Page 1 of Before You
CHAPTER ONE
JJ
“FUCK, IT’S FREEZING!” I swear, lowering myself further into the ice bath, my knee throbbing from the grueling practice I suffered through, the pink scars standing out against the rest of my tanned skin.
“Kind of the whole point, Walker,” Asher says. I flip my best friend off as he exhales sharply, climbing into the tub next to mine.
“Don’t be a bunch of pussies,” Trent says, shaking his head at us as an athletic training assistant helps him stretch his shoulder.
“I’m not being a pussy,” I mumble under my breath, sore as hell from all the running we did today in the dry California heat. It’s crazy how different the climate is from North Carolina.
“What would you call it then?” Rose asks, pouring more ice into my tub as she flashes a smile. Rose is studying kinesiology and works as an aide with Billy, the head athletic trainer for the football team.
I jolt as the water rises higher on my body. “I think my dick is trying to crawl up into my body for warmth because of how fucking cold the water is.”
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself to make up for your size,” Asher taunts, and I wink at him.
“You don’t seem to complain about my size at night.”
The room erupts into laughter, but Billy sends me a dry look as I smile apologetically at her. She only rolls her eyes, but I think she misses my humor after all the months I spent here rehabbing my knee last year.
I tune out the room, attempting to focus on my breathing so I have a shot of making it through the next eight minutes of hell.
I feel like I’m forgetting something I was supposed to do today, but the headache I can feel beginning to come on is jumbling my thoughts. I know I have to call Mirabelle to check in and ask if she has an update about Bailey from our parents’ private investigator. I already know she won’t have one, but I have faith he’ll turn up somewhere eventually.
It’s syllabus week, so I’m sure the team is planning on going out tonight, but I haven’t decided if I’m going yet. It’d probably be smarter to stay in and ensure I have all the textbooks I’ll need this semester since I actually give a shit about my grades, unlike half the guys on the team who are only here for the hope of going pro.
Was I supposed to go grocery shopping?
Asher taps my hand clenching the rim of the tub, pulling me from my thoughts.
“What?” I ask, my tone sharper than usual.
He ignores it, exhaling as he adjusts in the water. “Did you know Trent has a girlfriend?” he whispers, and if I had to guess, he’s trying not to draw our roommate’s attention. I raise my eyebrows in surprise, waiting to see where he’s going with this. “I guess she’s coming over tonight.”
“Interesting.”
Trent’s decent looking and gets the job done on the field, but it’s his pedigree that makes him a magnet with girls on campus. His family belongs to the New York elite, dollar signs attached to their last name to match. It’s news to me that he has a girlfriend,though. I wonder how long they’ve been together, considering he had a girl over last weekend after a bonfire thrown by one of the frats on campus.
Trent, Asher, Luka, and I share one of the houses designated to upperclassmen on the football team. Luka and Trent are seniors, while Asher and I are juniors.
“She’s a Benson,” he continues, and it makes me miss my sister, Mirabelle. She’d know exactly who Asher is talking about, and my chest pangs with homesickness. I’m the one who chose to attend a college on the other side of the country, so I have no one to blame but myself.
“A who?” I ask, feeling my toes go numb.I should have put on the damn swim socks.
Asher looks at me like I’m stupid, and maybe I am. “A Benson—you know, like Benson Pharmaceuticals? Her father is the CEO, Hayes Benson, and her mother was a famous ballerina. She’s the heiress set to inherit the golden crown, and Trent was bragging on the sidelines earlier about how she transferred from Columbia to be here with him.”
“Someone ought to tell her to find a new boyfriend because I’m positive the chick he had over last weekend wasn’t her,” I point out, biting back a string of curses so filthy, I think Mom would smack me. I don’t know how anyone can enjoy the misery that comes from the torturous hell ice baths bring.
“Tell her yourself. You won’t catch me touching that mess with a ten-foot pole.”
“Maybe I will,” I reply. If some douchebag ever pulled that shit with Mirabelle, no one would be able to find the body. It’s a good thing her boyfriend, Henry, is as obsessed with her as she is with him. I’m not sure why respect is such a hard concept for some people to understand.
Asher nudges me again. “When are you going to ask Rose out?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“Why?”
“Because she’s into you? Why else?”
