All Broke Down (Rusk University 2)

But that shit is over. No part of my life revolves around her, and I’m not about to let her pull me back in.

“Get the f**k in your car and go,” I say when I’m standing in front of her.

She doesn’t reply. Just blinks her long lashes and studies my face for a few seconds that stretch into lifetimes. When I open my mouth to tell her to leave again, she reaches up and touches my face.

I grab her wrist and shove her hand away.

“Get in your f**king car.”

“Baby . . .” she says.

“I haven’t been your baby in a long time. And that’s not changing, so you can leave.”

Her lips pucker on a frown. “You’ll always be my baby.”

She tries to touch me again, and I step back.

“I was yours through all your shitty boyfriends. Through the first time you left, and the second. Hell, I was even yours for all those years you weren’t around, while Sean and I lived with Grams or whatever family would take us. But I stopped being yours sometime around the time Sean went to prison, and you didn’t even bother picking up a phone, let alone showing your face. So, Megan, I suggest you do what you do best. Get in your car and leave before I call the cops and make you.”

She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, and gives me these big, innocent eyes, and God I want to hit something. My past and my present are supposed to remain separate. But now she’s set it all on a goddamn collision course, and that feeling of inevitability I’ve always felt? The pull of it is so heavy right now, it makes gravity feel like a joke.

When she doesn’t move fast enough, I pull out my cell phone, and she holds up her manicured hands. “Fine! Okay. I’m leaving.”

I don’t put my phone up, but I let it drop to my side. She steps back off the lawn into the street. She wavers for a second on her heels, and then she turns and saunters back to her car, like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

She opens the door and before she climbs inside she says with a smile, “Go back to your party, baby. We’ll talk another time.”

I squeeze my fist so hard, I’m surprised I don’t crush my phone. She ducks into her car, and it sputters to life, old and rusted and completely at odds with the image she works to project.

Then she’s gone, and it feels like everything I’ve built here is seconds away from crumbling around me. Like a house of cards destroyed by a simple breath. And all I can think is if things are gonna fall apart, I’m not going to stand here trying to catch the pieces.

I turn and most of the game is still going, but half a dozen people stand off to the side watching me. McClain. Stella. Brookes. Torres. A few more. I walk away from the curb, and Torres grins at me. “You been holding out on us, Moore? Who was that hot piece—”

“Say one more f**king word, and you lose your tongue.”

He holds his hands up in surrender, but he’s still smiling. They all are. Except Stella and Brookes. They’re both looking at me like they, too, are waiting for my sky to start falling. Like they’re the only ones who really understand what they just saw.

My phone buzzes in my hand again, and I’m ready to throw it until I see the text. It’s from Levi again.

Come on, man. I need to blow off some steam. Get your ass to Trent’s.

I stalk past the group, ignoring the looks I get, and pick up my shirt from where I’d tossed it on the grass. Then I run inside to grab my keys and switch out my athletic shorts for jeans. Because it just so happens I need to blow off some steam, too.

TRENT’S IS A dank, grungy, hole-in-the-wall place that most students pass over for the newer, popular bars in the campus bubble. The bell rings as I step in the door, and even though it’s late afternoon, it’s dark enough inside that I have to squint to find Levi.

He sits at the bar, a bottle lifted to his mouth and another sitting beside him that I assume is for me. The place is practically empty except for the bartender, and an old dude in a booth at the back.

For a moment, I hesitate. Something twists in my gut and my jaw clenches, and I don’t even really know why I came here. Part of me wants to say f**k it all, get smashed with Levi, and give in to the inevitability of this shitfest. Another part, a bigger part, wants to lay into my old friend and work off what I’m feeling with my fists.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I should turn around and walk back out to my truck. There are only stupid decisions waiting for me here.

But I’ve never cared all that much about being smart.

I stalk across the bar and slide onto the stool next to him. I tip back the beer and fix my eyes on the baseball game playing on the old TV sitting up beside bottles of liquor on the shelf.

“What? I don’t even get a hello?” Levi says.

I ditch the hello and ask instead, “How was prison? You got out fast.” Must be nice to have a lawyer for a dad. Hell, must be nice to have a dad in the picture, period.

Levi lifts his hands in a shrug and says, “Can’t keep me down.”

Sad thing is . . . he’s probably right. Guys like him always get second, third, and fourth chances.

“What are you doing here, Levi?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m having a drink, and then I’m gonna get laid. Priorities, am I right?”

“I mean . . . what are you planning to do here?”

“I thought I just covered that.”

“You’re just going to hang out here in town? When you’re not allowed to set foot on campus? Are you even allowed to be in a bar right now?”

He shrugs. “I just can’t be around drugs of any kind. Alcohol might count, but nobody’s gonna find out.” He gestures to the deserted bar. “And why do I have to figure out what I’m doing right now? I’ll just hang out. It will be the same as it always was . . . but now I don’t have to go to class.”

“The same as it always was,” I mutter and drain the rest of my beer in three big gulps. I wave down the bartender for another while Levi continues.

“Yeah, man. We should drive down to Austin this weekend. Go to Sixth Street. We’ll get plastered. Maybe float the river.”

“I have practice on Monday.”

“You’ll be back in time.”

I shake my head. “I can’t. We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile.”

He scoffs. “Fuck. Coach Cole is the worst. Soon you guys won’t be able to do jack shit.”