Page 38 of The Sound of Us

Skye didn’t respond, so I carried her the rest of the way in silence.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN“Jealous (I Ain’t with It)” by ChromeoSKYE

Chad was in his element at the WJPK hot dog stand. He smiled, shook hands, handed out flyers, and kissed babies like he was on the campaign trail, leaving me, Haley, and Nick to do the grunt work. But I had to hand it to him, we’d had a steady stream of customers since we’d set up the tables and the barbeque in the middle of the quad.

“Who would have thought hot dogs would be such a huge hit?” Haley sliced open buns beside me. “We’ll make a fortune.”

“I hope so.” I wiped my hands on the apron I’d thrown over myDante’s Infernohoodie. I don’t know why I’d put on the hoodie. Dante had made it clear our kiss had been a mistake, but it was soft and warm and part of me wasn’t ready to let go of our connection. It was a sunny, crisp fall day with the barest hint of the cold that would be coming for us soon. “Isla helped me put up dozens of posters across campus and I stood at the door to the gym every morning this week to hand out flyers after training.”

“Training?” Haley frowned. “I thought you were done with basketball. How long have you—”

“I’m not doing it as seriously as I did before.” I turned away to flip over a row of hot dogs. I didn’t know why I felt guilty, but I hadn’t even told Isla my plan. “I’m eating badly. Drinking alcohol. Not getting enough sleep. But I am going to the gym every day to keep up my fitness and skills. I enjoy basketball and if things don’twork out with journalism, I could try to get on a lower-level team, or even become a coach. It’s a safety net.”

“It’s a net alright,” Haley said. “But it’s not keeping you safe; it’s keeping you trapped. The university picked you for the journalism program because you are an amazing writer. You just need to believe in yourself.”

“It’s still hard to let go of the dream,” I said. “It’s all I’ve got left of my dad.” Haley knew all about my family and the pressure I’d been under to make it to the WNBA. “I was a disappointment from day one, and it was the last thing he said to me before he died.”

“It was your dad’s dream,” she pointed out. “Not yours. And he’s the disappointment for never seeing you for who you really are. My parents are the same. They think singing is a phase for me, and after I get a nice shiny college degree, I’ll forget all about it.”

“Four bad boys. One plate,” Nick called out from the grill. “This isn’t the time for chitchat.”

“One plate?” I grabbed a paper plate. “Who can eat four hot dogs at once?”

“That would be me.”

I almost dropped the plate when Ethan Williams walked down to my end of the table. I’d had a serious crush on Ethan in my freshman year. He was the captain of the men’s basketball team, a legacy from a wealthy family, and sheer perfection when it came to physical specimens of the male form. We’d never exchanged words and I’d thought he was oblivious to my existence, so it had been a total shock when he came up to me after my first game of the season and asked me out. Even more of a shock when he made it clear after he’d taken me out for dinner that he expected me to sleep with him in return.

From his sudden switch in temperament—he went from social to sulky in a heartbeat—I suspected my refusal was a shock for him, too. But he was so far out of my league I didn’t feel comfortable around him. He’d been more interested in talking about himself than getting to know me, and I didn’t like the way he pressured me for sex. He expected things simply because of who he was, and I couldn’t relate. Nothing had ever been handed to me on a silver platter.

Of course, Ethan hadn’t given up. He asked me out over and over again, and the day before Christmas break, he showed up drunk at our dorm begging me to let him in until he passed out on the front step. I had to call my coach, who called his coach to come and pick him up. Haley said people like Ethan didn’t like to lose, as if I were some kind of conquest. But I wasn’t so sure. He’d sent me a message after my accident telling me how sorry he was and that he hoped I got better soon. I appreciated the gesture. Broken and bruised inside and out, I was nobody’s prize.

“I heard you were back.” Ethan flashed a row of perfectly white teeth as his deep-blue eyes made a slow sweep of my body. “You look great… really great.”

Ethan also looked great. At six foot five, with the body of a Greek god, curly blond hair, and jaw that looked like it had just been freshly chiseled, he stood out among the mere mortals around us.

My body grew warmer from the heat in his eyes, and I managed to stutter out something that I hoped sounded like “thanks.”

“I saw you a couple of times at the gym, but it was always during practice, and I couldn’t stop and say hello.” He ran a hand raggedly through his hair. “I asked around about you and heard you were cut from the team. I’m really sorry. It must have been hard, especially after what you went through.”

Ethan remembered me. He’d seen me. He thought I looked great. He’d asked about me at the gym. Up close, he was even better looking than I remembered.

“I’m Haley.” Haley stuck out her hand. “Skye and I are friends. I’ve seen you play. Ball. At a game. Here. It was good. You were good.”

Haley’s unnaturally stilted voice made my lips quiver, and I had to look down at the grass and think about midterms and the music column I was writing for the school paper, and whether the paper plates and napkins people had dutifully been putting in the recycling bin would just wind up in the trash, just so I didn’t laugh.

“Nice to meet you, Haley.” Ethan’s dazzling smile almost outshone the sun.

Haley shot me a sideways glance that screamed “I think I’mgonna die” before leaving us to help plate the hot dogs. Ethan and I chatted briefly about his plans for the upcoming year. He was hopeful he would get drafted by his first-choice team, but he was struggling to keep up his GPA because he didn’t have time to study.

“I never got a chance to apologize for being such a dick after we went out,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’d just had some bad news from home, and I didn’t handle it well. I started drinking and doing crazy shit. I got myself in a bad place. It took almost losing my entire career to sober me up.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate the apology.”

“Friends?”

I nodded. “Definitely. Friends.”

“Hey, guys! We’ve got some hungry customers waiting,” Nick called out. “I need a hand.”