Invictus
-
Captain Canada
Topic author - Posts: 4997
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Invictus
Chapter II - After Party
Zane has traded in his post-game sweatsuit for a pair of clean blue jeans and a black hoodie over a crisp white t-shirt. The Pittsburgh area had quite dialed into autumn just yet, but the night air had a certain bite to it.
Hopping into his grandmother’s Honda she graciously allowed him to drive tonight, he punched in the address he found in the team’s group chat and set off into the night. Siri told him the drive would be just over 20 minutes away, in a neighborhood he wasn’t too familiar with.
Upper St. Clair was a few miles south of Pittsburgh. Though it wasn’t exactly plush, it was safe. Winding houses full of cul-de-sacs middle-class families proudly called home.
The closer to Pittsburgh he drove, the more insane the houses became. Classic single-family homes turned into damn near mansions. Winding driveways and gated homes. Zane found himself driving increasingly slower out of habit - feeling like police had to be guarding these neighborhoods with extra interest.
He narrowed his eyes as he tried to find the source of blaring music pouring out of one of the homes before he found the destination. The lawn was kept pristine, with Roman pillars climbing the marble housefront.
The music pulsed as he saw bodies moving to the beat through the windows. He took a deep breath and entered the house, being greeted by bass and heat.
“I can’t think straight because my money right, uh. Come take it off, and show me what it’s like, uh.”
Bodies bobbed left and right to the easy beat, girls grinding seductively on their pick of the night. Except for the small light trailing towards either the kitchen or the backyard, darkness consumed the room.
Just as he tried to find his bearings in somebody he recognized, he felt hands clamp down on his shoulders. Surprise and a throbbing of pain sent a shock of electricity through his nervous system.
“I knew your ass was going to pull up eventually” a boy with a messy mop of blonde hair slurred towards him. His hair, usually bright, was muddied brown with sweat. The sheer amount of people gyrating in the enclosed space produced a heat that felt more like Summer than Fall.
Zane smiled sheepishly before investigating his friend a little deeper. “Damn, Cam - that monkey got a hold on you like I’ve never seen before.” Cam laughed a little too hard in response.
Cam Wilson stood at 5’10” and played on the football team. A wide receiver, he and Zane were the only two Juniors in the offense that saw any meaningful reps this past season. They bonded over that and their friendship grew over the last year or so.
“Man, the senior guys been going crazy. I ain’t never seen this many people at one function before, and they here because of you, bro.” Cam retorted, jabbing a sloppy finger into Zane’s chest. Zane furrowed his brows.
“Man, I had like three catches tonight, I just so happened to catch the last one. They aren’t here because of me.”
“You’re so humble to the point where it pisses me off, have I ever told you that before?”
Zane choked a laugh back before clamping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Yeah man, once in front of my grandma. I think she smacked you upside the head.”
Cam thought hard for a second before a goofy grin came over him. “Oh yeah, I thought she was going to kill me. I love her so much. She’s so nice to me.”
“She loves you too, bro.”
Cam led Zane through the crowd towards the kitchen to fetch a drink for the both of them. He took in his surroundings, hearing the exclaims every time the DJ flicked to the latest new track that sent them into a frenzy.
They pushed their way into the open space to find a luxurious kitchen with white marble and the latest and greatest products that had been littered with a litany of alcohol in separated tin buckets filled with ice. Cam reached in, grabbed two beers, and turned to hand Zane one. He froze.
“Fuck’s up with you?” Zane asked, puzzled before turning and following Cam’s gaze.
There, he met one of the most stunning women he had ever seen.
And then quickly realized they were blatantly staring at one another.
She almost didn’t look real as she carefully made her way through the crowd towards the two of them. She came into the light and shook Zane to his core, as if the light would reveal that his eyes were playing tricks on him.
They were not.
Stunning jet black hair slicked into a ponytail. Creamy olive-tanned skin that looked like it was fresh from a trip to the Maldives, not fresh from another Friday night in a Pennsylvania suburb. Her eyes, so strikingly blue that it was almost intimidating. It didn’t help that she was currently wearing a scowl, looking between Zane and Cam and back again.
“You two got a staring problem or something?” she spoke, leaning closer towards Zane as if Cam’s drunkenness was contagious.
Cam hiccupped and attempted to respond, slurring something almost indecipherable but with apologetic intentions behind it.
Zane held his hands up and proclaimed their innocence. “That’s our bad, I guess I’ll speak for my friend and say you caught us by surprise.”
“With what? Also, you’re both in my house,” she responded, narrowing her eyes. “If anyone should be expected to be here, it’s me.”
“That’s news to me, sorry about that.” he responded. The silence despite the amount of noise bustling through the house was paramount. None of the three said anything for a moment before the girl took a breath, shrugged, and grabbed the unopened beer from Cam’s hand.
“You should probably take it easy on these, I’ll take this off your hands.” she said unapologetically. Cam laughed pleasantly to himself before meandering around her and back into the crowd, leaving Zane and the host to themselves. “You’ve got a name?”
“Zane, nice to meet you. And you are?” he asked innocently, holding out a hand and giving a sheepish smile. She looked at his empty hand a moment before cracking a smile for the first time it felt, all night.
“Bianca.”
“Nice to meet you Bianca, thanks for hosting this party. I’m sure the guys appreciate it.”
“Wow, he has manners,” she responded, a cute laugh as she slipped a beer opener from the back pocket of her jeans. She opened her beer with finesse before offering it to Zane, who graciously took it, thanking her with a head nod. “My friends came back from what I presume to be your game and said to prepare, so here all y’all are.”
“It’s impressive you pulled this off with such little prep time. It felt like I just had my helmet on and you already got all this stuff together.” Zane responded, motioning to all the digs the party had to offer. A DJ, a copious amount of booze, all the fixings a high school party could ask for.
She stared at Zane a moment, as if caught up in the moment before shaking the stupor to the side. “You don’t seem like the typical football player, I won’t lie to you, Zane.”
“What’s the typical football player?”
“You know,” she angled, taking a quick sip from her beer before continuing. “Shocking lack of grace, unable to have a real conversation with a woman about anything other than sex, football being the only interesting thing about them. Etcetera.”
Zane was taken slightly aback by her honesty, a small amount of anxiety churning in his gut. He took a swig of beer, shrugged, and reset himself.
“I love football, don’t get me wrong. It’s a big part of my identity. But, I’m still a person. I have layers and what not.” he answered, the honesty washing over Bianca coming across as refreshing.
Bianca smiled and stared into Zane’s eyes like she was looking for his soul for a moment. She nodded to the beers behind him and started to turn. “Grab four of those and come with me, I hate how hot these parties make the house.”
Zane shook the cobwebs of confusion out of his head before doing as she said. She wasn’t coming across as the type to play around with.
He grabbed a handful and followed.
Bianca led Zane to a terrace located in the back of the house away from the backyard that had become an extension of the party. It was as secluded as you could get with the sheer amount of people on the premises. The bumping of the music could still be felt at your feet, but the cool air was desperately appreciated.
“Don’t get it twisted, Mr. Zane,” she said as she took a gulp of beer and settled into one of the plush outdoor chairs while ushering him to take the other. “This isn’t going to end up a story you tell your boys, you just seem like decent enough company and my friends are too trashed to currently enjoy.”
He grinned to himself while taking a seat. “I won’t take that too personally, you really tell it like it is, don’t you?”
“I’m just warning you, is all.”
“Is that that distrust of football players rearing its ugly head again?”
“I wouldn’t call it a distrust, per se.”
“Just a walking, talking generalization.”
“Prove me wrong then, tell me something real about you and I’ll see if you’re more meets the eye.” she beckoned, angling her body to Zane and giving her undivided attention. Her ripped black jeans and clean white tank top was tasteful but shaped her body perfectly. Her athletic build was hard not to notice.
“What do you want to know?” Zane asked, racing through his rolodex of interesting facts about himself, finding it more bare than he would like to admit. “I’m not exactly keen on talking about myself.”
“Weak, but understandable. Let me see what I can think to ask you” she said, jokingly feigning deep thought. “What’s your deepest fear?”
He was taken aback at the question, but quietly appreciated her realness. He took a second to contemplate even responding with something authenticate before coming up with an answer. “Snakes. I fucking hate snakes.” This conjured up a surprised laugh from her.
“Not as deep as I thought you were going to get, but that’s something. Doesn’t that feel good to get off your chest?”
“Alright Bianca, what about you? What keeps you up at night?”
She took a deep sigh before twirling her ponytail in her hand for a moment, as if it was seemingly calming her nerves. She looked down for a moment before meeting Zane’s eager gaze once again.
“That people think wealth is all that I am.”
Zane blinked slowly. “Elaborate.”
“As you can see, my parents do pretty well for themselves. My dad is an engineer for a private company and my mom is psychotherapist. My grandfather was old money and my mom was an only child, so when he died, everything went to her.”
She continued. “My parents are really career-oriented people, to the point where it felt as though they only had me because that’s what people do. They meet someone they like enough to die with, get married, and reproduced. But, since they love themselves so much, they forgot to be parents. So, I have a roof over my head, a blank check, and just enough adult supervision to not overdose or end up a teen mom.”
“Jesus Christ, that’s .. a lot” Zane offered. Bianca met his gaze, looking to see if what he said was tainted in judgement or sympathy. She deduced that is either neither or it didn’t really matter.
The dam had been breached.
“So, yeah. I have this nice ass house. I have a car most of my friend’s parents can’t afford and I only go to Upper St. Clair because I barely live within the district. But, I’m a real person. With feelings. Sometimes it feels as though my friends are only around me because I don’t mind paying for lunches at restaurants.”
“That’s really tough. I can’t imagine having to deal with stuff like that. As if you’re almost not allowed to complain about your situation.”
“The drowning man complaining to people dying of thirst is often ill-received.”
“Yeah, I bet.” Zane contemplated for a second, trying to sit comfortably in a silence that didn’t hold much room for it. “Thanks for sharing that with me.”
Bianca chuckled while opening another beer, setting her empty on the ground next to her. “You’re unnaturally easy to talk to - it’s almost concerning.”
Zane shared the laugh before settling back into that silence.
Bianca cleared her throat before going in again. “So now that I’ve got emotional naked for you, you think you’ve got something deeper for me than ‘I’m scared of snakes’?”
Zane thought for a moment before leaning forward, his elbows placed on his knees, eyes staring at a spot on the ground. A quiet consideration.
He took a breath. “I’m scared of being forgotten. My grandparents do their best to make me feel special, and to build my self-esteem. But, I don’t know. I’m nervous that, without football, I won’t be able to make a mark on this world. Do something worth remembering.”
“Where are your parents in this picture?” she asked, curiosity temporarily getting the best of her.
“Not really in the picture - it isn’t my favorite conversation.” he replied blankly, a breath taking too much capacity to come across as normal. She decided not to press.
“Football might be your platform, but who you are is what people will remember. Not what you did on the field. To the people who actually will matter, that is.” she stated matter-of-factly. His eyes met hers. He could feel that she meant it.
It didn’t shake his fear, but it mattered that she had a response. It felt like the first real conversation he had had all year.
They shared a few sentences, a handful of more surface-level questions, but mostly rested in silence.
A more comfortable silence. Simply enjoying each other's company.
Zane has traded in his post-game sweatsuit for a pair of clean blue jeans and a black hoodie over a crisp white t-shirt. The Pittsburgh area had quite dialed into autumn just yet, but the night air had a certain bite to it.
Hopping into his grandmother’s Honda she graciously allowed him to drive tonight, he punched in the address he found in the team’s group chat and set off into the night. Siri told him the drive would be just over 20 minutes away, in a neighborhood he wasn’t too familiar with.
Upper St. Clair was a few miles south of Pittsburgh. Though it wasn’t exactly plush, it was safe. Winding houses full of cul-de-sacs middle-class families proudly called home.
The closer to Pittsburgh he drove, the more insane the houses became. Classic single-family homes turned into damn near mansions. Winding driveways and gated homes. Zane found himself driving increasingly slower out of habit - feeling like police had to be guarding these neighborhoods with extra interest.
He narrowed his eyes as he tried to find the source of blaring music pouring out of one of the homes before he found the destination. The lawn was kept pristine, with Roman pillars climbing the marble housefront.
The music pulsed as he saw bodies moving to the beat through the windows. He took a deep breath and entered the house, being greeted by bass and heat.
“I can’t think straight because my money right, uh. Come take it off, and show me what it’s like, uh.”
Bodies bobbed left and right to the easy beat, girls grinding seductively on their pick of the night. Except for the small light trailing towards either the kitchen or the backyard, darkness consumed the room.
Just as he tried to find his bearings in somebody he recognized, he felt hands clamp down on his shoulders. Surprise and a throbbing of pain sent a shock of electricity through his nervous system.
“I knew your ass was going to pull up eventually” a boy with a messy mop of blonde hair slurred towards him. His hair, usually bright, was muddied brown with sweat. The sheer amount of people gyrating in the enclosed space produced a heat that felt more like Summer than Fall.
Zane smiled sheepishly before investigating his friend a little deeper. “Damn, Cam - that monkey got a hold on you like I’ve never seen before.” Cam laughed a little too hard in response.
Cam Wilson stood at 5’10” and played on the football team. A wide receiver, he and Zane were the only two Juniors in the offense that saw any meaningful reps this past season. They bonded over that and their friendship grew over the last year or so.
“Man, the senior guys been going crazy. I ain’t never seen this many people at one function before, and they here because of you, bro.” Cam retorted, jabbing a sloppy finger into Zane’s chest. Zane furrowed his brows.
“Man, I had like three catches tonight, I just so happened to catch the last one. They aren’t here because of me.”
“You’re so humble to the point where it pisses me off, have I ever told you that before?”
Zane choked a laugh back before clamping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Yeah man, once in front of my grandma. I think she smacked you upside the head.”
Cam thought hard for a second before a goofy grin came over him. “Oh yeah, I thought she was going to kill me. I love her so much. She’s so nice to me.”
“She loves you too, bro.”
Cam led Zane through the crowd towards the kitchen to fetch a drink for the both of them. He took in his surroundings, hearing the exclaims every time the DJ flicked to the latest new track that sent them into a frenzy.
They pushed their way into the open space to find a luxurious kitchen with white marble and the latest and greatest products that had been littered with a litany of alcohol in separated tin buckets filled with ice. Cam reached in, grabbed two beers, and turned to hand Zane one. He froze.
“Fuck’s up with you?” Zane asked, puzzled before turning and following Cam’s gaze.
There, he met one of the most stunning women he had ever seen.
And then quickly realized they were blatantly staring at one another.
***
She almost didn’t look real as she carefully made her way through the crowd towards the two of them. She came into the light and shook Zane to his core, as if the light would reveal that his eyes were playing tricks on him.
They were not.
Stunning jet black hair slicked into a ponytail. Creamy olive-tanned skin that looked like it was fresh from a trip to the Maldives, not fresh from another Friday night in a Pennsylvania suburb. Her eyes, so strikingly blue that it was almost intimidating. It didn’t help that she was currently wearing a scowl, looking between Zane and Cam and back again.
“You two got a staring problem or something?” she spoke, leaning closer towards Zane as if Cam’s drunkenness was contagious.
Cam hiccupped and attempted to respond, slurring something almost indecipherable but with apologetic intentions behind it.
Zane held his hands up and proclaimed their innocence. “That’s our bad, I guess I’ll speak for my friend and say you caught us by surprise.”
“With what? Also, you’re both in my house,” she responded, narrowing her eyes. “If anyone should be expected to be here, it’s me.”
“That’s news to me, sorry about that.” he responded. The silence despite the amount of noise bustling through the house was paramount. None of the three said anything for a moment before the girl took a breath, shrugged, and grabbed the unopened beer from Cam’s hand.
“You should probably take it easy on these, I’ll take this off your hands.” she said unapologetically. Cam laughed pleasantly to himself before meandering around her and back into the crowd, leaving Zane and the host to themselves. “You’ve got a name?”
“Zane, nice to meet you. And you are?” he asked innocently, holding out a hand and giving a sheepish smile. She looked at his empty hand a moment before cracking a smile for the first time it felt, all night.
“Bianca.”
“Nice to meet you Bianca, thanks for hosting this party. I’m sure the guys appreciate it.”
“Wow, he has manners,” she responded, a cute laugh as she slipped a beer opener from the back pocket of her jeans. She opened her beer with finesse before offering it to Zane, who graciously took it, thanking her with a head nod. “My friends came back from what I presume to be your game and said to prepare, so here all y’all are.”
“It’s impressive you pulled this off with such little prep time. It felt like I just had my helmet on and you already got all this stuff together.” Zane responded, motioning to all the digs the party had to offer. A DJ, a copious amount of booze, all the fixings a high school party could ask for.
She stared at Zane a moment, as if caught up in the moment before shaking the stupor to the side. “You don’t seem like the typical football player, I won’t lie to you, Zane.”
“What’s the typical football player?”
“You know,” she angled, taking a quick sip from her beer before continuing. “Shocking lack of grace, unable to have a real conversation with a woman about anything other than sex, football being the only interesting thing about them. Etcetera.”
Zane was taken slightly aback by her honesty, a small amount of anxiety churning in his gut. He took a swig of beer, shrugged, and reset himself.
“I love football, don’t get me wrong. It’s a big part of my identity. But, I’m still a person. I have layers and what not.” he answered, the honesty washing over Bianca coming across as refreshing.
Bianca smiled and stared into Zane’s eyes like she was looking for his soul for a moment. She nodded to the beers behind him and started to turn. “Grab four of those and come with me, I hate how hot these parties make the house.”
Zane shook the cobwebs of confusion out of his head before doing as she said. She wasn’t coming across as the type to play around with.
He grabbed a handful and followed.
***
Bianca led Zane to a terrace located in the back of the house away from the backyard that had become an extension of the party. It was as secluded as you could get with the sheer amount of people on the premises. The bumping of the music could still be felt at your feet, but the cool air was desperately appreciated.
“Don’t get it twisted, Mr. Zane,” she said as she took a gulp of beer and settled into one of the plush outdoor chairs while ushering him to take the other. “This isn’t going to end up a story you tell your boys, you just seem like decent enough company and my friends are too trashed to currently enjoy.”
He grinned to himself while taking a seat. “I won’t take that too personally, you really tell it like it is, don’t you?”
“I’m just warning you, is all.”
“Is that that distrust of football players rearing its ugly head again?”
“I wouldn’t call it a distrust, per se.”
“Just a walking, talking generalization.”
“Prove me wrong then, tell me something real about you and I’ll see if you’re more meets the eye.” she beckoned, angling her body to Zane and giving her undivided attention. Her ripped black jeans and clean white tank top was tasteful but shaped her body perfectly. Her athletic build was hard not to notice.
“What do you want to know?” Zane asked, racing through his rolodex of interesting facts about himself, finding it more bare than he would like to admit. “I’m not exactly keen on talking about myself.”
“Weak, but understandable. Let me see what I can think to ask you” she said, jokingly feigning deep thought. “What’s your deepest fear?”
He was taken aback at the question, but quietly appreciated her realness. He took a second to contemplate even responding with something authenticate before coming up with an answer. “Snakes. I fucking hate snakes.” This conjured up a surprised laugh from her.
“Not as deep as I thought you were going to get, but that’s something. Doesn’t that feel good to get off your chest?”
“Alright Bianca, what about you? What keeps you up at night?”
She took a deep sigh before twirling her ponytail in her hand for a moment, as if it was seemingly calming her nerves. She looked down for a moment before meeting Zane’s eager gaze once again.
“That people think wealth is all that I am.”
Zane blinked slowly. “Elaborate.”
“As you can see, my parents do pretty well for themselves. My dad is an engineer for a private company and my mom is psychotherapist. My grandfather was old money and my mom was an only child, so when he died, everything went to her.”
She continued. “My parents are really career-oriented people, to the point where it felt as though they only had me because that’s what people do. They meet someone they like enough to die with, get married, and reproduced. But, since they love themselves so much, they forgot to be parents. So, I have a roof over my head, a blank check, and just enough adult supervision to not overdose or end up a teen mom.”
“Jesus Christ, that’s .. a lot” Zane offered. Bianca met his gaze, looking to see if what he said was tainted in judgement or sympathy. She deduced that is either neither or it didn’t really matter.
The dam had been breached.
“So, yeah. I have this nice ass house. I have a car most of my friend’s parents can’t afford and I only go to Upper St. Clair because I barely live within the district. But, I’m a real person. With feelings. Sometimes it feels as though my friends are only around me because I don’t mind paying for lunches at restaurants.”
“That’s really tough. I can’t imagine having to deal with stuff like that. As if you’re almost not allowed to complain about your situation.”
“The drowning man complaining to people dying of thirst is often ill-received.”
“Yeah, I bet.” Zane contemplated for a second, trying to sit comfortably in a silence that didn’t hold much room for it. “Thanks for sharing that with me.”
Bianca chuckled while opening another beer, setting her empty on the ground next to her. “You’re unnaturally easy to talk to - it’s almost concerning.”
Zane shared the laugh before settling back into that silence.
Bianca cleared her throat before going in again. “So now that I’ve got emotional naked for you, you think you’ve got something deeper for me than ‘I’m scared of snakes’?”
Zane thought for a moment before leaning forward, his elbows placed on his knees, eyes staring at a spot on the ground. A quiet consideration.
He took a breath. “I’m scared of being forgotten. My grandparents do their best to make me feel special, and to build my self-esteem. But, I don’t know. I’m nervous that, without football, I won’t be able to make a mark on this world. Do something worth remembering.”
“Where are your parents in this picture?” she asked, curiosity temporarily getting the best of her.
“Not really in the picture - it isn’t my favorite conversation.” he replied blankly, a breath taking too much capacity to come across as normal. She decided not to press.
“Football might be your platform, but who you are is what people will remember. Not what you did on the field. To the people who actually will matter, that is.” she stated matter-of-factly. His eyes met hers. He could feel that she meant it.
It didn’t shake his fear, but it mattered that she had a response. It felt like the first real conversation he had had all year.
They shared a few sentences, a handful of more surface-level questions, but mostly rested in silence.
A more comfortable silence. Simply enjoying each other's company.
Invictus
Captain Canada wrote: ↑07 Oct 2025, 11:26“Damn, Cam - that monkey got a hold on you like I’ve never seen before.” Cam laughed a little too hard in response.
A blonde chick named Bianca, that can't end well at all. Especially a poor, little rich girl. Steer clear Zane!