Page 10 of Catching My Dreams

It was jealousy. Riley and Asher were so madly in love it was almost sickening, and no matter how weak it made her feel, Ella wanted that too.

She wanted someone to look at her the way her best friend looked at his girlfriend—like she was the center of his universe. She wanted someone who would care about her enough to stick around. She wanted someone who looked at her and saw someone worth loving, someone they wanted to spend the rest of their life with.

She wanted her very own Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley. Until she’d seen how Riley and Asher were with each other, she’d thought that kind of love existed only in books. Now that she knew it was real, she wanted it even more. And if her last romantic escapade hadn’t ended in a disaster of epic proportions, Ella might have been more hopeful about her chances of finding that someone.

But as it stood, she didn’t think love was in the cards for her.

3

“Come on, man. We can have a couple beers and chase some tail. It’ll be fun.”

Noah shot Chris a dark look before grabbing his gym bag from his locker. “Firstly, you know I don’t drink.”

Neither he nor his friend were old enough to do it legally, and while Noah had gotten shit-faced a few times the previous year, he wasn’t about to risk his quarterback position now that he was no longer red-shirted. Especially because having his arm slashed at by a psychopath meant he’d spent a few weeks off the field. He needed to focus, and getting drunk at a frat party wasn’t the way to do that.

“And secondly,” he continued after he’d replaced the towel around his waist with a pair of boxer briefs and gym shorts. “I have no interest in hooking up with a random girl I know nothing about. I’ll leave that to you and the rest of the team.”

Like most of the guys on the Georgetown University football team, Chris was no stranger to meaningless sex. He wasn’t the worst by any means, but Chris had probably slept with eight times as many women in his first semester at Georgetown than Noah had ever slept with in his life. True, it wasn’t that hard of a feat to accomplish, but it was still a bit ridiculous.

Chris shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You and Madison broke up like five years ago. When was the last time you got laid?”

“We broke up seven months ago,” Noah corrected him as he impatiently pulled on a shirt. He had places to be, and the locker room wasn’t it. “And to answer your question, pretty recently.”

“With who?” Chris demanded to know, his voice rising above the chatter from the rest of the team.

“Yeah, Warner,” Brady called out from the other end of the locker room. He was a defensive lineman and the biggest and scariest-looking bastard on the team. He was also the nicest. “Who was the unlucky lady?” Scratch that. He was an asshole.

“Nobody,” Noah growled, zipping his bag up more aggressively than necessary.

“Ah, so it was your hand then,” Chris replied sympathetically. “There’s no shame in that. We’ve all been there.”

“Not me,” Eric, the running back and least-liked guy on the team, said in that annoyingly haughty voice that never failed to make Noah want to punch him in the face. “I don’t need to resort to that when I have girls throwing themselves at me twenty-four-seven.”

Chris rolled his eyes and spoke before Noah could. “Now, those are the unlucky ladies. Must be hard having that rumor floating around that you wouldn’t know your way around a woman’s body even if you had a map.”

Noah and the rest of the team chuckled, and Eric made sure to shoulder check Chris on his way out the room.

“I think you hurt his feelings,” Brady tutted.

“He doesn’t have feelings,” Chris retorted. “But Noah still hasn’t spilled the beans on the girl who lowered herself to sleeping with such a grumpy bastard.”

Noah rubbed the back of his neck and prayed for patience. “Why am I friends with you again?”

“Because nobody else would take you.”

Noah’s mouth curved up against his will.

“So, who did you manage to trick into sleeping with you?” Chris pressed.

Noah couldn’t contain his flinch at his friend’s choice of words. He could still remember the way Ella’s body had turned to stone when he’d asked her if she would be willing to spiritwalk if he was with her. He could still remember the way she’d moved away from him and accused him of playing some twisted game with her.

A tear had rolled down her cheek, and Noah had traced its movement with his eyes, too shocked to lean forward and wipe it away. He’d bared his soul to her, finally admitted how much he wanted her, and she’d accused him of manipulating her. He hadn’t understood, and when she finally met his gaze, the coldness of her usually fiery brown eyes made him wish she hadn’t.

Ella had so many reasons to hate him, but he would never understand how she could think he would do something that disgusting, that unforgivable, that…violating. He’d made so many mistakes when it came to her. There was no denying that, but being accused of seducing her so that she would be more willing to help them find Asher had hurt. It had fucking burned.

“I don’t kiss and tell,” he told Chris after shaking off the building anger that always accompanied thoughts of his interaction with Ella.

“Or you just don’t kiss, full stop,” his friend retorted with a smirk. “But fine, be that way. Keep your secrets if it makes you happy.”

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