Poor girl had no clue that in high school, I used to ignore bitches like her on the daily. She and her clique weren’t anything I couldn’t handle.
A week later, I felt on top of the world. Cane was texting me at least every other day to check in. Sometimes he would call late at night and I’d have to sneak out of my dorm to get away from Morgan and Gina, just to have a little privacy on the phone with him.
Even though we were a secret, things were falling back into place again. My parents called at least once a day, and even Dad started calling and having casual conversations with me while he was in his cruiser or just at home watching sport. Yes, it could be frustrating sometimes, especially when Mom called and asked about Brody, but I dealt with it. I didn’t tell her about me and Brody no longer hanging out because I knew she would ask a million questions just to get down to the bottom of why we weren’t. She would have caught onto me, and at the moment, that was the last thing I wanted her to do.
Honestly, I liked the secrecy between Cane and I. I liked that only a select few who accepted us knew about us, and kept it as their treasured secret too.
But most of all, I liked that even though what we had was hidden in the dark, we understood each other enough to let our time shine bright.
On a crisp winter Friday, when the snow had dried up on campus, the leaves were still frozen, and sun was hiding behind the clouds, something terrible happened.
I was in the locker room after practice, packing my bag, when Sophie walked in. I felt her scan me twice with her eyes before going five lockers down to get to hers.
She hummed a song by Halsey while she took out her bag and packed it. I slammed my locker shut, slinging the strap of my tote bag over my shoulder, brows narrowed as she looked at me again.
“Is there something I can help you with?” I finally asked. She was really starting to annoy me with her stupid stares.
She grinned. “Nothing at all.”
She grabbed her bag and slammed her locker shut too, trotting out of the locker room. I rolled my eyes and pulled my phone out to check the time. I had some time to catch some food and grab a coffee before heading to my building to meet Morgan and Gina for a study session.
I made my way out of the locker room and down the dimly lit hallway, but as I rounded the corner, I saw two silhouettes. The sun was still out, and the silhouettes blocked the way to get out of the locker room. I rolled my eyes, realizing from the frizzy blond hair, that one of them was Sophie. The other was a guy with a baseball cap on.
I kept walking, keeping my eyes ahead. I didn’t care about her little make out session. She was an idiot for doing it in the hallway anyway. Coach Carmen hated seeing her athletes doing vulgar shit, especially with guys.
“Fuck,” the guy groaned, and it made me stop dead in my tracks. His voice was too familiar. So familiar that I looked over and when I did, his liquid brown eyes sparked from the sunlight, and locked right on mine, like he was waiting for me to look.
“Brody?” I narrowed my gaze, my heart catching speed.
Sophie looked over her shoulder, lacing her arms around the back of his neck. She rested her head on his chest, and Brody gave me a disgusted once-over, before saying, “What?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head. I didn’t give a shit that he was with Sophie. I mean, okay—maybe not on the outside, but on the inside I was pissed and I didn’t know why. Why did I care? I didn’t want him…but seeing him with a girl I wanted to punch in the face made it worse for some reason. I turned and started to walk off. Just as I did, my phone chimed, a text.
“Who is that? Your old-as-fuck boyfriend?”
My brows stitched then, my grip tightening around the phone as I glared at Brody. “How about you shut the hell up, Brody,” I growled.
“Wait…she has a boyfriend?” Sophie asked.
“It’s none of your fucking business.” I glared harder at him. I had read him all wrong. I thought he was better than this, but it turns out he was no different than any other guy who hated being rejected.
Sophie ignored me and looked up at Brody. “What are you talking about? What boyfriend? I only ever saw her with you.”
Brody shrugged it off and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s nothing. She’s just not who I thought she was.”