Chapter Thirteen EVERLEIGH

Chapter Thirteen

EVERLEIGH

“I’m not going to look like a complete fool in the stands, am I?”

Sienna makes a scoffing noise at my question. “Please. You don’t have enough spirit going on, if you ask me.”

Is she serious right now?

I chance a glance in the mirror that we’re currently sitting in front of, but I can’t see much. Sienna has this nice vanity table in her bedroom with a three-way mirror and a cute pale-blue tufted-velvet bench seat that we can both fit on while she paints my face in the school colors.

It’s Saturday. Game day. The Dolphins are playing at home this afternoon, and I’m attending my first ever football game at UCSM. I’m equal parts nervous and excited, and I don’t quite get why I’m nervous.

Maybe it’s because I get to watch the men I live with out on the field? I’ve heard all about their playing thanks to the conversations that flow at the dinner table. In the living room. Everywhere, really.

They’re obsessed with football, and I get it. They live and breathe it and are really damn good at it.

Or so I hear.

“Okay.” Sienna leans back some, her gaze roaming over my face, examining her work. “You look good. You want to see?”

“Please,” I say, practically thrusting my face into the mirror so I can check out what Sienna did.

She dotted light-blue, white, and black face paint—our school colors—underneath one eye for it to swirl across the bridge of my nose and above my other eye in an S pattern. She also painted the number eighty on my right cheek.

“Whose number is this?” I point at it on my face when I turn toward her.

Her smile is downright devilish. “Nico’s.”

“Oh my God, really?” I turn to look at myself in the mirror again, noting the panic in my eyes. “Take it off.”

“No way. It looks great! You’re just supporting your roommate. It means nothing,” Sienna reassures, knowing that it means more than what she’s saying.

She’s such a shithead.

“I have three roommates who are on the team,” I remind her. “I can’t just support one and not the others.”

Plus it looks like I might have a thing for him, which I so do not. I don’t want him getting any ideas. Not that he’ll see me.

Will we see each other directly after the game? Probably not. I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

Oh man, I need to stop thinking like this. Feeling like this. He is my friend and that’s it. The guy I share a bathroom with. I didn’t even bother telling Sienna that I caught him coming out of the bathroom last night wrapped in a towel and nothing else. His skin gleamed because he was still a little wet, and his hair hung around his face. And I swear .?.?. I swear I saw the imprint of his dick beneath that towel.

I can’t tell Sienna because she’ll want details, and I’m not ready to share them. I’m assuming what she told me about it being ginormous is the truth because it most definitely was impressive.

He didn’t seem too bashful at being caught in just a towel either. Pretty sure he was about to whip it off right in front of me when I slammed the door and locked myself away in the still steamy bathroom, the scent of him lingering in the air.

This sharing-a-bathroom situation is getting harder by the day.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll blend right in,” Sienna reassures me.

“What do you mean, I’ll blend right in?” I sound skeptical.

I am skeptical.

“Everyone wears Nico’s number on their cheeks. Well, mostly everyone,” she explains.

I’m groaning. “You mean mostly girls, am I right?”

She nods.

I groan again. “Wash it off. Please, I’m begging you.”

“No way. Ooh, I know! I’ll add Coop’s number on your other cheek.” She grabs the black color stick, reaching for me, and I dodge out of her way at the last second.

“What about Frank’s number?”

“He’s currently benched.” Her gaze turns sympathetic. “His shoulder has been bothering him. They still won’t let him play.”

Oh no. “I feel so bad for him. I know he’s been trying to get back on the field.”

“Coop says the coaches don’t want to risk it.”

Not that Frank has mentioned any of that to me, considering we’re not talking as much as we used to. He’s been a little more standoffish since I told him as gently as possible that I only liked him as a friend. That wasn’t an easy conversation for me, but I’m glad it’s out there.

“I think that’s the reason he’s been so big on the yoga sessions. He focuses on his upper body, specifically his shoulders.”

“Yeah. It sucks. He’s definitely not playing today.” Sienna’s face visibly brightens. “But you can wear Cooper’s number. He’ll be out on the field.”

“I won’t look stupid with two numbers on my face?”

“Absolutely not. You’ll fit right in. No one will really notice, because we’re all going to be painted up like crazy.” Sienna definitely is. She even drew a little dolphin on her cheek, and it turned out really good.

I borrow one of Sienna’s shirts with a dolphin on it and do my hair into two braids, tying the ends with some ribbon she has. We are completely decked out in school colors, and she even drags me outside and makes us take photos that she posts to her stories.

“Okay, let’s go,” she says once the photo sesh is over.

We walk over to the stadium along with a big crowd of people that grows and grows as we get closer. The weather is perfect. The sky is crystal clear, and there’s a breeze coming in off the ocean, making the air cool despite the intense sun. Anticipation ripples in the air, and as we enter the gates, I can hear the college band playing. I can feel the thundering drums deep inside me, ratcheting up my own excitement to the point that I’m clutching Sienna’s arm as she drags me through the sea of people.

“Are we sitting in the student section?” I ask her.

“No. Coop hooks me up with better seats. It’s called the friends-and-family section,” she tells me.

She wasn’t lying when she said the seats are better. We’re in the lower section sitting right on the fifty-yard line on the home side. I glance around as we settle into our seats, both of us clutching giant UCSM-Dolphins-themed soda cups. Sienna sets hers carefully into the drink holder to her right, and I do the same.

“This stadium is nice.”

“It’s practically brand new. It opened up a few years ago, right when Coop started.” She grabs her drink and takes a big sip. “It’s actually pretty cool.”

It’s huge and filled with so many people. I can’t believe how many there are here to watch this game.

“I haven’t been to a football game since high school, and those were always no big deal. Our football team sucked.”

“You haven’t been to a college game? Or an NFL game?” When I shake my head, Sienna rests her hand against her chest, as if she’s offended. Or shocked. “Well, you haven’t lived then, have you, Everleigh Bailey Olmstead?”

I should never have told her my middle name. “That’s a mouthful.”

“Hey, it’s your name,” she teases.

As we wait for the game to start, we chat with the people sitting nearby. Sienna seems to know a lot of them, but she told me that it’s her third season in this section, so it makes sense.

The announcer starts talking, his booming voice practically commanding us to watch the field, and then there’s a blast of sound that makes me jump in my seat. Smoke fills the air from unseen fog machines, and then the team is running out onto the field, the roar of the crowd deafening as they make their appearance.

I jump up with Sienna and scream until my throat aches. She’s grinning. I’m grinning. Caught up in the moment, and the game hasn’t even started yet.

The team gets into formation out on the field and runs through some stretching exercises. I spot Nico immediately, thanks to now knowing his jersey number, and I watch him like some sort of salivating stalker. He looks good in the black uniform, but he looks good in almost everything he wears. This isn’t a surprise.

“They look great,” Sienna murmurs, and I realize she’s staring at them much like I am. Now I don’t feel so bad.

Right before the game begins, Sienna dashes off to buy popcorn, and I remain in my seat, soaking up the moment. Being here, the excitement for the game to start making the air practically vibrate, I feel like I’m a part of something real. Before I came to Santa Mira, I was just going through the motions. Living my life and taking it day by day, but not really paying attention. Working toward the moment when I could leave my old life and begin a new one.

I might’ve had a few roadblocks thrown at me in the beginning—and they were major problems, I’m not trying to downplay them—but everything is finally settling in. School is going well, I have a job I like and a place to live, and I’m slowly rebuilding my wardrobe. I’ve made a couple of friends. I’m hosting yoga classes at my new house, and I get along with my roommates.

I might even have a crush on one of my roommates.

Fine, there’s no might about it. I do have a crush on Nico, and it’s so dumb. But it’s also kind of fun because I can’t remember the last time I had a crush on someone. I’d been with Brad for so long, I forgot how that feels.

The nervous anticipation of seeing Nico and hoping he smiles at me. The butterflies in my stomach when he does actually smile just for me. The sound of his voice. It’s low and deep, and sometimes when he says my name, or even better when he just calls me Ever, goose bumps rise on my skin.

I’ve got it bad. I play it off with Sienna because I have no idea if she’ll run and go tell Nico I have the hots for him, which would be incredibly embarrassing. I’ll just sit over here and savor my crush on my own, thank you very much. Because that’s all it can ever be.

A silly crush.

As if he can read my mind, Nico looks in my direction from where he stands on the field, Gavin right next to him and Coop flanking him on the other side. Our gazes lock. Hold. His mouth curls into a small, closed-lip smile, and he lifts his hand in the subtlest of waves that has me positively giddy.

I smile in return, wiggling my fingers at him once. Just as subtle as he is, and he eventually looks away, getting caught up in conversation with his friends. His teammates.

While I’m sitting here squirming in my seat like I can barely contain myself.

“How do you know Nico?”

I turn toward the snide-sounding voice to find a beautiful blonde sitting behind me and to the left, her expression full of disbelief. Like she can’t wrap her head around the idea of him knowing someone like me.

Maybe I’m taking this too personally. But she has a snotty expression on her face, and that makes me think I’m not overreacting.

“We’re friends,” I say, not about to confess that we’re also roommates. No one needs to know that.

“Really?” She snorts in disbelief.

“You saw him wave at me, right?” I shrug, smiling. Reveling a little in my status. I guess it’s a big deal to know Nico Valente, though I kind of already assumed that from just being here.

Sienna wasn’t wrong. There are all sorts of women filling this stadium with his number painted on their cheeks. Or on their backs because they’re wearing his jersey. Like the blonde I’m talking to. She’s got eighty painted on her cheek just like I do.

“You’re a Cooper fan too?” She nudges her friend with her elbow, both of them smiling, though they’re not very friendly. “What do they do, pass you around?”

“Hey, blondie. Fuck right off.” I glance up to see Sienna standing there with a giant bucket of popcorn in her hands. She’s glaring at the blonde and her friend, and their smiles fade at the death look on Sienna’s face.

“We weren’t—” the blonde starts, but Sienna cuts her off.

“Cooper is my brother, so you better watch what you say.” She sits in her seat, offering me the popcorn, and I take some, shoving it into my mouth. The blonde and her friend completely back down, wearing matching sulky expressions, and I’m relieved that it didn’t turn into something more.

“Some women act like they own these guys. It’s ridiculous,” Sienna mutters.

I lean my head close to hers, lowering my voice. “She didn’t believe I was friends with Nico even though he just waved at me from the field.”

“He waved at you? Well, well, well.” The sneaky smile on Sienna’s face has me nudging her in the side.

“It was nothing.” I refuse to let her get my hopes up even more. I already did that well enough on my own.

“Uh-huh.” Sienna smirks.

I decide to change the subject. “Thanks for the popcorn.” I lean my head against hers for the briefest moment. “And for rushing to my defense.”

“These fangirls need to back off my new friend,” Sienna says, her fierce voice warming my heart.

It feels good to be here,I think, as we settle more deeply into our seats, ready for the game to begin.

For once, I feel like I belong.