"Calum," I called, spotting the quarterback near the bleachers. He was still panting as I walked closer, dirty blonde hair slicked back with sweat as he held his helmet in one hand and mouth guard in the other.
"Hey Stella," Calum greeted, directing a dimpled smile at me that completed the blonde-haired, blue-eyed face of picturesque perfection. Tucking the helmet under an arm, Calum surveyed the field of sweaty and dedicated players practicing with all they had.
"How's practice going?" I asked, a carefree grin on my face. I dropped it immediately when discomfort flashed over Calum's features. "Calum, I—"
"It's fine," Calum said, pasting a smooth smile onto his face again. Seeing my hesitation, he wrapped me into a reassuring hug. "We'll train hard Stella, and we'll be fine. But it'll take time."
"You promised you'd come to this party," I mumbled, half-hating myself for being so whiny, but I couldn't help the roll of indignance that washed over me. Calum almost never went back on his word, and football was important to him. I don't have a right to complain. But...
"I know, Stells," Calum whispered, holding me against him. His chest rumbled as he spoke, and I leaned into his embrace, allowing myself to melt into his warmth. The thin sweater I wore fit perfectly with the rest of my outfit, but it was a poor barrier against the chilly September air. "But this is the biggest game of the season. We need to be prepared. I'm truly sorry that I can't make it."
"It's fine, Cal," I replied, closing my eyes as I forced the wave of ugly emotions down."I understand."
"I'll try my best to make it to the next one, alright?" Calum asked. I nodded in response, mute in the aura of comfort from the hug. Calum gave me a final squeeze before letting me go, slipping on his equipment and jogging back onto the field. The football captain turned and gave me a two-fingered salute just before the bright lights swathed him in white and although I couldn't see his face, I knew he was happy.
---
Music blared from the speakers, the noise deafening as the figures on the dancefloor melded into one, moving mass.
"Stella!" My friend, Stacy, practically shouted from my left. The blaring beats made it hard to make out her next words, but it was probably along the lines of "I'm going down to the floor, you coming?"
"In a moment!" I shouted back, hoping that she heard my words. She and a couple other girls made it down to the floor with their chosen partners, melting into the grinding bodies in the flashing dark.
There was no room for decency and fairness under the multicolored lights of the club. Although we would all wake up tomorrow to the single-colored beams of the sun, we would do our best to enjoy the night first.
"Hey beautiful, wanna dance?" a voice breathed down my neck from behind. I shot up from my seat at the bar, turning to face the stranger.
"I'm waiting for someone," I replied flatly. It was hard to make out details under the flashing lights, but his stagger told me that he was probably more than just drunk.
"Aw, don't turn me down like that. A pretty girl like you doesn't deserve to wait," the man said, reaching for my wrist. I jerked it away from him, stepping back, but he was faster. His other hand caught the hem of my dress and pulled me towards him.
"Let me go," I demanded, pushing against his heavy torso. It did nothing, and the man laughed wildly.
"Feisty—I like that," he said as I readied a kick to his shin. My concentration was interrupted as a firm hand pulled me away from the man.
"Hands off—she's taken," a hard voice growled as an arm clenched around my waist, drawing me towards the speaker. The drunk released me, holding his hands up mockingly.
"Fine, fine, wasn't looking for trouble," the man said, laughing to himself as he lumbered away. As his figure faded into the jumble of bodies, I pushed myself away my saviour—as if I'd let him take that credit.
"Saved you again," Calum joked. I snorted.
"I had that covered—just like I had it covered at the last party, and the one before that. Where were you during those?" I snapped at him. He winced.
"C'mon Stella, you know what football means to me," he started, but I held up a hand to cut him off.
"Yes I know, but I thought this was important to you," I said, turning back to the bar and sitting down at my seat. "I thought I was important to you."
Remorse washed over Calum's features, and I felt a momentary pang of guilt for what I said, but I swallowed it immediately. I'd cut him slack in August, then September, but it was now mid-October and he still hadn't made it to a single party. Even though football meant the world to him, I had thought our friendship meant more to the boy I'd grown up with. Because it meant that much more to me.
"Stella, I'm really sorry," Calum said, sliding into the seat beside me after some hesitation. Guilt kept me from dramatically rolling my eyes in response.
"I've heard that one before. Multiple times," I said, a cruel smile sliding onto my face. "Did you just come here to apologize, Cal? Because if so, you have my permission to leave immediately."
"Stells," Calum groaned. I cocked a brow, taking a swig of my drink. "I didn't come here to argue with you, Stella. And what's with the location this time?"
"It's a club, Calum," I said, rolling my eyes in mock-exasperation.
"That's one way to put it," Calum said, glancing around. I followed suit, glossing over the haphazard scene of some shady nightclub Stacey had picked out. Empty beer bottles were strewn about the edges of the room; clubgoers were in various states of disarray, ranging from winter-coat-and-scarf to just about naked; and leather-clad men stood around the fringes of the room, most likely part of some street gang or worse.
"You only live once, Stella," Stacey had quipped when I had questioned her choice. "Why not take some risks?"
"It's a club, Calum," I told him, "no matter how obscure."
"I was thinking more along the lines of dangerous,'" Calum replied, frowning. "This is the sort of place where bar fights and kidnappings occur."
I let out a sharp laugh, startling the bartender as he slid the drinks over.
"At least the drinks are good," I grinned, taking a large gulp of my poison of choice. Whisky on the rocks—cold, hard, but warm. I turned and hooked my arms around the blonde's neck, pulling him towards me. "C'mon, Cal. You didn't come to sit here and whine, did you? Let's go dance."
"Alright, Stells," Calum said, relenting. An amused smile slid onto his face. "I forgot to tell you how stunning you look today."
"Always a charmer, Calum Remington," I laughed before enveloping his lips in a kiss. Calum slid me off the wooden stool and guided me towards the dance floor, and all was as it should be. We were enjoying each other's company, tasting the better sides of both worlds. Neither exactly friends nor lovers, Calum and I...
We're just friends, but also so much more than that.
---
"So, I heard that Amy and Jordan finally made it official," Quinn said from across the table, poking through her salad. Quinn was my be all, end all confidant. Having been with me throughout the journey from five-letter spelling tests to the graduation valedictorian speech, Quinn was just about as close to me as Calum. With a family situated in the fashion industry, it wasn't surprising that she was an aspiring designer.
"Really? Thank god, I thought they would drag that horrible friends-with-benefits charade on forever," I said, stabbing a piece of lettuce in my own salad. Healthy, nutritional, and low in calories—but tastes like cardboard without dressing. I didn't know either of them well enough, but I had seen them making out around campus—common PDA around here, but only if you were counting.
"I'm surprised they even made it official, Jordan being the famous bad boy-playboy of our campus and all," Quinn said, pursing her lips. "But then again, he has been in his fair share of relationships."
"Amy probably forced his hand," Stacey commented, looking up from her phone. Stacey was the socialite gossip queen of the school. She and Chad had been going out for a little less than a year, and although their relationship consisted mostly of texting and exchanging pictures, it was still a record that has yet to be broken by the group. Their "long-lasting" relationship automatically made her the "most experienced" person in the relationship department, something highly debatable to everyone but her. "Hooking Jordan Brooks means never letting go, even if you have to tie him down with frilly lingerie and scanty dresses."
"Speaking of which, when are you and Calum going to finally admit it?" Karen asked from my left, biting into a hamburger. She was the mature conscience of the group, always reliable and ready with the reality of the situation when you wanted to hear it. Karen had her share of fun though, and she was also the one to ask if you forgot the name of that one band kid in your English class.
"Admit what?" I asked, idly shifting the pieces of my salad around the plate. I hated when the cafeteria served lettuce-based salads—so much lettuce, so little substance.
"That you guys like each other, duh," Stacey said, rolling her eyes.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, laughing. "Me and Calum? No way, we're just friends."
"Friends with benefits that should be dating," Whitney corrected, moving over so Karen could get up and deposit her tray into one of the new tray collecting bins. Whitney was the soft-spoken listener of the group, gentle and kind. She was the one you looked to for support and comfort—and the one who seemed ridiculously shy, but only if you didn't know her well. "You've known him for so long and yet you still haven't staked your claim."
"Please, we're not in love," I denied. It was an old subject, but it was a popular one. Why aren't the two sure candidates for prom royalty—who are obviously banging each other—dating?
"Is that denial?" Quinn teased, making me groan.
"Anything but. We've been over this before. Calum and I do not and most likely will never have those sorts of feelings for each other," I told them flatly. And it was true—Calum and I have known each other since we could barely utter a coherent word—the result of family connections through business—and never once did either of think that a relationship was in our horizons.
"That's what I said before I started with Chad," Stacey said, before striking a pose to take a selfie.
"Stace, you've been going out for eleven months. Don't act like you're married," I told her. A round of stifled giggles erupted, and Stacey huffed.
"True," she admitted, smiling sadly at the familiar jab. "I don't even know why we're together. It's not like we don't hook up with people every other week."
"Who's having a fling?" Karen said, plopping back into her seat. "Don't leave me out of the gossip ring!"
"No one, and that's the thing," Quinn said, frowning before perking up. "Hey, did you guys hear about that new girl?"
"Quinn, there's new people every week," I told her. Quinn rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, but we can always talk about them, right?" she asked, and the table murmured in agreement. "Well, apparently the new girl is this chick named Kim, short for Kimberly Morgan, and she's quite a looker, according to my sources."
"So your sources include Terry, Drew and an asshole named James?" Whitney asked, making the group laugh again.
"Yeah," Quinn admitted. "Anyway, apparently she's going to try out for both cheerleading and school council."
All eyes were on me at that point. It was a bygone topic at the table—I had tried out for both in my freshman year of university, making the two with ease, but eventually the stress caught up to me. There were too many responsibilities, and I had to maintain good grades on top of everything, so I eventually gave up my position as president to take over as cheer captain. It was a hard choice—it was a choice between student council president or cheerleading captain, but it was also a choice between the desk or the spotlights of the football field
"What?" I asked, not willing to broach the subject.
The girls held me in high regard. I was the jewel of the table, and perhaps the school. Stella Renee Reyes, the former council president who received an astounding ninety-seven percent vote from the student body and current cheer captain, both positions achieved in her sophomore year, along with being known as the prettiest girl in the school who was also extremely wealthy and threw a famous annual New Year party at the huge vacation home her family owned by the beach.
I was a living legend at the school, and that legend was being tested by a new girl by the name of Kimberly.
"Well, I doubt she'll make it anywhere, being the new girl and all," Karen said, and we laughed the tension off.
Just like that, the topic of Kimberly Morgan, the new junior, was forgotten, and the table went on to talk about anything and everything they could bring up until the cafeteria closed.
---
Author's Note:
Hey everyone, hope you liked the first chapter!
Vote/comment to let me hear your thoughts on the story
—Littlewhims