Page 58 of Faking the Play

“I’ll do my best,” he joked as he slung his bag over his shoulder. “See you at practice.”

“You guys didn’t want to go to the party, did you?” I asked as the three of us headed for my car. “I don’t want to assume that we all want the same thing.”

Ethan snorted a laugh. “Come on, man. We all wantexactlythe same thing, and that’s why we’re going home rather than going to another party.”

“You think she’ll be waiting for us?” Ryan asked.

I shrugged. “We gave her a key so she could water our plants while we were gone, so she might be there.”

“You went out and bought plants for her to water so you could give her a key without actually telling her that you wanted her to have a key,” Ethan pointed out.

“I didn’t hear you complaining when she took it,” I said. “Or telling her thatyouwanted her to have a key.”

He didn’t say anything to that, and neither did Ryan. They’d been happy enough to let me take the lead when it came to giving her the key. If they didn’t like the way I’d done it, that was their own damn problem.

It didn’t matter that he was right in a way. Doing something like giving someone a key came with discussions about where things were going and giving names to feelings. All the shit that I avoided whenever possible.

I took a slow breath as I pulled out of the parking lot, putting aside all of that. We didn’t need to put labels on things, use words that didn’t mean anything. Actions were what mattered. I didn’t need to try—and fail—to tell Amelia how I felt. I’d seen too many people say all the right things but then betray each other when it came down to it. And I’d seen it up close and personal.

“Should we text her?” Ryan asked. “See where she is?”

“I sent her a message before we left this morning,” Ethan said. “She said she was running some errands.”

“If she’s not at the apartment, we’ll shoot her a text,” I said. “Invite her over, maybe order some food.”

Thinking about seeing her again had my smile returning, and by the time we stood in front of the door to our place, my former excitement had come back as well.

“How’s your arm feeling?” Ethan asked as he leaned against the wall, waiting for me to unlock the door.

“Fine,” I said. “Why?”

“It just looked like it was bugging you during that last throw,” he said.

“I talked to Jet about it after the game.” I pushed open the door. “He just said to lay off the lifting for the next couple days.”

The apartment was dark when we went inside, telling us that Amelia wasn’t here. I was a little disappointed, but didn’t let it get me down. We’d just reach out like we’d talked about. We were a little early, after all. Except when the lights came on, we realized we had other things to worry about.

“What the hell?” Ethan stared at the mess in the living room.

Food and empty containers were scattered everywhere. On the couch, the chairs, the coffee table, the floor. Nothing was broken or missing, but it looked like someone had just decided to eat a bunch of food and not clean up after themselves. Setting our things down by the door, we moved together to the kitchen and found dirty dishes piled up in the sink and three empty wine bottles that I didn’t recognize.

“Those aren’t ours, are they?” I asked.

Ryan shook his head. “I threw out the last empty bottle before we left.”

“Did Amelia say she was going to have friends over or that she needed to clean things up before we got home?” The question sounded hollow to my own ears.

“Something’s wrong here,” Ethan said, frowning.

“No shit,” I muttered, heading for my room.

The other guys came after me, going to their rooms too. It took me only a few minutes to see what I needed to see, and I went back into the hallway to wait for the guys, a sick feeling in my stomach.

Both of them looked confused as they joined me, and that was enough to tell me that they’d found the same sort of shit I had.

“Bed’s a mess,” I said, my voice even despite all the emotions roiling inside me. “Wet towels in the bathroom. There’s a used condom in the trash.”

“There’s boxers on my bed and they’re not mine,” Ryan said. “Condom wrapper next to them.”

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