fact that I want to do exactly that.

We’re playing Sanderson State, a small school that we’re expected to easily beat. This doesn’t make watching Sebastian play any less thrilling, though. Sebastian owns the field, but not like a dictator— like a general. The other guys respond to his gestures and shouts, and he’s unafraid to pass the ball, completely trusting his teammates to pull their weight rather than trying to be the single hero.

The star receiver is none other than the asshole door guy, I realize— Conor. Despite the fact that Conor is a total asshole, he and Sebastian make an amazing team. They seem linked, each knowing exactly where the other will be, when he’ll be there. Conor is fast, too, zipping to the ball to catch passes Sebastian throws that seem almost destined for an empty space on the field. By halftime, I’m leaping up and down, shouting with everyone else, like Berkfield winning this game is the most important thing to ever happen.

I’m out of breath from the celebrating when the game ends, and it’s clear from the way the students around us are filing out that the party isn’t going to stop simply because the clock has run out— we won the game, after all, so it’s time to move the gang to local bars, restaurants, and houses. My roommates and I link hands to avoid losing one another in the crowd, and we laugh as we weave through the chaos and out the stadium gates, where vendors are shoving unofficial FIRST GAME VICTORY! merchandise at us from all sides, and a few sign spinners nearly clobber us in their efforts to direct us to the kebab place, or the dive bar, or Papa Pig’s (thank god they didn’t ask me to spin a sign out in front of the stadium).

I hear someone call my name, but assume they’re talking to someone else until the voice persists. I stop the train of my roommates to turn and look— it’s Sarah, from the advocacy group. She’s grinning at me eagerly, winding her way to me.

“Oh man, thank god I caught up with you. I was looking for you on Facebook, but couldn’t find you anywhere—“

“I don’t have Facebook,” I say, shrugging. Truthfully, I deleted all my social media after Aunt Tessa died, when the mix of condolences and shitty messages from Dennis Slate fans got to be too much.

“Wow, okay,” Sarah says, looking shocked. “Anyway— I got you in!”

“Huh?”

“To the football players’ after party. Remember, one of the cheerleaders lives on my floor? I talked to her— I didn’t tell her about the advocacy group or anything, I just said you were cool and then I offered to help her with some physics homework if she’d hook you up. She said she can get you into the party!”

My eyes widen. “Oh! Right. Yeah,” I say, trying to sound both eager and grateful. The truth is, I only vaguely remember Sarah mentioning the cheerleader on her floor, and I definitely didn’t expect her to tutor someone to get me into a party. But of course she would— we’re in the same advocacy group, after all, and we’re supposed to be working toward the same goals. Not, you know, imagining having sex with the enemy, like I am. I’m relieved that my roommates are too preoccupied deciding on which bars to hit up to hear any of this, since I suspect they’d accidentally mention the jersey, or the fact that I spent the entire game staring at Sebastian.

“That’s awesome,” I say hurriedly. “What do I do? Where do I go?”

“They have a house over off Milledge— just go there and say you’re there with Juliet. Wear something super cute, she said. She’s nice, I promise, but she’s also really really extroverted,” Sarah says. If Sarah calls Juliet extroverted, she must practically be a one girl party planner. I nod appreciatively, and give Sarah a quick hug.

“Who was that?” Becca asks as we move along.

“A pre-law friend,” I say. “She invited me to a party this evening.” That isn’t entirely a lie…

“A pre-law party?” Maddy asks, looking unimpressed. “We were going to go to that nineties bar. I hear some of the players go there, mostly the freshmen. But hey, you never know— maybe Sebastian will be there,” she adds, elbowing me and winking.

I laugh, but beg off of the bar, hoping she doesn’t see the truth on my face: I’m going to see Sebastian tonight, but it’s not going to be at a bar. It’s going to be at the party. At his house. Where there’s plenty of room to be alone. Where, if history is any indicator, I’m going to be totally unable to resist him.