Silver (4 page)

“I mean…you guys watched it. You saw what happened. Nothing really to say.”

“Are you okay?” Bryna said.

“You know…I met Jude though.”

A wall dropped over Bryna’s features, and she searched for nonchalance. “Really? Was he a total douche?”

“Yeah. He called me sweetheart and said I should be happy that my boyfriend was about to be worth millions.”

Bryna grimaced. “Sounds just fucking like him.”

“I called him a liar to his face, but I don’t think he realized that I knew you. Or if he did, then he didn’t show it.”

“He wouldn’t. Prick.” Bryna’s anger seemed to wake her up. “I bet, if you’d been alone, he would have hit on you.”

Stacia shrugged. “All he did was glare and smirk at me.”

“Fucking asshole.”

Stacia was glad that she had her friends thoroughly distracted. The truth was…she wasn’t ready to tell them that she had broken up with Marshall. What would they say anyway? Nothing that would help right now.

Plus, they were already packing. They had agreed that they were going to move in with their boyfriends. She didn’t want them to feel bad that they would be leaving her behind or, worse, change their minds and stay in the apartment for her. They deserved their happiness. They’d both earned it.

No, she would wait a little while longer before divulging the details. Maybe next week after they had already moved out and were settled in with Eric and Damon. Marshall wouldn’t even be back until later this week, and she doubted
he
was going to tell people that they had broken up. Not after what a catastrophe it had been.

“So…nothing else to tell?” Trihn asked with concerned round eyes.

“You know, I’m actually super exhausted. I had to catch a red-eye and all…” Stacia trailed off.

“Wait…where is Marshall? What is he doing?” Trihn asked.

“They flew him to Buffalo to meet with the team,” she answered. “Papers to sign, people to meet. That sort of thing.”

“You couldn’t go with him?” Bryna asked.

“Finals,” Stacia said.

It wasn’t a lie. She had always planned to return to finish her finals for her junior year of college. Even though she hadn’t been planning on staying for her senior year and getting her all-important general studies degree, she still wanted the credits she had earned. Marshall had gotten approved to take his finals later because of the draft.

“Oh, okay,” Trihn said. “When will you move out there with him?”

“I don’t know,” Stacia said, squirming. “I don’t have all the details.”

That was the goddamn truth.

“All right. Well, get some rest. Fill us in on more of the details when you get them. I’m excited to hear about your new amazing life,” Trihn said.

Stacia smiled. “Yeah. Me, too.”

She left them out in the living room and proceeded into her bedroom. As soon as she let the door close behind her, she turned on some music, snuggled up under the covers, and let the tears fall.

She didn’t have a career in mind. She didn’t have a degree she loved pursuing. She didn’t have a boyfriend or a job or an apartment…or anything.

She didn’t want to marry Marshall and live out her life as a Stepford wife. That much, she knew. She wanted to be as happy and passionate as her two friends were about movies and fashion. To be as in love with a guy as they were with Eric and Damon. She wanted and deserved more than what she was shortchanging herself.

Truly, she had no clue what she was going to do with her life, and for the first time, that bothered her.

STACIA STEPPED OUT
of her English 102 final, the last exam of her junior year. She had always been an okay writer, so she figured she’d scrape by with a B-minus. She should have taken the class last semester, but she had been taking as few classes as possible so that she could have an active social life.

College really hadn’t been a priority. She’d been coasting on Cs for most of her other classes. Her academic advisor had been concerned that she wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate next spring, but since graduation had never been in the cards, she had just been blowing it off.

Now, fear pricked at her.

She needed to graduate. She couldn’t rely on living off her husband’s salary. And her bullshit general studies major would leave her with no options.
What the hell can I do with that?

It made her head throb.

She’d made another appointment with her academic advisor for next week. She hadn’t signed up for any classes for the fall term because she’d thought she wouldn’t be there. Change of plans.

Now, she needed a full load of classes for the fall, way more than she had taken in previous years. Plus, she would have to balance that with cheerleading, which was another complication. Cheerleading tryouts for the next school year had been held two weeks ago, and she stupidly hadn’t auditioned. Now, she was stuck without classes or an extracurricular that she adored. She needed to make an appointment with the coach to see if there was something she could do about it.

Without her friends or quarterback boyfriend or cheerleading…what was her life? Did she even have an identity beyond that?

“S, over here!” Bryna trilled from her spot in front of the sports complex, jogging Stacia out of her depressing thoughts. They both had cheer parking passes but usually traded who would drive to campus. Today, they were in Bryna’s Aston Martin. “How’d it go?”

“Piece of cake,” Stacia lied.

“My film final was a bitch,” Bryna told her, sinking into the driver’s seat.

Stacia tossed her bag into the back and then plopped down into the passenger’s side. Their finals had occurred at the last scheduled time for the entire school, so they only had an hour before they were supposed to meet everyone at their favorite local club, Posse.

“So, I heard Marshall was back on campus to finish finals,” Bryna said, fishing for information. “He’s actually going to graduate.”

“He had to come back. It’s a big controversy right now. If drafted players are still full-time students, they can’t miss that much school, or they could get disqualified,” she spouted off information she’d always thought was common knowledge but found most other people didn’t know. Product of growing up with a coach as a single father. Football had been her life from an early age.

Of course, that had nothing to do with Marshall at all. And it hadn’t answered the unasked question Bryna had thrown her way.

Stacia swore she was going to tell Bryna and Trihn what happened, but they had only just moved out. They still had stuff at the apartment and were in the habit of riding to classes together. Once things settled down, she’d do it.

“So, is he coming to Posse tonight then?”

“I don’t know,” Stacia said truthfully.

She hadn’t heard from Marshall once since the breakup. But she doubted he’d show. Before the breakup, he’d told her that he intended to leave school as soon as he reasonably could. If he’d finished finals, then she suspected he’d be on a flight, already out of the city.

“All right then,” Bryna said, letting the subject drop. It was clear she knew that Stacia wasn’t telling her something, but thankfully, she didn’t push it.

Forty-five minutes later, the girls were done up in fresh makeup and skimpy dresses that showed off their toned legs and athletic cheer bodies.

By the time Stacia had finished with her ritual of hair and makeup, she felt more like herself—the bubbly little cheer slut. No reason for anyone to think anything was different. Nothing had changed since the draft.

The pair took a cab to Posse, and they were ushered inside by the bouncer who knew each of them on a first-name basis. The club was one giant room with a massive bar on the entire right side. Stairs on the left led up to the exclusive VIP section that overlooked the main dance floor. Additionally, double doors off the back side of the room led to a swimming pool and patio with tons of pool chairs. On Sundays during the summer, Posse would host pool parties that rivaled the Strip. It was their favorite place by campus.

Trihn was already inside when they got there, and they were unsurprised to find Maya with her. However, it
was
surprising that Maya wasn’t on the other side of the bar, serving up drinks, like she’d been doing for the last three years.

“Maya!” Bryna cried as she wrapped her arms around the tall African American girl’s shoulders. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Drinking!” Maya said. She raised a glass of tequila in their direction and slipped her black hair over one shoulder where it was gathered in a tight braid.

“But you’re the bartender,” Stacia said.

“Not anymore. I
quit
!” Maya told them.

“Isn’t it awesome?” Trihn said. “Now, she can party with us all the time.”

“Who is going to make my dirty martinis?” Bryna pouted. “Or a Peppermint Posse?”

Maya shrugged. “Not me, hooker. We’ll become Tuck’s regulars now.” She leaned over the bar and snapped her fingers at the slightly flustered bartender.

Tuck was tall enough to be on the basketball team with a shaved head and determined dark eyes. He didn’t talk much, which Stacia always found odd for a bartender.

“Tuck! Get a round for my girls.”

He grunted and started pouring drinks without asking for instructions. Either Maya had prepped him for this moment, or he was just that good because, a few minutes later, Bryna had a dirty martini with three olives and Stacia had the fruitiest, most potent drink on the menu.

Delicious.

“So, why did you quit?” Stacia asked Maya.

“It’d be pretty impossible to work and start my master’s program in creative writing in the fall. I’ll need all that time for studying and classes. Decided I’d rather spend the summer backpacking through Europe than working behind a bar. I’ve never been, you know.”

Bryna nearly spit out her drink. “You’ve never been to Europe?”

“You know, most people haven’t, Bri,” Maya said, quirking an eyebrow. “We weren’t all rich kids.”

“Well, I’ll have to meet you somewhere then and show you how rich kids do Europe,” Bryna said.

“I heard Barcelona is nice this time of year,” Trihn said with a pointed grin.

“Bitch,” Bryna grumbled.

The summer after their freshman year, Bryna had gone to Barcelona with Hugh, the guy she had been digging at the time. Things had ended poorly, and Trihn liked to remind Bryna that she had turned down jewelry from Harry Winston. It still pained her.

“Anyway, Eric and I are planning to travel around Europe when he doesn’t have to be here for football. I thought I’d show him my world,” Bryna said with a grin.

“Damon is going on tour, but my manager wants me to open a boutique. So, I’ll be in New York for part of the summer and tour the other part,” Trihn said with a shrug. “I’m still not sure if I’m ready to have my own boutique. But she wants to go through logistics over the summer and try to increase branding. It’s really boring stuff. Just ignore me.”

All three girls turned to Stacia, as if waiting for her to chime in with her big summer plans. She opened her mouth and then closed it. She had no plans this summer. None.

But she couldn’t say that.
Fuck.

She needed to defuse the situation. She went straight for the usual distraction. She tilted her head, widened her baby-blue eyes, and tossed her hair. “I’ll probably be sucking cock.”

Her friends vacillated between exasperation and laughter.

“Typical,” Maya mumbled.

Stacia’s cheeks heated, and she glanced away, sucking down her drink as if it were a cock. It was easier to let everyone think she had a one-track mind and was a total airhead than to speak the truth. Easier to be the cheer slut than to be held accountable for the last three years.

“Well, at that, I’m going to go find Damon,” Trihn said. “He’s probably in the DJ booth even though he can’t play here anymore.”

With Damon’s exclusive DJ contract on the Strip, he couldn’t play other Vegas clubs, including Posse. But he was a regular at the bar, so he knew all the rotating DJs and would frequently hang out upstairs. Stacia felt he did it so that he could have a bird’s-eye view and keep tabs on Trihn, even from afar.

Trihn vanished into the crowd just as Eric showed up with Drayton, Maya’s hottie wide-receiver boyfriend. Eric wrapped a possessive arm around Bryna’s shoulders.

He was tall, tan, and built. He’d taken LV State to a national championship when he was a star defensive end, but a career-ending knee injury had taken him out of the game and sent him into coaching.

“Come here, you,” Maya said, pulling Drayton into a kiss.

For how tall she was, Drayton towered over her. He made Stacia feel like a dwarf. But Stacia had always been more interested in Dray’s stats than the exact color of his brown skin or his gorgeous full lips or the size of his dick, which were all things Maya would rave about.

Stacia finished off her drink and flagged down Tuck for another. Getting shitfaced wasted seemed like a great idea right now. Being around all her friends and their impossibly happy love lives was making her drink.

Not to mention, she really,
really
needed to tell her friends about Marshall. Tonight. Yep, tonight would probably be best. She couldn’t keep this up. Even she was tired of the charade, and she had been living one for years, pretending to be the sexy, hot chick and not the mousy small girl who had been bullied her entire life.