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I glanced up at his face to find him watching me, a single eyebrow lifted as if to ask, Like what you see, pretty boy?

“Hey,” I croaked to Lisa, holding my hand out to her with an open palm. “Want to go to the party together?”

“Sure. But…” She frowned at my hand before glancing up at me. “What about Arden?”

“We broke up. A few weeks ago now.”

Her smile returned. “Sorry about that.”

“No, you aren’t,” I said with a laugh, grateful for an excuse to not pay any more attention to the couple twenty feet from us.

“No. I’m not,” she agreed, taking my hand and holding it firmly. “Her loss, right?”

We made our way through the front door of Whitman and into the elevator. Just as the doors were closing, I risked a glance out of the large lobby windows, where my imagination helpfully supplied an image of Elliot Vaughn standing there staring after me.

As the elevator doors closed, my chest throbbed with a jackrabbiting heart rate. Adrenaline left from the game. Excitement about the party. About… Lisa.

Lisa was her name.

About Lisa.

I changed quickly while Lisa chatted with a girl down the hall, then returned to walk with me to the party. After we stepped into the elevator, she took my hand again, and I had to force myself not to cringe.

This was good. It was fine.

I was just tense after the game. The usual tension that came after a day spent blocking things out and keeping myself in the zone.

“Could use a drink,” I said, trying to be friendly or at least not weirdly silent.

“No kidding. It’s been a hell of a week. First, the presentations in Rhetoric, and then…”

She began listing off all the things she’d done. But since they didn’t include a corn maze ribbon-cutting photo opportunity with Senator McNeely’s happy family, an appearance at my high school’s homecoming game last night—during which I had to escort my high school girlfriend onto the field in front of her parents and her new boyfriend—or a public speaking assignment in which I didn’t realize I had a smear of cream cheese on the front of my pants, I figured they weren’t as crazy as my own week.

I was physically and mentally exhausted.

The campaign events, my academic load, and drafting law school applications were killing me. Even football felt like a grind.

Doing it all while ignoring my roommate was exponentially harder.

My entire plan tonight revolved around drinking just enough to hook up with Lisa if I could get my dick to work right, forgetting Vaughn’s large hand clasped on that girl’s waist, and slipping back to my room to shove earplugs in before Vaughn and the girl returned.

But after drinking my first beer—and hearing way too many details of Lisa’s own law school applications—Garrett approached with a pretty girl tucked under his arm. He interrupted Lisa’s monologue to give me a fresh beer and a too-wide smile.

“This is the dude I was telling you about, Soph. Ice in his veins.” He grinned, shaking my shoulder aggressively. “They’re burning this fucker in effigy up in Nashville right now.”

The woman—who I noticed was not the girl Garrett had his arm around last weekend—seemed suitably impressed.

I managed a polite smile. “The win was a team effort.”

“See that? Best field goal percentage in the whole damn conference, and he’s modest. That’s why we keep him around.” Garrett laughed at his own joke and added, “Even if he’s barely around these days.”

He was drunk. I knew that.

But I was a pile of kindling, and his teasing reminder that I wasn’t in control of my own life was a match.

“Yeah, whose fault is it that I’m not around?” I snapped. “You⁠—”

“Bro, it was a joke.” Garrett blinked. “Are you still mad at your dad? Let it go. ’Cause if you can’t cover the keg next weekend, I told you I⁠—”