“I know, but I can’t go on like this. I agreed to come here this weekend to try to figure things out, and to make sure Ella is okay.” I lower my voice and glance at him. “It had to have been Ella in my bed, Brady.” Something niggles in the back of my mind, I search for it, and pull it to the forefront. “Who did you sleep with that night of the party?”
“Believe it or not, I didn’t. Got a call from my father, congratulating me on the game, and then he gave me a lecture. I crashed after that.”
I glance at the crowd and find Ella sitting off to the side, fiddling with her camera. She didn’t want me to replace the one she broke over Cameron’s head, but I did it anyway. “Someone came into my room that night. I figured it was someone you slept with and they were looking for the bathroom.” I struggle to remember that morning getting dressed. Was Ella’s phone on the nightstand? Jesus fuck, had Ella come back into the room to get her phone, only to find me in bed with her sister. “Holy shit.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“I think Ella might have come back to the room, and saw Ivy in my bed.”
“When you fuck something up, you really fuck it up, don’t you?”
David waves to us, and he throws the ball my way. I catch it, and roll it around in my hand. “Not helpful.”
“How do you plan to get out of this mess?”
“I just have to ask Ella straight up, then tell her Ivy was a mistake.”
“Was the theater a mistake too?” he asks.
“Yeah, big fucking mistake, one that I can’t take back.” I toss the ball back and David runs for it. He catches it and does some funny victory dance that gets the others laughing. Many heads are turned our way, no doubt wanting to meet us and I shouldn’t be standing back bitching to my best friend.
“Sure you can. Sounds to me like she forced the situation.”
I scoff. “Yeah, I can see the headline now. Girl forces guy to let her blow him.” I put my hand on Brady’s shoulder. “Even I’m not buying it.”
“I like Ella, Landon.”
My gaze flies to his as my stomach clenches. “Yeah?”
He chuckles. “Not like that, but I like her. She’s different, and I think you guys could be really good together.”
“That’s why you were all over her? To get me to finally make a move?”
“Thought you needed a glimpse of what’s slipping from your hands.”
“She’s not going to want anything to do with me if she saw me in bed with Ivy.”
He catches the ball when David throws it back. “Why don’t you leave that up to her.”
“Yeah,” is all I mutter.
“Do it after we get dinner,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t want to be kicked out without a full belly.” He laughs and takes off running and I just shake my head. But he’s right, I don’t want to screw up Thanksgiving dinner tonight, and ruin it for everyone, especially my buddy, who chose to come with us and support me, instead of going home. Not that I can blame him. He doesn’t need a weekend with his parent riding his ass. Brady is under enough pressure as it is.
I reach the group, and note Ivy sitting off to the side, plucking at the grass. “Hey,” she says when she sees me.
“Are you playing?”
“No, I’m going to sit this one out.”
“Not feeling well again.”
“Something like that.” She nibbles her bottom lip, like she has something very important to tell me. I guess it will have to wait. Her father is already putting the teams together.
“Landon, son, come over here, you’re on my team, and Brady you’re with the others.”
“I thought you wanted your team to win, David,” Brady jokes with a smirk as he’s introduced to his team members. I’m introduced to mine, and I catch the way both sisters are sitting on the sidelines, opposite each other.
“We’re a player short, with Ivy sitting it out,” someone on the other teams calls out. “Hey Ella, get on in here.”
“I do not play football,” she says. “I don’t even know the rules.”
“We don’t have too many for the game this year,” her dad says with a laugh. “Just get the ball over to the other side of the field. Come on, we need you.”
She grumbles, sets her camera down and pushes to her feet. “Fine,