The nausea hits me tenfold when I see who’s sitting on my couch.

“Coach.” I stop when he stands, big and wide and intimidating as hell. He played football all his life, had gone to the pros only to have to bow out due to an injury two months into his first season. So he turned to coaching and is one of the best coaches in the state, if not the entire country.

Everyone has mad respect for Coach Halsey. And I’ve shit all over it practically the entire season.

“Son.” He nods, his mouth grim. “You’ve missed practice.”

I stand up straighter as I watch Wade wander off into the kitchen. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Got any excuses you want me to hear?”

“No, sir.” I shake my head. Coach hates excuses. He thinks they’re nothing but a bunch of bullshit and lies.

“Good.” He approaches me, stopping just in front of me so he can poke the center of my chest with his index finger. “This is your last chance. You screw around again, miss one practice, screw up your classes, whatever, I’m dropping you for the rest of the season.”

Swallowing hard, I meet his gaze, grimacing against the pain in my chest when he pokes me there again. “I understand.”

“For whatever reason, that brother-in-law of yours thinks you have a lot of potential. I was just on the phone with him last week. Right before you ditched us.”

“You were?” I rub my chest, surprised that Drew would bother to call him.

“I was. He thinks you could go pro. I agree with him. But if you’re going to blow it every time you get your panties in a twist or your heart broken, you’re never going to make it.”

Coach Halsey is right. He gives me another ten minutes of the same speech and I take it, bowing my head, saying “yes sir” and “no sir” in all the right places. Until finally he claps me on the shoulder, tells me to show up tomorrow afternoon for practice or else, and then leaves my house as if he’d never been there in the first place.

I am a lucky bastard, that he’s giving me another chance. I don’t deserve it.

“Did that work?”

I turn to find Wade studying me, his expression completely neutral. Right about now, Wade would make a most excellent poker player. “If you mean did Coach set my head on straight, then yeah. I think so.”

“You’d better do more than just think so. One more screw-up and you’re gone. Don’t f**k up.”

“I won’t,” I promise, but I know that’s going to be near impossible. I f**k up all the time. Even Wade said so.

“Stop faking it and actually make it for once,” Wade continues, his gaze level with mine. “I think you can do it if you just let yourself. You’re stronger than you think, dude.”

I wish I believed in myself as much as Wade does.

CHAPTER 20

Owen

“You shouldn’t do it.”

I glance up to find Wade studying me, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed. He’s let his dark hair grow out since the beginning of the semester and it falls around his face in downright curly waves. I’ve told him more than once he looks like a pu**y with all that hair in his face.

But the chicks f**king dig it. He’s had more tail than I ever did. Big bad football player with the shaggy hair and pretty face gets all the ladies, which doesn’t make sense to me, but whatever.

That’s what we’re doing now. Having yet another party at our house. But this one is legit. We’re celebrating the big win, the one that’s taking us to the playoffs. Practically the entire team is in our house, spilling out onto the front porch, the front yard, the backyard. The neighbors are tolerant, the majority of the houses on our street are filled with college students, but still.

We’re loud. The party is getting semi out of control and it’s not even midnight. There are girls everywhere. The place is crawling with them. Even Des is here. Wade reluctantly let him come over since for whatever reason, Wade has decided to become my personal bodyguard, detective, and bouncer, all in one.

This is how he’s caught me, all alone in the bathroom with a joint in one hand and a lighter in the other. I’m happy as fuck, thrilled we’re on our way to the playoffs, but I’m plagued with thoughts. Bad thoughts.

I swore I saw Chelsea this afternoon at the game. Same hair, same style of clothes, same long sexy-as-hell legs, the girl had been with her friends, both male and female, and she kept distracting me. Especially when the guy sitting next to her slung his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close, kissing her.

Jealousy had torn at me and I ripped off my helmet, glaring at her. Glaring at him. Could she really be ballsy enough to show up at a game and make out with some jackass right in front of me?

Turned out it wasn’t her at all, but it was too late. My brain was fucked. Chelsea was in there. Insistent and sweet and pissed and sexy and na**d and smiling, and hell.

I couldn’t shake her.

“Come on, dude, give it to me.” Wade holds out his hand, waiting for me to drop the joint in his palm, but I don’t.

Instead I flick the brand-new lighter and the flame appears. I spark the joint up, take a long, slow drag, and let the harsh smoke fill my lungs, holding it there until I finally can’t take it anymore and exhale.

“Bastard,” Wade mutters when I drop the joint in his palm after that one-and-only hit. He shoves the joint in his jeans pocket. “I thought you were laying off the weed.”

“Something f**ked with my head today,” I tell him as we emerge from the bathroom together. Three scantily dressed girls stand in our hallway, bursting into laughter as we push past them, the noise grating on my nerves.

“Something or someone?”

I shrug. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“So you’d rather pretend it never happened by smoking. Gimme a break.”

“Who are you to judge? You never refused when I offered you a hit.” He’s been my partner in crime for years. He’s my best friend. We’ve always been in this together.

Since when did he grow up and turn into the responsible one?

We stop outside the kitchen, the two of us just taking it all in. The place is a madhouse. Loud music, louder people, lots of beer, and the living room is filled with smoke, the pungent smell of marijuana permeating the entire house.

Fucking great. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

“I know how to control myself. You don’t. There’s the difference.” He gives me a shove on the shoulder. “We’re not kids anymore, Owen. It’s one thing to f**k around, get in trouble, and smoke it up all the time when you’re a kid. It’s another thing entirely when you f**k around and do all those same things as an adult. You get arrested, and suddenly you’ve got a permanent record.”

Valid point. One I never really thought of before, but shit.

“Don’t let weed control you. Or your guilt, ’cos I know you have a lot of that, too,” Wade says, his voice firm. “Now, I’m gonna go find a girl, feel her up, and drag her back to my bedroom where if I’m lucky enough, I’ll get her na**d. You game for finding one for yourself?”

I shake my head, disgust filling me at the thought of finding some girl I don’t know and dragging her back to my room. “Hell, no.”

I only want one girl and she’s not here.

“You still not over her?” Wade’s voice is gentle, like he’s afraid I might freak out if we talk about her for too long, which is probably pretty accurate. Just thinking about her hurts.

And he doesn’t have to say her name for me to know who he’s talking about. “She’s the reason I needed to take a hit,” I admit. “I thought I saw her at the game earlier, but it wasn’t her.”

“I saw her, you know,” he says nonchalantly.

“Where? At the game?” Bastard. Why didn’t he tell me? Not that I would know what to do when I did see her. Still, I’m jealous.

“Saw her on campus. She ran right by me like she didn’t see me, but I think she did.” Wade rubs a hand along his jaw. “She looked sad.”

I blow out a harsh breath, training my gaze on the party going down in my living room. Some chick has already taken her top off and all the guys are yelling at her, encouraging her to take off more. She does nothing for me. Her tits are way too big and the bra she’s wearing doesn’t do her any favors. Not that any of those guys are protesting. “Don’t tell me that kind of shit, man.”

“Whatever. Thought you should know.” Without another word Wade leaves me where I stand and merges into the crowd, plucking a red cup from some random chick’s hand and taking a long swallow before he hands it back to her, a giant smile on his face.

Just like that, the girl is caught under his spell. Shaggy hair and all. That used to be me, minus the hair. I walked in a room, flashed a smile, said a few words, and I had girls surrounding me. It was easy. Too easy.

I finally meet a challenge, fall for her, and I mess it up. Can’t find the courage to go back to her and make it right. She was the best thing that ever happened to me and I’m still hiding from her.

Still.

Wandering outside, I go to the keg Des brought and pour myself mostly foam, then head out into the yard, away from the party and the noise and the girls. There’s a couple making out behind a tree not too far from where I’m standing, but I ignore them. I pull out my phone and check my texts, pulling up Chelsea’s name. I down the beer in one gulp for courage, realizing the single hit I took off that stupid joint didn’t alter my state of mind much whatsoever.

I’m still a nervous, bumbling fool, my head filled with thoughts of nothing but Chelsea.

Dropping the empty cup onto the ground, I hold my phone in both hands, my fingers shaking. My thumbs hover above the keyboard, my heart’s beating about a million miles a second, and I swear I break out in a sweat.

But I’m doing this. I’m going to message her and tell her the truth. Tell her how I really feel.

It’s the least I can do.

Chelsea

I’m alone. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Kari left almost two weeks ago after she came down with a major bout of mono. Who gets mono anymore? I blame her stupid non-boyfriend Brad. It is, after all, the kissing disease.

Her mother wanted her to withdraw for the rest of the semester and Kari protested big time, but she was so tired and feverish, her parents made her come home. So she did, worried about leaving me all alone in this stupid apartment I can’t afford, but what else could she do? She’s sick. Not severely, but enough that she’s out of commission for a while.

Trying to figure out a way to make this work, I took on extra shifts at the diner. I’ve also found more students at school to tutor, but with all the extra work my grades are starting to suffer.

I’m exhausted. And I’m still broke. I tried to find a roommate but couldn’t, not this late in the semester. Gave notice to my landlord a few days ago, and now he’s anxious for me to move out because he already has new tenants lined up.

I’m screwed. I have nowhere to go. And I refuse to go back home, though Mom is begging me to on an hourly basis.

It’s a Saturday night and I’m not working. I already did a graveyard Friday-night shift and my feet are killing me. I have another shift tomorrow, the breakfast rush, and I’m not looking forward to it.

My life sucks. I don’t know what happened. One minute everything was perfect and bright and filled with happiness and a boy and sex and hope.

Now I have nothing but darkness and exhaustion and work and studying. It’s colorless, sad. Dim.

My cell rings and I answer it, listen to Mom rattle on about how we have no more money and she’s been so worried over what to do. I don’t know how to answer her, don’t know what sort of advice to give. I’ve always been her rock, the one who offers comfort when she’s fallen into despair.

Now I’m the one who feels like she’s lost all hope and Mom’s so focused on her own troubles, she doesn’t even see mine.

And I have a ton of them, not that I’ve told her anything. I’ve turned into a completely different person and she doesn’t even see it.

“I talked to your daddy,” she finally says, and I realize she’s been leading up to this the entire conversation.

I curl up on the overstuffed chair in the living room, soaking up what Mom just said. Kari’s parents took all of her furniture, including the couch. I don’t have much. Kari feels awful, she’s constantly texting me asking if I’m okay, and I wish I could be mad at her.

But I can’t. She got sick and her overprotective parents whisked her away.

“Why are you talking to him after everything he did to you?” I ask, though I’m dreading the answer.

“He wants to help, sweetheart. He understands we’re in a tough predicament and he wants to be there for his family.”

A little too late for that, if you ask me. “How can he do that when he’s in a prison cell?”

“Chelsea! Don’t talk about your daddy like that,” Mom chastises.

I hate it when she calls him my “daddy.” I haven’t called him that in years. I rarely refer to him as anything other than my father. He’s never been a real dad to me. He never really cared.

“Whatever,” I mumble. “I don’t want his help.”

“He’s told me where some money is that he stashed before he went to jail. I’m going to withdraw it from the bank and hold it for him. He said I can go ahead and use part of it now,” she explains, sounding perfectly fine with this arrangement. “Don’t you think that’ll be a big help?”