Page 57 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter
He reaches for it.
I let him.
He picks up the little gold pendant, and his fingers curl around it. For a second, I worry he might tear it from my neck.
“Rumors must be true, then,” he says. “You went to the game in Walker’s sweatshirt, and this fucking confirms it.”
I grab his wrist to keep him here. “It’s not what you think.”
Carter feels like home. I don’t know why. He feels safe in an exhilarating way. If that isn’t the most confusing, mind-fuck of a sentence, I don’t know what is.
“I’m just trying to survive,” I whisper.
His jaw muscle tics.
“I want to be anywhere but here.” I drag him closer, reaching up and skating my thumb over his cheek. “But… I also want to know why you keep coming here like we’re something. Are we?”
He kisses me.
It should answer my question, but it doesn’t. Because this is a preamble for sex, and while he could erase the feeling of Penn between my legs, I also… I kind of want to hold on to it.
Never mind that his cum is still on my back and smeared across my sheets.
So I let him kiss me until I’m weak in the knees, and then I push him away. “You should go.”
He exhales and turns away, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”
“I’m not?—”
He heads for the door, but he pauses before leaving. “You’re not getting rid of me, Syd. Tell that to your FSU fuckboys. You and me? End-fucking-game.”
seventeen
carter
I sit in my new apartment across from Sydney’s brownstone. I’m one level up, with a perfect view in through her front-facing windows. With the help of binoculars, I can see everything.
She’s cleaning with an unmatched fervor.
But it’s Monday morning, and I expect she’s just delaying the inevitable trip to school. I don’t have class until later, and my muscles are getting stiff from remaining in the same position for so long.
The apartment I’m in is empty except for a cot and the chair I currently occupy. The lease is paid through the end of the semester in cash, above the asking rent price, and the owner was kind enough to not put my name on a lease.
I don’t think anyone would go looking into who’s living across from her, but I don’t want to make my intentions obvious. Especially with that fucking goalie circling…
The fact that she even transferred here is a tragedy. If I knew what the SJU administration was going to do, I never would’ve showed Coach those plays. Or I would’ve lied about where they came from. And if there was something different I could’ve said to the ethics board to put the blame on me instead of her, I would’ve done that in a heartbeat.
Her best friend, Scarlett—ex-friend, I suppose, since they haven’t seen each other in quite a while—has been all over me at parties and when she catches me between classes.
Avoiding her has been a full-time job. She wears red lipstick that she might think is hot, but all I can picture is the color hiding spilled blood.
I like blood.
I like the idea of Sydney’s blood.
It’s one of those fucked-up fantasies that I haven’t been able to find someone to act out with me. Sex with Syd is too good. And there’s this undercurrent of thrill that keeps me coming back to her.
But we never got to the point where I could push her. There was just… possibility.