Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(3)

Girlfriend? Modi. Of course he had a girlfriend. Someone as big and good-looking and sweet as him? What else could I have expected? Still, my heart plunged into my stomach.

But, I managed to hide my disappointment well, brushing past it by stepping up on the stairs. “Whatever it takes, I guess. Thank you though, I really do appreciate it.”

Again Ransom looked around and scowled. “I still worry about you being around here on your own.” He looked up at me. “Don’t forget about the dead bolt and make sure the windows are locked too.” I laughed and Ransom shook his head. “Sorry. It’s not my business, but I can’t seem to help myself.”

“I’ll take care of it, don’t worry,” I told him walking backward up two steps before I turned away from him.

“Um, okay. If you’re sure.” I was almost to the top before he called after me. “I forgot, I can’t get the bed for you until tomorrow. Is it okay if I drop by then?”

I didn’t understand why my heart fluttered a little when he asked that. He’d offered the second-hand bed set that morning and I thought that once he’d delivered it, I’d likely not see him around much. But him coming back, well. That had my hopes higher than they had any business being. Ransom was still in high school. He was a full year younger than me. He was my boss’s cousin and he had a girlfriend. He was just being nice, I knew that.

“Sure. I’ll be around,” I told him, waving him off before I went into my apartment. But as I went inside and moved to the window overlooking the parking lot, I couldn’t make the smile leave my face or keep my heart from racing as I thought of seeing him again.

He’d rescued me when no one ever had before and all I’d thought about watching him pull his Mustang out into the street, was how the hell I’d ever be able to return the favor.

I wouldn’t. Not until over a year later. And when I did, it would change us both. Forever.





1





September, 2015





Shadows have weight. They reach and cover, they devour. Sometimes they seem insurmountable, all consuming. Every failure, every struggle, allows them to grow.

I was covered in shadows. I wore them like a grungy, dirty coat.

But that night, after our third straight win, I didn’t let the shadows overtake me and the only thing devouring me was the hot steam of shower water. It was the day, the worry that I’d fail, the relief that I hadn’t and the overwhelming reality of the clusterf*ck my life was turning out to be that had me wanting to never leave that spray.

The hot water hadn’t taken the headache from my skull or lessened the constant bump of the bass line downstairs. Fuck, how I hated being forced to listen to Chris Brown.

After the game and telling my parents I just wanted to decompress at the team house, I’d managed to get away from Ronnie Blanchard and the bullshit music he liked to play by leaving the party. Nearly a month into my first college football season and I’d already learned one thing about Claiborne-Prosper University: these *s considered partying a God-given right. But then, this was New Orleans. Partying was sort of an expectation.

The bathroom was small, with barely enough room for my big body and a full tub and shower and the hot water fogged up the mirror, filtered the air with heat so thick I hastily wrapped one towel around my waist and grabbed another one for my face, and swung the door open before even attempting to dry off. It didn’t matter. No one would see my naked ass in this room. It was mine, private—large enough for a queen-sized bed, oak dresser and desk—just one of the perks of having a high ACT score and a coaching staff that hoped I’d play as well as my father had when he was on the defensive line. Didn’t hurt that my father was now coaching that defensive line.

My dad’s shadow was massive, just like him, just like I was going to be someday. He was not an easy man to follow. His athletic records, his successes were overwhelming achievements fueled by the fear of loss, by desperate ambition. He’d struggled. He’d lost some big damn battles and somehow those hurdles urged him on, made him want more, need more. He’d told me once, “If you’ve ever been hungry, you’ll never be full.” That didn’t come from him. My father isn’t a philosopher. What he is, what added weight to that shadow of his, was accomplishment, gratification and the seemingly impossible reality of real, all-consuming, uncontrollable love.

Something I couldn’t have. Not again. That shit doesn’t come twice in one lifetime.

I left the bathroom, scrubbing the hand towel over my face to be rid of the internal bullshit whining, ready for a long sleep on my big bed, but stopped short, dropping the hand towel to the floor. “Private room” didn’t always equal privacy, a fact that became abundantly clear when I found a pretty girl I didn’t know sitting on the edge of my bed.

Why do they always send me the redheads?

I knew why. I always knew why, but wouldn’t think about it. Not Emily. Not now. It was pointless anyway.

The girl on the bed had really red hair, more auburn than orange, and it fell past her elbows with a wind-tossed vibe working through the strands. Her eyes were dark, like the color of wet sand that glinted against the street light beyond my window. She looked scared, like seeing me in nothing but a towel with water dotted over my shoulders and chest was some sort of threat to her. Hell, she was in my room and I still got that don’t hurt me vibe from her.