Page 28 of Faking the Play

I shook my head. “Where did you say the party is?”

“A couple of the guys on the team actually have a small house off campus. It’s about fifteen minutes from here.” He looked over at me, concern on his face. “You sure you’re okay with this?”

“You guys won against our rivals,” I said. “You deserve to celebrate and I want to be with you, so I’m definitely okay with it.”

“All right,” he said, “but if you want to leave at any time, you just tell me, got it? This is a date, and I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

I reached over and squeezed his forearm. “I don’t, and if I want to go, I’ll let you know. I promise.”

My answer seemed to satisfy him because he didn’t say anything else about it as he pulled out of the parking lot. Instead, we talked about the game. I’d gone to support the guys, but I wanted to hear about the things I wouldn’t have seen from the stands. The things that were important to Ethan, Ryan, and Logan. Because they were important to me. We hadn’t been reconnected for long, but already they’d fallen back into those spaces they left behind years ago.

“Just a warning,” Ethan said as he turned into a packed driveway. “Things can get a little crazy after a win like today.”

He pulled into an empty spot in the yard just as two guys covered in green and gold body paint—andonlypaint—ran out of the house toward the road, chanting something I couldn’t quite make out.

The concern on Ethan’s face as he looked over at me warmed my heart.

“I really hope they put on a lot of bug spray or they’re going to be really miserable when they sober up,” I said with a smile.

That seemed to reassure him, and we headed for the party, hand in hand. We got a couple drinks, chatted with some people, and I started to feel like this might not be such a bad date after all. Then Ryan passed by and didn’t even look our way.

“Excuse me,” I mumbled to Ethan. “I need some air.”

Yanking my hand out of his, I made for the quickest exit, which happened to be the back door. I pushed my way through the crowd on the patio, not stopping until I reached a small shed at the back of the property. After checking to make sure no one was using the space behind it for some alone time, I disappeared behind it and finally breathed.

It was too much. I thought being around a lot of people would help me forget how much this past week had sucked, but seeing Ryan walk by me without even a glance in my direction had been the proverbial straw that broke this camel’s back.

“Amelia?”

Ethan appeared at the corner of the shed, his worry sending a stab of guilt through me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m being a lousy date tonight. You’re being so nice trying to help me and I’m not pulling my own weight. You deserve to have fun.” My heart hurt at the thought of what that fun might entail. “Find some girl to—”

“I don’t want some girl,” Ethan said firmly. He came over to me, hands casually tucked in his pockets. “I’m here with you because I want to be. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

I started to shake my head and then realized that keeping it all inside was just going to make everything worse.

“I think I messed up,” I blurted out. “I slept with Ryan and now he doesn’t want to go on another date with me and I thought it was fine because we were good afterward but now I don’t know because I haven’t talked to him and—”

Ethan put his finger on my lips to stop the flow of words I couldn’t seem to control. “When I asked you out, if I made it sound like Ryan told me that I needed to take you out because he didn’t want to, I’m sorry. That’s not what happened.”

That made me feel a little better. “Okay.”

Taking his finger away from my mouth, Ethan reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Relax. Breathe.”

After I took a few deep breaths, he explained.

“When the three of us talked about taking you out, we figured we’d do a couple dates each, and a lot of it would depend on how we were doing in our classes. At the moment, my workload is easier than Ryan’s. We were just being practical.”

That last sentence didn’t ring quite as true as some of the other things he said, but I let it go.

“I’m guessing practicality was Logan’s idea.”

Ethan laughed. “It was.”

“Ryan’s not blowing me off because he had sex with me?”

Ethan’s hand tightened around mine. “No. I can promise you that isn’t the case. And if you’re thinking that’s why he didn’t say anything to us just now, it’s not. Tonight, he and Logan are the ‘party monitors.’” Ethan chuckled. “It’s a stupid title, but basically, last year the team decided they’d pick a couple guys at each party to keep an eye on things. Make sure no one’s takingadvantage of anyone else, no idiot who’s had too much to drink gets into their car, that sort of thing.”

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