“I hope, gentleman,” Mom said, “you spare some thought for River’s actual education when it comes to the final decision.”
“Of course,” Dad said, tearing into an envelope like a kid on Christmas day. “Alabama has a distinguished academic program.”
“Good. Our son is too smart to leave everything on the football field.” She turned to me. “What do you think you’ll major in, honey?”
My stomach roiled at all this talk about my future that Mom would never see.
“Not sure. English Lit, maybe. Or mechanical engineering. Or both.”
Dad made a face. “You could major in underwater basket-weaving, and the NFL is still going to come begging for you.”
Mom shot him a look. “Jerry…”
“You’re right, you’re right. An education is paramount.” He gave me a wink.
“It is,” Mom insisted. “Your brain, River, is more important than your throwing arm.”
“That’s code for you’re a dork,” Amelia said, returning from the kitchen and flopping into the chair beside me.
“Amelia!” Mom said, biting back a laugh. “River is not a dork.”
“Right.” She flapped an envelope at me. “Does Jockstrap University know you’re secretly a huge nerd?”
I took the envelope from her hand and smacked her lightly on the top of the head. “It’s not a secret.”
She laughed and the laugh loosened the hard, fuck-the-world attitude she’d been trying to build since Mom’s diagnosis. The little warm moments like these—snippets of a normal life— always brought her guard down. Amelia’s eyes filled with sudden tears, even taking herself by surprise. She got up muttering something about homework.
Mom reached out and snagged her wrist. “Hey. You okay?”
My sister nodded quickly.
“Love you.”
Amelia bent and kissed Mom on her scarf. “Love you,” she said brokenly and then hurried upstairs, keeping her face turned from us.
“Well,” Dad said into the silence that followed. He forced a tremulous smile. “We don’t have to do this now.”
Mom smiled gently. “No time like the present.”
Dad and I exchanged glances. She was right. There was no time like the present because that was all she had.
When I trudged onto campus the next morning, students were huddled in groups, whispering and murmuring, the girls giggling behind their hands. I followed their starry-eyed gazes to Miller Stratton, Ronan Wentz, and Holden. The three of them made an odd group; Evelyn Gonzalez had started calling them the Lost Boys. The name stuck, mostly because of that old vampire movie set in Santa Cruz.
Holden’s the vampire…
The day was warm as we got closer to spring, but he looked coldly flawless in black jeans, white shirt, and a gray tweed coat. Every inch of skin covered but for his head and hands.
But I’ve seen everything.
The thought sent a rush of blood due south. It’d been months and I still couldn’t let him go. No matter how many days slogged by without a word from him or how many nights I spent gripping myself to memories of us, there was always more. More loneliness, more need, more missing him.
I crossed the quad while Holden talked and laughed with his friends, no lingering signs from that horrible Christmas night where I’d found a broken mess on the floor. If he thought about me as often as I did him—every other minute—it didn’t show.
Evelyn Gonzalez approached the Lost Boys and lured Miller away.
Holden cupped his hands to his mouth and called after them. “Did you hear about his magical dick too? How am I the last to know?”
Miller gave him the finger, and Holden cackled, elbowing Ronan. Our gazes intersected, and his sharp features softened. He watched me cross the quad with the same hunger and longing in his eyes I saw reflected in mine every day.
Maybe there’s still something there…
Reality smashed me in the face as I crashed straight into Donte Weatherly.
“Whoa, hey!” he said, laughing, his gaze going between Holden and me. “Watch it, man.”
“Hey, sorry,” I said quickly. “You have Biology next, right? I have Chem. I’ll walk with you.”
“Sure, sure,” Donte said, a casual, easy smile on his lips. “Was it my imagination, or were you eyeballing Parish?”
Fuck.
My throat went dry. “Say what now?”
“You. Parish. It seemed like you two were having a moment.”
Fuck fuck fuck…
“A moment.” I scoffed, my pulse was pounding. “Definitely your imagination.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Mmm, interesting.”
I stopped walking. “You have something you want to say to me?”
Donte’s laughing brown eyes were suddenly hard. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
Adrenaline lit up my veins and I felt hot all over.
Shit, here it is. After all this time.
Naked fear gripped me, tinged with relief that the moment had finally arrived. That my pretend life was about to come crashing down over a careless glance. I teetered on the edge, fighting for equilibrium, while part of me hoped Donte would shove me in.
He put his hands in his letterman jacket pockets and rocked back in his Air Jordans. “I’ve just been putting some things together in my mind, you know? You’ve been acting weird for a long time. Like at the Burger Barn awhile back. And when I really start thinking about it, you’ve been shy about your relations with the ladies for years. Almost like…you’ve never had any. And so this weird feeling I’ve been having starts to take shape.”
I forced myself to keep my face blandly neutral. “Yeah, you got me, Weatherly. You found me out. I don’t brag about getting pussy, I don’t share private pics on Insta, and I don’t treat girls like fucking toilet paper the way Grimaldi and Blaylock do so I must be…what?”
Say it, asshole.
“Look,
