When I got home from dropping off Bailey, Dallas was sprawled out on the living room couch, bottle of beer in hand with his other arm draped around Shiv. In the dark, a horror film flashed on the oversized flatscreen, complete with lots of revving chainsaws and splattering blood.

Those two were a match made in weirdo horror-loving heaven.

I wasn't squeamish about guts and gore, but I never really got the appeal of scary movies. If I was going to sit through a movie, it either had to be funny or have lots of car chases and explosions.

Or, well, be a naked movie.

I paused in the doorway to the living room and nodded at them. "Hey."

In the background, there was a bloodcurdling scream from the TV.

Dallas reached over and paused the movie. "How's your ankle?"

"Hurts like a bitch, but it's slowly getting better," I said. "What are you two psychos watching this time?"

"Chainsaw Slaughter 6." Shiv grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl beside her. "It's the best one of the whole series. Wanna join?"

It sounded better than economic theory, but I had a quiz tomorrow and Coach Miller had been watching me like a hawk since our little chat. He'd cornered me on a weekly basis for updates, which was really code for trying to see if I would lie about what he had already found out from my professors. If I wanted to keep playing, there wasn't much room for error.

"I still have to finish some schoolwork, but thanks for the offer."

Dallas tilted his head, studying me. "Schoolwork? Is this Bailey's influence or what?"

"Coach was up my ass about my grades again." I shrugged. "It's buck up or get benched, and we all know you're fucked without me."

"Back to the Bailey thing," he said pointedly, ignoring my jab and blatant attempt to change the subject. "You've seen her a lot lately. Taking this toying with Morrison thing pretty far, huh?"

"Nah, I just like spending time with her."

He pointed at me with the neck of his beer bottle. "Because you like her."

Beside him, Shiv widened her eyes and gave a little shake of her head as if to say, "I didn't tell." I believed her. Unfortunately, Dallas was just good at reading me. Plus, hanging around a girl this long without banging was basically a dead giveaway. The only other girl I was friends with was Shiv.

And let's be real—not even I believed my intentions with Bailey were actually platonic. The real question was what Bailey wanted.

"Maybe."

"Don't even try to act cool. We already know, dumbass," Dallas said. "I wanted to make sure you did. You're not always the most self-aware."

Dammit.

Okay, whatever. I could own it.

"Fine," I said. "I like her."

"I liked her too. Can we keep her?" Shiv gave me a puppy dog face.

"I have no idea," I said honestly. With the amount we had been talking lately, suddenly it seemed hard to imagine my life without Bailey in it. But that was a little crazy given that I'd known her all of a month and I wasn't entirely sure where we were headed. For all I knew, she could get back with Morrison tomorrow and never speak to me again.

"She does seem cool," Dallas agreed.

"She is."

He smirked. "Which means you have no business with her."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, man." I flipped him off before continuing upstairs to my room.

"Love you too," he called.

When I got into bed later, it still smelled faintly like Bailey—something sweet, like her perfume, mixed with something else that I was pretty sure was just her. And hockey help me, I liked it.

I was so screwed.

*

Tuesday evening's practice rolled around and Coach Miller bag skated us for the first half as punishment for playing so poorly against New England U last weekend. He was sneaky that way. We thought we were in the clear because he didn't do it the day after the game, or the day after that. But mid-week?

Surprise, motherfuckers.

Now everything hurt and I was dying. To make matters worse, I was dumb enough to carpool with Dallas and Ty, which meant I got dragged to O'Malley's after practice. I mean, the pub part was fine. It was the crowd that frequented the pub that I was ambivalent about. O'Malley's was puck bunny and former-hookup central.

"Solid practice," Dallas said, draining the last of his rum and coke. He set it back down on the black laminate tabletop. "Aside from the part where half the team puked in the garbage can at center ice."

"At least none of us did." I shrugged, pushing my chair away from the table to stretch out my legs in front of me. My ankle still wasn't one hundred percent going into practice and it was agonizing coming out. "Plus, by Miller's standards, only half the practice is practically a pass."

Ty smirked, tipping back his beer. "And you even got a few shots past me during drills for once. Good for you, little buddy."

"I guess your strategy of flopping has to work sometime," I said.

"Maybe you should learn to lift the puck."

"Maybe you should—"

From out of nowhere, a soft hand touched the back of my neck and startled the crap out of me. I jumped in my seat, jerking around to find a pair of blue eyes with heavy eye makeup staring back at me.

"Hi handsome." Lindsay slid into my lap, looping an arm around my shoulders. She crossed her legs, causing her very short, very tight black skirt to hike up a little more.

Fuck.

"Hey." My voice fell flat. In the background, Ty rolled his eyes and stood up to go grab another beer.

"Long time no see," she said breathily.

Objectively speaking, Lindsay was super hot, albeit in a very overt, heavily made-up way. Earlier this year, I made it a mission to hit it and flirted with her like crazy. We did a whole back and forth thing and got pretty close, but it never quite came to fruition.

Despite that, there was zero response in my body to the events that were unfolding. It was like watching the entire thing happen to someone else.

"Yeah," I said. "Been a while."

Would it be rude to tell her to get off my lap? Diplomacy wasn't exactly my strong suit. Until recently, I wouldn't have wanted her to leave, but now I did. Even if I tried to do mental gymnastics to justify this—like reminding myself of the fact that I was still technically single—it felt disloyal as hell.

"Are we going to pick up where we left off last time?" She bit her lip, tracing a pink fingernail along my chest. "Remember?"

I craned my neck and reached around her, trying to grab my beer. "Er...no, not really."

I hadn't seen Lindsay since sometime this summer. Between hockey, school, and James, it felt like a decade had passed since then. I had no idea what I'd said. I may or may not have been wasted at the time. Odds are, I was.

"About christening the bathroom next time we were here?"

Oh. That.

I was half-lit and trying to close after we'd been making out a little. Lindsay was on the hook, too, until her friend passed out at the table and she had to take her home. I'd all but forgotten about that, but I guess Lindsay hadn't.

She nodded to the hallway behind us, lowering her voice. "You said you were going to tear off my panties and—"

I winced and held up my hand, cutting her off. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Or..." Lindsay leaned closer, undeterred. Her breath was warm against my ear and smelled like some kind of fruity alcohol. "We could go back to my place with my friend, Melanie, over there. She loves hockey players." Lindsay pointed to a busty brunette standing by the pool table, talking to some other guys from the team. Lindsay caught her friend's eye and her friend waved at us flirtatiously.

August me would have considered this winning the hookup lottery, would have been all over this, would have been booking a ride home already with both of them.

October me would rather go home and watch SportsCenter. Or text James.

Was this seriously happening?

I shot Dallas a "what the fuck" look.

Dallas cleared his throat, leaning over the table. "Carter's got a girlfriend, Linds." He nodded at me.

She turned and gaped at me, expression a mixture of disbelief and irritation. "You have a girlfriend?"

I nodded because it did seem like the simplest way to let her down easy. "Yeah. It's new."

"Oh." Her glossy lips formed an "o" for a moment as she paused. She tossed her dark hair and shrugged. "Well, she doesn't have to know."

Lord help me.

"I'm flattered, Lindsay. Really, I am." I gently tried to push her off me. "But I'm going to have to pass."

She narrowed her eyes. "You're serious right now? After all the shit you talked last time."

Funny how you can pursue someone for a while, doing the whole sexy cat and mouse thing, but the minute you lose interest, they want you immediately.

"Sorry," I said. "Can't do it."

"Whatever, Carter." She stood up, storming away in a huff.

Once she was safely out of earshot, Dallas let out a low whistle. "Never thought I'd see the day."

"Neither did I."

His eyes jumped to the pool table behind me. "Oh, well. I guess your loss is Tyler's gain." I followed his gaze to find Lindsay and her friend hanging off Ty at the bar. Cool. More power to him.

Lindsay saw me glance over and shot me a glare, like she expected me to be jealous. I smiled back because I seriously did not give a shit.

"But, dude." Dallas lowered his voice, giving me a look so probing I felt borderline violated. "What the hell is going on? Have you even made a move on Bailey?"

"Not really," I said, peeling the label off my bottle. "You and your fucking bookshelf made sure of that."

His mouth dropped open. "Oh my god." He started to laugh, shoulders shaking. "I thought you seemed off when we got home. I'm sorry, man. I didn't expect you to have company that early in the evening."

"It's fine," I muttered.

"But you're going to find your balls again and make a move. Right?"

I nodded, taking a sip of my beer. "Yup."

In mean, in theory.

"Soon." He lowered his head, trying to catch my eye.

"Soon."

I didn't know what was holding me back. Whether it was fear of seeming opportunistic about her breakup with Luke. Fear of scaring her off if I was flat-out wrong about things. Or fear of rejection, which was honestly something I wasn't used to handling.

Maybe all of the above.

I was having a fantastic day. First, I managed to convince my astronomy instructor to let me unofficially switch class times, citing unforeseen (and non-existent) school newspaper conflicts. I would still have to write the final exam with my actual class—including Luke—but Professor Walsh agreed to let me sit in on the Thursday morning lectures instead. I practically danced out of his office. It was like a gigantic meteor had been lifted from my shoulders.

Then, Noelle drove Zara and me to our favorite lunch place off campus to enjoy overpriced but delicious chopped salads the size of our heads.

"You didn't have to buy me lunch," I said to Zara. But I was thankful she did because $15 salads were hard to justify and my gigantic chicken Caesar salad was heaven in a bowl. Somehow, salads always tasted better when someone else made them.

She shrugged, taking a bite of her spicy Thai noodle salad. "It's the least I could do after you agreed to cover the basketball game tomorrow night on short notice. Again."

"I don't mind."

Technically, I had plans with Chase to come over for Tyler's birthday, but he understood when I told him I'd have to come a little later. It was an early game at least, so it wouldn't eat into the night too much.

"You know I would have taken one for the team if I could," she said. "But I'm not sure a sports article written by me would even make sense. My knowledge starts and ends with the fact that the ball goes into the round hoop and there's lots of running."

I laughed. "It's okay. You have a date tomorrow night anyway, don't you? How are things with Gavin?"

Gavin was her Tinder date from last week, a slightly older veterinarian with a three-year-old daughter. Different than her usual type, but maybe that was a good thing. Usually Zara gravitated toward bad boys, with bad outcomes as a result.

"Amazing." Zara's eyes sparkled. I'd never seen her so excited about someone.

"It's their third date," Noelle said in a sing-song voice. "Someone's going to get lucky."

Zara blushed, which was the first time I had ever seen her look bashful. "Well, maybe. We're kind of taking it slow."

I wasn't sure it could be much slower than me and Chase, who'd yet to even establish our intentions. I was pretty sure he almost kissed me the other day, but now I was second-guessing myself. Maybe he really did see me as just a friend and all his flirting was just playing around. It was hard to tell with him sometimes.

Ugh.

This limbo we were in was both exhilarating and exhausting.

"I'll wear ear plugs tonight just in case," Noelle said.

Zara's cheeks turned a deeper shade of red. "It's not my fault the walls are thin."

"Speaking of that," I said. "This might seem a little out of left field, but have you guys given any thought to living arrangements for next year?"

A gust of wind from the open door blew in, chilling us all. I pulled on my plaid scarf, wishing we had grabbed a table closer the back.

"Not really, no." Noelle shook her head. "That's still so far away. Depends what happens with our rent, I guess. Last year our landlord raised it 10%, so if she does that again we might look for something else. How come?"

I swallowed a bite of food. "I was wondering if you might want to get a three bedroom."

"That would be awesome," Noelle said. "We would have so much fun."

Zara took a sip of iced tea, nodding. "But, wait. Why don't you want to stay with Amelia and Jillian?"

"Uh...We aren't really getting along lately."

"Really?" Noelle frowned. "What's going on?"

"What's not?" I snorted. "Everyone basically hates me because of Luke. And they're using Chase as an excuse, since he's supposedly enemy number one. But I know the real issue is Luke."

"That doesn't make any sense. Luke broke up with you. And you're a free person." Zara stabbed at her noodle salad aggressively.

"Tell me about it," I said. "But it's so uncomfortable I don't even want to be there anymore. If I could afford a place on my own, I would be out tomorrow."

Noelle winced. "That sucks, B. I'm sorry. I don't know why they would be so shitty."

"Luke is the ringleader, I guess. What he says goes."

"But what about your brother?" Zara asked. "Doesn't he stick up for you at least?"

I sighed. "No...That's its own story entirely."

Definitely didn't want to get into that right now. Or ever. I was still hoping Derek would come to his senses and end things with Jillian. As it was, I couldn't even look either of them in the eye anymore.

"Anyway," I said, "if you know anyone who needs a roommate, let me know. I would legitimately consider it. It's pretty brutal at home."

Noelle grinned. "Good thing you've got Chase to distract you at least."

Now it was my turn to blush. "We're just friends."

I think.

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Come on, Chase. Make a move!