Page 1 of Unforgettable
1
Ryker
The media room was dark, cold, and downright comforting—an atmosphere I’d come to enjoy over the warmth of the sun or the brightness of light. The music pounded out of the speakers overhead.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The bass kept beat in time with the rhythm of my pulse as I knocked back another beer.
I couldn’t get enough alcohol in my system to erase my nightmares in recent days. I tried like a motherfucker to forget everything that had happened, but nothing worked. My dick couldn’t even get hard, and that was equally maddening.
Usually sex helped to take away my troubles. Being buried inside a woman was always my answer.Not anymore.
Lucas snapped his fingers. “Dude, the doorbell.”
I didn’t know how the hell he could hear anything over the music. I swore my best bud wasn’t human sometimes.
I blinked away my misery, and like a robot, I stood up. “Robot” seemed to be a good word to describe me lately.
Wobbling, I dropped my beer bottle. It bounced off the wooden coffee table with a resounding thud before spilling onto the shag carpeting.
Like I give a fuck.
Lucas grabbed my bicep, or maybe someone else did. After all, a party was going on around me. In addition to the music, booze permeated the air, and I even sniffed weed. I stuck to the booze rather than drugs. Booze made my mind murky, but drugs fried a person’s brain cells.
I growled, listing to one side.
“Couch,” Lucas shouted in my ear.
I winced. “Shut the fuck up.” Between his deep baritone voice and the bass pumping out of the kickass speakers, my head was about to explode.
“Are you sober, man?” I slurred the words.
Lucas was hardly sober when he wasn’t on the football field or in class. Normally, I was the one not getting drunk, but since the plane crash, all bets were off. I had to take away the pain that gripped me by the balls and squeezed so fucking hard that I lost my breath.
As Lucas helped me sit, the room spun, and within a second, I heaved all over the ugly blue rug. If I ever got sober or got out of my funk, I would rip that rug to shreds with my bare hands. Actually, that didn’t sound too bad now that I was wiping the puke from my mouth.
“Man, you’re a mess. I’ll be right back.” He snapped his fingers. “Stay with him.”
The minute my head rested against the leather couch, nausea rose again. I closed my eyes, but the spinning only intensified.
The cushion dipped beside me, and it felt as if I were on a boat in high seas. “Ryker.” The feminine voice sounded like an angel’s.
Oh shit.I was dying.
Her small hands landed on my unshaven jaw.
I swatted at her.
“Hey,” she protested in the same sweet voice.
Normally, I was a cocky bastard, but lately I was an ornery fuck on and off the football field. I didn’t want to be coddled or hear that old cliché that time healed all wounds, something I’d heard a time or two. In fact, my coach, who was worried about me, had said I needed time. I suspected if I didn’t straighten up, he would bench me.
Don’t give a fuck.
I didn’t even care that classes were starting up in another week or that my first football game was next weekend. Sure, I went to practice every morning and every afternoon. The time leading up to a game was balls to the wall. I worked out in the weight room, pushing myself as hard as I could, sweating out the liquor from the night before. I ran drills like I was on speed. I barked at my teammates for no reason. Dickwad was a nickname that was slowly sticking.
But without football, I would be no one. Honestly, the game, the plays, and the crowd lit me up. They always had.
