Page 90 of Seren

Seren

I chugged my beer with the rest of the freshmen who’d taken over the back deck at our teammates’ off-campus house. The upperclassmen had been trying to order us around all night like we were some lowly fraternity pledges. Fuck that. I was only there because I needed to fix whatever the hell coach told me to fix. And, if I was ever gonna be seen as a leader on this team—withthisgroup of guys—I wasn’t about to be picking up shit and cleaning toilets. So, plan B. Get wasted.

“They don’t make ’em like that in North Dakota,” my roommate DJ said.

I followed his eyes. School wasn’t even in session yet, but groups of girls had been arriving all night. Their cutoffs and tight-ass midriffs left little to the imagination. These girls weren’t like the girls in Windham. They laughed and flirted and didn’t seem to think they were better than anyone else. I could get used to Alabama.

I chugged my beer, needing to leave fucking Windham far behind me.

“Go make a move,” Blake, our backup kicker, said to him.

“Give me a few, then I’ll show you how it’s done,” DJ said.

I laughed.

“What are you laughing at, Grayson? You blink and they fall at your feet,” DJ said.

“It’s not his blinking,” Blake said. “It’s his smirk.”

“Oh, the one where only half his mouth turns up in the corner?” DJ asked.

“Yeah, girls love the I’m-thinking-something-dirty-about-you smirk,” Blake said.

I flipped them both the bird.

A few girls stared our way. I could tell the moment that our eyes met and they got all giggly that getting one or more of them in my bed would be easy. I just wasn’t sure DJ would be happy to get kicked out of our room so early in the season.

I guess time would tell.

CHAPTER 40

Grace

I sat on a bench outside the rescue center during my lunch break. My sleeveless shirt stuck to my body. Florida in the summer was a sauna.

I scanned my newsfeed on my prepaid phone, making sure to check Alabama football news. Had Seren been playing? Would he replace the backup and start as a freshman? I came across some photos taken during practice. Seren threw a football in one photo. He was doing what he wanted to do. And I was doing the same.

I often wondered if we had parted ways the way we should’ve, would we have made the long-distance thing work? I definitely could have. The number of girls who would’ve been throwing themselves at him would have definitely tried his resolve. Would he have caved and broken my heart? Or, would he have rejected their advances like I’d seen him do with girls like Kiki? I guess I’d never find out now.

My phone rang in my backpack. I quickly pulled it out, feeling like some type of shady criminal with two phones.Momlit up the screen. “Hey,” I said as I lifted it to my ear.

“Hi, honey. Are you busy?”

A sense of dread washed over me. “No, what’s wrong?”

She laughed. “Nothing’s wrong. I just didn’t want to interrupt you if you were busy.”

“I just got done with my morning shift.”

“I’m so proud of you,” she said. “You’re doing what you always said you’d do.”

“Dad said it too,” I reminded her.

“You’re right. He did.”

“How’s everyone there?” I asked.

“The boys seem good. They’ve got people here every day in the pool,” she explained, sounding tired because she was the one who had to pick up after them.

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