couch. I didn’t want to go to practice, but I wasn’t feeling up to the hour-long drive home yet, so I settled for catching an Uber to his house. He’d given me a key a long time ago and told me to help myself whenever I was in Montpelier and didn’t want to head home. A dizzying, drunken night with Quinn that I hadn’t fully recovered from felt like a good enough reason. I sent a quick text to Tyler, letting him know that I wouldn’t be in for practice, and then laid my head down on the arm of the couch.
I had nearly faded from consciousness when I heard a yelp behind me. I looked up, and there was a guy with long, blond hair waterfalling down one side of his head, looking down at me. “Who the hell are you?”
I pointed at myself. “Brother, not boyfriend.”
His look of anger faded in an instant. “Oh, great.” He leaned over the back of the couch. “Hey, has Danny talked about me much?”
To dash this poor guy’s dreams or lie straight to his face—I was honestly too tired for either. “Sure, loads. Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m very hungover.”
“No offense, but I can smell it,” he responded.
I grinned. “Well, it was good to see you, Jack.”
His smile turned into a frown. “My name is Blake.”
“Oops.”
“Screw you, Daniel,” Blake barked before storming out, slamming the door behind him.
I started to drift again when a pillow slapped me in the face. I looked up, and Daniel was standing above me with his arms crossed. “That was petty.”
“He said I stunk.”
“You do.” He walked around and slunk down into the armchair that faced the couch. “This is a walk of shame if I’ve ever seen one. One of your stress relievers?”
I smiled, drawing on what little bit I did remember of my night with Quinn. “I hope not.”
Daniel sat up a bit straighter, and his eyes lit up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I looked over at him. “Quinn.”
“Oh, Daniel, you are so smart,” Daniel said out loud to himself. “Why, thank you, Daniel. I think so, too.”
“Shut up.” I closed my eyes again, but after two failed attempts, my body was no longer willing to try to sleep for the moment.
“When are you guys going out again?” Daniel asked.
I shrugged. “We didn’t really talk about it.” I hunched my brow. “We didn’t even exchange numbers.”
Daniel scoffed. “Well, you’re going to need to fix that. You don’t get like this about anyone. She’s clearly special.”
He was right. It wasn’t just sex that I generally avoided, it was dating altogether. When most of my attention needed to be on football, dating and being in a relationship was simply too much extra work. I’d never met someone who felt worth it to me. I dated a cheerleader for almost a year in high school, but that was mostly for the optics. I was the typical jock, and she was the typical captain of the cheer squad, so the cliche forces of the universe pushed us together. When I got my letter of acceptance to college, I broke up with her the next day. I didn’t want my attention divided between my true love and some girl I didn’t even really like all that much. Suddenly, I didn’t have to divide my attention. Quinn was football and an amazing woman, all wrapped up and tied with a bow. I had the best of both worlds.
“I want to go out with her again and not get drunk so that I can remember it,” I said. Daniel looked at me with a confused expression. “Oh, she got into a fight with one of her teammates, so I took her for a drink to calm down. One drink turned into fifty, and that turned into me waking up in her bed. You know the story.”
“So, you don’t have her number, but can you go to her next game like you normally would?” Daniel asked.
I thought about it, but Quinn’s next qualifier wasn’t until the following week. She’d have practice on Friday, but even that felt too far away, and I didn’t want to catch her by surprise while she was practicing and preparing for a qualifier game. That’s when I remembered that she said she was going to work. I’d seen on the website that she worked at MontRec.
“I could go see her at work.” I sighed.
“Yes! And bring her flowers and chocolate or something. Chicks love stuff like that. I brought