Page 24 of Weak Side

Aasher turned his back to me without answering, and I gave Landon a nod that was a silent agreement between us that he’d keep an eye on the team. I spun around with the confirmation and made my way through the party. The crowd was thinning out as the night went on, but I was stupid to think I could make it to the door without catching Jess’s eye again. She nodded to the stairs and raised her brows. I shook my head.Not tonight.

Just as I opened the door and the cold air flowed into the stuffy entryway, I turned and glanced at the stairs. I caught the back end of the inebriated girl being pulled by a hand, which wasn’t unusual, but when I saw who was pulling her, I did another double-take.

Oh, shit.That was how I knew him. The guy that was flirting with her earlierwasfamiliar to me, and it wasn’t because we’d had classes together. Claire’s face flashed in my brain like a memory I couldn’t hide from, and confusion made me pause for far longer than I meant to.Fuck, this made a lot of sense.

“Change your mind?” Jess’s voice broke me out of my stupor, and there was something that hadalmostmade me say yes but not because I wanted to fuck her. More because I wanted to investigate what Claire’s boyfriend was doing going upstairs with another girl. I mean, it was kind of obvious, but as far as I knew, they hadn’t broken up.

“No,” I snapped to Jess before hastily walking out the door and heading straight for the dorms.

12

Claire

This wasthe first time I had been in my dorm room without Theo sucking up all the energy inside the small space with his masculinity and overbearing need to make himself known by just breathing.

He was sound asleep by the time I got in last night from practicing my audition, and since I was staying true to our new-and-improvedrules that hung crookedly on the wall in between our beds, I ended up texting Chad instead of answering his phone call, which made him irrationally angry.

I was still in my left split on the floor in between Theo’s and my beds as I skimmed my finger over my screen and reread our texts, feeling a deep pit form in my core.

Chad: Why won’t you answer the phone?

Me: My roommate is asleep.

Chad: So?

Me: It’s called being considerate. He has a game tomorrow, so he went to bed early, and we have established some roommate rules that entail being considerate of one another.

Chad: Since when do you care about some jock’s game? Is there something going on, Claire?

Me: Like what?

I turned my phone screen off as I stood up from my split and threw it onto my bed. Things with Chad were more tense now that I was back at campus versus over the summer when I was living with my mom in our hometown. It was almost like he was frustrated that I was back, which was confusing.

Compartmentalize, Claire.

Sighing, I cleared my head and climbed onto my bed, trying to find an angle of the room that I could do a split leap without hitting something in the process. The thought of an injury causing me to bow out of fall auditions caused a line of stress to fly down my spine. Now, more than ever, Ineededto land a role in the spring show. Ihadto be in the running to win the scholarship. Most of my paychecks were about to go to Ralph for the repairs for my mom’s bathroom floor, and I was beginning to think I wouldn’t be able to afford next semester’s books.

There was nothing quite like the fear of being kicked out of school because you couldn’t afford it for motivation, now was there? Wiggling my fingers out in front of myself and lengthening my spine as much as I could on top of a mattress, I was mid-leap, fully in mid-air, when the door flung open. Theo stood in the doorway, shocked, as I landed in front of him.

“Jesus Christ, Bryant!” he shouted, bending down and gripping me by my upper arms. “Are you okay?”

A laugh bubbled from my chest as he pulled me to my feet, looking completely alarmed. He dropped his eyes to his hands on my arms, and he quickly tore them off before shutting the door with his foot.

“I’m fine. I was practicing,” I said, half-laughing. “Relax, Gramps.”

“Practicing what?” His voice neared hysteria as he walked farther into the room and threw his bag on the foot of his bed. “How to attack someone?”

Going back to my side of the room, I shrugged on my cardigan and pulled the scrunchie from my damp hair, letting the wet ends fall over my shoulders. “No”—I went to my bed and grabbed my phone to see if Chad had finally texted me back—“my split leap.”

Theo kicked off his shoes before shifting his gaze back and forth in between the space of our beds. When he landed back on me, he raced his eyes down my body and back up again, as if he were sizing me up. “Leaps? In here? Don’t you have, like, a studio for that? A dance studio? That’s like me practicing hockey in here.”

“It’s definitely not the same thing. And yes, we have a studio, but when I saw you were gone, I decided to just do my stretching in here, and that then snowballed into”—I wafted my hand out, feeling stupid—“a split leap.”

Theo bent down and plugged his phone in, and I knew that was my cue to get ready for bed because he was beginning his nightly routine. He really was like a grandpa—so serious about his routine. Theo was definitely a creature of habit. “Where were you, anyway?” I asked, checking the clock. “It’swaypast your bedtime.”

His sarcastic chuckle rubbed over my curiosity, and for the second time in one minute, I felt stupid with his response. “You might be the only student on campus who is unaware of the hockey schedule.”Oh, that’s right.

Even after recalling there was a game, I mentally rolled my eyes. As if I had the space in my brain to worry about something like Bexley U’s hockey games on top of my work schedule, schoolwork, my mother’s bills that she justcouldn’tget on top of, and the whereabouts of my boyfriend.

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