Boyfriend Bargain(8)

Yeah.

My cheeks feel red and I rub my face, taking in gulps of air.

Breathing just as heavily, he takes a step back. I watch as he takes the condom off and tosses it in the trash. “You doing okay there, babe?”

Babe.

“Yeah.” No time to even address that. I push the feelings that word evokes down and shake my head, my fingers raking through my hair, trying to find my headband, but it’s long gone. I’m darting around, grabbing my clothes from the floor.

He’s quiet, watching me. “Hey, did I misread your signals?”

I look up at him. “No, no, you didn’t.” I don’t elaborate. Honestly, I can’t even process what just happened.

I manage to fix my bra and get my underwear back on. My sweatshirt and leggings are next.

“Then why are you running off?” He straightens his shirt and adjusts his jeans, zipping them up.

“I’m not. It’s late and I have to get up early.” My voice quivers and I cough, trying to hide my…nervousness?

He watches me shove my boots back on. “Come home with me.”

“More sex?” My mouth opens. I’m not sure my heart can take it.

“Maybe, maybe not. I might have to fuck you in my car before we get there.” His words are silky, promising another round of incredible sex, and he gives me a heavy-lidded, expectant look, as if he knows I’m going to say yes and he’s just waiting to hear it.

There’s a long pause in the room as we stare at each other.

You know you want to, baby, his eyes say.

You don’t know me, mine say.

Yet there’s another conversation in my head, one I don’t let him see, where I debate going home with him and losing myself in his arms.

But Bennett pops up in my mind, an image of him with girls fighting to get to him on stage. It’s not like Zack is my boyfriend—as if—but part of me is smart enough to know that going with him is playing with fire. Zack Morgan is an inferno that will burn me up. There’s something about him that makes me lose my breath. And that…that must not be allowed.

“I—I can’t. I don’t know you. I’m not sure I like you.” It’s a little blunt, but I think he’s the kind of guy who appreciates the truth, and I’m not one to lie.

He pauses and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, his brow going low. “I see.”

But he doesn’t. He looks pissy.

Maybe he’s never been turned down for a second round.

I chew on my lips. “This was really…”

“Fucking hot.”

I frown. “Yeah, but you can have that with anyone. I don’t do this kind of thing. This isn’t me.” I clutch my purse.

Those intense grey eyes spear me, cooling from molten steel to a wintry stormy color. “I see.”

My eyes dart around the room. “Look, it was nice to meet you and I hope you have a good hockey season—”

He scowls deeply, looking affronted. “A good hockey season? What the hell?”

He can’t believe I’m cutting him loose.

I pivot and bolt for the door.

“Wait a minute,” he calls from behind me, his tone urgent as he flounders around for his jacket on the floor. “I don’t even know your last name.”

I exit the bathroom and fight my way through the crowd, jostling past people, some of them the same girls who gave me hateful looks. I do a double take when I see one of the wingers—his brother, I think—because they look incredibly similar. He gives me a surprised look then glances past me, and I assume he sees Zack following me. Go faster, Sugar. I practically mow people down as I dash down the stairs and plow through the dance floor. Finally, I push through the exit, the biting cold air on my still tingling skin, fresh from his hands on my body.

I run through the parking lot like a madwoman, feeling one part crazy for leaving him and another part terrified he’ll come after me and change my mind.

He has a girl of the month, for God’s sake!

The metal clang of the door opening and closing reaches my ears as I slide into my beat-up Toyota Tundra.

I tear out of the parking lot and head for campus. One glance in my rearview mirror shows him standing in the parking lot, a Viking in the snow.

Taller than a Georgia pine, I hear my mama say, and even though I’m freaking out because shit, I just had sex with Zack Morgan in a bathroom at a frat house, an anxious giggle slips through my lips.





7





Zack





It’s the same dream. Even as it unfolds in my head, I want to comfort myself, to let my racing heart know it isn’t real.

I’m lying in the snow staring up at the sky. The blackness above me is vast and bottomless, and for a moment, I’m afraid it will swallow me whole. Reece is next to me and tells me I can’t change anything.

Off in the distance Willow calls my name, and Reece gets up and leaves to go get her. There’s sadness in his eyes.

The scene switches and Willow is in a white dress at a party. She’s holding herself, arms wrapped around her shoulders. I want to be with her, but I need time, just a little distance to fix the mess in my heart. She leaves the party and drives her convertible on a wet road. Her fists beat on the steering wheel, and I know who she’s cursing.

Me. God, it’s me.

“No, no, no, no…” I whisper. “Start all over. Go back.”

But she doesn’t.

She plummets off the side of the road, breaking through the guardrail and plunging into darkness. Her screams echo—

“Fuck!” I sit up straight in the bed, my heart jumping. Deep breaths rack my body, and I swing my legs around and plant my feet on the floor. “Goddammit,” I mutter, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth.

My chest aches and I rub it, fighting to get my heart back on track. My hands tremble as I rake them through my hair.

I hate waking up like this.

You deserve it, a voice says.

“Stop!” I yell as I jump up and scrub at my face. Shit. I hate these dreams. They don’t happen often, but when they do, it fucks with my whole day, which means hockey practice is going to suffer.

One glance at my phone and I see it’s five in the morning, almost time to get up anyway. Walking into the bathroom right off my bedroom, I turn on the cold water and let it run until it’s icy then fill up my hands and splash it on my face. Once. Twice.

I shove at the hair that’s in my face and glare at myself in the mirror. It might be the anniversary month of when she died, but there’s only one reason that dream chose to visit me tonight.

And, yeah, I want to deny the reality, want to tell myself I wasn’t affected, but I’d be lying.

Sugar.

Fuck.

My hands cling to the sink.

I think back to when I first noticed her at the Tipsy Moose last week, staring at me so hard the hairs on my neck rose. It became a game where I would pretend to be getting a drink from the waitress or playing darts but was actually watching her. She sat in a back booth wearing that black coat and a knit hat with her ponytail coming out of the top. Her expression was part earnest, part calculating, and while the earnestness isn’t something I usually see in a girl who eyeballs me, the calculation aspect is. That night, with her hair up and those big glasses on, I didn’t see the resemblance. Maybe something tugged at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was about her.

Then when I walked into the Kappa house and felt a prickling sensation as my eyes found hers behind that column, her long blonde hair pulled back in a headband, draped over her slender shoulders…something hummed.

She looks like Willow.

It’s just the hair, same color, same style, I tell myself, but I’m lying. It’s the face too, the patrician features, from the hollows of her high cheekbones to the way her brows arch over her eyes.

I scrub at my hair, racking my brain for differences.

First off, she doesn’t sound like Willow. Willow’s voice was soft with dulcet tones, pleasing to everyone, and she used it to her advantage, while Sugar’s is husky with a drawl, not exactly a Southern accent yet distinctly different from the Midwest. Also, Willow was a wisp of a girl I teased would fit in my pocket while Sugar is tall with lush curves and an ass—

Stop.

The thought of her running away from me, the idea that she thought this was over—not one single girl has ever done that before.

I know—I know I’m not done with her yet.

Stalking back to my bedroom, I grab my necklace and slip it over my neck. I pull out the legal pad of yellow paper from my nightstand. Grabbing a pen, I lean back on the pillows and prepare to write one of my letters. I wrote them almost every week the first year after Willow’s death, but I’ve slacked off. My head has been elsewhere, focused on school and getting that national championship. I’ve picked it back up since my episode because…well, it’s a way to deal.

Willow,

Another nightmare. These dreams of you…I hate them. They tear me up inside. I think it’s you from the grave, reminding me to not forget you. I don’t know, fuck, I don’t know. I’m not a man with a silver tongue and writing is not my forte, and just writing these words to you doesn’t convey the many, many times I think about you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I screwed up and ruined everything. I don’t even deserve the things I do have…hockey, my dad, my brother…and you have nothing. I want you to know I won’t forget you. I swear to make this life worth what you lost.