On the Sideline (BSU Football #3) - J.B. Salsbury Page 0,4

her look like she stepped off the cover of a J Crew catalog. She sits next to me and smiles. “Sorry I’m late.”

I study her perfect bone structure, perfectly symmetrical lips and lean in. “You got some lip gloss on your chin and cheek there.”

She blushes and taps at her mouth with a napkin, her wedding ring catching the light and nearly blinding me. “I ran into Theodore on my way here.”

Rowan sighs dreamily. “Aww, newlyweds.”

I think it’s weird that Emery got married at nineteen, but I wouldn’t dare tell her that. Honestly, she kind of scares me.

I go back to my tea, sucking back the icy beverage while the girls discuss the men in their lives, Carey and Spider, who also happen to be roommates, and I try to ignore the twinge of jealousy I feel. I remind myself that I don’t need a man in my life to make me happy. But from what I know of Rowan and Emery, neither do they. And yet, they both seem blissfully satisfied in their relationships, so I’m back to my envy.

“Yo, Ro!”

We all turn at the same time toward the male voice.

My lids fall into a hateful glare when I see him.

Loren.

I eye my trespasser and bite down on my straw. He smiles at Emery and focuses on Rowan. “I’m hitting the grocery store on the way home, Carey told me you had a list.”

“Oh, sure, I’ll text it to you.”

Did his face pale a little? I think it did.

I smirk around my straw.

“I lost my phone so if you want to just write it down…” He reaches around to his backpack and in doing so his eyes catch on me and widen. He clears his throat and drags his gaze back to his backpack to dig out a pen and paper.

Emery, clearly bored by the exchange between Rowan and Loren, turns to me. “How was your weekend?”

I choke mid gulp sending freezing cold tea into my nasal cavity. “Oh God!” I grip the sides of my head while icepicks jab my temples. “Brain freeze.” I cover my mouth and huff hot air into my palm, my eyes watering from the near drowning. “Fuck that hurt.”

Loren’s lips are rolled between his teeth, and my cheeks flame with fury and embarrassment. “Laugh it up, jock.” I tilt my head and glare. “I know where you sleep.”

His expression falls and he blinks away from me. A pity really, I never realized before that his eyes are a pretty mix of blue and green, like Caribbean water.

Rowan looks between us, and slowly hands Loren her list. “That should do it.”

“Cool. Later.” He scampers off and I have to admit scaring a six-foot-something football player away is strangely satisfying.

“Okay, dish.” Rowan says, leaning in for gossip. “What the hell was that all about?”

“What did he do to you?” Emery says with all the emotion of a serial killer.

I sigh and push away my drink, lean on my elbows and take two fists full of my sweaty, mop-like hair. “You know he’s seeing my cousin Riley, right? In a drunken stupor he stumbled into the wrong room, I found him nearly naked in my bed Saturday night.”

They both look at me like, “And?”

I shrug. “I had Monty wake him up.”

Rowan gasps and covers her mouth while Emery’s slow smile of approval is tinged with evil.

“That must’ve been the nightmare night he told Carey about on Sunday,” Rowan says.

I flinch inwardly at his description. You’re disgusting.

His words didn’t surprise me, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt.

Growing up the daughter of a Thunderbird, I was draped in white lace from infancy, bred to become an educated, desirable young woman for the sole purpose of becoming a rich affluent wife. But there was some cosmic mix up in the DNA and I wasn’t born the petite, polite, silken haired debutant my parents expected. I didn’t fit in with all my cousins and siblings and my differences went well beyond my thick curls that don’t spiral, but frizz. While my sisters and cousins were sitting cross-legged drinking tea with their pinkies in the air, I was down by the river flipping over rocks and catching salamanders with my bare hands.

Disgusting was a word I heard often.

I suppose I heard it enough that I eventually became it. Why fight it, right?

Emery sniffs haughtily. “Please tell me Monty took a bite out of him? He deserved as much.”

“Sadly, no.”

Emery frowns.

“Enough about that,” Rowan says with a swipe of her hand