Gold, стр. 5

“Slut.”

“Bitch.”

Bryna raised an eyebrow and smirked at her friend. This was why she and Stacia got along. There were forty other girls on the squad, but most of them drove Bryna nuts or made her want to stab her eye out with a fork. Plus, she and Stacia were the only freshman flyers, and that pissed off enough people, so they had to stick together.

“Look! Blaine!” Stacia said.

Bryna narrowed her eyes and searched for the quarterback. “Where?”

“Right there,” she said, gesturing toward the back of the line.

Stacia must seriously have a radar for the guy because Bryna could hardly tell the players apart in their uniforms. Blaine was exceedingly tall, which helped, but so was most of the team.

“Let’s go say hi.” Stacia dragged Bryna across the pavilion.

“What? They just finished practice,” Bryna said.

She shook off Stacia’s vise grip. The girl was nutso for Blaine.

What the fuck? Bryna had no interest in any of the football players. College guys, she was discovering, weren’t much better than high school guys. She didn’t mind flirting and fucking with the best of them but not right now when she needed a shower.

“Who cares?” Stacia said. She jogged forward and fell into step next to Blaine.

Bryna quickly caught up to her. Her eyes landed on the person walking next to Blaine, and she nearly groaned aloud. Eric. She hadn’t seen him since their encounter at Posse. They uneasily eyed each other, but she made sure that she wasn’t the first person to look away.

“Hey, Blaine! Good practice?” Stacia asked, her voice chipper.

Blaine smiled in an unabashed way that won over crowds. “Yeah. Great practice. We’re ready to stomp some Ducks this weekend!”

“I know you’ll be great,” she crooned.

Bryna tried not to roll her eyes. Jesus. Was this how Stacia got what she wanted—by batting her eyelashes and purring to get attention?

Eric snorted next to Blaine, and Bryna saw that his expression mirrored her own. When they both noticed, they glared at each other and then turned away.

What an ass! She could be disdainful of her friend slutting it up, but he couldn’t.

“Thanks, Stacy,” Blaine said with that same smile. “We have to get to the showers. See you around.”

“Bye!” Stacia cried as he left her in the dust.

Once they were a safe distance away from the practice fields, Stacia let out a heavenly sigh. “He wants me. I know it.”

Bryna’s eyes bugged out. “He didn’t even call you by your real name.”

Stacia shrugged. “I mean, technically, it was my real name, but I had my parents legally change it in high school.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Anyway,” Stacia said dramatically, “I think I’m going to make a move at the away game this weekend.”

“Good idea,” Bryna said.

There was no convincing her otherwise. She had her eyes set on the quarterback, and she wouldn’t be discouraged just because Bryna knew Blaine wasn’t interested in her. Not only was he not interested, but she knew he was also hooking up with some girl on the basketball dance team. Either way, he was going to the NFL next year and leaving both girls behind.

“You know, I saw that thing between you and Eric,” Stacia said once they reached the parking lot.

“What thing?”

“The eye thing.” Stacia wiggled her eyebrows up and down.

“There was no eye thing.” The only thing that had passed between her and Eric was disgust that they’d shared an even remotely similar thought.

“Okay. Whatever you want to think.”

Bryna rolled her eyes. One day, she was going to lay it on them that Eric was gay, and they were going to be so stunned that they wouldn’t know what to do.

“Seriously, there was something,” Stacia crooned. “I’m not sure I believe that he turned you down. It was a front, right?”

“Wrong,” she said, exasperated. Why do I have to keep defending myself? “Maybe we were both amazed at how much you want to suck Blaine’s dick.”

“Why would anyone be amazed at that?” she deadpanned.

Bryna laughed. “You’re such a slut.”

“I only hope that I’ll be as good at it as you are.” She innocently fluttered her eyelashes.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Pretty much. Speaking of,” Stacia cried, “what exactly happened last weekend? I want the goods. Trihn said you threw your drink on that guy you were with.”

Bryna shrugged, unperturbed. “He had it coming.”

And it was true. He hadn’t even had the decency to be honest. Not that Jude had ever been honest. But the whole concept just irritated her. She knew she should just brush it off and roll with the punches, but after the way Jude had played her, she was a changed woman. And not necessarily for the better.

“Hey, B.” Stacia snapped her fingers in Bryna’s face. “Hot guy? Cocktail in the face? What the fuck?”

“He didn’t know how to play the game, so I gave him a lesson.” She winked.

Stacia giggled. She retrieved her car keys from her bag and clicked the unlock button. Her giant SUV beeped across the parking lot, and she leaned on the hood of Bryna’s Aston Martin while they talked. “That doesn’t sound like my idea of a lesson.”

“That’s because you would have banged him.”

Stacia tapped her lips. “True.”

“Anyway,” she said, popping open her door, “he was married.”

“Oh,” Stacia said in understanding.

Bryna wished that had been the real issue. But she had been there, done that before.

BRYNA VALETED HER ASTON MARTIN at Caesars Palace on the Vegas Strip and entered the Forum Shops for a last-minute shopping trip. She hated to admit that she was a little nervous about her first away game, but she couldn’t help it. Jitters wracked her stomach, and the only way to calm those nerves—other than sex, which wasn’t exactly accessible at the moment—was a quick shopping trip. She could use a new carry-on anyway.

Meandering through the designer boutiques made her heart happy and calmed the unnecessary nerves. She rounded the corner and entered the beautiful interior of Louis Vuitton.

A clerk immediately approached her. “Hello. Welcome to Louis Vuitton. How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a new carry-on. Something sleek.”

“I know just the thing,” the woman said with a smile.

Bryna spent a solid hour with the saleslady. It was hard to decide on only one bag, so she ended up with two—a black carry-on with all gold accents and a new gold makeup bag. After swiping her daddy’s credit card, she exited the boutique with every intention of returning to her condo to finish packing.

She pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through the messages she had received while occupied. There was one from Trihn, wishing her good luck at the game this weekend. Attached was a picture of her history homework with a sad face drawn on it. Bryna laughed and clicked over to the next message where Stacia had posed for a picture in her cheer warm-ups with a thumbs-up and added text underneath.

See you in twenty.

Bryna checked the time and realized she had missed that only a couple of minutes ago. She still had some time. Maybe she would peek into one more shop before heading out.

Knowing she only had a short time, she walked through the Forum, back toward the entrance, and scoped out where to make her stop. Her smile brightened at the next entrance where a security guard was posted on the other side of the door. She sighed.

Tiffany’s.

She had a gold bangle with diamonds inlaid in the band from Jude. The smile slipped from her face for a split second, but she forced it back on. Fuck him! She was over that shit. The bracelet was the sort of thing she should be wearing, and it didn’t matter that she had gotten it when he decided to make their arrangement more serious, only to pull the rug out from under her later. Tiffany’s was too perfect to be tainted by him.