Trying Not to Love You Page 25

"Yeah he is. He goes to every one of her home games, and tries to go to the away ones too," Mason piped up. I glanced over at Hunter who was glaring at Cooper, while Cooper was glaring at Mason. I found this entertaining.

"So, how are the parties down here Kenzie?" Cooper asked, trying to break the weirdness going on.

"Oh, you know normal college parties." I laughed, remembering the aftermath of the last party at Hunter's house. "The last party at Hunter's was a little crazy though. The house was trashed; there were people duct taped to couches and doors, and people colored with sharpie marker."

"No shit!"

"Yeah, you'll see the craziness tonight. Speaking of craziness, we should get over there and lock up the rooms," Hunter said while getting up from the booth.

Cooper paid the bill and we all walked out. I went over to Hunter's bike. I was putting my helmet on when he looked over at me. "Glad you got on with me. I didn't think you would."

What the hell did I just see?

"Stick your tongue out." I told him.

He wiggled his eyebrows at me and smirked.

I put my hands on my hips. "Stick your tongue out or I'm not getting back on."

"Why?" Then he ever so slowly stuck his tongue out, and licked his bottom lip.

I whimpered. Dear God, he got his tongue pierced.

Hunter looked over to Mason's car, where everyone was in and ready to go, then he smiled at me. "Now, get on so we can go for a ride."

Fuck me! I wanted to ride more than just his bike. Shit I should not be thinking of him like this.

I shook my head and climbed back on his bike; we made the ten-minute ride back to his place. When we pulled into the driveway, he had to maneuver his bike between the cars, so he could park in the garage. I climbed off, handed him my helmet and walked out before I found myself cornered with him alone. There was no telling what I might do to him at this point.

Everyone but Hunter walked down to the beach where the fire pit was going. "So, everything ok with you guys? It seems like everything is finally getting back to normal." Hailey said, as Mason and Cooper were talking about baseball to some guy sitting near us.

"It seems that way, but we'll have to wait and see. Oh, by the way, when in the hell did he get his tongue pierced?"

She snapped her head in my direction, "Did you kiss him?"

"Hailey!" I yelled. "Christ no. I saw it when he was talking to me."

Hailey took a drink of the beer Mason had handed her a few minutes ago. "Oh, okay, he got it that night we got ours done."

All of a sudden, Hailey, Cooper and Mason's phones chirped. What the hell? Hailey read hers, squeezed her eyes shut then turned to look at Mason. Mason looked livid. Cooper, my laid-back brother, looked as if he wanted to murder someone.

I stood up, and so did everyone else. "What the hell is going on?"

Mason spoke up first. "Nothing, we'll go handle it. Stay here with Hailey." Cooper and Mason walked off towards the house, leaving me standing there with Hailey.

"Hails, what's happened?" If someone did not tell me what was going on, I might really lose it.

"Just let Mase and Coop handle it. They'll come back in a few minutes and everything will be okay," she said, with a haunted look on her face.

She would not look me in the eyes, so something had to be wrong. We had only been here for all of twenty minutes. What could have happened that fast?

Then I remembered that Dominic was here. Oh God, he must have seen me on Hunter's bike. I looked at Hailey, then back at the house, and took off running towards the house after Mason and Cooper.

I made it inside and searched for them, but I could not see anything with all these people in here. I finally caught sight of the back of Cooper's shirt heading up the stairs.

I pushed my way through the crowd, and tried to make my way up the stairs when I heard the yelling. Shit, this was not good.

Mason saw me first, and held up a finger telling me to hold on. I stopped and waited for a second, and then I heard a girl crying. I went up a few more stairs so I could hear what was going on.

"FUCK!" I heard and instantly realized it was Dominic's voice.

I froze in place. Mason looked down at me again, and shook his head at me, telling me to not coming up any more.

"What did you think would happen Dominic?" I heard the girl's voice again.

"Not this. We were f**king careful. This isn't happening." Dominic shouted. There was a loud bang as if he punched something.

"Watch it Dom." Hunter said. He must have been the one that texted everyone.

"Yeah, I'm about to watch my girl walk out of my life for f**king good this time." Oh God, what did he do?

"You should have thought about that before you knocked me up, asshat," the girl said.

Wait, what did she just say? She is knocked up? I am about to walk out of Dominic's life? Then it all hit my like a ton of bricks. I quickly grabbed the back of Cooper's shirt as I started to sway. He turned around, grabbed me and pulled me up in front of him.

Standing there in the hallway were Dominic, Brittany, Hunter, Mason and Cooper. I took a deep breath and looked from Brittany to Dominic to Hunter and back to Dominic.

"Baby, oh God baby," Dominic said, walking towards me.

I put my hand up. "Stop, don't you dare come near me." I looked past him to Brittany, who was sitting on the floor with mascara and tears running down her face. "Your roommates girlfriend huh?"

Brittany laughed bitterly. "So that's what he told you."

"Shut up!" Dominic screamed at her. "Baby I can explain…"

I cut him off. "There's nothing to explain Dominic." I stood there for a second staring at him. Everybody else had their eyes on me. I had to get out of here.

"Mase, give me your keys," he reached in his front pocket and handed them to me.

"NO! Baby wait…"

"Let her go Dom." Cooper said.

I ran down the steps, pushed my way back through the crowd to the front door and right to Mason's car at the end of the driveway where Hailey was waiting for me.

I unlocked the door and got in. Hailey knocked on the window for me to unlock the door, but I did not pay her any attention. I started the car and left. I had to get out of here.

11

I did not go home right away. I could not; they would be looking for me there. Normally I would have run to Hunter to vent, but not this time. I drove down Atlantic Ave to the parking lot for the beach. I locked up the car, walked down to the ocean and sat down in the sand, trying to process everything that had just happened.