My stride slowed when I saw Giana.
She was too focused on rounding up a few of the players for the Instagram Live she had scheduled to notice me, so I took advantage of the moment, watching her curls bounce as if in slow motion as she pointed and directed and bossed everyone around. Her skin was brighter, eyes still tired but not lined with red the way they had been. Her head was held high, focus locked in on the task at hand like she didn’t have anything else on her mind.
She looked better than she had in weeks.
And I knew it was because of Shawn.
My next inhale burned as I recalled the memory that would be etched into my brain for the rest of my life. Last Sunday, I’d been cramming for a test in my anatomy class and had barely been able to keep my eyes open — thanks mostly to my tossing and turning all night, which was my normal sleep routine now. So, in a desperate attempt to wrangle my focus, I’d jogged over to Rum & Roasters.
But I’d never made it inside.
Through the windows of the shop, foggy from the warmth inside combatting the bitter cold outside, I’d seen her.
In Shawn’s arms.
My heart bottomed out at the sight, at how she held him tight before looking up at him with a smile that used to belong to only me. He’d said something to make her laugh, and that was all I could stomach before I had to tear my gaze away and jog past.
She’d moved on.
God, how I wanted to be happy that she had. I wanted to feel relief that I hadn’t broken her completely, that Shawn was there for her to pick up the pieces I’d left behind. I wanted to find solace in the knowledge that she was going to be okay, that he was going to take care of her.
But it only made me sick with possession and dizzy with rage.
It was a betrayal, one I felt like a sword through my stomach — which I promptly emptied after I stumbled away from the coffee shop and found a trash can off the sidewalk path that circled campus.
It was a beating I deserved, one I shouldn’t have been even a little surprised or upset by.
But it fucking killed me.
“Hey,” Maliyah said, jarring me from my memory and snapping my attention from Giana to her. She slid her arms around my waist, pressing up on her toes to peck a kiss to my lips before I could pull away. “Great practice. Let’s get inside. I’m freezing.”
I swallowed, nodding as I tucked her under my arm with that same familiar nausea rolling through me.
And I caught Giana’s gaze on our way in, holding it as she looked from me to Maliyah and back again. Those Caribbean-blue eyes burned a hole through me even from yards away, and I wanted to memorize them, to stare so long I wouldn’t forget the exact shape and color of them for as long as I lived.
But she turned away, back to what she was doing — all without a single ounce of emotion showing that she cared.
Maybe I hated the weather because it matched my mood so well. Maybe I longed for sunshine and clear skies because I thought they could act as some kind of miracle drug that would snap me out of my pathetic haze.
“Let’s get sushi,” Maliyah said when we made it to the locker room, releasing me so she could continue down the hall to the one for the cheerleaders. “Shower, change, meet back here?”
“Sure.”
She smiled, but something in her eyes was sad as she took me in. She would have had to have been blind not to see how miserable I was, no matter how I attempted to fake like I was okay for her, and for my mom, and for Cory.
“You okay?”
I managed a nod. “Just cold. And tired.”
Her mouth twisted to the side. “You can talk to me, you know. I… I know we have a lot still to work through. I know I hurt you, that I betrayed your trust. But… I know you. Probably better than anyone else.”
I wanted to roll my eyes at how wrong she was about that.
“I can tell when you’re not okay.”
“I just have a lot on my mind.”
“Well, we can talk about it. Over dinner.”
Again, a little nod was all I offered.
She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else, but thought better of it. Then, she turned, making her way down the hall as I slipped into the locker room.
The team was used to my sour attitude by now. They’d stopped giving me hell about it, stopped trying to pry information out of me, too. Now, they just sort of avoided me, like I was a flu they didn’t want to catch.
I quietly undressed, leaving my Under Armour briefs on until I made it to the shower, mostly just for Riley’s sake. When it was just me and a few guys, I stripped the rest of the way down, sighing heavily as the first bit of steaming hot water rained down on me.
My skin burned in protest before it adjusted, and then my muscles all relaxed at once, and I stood there under the showerhead content to be that way for hours. I ran my face under the water, squeezing my eyes shut as the warmth enveloped me.
Until, very suddenly, the water ran cold.
“What the fuck!”
I reached out blindly for the faucet, but was met with a wet t-shirt instead. Then, in my blind disorientation, the water shut off, I was thrown a towel, and all but shoved down until I was on my ass with my back against the cold tile wall.
“Cover your anaconda,” Zeke said, his voice one I’d recognize anywhere. I used the towel to wipe my eyes clean before I laid it over my lap and looked up to find him and Holden standing over me.
“Out,” Holden said, snapping his fingers to the two other guys who had been in the showers with me. They gave me a look that said thoughts and prayers before dipping out at our captain’s orders.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“Riley,” Zeke called, ignoring me, and where the two guys had just disappeared, she peeked around the corner, making sure I was covered before she walked all the way in.
“Sorry for the barbarian ambush,” Riley said, crossing her arms as she joined the other two standing over me. “But we didn’t know what else to do to get you to talk.”
“Talk?”
“We want to know what’s going on,” Holden said, filling in the gaps. “And not the bullshit lie or half-truth you’ve been spitting when someone is brave enough to press you. You’re not okay. And if being with Maliyah was really what you wanted, you’d be over the fucking moon instead of a human version of Eeyore.”
I sighed. “I do want to be with Maliyah.”
As soon as the words were off my lips, Riley gave the guys a look, and they both stepped back just in time for her to turn the faucet and make icy cold water rain down on me.
“Riley! What the fuck!”
I held up my arms to shield myself from it — not that I really could — until she turned it off again. The towel over my lap was soaked now, and cold.
“You’re getting an ice bath every time you say some stupid shit like that,” she warned. “So I’d try again if I were you.”
I growled. “This is bullshit, I’m not—”
I tried to stand, but Zeke met my chest with a firm hand, pushing me back against the wall.
“Stop trying to handle whatever is going on alone,” he said, his voice loud and firm. “Goddamnit, Clay — can’t you see your friends are worried about you? You’ve been there for every single one of us at one point or another,” he continued, and I looked behind him at where Riley and Holden nodded in agreement before my eyes met Zeke’s again. “Let us help you now.”