Gracie was dangerous. 

Waking up with Gracie in my arms? 

The health risks associated with how fast it'd sent my heart beating were unfathomable. 

Her brown hair caught the light until a few strands glimmered like spun gold interwoven with dark hickory and amber ringlets. 

The mass of hair was contained in a braid, but even the thick frizz was still able to escape its confines as she twisted and turned her head this way and that in her sleep on my shoulder. 

There were a constellation of freckles dancing across the bridge of her nose, connecting in a random pattern on the warm tone of her cheeks. 

Fuck, what had I gotten myself into?

It was bad enough to be distracted in the middle of such an important season like this, but to be distracted with someone so intricately entwined with my family past?  It was more than a recipe for disaster—it was downright idiotic. 

And still, I kept coming back for more.  Kept her in my sights, and never let her leave my mind for more than a few moments. 

It was made all the more worse by the fact that she was going through something so intensely delicate and near to what had happened to me in my past, something that I wanted to help her through in a way that no one had helped me through it. 

I wanted to give her that, to have her come to me when she needed someone—not fucking Colby Hart who only wanted her when he couldn't have her. 

It was true that my motivations at the earliest conception of meeting Gracie were fueled by that rivalry with Hart, but later, after realizing that I wanted more from her than what she might've been willing to give, Hart became an afterthought—someone in the way of this growing connection I was desperate to continue. 

If I had my way, Gracie wouldn't ever leave my bed—but that didn't account for reality and the fucking hardships that came with it. 

But when her phone wouldn't stop its constant ringing and her eyes slowly flitted open to its sound, I didn't make a move to get up.  I left it up to her if she was ready to face everything or not yet. 

She deserved that time for herself, to wallow in it.  To grieve. 

Her soft brown eyes met mine in the early evening sunset, the last remnants of the day shining through the slat in the curtains and illuminating the dried salty tear tracks making a trail through her freckles and the light redness rimming her irises. 

"What time is it?"

Her voice crackled through, grainy with sleep and tears. 

"I think it's around seven.  How'd you sleep?"

"Like the dead," she joked and then tensed as she realized the connotations of what she'd just said. 

"I think some people have been trying to get in touch with you."

The tension crept into her body as her eyes closed for a few seconds and then she tilted her head up at me, an agonized look scrunching up her heart shaped face. 

"How do you tell someone you're fine but you just want to ignore every call and text they've sent you without sounding rude?"

Just as I was about to answer her question, however, Calvin came bursting through the door with Nate in tow, their proximity making it obvious that they were expecting some sort of privacy before their eyes fell on us.

"Oh."

Calvin's eyebrows were up in his buzzed hairline and Nate was holding back a smirk, unsuccessfully. 

"Oh, didn't realize this was a thing," Nate said, leaning on Calvin's side while inspecting the two of us in bed, eyes flipping back and forth between the two of us like he had a right to poke fun when he hardly knew me, or Gracie for that matter. 

Calvin, though? 

He watched us with a concerned dip in his brow, already knowing about our past and why having Gracie in my bed was more than just some casual one time thing.  It was because of who she was to my past that it could never be something like that—it wasn't like she was just a random girl on campus, insignificant and someone I'd never give a second thought about.

Calvin also knew that she was the only one—aside from my father—that could distract me enough to make me lose my focus this season. 

It always started out innocently enough—missing one practice, waking up too late because of going to sleep too late the night before, skipping weight training or a morning practice and only doing the bare minimum because there was a pretty girl warming your bed—it always happened with the promising freshmen who suddenly got girlfriends mid-season, and then suddenly they'd fallen off every single recruiters shortlist. 

Calvin eyed me like he knew exactly where my thoughts had gone.  

"When did this happen?"

Gracie grew uncomfortable at Nate's probing questions, and sat up gingerly, her arms coming up to cross over her chest. 

"Um, I should probably go.  Franny's probably wondering where I am."

Handing her the phone that wouldn't shut up a minute ago, I shot a glare at Nate who threw his hands up in surrender. 

"Hey, sorry, didn't mean to pry, I was just curious.  We haven't seen our captain here with a girl since...actually, have we ever seen you with a girl? I think we were starting to get suspicious you were batting for our team before Cal here shut me down."

"Not everyone has to announce their personal lives to the entire team, Nate," I reminded him, my voice icy as Gracie stood and I threw off the blanket I'd placed on her to the side. 

"Maybe not, but you're basically this walking mystery.  I swear, Cal here should've been captain with how unsociable you are.  We literally know nothing about you.  Maybe you just tell Gracie here all your secrets instead."

Nate was steadily climbing the ranks of people on my shit list, and he was about to surpass Hart on that list if he didn't shut the fuck up.

It wasn't like I could ask Calvin to take care of it for me, either, considering Nate wasn't his boyfriend.  The two of them fucked around when Nate didn't have a girl clinging to him for the week.

Gracie rolled her eyes at Nate's remarks though, a fire dancing behind those warm honeyed eyes of hers.

"I don't know about your team, but I've always heard the best player on the team gets chosen to be captain."

Calvin covered up his laugh with a cough into his fist as a grin tried to pull at my lips at the snide tone of her voice. 

"Sorry Nate, maybe you'll get your chance when Kalen finally graduates," Calvin added as Nate's face turned sour.

"Yeah, yeah, we'll see.  At least once he's gone I'll only have to compete with Hart for my position."

"Can we not say that name in my room please?  I might vomit."

Calvin added emphasis to his words by pretending to choke and Gracie's face lit up with a smile that I hadn't seen on her since the night before, when she hadn't been informed yet that her mother had died. 

"I think I might, too."

"Ooh, a fellow member of the Colby Hart anti-fan club.  Welcome."

"He's not that bad," Nate added, but we all turned our glares on him after he piped up.

"What?"

"Nate, you're just saying that because you have a hard-on for him."

Nate turned to Calvin with fake shock decorating the features on his face. 

"That's not fair—I am physically attracted to every person in this room, that doesn't mean I'd be an asshole apologist for you, though."

He turned his head in my direction and one eyebrow cocked up in surprise that he'd choose me to call an asshole.

"No, you're just an asshole apologist for an actual asshole."

"Kalen, you're one of the biggest assholes I've ever met."

"Since when am I an asshole?"

Nate rolled his eyes as he leaned further against Calvin's arm, about to speak up again when Gracie decided to chime in instead.

"You were kind of an asshole when we first met."

"See!  Gracie here agrees with me.  Thank you, Gracie."

"Oh that wasn't me agreeing with you, just pointing something out.  Anyway, I have to go.  Kalen, will you walk me out?"

"Yeah.  These two seem like they need their privacy anyway."

"Finally.  I thought they'd never leave," Nate shouted dramatically the second the door was closed behind us. 

"Well, those two are..."

"Yeah, yeah they are," I agreed with her, grabbing for her hand as we descended the stairs, hoping we wouldn't run into Hart of all people on the way out.  

"Calvin's a lot better than Nate, he just has a soft spot for that little shit so I have to put up with it whenever he decides he wants to be with him for however long Nate will let him."

"That's an interesting dynamic."

"You don't know the half of it."

And then we reached the landing of the stairs, the exact spot where we'd met and she'd slapped me in the face after a not-so-creative insult.

"What time is the funeral tomorrow?"

"The funeral I'm not attending?  I don't know."

Her eyes looked away, a guilty pinch to her face that told me all I needed to know. 

"You can still go, you know.  It won't kill you."

"Maybe, maybe not."

She shuffled her feet, an anxious air around her that tried to coil around me but I wouldn't let it take hold. 

Reaching out, I grabbed her around the waist and tugged her to me tightly, relishing the feel of her in my embrace. 

"You'll let me know if you change your mind?"

Her eyes swam with thoughts I wasn't privy to.

"Sure."

"Hey," I said, catching her chin in my hand and angling her jaw upwards so that her eyes were locked onto me. 

"You call me if you need me, yeah?  For anything, I mean it."

Her throat bobbed as something that looked too much like melancholy slashed across her features and bled into her eyes.

"I will."

She leaned up on her toes to place a chaste kiss on my lips that I hadn't been prepared for, and then she was slipping out of my grip and out of the house. 

She was only leaving to go back to her dorm, so why did I get the feeling she was leaving for good?

There was a nagging thought tugging on my mind the entire rest of the night though, and it didn't hit me until much later, after my evening practice and weightlifting session. 

After I'd finished up all my work for the day, showered, called my father back. 

I was laying there in bed about to fall asleep when I realized it. 

She hadn't said goodbye.

***

Author's Note:

What did you think of this chapter and adding a few side characters back into the mix?

What do you think of the blooming relationship between Gracie/Kalen so far?

What do you think will happen next, especially with her friends and family?

What do you want to happen next?

Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)