That bastard.
* * *
When I got back home, Jamie wasn’t there. She’d planned to spend the evening hanging out with a few of her friends since I was supposedly tied up with this dinner with my parents. Now that I was done early and didn’t have much else to do, I decided I would go to the gym and do some training. It was always a great way to work off some aggression.
The gym was fairly empty when I got there. It was mostly some of the freshman on the team, as well as some guys from the wrestling team, the soccer team, and a few guys from the basketball team as well. I said hi and mingled with them for a few minutes before settling into my routine.
It felt good to pump the iron and just forget about my father and the stress I was working through right now. My father would never change; my mother was right. How had she ever really fallen in love with him? I asked her once when I was younger, and she said when she met him he was much more easy going and fun loving. The world of success had not quite gotten its grip around his neck and he didn’t care about winning at all cost. But as he became more successful, he changed.
I wondered sometimes if that would ever happen to me. I was going to do whatever I could to be aware of it and how my behavior affected other people. But there was always a chance it might creep in without me knowing about it. I just wanted to stay open minded enough to keep my head involved with what and who was important in my life. Jamie, and hopefully one day our children.
I’d been thinking a lot about that lately. Jamie and I would be together forever. One day, I hoped we’d have some children. I wanted to be a dad one day and I thought she wanted to be a mother, but we’d never really talked much about it. I didn’t know for sure what she wanted out of life on that sort of personal front. I decided I might ask her that night.
After I finished my third set of shoulder presses, I noticed a change in the air. Something was drawing my gaze. And it landed on a man walking through the room. That man was Ricky. He looked pissed off and he was a bit annoyed that my ankle had been healing so well. I was not quite a hundred percent with it, but it was close. Very close. And Ricky didn’t have to know that it still hurt like hell when I moved certain ways.
I stood up as Ricky walked towards me. He had an angry look on his face, like he meant for us to finish what we’d already started. If he wanted to throw down right there and then, I was ready, but he had caught me in a very unpleasant mood.
“Well, guess you are ready for the game this week?” Ricky asked. “That’s nice. I’ll look forward to seeing you in practice soon.”
“It’s nice that you are so concerned with my well-being,” I joked.
Ricky smiled. “Lucinda told me, by the way.”
“Lucinda told you what? You are going to have to be a lot more specific. Lucinda says a lot of crazy things.”
“Well, she told me that you used to beat on her. Is that right? You the kind of weakling man who likes to pound on women?”
I shook my head. “Wow, that is a stretch. Nothing but lies. That’s all that woman ever says. You should run from her while you still can. She will ruin your life, just like she is trying to ruin mine.”
“You denying the allegations?”
I laughed. “I’m not even entertaining the allegations. I never laid a hand on her.”
“Well, you’d better step off and stay clear of her and me if you know what’s good for you.”
“I’ll be glad to,” I said. “Hope you have fun being benched this game. And I know you and Lucinda will have a wild time watching from the stands.”
Ricky turned to face me. He was glaring at me, totally raging. The fire in his eyes was hot, rising up at me with clear intentions. He wanted to hit me.
“Yeah, go ahead,” I said. “I’m begging for it.”
Ricky continued to stare at me, balling up his fists. Then he just stepped back and smiled. “Nah, you ain’t worth my time.”
Then he turned and left the gym.
The other guys were all shaking their heads and wondering what was about to go down. Nothing was going down.
Not a thing.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jamie
I’d been following Lucinda for the better part of a morning. The woman had the most boring schedule ever. She woke up at seven and then watched television for an hour before she finally got dressed and went to class. Apparently she was an undeclared major, so most of everything that she actually took was prerequisites or some elective. Her schedule was all over the place. From what I could tell, this was a woman who clearly did not care at all about her future or academic career.
She had two later classes which she blew off to go hang out with some loser friends of hers. They did nothing but hangout at an arcade and scope out the guys who worked there. It was almost like stepping back in time to watch high school kids hangout. Lucinda was so immature. It was almost exhausting waiting around for her to get done with her weirdness.
At one point after all of this she met up with Ricky. This was going to get interesting. They went back to Lucinda’s dorm room. I had to find a way to hear what she was saying, what was going on. Just watching her with people was not going to get this job done. I had to do more.
This was when I made a drastic decision to go above and beyond what I was probably, legally allowed to do. I stopped by my dorm and picked up the spy equipment I had bought a few years ago when I thought I wanted to be some kind of a government spy.
Now, I was going to have to put it to use.
I would get my chance a little while later when Lucinda finally went to the gym. While she was working out (well, mostly talking to her stupid girlfriends and pretending to workout) I snuck into the locker room and put a small, hidden microphone in her bag.
Then before she could notice me, I made a hasty exit.
Once outside in my car, I let my breath out in gasping, long, winded, waves. That was one of the most frightening things that I had ever been through. I was practically shaking like a leaf. But it was fun, too.
The moment Lucinda left the gym, I casually followed her again. The trail took me to several places that I didn’t really care to follow her. She stopped at a chiropractor to have an adjustment, then she went and had a massage (the music was so relaxing that I almost fell asleep), and lastly, she stopped to get a fruit juice at a juice bar that was popular around the campus.
The day had been a bit of a washout. I was about ready to call it a night and head home, when Lucinda got into her car and began a phone call with a man. At first I thought it was Ricky, but she called the man Nelson. And he sounded a lot older. And familiar…
It wasn’t clicking for me, but I was intrigued and I decided that since I’d followed her this much all day, I might as well see it through a little longer.
This time the journey took me to a house located just about ten minutes from campus. It was located in a nice upper middle class area. I parked down the block far enough away that she couldn’t see me, but I could see her with my binoculars. I felt like a total weirdo going through all this just to see what kind of dirt I could dig up on this girl, but it was cheaper than hiring a private investigator. And besides, this was turning out to be very interesting indeed.
I watched through the binoculars, Lucinda being greeted by the Dean of the school. And he kissed her sweetly on the lips, and she returned the kiss much more passionately. I could not believe what I was seeing. This was crazy. Lucinda was having an affair with the Dean?
I had to find out more.
I grabbed my phone and headed out of the car. I practically sprinted down the road to the Dean’s house where I snuck around the back. Then I carefully approached closer to see into the windows. I arrived there just in time to see Dean Andrews and Lucinda in a passionate embrace. Pulled out my phone and snapped several pictures. This was going to be good. I wondered what type of scandal this might set off if I gave these pictures to my editor. I held back my excitement long enough to take a few more pictur
es. This might be my biggest scoop yet, but I didn’t know if I would ever be able to really show it to anyone. If I could use this information to blackmail Lucinda into leaving Chance alone, then that would make it well worth the effort and keeping my silence.
I took a few more pictures and then the audio started, picked up from the microphone from Lucinda’s bag. I laughed at the way she was throwing herself at this much older man. The Dean was in his fifties at least. He was not a sensual, charismatic older man. George Clooney he was not. And he had never been that pleasant to work with, always leering at all the young women around him. Sometimes we referred to him as “The Creeper”. It was nice to know that we weren’t wrong in our initial assessment.
“Baby, you are too good to me,” Lucinda said.
“Well, I think we are good for each other,” Dean Andrews said. He went in for another kiss.
“I like the arrangement that we have,” she replied. “There is nothing wrong with that, right?”
“No, not at all. You scratch my back and I will scratch yours.”
“Now, when will my new grades be reflected in my report?”
“As soon as all the teachers turn their grades in for the semester to me. Then I can make the necessary changes. Don’t worry, you will be on the Deans’ list, that’s for sure.” He chuckled.
Lucinda looked at him angrily. “I’d better be on the President’s list. I want all A’s.”
The Dean sighed and smiled. “I was kidding; of course you will be. Just relax.”
“I don’t want to relax. Do you have any idea how hard it will be for me to get into the best law school without the right grades? My high school teachers screwed me over, all because they were jealous of me. And now I’m having to pay the price for their crap. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be that kind of victim? It’s a living hell, nothing more.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry baby,” Dean Andrews replied. “You know that I will take excellent care of you. For the first time in your life, you are with someone who really cares about you and knows who you are.”
I could hardly contain my laughter. Wow, this was getting rich. The Dean had no idea who Lucinda was. She was the most psychotic bitch I’d ever seen. And hopefully with this evidence, at least she would listen to reason. But I wasn’t betting on it. She was beyond help, and it was possible that she was beyond anything else at this point. I couldn’t figure out what in the world made her head tick. It was exhausting work, to say the least, but I had what I came for. I decided I’d leave before anyone saw me snooping around the Dean’s house. This would be hard to explain to the cops if they came.
I ran down the street and got into my car. Then I pulled away and headed for Chance’s house. I couldn’t wait to show him what I found. He was as shocked to see this as I was.
“I don’t believe it, but I wouldn’t put it past her even if you didn’t have the total proof of it,” Chance said. “So, what’s the next move? I go to Lucinda and tell her to stop what she’s doing? Or do we wait until she does something else, whatever horrible thing that will be?”
“I want to be the one to confront her,” I said.
“What? Why?”
“I haven’t really spoken to her. Mostly she has kept me out of the loop, but when some bitch messes with my man, I want to strangle her. I’m going to confront her face to face and show her why she should never mess with me or mine.”
Chance smiled and wrapped me up in his warm embrace. I loved the way he felt, the way he smelled. It always reminded me of exactly where I belonged.
“I love you,” Chance said.
“I love you, more,” I replied.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chance
The day of the next game arrived sooner than I expected. I was mostly healed up from my injuries incurred during the last game, but I was not quite a hundred percent. The coach and the rest of the team didn’t seem to notice, and that was a good thing. If the Oklahoma team found out I was still injured they would exploit it and have me taken out of the game very early.
So, I soldiered on and did the best that I could.
The game started out easily with our team scoring a big touchdown right off thanks to a kickoff return. This was always a good sign, to boost morale and get us off and running early. If we could secure a big lead early on, then we could keep the lead throughout the rest of the game with strong defense. A big part of the win would be done, plus the psychology of it would defeat our opponent’s will. That was a big thing in this game.
We coasted through the first quarter keeping the score seven to zero. Then in the second quarter Jason Price intercepted a pass for us and ran it in for the touchdown. The crowd was going wild. We were playing better than ever and I was having a great day with my pass completions, even if we didn’t get into scoring position on every single drive, as I had hoped. The Oklahoma defense was pretty brutal. But we could take them. We just had to keep putting the pressure on them. But it was far too early to count them out. I had a feeling it was going to be a brutal second half. They would come out of the gate swinging and we had to be ready for them.
As I relaxed a bit during half time and regained my thoughts, I couldn’t help but think about Lucinda and the fact that we now had audio and video evidence of her using the Dean to boost her own grades. Who knew what else she would leverage that relationship for? There was a possibility that it could be something awful to destroy me. At this point, I couldn’t assume anything was outside the realm of this woman’s reach.
The Dean was a bit of a jerk. No one had ever really liked him and this would have given even more credibility to those feelings. But if word of this got out it would have destroyed his career and probably messed up his retirement. And all over the likes of Lucinda? I couldn’t believe that a man could be that stupid.
And Lucinda… what a cold hearted bitch. We had her now.
I found it strange and oddly exciting that Jamie wanted to be the one to confront her about everything. There must have been some woman thing that she wanted to protect her man from other women. This filled me up with some warm, fuzzy feelings. I loved Jamie so much. She was my everything and there would never be anyone else for me. That was not even a thought anywhere in my mind. We would be together forever.
I just hoped she knew what she was doing when it came to confronting Lucinda. She had to do this in a somewhat public place and then she had to set up a contingency so that if Lucinda did something to her, then all would be instantly revealed. With her, you couldn’t take any chances. The woman was crazy, relentless. You always had to stay one step ahead or she would make you regret it.
The third quarter of the game went along pretty hard. Oklahoma came within scoring twice and we were lucky they couldn’t drive it in past our massive line. But they were hungry and a bit desperate. This was obvious in the penalties they were starting to accumulate. They were no longer playing as fairly as they had been. You saw that when a team started to come apart at the seams and they couldn’t handle losing anymore.
In the final quarter of the game, we were ahead twenty-one to seven. Oklahoma had finally put the ball in the end zone. We were not quite out of the woods yet. A team like that could very quickly even the score if you allowed yourself to get complacent. They were bad, dangerous, especially when they were down.
I rocked back to accept the snap and started to look for my open receivers. I was looking for Ricky, but he was nowhere to be found. I hadn’t spoken to him all day and I hadn’t had to throw to him either. If I could ignore him as much as possible, the better, but for this play I had to utilize him.
But where was he?
Suddenly, I saw movement from my side. It was Ricky pretending like he had misunderstood the play. He was going to sweep my ankle as he ran past behind me to run to the other side as some kind of a reverse set up which made no sense based on how the rest of the team was lined up. How pathetic. Ricky was getting very desperate. Well, I wasn’t going to fall for anymore o
f his tricks.
I pretended not to see him and then at the last second as he rushed by trying to sweep my bad ankle I stepped away from him and turned to the side as if I was going to throw. I bumped into Ricky’s chest hard and sent him flying to the ground where he flopped like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
It was pretty funny, but I didn’t have time to give any notice to it. I quickly ran around the other side and found a hole which I took advantage of as I ran for the end zone. Before I knew it was crossing the line safe and sound for another touchdown.
In the aftermath of the celebration, the coach demanded Ricky come out of the game. As I watched it unfold on the sidelines, it looked like the coach kicked Ricky off the team. Ricky yelled some obscenities and then walked off the field in a huff. The rest of the team and some of the crowd was chuckling at him. It served him right. The man was a fool. I was glad to be rid of him.
Of course, I knew that he would be coming for me harder than ever. Now he had nothing at all that would hold him back. It would be open season on me, but I wasn’t scared of him. If he wanted to dance, then we could dance a bit.
The jerk.
Besides, soon all of the dirt Jamie had dug up on Ricky’s little girlfriend, Lucinda would all come out to her. She and he both would have nothing to say. Hell, he might even be interested (disgusted) to hear that his woman was diddling the Dean for a better grade point average. The guy’s whole life was a joke.
After the game, I took Jamie home and we celebrated with a big bottle of wine and a pizza. I wasn’t sure why wine went so well with pizza, but it did. There was something about the mingling of the flavors that was just perfect. Jamie was in a great mood. Things were going well for her career with the paper. She’d been appointed the job of top sports writer, covering all the most important beats, and she had garnered the respect of all her peers and the editor Alicia, who was singing her nearly constant high praises. I was almost tired of hearing about it, but Jamie was so excited that I was thrilled for her as well. I loved to see her happy and doing what she loved.
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