Page 44 of Sweat

“You never texted me back.” She blinks up at me like she’s trying to fan my face with her eyelashes.

“Sorry. Got distracted with finals, then soccer.”

“Did you make the team?” Her face sparkles like she knows the answer already.

“Second string, as of today.”

“Oh my God!” She literally hops with excitement, grinning big and rubbing her tits against my side. “That’s amazing! You’re gonna play with Connor and Rowan and that miserable fuckface Levi!”

I quirk an eyebrow down at her.

“We had a thing, but that was a long, long, long time ago.”

“Ah,” I chuckle.

“I have to pee!” she declares. “Do you wanna come to the bathroom with me?”

“Uh…” Trying not to cringe, I look at my phone, relieved to see Rowan texted back.

Rowan

In the basement babyface

“This place has a basement?” I ask aloud, not used to basements in Sacramento.

“Yeah, you wanna go?!” Eve asks, hopping again.

“I thought you had to pee?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“I have to go find Rowan.”

“Rowan,” she groans animatedly. “Everyone is so obsessed with Rowan because they think he’s gonna be famous one day. So fucking fake. I know for a fact half the guys on his team hate his guts. There’s a rumor going around among the girls that he’s gay, but I just think he’s autistic or something.”

This is the first time I’ve heard someone talk critically about Rowan, and I hate it. It’s also the first time I’ve heard that anyone besides myself has questioned Rowan’s sexuality. My mood sours, and I’m tempted to tell Eve to fuck off with her speculations—to tell her Rowan is none of her business.

“Don’t tell him I said that!” Eve whines, throwing her arms back around me and laying her cheek on my chest. “You’re warm.”

“Where’s the basement?”

Once I’ve got directions, I find the basement stairwell and take it down into a wide, dim-lit den. There’s different,more subdued music playing down here, and there’s a second makeshift bar set up on an actual bar top. A beer pong tournament is in full swing, an A’s game on a flat screen, and half the starting lineup squeezed onto a long sectional with a handful of girls I’ve only seen in passing. There’s one girl standing behind the sofa in spikey heels and a crop top, and she’s draped over Rowan’s shoulders, talking in his ear while he sips from a tallboy.

“Tyson!” Levi exclaims from his post at the beer pong table. “Don’t worry, man! We checked, and Rebecca over there promises she’s not your girlfriend. She’s just a slut!”

The girl falling all over Rowan jolts up to pelt a half-crushed beer can at Levi’s head. “Look who’s talking, slut!”

“Men can’t be sluts, Becky,” Levi chortles, ducking under the pool table just in the nick of time. “That’s called being men!”

“Can’t argue with that,” Rebecca mutters with a heavy eye roll that brings her focus back to Rowan.

I take a long swig from Connor’s concoction to mask my discomfort.

Jealousy. It’s not a feeling I’m accustomed to. With Lese, I felt anger, resentment, even possessiveness, but never anything like this. Like I’m watching someone take something precious right out from under me. As a guy, it’s easy to beat up another dude who comes after what’s mine, but when it’s a girl, I don’t know what to do. I don’t think there’s anything I can do.

“Make room for my boy,” Rowan says, shoving over the starting sweeper beside him.

Just like that, jealousy turns to an anxious paranoia that someone in this room will interpretmy boyas something naughty. I love it, though. Whether Rowan means it like “friend” or “baby boy,” my tummy swirls with pride that he wants to be next to me at all.

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