15
finley
Shepard typed furiously on his phone as we walked back to the house. There had been a space of time I thought maybe he saw me, maybe he was about to kiss me. But I’d stepped back. He was in love with some girl named Cricket. I wasn’t going to be some one-night hookup.
When we arrived at the townhouse, I hadn’t expected it to be filled with some of our teammates along with a bunch of cheerleaders. Great.
I searched for Finn or Coop, but neither were around. I stood in the door a second too long, and Shep stumbled into me too busy texting to notice I’d stopped.
“Sorry,” he glanced up almost as if he was surprised. “I meant to tell you that August invited people over.”
“Where’s the hot tub,” some girl yelled, pulling off her shirt to reveal a back tattoo of a heart with an arrow pointing to her ass.
“Hot tub?” I asked.
We hadn’t had one before.
“Oh,” Shepard said. “August said that Sawyer got us one as a welcome gift, and it just arrived.”
“Great,” I muttered and made my way to the staircase, passing my teammates who were too engaged with cheerleaders to speak to me before they headed to the backyard.
Gratefully, the TV had been on and not music cranked up to deafening levels. As I crested the stairs, a short girl with long mousy hair was furiously turning Shepard’s door handle to no avail.
“Do you need something?” I asked.
She jumped out of her skin, confirming she didn’t have his permission to be there. When she turned, I wasn’t surprised to see it was Lacey. What was up with this girl?
“I’m looking for Shepard.”
“He’s downstairs,” I said coolly. “And trying to get in his room won’t make him like you any better.”
Her eyes closed to near slits. “As if I’d take any advice from you. You want him, and he’s not into you either.”
Either? “Look, I’m not going to argue with you. The party is downstairs and outside. If Shepard wants you up here, he’ll bring you.”
She spun on her heels and marched downstairs. I rolled my eyes, wondering what boys saw in girls like her.
The only thing good about the party was someone, probably Cooper, had locked our doors so no one would come upstairs and use our rooms like it was a hotel. I dug into the tiny crossbody purse I carried. It was just big enough for my phone, keys, and ID. I opened my door and stepped into the silence only for my phone to ring.
I glanced down to see it was Emily. She’d all but avoided me since that time we’d gone out only for her boyfriend to show up. We’d exchanged quick texts a few times afterward, but nothing else.
“Hey, Emily.”
“I know I’ve been MIA, but I have some time if you want to hang out.”
August’s impromptu get together was reason enough for my response. But I also worried about her. She was as alone as I was on campus. Maybe if she knew she had a friend besides Kevin, she would break up with him.
“Sure.”
“How about a movie?”
“A movie sounds great.” It would kill a couple of hours. “Dinner too?”
“Sounds great. Should I drive?”
A smile played on my lips. “No, I’ll drive.”
August was too busy to need the car. He hadn’t even consulted me when he and Cooper went to the movies. Fair was fair.
We set a time before getting off the phone. My next stop before a quick shower was Cooper’s room. I knocked on his door and opened it when he said come in.
Already his room looked like the one back home. Cooper wasn’t exactly a slob, but he wasn’t the neatest person on earth. I hopped over a pile of clothes on my way to sit next to him on the bed.
“Why aren’t you downstairs?” I asked my reclusive brother.
He shrugged and didn’t look up from his game. “Just a bunch of girls here for Shepard and August.”
“They would be here for you too.”
This was true. Girls from my school asked me about Cooper as they did about August.
He shook his head. “Not interested in a girl who can’t make conversation. Why do I care what color her lip gloss is?”
“Not all girls are like that,” I said, standing up for girls like me. “And you won’t find out if you’re in here playing video games.”
Then I remembered how he’d acted around Tori and teased him a little. “Maybe there’s a certain girl you like . . . I could call Tori for you.”
Cooper turned tomato red as he fumbled the ball in the football game he was playing. He turned my way with a sad smile on his face. “She likes Shepard.”
He looked at me like we should commiserate that fact. It made me uncomfortable that he might know about my feelings for Shep. If he knew, then so would August if he didn’t already. That would not be a good thing.
“Don’t worry. She’ll figure out that Shepard doesn’t do girlfriends, not for any length of time anyway.” I turned to the screen to avoid his penetrating gaze and switched topics. “You’re going to get penalized if you don’t start the play.”
After he returned his focus to the game, I told him about my plans to take the car. He waved me off. I hugged my brother and left feeling bad for him. He came to life on the field, but off of it, he was super shy and lacked the confidence that August had in abundance. I couldn’t say anything to him about it because that we had in common.
I took a quick shower, got dressed, and made sure to lock my room door before jogging down the stairs. I halted at the bottom.
Shepard ushered in a familiar girl with sun kissed skin and corkscrew curls. His hand rested at the small of Tori’s back. Her face was lit up
