Everyone cheers, with Hayes, Quinn, and Flora blowing into noisemakers.Where did those come from?Even Keller claps,seeming semi-enthused. Of course, Fox and Lilah start to make out to the point that Lawson has to pull them apart.
“Okay, break it up, break it up,” he says, pulling our goalie away from his girlfriend. “This is a party, not your sex den. Let’s celebrate!” He picks up a red cup and holds it in the air. “To Lilah!”
“Hey!” we all say, holding our flutes up as well.
“To Auden!”
“Hey!” we cheer again.
“And to Hutch’s inability to pull out, which means we’re getting a second generation! Long live the Serpents Singles group chat!”
“What’s pull out mean?” Flora asks, sending everyone who is not Hayes or Quinn into a fit of laughter.
Hutch smacks Lawson on the back of the head, making me laugh harder.
The doorbell chimes, and Lawson races off toward it like he lives here or something.
“Anyone else think he’s getting extra exhausting lately?” Hayes asks.
“He’salwaysextra exhausting. It’s like you people never listen to me,” Keller grouses.
“That’s because you hate everyone and everything. You don’t count,” I say.
Keller shrugs.
“Uh, Hutchy?” Lawson calls, walking back into the room.
“Yeah?” our captain answers.
“Someone’s at the door for you.”
“Who the hell is it?” Hutch growls, irritated by Lawson’s vagueness.
“Was hoping you’d tell us.”
Our star forward steps aside, revealing a tiny blonde woman standing behind him. Everything inside me freezes, but only fora moment, because it suddenly thaws, and I’m vibrating, from my fucking head right down to my toes tucked tight into my shoes. Every damn inch of me is shaking with…well, I’m not entirely sure what.
Someone gasps, but not even that pulls my attention. I am too focused on the woman clutching her bag tightly. Too fixated on the blonde locks I know feel like fucking silk. Too damn engrossed in the way she drags her tongue across her bottom lip, the one that tasted like pink and cherries. I didn’t even know it was possible to taste colors, but I swear, if that one had a flavor, it would be her lips.
I am just too fucking distracted to pay attention to anyone else right now. Anyone other thanher.
“Uh, who is that?” Lawson asks. I’d laugh at his piss-poor attempt to whisper, but I’m still too busy staring.
Hayes answers with, “I think that’s his sister.”
“Stepsister,” Hutch corrects. “What are you doing here, Vanessa?”
Vanessa.
I haven’t heard that name in… I guess technically I haven’t heard it at all. She wasn’t Vanessa to me. She was someone else. She was Nessa.
“Sorry, I…I didn’t mean to intrude.” She pushes her hair behind her ear. “It looks like you’re having a party. I just…”
Her dark green eyes find me, and I hold my breath. I’ve waited months to see her look at me again, but there’s nothing. Not a smile. No spark. Not even a flicker of recognition. Not a single hint of the night we spent together in a New York hotel room.
There’s emptiness, and it hurts. Almost as badly as knowing the last person I felt something for…is my captain’s stepsister.
And she is completely off-limits.
