Chapter Twenty-Six

Finn

" P ull your head out of your ass, McCabe!" Coach Ainsworth shouted. "Jesus. Did you forget every fucking thing about football in your two months away from the field?" Turning away in disgust, he yelled, "Jones! Get over here and show the senior how to play D-end."

Seth Jones, a redshirt sophomore, trotted over from the sideline and lined up in my spot. The scout team quarterback lined up behind center and called the signals. When the center hiked the ball, Jones shot off the line like a rocket. In the end he was no match for Donahue, our massive left tackle, but he sure as hell ran the defensive play better than I had for the past two days.

Beside me, Ainsworth said, "Think you can do even that much, McCabe?"

"Absolutely, Coach."

Guess I didn't have enough enthusiasm in my tone because he said, "Jones. Stay in there."

If I'd still had a heart, it probably would have dropped right out of my chest at seeing the ease with which Coach replaced me. But I'd been walking around like a zombie for two weeks, and I didn't have a clue how to turn it around.

Jones took my place for four more plays before Ainsworth let me back in, this time as part of the second string defense against the third string offense. Even in my semiconscious state, I figured out I had to bring it if I wanted to get on the field at all. When the center hiked the ball, I blew through the double-team the tackle and guard had set and barely managed to check myself when I ended up alone in the backfield with a terrified freshman QB. Instead of laying him out like I would an opposing quarterback in a game, I picked him up and set him down gently. It wouldn't do to injure the guy after all my other fuckups lately.

"That's what I'm talkin' about, McCabe! The question is, can you do that against guys your own size?" Ainsworth asked.

Yeah, I shoulda figured one good play wouldn't let me out of Coach's doghouse. For the rest of practice, I played with the second string, which did fuck all for my attitude. I had three or four more years' experience and time in the weight room over these players, so while I couldn't exactly mail it in, I didn't have to work at full speed either in order to look good. At least I'd started remembering and running the plays, so Coach could stop riding my ass about missing assignments.

After practice I braced my hands on the wall of the shower, letting the hot water run down the middle of my back and blanking my mind. The latter had become my go-to coping mechanism since that awful afternoon when Chess walked out of my life.

"You gotta fix this, Finn," Bax said as he stepped under the spray in the adjacent shower. "Coach isn't going to let you ride on last year's play."

Turning my head to the side, I regarded my friend. "Yep. Got that all figured out, Bax."

The shower head on my other side came on and with it I heard Callahan's voice. "Seriously, Finn. What the fuck? You didn't screw up like that when we were freshman, for fuck's sake."

Great . As if Ainsworth's attempts at humiliation on the field weren't enough, my buddies had decided to berate me in stereo.

"Don't you two have someone better to do than to ride my ass?" I growled.

"There it is," Bax said.

"As a matter of fact, Finnegan, both of our girls are worried about you too," 'Han chimed in. "For the record, Jamaica says your lady is walking around in as thick a fog as you are."

"For the record, I don't have a lady." Though I wasn't ready to give up gallons and gallons of glorious hot water, I didn't need my friends bullshitting me about how bad off Chessly was. Against my buddies' advice, I'd barraged her phone with texts begging her to talk to me, to let me explain what seeing Hannah had done to my head. But I'd said the unforgivable. Even a dumb fuck like me could figure that out.

I stepped out of the shower and toweled off as I walked over to my locker. Not needing any more of my roommates' observations, I wasted little time dragging on my boxers and jeans and pulling a hoodie over my head. By the time they'd joined me on the bench, I was lacing up my boots.

"You riding home with me?" 'Han asked as he tossed his towel in the bin at the end of the row of lockers.

"Nah. I got some studying to do. Think I'll head over to Hillman where it's quiet."

"It's Thursday night, dude. Our place is quiet," Callahan protested.

"Uh, not as quiet as you think." I tossed my duffel bag over my shoulder and piggybacked it with my backpack. "You have a nice evening."

"Finn." There was a warning in 'Han's tone, but I ignored it and kept walking right out the door of the locker room.

And right into Coach Ainsworth.

He threw his arm across my shoulders. "McCabe. Walk with me to my office."

As if I had a choice.

He closed the door and gestured for to me to take a seat in front of his desk. Taking his time, he shuffled some papers and set them aside then leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Coach, I know the plays."

"You're carrying a 3.9 GPA in bio-chem. No question you know the plays." He sat forward, resting his forearms on his desk. "The question is, where the fuck is your head?"

Closing my eyes at his penetrating stare, I hauled in a breath, let it out slowly, and returned his gaze. "Just having a rough couple weeks, Coach. I'll get it together."

"That's the thing, Finn. I'm worried about you getting your shit together. You hardly reacted when I pulled you out today, and that's not like you at all."

"I sacked your QB three plays in a row." I defended myself and immediately wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

With a snort, he said, "The third string freshman who walked on this spring. You should have been drilling our second-best guy, and you couldn't get past Donahue, who you've owned for the past year." Running a hand over his head, he sighed. "I don't know who put out your fucking fire, but you need to move past that shit." He pulled up short. "It's a woman, isn't it? Fuck. Some little co-ed is fucking with your head, isn't she?"

"Nope," I answered honestly. Chessly hadn't done one damn thing to my head. I did that all by myself. "All the fucking up is on me. Like I said, I'm working on it."

He stood from his chair, which I took as my cue to leave. "Show up tomorrow ready to play, or I'm starting Jones in the scrimmage this weekend. Got it?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir. Understood."

Though I wanted to slam the shit out of his office door when I walked out, I held back and left the damn thing open as I headed down the hall and out the doors of the facility. It wasn't Coach's fault I hadn't been practicing like a starter. Nope, that was all on me too. Jesus. I didn't suck this bad even after Hannah told me what a big, dumb, awkward fuck I was when she ended it with us. That said everything that needed saying about how I felt about Chessly.

Even as my eyes registered the tree-lined sidewalk and rows of buildings between the facility and campus, what I couldn't stop seeing was the devastation on Chess's face when I'd accused her of being like Hannah. It was a knee-jerk reaction to that witch who'd made me feel about an inch tall for most of our relationship and for too long after it ended.

Intellectually, I could work through my ex's comments and label them for what they were: emotional abuse meant to strip me of all my self-confidence. If I'd played along like a good little boyfriend, we'd probably still be together, but I wouldn't have a single NFL prospect. When I wouldn't let her penetrate my game, she attacked my skills in the sack. The year of celibacy following our breakup only ended when the jersey chasers came along and made me feel better about myself.

After what Tory Miller put Callahan through last semester, I saw where my experiences with her and her girls weren't real either. But what went down between Chessly and me that glorious weekend? Nothing fake about that at all. She was as into me as I was into her. Maybe some girls fake it with guys sometimes, but there was nothing fake about her expressions as she'd stared into my eyes and let go when I was inside her. The playfulness during our date, and again after we'd rocked each other's worlds in my bed, was real too. Never before had I felt so relaxed, so able to be myself, as I had with Chess.

Jesus, I missed her something fierce.

As usual, I started scanning every study carrell in Hillman the second I walked through the doors. As usual, she wasn't in any of them. Guess she'd found somewhere new to go for quiet study time. But like a sucker, I headed upstairs to her favorite carrell only to find the geeky guy sitting there again—as usual. He nodded to me as I strolled by, his expression one of commiseration rather than ridicule, which told me what a pathetic sap I'd become.

I threw myself into a chair in a carrell at the end of the hallway, one beside the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Union. I didn't bother unloading my books from my backpack and pretending to study. Instead, I pulled out my phone and stared at my texts, willing her to respond to even one of them. But exactly like the other thousand times I'd checked, mine were the only ones onscreen. At least she hadn't blocked me—yet. Pathetic sap that I'd become, I took comfort in that.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of bright pink and all but pressed my nose to the glass. A blonde in a puffy coat was trudging up the steps of the Union. I didn't need to look twice to know it was Chess. Shoving my phone in my pocket, I snagged my bags and wasted no time racing down the stairs and across the courtyard into the Union.

I was out of breath when I slid through the doors into the cafeteria, scanning the place with a laser focus. She wasn't in line for coffee, and I didn't see her seated at any of the tables, so I speed-walked through the space and into the lounge on the off chance she might be there. I slowed down enough to check out every couch, love seat, and wingback chair in the room, but with the exception of some bearded guy in a tweed jacket sitting in front of the cold fireplace, the room was deserted.

Wasting no time in passing the offices lining the hallway on the other side of the lounge, I made my way to the stairs, dropping down them two at a time to the lower level. I couldn't imagine why she'd be down in the gaming area, but maybe she was meeting someone. The idea gave me heartburn, but I shoved it down and kept moving. Checking out the bowling alley, I only saw a couple of pairs of players flipping each other shit as each team rolled gutter balls. The usual gamers manned the foosball table and the video games. Nowhere did I see that distinctive coat or that perfect blonde hair.

When I rounded the corner to the Sweet Shop, I thought I caught a glimpse of her inside. Slowing my ass down, I worked to steady my breathing so I wouldn't come across as a total stalker and strolled up to the shop. Inside, the store was tight, and I accidentally knocked over a display of monster-size chocolate bars on a table to the left of the door.

My face heated as I dropped my duffel and pack and knelt to pick up the mess. A pair of feet came into my peripheral view, and I glanced up into Jamaica's laughing eyes.

"Don't worry about it, Finn. I'll get that."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to make a mess of your place." I stacked the chocolate back on the table and hoped I hadn't broken too many of the bars. "But, fuck, this place is kinda packed."

The whole store was about the size of my bedroom. One wall toward the back was stacked from a waist-high counter halfway to the ceiling with long tubes filled with a rainbow assortment of candies. In front of it were rotating displays holding bags of everything from gummy worms to cinnamon bears. How one weaved through the tables with their stacks of chocolates and fancy boxes of who-knows-what without knocking something over was more of a mystery than my clumsiness at accidentally knocking off a display with my backpack.

"What brings you to the Sweet Shop? I don't think I've ever seen you in here before." She rearranged the chocolate on the tabletop.

I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to come up with an excuse since we were the only people in the store. I guess the pink-puffy-coated blonde I thought I'd seen had been a figment of my imagination.

Jamaica stopped messing with the chocolate to give my forearm a fleeting squeeze, her tone soft and sad. "She was here a few minutes ago to drop off a Pickle Barrel for me since I'm working a double today."

We both knew who she meant.

"Fuck." Shoving my hands in my pockets, I caught myself. "Sorry, Jamaica."

"No apologies needed, big guy." She patted my shoulder. "If it's any consolation, she's as much of a hot mess as you are."

"Not helping."

Her brow shot up and her eyes took on a wicked gleam. "But I bet I can help."

"Look—"

"You still going to be on campus in a few hours?"

I shrugged. "Dunno. Probably. Why?"

"I get off at nine. Meet me here and walk me home."

"Uh, you sure about that?" I rocked on my heels. "I don't want to get crossways with Callahan. I might outweigh him by thirty pounds, but under the right circumstances—like me walking his girl home—he's damn likely to kick my ass."

"He won't mind. Trust me." She patted my shoulder again. "Meet me here at nine or a little before." She picked up my duffel and my backpack, handing them to me with one hand while making a shooing motion with the other. "Go on. Grab some real food, maybe do some homework, and show up back here on time."

"Why—?"

"I've got a plan, Finn. One that's going to fix this one way or the other. Trust me." For such a compact woman, she demonstrated impressive physical strength when she turned me and pushed me out the door.

Turning back, I said, "But what if I wanted to buy some candy?" I let a grin ghost over my mouth.

"You didn't though. See you in a couple hours."

I was leaning against the wall across the hallway from the Sweet Shop when Jamaica locked up a few minutes before nine.

"Hello, Finn." She smiled. "Two things I appreciate about you. You're dependable and you're on time." She linked her arm with mine and started walking toward the stairs.

"Yeah? Tell that to my coaches next time you see 'em, wouldja?"

"Okay, sometimes you're early." She smirked.

"Ah, come on, Jamaica. You don't even know all the rules to football well enough to take shots at me for being offsides," I grumbled.

"Callahan's taught me so much about the game. You'd be surprised what I know." She let go of my arm to climb the stairs.

At the top, I opened the door for her, and we stepped out into the humid air that said spring was on its way. Darkness had descended while I'd been inside the Union downing a mediocre pepperoni pizza and finishing some homework for my organic chemistry class. The one thing that hadn't suffered in my involuntary hiatus from Chessly was school. Somehow I'd managed to keep my grades up—probably because burying myself in my classes was my only escape from thinking about her.

"So what's your plan, Batman?" I asked as we headed across campus to her dorm.

"You know how in our dorm you have to call a room from the lobby and wait for the resident to escort you?"

"Yeah?"

"The rule only applies if you arrive on your own." The smile she gave me was so conspiratorial, I wondered if we were about to commit a crime. "If, however, you show up with a resident of Hanover who walks you to a certain person's door and knocks, you can bypass the system. When the resident opens the door, there you are."

"If she doesn't invite me in, will alarms go off alerting the police to come arrest me?" I wasn't entirely joking with the question.

"She'll invite you in." Somehow, her enigmatic tone did little to reassure me.

When we arrived in the lobby, Jamaica waved at the desk clerk who waved back as we kept walking. Since I'd never been to anyone's room in this dorm before, I stayed one step behind her and paid attention to my surroundings. A mural of mountains and mountain sports decorated the walls of the hallway she led me down. Outside of each doorway hung a corkboard, each of which said something about the people living behind the doors—photos, notes, girly trinkets with feathers and flowers.

While I was busy checking out the floor, I forgot to be nervous. Then, abruptly, we stopped at a door that was recessed into the wall. In the tiny entryway, I noted a whiteboard about twice the size of a standard notebook with Chess's schedule neatly written on it, along with the hours she had available for residents.

"Are you sure she's even home?" I whispered to Jamaica as she raised her hand to knock.

Jamaica's eyes glittered up at me. "She's here."

"But what if she—?" I swallowed hard. "What if she kicks me out? Are you going to escort me back to the lobby?"

"She won't kick you out."

Before I could ask how Jamaica could be so sure, she rapped hard on the door twice.

A muffled "Just a sec," filtered through the door. Then before I had a chance to figure out what I was going to say, Chess swung the door wide and stared. "Finn?"

I nodded.

"How did you know which room? How did you get past the front desk?"

I glanced around and behind me, but my escort seemed to have disappeared like magic. "I don't know where she went, but Jamaica brought me here."

Chess planted one delicate hand on her hip, her eyes narrowed. "Of course she did." For one terrible second, I thought she was going to leave me alone in the hallway. Then she opened the door wider and said, "You'd better come in. I don't need to get reported for having an unescorted man at my door."

After I stepped into her room, she closed the door behind me, and for the first time in two long weeks, I was in the same room with the woman who haunted my dreams and most of my waking moments too.