“True.” I inhaled the scent of the pasta sauce that was simmering on the stove. “That smells good. When will it be ready?”
“Not for another hour or two,” she said apologetically. “I got a late start on it. So if you’re hungry, have a snack. I stocked up on all your favorites.”
I grinned. It was good to be home. I got up and walked to the fridge. Inside, I found my favorite flavors of yogurt, fresh strawberries that were already washed and sliced, and cheese sticks. I grabbed a strawberry Greek yogurt and shut the fridge. A picture that had been tacked onto the front of the fridge fluttered to the floor, so I leaned down to pick it up. When I flipped it over, my breath caught in my throat as I looked at the image of Roman and Carson in their high school JV football uniforms. Both were covered in mud, and their arms were flung around one another. Even at the awkward age of fourteen, it was obvious that both Roman and Carson were going to be handsome, especially Carson. He was nearly six inches taller than Roman in the picture, and he had the devilish look in his eyes that had been a constant in his high school years. That was probably right around the time that my puppy love for Carson had started turning into something deeper, something more real. I’d only been thirteen, but it hadn’t mattered. I’d already known.
I clipped the picture back on the fridge and scanned the other ones. Most were of Roman and me, which was to be expected, but Carson was in a good number of them too. He was part of my past and, up until recently, a big part of my present. I’d hoped he would be an important part of my future. But with each day that passed without my hearing from him, I had to accept the truth—his time in my life might be done.
***
Carson
THIS WAS THE first Thanksgiving I’d been home since I started at VVU. We always had a game the Saturday following the holiday, and since there were no classes, the coaches used the week to double down on practice. Since I couldn’t practice, I had the week free. Jake had invited me to his place for Thanksgiving, but since Chelsea texted and told me she would be home, I decided to make the trip too. But I arrived on Wednesday and was leaving on Friday—I wasn’t crazy enough to stay the whole week. Besides, I wanted to get back to campus for Saturday’s game. My backup, Hunter Ramsey, was a freshman who had planned to redshirt. That plan had gotten shot on account of my injury, though. I had fallen into a mentor role with him, something I’d never expected to be doing.
There was a bang on my childhood-bedroom door. “Get your ass out of bed!” Chelsea yelled. “Get dressed and come run with me.”
Shit. I was usually all for working out, but I’d planned to spend most of the day in bed, playing Xbox and watching YouTube—basically anything to distract me from the fact that the Zizzos’ house was just a few short miles away. That was about the distance from my place to Becca’s apartment in Bleaksburg, but the college town was small—everything was only a few miles away. I was more acutely aware of the proximity here in Maryland. I wondered how much of a zoo it was at her house on account of the strays. The thought made me smile. I used to think of myself as one of Mrs. Zizzo’s strays.
Bang, bang! “Get your ass out of bed!”
“Fuck, Chelsea!” I yelled back. Then realizing that cursing at her wasn’t likely to yield positive results, I tried a different tactic. “Do you want to play Xbox?”
Her response was hysterical laughter. “Be downstairs in five minutes.”
I sighed. Chelsea was a runner. She’d run track in high school and had even made it to the state championship. But she wasn’t one of those sensible sprinters. No, she was a long-distance runner. In her undergrad years, she’d started running marathons—twenty-six hellish miles of running at a time. I was no stranger to running, but that was a bit much.
But for whatever reason, she’d decided I was going with her, so she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. My sister had always been pushy, even as a kid. She almost always got her way.
I yanked open the dresser drawer to search for something suitable to wear in the brisk air. I hadn’t planned on exercising outside, so I didn’t bring my Under Armour. I found a lone compression shirt that had seen better days. It was about a size too small, but since it was old, the elasticity wasn’t what it should have been. I would have to make it work.
When I came downstairs, Chelsea was waiting by the front door, peering at her sports watch. “Twelve seconds to spare. Nice work.” She eyed me. “Nice belly shirt too.”
I tugged it down and zipped up my jacket. “Shut up.”
“Did you stretch?”
“When would I have had time to do that?”
She sighed. “Well, hurry up and get to it, then.”
“Don’t bitch at me. I wanted to be playing Xbox right now.”
“Don’t be a pansy.”
I had no retort for that because after the first few miles, I was most definitely going to be a pansy. I could already feel the shin splints forming.
After a few moments of stretching, we took off. She set a steady pace that I had no trouble keeping up with. For now. I doubted I would feel the same in ten miles. But I wasn’t going to ask her how far she intended to go. The first rule of being a Fleck was to never show weakness.
Despite the fact that I was sick and tired of running by the fifth mile, I had to admit that it felt good to be exercising outside in the fresh air instead of cooped up in a gym. Our father ran five miles every day, but to the best of my knowledge, it was always in our home gym rather than outside. I tended to stay indoors for workouts too. Maybe I should change that.
Chelsea led us down back roads and into a park. We ran straight through that, and she surprised me by going off the trail. What the hell? Is she trying to twist an ankle? I slowed my pace over the rough terrain, and she got ahead of me. Looking over her shoulder at me, she grinned then hopped a chain-link fence.
She’s fucking crazy. I had no idea what she was up to, but she seemed to know what she was doing, so I followed her, scaling the fence more easily than she had. She was waiting for me on the other side of the brush at the edge of a parking lot.
I leaned down and rested my hands on my knees. “What the hell, Chelsea?”
“Come on.” She didn’t give me my much-needed breather. But instead of running, she walked through the parking lot to the front of the building. It took me a second to realize we were at Fleck Holdings headquarters since I’d never approached it from that direction. I glanced at the front row of parking. My father’s Mercedes was in the space marked for the CEO. Figures. He never took a day off, not even on Christmas, though he did compromise and work from home that day.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“I want you to see something.”
Again, I followed her lead because it wasn’t worth arguing with her. Besides, like an idiot, I hadn’t brought my phone. While I knew the way home on the interstate, I wasn’t confident I would be able to find my way back the way Chelsea had taken us.
She led me into the elevator and punched the button for the fourteenth floor, which was the lowest of the five floors Fleck Holdings occupied in the building. Outside the main entrance to the company headquarters, she unzipped her running belt and pulled out a key then used it to gain access to the office.