Silver by K.A. Linde

couch, which was not her favorite thing in the world but whatever. She was glad, at least, that the couch belonged to her. Otherwise, she would have been screwed right now.
    The boys freshened up in record time, and then they called an Uber to take them to Posse. It had been weeks since Stacia had been out, and as nervous as she had been about being busy this weekend, she was desperate to cut loose.
    Stacia, Derek, and Jordan walked right into the popular nightclub. The summer months weren’t as packed as during the school year. Unlike the rest of Las Vegas, this was Posse’s downtime. Sure, plenty of tourists would venture off the Strip to visit the club everyone was talking about but not enough for it to look like a football Saturday.
    It was weird, walking in and knowing that her friends weren’t waiting or that Maya wasn’t manning the bar. Luckily, Tuck seemed to have stayed for the summer, and Stacia immediately flagged him down.
    “Fruity drink for the cheer slut,” he mumbled under his breath, as if reciting Maya’s directives.
    “Hey, Tuck!” she said. “This is my brother, Derek, and his…” Her eyes cut to Derek’s, as she was unsure of how he wanted to address Jordan. He wasn’t totally out yet, and she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.
    “His friend, Jordan,” Jordan finished.
    “A beer and a gin and tonic,” Derek ordered now that they had gotten past the first hurdle.
    Jordan turned his attention back to Stacia. “I love this place! Such a different vibe than Los Angeles. This is my first time in Las Vegas.”
    “I didn’t know that!” Stacia said. “Oh God, we’re going to have to be tourists tomorrow, aren’t we?”
    “If I can get past my hangover,” Jordan said with a smile.
    “Look what we have here,” a voice sounded behind them.
    Stacia closed her eyes in exasperation.
    One night. Just one night.
    Just one night out without Pace was all she had asked for all summer, and she couldn’t even escape this for one goddamn night.
    With a determined smile, she swung around. “Hey, Pace.”
    “Hey, Pink,” he said with a wink.
    “You remember Derek, right?” she asked, roughly grabbing Derek by the arm and dragging him in front of herself.
    “Hey, man,” Derek said.
    Pace nodded his head, and they shook hands. “Good to see you again.”
    “Been a while.” Derek’s eyes darted to Stacia and back to Pace.
    “Yep. How’s USC’s camp?” Pace said, immediately reverting to the one thing he knew they had in common—football.
    It always came back to football. The most annoying part of the whole situation was that Derek and Pace had known each other—or at least of each other—before Stacia had ever met Pace. They had both spent summers in high school at Los Angeles-based football camps. A large set of guys went to camps, but when income and the quality of the players were factored in, the number would significantly diminish.
    While they were having a good old time reminiscing and discussing the upcoming season, Stacia grabbed her fruity drink from Tuck and downed it as fast as she could before signaling for another. “Less sugar. More liquor.”
    He grinned, which was a real treat from him, and then nodded. She knocked back a tequila shot and then reached for her next drink. Already, she was buzzing, but she knew that she needed to deal with Pace tonight.
    “Hey, sugar,” a guy said, sliding up next to her at the bar.
    She got a good look at him—tall, dark brown skin, and undeniably gorgeous—and she clearly did a poor job of hiding her surprise. “You’re TJ Boomer.”
    He laughed. “A girl who knows her football.”
    “Well, yeah, but also a girl who knows football players who got kicked off their starting team for doing steroids and stealing computers from the university,” she said with more force than she’d intended.
    He shrugged easily. “Ancient history, sweetheart.”
    “What the fuck are you doing in Las Vegas?”
    “Didn’t you hear?”