The Revenge Pact (Kings of Football, #1)(71)

A huff comes from me. “Wow. The dating pool at Braxton is crap—”

“Whiskey, tango, foxtrot,” River mutters in my ear. “Abort.” He takes my elbow, murmurs a Good to see you, we have to go, then turns me around and stalks away with me in tow. He stops to grab the earring and sticks it in my hand.

His body is wired and tense, and I exhale as he leads me past our table and to the stairwell.

“First, Kian didn’t like my shoes. Second, he assumed I didn’t understand physics. Third, he stared at my breasts more than my face.” My voice rises.

He walks faster. “We’re getting off this floor.”

“I admit, it didn’t go smoothly.”

“You’re shaking, Anastasia.”

Am I?

“You shook the whole time. It’s why I came over.”

I stare down at my hands, grimacing at how they tremble. My legs feel weak, and I swallow down emotion that’s been building for the past few days. From the looks on campus to the whispers…

My emotional state got worse when I sat down with River…

His personality, his mercurial eyes, his beautiful soul…he’s a hum in my heart. Truth, it’s been pricking at me for a year, and now, it’s flaring right to the surface, aching to be acknowledged. Not only that, but there’s something nudging me in the back of my head, a truth I can’t grasp hold of as it dances just out of reach— “Are you okay?” He takes my hands in his.

I swallow down the thickness in my throat. “I did not enjoy that.”

“Neither did I,” he mutters. “Kian is a prick. He called you baby, and he doesn’t even know you. I wanted to pull his tongue out.”

“He is out. Marked off the list. Not even for revenge. Want to know what’s worse? A girl in my philosophy class asked me if I needed drug counseling today.”

“Who was it? I’ll have a talk with her.”

I smirk. “You’re intimidating people for me?”

“Maybe.”

I sigh. “Honestly? I can deal with the fallout from Donovan. I made a stupid mistake with Bryson, yes, but I’m happy with who I am. I like me, but what I don’t have is a school next fall, and it’s scary…”

“You have me.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, I’m your friend.” He studies my face, then flings open the door and we go up the stairs.

Friend.

I firmly disagree, River.

And I’m sick of pretending.





21





I take the steps with him, our hands brushing in the stairwell. He opens the door to the fifth floor, and we step out into the space.

I take in the lobby area for the administrative offices, currently closed. A twenty-foot badger statue is in the center, a water fountain at his feet. His triangular-shaped face is striped along his snout, his mouth open with sharp fangs, his body thick, his claws raised as if he’s about to burrow into something tasty. “I like the silence,” I murmur. “But that badger is hideous.”

“Agreed. Follow me past the monster.” He leads me down a darkened hallway that opens to a spiral staircase. He goes ahead and opens a door at the top, draping his hoodie over my shoulders as we walk out to the center of the rooftop. I pull it against me, sticking my hands in his pockets. It smells like him and I sigh.

See-through partitions block the wind on the sides, but the stars gleam down at us, the muted lights of campus glowing off in the distance. A fire pit crackles in the middle of a lounge area.

“Wow,” I murmur as I do a spin. “This is beautiful. I never come up here. And it’s empty.”

He shrugs, glancing up. “You took me to the sunrise. I bring you the stars.”

I crane my neck and find the Milky Way. “They remind me that I shouldn’t dwell on small things I can’t change. The school thing will work out.”

“They make me think of my dad. He’s somewhere out there watching me. Listening. He would have liked you.”

I stop spinning and look at him. I knew his dad passed when he was in high school—that’s common knowledge—but I’ve never heard him talk about it. “There’s an Eskimo legend that says they aren’t stars at all, but openings where our loved ones watch us.”

“I like that,” he says softly.

“What happened…wait…can I ask that? I’m sorry. I never know what to say…”

He tucks his hands in his jeans. “Car wreck after a game. We went down a ravine and hit rocks. I couldn’t get to him, couldn’t move or call 911, and then his chest just stopped…” He trails off, a hesitant look on his face.

“Tell me about him. Who was he to have a son as beautiful as you?” I say. “And I don’t mean your appearance. I mean you. That piece of you inside that shines.”

He dips his head and smiles sheepishly. “Everyone loved him—teachers, cops, shop owners. They asked him to run for mayor one year, but he laughed and said he couldn’t be away from his family. He believed in me, no matter the shitty grades or how rambunctious I got. I gave him a run for his money too, fighting in school and being a pill, lashing out because of my issues. He was patient and loving. He adored my mom, always kissing her in front of people.” A small laugh comes from him. “He loved to tell the story of how they met. He was on a date with some model, one of those glamorous types, and Mom marched up to him at the bar while his date was in the restroom and said, I’m the girl you want, then tucked her number in his shirt pocket and walked away. He called her that night and they were married six months later. He loved hard, with everything he had, always planning things for us to do together. Family trips, crazy themed dinners. Every Christmas we did this mystery dinner where one of us was the bad person trying to mess up Christmas and the rest of us had to figure it out. He wrote the script for it and coached the bad guy. Whoever guessed it right got an old football trophy of his from when he was a kid. It was dumb and silly, but the best. I spent Sundays in our basement with him watching football and playing darts from the age of five to fifteen. He laughed all the time. He told horrible jokes, never could remember the punch lines right. He was so easy to love, so damn easy. He came to every single football game I ever played. He made me feel important, and you could tell him anything and he wouldn’t judge, he really listened…” He pauses, grimacing. “God. I miss him, Anastasia, and my mom…I’m terrified she’s next.”