Score (Skin in the Game Book 1) (4 page)

“
K
ill me now
!” Flora fell down on her knees with a wail.

“I’d much rather lie in bed and dream of bouncing a quarter off Shaun T’s abs,” she whimpered. “How’d I ever let you sucker me into this hell?”

I finished doing the push-up set and sprang to my feet but Shaun and his insane entourage on the TV set were already busy doing mountain climbers. Yes, I wanted to die, too. My lower back still ached from my nose dive off the stairs a few days ago.

But this was serious.

Stress and late night study binges, combined with the crappy winter weather, and my love for Pop-Tarts had me well on the way to becoming the Pillsbury Dough-Girl. I was determined to put on my track pants in the spring without having to squeeze them over a spare tire.

Flora, however, lay there in child’s pose, unmoving. Briefly, I wondered if maybe she was dead, but I poked her with my toe and she let out a muffled squeak.

She didn’t have to worry about spare tires, though. She could wolf down McDonald’s every day and never gain an ounce. Me? I might as well just spackle that shit right to my ass.

I nudged her again with my sneakered foot. “Planks.
Planks
!” I said, trying to sound enthused as I got down on my elbows and toes.

She rolled over and stared at me. “I think I just dislocated my butt.”

“Oh, come on. It’s fun.”

“This is not fun. This is for masochists.” She turned and snarled at Shaun. Twenty minutes ago, she’d declared him to be sufficient eye-candy to get her through any workout. Now, she thought he was the devil.

Most of the sorority must have agreed because they’d cleared out of the living room in the first five minutes. Flora had at least held on for fifteen.

“Think of all the calories you’re burning,” I huffed out.

She grabbed her water bottle and took a long swig. “All I’m thinking about is a milkshake. Sorry.”

To tell the truth, I wasn’t thinking much about calories at all, either. I couldn’t get my therapy session with Cal earlier that day out of my mind.

I’d gone in determined not to do anything embarrassing for once. I told myself that I had to get used to his kind because egotistical asshole athletes were everywhere in my chosen line of work. I hoped I could just pull off not looking like an oaf in front of him.

The phrase of the hour:
Consummate professional.

Be it, or be square.

Or, jobless some day, at least.

I promised myself I wouldn’t look in his eyes. Or get so close that I could smell that spicy, leathery cologne he wore. And I definitely wouldn’t tell him anything about myself.

But then he had to go and tell me about himself. And not sound very much like an egotistical asshole at all.

WTF?

At first, he’d been full of snark, hell-bent on getting some reaction out of me. And then? Then the façade kind of cracked a little and underneath, completely unexpected, was this vulnerable, real human being who was going through a seriously rough time.

A vulnerable, real human being who also smelled amazing and had gorgeous, liquid blue-green eyes.

FML.

I’d been glad when he asked to beg out early.

But then he had to invite me to a party. A freaking party, and at some fraternity house that I’d never been to in my life. Did I look like I frequented keggers? He probably thought he could loosen me up with a few beers.

Not going to happen.

Flora nudged me with her foot now, and I realized I was standing motionless in a puddle of my own sweat, snarling at Shaun T, too.

“What?” she said.

No way in hell was I telling Flora exactly what. Knowing her she’d probably start singing,
“Bee and Cal, sitting in a tree…”
and never let me live it down. Plus, if she knew about it, there was no question she’d want to make me go to that party, come hell or high water.

“Nothing. Are you guys going out later?” I asked casually.

She grinned. “When do we ever stay in on a Saturday?”

I flipped off the television and tilted the blinds to peer out at the dark sky. “It’s like, blizzard conditions out there.” It was a bit of an exaggeration but it was definitely blustery, and fat flakes of snow had started to fall again.

“Well, I have boots. Buddies is only a block away. We’ll just Stolpa.”

Stolpa
was Kappa’s way of saying that they were going to trudge through, no matter what the weather. The year before, we’d all watched a Lifetime TV movie about Jim and Jennifer Stolpa, who’d gotten stuck in a blizzard and nearly died until they were rescued. One thing Kappas were really good at was applying Lifetime television programming to their daily vocabulary.

“Oh.”

I figured that was the case, so I shouldn’t have been disappointed. She and a few of the other sisters, the ones who were of age or had fake ID, always managed to spend their Saturdays at Buddies, the corner bar. Flora, especially, loved it because they did pop culture trivia on weekends, and she could usually get older guys to buy them shots.

Girls with ID didn’t go to frat parties. They didn’t settle for warm beer when they could have real men buy them real drinks. Frat parties were for underage girls and the frat brothers who were looking to score with them. Flora probably didn’t even know where D-Phi was anymore.

I needed to just drop it. Drop it and spend my evening with a cup of cocoa, a snuggly blanket, and the
Foundations of Kinesiology
paper I had due on Monday.

The thought made me so miserable I had to swallow back a pitiful sigh.

She quirked an eyebrow at me. “What, you want to come?”

“No,” I said quickly. “No, no, no, no.”

I couldn’t stop saying it. It was like my mouth opened and was throwing up nos, and I had zero control over it.

Which of course made Flora uber-suspicious. She studied me, eyes narrowed. “What? Tell me, loser.”

I shrugged. “I was just wondering. I have a paper due, so no. I can’t go out.”

It was true. I couldn’t go out. If I did go out, I’d be completely out of my comfort zone, which only meant I’d probably embarrass myself more than I already had in front of Cal.

So why was my mind still swimming with the possibilities?

She crossed her arms. “Does this have anything to do with your therapy session with Cal? Because you came home earlier than I expected and you’ve been acting
tres
weird ever since. ”

“
He
was the one acting weird. Not me.” I threw myself down on the velvet sectional. She’d find out sooner or later. Flora had a way of breaking down my walls like a wrecking ball. “At first, he was cracking all these jokes, then he started spouting off about how football’s his only shot at a good life and crap like that. I felt…bad.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You? For a footballer?”

“Well, a little. But then he said he had to leave early, and as he was going, he invited me to some party tonight at this frat house.”

I don’t know why I was surprised by the way she squealed. “Wait. What frat house?”

“D…um…”

“D-Phi?” Her jaw dropped. “Oh hell. Change of plans!”

She started dancing in a way that would probably tire Shaun T out, shaking her hips and looking like she had a large and snippy animal in her pants. She nearly jumped into my lap, she was so excited. She reached for the sleeve of my sweatshirt and tugged me off the sofa.

“We’re going!” she shouted.

I looked at her, confused. “But…you don’t go to frat houses anymore. Right? Didn’t you say you were above that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, sure. But D-Phi throws some epic parties. Not to mention Sean Andrews is going to be there and he’s hawwwt. Plus, this could be the chance for my little baby to get some.”

She pulled me into a hug, and I wanted to retch. Some
what
? I hoped she didn’t mean what I was thinking.

“And from Callum Samskevitch, of all people,” Flo continued, rambling. “How can we miss this?”

Ug. She
did
mean what I was thinking.

“Wait, wait, wait.” I wriggled out of her arms. “First of all, I don’t need some. I don’t even need one little bit of whatever you’re talking about. And I sure as hell don’t need it from a football player.” I cringed as I realized that my declaration sounded like I had the option. “Even if he was offering,” I added. “Which he isn’t. It was just an invitation to a party, not to jump into his pants.”

“Technicality!” she shrieked. She was trembling, she was so excited. She jumped on the couch and hugged a pillow. “Tell me how it went down. What did he say? In his exact words.”

I wish I could say I had to think about it, but somehow, his words had gotten imprinted in my mind, and I doubted even a frontal lobotomy would erase them. “He said, ‘D-Phi is having a party tonight. Ten o’clock. Come by?’ to which I said—”

“Yes!”

“No!” I mimicked, using her excited tone. I stuck my tongue out at her, like a five-year-old. “I’m sure he asked a thousand girls to this party. It doesn’t, in any way, signify he wants to
be
there with me. And I can tell you right now that I don’t want to be there with him.”

Which felt like a lie. Staying home was the right thing, the responsible thing, the thing I needed to do if I was going to go to grad school. So why did it feel like a lie?

Oh, right. He had those eyes. And that smell. I hadn’t seen him in six hours and I could still smell that spicy, leathery goodness.

I could just go. Go and make an appearance, sniff his cologne, then leave. It was good to step outside one’s comfort zone every once in a while, be social, experience new things.

It didn’t mean I wanted to get with him.

“Come on, let’s get ready.”

“I don’t know, Flo.”

Flora’s eyes lit with excitement. My resolve was about as substantial as cotton candy in that moment and she could sense it, like a weak-seeking missile. And when she tugged on my sleeve again, I went with her.

We spent the next two hours getting ready.

Correction: Flora did.

She took a thirty-minute shower that used all the hot water in the house, applied a full face of make-up, complete with false eyelashes, blew dry and straightened her hair, moisturized every inch of skin, then tried on every outfit in the closet before settling on an obscenely tight sweater dress. And yes, boots, but not snow boots—knee-high jobbies with platform heels.

I took a sixty-second, ice-cold
(thanks, Flora)
shower, threw on jeans and a cable-knit sweater, and swiped on some peach lip-gloss.

The end.

I watched her as she twirled her hair into a sexy topknot.

“I feel woefully frumpy,” I admitted before I could stop myself.

“Your fault. You could show off your assets. What about this?” She reached into the closet and pulled out another one of her tiny dresses.

“That wouldn’t fit on my arm.”

She tugged on the fabric. “It’s stretchy, see?”

I shook my head. “What’s the point?” I groaned, pretty sure that I could wear a bright red clown nose and Cal wouldn’t notice me. Not that I wanted to be noticed by him anyway. But for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he bared his soul to me in the locker room earlier that day.

Maybe there was more to this particular football player than I’d thought?

The notion turned me into a ball of nerves. By the time it was a quarter after ten, fashionably late, according to Flora, all I could do was look longingly at my snuggly bed and wonder what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

“You look like you’re going to hurl,” she said to me as she spritzed on perfume.

Bingo.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, lips tight.

Time to face the music. I opened the closet and started to crawl through the pile of shoes on the bottom, searching for my duck boots.

“Stop dragging your feet!” Flora called to me.

I threw on my boots and coat and rushed down to meet her, praying under my breath that this wasn’t going to be the biggest mistake of my life.

S
ame old shit
, different day.

I’d been going to D-Phi parties ever since I was a freshman, and in four years, nothing had changed.

Same cheap beer.

Same shit music.

Same cluttered house that smelled like something died in it.

Same lonely guys, pretending they were cool. Same lonely girls, wearing as little as possible—no easy feat considering the foot of snow on the ground—and trying to land themselves a boyfriend. The big difference from my freshman year was that now they gave me more looks.

Usually, I didn’t complain about that.

But now, it seemed so fucking pointless, like a goddamn carousel for everyone involved. We all rode it around and then wound up right back in the same place we were when we started.

Johnson elbowed me. “Your turn, asshole.”

I didn’t even think of a good answer. This game had lost its charm few years ago. “I’ve never been to the Super Bowl.”

And I might never be, now
. Not that I was going to spend the night feeling sorry for myself. Fuck that. This was Operation Drink Myself Into Oblivion.

No one else drank, either, which should have made me feel better. Solidarity. But it didn’t. I downed my beer and reached for another one.

Next was the quarterback, Andrews, the only guy who got more attention from the ladies than I did, despite being a major douchebag in every sense of the word. He glanced at the two unsuspecting blonde freshmen next to him and grinned, both dimples on display.

“I’ve never had a threesome.”

I snorted, barely managing to hold back a muttered “bullshit”. A couple of the guys drank, but the girls giggled and stared into their beers.

Next, nameless freshman blonde #1, who was already slurring her words despite the fact that the party wasn’t even an hour old, said, “I’ve nebber stayed up ta watcha sunise.”

A bunch of us drank there, after mentally translating Drunk Girl to English.

And so it went. The guys always tried to make it sexual, the girls always tried to show us some part of their soul, like anyone was paying attention to that. Eventually, we’d all partner off, Andrews would likely score his threesome, and a Sunday morning hangover would be had by all.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

“Can we do something more fun?” I asked, shifting on an old flowered couch that was likely covered in every disgusting combination of bodily fluid and alcohol imaginable.

The freshman girl next to me, who I think would’ve agreed with me if I told her the sky was green, nodded.

“Yeah, I Never is sooo boring,” she said, taking a drag from her cigarette. She was hot, yes, but a serial frat-bunny. I’d seen her at every party since September and I’d yet to hear anything but complaints come out of her mouth. Tonight, I was with her, though.

Cal Samskevitch, major downer.

“Beer Pong?” Andrews suggested.

Some in the group nodded, others pumped their fists, but my heart wasn’t in it, and I just shrugged.

Johnson nudged me again.

“Yo, check it out. Your two o’clock.” He said it in the reverent tone he usually reserved for a stellar catch on the football field that made me wonder if a unicorn had just graced us with its presence.

I looked up in time to see a girl descending the staircase. She was the definition of the word stunning, with dark skin and black, silky hair piled on top of her head. Her tight dress barely covered her ass, and she had crazy long legs capped off with knee-high boots.

She sauntered in as if she owned the place, and hell, every member of D-Phi would’ve probably gladly given her the keys and the deed, right there.

Pathetic that all I could think was,
Same shit, different day
.

Another set of legs came into view, encased in a pair of sturdy snow boots, and a pair of thick jeans. It wasn’t until the figure continued down the stairs that I perked up.

Bee.

Likely, no one noticed her, not after Miss Thang’s big entrance. She had her head down and kept gnawing on her lip like she’d rather be anywhere else. She was wearing a big, loose sweater, and her hair was covered in snow crystals. But I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Without even thinking about it, I sprang up from the couch as fast as my bum knee would let me and wove my way through the crowds, to where they were standing by the keg.

“Hello, ladies,” I said.

Bee’s friend looked at me and smiled like a cat that got the canary. She nudged Bee and said, “Well, that’s what I call a Bee-line.”

Bee blushed. “Hi. Um. Cal, this is Flora. Flora, um, Cal.” She pointed to her friend, making awkward introductions.

“I’m glad you guys could come,” I said. “Can I get you a beer?”

Bee’s eyes widened as if she’d never had a beer in her life. She opened her mouth to say something just as Johnson hip-checked me. “Well, who do we have here?” he said, eyes glued on Flora. “Introduce me to your friend?”

I introduced both of them, even though it was pretty clear he was only interested in Flora.

He grinned. “Flora. Love it. You are indeed a beautiful flower. We need a fourth for Beer Pong. You up for it?”

The two girls exchanged looks, and Bee nudged her on. “Go ahead,” she said. “Have fun.”

She smiled at Johnson. “Okay. Yeah. But I warn you, I’m pretty much a pro.”

He led her away, leaving me alone with Bee.

“Hey,” I said, handing her my full beer. “Here. Take this one. I’ll get another.”

I swiped a full beer off the bar and we navigated to a corner, away from the keg.

“I gotta admit, I’m surprised you came,” I admitted.

“I’ve never been to a frat party, actually,” she said, taking in the sights like a wide-eyed tourist. “Is that lame?”

I shook my head. “You haven’t missed much. See all these people? A lot of them think they’re missing out on life whenever they miss a single party, but it’s not true.” I pointed toward the door. “What happens out there, that’s life. This is just…something to fill the time.”

She wrinkled her nose. How did I not notice she had a cute nose?

“If that’s what you think, why are you here? Why aren’t you out
experiencing life
?” She made little quotes with her one hand, and the other lifted the beer to her lips. She took a sip and winced.

“Biding my time, I guess,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her that my bum knee was well on its way to changing my life in a dramatic way, but she probably guessed that, anyway.
Change the subject.
“You don’t seem to be a fan of the beer. Are you telling me you’ve never drank beer before?”

“Oh, no, I have. This is just particularly…bad. Can this even be classified as beer?”

I nodded in agreement. “You’re right. It’s more like warm piss. You get used to the taste, though.”

She grimaced, but that didn’t stop her from taking another sip. “I don’t think I want to.”

I laughed and looked up at the staircase, just in time to see Renee Clayton stroll in.

Shit. Just what I needed.

Renee was another serial frat-bunny. I’d dated her sophomore and part of junior year. At first, it was just hooking up, but we did that so much we eventually became a couple. We never attempted to define it, really, so when she started hooking up with other guys and I found myself not really giving a shit, we kind of just drifted. But Renee was used to getting what she wanted, when she wanted it. Lately, she’d been coming by my apartment, texting me more, showing up at parties she knew I’d be at, looking killer hot. I’d been putting her off for weeks, knowing I needed to focus on my recovery, but she wasn’t getting the hint.

“Tasting better?” I asked Bee as she downed another gulp.

I’d managed to guide her so that I was facing the wall, hoping Renee wouldn’t see me. It didn’t work. A second later, two soft hands covered my eyes, and her overly sweet perfume filled my nostrils.

“Guess who?”

I tugged away from her as gently as I could. “Hey. How are you?” I said in a monotone, hoping she’d get the picture and scram.

She snaked her arms around my back and pulled me to her so that her tits rubbed against my chest. “Hi, Baby,” she cooed.

I untangled her arms from me, trying not to cause a scene but the way Bee’d suddenly started looking at me—like she’d swallowed nails—I could tell she was about three seconds away from bolting up the stairs.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing Bee’s wrist. “Bee, have you met Renee? Renee, this is my girlfriend, Bee.”

It came out so fast, and the music was so loud, that I wasn’t sure if Bee heard it until her jaw swung open.

“Wait. What?”

Renee raked her blue gaze over Bee’s every feature before giving her a tight smile. “Oh. Hi.” Then she looked at me, one brow raised. “You’re serious, Cal?”

I threw an arm around Bee, whose shoulders stiffened immediately. “Yep.”

“No, wait,” Bee started. “He’s drunk and—”

I pinched Bee’s side gently and pulled her closer.

“Ow!”

She lifted her foot and brought her heel down hard on the top of my Nike. It didn’t hurt. Or, not enough to wipe the smile of romantic bliss off my face, at any rate.

“We weren’t putting labels on it, but yeah. She’s my lady now.” I had started enjoying myself at that point and kissed the top of Bee’s head for good measure.

She stood there motionless aside from subtly grinding her foot into the top of mine. Then she mumbled through clenched teeth, “Yep. This is my man.”

Renee just stared at us. Okay, yeah, maybe she wasn’t buying it legit, but I was desperate. If it got her off my case, it was all worth it.

Across the makeshift bar, someone was calling for volunteers to play another lame party game, Screw, the D-Phi version of Seven Minutes in Heaven. Perfect excuse to make our exit before Bee cracked under the pressure.

I pulled her by the wrist and raised my hand.

“Here,” I called past Renee. “We’ll play.”

Bee dug her heels in. “Play what? Oh, hell no,” she pleaded in a low, desperate voice. “I don’t even know how to play, Cal.”

“It’s fine,” I said to her over the strains of an old Radiohead song. “It’s called Screw. Just follow my lead. It’s easy.”

She trailed behind me, leaving Renee staring after us.

It was only after I got to the bar and looked at the giant dice that I remembered that while most girls would probably be fine with this, Bee
wasn’t
most girls.

“Look,” I murmured, leaning down so only she could hear me. Across the room, I could still see Renee’s hard gaze on us and it was making this terrible idea seem better by the second. “Just play along, would you? I’ll owe you big time. I’ll tell your professor that you were the best therapist I ever had. I’ll tell him having your healing hands on me was like a religious experience.”

She pressed her lips together but she didn’t pull away from me as we stepped up to the bar. Weber, our Master of Ceremonies, looked us over. His brow wrinkled.

“Wait. You,” he asked, pointing at me and then dragging his finger toward Bee. He leaned into me. “And her? You sure? I thought I saw Renee here.”

I fought the urge to smack him upside the head. “Stop shitting around and just hand her the die.”

He shrugged at me in an
It’s-your-funeral
kind of way.

Bee did that little lip-gnawing thing. “What do I have to do?”

“Simple,” Weber said. “Roll the die, remove everything south of the body part listed, then step inside the closet with the man of your choice.”

Bee wrinkled her nose and stared at the giant pink die on the table. She looked about two seconds away from charging the nearest exit. A crowd had gathered around us, and they were all egging her on. I saw her shoot a glance at her friend, Flora, who was tucked in a corner talking awfully close with Andrews, who must’ve given up on his threesome idea.

Finally, she muttered something that sounded like a spell or a curse under her breath, picked up the die and tossed it.

It bounced once, teetering between WAIST and KNEES, but once it hit the edge of the bar, it whirled and skidded to a stop.

I peered at it and breathed a sigh of relief.

ANKLES.

Perfect. If it was higher than waist, I was going to have to cart her out of there with some excuse because there was no way she would do it.

The crowd was less than thrilled, though, and erupted in boos and jeers.

Bee seemed oblivious of the outcome until she peered down to get a closer look and then groaned. “I have to take off my boots? The floor here is gross.”

I couldn’t hold back my grin. Leave it to Bee. “Hey. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

I picked up the die and gave it a toss. Immediately, the crowd broke into a deafening roar. I craned my neck to see the word written there.

It had landed on CHIN.

“It’s worse,” I muttered.

For the first time since walking in, her lips split into a genuine smile.

“Interesting.” Then, as if the reality of it finally set in, her smile dimmed and she swallowed hard. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she murmured, leaning into me.

I checked over all the heads of people waiting for me to strip down to my boxers, and saw Renee, watching me intently.

Shit.

Then I reached down and pulled my t-shirt over my head. “Absolutely. Let’s go.”

I tossed my shirt on the bar as Johnny Cash’s
I Walk the Line
started to play overhead. Then I pulled off my pants and pretended to swing them around like a stripper, to the hoots and hollers of everyone in the room. Bee quietly removed her boots and tiptoed to the closet with her head down.

A grinning Weber held the door open for us. “We expect you to be on your worst behavior in there, got it?”

“Fuck off,” I said to him as the door snapped shut, leaving me and Bee in complete darkness. The closet smelled like mothballs and was about the size of my locker at the gym. I could feel her there, only about an inch away from me. Her breath was coming about a mile a minute and I realized with a start that mine wasn’t much slower.

Say something, asshole.

“Well, this is awkward.”

Very smooth, Cal. No wonder you’re such a hit with the ladies.