1.
CASS
"Cass! Cass! Cass!" Jenny and Hannah chant her name, fully embracing the use of peer pressure. "You have to come! It's traditional. All of the cheerleaders go to the first big party of the year. Picture all of the hottest men on campus, unlimited drinks and a lot of open bedrooms. It's the wildest party of the year, hands down. Last year, I saw two fist fights, a threesome happening on the roof and three different mega influencers."
She starts to shake her head, but one of the other girls from the team grabs her head on both sides and forces her head up and down instead. She forces a laugh and accepts that she's not getting out of it. "Fine, fine! I'll do it, I'll go. But I think I'll skip the threesomes and fist fights."
The chorus of cheers should've pleased her. She's the new girl on the team and they're doing everything they can to make her feel comfortable. They're even facing an uphill battle after she left behind the team she spent three years with. Not to mention all of the other things she left behind.
"No more sad face, grumpy face." Kayla squeezes her cheeks. "I swear to you, one look at some of the men on this campus and you'll never frown again. Oh, baby, do they make the men different here."
She swallows back a sharp reply and blows out a deep breath. "No, thank you to the men. I won't say no to free alcohol though."
"You've ignored all of the hot guys we've shoved your way. We know heartbreak when we see it." Jenny applies her lipstick expertly and turns to face her. "Haven't you ever heard that you need to get under someone to get over someone? We're taking you to the party and we're going to get you laid."
The idea of touching another man sends a pang of longing through her. She doesn't collapse under the sadness this time though. She stiffens her spine and puts on her bravest face, because that's what you do when your entire life implodes. You smile until your face hurts and hope nobody notices the cracks.
She glances down at herself in her usual outfit of athletic shorts, a racerback tank and sneakers that have logged more gym hours than social ones. Her body is all lean muscle and sharp angles, not the kind of soft guys that makes guys look twice. Once she showed up, Cole never looked at her twice. He fist-bumped her, called her 'dude', treated her like she was just another one of his bros who happened to wear a ponytail. "Are you going to pick me out something and do my makeup too? This is where the makeover montage comes in, right?"
Jenny taps the end of her nose with the lipstick tube and smirks. "Remember that you asked for it."
She has to remind herself that she indeed asked for it once they're at the party at a massive house off campus and she keeps tripping over her heels like a newborn giraffe. Arriving as a team should've felt cool, but she feels uncomfortable in the outfit they chose for her and all she can think is that she wants to be back home in her pajamas, watching trashy reality TV and eating a pack of Oreos. She has to keep putting on a good face though. If she doesn't put in the effort to make friends and join student life, she'll regret it when she does eventually crawl back out of the depression she's been living in. So, she does what she has to do. She drinks whatever they hand her, smiles and even laughs when people make jokes. She dances with Jenny and a few other girls from the team. She talks to guys and even flirts a bit. It's excruciating. Every minute that creeps by feels like a hundred.
She's fading fast and makes her way through the house to find a ride home when her heels get tangled in a tasseled rug. All the stumbling she's done through the night hasn't manifested into a fall, but she knows the heels are about to win. She has a new cup of punch in her right hand and as she vaults forward, her arms windmill. She manages to catch herself on someone's thick arm and when she looks up, it's Weston Fisher's punch-covered face glaring back at her. She gasps and jerks away from him, just to bump into two more larger than life bodies. She doesn't need to look that she's surrounded by the other two Fisher brothers, Hayes and Cash. Everything around her freezes while her mind races. The Fisher brothers. They're part of the reason she transferred to Texas. Their little sister is the reason it hurt to breathe for the entire last year. Savannah took everything from her and she dreamt of little other than revenge since leaving Los Angeles. Unfortunately, those dreams didn't lay out any fool-proof plans so suddenly finding herself in their presence presents her with a golden opportunity that she has no idea how to handle. To revenge or not to revenge? She doesn't know what way she was going when she opened her mouth, but that's kind of the theme of her life. "Sorry about the punch, but to be fair, you walked into the way of my falling. And hey, it's good punch."
Weston Fisher is a good massive man with muscles on muscles that seem to flex with every breath he takes. He also never gets caught without his cowboy hat on. She's heard more than one of her teammates ponder if he takes it off to shower or have sex. He's a beautiful man with shaggy light brown hair and stunning light brown eyes that are trying to light her on fire. "Was that some lame attempt to get me out of my shirt?" His voice is gravel-filled and his southern accent makes the hairs on her arms stand on end. It's... nice. Too bad his giant ego is attached to it.
"Oh, yeah, definitely. I was walking along when I saw you and thought, I will absolutely die right here and now if I don't get this big cowboy half naked. So, cowboy, you planning on taking it off or leaving me with an empty punch cup and nothing to show for it?" Okay, so she's still not sure which direction she's going. If she planned better or even kept her sarcasm to herself, she might've shut up and flirted like a normal human being, the way she did with the other guys at the party.
A snort from behind her draws her attention and she glances back at the tattooed Fisher brother, Cash. With his five o'clock shadow and too-long hair the same shade as his brothers, Cash Fisher is like a carbon copy of Weston, but only if someone doodled all over the copy and makes the eyes darker. Weston draws her attention back to him with a grunt. "At least you admit it."
"I don't want to see you shirtless, you big oaf." She crosses her arms and warmth envelopes her as she watches his eyes drop to the little cleavage she has to offer.
He takes a step closer and trails his eyes back up to her face. He doesn't even bother to hide that he's looked down her dress. "I don't want to see you shirtless either." She huffs, offended. She's working her way up to a full fit when his mouth tilts up on one side. She freezes as he leans down and speaks next to her ear. "See? We can both bullshit each other." He moves back and reaches to tip his hat higher. "So, you want something to show for that empty cup?" He grabs the bottom hem of his shirt and her eyes are glued to the sliver of skin he exposes. Breath caught, eyes burning, she realizes she's hungry for more. She wants him to yank his shirt up, maybe dislodge his hat in the process so she can fix it for him.
Her mouth continues to move, sarcasm so deep in her soul that she doesn't her brain functioning to give it out. "Yeah. More punch, Cowboy. Unless you've got a punch bowl under that shirt, you can keep it on." She's standing there, a little tipsy and lusting after a Fisher brother. Not for revenge, not for some elaborate plot. Her body hasn't reacted to anyone other than her ex in so long that she's shocked by the feelings growing inside her. Shocked and horrified. Weston Fisher can't turn her on. That's not ever going to be a part of any plan she comes up with. "I have to go. Keep your shirt on, Cowboy." She looks over her shoulder at the last Fisher brother, the one she didn't look at yet. Whatever last sarcastic thing she was about to say, dries up on her tongue at the interested look in Hayes' blue eyes. And she just stands there, flush-cheeked and wanting, when she should be plotting. When she should be anything but breathless and interested, she leaves them standing there as she hurries away, only stopping to kick off her heels. She's not taking any chances with her escape. Her skin prickles, hyperaware that all three of them are watching her as she walks. She doesn't need to look back to know. She can feel it, the weight of their attention following her through the crowd.
This is so, so bad. Savannah Fisher didn't just take the only man she's ever loved. She stole her home, her friends, her future. And she made the whole campus believe she deserved it. Who knows, maybe she does. She's spent a year fantasizing about revenge, about making Savannah Fisher hurt the way she hurt her. Except now that she sees her brothers - actual people, not faceless villains from her angry daydreams, she feels like an idiot. Revenge requires her to be cold and calculated, not flustered and flushed because Weston Fisher looked down her dress. Not distracted because Cash smirked at her sarcasm like he enjoyed it. Not breathless because Hayes has eyes that make her forget why she's supposed to hate anyone named Fisher in the first place.
They're off-limits, they have to be. They're her brothers for fuck's sake. She needs to get home and thoroughly bang her head against a wall until whatever short circuit just happened in her brain gets fixed. But this? This isn't revenge. This is just asking for a whole new level of heartbreak.
