By the third day of summer practices, Mari had no clue how the Foxes made it to championships last spring. It wasn't that they were horrible players— individually they were all pretty damn good— the problem was that they couldn't work together. At all.

       The groups that the team had been split up into on the first day seemed to stick, but Allison and Seth seemed to shift between being just the two of them or retreating to the others. Whenever they fought, Allison ended up with the girls, and Seth retreated to Matt. It seemed that they didn't believe in middle ground: either they were slinging vile insults at each other or making out in the locker room regardless of who might be around.

Mari didn't understand the appeal of a relationship like that. Or of a relationship in general. She hoped she never did.

The entire first week of summer practices was eaten up by infighting as the court hierarchy fell into place. When Dan was acting as their captain, she ruled them with the same angry spine that Mari had seen on the first day. She didn't hesitate to push people into place and Mari admired that about her. The Foxes let her have the final say in everything and even Andrew, whom Mari thought would've been the biggest problem, followed her orders.

       Kevin knew more about the sport than anyone (as expected) and he had some lingering authority from his stint as the assistant coach. Still, his cold personality was a turnoff and his approach made it hard for the others to listen to him without snapping back. Even Mari had to bite back a few comments about where he could shove her racket.

       Most of her practice time had been spent with the strikers, trying to figure out plays and how Mari would pass the ball to them. A very little amount of time was spent trying to get around the backliners (namely Aaron and Matt), which proved to be a bit difficult due to her lack of practice.

       Kevin also started most of the arguments that week, and most of them were between him and Seth. Kevin and Seth hated each other with a loathing second only to what Nicky and Seth felt for each other. It took only one wrong word to turn their arguments into physical brawls. The fighting hit a peak on Wednesday afternoon when Andrew left practice early for his weekly therapy session. The second he vanished, Seth went for Kevin with fists flying.

        Mari was starting to regret her decision to play offense.

       Matt was the brute force that kept everyone in line when Dan's words weren't enough. Because of Kevin's injury and Andrew's apathy, Matt was the best player the Foxes had. He brought solidarity to the team and Mari's respect for him shot up. That was no easy feat on a team like this. Mari had a feeling something had happened with him and the cousins, as they all seemed to have an understanding, which meant the Foxes had a solid defense line.

His relationship with Kevin was too complicated for Mari to understand. They seemed to have a mutual respect for one another, Kevin was willing to work with and listen to him. But the two of them went from perfect understanding to outright antagonism at the snap of a finger. It was almost like a platonic Allison and Seth predicament.

       Renee was next in line, and Mari stuck with her throughout practices the most— even though they played drastically different positions. Renee doled out friendly advice, encouraged her fellow teammates' efforts, and played mediator occasionally. She didn't seem to take sides in the fights that broke out, either to take sides or preach peace, and no one argued. Even Andrew seemed quite taken with her, which took Mari aback. She wasn't the only one apparently, as everyone else constantly sent unhappy looks their way. Neither goalkeeper paid them any mind, though.

         The rest of the Foxes fell under them in an ever-shifting order.

       Seth's position on the team varied the most. He was the team's only fifth-year, since everyone else from his starting line had flunked out or quit by now, but he was too much of an isolationist to make much of a difference on the court. His mood was so volatile, Mari didn't like being around him much. It reminded her a little too much of how she was last year.

       Allison carried weight because of her seniority and her aggressive attitude on the court, but she loathed the cousins and refused to work with them any more than she had to.

       Aaron was a way better player than Nicky, that was for sure, but he kept a clinical distance from it all. It was clear he didn't care for Exy as much as everybody else on the team did. Mari found that quite interesting

Nicky, on the other hand, gave it everything he had. But he liked dramatic plays and picking fights with Allison and Seth way more.

Andrew's position was hard to figure out. Andre Minyard in general was a puzzle that Mari doesn't think she'll ever figure out (and she's perfectly fine with that). His influence over Kevin and his skill made him incredibly useful, but he put in as little effort as Wymack let him get away with.

What a shame. If he tried, Andrew Minyard could really be somebody.

       Mari's place in whatever court hierarchy the Foxes had going on was not obvious. Not to her, and not to anybody else. Mari was glad that all her teammates knew about her season at USC, because at least they didn't doubt her ability one bit. She couldn't say the same for Neil, for whom nobody seemed to have any regard for due to his inexperience.

       The con to her teammates knowing about her brief time at a Big Three school? Whenever she made the slightest fumble in getting the ball from Aaron to Kevin, Seth was always waiting with a snarky comment. Mari had to talk herself out of throwing the ball in her racket at his face. Multiple times.

       She settled for flipping him off or cursing at him under her breath in Spanish, which she'd hoped no one understood. Just her luck that Nicky Hemmick happened to understand just enough Spanish to hear what she was saying.

        Mari missed talking shit in her native language with Cat Alavarez, Trojan backliner, and one of Mari's closest friends. She remembered when Captain Jeremy Knox would run drills with the upperclassmen, who more often than not had a game the next day, as Cat and Mari would ramble to one another about their day and how exhausted they were after a long and grueling practice.

       That's not to say she doesn't connect with Dan, Allison, and Renee, because she does. Dan had basically taken Mari under her wing, and Mari assumed it was because they were both women of color in a mainly male and white dominated field. Their part of the offensive line was solid, but the strikers were a hot mess.

Nothing Neil did was enough to satisfy Seth or Kevin. They tore him apart and kicked him aside as useless no matter how hard he tried. Whenever Mari thought she was having a bad day, she remembered that Neil was more than likely having a worse day. The other two strikers, however, were as willing to fight over Neil as they were with him, so Neil stood silently and stoically as he watched Seth and Kevin duke it out with fists.

Wymack rarely interfered with the fighting. He let the brawl and then punished them with intense cardio and excruciating drills. Seemed as if he'd decided long ago that his team could only function by testing themselves against each other and establishing their own ranking. Mari thought it was mad at first, but as the week progressed the team was finally figuring out alliances and limits.

       Mari didn't quite know where she stood.

       On Friday night, Mari finds herself getting her hair and makeup done by Allison, who insisted on being the one to do it.

        Mari would never admit it, but she was nervous. And maybe a little scared.

       As Allison tried to do Mari's mascara without poking her in the eye, Mari recalled her conversation with the cousins earlier in the week.

       She'd been sitting on the couch, laptop in her lap as she scrolled through the course catalogue with Renee as they tried to pick out classes for Mari that worked with the practice times, when there was a knock on the door.

"No." Mari heard Dan say as soon as she opened the door.

"Oh, come on! You don't even know what we're going to ask."

        That was Nicky, just Nicky, so Mari didn't think much of it.

         "And we're not even here for you," she heard a new voice drawl. "We want to talk to Mari."

         Mari recognized the voice as one of the Minyards, though she couldn't quite differentiate between the two.

       "Yeah, and I want a million dollars. Not happening."

       Mari heard Renee sigh next to her. They'd abandoned her potential schedule for eavesdropping, though she was slightly starting to regret doing so.

       She heard a bit of a shuffle, probably Dan trying to slam the door on them.

       "Look, we're not going to kill her. Who do you take us for, Dan?"

        "I wouldn't put it past you."

        There was a moment of tense silence, and Mari exchanged a concerned look with Renee.

       Finally, Dan conceded. "Fine. I'll ask her if she wants to talk to you lot."

       Dan didn't get a response, so she made her way back to the living room. She grimaced at Mari, who stood up with a sigh.

"You don't have to talk to them," Dan whispered to her. "I could always tell them to fuck off for you."

As tempting as that sounded, Mari had an inkling that that wouldn't go very well.

She shook her head. "It's fine."

Mari made her way to the door, Dan following right behind her. As soon as she was in the doorway, she caught sight of the cousins.

       Nicky perked up as soon as he saw her, and Aaron kept his blank expression, though he did shift to stand a little straighter.

         "Well, hello there, Hot Shot," Andrew said, his borderline maniacal grin making its way across his face. The smile, and the black armbands, were the only physical traits Mari could use to differentiate between the twins. "How nice of you to join our team."

       Mari resisted the urge to run back into the safety of the bedroom. "Hey, uh, what's up?"

       Andrew's grin didn't falter at Mari's discomfort, if anything it seemed to grow. "We'd like to invite you out with us, this Friday."

        Nicky decided to come into the conversation now. "We figured since you already seem to know everyone else on the team off the court, it wouldn't hurt for you to get to know us."

        Mari looked at Dan, who seemed to be sending a frantic warning with her eyes.

       She turned her head back to the cousins who were still watching her. She looked over to Aaron Minyard, who apparently didn't have an affinity for talking.

       "Where would we go?" She asked him. She didn't ask Nicky, didn't ask Andrew. Him.

        Aaron looked taken aback, like he wasn't expecting her to even acknowledge his existence. "Columbia."

       That was all he said before Nicky took over again. "We'll take you out to dinner. Neil, too. He's coming so you don't have to worry about being the only newbie. We used to live in Columbia, so we know all the best spots. We've even got a free place to crash so we don't have to worry about driving back drunk and exhausted. It'll be a blast!"

Mari didn't drink or do any of that anymore, but they didn't need to know that.

She sighed. "Okay, I'll go."

Dan made a strangled noise from where she stood behind Mari.

"Perfect," Andrew said, grin still plastered onto his face. "We're leaving Friday night at nine. Don't be late."

With that, Andrew retreated down the hallway with Nicky and Aaron in tow. Aaron seemed to linger a little bit longer, though. He gave her a once-over before following his twin and cousin.

        So, now Mari has found herself getting ready for an outing she regrets saying yes to.

Allison took it upon herself to style her. Her clothing, her makeup, and her hair.

Her makeup was rather simple, the same way Mari wore it every other day. The only difference was the subtle winged liner and the fact that Allison had gone in with a freckle pen, to bring them back to the surface after the foundation. Allison had lined her lips with an almost brown color, applying a lip gloss with a slight pink tint to it on top.

Allison had ransacked Mari's side of the closet. She'd settled on a light pink babydoll top that had a floral print on it (it was also cropped just enough to showcase her belly button piercing, which was a light pink flower and a pearl that sat above it), a pair of dark denim low-rise jeans, and a pair of wedges that Mari prayed she would be able to walk in.

        As for her hair, Allison had styled it in its natural wavy style. She noticed that wherever it caught the light, it looked almost red.

        In short: Mari owed Allison Reynolds her life. Because for the first time in a long time, she felt like herself.

The blonde girl stood in front of her, studying her carefully. Finally, she said, "You are going to be the hottest one there. Not that it would be difficult to do so."

Mari let out a laugh. She enjoyed Allison's brutal honesty, it was like Allison was taking all of Mari's inner thoughts and voicing them out loud.

"You know, I didn't take you for a belly button piercing type of girl. Figured you'd be one of those uptight ones who only get ear piercings and shame others for getting body ones."

Mari shrugged. "I got drunk with a couple of friends in high school and woke up the next day with a new piercing. My mom freaked."

Allison laughed, sounding a little surprised. "Next you're going to tell me you've got a secret tattoo."

"Nah," Mari grinned. "I've never gotten that drunk."

Allison grinned right back at her. "Well, you're all ready to go. You want me to walk you over?"

Mari nodded.

The dorm was rather empty, Renee was in the living room watching something on the TV, and Dan and Matt were off to the movies. Mari sent Renee a small smile as a see you later.

        Allison walked her over to Andrew's dorm. Mari knocked on the door, and Aaron was the one to answer. He looked at her, not moving for a few moments. Like he had seen something absolutely shocking. Mari thought he would've stayed like that had Allison not threatened him.

        "Okay, listen up, Minyard," Allison said, glaring at the short blond. "If anything bad happens to her, I will kill you and your little pack of monsters. Got it?"

        The shocked look on Aaron's face from earlier was gone now, replaced with an unimpressed look. Nevertheless, he answered her. "Got it."

        Allison nodded, satisfied with the vague answer, and left. Aaron looked at her again, looking the slightest bit uncomfortable, before inviting her in. When they walked into the living room, Kevin, Nicky, and Andrew were all standing in the kitchen. They all looked ready to go.

Nicky whistled at her. "You look good. Like, really good. If I swung that way, I would totally hit."

Mari shifted uncomfortably.

"Really, Nicky?" Aaron hissed at him from where he stood beside Mari. She noticed how he scooted away from her. "What is wrong with you?"

"What?" Nicky said, lifting his hands in feigned innocence. "We were all thinking it."

"No, we weren't," Andrew finally decided to cut in. "Are we ready to go, or are we going to continue discussing Mari and how hot everyone thinks she is?"

Mari flushed with embarrassment as they left their dorm. Mari didn't tend to think about herself and her looks, she enjoyed doing makeup and doing her hair, and looking nice, but it was simply for herself and never for anyone else. She didn't know how she felt about others perceiving her in that sort of way.

When they got to Matt and Neil's dorm, Andrew took out his lock pickers and casually broke into their room. Mari bit back a quip, it wouldn't do her any good to throw out comments where they weren't needed.

They made themselves comfortable as they waited for Neil. Kevin, Aaron, and Nicky were all trying to make small talk with Mari, though it was glaringly obvious they'd never had a normal interaction with someone in their life. She smiled and nodded, picking at the embroidered, hot pink flowers on her top.

She hadn't even noticed Andrew had left the room until he came back with Neil in tow. Except this time Neil had piercing blue eyes, and not his normally brown ones. Mari wasn't as perceptive as she thought, apparently, because she hadn't even noticed that he wore contacts in the first place.

Nicky perked up a bit as the two walked into the living room, but his happy expression faltered when he got a look at Neil. "Oh, man. Neil, you clean up good. Can I say that, or is that against the rules? Just— damn. Aaron, don't let me get too drunk tonight."

Mari glared up at him, though he didn't see. Seriously, what was with this guy and making borderline predatory comments?

Andrew stopped by Nicky long enough to pull a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He lit one, never mind that the dormitory rooms came equipped with smoke detectors, and put his lighter in Nicky's face.

"Don't make me kill you," Andrew said.

Nicky held up his hands in self-defense. "I know."

"Do you?"

"Promise," Nicky said weakly.

Andrew put his lighter away and left the room. Kevin and Aaron followed. Nicky raked Neil with one last appreciative look and went out to the hall. Mari trailed slowly behind him, telling him to go on ahead while she waited for Neil to lock up.

They were the only new ones. The only outliers. It would be good for them to stick together. They trailed the others downstairs to the car in silence, though neither of them minded.

Mari ended up stuck in the backseat, sandwiched between Neil and Aaron. Andrew sat on the other side of Neil. Both brothers had propped themselves against their respective windows and dozed off within minutes of leaving campus.

Mari hadn't even realized how exhausted she was until she found herself falling asleep fifteen minutes into the hour-long drive.

A sleepy, "What?" from Aaron woke her up. Once the haziness from sleep wore off, Mari very quickly realized that her head was on Aaron's shoulder. Aaron, whom she barely knew.

She shot up, sitting up straight and careful not to make contact with anyone. Her cheeks were tinged red with embarrassment, and she pointedly looked anywhere but at Aaron Minyard. He looked at her, puzzlement written all over his face.

"I can't remember which exit we decided was the shortcut," Nicky said. "You?"

Aaron answered by reaching around Neil and Mari and pushing Andrew's shoulder. Andrew's reaction was immediate and violent. Aaron got his hand out of the way in time, and Mari got lucky that she wasn't the one sitting next to him, but there was nowhere for Neil to go and he seemed to have the misfortune of a cursed man. Andrew's elbow slammed into his diaphragm hard enough that Neil doubled over.

Mari yelped, instinctively moving closer to the blond boy next to her.

Aaron, completely unsympathetic, snapped his fingers over Neil's head at Andrew.

"Exit," he said blandly.

        Andrew braced himself on Neil's back and leveraged himself between the front seats. He watched until they passed a sign and said, "Not yet. It's the exit that has Waffle House."

"This is South Carolina," Nicky said. "Every exit leads to Waffle House. Still breathing, Neil?"

"Yes," Neil said hoarsely. "I think."

Mari lightly put a hand on his back in comfort. He tensed up a bit, so she quickly retracted it.

Andrew dropped back into his seat and let go of Neil. Neil managed to sit up, but he pressed a hand to his shirt. He flicked a look at Aaron, who shrugged unbotheredly at his silent accusation, and then at Andrew.

"Nicky," Andrew suddenly said.

Nicky glanced back, and Mari cast a look at where Andrew sat, looking at his hands. She couldn't make it out very well in the darkness, but she could see slight tremors in Andrew's hands. Nicky swept across lanes to their exit. "We're almost there."

"Pull over."

"We're on an exit ramp."

"Now."

Nicky didn't argue again. He pulled off the almost non-existent shoulder, braking so hard that Mari had to grab his headrest. Horns blared as a car whipped past them. Andrew shoved his car door open, leaned out of the car as far as he could, and dry-heaved into the weeds alongside the road.

The noises he was making as he did so reminded Mari all too much of withdrawal, and she concluded that he was very much off the court-mandated drugs. She wondered why they would take the chance of taking Andrew out sober, until she realized that this was a common thing that they did. No one else in the car looked the slightest bit concerned, so she relaxed a bit.

"Where are your crackers?" Nicky asked when Andrew was left gasping for breath.

"He took them earlier," Kevin said.

"All of them?" Nicky asked, horrified. "Jesus, Andrew."

"Shut up," Andrew said, and spat a couple of times. He reached blindly for Kevin's headrest, found it on the third try, and pulled himself back inside the car. "Just get us there."

Nicky floored it, but once they reached the outskirts of Columbia the night traffic slowed them down. She was pretty used to traffic, having grown up in North Augusta, a city that bordered Georgia, and then being in LA for quite a while.

Their first destination was a restaurant called Sweetie's. It was too late for dinner, but the parking lot was full. Nicky dropped them off at the door so he could circle and look for a spot. There were four groups ahead of them waiting for seats. Andrew detoured to the salad bar and grabbed two handfuls of cracker packets from a bucket on the end. Kevin watched as Andrew methodically ate his way through them. Andrew answered with a baleful look. Mari watched it with a faraway look and a frown. That couldn't have been healthy or stable, but then again, who was she to talk?

He finished his snack before Nicky joined them. A few minutes later they were finally seated in a booth in the back. Before the host could leave Andrew stuffed his empty cracker packets into the man's apron. It took everything in Mari not to gape at such rudeness, but the host didn't bat an eye as he left them with their menus. Their waitress wasn't far behind him, and Nicky handed the menus back unread.

"We're just hear for the ice cream special," Nicky said.

"No problem," she said. "I'll get that right to you."

Nicky's smile disappeared the second she left and he turned a concerned look on Andrew. Mari had never seen him look so serious. Andrew sat cradling his face in one hand. The other hand was flat on the table in front of him, and his shaking was more pronounced now. A shudder passed through Andrew's frame. He sucked a long breath in through clenched teeth.

If it hadn't been the shaking, Andrew's expressionless face would've been the dead giveaway of his withdrawal.

Kevin pulled a bottle of pills out of his pocket and set them on the table, halfway between himself and Andrew. "Just take it."

Andrew went perfectly still as he stared at the bottle. "Fuck you."

Neil voiced the obvious. "You're going through withdrawal."

Andrew ignored him. "Put that away before I shove it down your throat."

Kevin frowned but did as he was told.

It didn't take long for their ice cream to arrive. The waitress passed out bowls and set a pile of napkins in the middle of the table. As soon as she left, Andrew scattered the napkins with an impatient hand. Underneath them all was a pile of packets full of pale yellow powder.

Mari frowned at the cracker dust in front of her. She hadn't touched a substance since early spring, but it took everything in her not to rip one open and calm her nerves.

"We're in public," Aaron said. He meant it towards Andrew, but Mari took it as a reminder to keep herself composed.

Andrew ignored him in favor of ripping open two bags and upending them into his mouth.

Nicky nudged Neil and sent Mari a small smile. "Try the ice cream. Y'all will love it."

Mari didn't think she'd be able to eat with the constant churning of her stomach, but she dipped into the food she'd been served.

        Their table was silent, the only noise coming from the overall loudness of Sweeties. The cracker dust must've helped Andrew tons, because he was back to a calm façade by the time he finished eating. When the bill arrived, Andrew pushed it Aaron's way, and Aaron clipped a small stack of twenties to the check.

It was a short drive from the restaurant to their real destination of the night. Eden's Twilight was a two-story nightclub a couple of blocks from the main road. There was a line of people waiting to get in, and the clothes they wore made Mari feel wildly underdressed and way too colorful. Most of the men wore leather, half the women had corsets, and a good number of both genders were covered in buckles and chains.

Neither the line nor the fashion deterred the cousins. Nicky pulled up at the curb by the door and let them out. The pair of bouncers at the entrance perked up at their arrival, and Mari couldn't help the surprised laugh that came out when Aaron greeted them with a complicated fist bump and handshake. One of the bouncers dug an orange tag out of his back pocket and handed it over, and Aaron brought it over to Nicky. Nicky attached it to the review mirror and drove away to park the car somewhere.

Andrew saluted the bouncers on his way by and led the way into the club, bypassing the line entirely. Kevin followed, and Aaron gestured for Neil to go ahead of him. Mari ended up walking beside Aaron into the club.

A second set of doors opened into a madhouse. The five were standing on a dais that wrapped around the floor and was crowded with tables. Stairs led down to a crowded dance floor. Somewhere stairs led up to a second floor, which was more of a balcony than anything else. The DJ was off the floor on a platform of his own, positioned halfway between floors. Speakers taller than Mari lined the walls, and Mari could feel the bass crunching against her bones. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

      Aaron nudged her slightly, taking her out of the trance of staring, and gestured for her to follow Neil. It took a bit of searching before they found a table. It was covered with glasses, but the stools were abandoned, so they claimed it. Andrew cleared away the cups while Aaron hunted down two more chairs. Once they were set, Andrew snagged his fingers in Neil's collar and pulled Neil after him towards the bar. He looked at Mari and gestured for her to follow them. She hopped off her stool, leaving her purse behind.

       Three bartenders were on staff, but Andrew was interested in a specific one and was willing to wait for him. When the man finally made it to them, he flashed Andrew an easy smile. "Back so soon, Andrew? Who're your newest victims?"

       "Nobodies," Andre said. "It's the usual for us."

       The man nodded, then looked at Neil. "And for you?"

       "I don't drink," Neil said.

       "Soda, then," the man said, then turned his attention to Mari.

        "I'll have a cherry cola," Mari said with a smile.

       The bartender nodded and pushed away to put their order together. He returned with a tray of drinks. Andrew wielded it with such expertise that it made Mari wonder if he'd worked a job like this before. When the bartender slid Neil and Mari their glasses of soda last, Andrew led the way back through the crowd, pushing drunks out of the way with his free hand. Nicky was waiting for them at the table and leaned out of the way for Andrew to put the tray down past him.

Mari plopped down on her chair between Aaron and Nicky, soda in hand.

"Cheers!" Nicky yelled, and they drank as one.

       Mari went through her soda rather quickly. The others were drinking and alarmingly high speeds and Nicky was giving her shit for not being able to keep up. When Andrew and Neil came back with the second round of drinks, Neil handed her the second glass of cola. She took the maraschino cherry from her empty one and dipped it in her new soda. She popped it in her mouth, and as she did so, she noticed Aaron staring at her. Once she made eye contact with him, she cracked him a smile.

        The corners of his lips turned up ever so slightly. Mari figured that was as close to a smile as Mari was going to get with a guy like Aaron Minyard.

       Then Andrew offered Aaron a packet of cracker dust, which he took rather quickly. Andrew shoved one in her face as an offering, to which Mari shook her head. She wasn't going to be doing anything like that tonight. Or ever. He raised an eyebrow at her. She simply looked at him with a hint of a smile on her face. Andrew took the hint and offered to everyone else, including Neil, who simply stared at Andrew in answer.

        "Cracker dust," Nicky said as he ripped open his packet. "Heard of it? Tastes like sugar and salt, and gives you a nice, but small, rush. Sure y'all don't want in?

       Mari shook her head again. "I'm good," she said. At Nicky's disappointed look and the overall lack of buzz, she compromised. "I'll take a shot, though."

       "Hell yes!" Nicky whooped, handing her a shot glass filled with a clear liquid. Tequila, probably.

       "C'mon, Neil! What about you?" Nicky asked, energetically.

       "Drugs are stupid," Neil said harshly. That clearly didn't go over well with the Twins.

        Aaron glared at him.

        "Ouch," Andrew said with a cold smile. "That's judgmental."

       "I'm not going to apologize for thinking you're being idiotic."

       "Is your spine of the righteous?" Andrew wondered aloud. "Are you trying your best to step on my toes because you're feeling the tragic weight of the holier than thou?"

        "Righteousness is for people who don't know any better."

       "Easy, easy," Nicky said, distributing the rest of the shots, including Neil's soda shot. "Dust isn't bad. It just makes the night more interesting. You think Kevin would risk his future over a night out at the club?"

       "What future?" Neil asked.

        Mari sighed as Kevin sent Neil a black look. This night was more than likely going to end badly, but at least she was going to have something in her system.

       "Drink with us if you won't dust with us," Nicky said, holding his open packet in one hand and his shot in the other. "Down the hatch on three."

       Mari picked up her glass as Nicky counted them off. This was fine, she told herself. It's just one shot, it's not going to do anything. She kept repeating that to herself as she knocked it back. She tried her best to ignore how good the burn in her throat felt, how it brought a sickening feeling of familiarity.

        Suddenly, Neil lurched to his feet. Andrew grabbed him by his hair and slammed him back into his seat. Mari flinched violently from where she sat. A cruel twist pulled Neil's head back at a dangerous angle, and Andrew slammed Neil's hand flat against the tabletop. She heard Aaron sigh and watched as he got up and out of his chair, standing behind Neil with an unreadable expression on his face.

Neil lifted his other hand to pry Andrew's fingers off, but Nicky caught his wrists.

"You just noticed, did you?" Andrew asked. "You're an idiot."

"Y-you—" Neil sputtered.

"Did you think you were safe because you were up there ordering your own drinks? Roland knows what it means when I bring outsiders here."

Mari cast a look at her cherry cola, eyeing it with suspicion.

Neil wrenched his hand out from under Andrew's, but Andrew gave his head a warning yank. A bolt of heat went down Neil's neck. Neil hissed in pain and went still. Andrew slid out of his chair and leaned against Neil, letting Neil take his weight while he checked Neil's eyes.

       "Almost there," he said. "Give it a minute and then it'll really hit. Until then, why don't you go have a little fun? The night is still young."

        As soon as Andrew let go of Neil, he lunged at Andrew with lethal intent. Unluckily for him, Aaron was grabbed the back of his chair and pulled hard enough to topple it over.

       Neil hit the ground. Hard.

       When Aaron tried to pull Neil to his feet, Neil swung at him and missed. It took both Nicky and Aaron to get Neil up off the floor. They hauled him away from the table, disappearing into the crowd. Andrew disappeared without a word as well, leaving Mari alone with Kevin Day.

       If you'd told Marisol Beltran a year ago that she'd be in the presence of an Exy superstar, she would've probably exploded. But now, seeing Kevin Day in this state, she realized that he was really just a normal boy. He was drunk, on crackers, and seemingly melancholy. He wanted to give up, but he didn't. Mari could relate to that on so many levels.

       Now, in the present, where Marisol Beltran is on the worst team in the league, she's sputtering stupidly to Kevin Day, former Exy superstar.

       "He'll be fine," Kevin said, noticing the bewildered look on her face. "He seems tough enough to handle it. And if he's not, he's got no space on this team."

       "Jesus Christ," Mari muttered at his apathy. She glared at her cherry cola, trying to decipher if Andrew, or the bartender Roland, had slipped something in there.

        "I wouldn't worry about him having put anything in your drink," Kevin said, his words starting to slur. "He didn't seem all that interested in you. Neil had all his attention tonight."

       Mari didn't know if she should take that as an insult, but she sure was grateful that she seemed to be able to slip into the cracks rather easily.

        They sat in silence for a bit, until Kevin finally asked, "What was USC like?"

       Mari wasn't surprised. It was no secret that Kevin Day held great affection for the  University of Southern California, holding them and their captain, Jeremy Knox, on a pedestal no one could ever compete with.

       "It was, uh, great," Mari stumbled for words at the sudden change of topic. "Well, great doesn't really do it justice. It was..."

      Mari trailed off, trying to find the word to describe it. It wasn't that she missed playing Exy at USC, it was that she missed being there. She would give up Exy in a heartbeat if she could. But she couldn't.

      "It was sort of like everyone was one, big, happy family. And I know that sounds ridiculously cliche and all, but that really was what it was like."

       Kevin nodded. "You miss it?"

      Now it was Mari's turn to nod.

      That was the end of their conversation, Mari assumed, because Kevin started downing whatever alcohol he could find on the table. Mari left him to drink away his problems, making her way towards the bar in the hopes of getting a glass of water. Or maybe another glass of soda to replace the one she still didn't quite trust.

       As Mari waited at the bar for a chance to order, somebody slipped into the space right beside her. When she looked to see who it was, she saw Aaron. He was done with his drugging excursion, then.

      Mari raised an eyebrow at him.

        He finally spoke more than three words to her. "You want me to buy you a drink?"

       She looked at him incredulously. He could not be serious.

       "What?" he asked at the shocked look on her face.

       "Your brother just drugged somebody and you expect me to trust you with a drink?"

       "I'm not my brother," he said with such intensity that it made Mari take a subtle step back.

She narrowed her eyes at him. What an ironic statement that was. He shared nearly everything with his brother. Physically, at least. But they seemed to have different temperaments.

"Fine," she conceded.

Aaron smiled, something Mari assumed he didn't do often. It was still small, but definitely bigger than he'd given her earlier. She couldn't help but smile back.

"Cherry cola?" Aaron asked.

Mari nodded. "How'd you figure that one out?"

"Well, for starters, your drink had cherries in it," Aaron told her. "And it wasn't a normal soda color either."

Mari breathed out a laugh. "You're quite observant, aren't you?"

Aaron shrugged.

       They stood there for what felt like a few minutes—though you can never be sure with time in a club— before a bartender came to collect their order. It wasn't Orlando (or whatever his name was. Roland, maybe?), so Mari was much more relieved.

       Mari rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, her hands in her back pocket, and then Aaron asked her a question she didn't quite hear over the noise.

       She stopped rocking to get a little closer to him. "Huh?"

       Aaron looked up at her, like he was shocked at something. Then he shook his head and asked again. "You're not much of a drinker, are you?"

       Mari shook her head. "Yeah. I don't do that stuff anymore."

      "Anymore?"

      She shrugged. "Long story."

       He looked as if he was going to question her vagueness, but the bartender came with their drinks. She'd never been more grateful in her life. As much as she told herself she was over what happened freshman year, she wasn't ready to talk about it.

       They made their way back to the table, where Kevin was still sitting. As they sat, they talked about Exy. That seemed to be the only thing Kevin could handle talking about, even though Mari and Aaron would rather be talking about anything else.

       In the middle of their talk about how they hoped the season would go, an irritated Andrew, an unconscious Neil, and an exhausted Nicky appeared out of the crowd.

"What the hell happened?" Mari demanded.

"He just paid a busboy to knock him out!" Nicky said.

"We're leaving," Andrew told them, leading the way out of Eden's.

Getting out of the overcrowded club was a nightmare, especially with Nicky lagging due to the added weight of Neil. Mari spent the short ride to the cousins' Columbia house with Neil's deadweight on her side. She apologized to Aaron, who she was no doubt accidentally squashing into the door.

       Despite the drastic events of the night, she couldn't say she didn't have a little fun. She supposed she had to thank Aaron Minyard for that.

       Mari crashed on their couch, exhaustion overtaking her quickly.

lali speaks

6796 words later... Whatever...

this lowkey sucks ass (especially the ending) so i apologize greatly. i forgot to add them inviting mari to columbia in the last chapter so i had to figure it how to add it in here sigh

sorry this took a ridiculously long time to come out, school started back up again and my dumbass thought i was albert einstein when picking my courses Bruh. and i was debating what to drop and i ended up not dropping any of them... pray 4 me Please.

I wrote most of this yesterday and today so this is horribly unedited (i ran it through grammarly if that helps at all...) so pls don't shoot me if there's any mistakes

but uh. this was mari when they drugged neil:

okay bye bye 😄😄