Was he still sleeping?
Highly unlikely. Lucas was one of those annoying early birds, all sexy-eyed and hunky-tailed seven days a week, no matter if he’d partied the night before. Nonetheless, I was on a mission to satisfy a mean case of curiosity.
Palming the door open, I poked my head inside for a peek, the faint smell of his cologne punching me senseless. “Lucas?”
No reply.
After I’d stepped inside, uneasiness crept over me.
I knew that I shouldn’t have violated our personal space rule, but damn it…where the hell was he?
Hands on hips, I stood planted in the center of his room, sizing up the neatly made bed, tickled by how organized his space appeared compared to most guys. Don’t get me wrong, I was a fanatic of fellow lovers of all things structured and methodized. But given Lucas was a typical jock, the tidiness brought his organization skills to a highly respectable level.
Taking it all in, my gaze gravitated to his nightstand, and after trekking on over, I plucked one of the two framed photos featuring us.
A soft smile stretched across my face, the photo generating a faint recollection. We were seven years old, goofing off at Funtime Pizza Palace. It was my birthday, and I distinctly remembered Lucas kicking the clown for making me cry.
“You’re scaring her with your stupid, big-nosed face!” he yelled, the clown hopping around on one foot, holding his injured shin in agony. I couldn’t think of a time when Lucas didn’t have my back, watching out for me as if he were my appointed guard.
Snickering, I set the photo back in its place, then picked up another beside it, parking my bottom onto the edge of the bed.
A sigh escaped me, warmth coating my heart as the snapshot escorted me further down the memory expressway.
It was a photograph of us, taken three years earlier, at Lake Tahoe during a winter ski adventure with a group of friends. I’d sprained my ankle after tripping on the damn skis, minutes before we had a chance to hit the slopes. At first, I thought my clumsiness had ruined my trip—the sole purpose for being there—since I obviously couldn’t ski with a messed-up ankle. Yet, while everyone else set out to conquer the powder, Lucas hung with me at the lodge.
“You’d do the same if our roles were reversed,” he told me, resting my foot atop a set of stacked throw pillows. I shrugged, knowing he was right.
But that weekend our close, seemingly impenetrable bestieship, along with a juvenile pinky-swear pact we’d made when we were too young to know any better, was put to the test. It had been the first time we’d come inches, seconds away from sharing a kiss—a fleeting moment of weakness while relaxing next to a warm fire—conveniently interrupted by our friends returning from the slopes. Funny thing, Lucas and I carried on like nothing had happened, neither of us ever speaking of the incident’s existence.
Resting the photo back in place, I couldn’t help but wonder if those stupid confessions would end up being steamrolled into nonexistence much like that almost-kiss did.
Truth be told, I hoped to fuck bloggergatedidend up in never-ever-happened land—if not for the sake of his newly engaged status—but for the sake of our rock-solid relationship.
Exiting his bedroom, I fished my cell phone from the front pocket-pouch of my UCLA hoodie I’d always worn around the house. Regardless of the epic shitstorm that had my stomach splintering, I felt the need to determine where Lucas went. Knowing would at least yield an understanding of his mindset—hopefully.
Did he go out for a run? To practice? Harper’s?
With any of those scenarios, chances were he’d been too occupied to have read anything, much less my stupid blog post.
Careful not to nick my fingertip against its cracked screen, I swiped my phone to unlock it, making a mental note to find out how my phone ended up cracked in the first place.No more libations for me.
Then, I thumbed off a text message to Lucas.
Hey, where are you?
4
“Man, come on! Where the fuck is your head right now, Stone?”
My attention flicked from a text message over to AJ’s huff and puff—then thewhooshof the ball as it sailed way over my head.
Mouth outfitted in a dickish smirk, I tried to play it off even though it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out my head wasn’t on the field. “You throw like a bitch.”
“And today,Asshole the Great”—he swiped beads of sweat off his forehead—“you obviously catch like one.”
Every baller would agree hurling trash talk on the field is a player’s rite of passage. AJ and I had been known to master the art of dishing insults, at times getting downright savage. No one, except Coach K, was immune though there were times he too fell victim to the wrath of our collaborative put-downs. We’d been teammates since freshman year, bonding over the inarguable fact we were two of the best on the field—both recruited during senior year in high school. Out of the three wide receivers on the team, AJ was the one I’d inevitably launch the ball to, the player I had the strongest connection with. Together, we were a dynamic force. The Brady and Gronk of UCLA football, scoring thirty-plus touchdown passes. Friends, bros, on and off the gridiron, it wasn’t unusual for us to call each other out on our shit. And by the furrowed set of brows, the pronounced flex in his jaw, it was evident AJ planned on holding nothing back. I braced for his incoming fit.
“Dude, you show up to my door at fuckcrack in the morning, saying we should bring our asses here to practice.” His hands fell to his hips and, in that moment, he resembled a disgruntled old man scolding neighborhood bullies. “Yet, you’ve been nothing but distracted this entire time.”
