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“I should go say happy birthday.” She walked away before I could protest.
I headed to the bar to get a water because I still had to drive tonight. Calista’s dad, Rome, sidled up next to me, ordering two drinks.
“Hey, Rylan,” he said.
Anxiety ratcheted up my spine over the fact that two minutes after I’d made out with his daughter in the dark, he was approaching me. It was as though he could sniff out my desire for his eldest daughter. “Hi, Mr. Bailey.”
He waved me off. “Rome is fine.”
“Okay.” I cracked open my bottle of water and gulped half of it down as if maybe he could somehow smell his daughter’s minty breath on my mouth.
“I’m gonna get to the point. Are you the reason my daughter had tears in her eyes when she got off that van?”
I thought back to days earlier when I’d seen Calista with her dad. “No.” I shook my head.
“You sure?”
Because I was so zeroed in on him, I didn’t see Calista approach from behind her dad.
“It wasn’t him. I got kicked off the team,” she said.
It was like the air all rushed from my lungs.
Well, fuck. How could such a skilled player like Calista get kicked off one of the best women’s teams in collegiate soccer?
I shouldn’t have cared about the answer. I shouldn’t have kissed her. Hell, I shouldn’t have even been there. But regardless, none of it felt wrong. Maybe it was time I confessed what I’d been feeling since I saw her last and finally see where we’d land.
Her dad swiftly moved her out of the room, and she glanced at me over her shoulder. To hell with the water, I ordered another beer.
A half hour later, she returned and told me that she’d recently fallen into a slump and missed too many classes, causing her grades to slip. Her coach was trying to work with her and her professors. I realized I couldn’t throw my feelings on her plate when she had so much piled on already, so I made the most of my evening. Although we flirted and danced, I didn’t venture over the line again. She needed to concentrate on herself, so she’d reach her dreams. And because I cared about her, that night, I kept us over that friend line because she needed a friend a lot more than she needed another round of sex.
Twenty-One
Calista
That Saturday, Aubrey and Declan were adamant that the four of us go see the band they had hired to play at their wedding.
So now I’m in the bathroom, reapplying my lipstick and wishing I would’ve chosen a dress that wasn’t so short.
“I don’t get it. You guys kissed and then you cut him off?” Aubrey puckers her lips in the mirror.
“We kissed, his brother stopped us, and when he came over to obviously get what he wanted, I turned him down.”
Aubrey leans her shoulder on the wall. She’s in black leather pants that show off her legs and a formfitting shirt. “But you wanted to?”
“Of course I wanted to. That’s the problem though. We do this whole roller-coaster thing where the anticipation on the ride up is wonderful and when we reach the peak, it’s exhilarating and fun, but I can’t handle the lows anymore. And there’s always a low after the high with us, because we don’t share the same vision for our lives.”
“Oh.”
I slide my arm through my best friend’s. “I know you and Declan want us back together. It would make everything easier, but I’m sorry, nothing’s changed. His life is in Chicago and my life is here.”
“I don’t want you guys together.”
I stop her in the hallway. “What? I thought you did?”
“Not if it’s going to be like all the other times. You guys were fighting so bad at the end. I could tell you two hated each other when Declan and I came to visit. I never want to see you like that again. We just want you to get along.”
“Oh.” I don’t know why there’s a flutter of disappointment in my stomach. It had felt good thinking we had someone rooting for us.
