I Promise You: Stand-Alone College Sports Romance(16)

I shrug. “Maverick mentioned witches. He straight-up told me about Delaney, and now he’s wrapped around her finger. Take Blaze—he met Charisma the night of their freshman bonfire and now they’re living together in New York.”

He sings “Witchy Woman” by the Eagles.

I flip him off, and he stutters to a stop.

“Dude.” A gasping laugh comes from him. “You’re serious.”

I throw my hands up. “I know! She doesn’t remember me, and I dreamed about her last night. Again. She wore a white dress and was standing on the football field, right at the fifty-yard line, and I was…” I exhale and grip the top of the chair. “On my knees in front of her asking her to…”

“Yeah?”

“Marry me…” I stop.

“Shit.”

“You were a zombie, by the way.”

“Hope I was badass.”

“I killed you with a sword.”

“Zombies and swords at a wedding—pencil me in.”

I lean against the fridge. “I know the legend is just a bunch of frat boy mumbo jumbo…”

“But?”

“She got in my head and then she ran away—from me.”

“The nerve.”

“It’s not like that.” I’m not being cocky. It just bugs me that she didn’t feel the same for me that night. And Sawyer? He doesn’t know everything. It’s embarrassing to admit the torch I carried. “It feels like everything Maverick warned me about came true… That she’d haunt me.”

He belts out the chorus to “Haunted” by Taylor Swift and I throw a dishtowel at him. He stops, a maniacal grin on his face. “So what if you saw her? She’s just a girl. There are five thousand more on campus.”

“I didn’t know who she was at first, but as soon as we got close and I smelled her scent—”

“Smelled? What are you, a wolf?”

“—something niggled at me, like a ghost ran its hand down my back. It’s like that whole destiny thing at work.” I throw him an impatient glare. “Don’t discount scent. Pheromones are no joke. They’re behavior-altering chemicals you emit, and once you smell the right one, it triggers your instincts, and you’ll want to mark your territory—”

“So you are half wolf. Always suspected.”

“Go on, laugh all you want. Everyone emits pheromones. Why do you think cologne is so popular?”

His lips twitch. “What scent should I buy?”

“Keep on joking. The right kinds of pheromones elicit a sexual arousal response. Dude, I can’t walk past cherries or any kind of fruit without thinking about her. For three years!” I shake my head. “Therapy—I need aversion therapy for this girl so I’ll stop thinking about her. Maybe a hypnotist.”

“I’m stuck on the fruit thing. Cherries give you a hard-on?”

“If you sing ‘She’s My Cherry Pie’, I’ll kick your ass.”

Glee dances over his features and he laughs for several moments, wiping at his eyes. “Honestly? I’m blown away. You, the guy who’s always in a good mood, are actually in a snit over some girl who doesn’t recall a kiss. Who are you?”

I arch a brow. Oh, he wants to trash talk… “I know you still keep that stuffed tiger Bambi gave you freshman year. Under your pillow.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.” I crack my knuckles. “I need another run this afternoon.”

“Is the worst part that she doesn’t remember you? Or is it that you’ve found her and don’t know what to do with it?”

A long exhalation comes from me. “Both. I don’t know.”

He shrugs. “She was probably drunk at the bonfire. Most people were. I was. Woke up in my dorm on the floor with Troy curled around me like a girl. Slapped him silly and kneed him in the nuts. Good times.”

“I didn’t smell or taste alcohol on her, and my tongue was in her mouth long enough to know.” Every detail from that kiss is etched in my mind as if I have a photographic memory. I don’t.

He pops a cookie left over from last night in his mouth. “She was probably there with a boyfriend, kissed you, and freaked out.”

Anger rushes at me. “She was dancing by herself.”

“Okay, okay, obviously you’ve built this up in your head over all this time, created a shrine to her sweet cherry pie memory—”

“Smartass.”

“Uh-huh. Let’s break this down: wasn’t one of your theories that she wasn’t a student or was from out of town? What did you find out?”

“Nothing really except that she hates me. She’s a grad student. Two years older.” I’m almost twenty-two. I wonder when her birthday is…

“Ah, a girl you have to work for. This is new for you.”

I sigh. Freshman year, I had a list of theories about the unicorn. Perhaps I was drunk with beer goggles and wouldn’t recognize her. Perhaps she cut her hair. Perhaps she transferred. But those full lips… I just knew I’d know them anywhere. If it hadn’t been for the hat and glasses last night, I would have spotted her right off the bat.

“I think you should have nailed her and didn’t and that’s why you’re still wondering about her. She’s the one who got away. Everybody’s got one. Mine is some chick from middle school. She was my first kiss, and I thought she’d be my first everything, but she dumped me for a high school kid. Good thing—she got busted for money laundering for the mob a few years ago, but I still wonder…” He snaps his fingers in my face. “You know what this is, right? It’s a challenge.”