Page 34 of Go Deep (A Bad Boy Sports Romance)
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Cassidy
Sladeand I didn’t speak for a few days after our last project meeting, which seemed to be par for course with everyone right now. Shawn wasn’t taking my calls or texts either, and even Miranda had a bone to pick with me for uninviting Slade to the dorm floor party. Something felt worse about Slade this time. We weren’t justnot talking. We weren’t talkingfor a reason. He was pretty upset when he left my room that night, but I didn’t know what to say.
And I honestly couldn’t explain why I had treated him that way. I wasn’t quite ready to admit that my feelings for him were changing, or that he’d somehow managed to get his foot—and other key parts of his anatomy—in the door, a door I never thought could open. None of that was any excuse for how I’d been so rude.
I drifted those few days in a haze of worry and anxiety. I expected the situation to blow up in my face at any point. Shawn or Miranda would come down on me for sleeping with him. Slade would pull me aside and have a tantrum, humiliate me, skip out on our team project, or force me to admit I’d been a hypocrite for sleeping with him at all. At the same time, I couldn’t leave him alone or get him out of my mind. There was more to him than just football and girls. I’d caught glimpses of it over the past few weeks while we worked together—and slept together. The first and only time we’d had a proverbial touchdown, it was rushed and purely physical, fueled by lust and probably years of pent-up curiosity. The other night, it would have been different, less rushed, more sensual. I just knew it. Or maybe that was hope.
I knew something was up when he missed the only class we had together. He may not have had a reputation as a great student but he almost rarely missed class. And after working with him and seeing his dedication to our project, I couldn’t understand how he’d even gotten a reputation. He was always there. It was part of his commitment to school. He showed up for practice every day, and he made it to all his lectures every day.
I was distracted for the rest of the day. I’d come to expect to see him every Monday morning. I depended on that as part of my routine, so all was not right in the world when he started to avoid seeing me. No longer were things okay. In between classes, I expected to run into him at some point throughout the day. Our campus wasn’tthatbig. I didn’t see him anywhere. I wouldn’t see him when it was time for cheerleading practice, as we had moved back into the gym we normally used.
I kept my eyes out for the football team. Every time there was a lull in practice, I’d look out the windows. At best, I could see uniforms, but I couldn’t see who was out there on the field. I called myself a fan, sometimes, and Miranda had even accused me of being a fan of Slade’s, but I didn’t even know what his jersey number was. I’d never paid particular attention to him that way before now.
“Hey, what are you looking for?” Miranda asked close to the end of practice. She glanced over her shoulder, looking for whatever it was I was trying to find.
“Checking if Slade made it to practice. He wasn’t in class this morning.”
“What the hell is going on with you two? That shit the other night was awkward.”
“It’s complicated,” I admitted.
“How complicated?” Every once in a while, the Goth front she put on would slide, and I’d see the real Miranda, the Miranda who has obviously cheered in high school and hadn’t wanted to give it up when she came to college. That was the same Miranda who was letting the pink dye in her hair wash out because we weren’t supposed to do stuff like that as cheerleaders.
“You have no idea.”
“I bet I can guess.” She raised her eyebrows, and her face took on the glow of someone who’d just heard a tasty piece of gossip.
I rolled my eyes. I wanted to tell her not to say a word, but not seeing Slade these last few days was starting to eat away at me. What I should have been doing was apologizing for misjudging him all this time, instead of hiding behind my outdated façade, the one that abhorred jocks, especially him.
After practice, I headed out onto the field. The boys were still out there practicing, and I got a glimpse of Slade running drills and passing the ball. I smiled. They’d probably decided to do passing drills until he was sick of it, after that loss a few weeks back. I walked over to the bleachers and sat to watch him, keeping a respectable distance from the football groupies who assembled daily to wait around in hopes of being acknowledged by the star players.
“It’s pretty sad, isn’t it?” It was Miranda. She’d snuck up beside me somehow.
“What’s sad?”
“These chicks.”
“What about them?”
“Well, look at them, in this position. They’re so in awe or in love or in need of these guys’ attention that they have precious little else to fill their time.”
“Hmmm.”
So why did it feel like that was exactly what I was doing?
Mind you, I had other reasons for waiting on Slade than trying to get into his pants.
“How come you’re here?” Miranda was curious.
“I don’t know. Checking in on him about the lecture he missed.”
I wasn’t ready to tell her I needed to apologize for how I’d treated him the other night.
“You know you can send him a text, right?”
“Um, yes. I just figured since I’m here, and he’s almost done with practice…”
