Page 28 of Forever Yours

“Good morning,” he announced loudly.

Fallon pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, slouched down, got comfortable, and closed his eyes.

“Wake me up when it’s over.”

CHAPTER 9

“This is so much smaller than I expected.”

“What did you expect?” I asked Ash, who was to my right.

We were sitting in the front stand of seats next to the field. The players from both teams were out warming up on the pitch, but my gaze had been centered solely on Julien from the moment he came out. As promised, I brought poms-poms. I stopped by the main campus store after biology just to waste time between classes and happened to spot them with the other school logoed apparel in the back.

“Something bigger,” Ash replied.

Jayson leaned forward to look across me at Ash. “Soccer isn’t as popular as football or basketball. Hence, smaller stadium.”

CU’s Stanton Field where the soccer and lacrosse teams played was considered one of the finest soccer fields in the country… or so the university’s website boasted. The open stadium’s seats gleamed in the university’s signature colors of sapphire blue and silvery gray. The field was natural grass, not artificial turf, and had to be a pain to upkeep with how much abuse it received from the player’s spiked shoes.

Ash braced his elbows on the low wall in front of us. “Where are the cheerleaders?”

“No cheerleaders,” Ryder said.

“Well, that’s pointless. Only good thing about sports are the cheerleaders.”

The afternoon sun hung low in the sky, hidden mostly behind thick, puffy cumulus clouds that lined the horizon. Later in the week would suck when a cold front blew through on Thursday. The forecast called for thunderstorms, not something I wanted to walk in to get to classes.

Jayson poked my arm to get my attention. “Is he limping again?”

I cringed at the reminder of what happened to Julien. What Marshall did to him.

Because of me.

I still carried around that guilt. Wore it like a necklace made of thick iron chains.

My eyes had been glued to Julien the entire time we’d been there, and I hadn’t noticed anything. “Not that I’ve seen.”

“He’s good, man. Just stretching his legs,” Ryder assured him.

As if he knew we were talking about him, Julien looked over and grinned broadly when I raised my poms-poms over my head and shook them like the cheer whore I was. In return, he brought his hands together in a heart at his chest and mouthed, “Love you.”

“The two of you are going to give me cavities. Are they always like that?” Ash asked no one in particular.

I shook my pom-pom in his face.

Jayson nodded over at him. “Pretty much.”

Ryder twisted in his seat to look behind him. “Fallon not coming?”

“Hope not,” Jayson said at the same time I said, “Should be.”

“Probably in the men’s restroom getting his dick sucked.”

Ryder glared at Jay, then took out his phone and started typing. “You and Fal need to bury whatever the hell it is between you two. It’s getting old.”

Not likely. Fallon wanted Liz, even though she was Jayson’s girlfriend. But so did Ryder. I had always wondered why Ryder was cool with Fallon’s interest in Liz, but Jayson wasn’t. Far from it. When it came to her, Jay was possessive and controlling. It drove Julien nuts, and they had fought about it several times over the years I had known them.

Jayson rolled his eyes. “Fuck that. The guy is a narcissistic prick with a god complex and a silver spoon shoved up his ass.”

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