The cherry on top of my morning from hell came in the form of a broken air conditioning unit.
By the time I climbed the front steps of our building, the coffee stain on my shirt was almost dry from the long walk under the scorching sun. Between getting lukewarm coffee dumped on me by a pair of strangers (both of whom clearly cared more about the NCAA championships than justice for victims of harassment) and my verbal gunslinging with Bodie, I'd had—and I'm understating this—a fucking terrible day.
So when I unlocked our door only to be hit by a wall of hot air, it felt a little like fate had come back to kick me in the ribs when I was already sprawled on the floor waving my white flag.
I dropped my backpack and went right to the thermostat.
The dial was set to mid-sixties, as usual, which meant neither Hanna nor I had accidentally bumped into it and cranked up the heat. I stood on my tip-toes to put a hand in front of the vent over the bedroom door.
Nothing.
I yanked open the kitchen window, hoping to get some kind of ventilation, but the air outside was just as oppressive. There was a heat haze over the asphalt of the gas station outside—the same wobbly distortion I saw over the toaster every time I stuck a PopTart in there for a little bit too long.
I groaned and sunk to the kitchen floor.
Hanna got home ten minutes later, after I'd resigned myself to a life of sitting in front of the open refrigerator. I heard the clatter of her keys and the creak of our busted-up door, followed by, "What the fuck?"
I leaned back and poked my head around the fridge door.
"The AC's not working," I said.
Hanna, who was dressed in her usual workout attire (running shorts and a sweat-drenched tank top), tugged out her headphones and flattened back a few stray pin-straight black hairs that'd popped out of her tiny stump of a ponytail.
"Why are you here?" she asked, frowning at me. "I thought you had class."
I sighed.
Then I stood, closed the fridge, and put my hands on my hips.
Hanna snorted out a laugh.
"Laurel! You big goof," she teased. "Is that coffee?"
I wished I could shrug and say it'd been my fault. Then maybe I could've laughed the whole thing off. But instead I found myself making a show of rolling my eyes and scoffing as I recounted the story of the girls who'd waited outside my Writing 301 classroom to dump coffee on me.
If Hanna noticed I was feigning nonchalance, she didn't say anything.
She just flushed bright red with indignant outrage.
"What'd they look like?" she demanded. "I'm finding them on social media and reporting them to the university. Fuck it—I'm messaging their moms on Facebook. Who even does this shit? That's so—so—"
"Hanna," I said.
She folded her arms over her chest and exhaled sharply through her nose, her dark eyes going glassy with tears.
"I'm so mad," she whispered, shaking her head.
I held my arms out. Hanna stepped forward into my embrace and buried her sweaty little head in the crook of my neck.
"I'm okay," I told her. "It was just room-temperature coffee."
"It's not about the coffee," she mumbled.
She was right.
It wasn't about the coffee, and it wasn't about the stain on my shirt, which I could probably coax out with the right kind of detergent. It was about the fact that two strangers had been mad enough about the article that they'd tracked me down to serve up their own brand of misguided vigilante justice.
I squeezed Hanna tight.
"Can we go to Andre's?" she asked, her face still pressed against my shoulder. "It's really hot in here. I feel like I'm gonna pass out. Also, this is probably going to sound insensitive, given the circumstances, but can we stop and grab some iced coffee on the way there? You smell like Starbucks."
❖ ❖ ❖
After Hanna and I took turns showering and threw on clothes that weren't stained with coffee or sweat, we climbed into my car (me wincing when my bare thighs pressed down on the hot vinyl upholstery, Hanna letting out a string of curses when her elbow knocked against the blistering metal buckle of her seatbelt) and made our way to the drive through of the McDonald's at the end of the Rodeo.
We ordered three large black iced coffees.
Then, at Hanna's request, I dropped her off at Smart and Final so she could run in and grab a can of sweetened condensed milk—the secret ingredient to Vietnamese coffee.
A part of me had always been jealous of Hanna. Jealous that her parents were both around to teach her things about Vietnam you couldn't learn from Wikipedia. Jealous that she and her four younger siblings had all been to Hanoi more times than they could count on one hand.
More than anything, I think I was jealous that nobody questioned her when she told them she was Vietnamese.
When Hanna came back to the car, she had a can of sweetened condensed milk in one hand and a jumbo bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos in the other. The Cheetos, she explained when I shot her a disapproving look, had been in a display at check-out. What was she supposed to do, ignore them?
With our bountiful harvest secured, we headed to Andre's.
Andre lived with three other second string players in The Palazzo, the apartment complex most of the football team chose for it's proximity to the practice field and the Rodeo—and because it was, in true Garland football fashion, extraordinarily bougie.
There were fountains in the central courtyard, three separate gyms, a rock climbing wall, and a twenty-four-seven café stocked with a selection of pre-made organic salads, gluten-free sandwiches, and fresh-pressed juices. Whoever had designed the complex had clearly been aiming for the Italian villa aesthetic, but had gone a bit overboard with the friezes and potted palm trees and faux-candle chandeliers.
The resulting blight of a building looked like it belonged on the Las Vegas strip—not four blocks from one of the best private universities in California.
Andre's mom was a cardiologist, and his dad was a San Diego real estate agent. Money had never been an issue for the Shepherds. But I never felt the financial divide between us as keenly as I did standing in the marble-floored lobby, hair wet from the shower and chipped toenail polish on display in a pair of Old Navy flip-flops, spelling my name out for the woman behind the security desk so she could print me up a visitor's badge.
Hanna and I didn't come over often.
Mostly because Andre's roommates were obsessed with video games and always hogged the living room, but also because The Palazzo was such a hassle, between the guest parking and the security check-in.
But their air conditioning was top notch.
When Andre came down to the lobby in sweatpants and some Adidas slides to claim us, he found Hanna and me sprawled on the couches in front of the eight-foot-tall fake fireplace, basking in the artificial chill.
"Ugh, finally," Hanna said. "I need your can opener."
Andre frowned for a moment before I held out the large iced coffee we'd brought for him. Then his eyes lit up.
"We having ca phe sua da?" he asked, rubbing his palms together.
"A bastardized version," Hanna confirmed, then grunted as she rolled to her feet and stood, jumbo bag of Cheetos tucked under her arm like it was a pillow she'd brought to a sleepover. She cleared her throat and shot Andre a very stern look. "But we need to have a chat, first."
Andre blinked, took a tiny sip of his coffee, and frowned at her.
"What'd I do?"
"Your quarterback," Hanna said, perching on the edge of the couch I was sitting on so she could loop her free arm around my shoulder, "dumped coffee on our daughter."
Andre's head jerked back.
I sighed and shrugged off Hanna's arm.
"He didn't dump coffee on me," I grumbled, fidgeting with a corner of my visitor's badge that'd started to peel off my shirt. "He just told some girls to do it. By accident. Look, it's fine—"
"It's not fine," Andre said. "St. James fought with Gordon after practice this morning, so he's taking it out on you. That's wrong."
"Chester Gordon?" I asked. "The assistant coach?"
"Is he that ginger guy Vaughn got into a fight with on the sidelines during the Notre Dame game last year?" Hanna piped up.
Andre nodded.
"He got named interim coach. Until they know for sure what's happening with Vaughn."
I felt too cold, suddenly. I set my large iced coffee on the floor at my feet and pulled a tasseled decorative pillow into my lap.
"What were he and Bodie fighting about?" I asked.
"Apparently Gordon told St. James he's gonna cut back on his playing time until he settles down about the whole Vaughn thing," Andre explained. "I guess he thinks St. James is way too emotional right now. I mean, you saw the game. We fucking sucked. St. James got maybe ten passing yard. Maybe. That's being generous."
So that was why Bodie had been such a mess that morning.
Chester Gordon and Truman Vaughn had always had different philosophies when it came to football. Where Vaughn was all about relentless aggression, Gordon cared about fostering a strong defense and an offense that didn't rely on trick plays or brute strength.
Gordon wanted balance. Stability.
And nothing about Bodie was stable right now.
❖ ❖ ❖
That afternoon, Andre and I sat side by side on his bed—our faces slathered in some kind of detoxifying charcoal goop he swore would do wonders for my pores—to watch Parks and Recreation on his laptop. Hanna had been exiled to floor until she finished her jumbo bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, because Andre wasn't about to let her get neon red Cheeto powder on his pristine white sheets.
I almost didn't notice when my phone lit up with a Facebook notification.
A friend request from Bodie St. James.
My first thought was that it had to be a fan account, or something. I didn't believe it was really him until I clicked onto the group Ryan had started (which he'd named, affectionately, Group Sex) and saw that, just ten minutes ago, Bodie had liked Olivia's post about meeting up in Buchanan sometime next week to brainstorm ideas.
Before I could overthink it, I hit accept.
Then I tossed my phone across the bed and tried not to wonder why Bodie hadn't switched groups, like I'd been sure he would.
_________________
Author's Note: Hi. This chapter is short. I know it's short. But it's important, and I worked hard on it. My one-post-a-week pace might seem slow to some, especially since my chapters average 2k words, but I do take a lot of time to edit and think about the details I want to add that will come back later in the story.
Fun fact! The Palazzo is one hundred percent a rip-off of a real USC apartment complex I had a lot of friends live in. For those who are curious, Google "The Lorenzo."
Speaking of things that are unnecessarily over-the-top: I'm back on my cover-making bullshit. Let me know if you like any of these (the current cover is Option A, for reference) and I might consider changing things up.
I am aware I have no chill. Thanks for your patience. Love you all so much.
Your friendly author,
Kate