Page 5 of Trick Play
“She’s Kilpatrick’s sister, you know,” Simon says next to me, and I finally turn away from the door and fall in step beside him as we head toward the student center to grab lunch, which is what we were doing when I saw Piper hurrying past. My nose is starting to run from the cold, and Simon’s cheeks are red against his normally tan skin, his shoulders hunched against the wind.
“I know.” Which is part of her appeal, really, but I’m not about to admit that to Simon.
His dark eyes narrow, his brows lowering. “Dude.”
I stop and look at him, forcing him to stop too. “Seriously?You’regoing to lecture me about dating a teammate’s sister? You? Of all people?”
If I thought reminding him of the fact that he hooked up with my sister behind my back would tone down the censure, I was apparently wrong. Because all he does is shake his head, not an ounce of repentance on his face. “Just be careful, man. Kilpatrick and his sister actually get along. And you’re not his friend. It’s not the same situation at all.”
I snort, but keep my thoughts to myself, because I’m supposed to be cool with Simon and Ellie being together. And it’s not that I’mnotcool, it’s that I still think him dating Ellie is a dick move. And even though I want to say that he’s right, Kilpatrick and I aren’t friends, so me dating his sister isn’t any kind of betrayal, that would just make me sound bitter and like I’m not okay with Simon dating Ellie. And, okay, maybe I am a little bitter, but I’m trying not to be. I spent the entirety of my high school football career trying to keep my asshole teammatesawayfrom my baby sister. It wasn’t the whole team, but a group of guys thought it was hilarious to flirt with her because they knew it would piss me off. She’s got this happy, sunshiny naïveté, and she didn’t know they were insincere, mocking her and talking about her in the locker room, how she’d look sucking cock and how they wanted to corrupt her, even going so far as to put together a betting pool to see who could fuck her first, and the winner got a bonus if he took her virginity.
I did my best to keep her as far away from my teammates as possible after that. When I left The Dalles to go to college, I was relieved that she’d finally be relatively safe. A couple of the younger guys I was friends with promised to look out for her and make sure she didn’t get with any of the douchebags who were part of the pool. And I made sure not to let anything similar start with my teammates here, never letting her meet anyone if I could help it. Which was easy enough when she was still in high school. But then she decided to come to Marycliff too—which I can’t really blame her for because our parents said they’d cover whatever scholarships wouldn’t if we chose Marycliff—and I had to work harder to keep her at arm’s length, which wasn’t helped by our parents constantly badgering me to make sure she was happy and safe and making friends. How could I keep an eye on her and make her stay away at the same time?
But all my efforts blew up in my face. My sister is convinced that I’ve spent the last eight years basically hating her. And she still got with my roommate and best friend.
And while I know that Simon’s not like those guys on my high school team, the imperative to keep her away is so deeply ingrained by now that it’s hard to just … stop.
But the alternative to being okay with them dating is both of them hating me for coming between them, and I’m really not okay with that. So I suck up the fact that my best friend is dating my baby sister and hope that they’ll stay together forever. Then Simon would be my brother-in-law, and that actually sounds pretty cool, as long as I can just pretend that they’re in a weird, sexless marriage that’s an extension of what I’m pretending is their current weird, sexless relationship.
Except my sister insists on making out with him in front of me as often as possible—which is her way of getting back at me for being an unmitigated asshole to her for years—so there’s no way I can pretend that for long.
Still, Kilpatrick knows we’re rivals. He shouldn’t be surprised that I give zero fucks about his opinion. And it’s not like he can retaliate by dating my sister. She’s happily taken.
Suddenly, Ellie and Simon being together just got a whole lot better.
* * *
After lunch with Simon in the cafeteria, we part ways. He has a class to get to, and I have some time to kill before my three o’clock. Normally I’d relax in the student center or head to the library to get some work done, but instead I’m watching the clock, wanting to time it so I can get a hot chocolate and get back over to Kent Hall by 1:20, so I can be waiting for Piper to get out of class.
Maybe she doesn’t have enough time to go with me to get a hot chocolate, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still buy one for her.
Fortunately, the campus coffee shop line is blessedly short, the lunch rush having passed and the between-classes frenzy not having started yet. I debate getting whipped cream on Piper’s hot chocolate but decide against it, because then the to-go lid wouldn’t fit. I splurge on a coffee for myself as well and head over to the door where Piper disappeared. The campus tower chimes the quarter hour as I walk over, so I know I’m not too early or too late. Perfect.
So I wait.
And wait.
When the clock chimes the half, I start to get antsy.
Did I miss her? Did she go out a different door? Maybe she has another class in the same building. Should I go inside and check?
But if I do, will that make me look like a stalker?
Sighing, I swallow down the last of my cooling coffee, her cup of hot chocolate barely warm in my hand now that I’ve been holding it for twenty minutes, and admit defeat.
At least for today.
CHAPTER FOUR
Piper
After my encounter with Cal on Thursday, I’m thankful the team has an away game this weekend so I don’t have to worry about whether or not to meet Gray afterward. Which also means I get to avoid seeing my parents twice in a week, so double win. Good god, what if Cal approached me in front of my parents? I can’t decide how they might react, actually, but either way it would be bad for me. Either they’d tell me he seems like such a nice boy and how it would be good for me to socialize a little and let him take me out for dinner. Or they’d completely freak out that a guy is paying attention to me, especially one as pretty as Cal, because that’s what got me into trouble at SCU. My money’s on the second one.
Because if I hadn’t gotten involved with a boy, then he wouldn’t have been able to snap naked pics of me without my knowledge to share on his frat’s secret server where they apparently shared nudes of any girls they fooled around with—and not a small amount of revenge porn. And if that hadn’t’ve happened, then it wouldn’t matter that when we reported it to the university, they swept it all under the rug, refused to hold either the frat as a whole or the individual guys accountable for their actions and tried to get me to sign a gag order that wouldn’t allow me to report the revenge porn to the police. And by the time I did make the police report, Brent had already broken up with me for my “breach of trust” of looking at his phone and discovering the secret porn server, so I no longer had access to the evidence, and the police couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything either.
And don’t get me started on that whole “breach of trust” bullshit. Because, come on, if you don’t want people discovering your illegal porn server, maybe don’t leave your phone unlocked and open to it in plain view for me to see? With a freshly uploaded picture of my tits? That you clearly took while my eyes were closed during sex not five minutes before that?
The only reason I didn’t break up with him first was because I was trying to keep him on the hook long enough to get him in trouble.
