Eric by Jody Kaye (uplifting novels .TXT) 📕

2007

Brier Rose Cavanaugh was anything but a princess. She left those duties up to her younger sister, Daveigh, who had the kind of heart that allowed one to commune with animals. Brier loved to be in the thick of it with the boys, so thank goodness she grew up with three brothers, too. Adam, Eric and Colton knew that no man was going to hold her back. She was not the girl who needed happily ever after because she was bound and determined to go it alone.

And that was exactly what she was at this very moment, sitting by herself on her bed in her dorm room…Alone.

She’d never admit to anyone that she was waiting for someone. Just as she’d never acknowledge that Drew, the person whom she hoped would show at her door, was more than just a childhood friend. When Texas State played FSU two seasons ago, Brier had given him plenty of reason to stay away.

All the freshman girls on the floor gathered in Brier’s room primping in their maroon and gold. It was hours before game time, but they planned on making it to Bobcat Stadium while tailgating was in full swing. A knock came and Brier, as well as all the other girls, turned their attention to the massive body that filled the threshold. He was less than conspicuously dressed in the opposing team’s garnet color. One of her friends let out a low whistle. Another commented that Drew was in the wrong place and gave him directions to her room.

Brier hadn’t seen Drew in months. He avoided her like the plague since the morning after the quint’s farewell party for Colton over the summer. That night he’d told her he loved her and she couldn’t bring herself to say the words back.

Brier was tiny to begin with but in Drew’s presence she instantly felt smaller than she ever had. She wasn’t ever going to be enough for Drew. Eventually, he would understand that. Her self-esteem nosedived back to where it had been when she let him go last summer. Her hand scooped towards her hip and she worried about how tight her jeans had become during her first semester. The freshman fifteen were nothing to Drew. He must have gained all of his weight in muscle. At this point, he didn’t need the shoulder pads he’d worn playing high school football to look intimidating. Although looking into his blue eyes, she could still see the boy he once was.

“What are you doing here?” Brier took several steps forward before insisting her feet stop. She wouldn’t miss him any less when he left a few hours from now to go back to Tallahassee. It would hurt more. She hadn’t realized that was even possible until she saw him for the first time after they broke up. She told herself that the next time she caught a glimpse of him at a party back home, or in the Kingsbrier fields with her brothers, that it would get easier. It never did.

Drew moved into her dorm room touching his number on the jersey he wore. “It’s not obvious?” he said with a friendly smile.

“Brier’s got dibs. Girl, we’re going to wait in the hall for you.” Her roommate, Rochelle, ushered the coeds out to an echo of the unfairness of it all.

“Brier, are you? I—” He raked his hand through his tight-cropped blonde hair.

Don’t tell me you miss me. Don’t say you want to try again, she thought. Because she still fell asleep at night wanting the opposite to be true. It was a fantasy that they would ever make it as a couple. Half of what had kept them together for those two years was just getting carried away sneaking off under everyone’s noses.

“We were just leaving. Aren’t you going to be late for your game?” She cut him off, grabbed her keys, and punched the button on the doorknob so that it would lock after them. Then Brier beat feet down the short hallway to where her girls stood to wait for the elevator.

She looked away from Drew, straight at Rochelle’s girlfriend, Angela, before pegging a stare at her roommate. Brier needed rescuing from herself and didn’t know what else to do. She ran towards Angela smacking her full on the lips with her own and holding her body close until Angela responded in kind. When they parted, Brier returned her attention to Drew. “When you talk to Adam, tell him I said, ‘Hey’.” She left her eldest brother’s best friend standing slack-jawed in the hall.

The elevator bell dinged and as the girls got on they blocked Brier from view, smiling at Drew until the doors closed.

“Hell, Brier, if I knew you could kiss like that I would have chosen a different roommate.” Angela joked while looking lovingly at her partner. Rochelle took her hand and they laced their fingers together. Angela kissed Rochelle and then snorted. “The least you can do is say thanks for getting you away from that Seminole. I’m sure one of the other girls would have loved to have a go with him. You could have shared.” She looked back to see Brier back herself into a corner. Slumping down and bringing her head to meet her knees, she began to sob.

Rochelle kneeled down and lifted Brier’s face to the incandescent light. She took her thumbs and ran them under Brier’s eyes. “You’re going to ruin your makeup. No boy is worth crying over. We might not have been roommates long, but now I understand now why when any guy looks at you the way that boy just did, you fall apart. It’s going to be okay. I’ll keep this secret for you.” Rochelle pegged the others in the elevator with a stare that insisted that they do the same. “But don’t you ever touch my girlfriend again.”

Two years later, both women continued to stand by her side. However, Brier still wasn’t sure she’d given Rochelle the apology she deserved. She hadn’t known what else to do. Drew was supposed to stay away, like he was today. She wouldn’t have expected him to repeat his performance if…

There were too many of those scenarios. If he’d never shown in the first place. If she couldn’t feel his eyes on her at a party back home. If she didn’t stop dead in her tracks seeing his rusty old Cadillac parked in the driveway. If it didn’t seem like her brother, Adam, wanted to apologize to her for having Drew as a life-long best friend.

Brier picked at the beds of her nails pushing her cuticles back to the point that they were ready to bleed. An itch made her scratch behind her ear as if she was tucking a nonexistent strand of long blonde hair back. She still preferred wearing it short, though some days for fun she’d spike it up. Today it was soft, the way Drew liked it. He always played with the wisps of white. For as much as her brothers mocked her for looking like a boy, when Drew touched the nape of her neck and pulled her close while staring into her emerald green eyes, Brier felt pretty.

The back of a lone small diamond stud that she wore through a cartilage piercing scraped her finger. Brier twisted the earring till it hurt to make sure it was secure. She’d lost the match to the pair and was ever so careful with the remaining one.

“Brier,” Bill poked his head in the door. She dated him casually. He was a nice Oklahoma boy who would make some girl very happy someday. “Everyone’s headed to the game. You coming?”

Brier looked at the clock. It was long past when Drew would have even been able to get over to her dorm. She’d been sitting there for hours. Bill held his hand out to her. She gratefully accepted. This was her penance; to have the attention of a great guy that she didn’t want.

Putting on her brave face, Brier became all about having a good time. She would be able to clearly pick out Drew’s number on the field and sought comfort in the fact that he would never be able to make out where she was in the stands.

He was the kid who got the press excited on college game day. His was the name that the announcers tossed around. Of course, Drew Newhouse wouldn’t be thinking about the dumb girl who broke his heart in high school. There were legions of female fans who would be glad to take Brier’s place. They likely already had. She had