Page 13 of Scoreless Nights

“Who are you?” I demanded.

He looked at me like I was crazy for a minute, squinting his eyes like he didn’t believe a word I said. But all I did was ask a simple question, and I squinted back at him, silently telling him that he owed me an answer.

“Um,” the guy laughed then shook his head in defeat. “I’m Tripp Maddux. Cruz’s teammate. The best midfielder in the league. Currently Cruz’s knight in shining armor.”

“Well,Tripp Maddux,what the hell are you doing here?” I ignored everything else about him and put my hands on my hips.

Tripp held up the key that he used to unlock the door, and I recognized it being the same set that Cruz had lying around earlier. “I brought your brother home.”

I ignored his second attempt at telling me Cruz and I were siblings, and started walking closer to him. “Then where is he?”

Tripp held up a finger, asking me to wait a minute, and walked outside the door that he had left open when he barged in. He reached out, behind the wall, and when he started coming back inside, Cruz was wrapped under his arm.

“Oh my god!”

“Yeah, I’ve never seen him so fucked,” Tripp laughed. “Dude was working out a lot of issues tonight.”

“Is he drunk?”

Tripp smirked and then raised one eyebrow. “We don’t normally Do-si-do like this after a night out. Trust me, he’s definitely wasted.”

“What are you gonna do with him?”

“I’m putting him in his bed and leaving. That’s as far as our bromance goes.”

I nodded and let Tripp lead Cruz into his bedroom. Cruz was awake and walking, but his eyes were glassy, and he was mumbling something about trying to score. I assumed he was just talking about soccer until Tripp came back into the living room laughing.

“Poor guy is still trying to score tonight. He’s gonna be pissed when he wakes up tomorrow and realizes he struck out with the only girl he talked to.”

Oh,score. Right.

“Well, um, thanks,” I shrugged, not knowing the social protocol for saying goodbye to a stranger who brought your drunk step-brother home, and scared the shit out of his house guest in the process. It was a new situation for me.

“Do me a favor.” Tripp stood in the doorway, about to leave, and looked back at me. “Go easy on him. He just wants to be a good brother.”

“He isn’t my brother,” I finally said, not wanting Tripp to misunderstand our family dynamics.

“I know,” he winked, then shut the door.

Walking quickly, I locked the door again, and then took a deep breath before restarting the search for my phone. It had slid under the couch when I threw it and I had to get on my hands and knees to reach it. I also silently thanked Cruz, or whoever cleaned his place, for doing a good job under the couch.

When I stood back up, I turned to head toward my room, but stopped when I saw Cruz standing near his bedroom door.

“Shit, you scared me,” I screeched, putting a hand over my heart. I was going to need an EKG if the night kept going the way it was. “What are you doing up?”

“This is your fault,” he slurred. “I was just trying to get lucky, let off some steam, and I came home with all three of my condoms.”

“How is that my fault?”

Wait…Three?

“Because I don’t have scoreless nights,” he huffed. “I have lots of sex. But you stopped me.”

“You said you don’t bring anyone home with you. So how did I stop you?”

“That’s hard to explain without getting grounded.” He pouted like a kid.

“Grounded?”

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