Page 33 of Strong Side
“Hey, Charlie. Thanks for having me over too.” Chelsea waves and smiles.
“It’s game day, baby! All are welcome here at Casa King, as my brother would say.”
She takes a bottle of soda out of the fridge and looks at us and offers us a drink.
“We have plenty of snacks, so help yourself. I ordered a few pizzas for us too. I don’t get to eat a ton of junk food with the guys, so I like to live it up when they’re gone.” She laughs.
“I don’t blame you. I love a good pizza,” Chelsea says.
The pregame is on, and I see Casey’s picture on the television, so they must be talking about him. Sometimes, I think about how surreal some of this life we’re in is. He’s on national television every week, and people know who he is. To me, he’s just Casey—the guy who loves singing Taylor Swift songs with me, watching reality shows that have competitions, and eating sour candy—but to other sports fans, he’s one of the best wide receivers in college football. Hard to wrap my head around it.
“Noelle, do you want my King jersey?” Charlie asks, noting the blue shirt I have on and not the jersey Casey bought me last year.
She looks down at her own jersey that has Beckham’s number on it and then back at me. “I think Casey would be adamant that you should be wearing his name on your back today.”
“I left it here, and it’s somewhere in that mess of a room of his.”
“You’ll never find it in that closet. No worries. You can wear mine.”
I follow Charlie to her and Beck’s room. It’s the only one that’s been fully decorated, although the whole house looksmuch different, in a good way, than it did our freshman year. When she moved in fully last year, she painted the walls in here pink, and there are peonies everywhere.
She walks into her closet and takes the jersey off the hanger, handing it to me. “Here you go. You can change in my bathroom.”
“I’ll just go into Casey’s room.” I nod my head toward the door. “Thank you for this. He texted twice today, asking for a selfie. We may have to take a pic and send it to him as proof of life that the jersey still exists.” I laugh.
Charlie’s smiling at me in a way that makes me think she knows more about what’s really going on between me and Casey, aside from the situation with Trey. What started as a means to an end has become a beginning of sorts. A very sexy beginning.
“Gotta represent our guys—you know what I mean?” she says, following me out the door.
I laugh nervously. “Yep!”
When I get into Casey’s room, I shut the door. I’ve been in here many times, but always when he’s home. The difference now is that I’m looking at his space withI want to smell his sheets and shirtsthoughts. That might be weird, but Casey has always smelled good to me. Now though, his clean, soapy smell is like a freaking aphrodisiac.
I take my time looking around his room. It’s not a big space, so there isn’t much to look at, but he does have pictures on his dresser. Most of them are with me, and he has some with just him and his sister, some with just Beck, one with Archie, Liam, and Beck, and then a picture of himself holding the championship trophy last year.
I wasn’t able to go to that game, but I definitely watched. Seeing him so happy made me cry. I wish I could have been there with him to celebrate. We did when he got home though. I tookhim to his favorite Mexican restaurant, and we lived it up good. All the tacos and even dessert that night. Wild and crazy.
There’s a T-shirt lying on the bed, and I can’t help but pick it up. Holding it to my nose, I inhale, and it smells just like him. Which makes me smile and miss him like crazy. He’s only been gone for a day, and it’s not like I’m not used to him being gone. I guess it just feels different now.
What are you doing, Noelle?
Months ago, if someone had told me I’d be kissing Casey King, I would’ve laughed in their face. If they’d said he’d have his hand down my pants, giving me my first orgasm, I’d have spit out my drink. And yet here I am, going through the motions of this fake relationship. Kissing him at a drive-in. Going on real dates. Moaning his name on my couch. Acting like it’s the most natural thing in the world. None of it has scared me. None of it has made me stop and think about what it might mean.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out, Casey’s shirt still in my hand. It’s a text message from an unknown number. I assume it’s just another spam text, but when I open it, I nearly drop my phone.
Unknown: Are you done ignoring me yet?
What the hell?
Noelle: Who is this?
Pretty sure I know, but I ask anyway.
Unknown: Stop playing games, Noelle. You know it’s your favorite slugger.
Trey. I gag at his use of the nickname I called him when we first started dating. Back when I enjoyed being his girlfriend.
I keep blocking his calls. Does he get a new phone every time I block him, just to be able to text me? Or is he using someone else’s phone?
