Chapter 18

18

ZACH

We lost in the quarterfinals. Clemson scored a goal to go up one-nil in the eighty-ninth minute, and with only four minutes of stoppage time, it wasn't enough time to make a comeback. It sucked to have come so close and then walk away with nothing. Especially considering it was Clemson, where my father had pushed me to go to school.

The mood on the plane was somber. Most guys had headphones on or were sleeping. No one wanted to talk. I tried to sleep but couldn't, replaying the game in my mind, contemplating every pass, every shot on goal, every missed opportunity to score.

Over the last several months, I'd gotten to know the guys on and off the field. My roommate Clayton was one of the most random guys I'd ever met, but his focus was unmatched on the field. It was almost as if he used up all his concentration on soccer and didn't have any left in all the other areas of his life.

Shelton and Anderson were the jokesters of the team, always cracking us up with their antics in the locker room, but on the field, they were all heart. Sidney, Bell, and McAllister were the studious types, always studying film, analyzing player statistics, and advising everyone on the weaknesses of each team. All of us, every last one, had put everything we had out there, and it just hadn't been enough.

I fucking hated losing.

Giving up on sleep, I pulled up my phone and scrolled through the pictures I'd taken this week. The first couple were pics of the stadium I'd taken before the game started. When I'd gotten good enough at soccer that I'd started traveling for games, Mom had encouraged me to take pictures in every stadium and the habit had stuck.

With a lump in my throat, I scrolled past those to the ones I'd taken with Drea on the Santa Monica Pier the day before Thanksgiving. I'd had a couple of classes in the morning, but that afternoon had been one of the best I could remember having since before Mom died. Dad had been relaxed, almost like he had been when we were kids. Drea and I had ridden the Ferris wheel, stuffed our faces with churros and ice cream, and played arcade games, all while Dad watched with an indulgent smile. We'd strolled the beach at sunset, getting soaked by a rogue wave we hadn't seen coming. It had chilled us to the bone, but we'd laughed until our bellies ached and tears streamed down our faces.

Despite campus being only fifteen minutes from the pier, Dad had insisted I stay with them at their rental a few blocks away. I'd been nervous about what it would be like to stay with them again after getting used to living independently, but with Dad on his best behavior, it had actually been a nice break from campus, almost like a mini vacation. I'd caught Drea glaring at him in warning a couple of times and wondered if she'd given him a pep talk before they'd flown out. If so, I was grateful for it.

I continued scrolling, coming across a picture Jason had sent me on Monday. After our late-night text exchange earlier in the month, when I'd confessed to being a bit homesick, he'd taken to sending me random pictures from around town.

Monday, he'd gone down to the lake and snapped a photo of the sun setting on the water. The trees in the distance had been mostly barren of leaves, reminding me it was likely pretty chilly in my home state. The lake had reflected the reds, oranges, and purples of the setting sun, casting the water in an almost magical hue. I'd saved the picture before texting my thanks for sending it. He'd returned my text with a selfie of a grin and a thumbs-up, making me smile in return. It was so unlike him to send a selfie, but it was almost as if he knew the first pic would choke me up, and I'd need something silly to lighten my mood. I'd saved that picture too.

"Is that the guy you're always texting? He's hot."

I thought Clayton had been sleeping, but I looked up to see him quite awake and peering over at my phone. And then it registered what he'd said.

"What?"

"This is the guy you're always texting, right?"

"Yeah. My friend Jason from back home. I didn't know you paid attention to my texting habits."

He shrugged. "You've always got your eyes glued to your phone and your thumbs working overtime. I figured there was a guy."

"Why a guy?"

Another shrug. "I dunno. Just a vibe, I guess."

"You said he was hot," I persisted.

"He is. Do you not think so?"

I looked at the picture, my brow creasing as I thought about it. "I guess? I never really thought about him like that."

"He's not your boyfriend?"

"Dude. I literally had a girl sitting in my lap at the party we went to last week." Never mind that I hadn't really been interested in her and it hadn't gone any further.

"I just figured you were bi or something. I mean, I sleep with girls like"—he scrunched up his face, giving the matter serious consideration—"maybe eighty percent of the time. But the other twenty percent? I'm all about the D."

I stared at him blankly. "Seriously?"

"Sometimes I just need a good dicking down. Like, pussy is great. Really, really great. And tits too." His eyes became unfocused like he was picturing the body parts in question. "But sometimes I'm in the mood for a dude. Muscles and a hard body just hit different, you know?"

"No…I don't know. I've only ever been with girls."

His face fell, and if I wasn't so mind-blown by this conversation, I might have laughed.

"Oh. My bad, dude." His eyebrows shot up beneath the shaggy dirty-blond hair hanging over his forehead, and his eyes widened. "Shit. You're cool with it, right? I'm not rooming with a homophobe, am I?"

I did chuckle at that. "Nah, man. It's cool. I just didn't see it coming."

"Oh, well, that's okay. Most people only see what they want to see. For instance, I got a thirty-five on my ACT, but most people think I'm an idiot."

Me. I was most people.

That wasn't actually true though. I'd seen how focused he was on the field and figured there must be more to him than appeared on the surface. I just hadn't given it a whole lot of thought beyond that.

"So this Jason guy. He's just a friend?"

"Yeah. I've actually only known him for about a year, but I really only got to know him better this summer. I guess we got pretty close right before I left."

"Hm," was all he said.

"What?"

"Nothing, man. If you say he's your friend, then that's it."

I stared at him with my brow raised. He clearly had more to say.

"You just, like, you get this look on your face when you're texting him. Like you're sharing some secret joke or something."

"How do you know it's him and not someone else? He's not the only person I text."

"Like I said, you get a look." And with that, he leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes, oblivious that he'd dropped a grenade in my lap.

I wasn't into Jason, was I? Definitely not like that. He was a friend. Like a brother. And he was ace anyway. No. That wasn't the point. The point was that I wasn't into guys. Or him. At all.

Right?