Winner Takes All

Chapter Twenty One ✘ Package Deal

"Did you have to ruin what was shining? Now it's all rusted."
Bad Blood — Taylor Swift

Some Avicii song pierces my eardrums as I walk past the enormous two speakers that are set up right by the tiny kitchen, my hands trying to balance the cups of beer I'm holding.

I look for my friends in small crowd of unknown faces all around me, finally spotting them hanging out by the couch that's pushed up against the wall.

Pushing my way through bodies, I finally make it to Faith, Bella, Micah and Ty, handing over the cups of beer to Faith and Bella.

I'm about to down my entire cup in one go, when Jace and Kai emerge from the crowd, Thalia and Nathan following them, all of them holding beer bottles of their own.

"—She looked at me like twice. I gotta talk to her." Ty runs a hand through his inky black hair, eyeing a girl who's probably from Stanford across the room.

"Liquid courage, buddy." Micah laughs, pouring some beer from his bottle into Ty's cup.

Nathan comes to stand by me, and I send him a grin. "Hey."

"Hey," He replies, his eyes giving me a quick once-over.

There's nothing much to see, I hadn't bothered to pull on anything dashing when we were all invited to a small get together by the Stanford basketball team captain. We're at the same hotel we're staying at, in a suite with the Stanford basketball and soccer team filling the place alongside our two teams.

My grey cropped top and ripped high waisted shorts seemed decent enough at the time, but I eyed a few girls from the Stanford soccer team wearing dresses. I look back at Bella and Faith, who are also wearing casual clothes, and shrug it off.

"You won a game today man," Kai says to Ty, leaning against the armrest of the couch. "Your confidence is supposed to be over the roof."

"C'mon Ty." I add, poking him with my elbow. "Go."

"Wait!" Faith stops him, getting to her feet. "Let's cheer first."

Everyone forms in a small circle, holding out cups and bottles in front of us. My eyes latch onto Jace's for a millisecond before I look away, the memory of last night by the food truck still fresh in my mind.

"To winning both of our first games of the season today. Go CSU!" Micah cheers, lifting his bottle, and we all cheer, clinking our drinks together.

Everyone drinks and so do I, exhaling a breath of relief. Today was a grueling day, and the game against Stanford wasn't an easy to one to win, but our team pulled through with just two scores ahead.

As promised, our coaches took us to the boys' match just a few hours after we were done, and surely enough, they won by a huge lead, with Jace scoring the final point.

I'd expected the Stanford teams to be pissed off after we beat them at two games in one day, but the captain of the basketball team approached us while we waited for our buses after the basketball match and invited all of us to a party. Since we'd anyway been planning to celebrate, we all agreed. And so far, it's decent.

"Go, you wuss." Jace shoves Ty's shoulder gently, and Ty shoots us all a nervous look before sauntering over to the brunette girl a few feet away from us. We all immediately look away from them, not wanting to embarrass Ty.