“Everything.”
Irie shakes her head, turning away so I can’t see her expression. I don’t know if she’s flattered or frustrated. I also don’t know if I’m sober enough to tell the difference.
“My entire life, I’ve never been allowed to accept failure,” I tell her. “It’s not an option. You try or you die trying. Those are the only options.”
“So you’re going to die trying to hook up with me?” she asks, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
“I’m not good at giving up, Irie,” I say. “I’ve never worked my ass off for something and then walked way without it. I’m not a quitter. I literally don’t know how to quit.”
“Then you should try,” she says, matter of fact. “Try to learn how to quit.”
It takes everything I have not to kiss that smart mouth of hers, but I know what she’s saying. She has a point—one that I’m not ready to acknowledge.
“This isn’t a game to me,” she tells me.
“It isn’t a game to me either.”
“Then why does it feel that way? Why does it feel like I’m being hunted for sport?” Her eyes rest deep on mine.
“First time I saw you, we were at a house party. Freshman year. Second weekend in October. You were wearing this white sleeveless dress with buttons down the front,” I say. “It stopped a few inches above your knees. And you had these strappy sandals—tan leather, I think they were. Your hair was all the way down your back, stick straight. Bounced when you walked. And you had this wet, glossy pout that just …” I bite my lower lip, my mouth watering just thinking about the archived image in my head.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m just saying, the first time I saw you, I literally stopped in my tracks. It was like a scene in a movie where everything fades into the background. All I saw was you.”
“Okay. You were a horny nineteen-year-old and you saw a pretty girl at a party and decided you wanted to screw her,” she summarizes.
“Yes,” I say. “And when I tried talking to you and you wanted nothing to do with me, I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
“Poor thing.”
“And then I saw you again,” I say. “Later that week. On campus. You were filling your water bottle at a fountain in Cherney Hall. Only it wasn’t your water bottle. I watched as you turned and handed it to some girl sitting on a bench. The girl was crying and you crouched down beside her. You put your hand on her shoulder and told her she was going to be okay.”
Irie licks her lips, staring ahead, quiet for a moment. “She was in my English class. She’d just found out a close friend passed away back home.”
“Next time I saw you, you were sitting outside Briar Hall on a white blanket and you were meditating. Of all things. Meditation. Right there in the open. The sun was shining. The wind was blowing your hair around your shoulders. All around you people were moving, walking, biking by, whatever. And there you were. Completely in the moment and not giving a flying fuck what anyone thought,” I say.
“A lot of people meditate.”
“Not like that. And not here. Not at a school where worrying about what people think of you is pretty much a graduation requirement.”
“Do you meditate?” she asks.
I pause. No one’s ever asked me that. “Before games. Yeah.”
Always in private. Always behind closed doors.
“The last thing I need before a big game is to get shit from one of my teammates,” I say. “It’s all about getting all that shit out of your head before, not carrying it out onto the field with you.”
“I … I didn’t think you were into that,” she says.
“There are a lot of things that would surprise you about me,” I say, voice low and soft as I turn to her. “I think you and I … we’re more alike than different.”
Her chest rises and falls and her fingertips twitch, dancing slightly against her thighs. I’d give the whole fucking world to know what she’s thinking.
“The first time I saw you,” she says a moment later. “You were heading to class. It was the first week actually. I had no idea who you were—I mean, that you played football here. Some guy came up and tried to talk to you and you literally ignored him. I think he wanted a picture? And you laughed at him and kept walking.”
I swallow the hard lodge in the center of my throat.
I remember that moment. I was late for class on the other side of campus, I’d just had my ass chewed by my coach about some play I didn’t study up on, and the last thing I wanted was to be bothered for a picture. The twerp even jumped out in front of me—almost made me trip over him, not so much as an “Excuse me.”