Page 39
On most Saturday nights after a home game, somebody would’ve been downstairs with the TV on, eating whatever they could find and arguing over plays they’d already spent four quarters living through. Tonight, nobody was downstairs. Upstairs, Tanner’s and Cash’s doors were shut, and the only light came from under Kirby’s, where his TV was playing low on the other side. No one called out when Drew came in, and he didn’t call out to them either.
He’d grabbed a bottle of water on his way up and still hadn’t opened it. His keys missed the dresser and landed on the floor, but he left them there. The light on his answering machine wasn’t blinking, which meant his father hadn’t called, not that he’d expected him to.
Still in his hoodie, Drew sat on the edge of the bed in the dark. He glanced at the clock beside the phone. Nicole was still out with Cedric. He’d known it all day, but warm-ups, four quarters, the locker room, and every question at the press conference had kept it from getting to him. Now the game was over, the house was quiet, and she was all he could think about.
Wherever Cedric had taken her, the kind of night he wanted to give her wasn’t hard to picture. Someplace expensive, with white tablecloths and the two of them dressed up, sitting across from each other with almost a year of history between them. Cedric knew her stories, her private jokes, all the stuff Drew hadn’t been around long enough to learn. Drew had one party, a few phone calls, and twelve days of silence he was still paying for. He was still trying to find a way in, and Cedric just wanted his spot back.
Until tonight, it had never hit Drew that being white might make him the harder choice. At the frat party, he’d seen people staring when he took Nicole’s hand, but he’d decided he didn’t give a fuck. Easy for him. He was Drew Kiernan. People stared at him everywhere, and on Monday he would still be the quarterback. If Nicole chose him, she was the one who would catch most of the shit for it—from white people who didn’t want them together and Black people who thought she shouldn’t want him. Drew could tell everybody to go to hell and keep moving. Nicole would still have to hear it.
Drew pushed off the bed and crossed to the window, then turned around because there was nowhere to go.
When the phone rang, he thought it might be Nicole. Maybe the date had ended early and she’d gone home thinking about him too. Then her number flashed on the caller ID box, and he snatched up the receiver.
“Nicole?”
“Yo, it’s Ryan. I’m over at Bailey’s.”
“What.”
“Listen, Bailey’s in the shower, but Nicole just called. She’s stranded somewhere and needs a ride. Me and Bailey were kind of in the middle of—”
“Stranded where?” Drew dragged a hand through his hair.
“At a pay phone. I figured, you know, since you and her—”
“Where is she?” He crossed the room and grabbed his keys off the floor.
Ryan rattled off the address of a gas station downtown.
With the keys clenched in his fist, Drew yanked open his bedroom door. “What the fuck happened? Is she all right?”
“She got out of some dude’s car and needs somebody to come get her, but she sounded okay, just kinda upset about something.”
His grip tightened. “I’ve got her.”
“Thanks, brother. I owe—”
Drew hung up, tossed the phone on the bed, and took the stairs two at a time.
If Cedric had put his hands on her, Drew was going to fucking kill him.
Chapter Seventeen
The phone booth smelled like must and vomit, and the cord had left something sticky on Nicole’s fingers. Gross. Of all the nights to be without her cellular phone, it had to be this one. The thing was sitting in her car’s glove compartment, its battery probably dead because she almost never remembered to charge it. Her dad had bought it for emergencies, and here she was, stranded without it on the one night she actually needed it.
The cold wasn’t helping. Her slip dress had been perfect for dinner at Berman’s, but it wasn’t made for standing outside on a November night. Rubbing her hands over her bare arms, Nicole shifted her weight from one aching foot to the other. Both feet were on fire, but one look at the stained concrete around the booth, and no way in hell was she taking off her heels.
Where was Bailey? She should’ve been here by now. Nicole had asked Ryan to have Bailey bring the BMW, so every time headlights swept across the gas station, she looked for her champagne-colored convertible. Forty minutes after she’d hung up with him, a truck sped into the parking lot, flooding the booth with light. She threw up a hand and squinted as it stopped nearby, its headlights aimed straight at her.
Nicole grabbed the receiver and pretended she was on the phone. Whoever was behind the wheel was impossible to see, but she would’ve bet money it was a man. Something about the truck just said guy. Standing alone at a gas station in a dress this short, this late at night, she wasn’t about to stare at some guy pulling up beside her and give him ideas.
A few seconds later, the headlights went dark, the engine cut off, and the driver’s-side door slammed.
“Nicole?”
“Drew?”
Nicole pushed open the booth door and stepped out as he came around the front of the truck. With long strides, he headed straight toward her, his eyes moving over her face, her bare arms, the rest of her, as if checking for injuries. He looked worried as hell. Angry too.
