SWNOVELS Playing Offsides: Chapter 27
Sitting on the couch, I drop my controller down onto the coffee table and glance over at Hayden and Simon. They’re still bickering over the video game we were playing. I ended up beating both of them for the third time tonight and each time, they’ve found reasons to blame the other for messing up their chances at winning. Either that or I got blamed for cheating.
“You done playing?” Simon asks me when he notices my controller sitting on the table. “We can play a different game if you want to instead.”
Shaking my head, I rise to my feet and walk out of the living room. “I’m tired of playing video games, honestly. I appreciate the two of you trying to get me out of this funk, but seriously. I’m fine.”
Simon’s phone begins to ring, just as Hayden follows me into the kitchen and grabs a beer from the fridge. He takes the bottle opener from the counter and pops off the top of his bottle before taking a swig. Leaning against the countertop, his eyes find mine as I stare at him from the other side of the room.
“What?” I ask him, narrowing my eyes as I feel uncomfortable under his gaze. I haven’t talked to any of the guys about what happened with Aspen, but I know they have noticed her absence and me being around more often.
Hayden tilts his head to the side. “You gonna tell me what’s going on? And don’t bother trying to bullshit me, man. I know it has to do with Aspen.”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I walk past him and grab a beer, mimicking him as I pop the top off with the bottle opener. I take a large gulp, my glare still meeting his gaze. “What makes you think it has anything to do with her?”
“Because I’m not fucking stupid,” he snaps at me, shaking his head. “Dude, you were practically wifed up like Knight and Whitley. And now you’re around all the time, acting like someone killed your puppy dog, and she hasn’t been around at all. I haven’t asked because I didn’t want to pry, but seriously, bro. We’re best friends—you’re like my brother—you can talk to me about shit.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I didn’t want to talk about it?” I quip, taking another sip of my beer.
“Obviously,” he says, rolling his eyes. “We’re both the same way. We shut everyone out and don’t let anyone know what’s really going on. But you’re not acting like yourself at all and everyone can tell, dude.’
“Fine,” I sigh, shaking my head as I run a frustrated hand through my hair. “I ended shit with her. The friends with benefits shit was a terrible fucking idea and I couldn’t let it go any further.”
“Because you were starting to have feelings for her.”
Slicing my eyes at Hayden, I stare at him, my nostrils flaring as he speaks the words into the universe. I hate the truth behind them because I know that I fucked it all up now. But fuck him for being right.
“Yeah,” I admit, my voice dropping as I cast my gaze to the floor. My hand is in my hair again and I spin around to set my beer down on the counter. “I really think that I fucked up, Hayden.”
“You regret ending shit with her now?”
Glancing back at him, his eyes are filled with nothing but sympathy as he stares at me with curiosity. A frown works its way onto my lips and I nod. “I was scared of how I was feeling. Scared for what the future would bring or how things wouldn’t work out between us… but I think I made the wrong choice. Instead of being afraid of my feelings, I should have been honest with her but I pushed her away.”
“How did she react to it?” Hayden questions me, taking another sip of his beer as he continues to lazily lean against the counter.
“That’s the thing that confused me more than anything. She agreed and was all about cutting off the benefits. But then she decided that we couldn’t even be friends.” I pause for a moment, the look in her eyes haunting me like it has for the past two weeks. “It’s like she changed before my eyes into this cold, closed-off version of the girl I fell in love with.”
“Because you broke her heart, bro,” Hayden informs me, his voice barely audible. He shakes his head at me. “She didn’t want you to think it affected her when it really did. Have you talked to her since?”
“No,” I admit, grabbing my beer as I take another swig. “I moved seats and everything to give her space. She won’t even fucking look at me, man.”
Hayden purses his lips. “Why would she want to? If she’s trying to get over you, seeing you is only going to make it worse.”
“Fuck,” I mumble, running my hand down my face. “What do I do, Hayden?”
“You go get your girl.”
Nodding, I pull out my phone as my heart pounds erratically in my chest. I scroll through my contacts and find her name. My finger hovers for a moment as I question whether or not I’m making another mistake. What if she doesn’t want anything to do with me after this? Can I really blame her for it after I broke her heart?
Instead of sending her a message, I tap on the phone button next to her name and call her. Lifting my phone to my ear, I listen as it rings. And rings. And rings. My stomach falls, dread rolling in the pit of my abdomen as my call goes to voicemail.
I don’t know what I was expecting, thinking that she would actually answer. And I can’t blame her for that either. Why would she want to talk to me? If I were her, I wouldn’t give myself the time of day at all.
“She didn’t answer,” I tell Hayden as I set my phone down on the counter.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Jesus, what is wrong with you? You’re really going to give up that easily? You called her one time and she didn’t answer. Call her again, text her, go off the rails like a psycho and fucking stalk her down. Do something other than stand here with your thumb up your ass like you don’t know what to do.”
“Well, how the hell am I supposed to find her if she isn’t answering her phone, Hayden?”
“Um, start with social media?” He says it with annoyance like it’s the most obvious thing I should have thought of. “Look,” he says, pulling out his phone as he opens Instagram. He goes to Aspen’s profile, to which there are no new posts or stories. “She hasn’t posted anything, so maybe she’s at home. But first, we have to check her friend’s just in case.”
I watch over Hayden’s shoulder as he goes to Delilah’s page and see that she has a new story. He clicks on it and we go through the first two that are just little quotes about life and happiness. The next one is a picture of herself dressed up to go out, and then there’s one of her and Aspen at what looks to be a party.
My heart stops in my chest and I glance up at Hayden. His eyebrows are raised and a slow smile creeps onto his lips. He clicks it again and there’s a video of Aspen dancing with a drink in hand and a guy who is too close for fucking comfort.
“What the fuck?”
“See,” he smirks, holding his finger on the screen as he peers at his phone. “They’re at Danny’s house. I heard he was having a party. All it takes is a little detective work and boom, there’s your girl.”
I stare back at him, my blood boiling as I glance back at his phone. “Are you driving or am I?”
“There’s my boy,” he smiles, clapping his hand on my back as he abandons the rest of his beer. “I’ll drive.”
We pull up out in front of Danny’s house and Hayden barely has the car in park before I’m climbing out. He parks it along the street and kills the engine, not far behind me as I stroll into the house. My eyes are wild, glancing around as I step into the house, looking for any sign of Aspen.
“Chill out, dude,” Hayden practically yells in my ear over the music. “You can’t go in here like a fucking caveman. Let’s get a drink and we’ll make our rounds and find her. You don’t want to scare her off after being the one who pushed her away in the first place. You gotta play the game the right way.”
Glancing over at him, a sinister smirk plays on my lips. “And I always play to fucking win.”
I follow Hayden into the kitchen and he grabs both of us beers from the fridge. Twisting off the top, I take a gulp before glancing around the room. Aspen is nowhere to be found. Hayden’s eyes trail around after mine, his gaze meeting mine as he shrugs and motions for us to head out through the doorway to his left.
We both walk through and end up in the living room where it’s completely packed with people dancing. Standing along the perimeter, my eyes travel over the different heads bobbing and bodies moving until the air leaves my lungs. Aspen is on the other side of the room, holding her cup in the air as she moves against the guy standing behind her. She’s wearing a pair of tight black leggings and a cropped tank top.
My eyes drop down to her waist and I see his hands gripping her flesh as he moves against her. All I see is red… blood fucking red.
“Cam, wait,” Hayden calls out after me, but his voice doesn’t even come close to touching the logical part of my brain. All that I can see is Aspen and the dude behind her. And there’s no way in hell that this is happening.
Pushing through the crowd, I don’t stop moving until I’m standing directly in front of her. Her eyes are closed as she moves along to the music, like she’s somewhere other than in this room. The guy behind her stops moving as he notices me, his gaze finding mine over her shoulder, and he narrows his eyes at me before leaning toward her ear, saying something to her.
Aspen’s eyes flash open, widening as they meet my heated gaze. Her throat bobs as she swallows hard. Completely disregarding the guy behind her, she leaves him as she steps closer to me, drawn to me like a moth to a flame.
And I hope she’s ready to burn.