Chapter Twenty-Five
Chessly
S tromboli's was unnaturally quiet for a Thursday night. Then again, the Wildcats were starting spring practice tomorrow, so none of the players were in the bar. That meant none of their entourage who seemed to know their every move were hanging out either.
Not that any of that mattered.
Since we knew none of the team would be in the pizzeria, what with two of the four of us dating Wildcats players, we helped ourselves to their designated booth in the back. Piper had picked up Saylor on her way to the dorm to grab Jamaica and me. When the conversation centered on Saylor's latest to-die-for winter ensemble of a black-and-tan duster, fleece-lined tan lace-up boots, and an off-white beanie with matching gloves, I breathed a discreet sigh of relief. I should have anticipated they intended for that conversation to lull me into inattention, giving them a chance to pry out none-of-their-business info on the state of things between Finn and me.
We'd barely slipped off our coats when Jamaica, the traitor, launched the first salvo. "Finn has been moping around the house all week like someone stole his birthday. Know anything about that, Chess?"
"Couldn't tell you. Maybe his professor reinstated the daily quizzes and he didn't study." I grabbed a menu from the end of the table and pretended to read it.
"Wyatt is worried about him. Says he won't come out of his room to play video games and barely shows up for dinner," Piper chimed in.
Ducking my head deeper into the menu, I shrugged. "Like I said, I have no idea what's going on with him. I haven't seen him since the weekend."
Saylor's stare bore into me. "I think that's the point these two are trying to make. You haven't seen him since the weekend, since the epic date he promised you. From your description at brunch on Sunday, the man delivered. What gives?"
"Danny grumbled all evening on Sunday about the noise coming from Finn's room during your afternoon ‘study session,'" Jamaica added. "From what he said, Finn showed you a good time then too." Leaning her forearms on the table, she added her stare to Saylor's. "According to Callahan, since the weekend, you haven't returned Finn's texts or DMs on Instagram. Seriously, Chess. What happened?"
Flopping back against the leather booth, I blew a breath at the ceiling. Knowing my friends as well as I did, I had no choice but to give them something or they'd never let up. "We met at the Union Monday afternoon between classes. He bought me coffee and a scone." A pang zinged my heart at the memory of Finn remembering my favorite beverage and his teasing about me skipping meals only to be starving later.
"Sounds like he royally screwed up." Piper's tone was as dry as sand as she shot a massive eye roll across the table at Saylor and Jamaica.
"We were having a nice conversation when this girl walked up and started insulting him." Closing my eyes against the image of big, strong Finn trying not to turtle in on himself, I forced away another pang. "Turns out, he dated her, and from what I gathered, it didn't end well." Shaking my head, I added, "Anyone could have predicted it wouldn't end well considering how sweet he is and what a fucking bitch he dated. She reminded me exactly of Tory Miller."
"So what's the problem? Why aren't you talking to him?" Jamaica asked, her eyebrows knitted in confusion.
"Because he wrote me off before we even had a chance to see where things might go with us."
As I said the words, I was working my ass off to stem the tears that threatened to fall every time I thought about his cruel question. "I'm not her." "But how soon till you will be?" Obviously, Finn thought the same of me as he did every other girl in his orbit. No doubt it would make zero difference if I told him how I saw him. He wouldn't believe me. So what was the point? Better to cut my losses before I gave him any more of myself than I already had.
" He wrote you off?" Jamaica's voice climbed half an octave on the question. "He's been mooning after you since we introduced you on Homecoming."
"Yeah, well, the second I asked him about his ex, he pushed me away, said I was probably just like her—or I would be." I leveled my friend with a look. "So yeah. He wrote me off, comparing me to the mean girls he apparently prefers to date."
Mercifully, the server chose that minute to ask for our order. We started with drinks, but since we always ordered the same pizza whenever we came in, Piper took on the leadership role and ordered it for the table without consultation. With the way our conversation was going, I doubted I'd want much of whatever she decided to order anyway.
Jamaica reached her hands across to me, palms up. If I took that invitation, I'd probably embarrass all of us by bursting into tears. But I also couldn't leave my friend hanging. Gingerly, I dropped my hands into hers and nearly lost it when she gave me a loving squeeze.
"I don't think he wrote you off, Chess," she said. "Maybe seeing his ex in the same space with you threw him. Maybe he panicked."
"Maybe last weekend was only a hookup, nothing serious," I countered.
"How would you know when you're not communicating with him?" Saylor asked, her tone verging on sour. "I've never known you to show an interest in a guy past a few dates. A guy scratches an itch and you move on." She tapped the tabletop with her fingers. "You always say you have goals—goals that will be easier to meet if you aren't carrying baggage." She raised a brow. "Is that how you see Finn, as baggage?"
When I reared back at Saylor's ugly question, I almost jerked Jamaica's arms from their sockets. "No! God no. Sure, before he started talking to me, I wouldn't have said Finn was my type." Leaning my elbows on the table, I cupped my face in my hands. "Now I think he might be, but I'm not his."
Piper rubbed her hand over my back. "This is a blip, Chess. A misunderstanding."
Tilting my head, I let my side-eye speak for me.
"I mean it. The way Finn was always asking Wyatt about you after Wyatt and I got together—" she glanced across the table to Jamaica—"and the way he asks Callahan about you—"
"The way he finally caved and asked me what you like before he asked you out," Jamaica added. "The man's got it bad for you, girlfriend."
"You didn't see his face, hear his words when he wrote me off." I sniffed back the tears that were now in real danger of falling because of my friends' concern. "I don't know what I said wrong, but whatever it was, he sees me the same way he sees every other girl he's hung out with." Trying out a smile that hovered more on wobbly than confident, I said, "Better to learn that now than in a few months when maybe he's talked me into rethinking my goals. I mean, I'm headed to med school and he's headed to the NFL. Whatever might have happened between us probably wouldn't have worked out long-term anyway."
Saylor tsked. "Here you go again, not giving the guy a chance."
The server arrived with our drinks—a pitcher of beer for Jamaica, Saylor, and me to split and a lemon drop martini for our more refined friend, Piper, who never drank beer if she could help it. Saylor jumped right in and did the honors, pouring each of us a glass with a perfect head. Normally, I'd truly appreciate her handiwork, but even though the night had barely begun, I was already drained and wished I'd begged off. Then again, the entire gathering had all the hallmarks of an intervention, so I doubt my friends would have allowed me to skip.
I sipped my beer, more to have something to do to avoid talking than because I actually wanted to drink it. A soccer game was playing on the big screen behind the bar, and from where I was sitting on the end of the booth, I had a distorted view of the action. The blue team scored a goal on the red team, and a trio of guys seated at the bar let out a collective groan that drew my friends' attention.
Turning back to the table, Jamaica said, "With spring ball starting tomorrow, the guys are going to be completely immersed in football. Callahan said we could maybe see each other on Sunday night after our RA meeting."
"Yeah, Wyatt said pretty much the same thing." A secret smile tipped up the corner of Piper's mouth. "But knowing him, I'll see him before Sunday night."
"Excuse me. I need to use the ladies' room." When Jamaica started to rise to join me, I added, "It's quiet in here tonight. I'm fine going alone."
Without waiting for a response, I headed down the hallway to the restrooms at the back of the bar. All that talk of my friends hooking up with their hot guys—guys who shared a house with the one man who'd ever slipped under my skin—had left me needing a moment to myself. They must have figured that out since none of them followed me.
I turned on the cold water and ran my wrists beneath it, the action simultaneously cooling me off, soothing me, and taking my mind off the tears that had been hovering near the surface on a continuous basis since Monday afternoon. Finn hadn't said anything about spring ball starting this week, but maybe he'd decided hanging out with me would be too big of a distraction from preparing for his last year as a Wildcat. The team had made it to the semifinals this past season, and everyone had high hopes that even with the quarterback graduating, they had a chance to move past the semis and into the national championship.
A goal like that would require a player's full focus. I could respect that, especially if that player also majored in bio-chem. Yet his friends seemed to have time for their girlfriends, school, and football.
My reflection stared back at me from the mirror above the sink, reminding me I didn't know Finn well at all. Yeah, my fingers had traced every shadow and curve of his muscular body, and I knew how he pulsed and swelled inside me when he came. I knew the faintly sweet masculine taste of his mouth when he kissed me like he needed my air to breathe. I knew the diabolical way he could use his tongue on me to give me pleasure I'd never experienced with anyone else.
I knew someday he wanted to find a way to stop little kids from suffering the ravages of childhood cancers.
But I didn't have a clue if he even wanted a relationship. Perhaps that encounter with his ex had reminded him that he didn't have the time or the energy to give to someone else right now. If that was it, he could have just told me. He didn't need to be an ass about it, lump me in with mean girls I'd never in this lifetime want to be associated with.
I dried my hands and stared myself down in the mirror. "You're better off without him."
If only I could convince my stupid heart to believe that after it went and fell for him even before he showed me the best time of my life.
"Better now?" Piper asked as I slipped in beside her in the booth.
While I'd been attending my pity party in the ladies' room, our pizza had arrived. I maneuvered the spatula beneath a slice and slid it onto my plate.
"I will be if we can talk about something else."
Lucky for me, I was on call in the dorm over the weekend. It was the perfect excuse not to head to the stadium with Piper, Jamaica, and Saylor to watch spring practice. Since she'd started dating Callahan, Jamaica had replaced her aversion to all sports with an avid interest in football. It was kind of cute. Piper, Saylor, and I had attended most of the Wildcats' home games together since our freshman year, but the idea of watching Finn tear it up on the field when I knew he'd lost interest in me would have been too much. Still, I couldn't help but wonder how practice was going.
Determined to take my mind off a certain football player, I cued up some Mozart on my phone and went to work on a set of calculus problems for my Physics 3 class. I had no idea how calculus was going to help me solve ligament and muscle injuries as a specialist in sports medicine, but I liked the elegance of the math, and usually I enjoyed the challenge of solving the problems. Yet even with my math music playing in the background, I couldn't stop my mind from straying to a certain defensive lineman and how he was faring in what was essentially the first practice of the season.
At last I gave up and headed to the Passion Pit in the basement of the lobby. One of the other RAs hosted a regular Friday night pajama party for her floor, but everyone in the dorm was invited until all the seats filled up. When I arrived in the common area, Rosie was cueing up the movie. As the opening credits for He's Just Not That Into You rolled across the screen, I had to stifle a moan. If I wasn't already inclined to believe in Orch OR theory, I'd experienced enough coincidences to push me into believing it.
Moving as discreetly as possible, I let myself out of the room and headed up to the lobby. Perhaps I could cover for the desk clerk, who could probably use a break right now. When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw Saylor standing at the desk, her hand poised over the phone to call for a resident to escort her to their room. It didn't take a genius to know who she wanted to visit.
"Hey, girlfriend. Thought you were watching football," I said as I stepped around the top of the stairs.
"Practice finished up a while ago. Piper had her car, so she said she'd give J a ride back here after they said good night to their guys." She linked her arm through mine. "I have a bottle of wine tucked into my purse," she whispered conspiratorially as we headed down the hall.
"What are we celebrating?" I asked as I keyed us into my tiny single room.
"It's more commiserating, I think." She pulled the bottle from her purse and set it on my desk before slipping off her gorgeous duster and hanging it over my boring puffy coat on the back of my door.
Making herself at home, she pulled two water glasses from the cupboard above my sink, unscrewed the cap on the wine, and poured two generous glasses. After handing one to me, she made herself comfortable on my bed, leaving me to sit on my hard desk chair.
"Okay, why are we commiserating?"
"We're feeling especially sad for one Finn McCabe who couldn't seem to do one thing right in practice this evening. From what I could see, his coaches did nothing but ride his ass from the second drill through the short scrimmage at the end." Shooting me a stare that spoke volumes, she tipped her glass and sipped. "Anyone with eyes could see the poor guy's head was absolutely not in the game." After another sip, she continued in a conversational tone. "He did pretty well in the first drill, then he glanced up in the stands, noted the three of us sitting together, and proceeded to fall apart for the rest of practice."
The wine in my mouth tasted like vinegar. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Of the four of us, you are hands down the smartest when it comes to the books. Jamaica has a 4.0 because she works her ass off for it. Likewise, Piper and I work to maintain our GPAs and our scholarships. But you..." She gestured languidly with her glass. "You solve advanced calculus problems to relax. Yet when it comes to a certain hot Wildcats player, you are about as bright as a box of rocks."
"Excuse me?" My voice and my eyebrows rose in unison.
"I don't know what happened in the Union on Monday, but I think you need to give Finn another chance, let him explain himself at least. Because from what I saw on the field today, the guy's a wreck. And if he doesn't get his head back in the game, one of two things is going to happen. Either he's going to lose his starting position or"—she stared me down hard—"he's going to get hurt." She sipped from her glass. "You don't want to be responsible for either one."
Her words came like punches to the gut. I set my wine on my desk and glanced out the window above it into the dark.
Saylor sat forward, her hand coming down on my forearm to give it a reassuring squeeze. "Just answer his texts, huh?"
Huffing out a mirthless laugh, I asked, "Is that why you brought the wine? To fortify me for reading Finn's texts?"
"Nah. I brought it because it's Friday night and you're stuck in the dorms and can't come out to play with me." Her lips curled up in a naughty grin.
"Uh-huh. Whatever."
"Wait. You haven't even read his texts?" She sat up so fast she almost sloshed wine all over the secondhand area rug I used to cover the cold linoleum floor.
"Look. He made himself clear when he lumped me in with all the bitchy girls he seems to prefer to hang out with."
"Chess. You're making excuses." Tilting her head, she stared at me through narrowed eyes. "You're into him—like all in with him—aren't you?"
With a shrug, I maintained my gaze on the darkness gathering outside the window. "Doesn't matter. When he looks at me, he sees his ex. Never mind we're nothing alike. She's a tall brunette with dark brown eyes, and she dresses like she works in finance—red power suit with pantyhose and heels." Turning my attention to my friend, I added, "The only thing the two of us have in common is we both went out with Finn McCabe."
Saylor patted my knee and said nothing.
"Honestly, I can't imagine why he'd want to date me when she's apparently his type."
"Honey, she's not his type. That's why he worked so hard to impress you." Giving my knee a squeeze, she said, "These past few weeks since the two of you started hanging out, you've been happier than I've ever seen you." Standing, she drained the dregs of her wine and set her glass in the sink. As she shrugged her coat on, she said, "Read his texts. Think about talking to him at least before you run away."