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I snort, and send a quick reply as a message from Carla comes in on another thread.
PIPER DELMONICO
Still in one piece. May have accidentally kneed Fitz in the face last night. All is well. Facetime later?
I curse to myself reading Carla’s message.
CARLA MONTGOMERY
Don’t forget we have the reunion call at 11!
Fuck my life. That’s in…shit. I’ll wake Fitz up soon - we should absolutely not look freshly fucked for that call.
Heading back for the front stairs with Roscoe trailing behind, I hold onto the railing, thankful I’m not still in my stockings. There are two bedrooms up here and I wonder to myself why Fitz doesn’t have a home office. He seems the type to need a space to set up and work after hours - but like so much else, maybe I’m reading that wrong, too.
I pop into the last room and nearly fall over, looking down at Roscoe like I expect him to be just as amazed as I am.
It’s sleek and modern, sure, but it’s clearly meant for comfort, because the gray sectional up here is extra padded and huge, stacked with pillows and blankets, in front of a wall where the projector in the ceiling would clearly display whatever’s being watched. This is the only room in the house with any sort of personal touches. Signed jerseys line the wall, Longhorn, Rangers, Cowboys, Mavs, even Alamos and F.C. Dallas. In one corner, I spot Fitz’s Southwest lacrosse jersey, framed in a dark shadow box like the rest.
Ten Years Ago
“Fuckyeah!”Andy’svoicedrawled from two tables over in the cafeteria. He inspected the big baseball-shaped patch in his hand, passing it to Ryan, who compared it to his own.
“Yours is bigger,” Ryan whined.
“That’s what they tell me,” Andy responded almost instantly, and I snorted to myself.
Immediate regret filled me when Andy’s head turned my direction. Fuck. I should have just kept my mouth shut, my head in the baked potato on my tray, and my eyes on my phone screen. But instead, this testosterone pack walked by, high fiving each other over the new patches they’d picked up from the letterman jacket station outside of the cafeteria.
“Don’t agree, Delmonico?” Andy sneered, and those in the tables around us turned too. Vic and our friend Maria looked up from the conversation they’d been having about Vic’s newest patch, for his third state championship with the school dance team. I swallowed to myself and made eye contact with Vic, just briefly, before I turned the rest of my body to face the boys. Fitz sat at the table next to Ryan, a book open in front of him next to a can of Monster, surrounded by several other lacrosse and baseball players.
What’s the collective term for a bunch of jocks? Gaggle? Convocation? No, too sophisticated. Cluster?
“I wouldn’t agree, no.” I tried to keep my voice even, but he must have sensed my unease, because his eyes narrowed and he hopped off the waist-high retaining wall he’d been perched on, striding toward me.
“I guess the guys you fucked before me must be rocking chodes then.” I bit my tongue. That would be an improvement for him. His eyes landed on the dry cleaning bag hanging on the back of my chair. “You? You lettered?” He snatched it off the back of my chair in a clean grab, and some of the guys from his table sauntered over. Fitz leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms, but didn't move. Brave of him to assume his bestie wasn’t about to pull the same shit he’d pulled just a few weeks before, right outside this very room.
Andy inspected the brand new letterman jacket with Delmonico across the back in script, and three patches along one arm.
“MSO? You lettered in MSO?”
“I lettered in MSO, dickwad,” Maria sneered from across the table, brushing her long dark curls behind her back. She had fresh extensions installed the week before, and she’s feeling particularly invincible. I know the experience well - my own were almost as new, and they feel like a suit of armor sometimes.
“International champion?” he read off one of the patches.
“Two years running,” Vic added, and I sagged. The last thing I needed was for Maria or Vic to get hurt again, putting themselves between Andy and I. He wasn’t wrong - my visual merchandising display projects had, in fact, won at Internationals both in Memphis and Austin last year. But Andy wouldn’t know that, because we weren’t friends. Never had been.
I stood, snatching the jacket back and picking up my backpack, followed by my tray. When I was a few steps away, I turned back and looked at Vic and Maria, who were also cleaning up. Then, to Andy.
“Stop overselling yourself, Andy. It’s unbecoming to make promises you can’t keep about your appendages.” And as several of the players behind him snickered, as I fought the smile on my face, I tossed my foam tray in the trash and walked back out into the hall where, not a month before, I’d been face-first on the floor at the hands of that very boy.
Fuck him and his cluster of jocks.
Present Day
Ican’thelpthesmall smile to myself staring at that jersey on the wall - that Fitz was so vastly different than the man sleeping downstairs. The man who’d shared intimate details about himself I’d never expected him to tell me, especially not this soon.
The man who’d been inside of me, like, twelve hours ago.
