Closing Arguments

|5|

I ditched their game.

And ahead of the guilt I expected to land as soon as they returned home, I revelled in the minute or too I had left of feeling superb. Tucked in on the couch, case law in one hand, cookies (plural) in the other. I couldn't have described a better nor more productive evening. And though I'd planned to whisk myself back to the bedroom and away from the chat Miles had demanded earlier, my supreme comfort on the couch had won over. With the case of Turner vs. Hathaway pulling at my mind as much as the warm doughy, chocolate chips coated my throat. So when the three sweaty musketeers entered the house, I hadn't had enough time to scramble back.

"If it isn't our number one fan, you look pretty comfortable for someone who we assume was deathly ill until a moment ago. The only good excuse for ditching our second game, querida." Miles spoke sarcastically with a tired look on his face. He looked freshly misted from playing and as Kenji and Jasper trailed in with similarly glum looks, I felt that guilt I'd delayed rush in immediately.

"I'm a dick, I know. I should've come. But I had to study, just this once OK? Plus you don't need me to win." I said with a hush reading the room and emphasised as apologetically as I could muster.

"Apparently we do need you, Hunter played like absolute shit." Jasper shared, plonking down on the other couch across from me. I resisted the urge to tell him to move his sweaty self elsewhere, knowing what kind of serve that would earn me.

"You can't possibly attribute that to me?" Surprise etched on my face as I circled the room. And within a beat I recognised that they did in fact think I was a factor. "I wasn't coming for him, I would've been there for you three." I pleaded.

"Whatever it was that threw him off his game, better fucking hope it doesn't happen again." Kenji replied with a one-note delivery.

"I'm really sorry. I'll be there every game this season, aways included if you want. I was feeling overwhelmed and I shouldn't have bailed on you." I smiled small to match my words.

"That overwhelmed feeling wouldn't have anything to do with Vallis and Dixon fighting over you on Saturday? Or sending out a call out for your number this morning? The both of them, so I'm clear. " Miles quirked his head. And it clicked that the evasive football player they knew was the same evasive ass from Saturday night.

"Something like that." Clicking my tongue against the back of my teeth as the puzzle pieces fell into place.

"What happened after I left?" I urged, pulling another cookie to my mouth to distract myself from what was likely to turn into a lecture. The irony wasn't lost on me that three of the sluttiest men I knew cautioned me regularly on the art of being played.

Apparently I lacked the fortitude to sleep around with a football player. They'd deemed the law boys I saw casually as fish flakes and their teammates the sharks of the university ecosystem. And for my own self-preservation I'd stuck to that. Not least because I'd only been single for the last year, prior to that I was living the perfectly-pressed, headband-adorned preppy dream. Lunch dates in the library cafe and weekends on the boat were my norm, courtesy of my dating Asher Norwood.

"You tell us, you left without so much as a wave. We were worried. Concerned even." Jasper offered with raised eyebrows, echoing Miles. Had they rehearsed this approach on the trip home?

"Yeah, Dixon didn't know what was going on. The boy was whipped and weepy." Kenji added.

"We sorted out Vallis though, he was appropriately apologetic." Miles said with finality.

"I sent a text! And I'm sorry it was sudden, it was just Iggy thought I was someone else and said some pretty awful things so I left in a hurry. I was mad and hurt. But I had nothing to do with whatever upset Hunter. I don't think." I muffled through cookie crumbs reluctantly.