by J. Nathan
God.
My heart tripped over itself at the sight of him. The feel of his arms wrapped around me brought on so many emotions. I almost burst into tears in the middle of the party. His hand on my wrist elicited tingles I hadn’t felt since I shared his bed. But when his touch became tighter than necessary, I knew that wasn’t my Jordan. My Jordan would never have handled me roughly like that.
I hadn’t been lying when I told him I’d thought about our reunion every day since I’d left. I had. I longed for the day I could get into Alabama and be with him again. But it wasn’t at all how I saw it play out. Jordan was angry. And drunk. The angry I could understand. I’d dropped off the face of the earth and magically reappeared four years later—at his house. I expected resistance. What I didn’t expect was his drunken belligerence. He’d seen the life I lived with a drunk and violent stepdad. I never imagined he might’ve turned out like him.
My phone pinged. I grabbed it off the desk beside my bed and rolled onto my back to read it. It was from my friend Vanessa back home. Did you see him yet?
My fingers tapped away at my screen. Yup.
How’d it go?
Not good.
Call me!!!
I did.
Vanessa answered before it even rang. “Talk to me.”
“He was drunk.”
“Ugh,” Vanessa said, understanding my disappointment. “Did you explain what happened?”
“It didn’t really come up.”
“I would’ve thought it was the first thing that’d come up.”
“He was mad I was there with a guy.”
“A guy?” she asked.
“Yeah. Remember the football player I met at orientation? He asked me to go with him. I knew it was a football party so I hoped I’d be able to see Jordan.”
“So, he was jealous?”
“I don’t really know. He was drunk and angry.”
“Jeez. So, what now?”
“I have no idea.”
“Girl, you’ve talked about Jordan Grady every day since I met you,” she reminded me, as if I needed reminding.
“I know. But the way he looked at me was different.”
“You guys haven’t seen each other in four years. Give him a minute to let it soak in you’re back in his life.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not the same girl you were when you showed up in Arizona four years ago. He’s gotta get used to that.”
Was she right? Had I blindsided him? If the tables had been reversed, would I have been just as surprised?
Alabama was a huge campus, but I knew we’d be crossing paths again very soon. And this time, I needed to be ready.
Grady
“What do you mean there’s no Emery Pruitt?” I asked Sabrina when I met her outside the history building the next morning.
“Leigh called. There’s no Emery Pruitt enrolled here.”
What the hell?
“Do you think she changed her name?” Sabrina asked. “You know, to start over once she left?”
I shrugged. “It’s possible. She disappeared from social media.”
“You could just ask Flip,” she offered.
“And you could just fuck off.”
She chuckled. “I figured you’d say that—well not exactly that. So, I asked Leigh to check if there were other Emerys on campus with different last names.”
“And?”
Sabrina typed something into her phone. “I forwarded you the schedules for the two Emerys on campus. Let’s track them down.”
My brows shot up. “You’re helping?”
“I seem to remember you staying in the library with me last year helping me find the truth about Crosby.”
I nodded as I pulled out my phone and looked at the schedules she’d sent. “It says she could either be inside here.” I hitched my thumb over my shoulder. “Or, across campus in the English building.”
“I can stay here. I don’t have class for another half hour.”
“Thanks.”
“Should I talk to her if I see her?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Just call me.” I took off across campus. It was noon, so the sun’s brutal rays beat down on everyone. My hike would require a shower as soon as I got home. It was that hot in Alabama in August.
I reached the building. Too impatient to wait outside, I threw open the front door and jogged upstairs to the third floor, searching the room numbers for 318. The room was in the corner and the narrow vertical window was my only means of seeing inside. I scanned the rows for Emery.
Nothing.
I slipped out my phone and called Sabrina as I made my way outside and across campus to meet up with her and hopefully Emery. “She wasn’t there,” I said into my phone.
“You heading this way?”
“Yeah. You mind waiting in case the professor dismisses the class early and we miss her?”
“Nope. I’ll be here.”
It took me a few minutes to cross campus. I dropped down beside Sabrina on the bench outside the building, needing a moment to catch my breath. We sat silently watching random people moving across campus in different directions.
“You have any idea what you’re gonna say if it’s her in there?” Sabrina asked.
I shook my head.
“Just be honest. Tell her you deserve an explanation.”
I nodded, hoping our second encounter wouldn’t be as awkward as our first. “But what if she’s not the same girl I remember? What if she’s a girl who likes hanging out with assholes like Flip Caruso?”
“Ummm—”
“Don’t even say it,” I warned.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Sure you were.”
“Okay, you’re right,” she laughed. “But, you have gotten better.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said sardonically.
She glanced down at her phone. “Classes dismiss in two minutes.”
“Fuck.” I jumped to my feet, unsure if I should go inside or wait where I stood. It didn’t matter. The front door opened and a flurry of bodies shuffled outside.
Sabrina stood, shielding her eyes from the sun as we scanned the crowd. “I didn’t get a great look at her the other night,” she said. “I don’t wanna miss her.”
My eyes stayed on the moving bodies, jumping from left to right. That’s when I spotted Emery staring down at her phone. Her eyes lifted from her phone and flashed around at the nearby buildings. She seemed so small on the huge campus. Just like she had the first time we’d met. Always on the verge of being swallowed up by the cruel world around her.
I didn’t hesitate, jogging over to her. “Emery.”
Surprise filled her face before she steeled her features, looking upon me indifferently. “Nice to see you sober.”
Ignoring the dig, I smiled. “Nice to see you too.”
She began to walk away, so I followed her, keeping pace with her steps. “Need help finding your way?”
She held up her phone. A campus map filled the screen.
“I’m definitely better than a map. You’re heading to calculus.” I pointed to the old stone building a few yards away from us. “It’s that one.”
“How do you know where I’m going?” she asked, moving toward the building.
I kept pace with her. “I know you,” I said, playing it cool and omitting the fact I was currently stalking her. “You should know that.”
We stopped in front of the building and before I could say anything, she began to climb the steps.
“That’s it?”
She stopped and turned toward me. “What?”
I stared at her, unsure what I expected from someone who had no trouble forgetting about me over the past four years.
Her eyes jumped between me and the building. “I’m gonna be late.”
I stared at her, wondering why she was so anxious to get away from me. I wasn’t the one who left. I wa
sn’t the one who went silent. I wasn’t the one who deserved the cold shoulder.
Her patience reached its max. “See ya.” She turned away again.
“Will I?”
She stopped and glanced back at me.
“Will I see you or will you be too busy with Flip?”
With disappointment in her eyes, she shook her head and turned away, disappearing inside the building.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
What was wrong with me?
Why couldn’t I act normal for more than a couple seconds at a time when it came to her?
* * *
I stormed into the locker room, pissed at myself for being such an asshole to Emery. Again. I dropped my bag in front of my locker and rummaged through it for my shower supplies. I needed to cool off before practice began.
“What the fuck did you do to Emery?” Flip’s voice carried over my shoulder.
I spun around as he stalked toward me, ready to throw down again.
When was this guy gonna learn?
I stepped toward him, in no mood for his shit. “Stay out of it, punk.”
“Punk?” He stepped up to me, his face inches from mine. “Can’t find your own girl so you go after mine? Is that your game?”
“If you two are so tight,” I said, not backing down. “Why don’t you ask her about us.”
“I did. She said you’re nobody.”
A knot twisted in my gut at his words. Had she really said that or was he just trying to piss me off? It didn’t matter. I shoved him. He lost his footing and slammed into the lockers behind him.
“What the hell’s going on?” Coach said, rushing into the locker room.
I pulled my eyes from Flip and glanced to Coach. “Nothing, Coach. Just making the young kids feel welcome.” I patted Flip’s chest to drive my point home, when what I really wanted to do was level him with a right hook.
Coach wasn’t stupid. He didn’t buy my explanation for even a second. But before he could ream me out in front of the others, I turned and grabbed my gear, opting to suit up away from everyone after my shower. That way I could pull it together then head out to the field with no one realizing he’d rattled me.
I purposely missed more than one block during our two-hour practice. I could take Coach yelling at me. What I couldn’t take was letting Flip-fucking-Caruso win.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Grady
I hurried into the psych building the following day, searching for room 328. I found it halfway down the third-floor hallway and peeked in the vertical window in the closed door. The door handle rattled and the door pushed open, causing me to shuffle back. “Can I help you?” the professor asked, her eyes quickly widening. “Mr. Grady? One semester of Human Sexuality wasn’t enough for you? You came back for seconds?”
Professor Reyes. Fuck.
All eyes in the classroom shifted to me standing in the doorway. I lifted my hand to them, spotting Emery, wide-eyed in the last seat of the last row. “What’s up everyone?”
Most of them laughed. Emery look terrified I’d do something to embarrass her.
I looked to the professor. Same salt-and-pepper bun. Same she’s-definitely-a-dominatrix-in-her-other-life glint in her eyes.
“Come in,” Professor Reyes said, holding out her hand to the table in the front of the room where she stowed books and folders.
“I can wait outside.”
“Sit down, Mr. Grady,” she directed.
“In front of the class?” I asked, knowing there was no way I was getting out of it.
“If I remember correctly, you love being the center of attention.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
I walked inside and dropped down on the table, looking regrettably to Emery.
“So, we were about to get into a little game of true or false,” Professor Reyes said, pacing the front of the room slow and purposefully. “You remember this game, don’t you, Mr. Grady?”
I nodded, wishing I’d paid more attention to her lectures than the brunette who sat beside me last semester. I also wished I hadn’t passed the class solely because Reyes wanted my ass out of her hair.
She picked up a stack of cards from her desk. “Since it’s the first week of school, and I never like to put anyone on the spot, you’re the perfect person for this job.” She glanced down at her first card before pinning me with her eyes. “True or false? According to John Baldwin, sexuality specialist at the University of California Santa Barbara, women want multiple orgasms.”
The class burst out laughing. I glanced to Emery who covered her mouth, holding back her own laughter
“Quiet everyone,” Professor Reyes waved her cards at them. “Let him think.”
“Nothing to think about. Obviously, they do,” I said confidently.
“So, you’re saying true?” she clarified.
“True.”
“False. Women in their early twenties are satisfied with only one, and are usually incapable of more than one due to both their partner and their own lack of knowledge of each other’s bodies.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“Am I hurting your ego, Mr. Grady? Because I hate to break it to you, but girls know how to fake it.”
The girls in the class, including Emery, broke into laughter, while the guys seemed to be considering the notion.
“True or false?” Professor Reyes continued, seeming to like making me look like a fool. “The ‘pull out method’ works.”
“Hasn’t failed me yet,” I said with a smug grin.
The class burst into laughter again, as Professor Reyes cocked her head at me. “Do you need a refresher on STDs, Mr. Grady?”
“Haven’t gotten one of those either.”
She shook her head. “So, are you going with true or false?”
“True,” I said.
“False. Though it’s not as bad as no contraceptive, there’s a high risk of getting a woman pregnant given that sperm is released in the vagina before orgasm.” Professor Reyes forged on as if she had something to prove—some personal vendetta against me. “True or false? Penis size matters?”
The class broke into hysterics, some laughing so hard they cried.
I looked to Emery who rolled her eyes. I shrugged, hoping she knew it was my apology for showing up to her class. “True,” I said to Professor Reyes, knowing I had that one in the bag.
“False,” she said, almost beaming at my lack of knowledge. “According to John Baldwin, if given the choice, most women would opt for a smaller penis. They’re less likely to experience painful intercourse.”
I sat silently wondering how the hell I was getting outta there.
“I guess it’s a good thing you showed up today, given that you clearly didn’t learn a single thing in my course last semester.” She dropped the cards to her side and look curiously at me. “Why are you here, Mr. Grady?”
I hopped down from the table. “I was just looking for someone.” I made my way to the door and looked back at the rows of students. “Pay attention. Professor Reyes clearly knows what she’s talking about.” I locked eyes with Emery and winked. Then I glanced to Professor Reyes. “But I still think you should poll the girls about that size thing.”
Amused, Professor Reyes shook her head as I turned and stepped out into the hallway.
A few minutes passed before doors began opening and students filed into the hallway. Reyes’ was the last to release her class. Students stepped through the door and passed by me, leaned up against the opposite wall. The guys laughed when they spotted me. Many of the girls averted their gazes. The others…well, they looked me up and down appreciatively.
“Well, that was fun,” Emery said, stepping through the door and spotting me standing there.
“What?” My eyes drifted over her white T-shirt and long tan legs covered only by a torn-up pair of cutoffs. “That in there? That was Reyes showing how much she loves me.”<
br />
Emery rolled her eyes. “What are you really doing here?”
“Just stalking you.”
Her gaze lowered as she stifled a smile.
It took everything in me not to wrap my arms around her and pull her into a hug. But her not running away from me this time helped me resist the urge. “Can’t blame a guy for missing his best friend.”
Every part of her body stilled as her eyes lifted to mine. It might’ve been the glare of the overhead fluorescent lights, but I could’ve sworn tears dampened her eyes.
“Let’s get out of here before Reyes spots you with me,” I said. “Wouldn’t want her to hold it against you.”
“I thought she loves you?”
“Love. Hate. Fine line.”
She snickered as we began walking down the hallway.
“Now, we can pretend I don’t already know you have an hour break between classes when I ask you to grab a coffee with me,” I said. “Or, you can make it difficult and make up some lame-ass excuse not to.”
“Why?”
“Because I think we’ve got some catching up to do. Don’t you?”
“What if I’m already meeting someone?” she challenged.
“Then you’ll cancel because you just ran into an old friend who wants to know what you’ve been up to.”
She pressed her lips together. I could almost see the indecision whirling through her brain.
I bent my neck and tried to meet her eyes. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes, you exhausting boy,” she huffed. “I’ll get coffee with you.”
“Let’s get something straight,” I said, pulling the strap of her messenger bag over her head so I could carry it like I did when we were younger. “There ain’t nothing boy about me. I’m one hundred percent pure Alabama man.”
“Ugh. I can see the cheesiness is still alive and well.”
I laughed as I turned in the direction of the campus coffee house and strolled toward it with Emery by my side. Her strides were longer than before. I didn’t need to slow down for her to keep up like when we were younger.
We walked in silence across campus, me racking my brain for something interesting to say, but coming up short. Four years had passed—a long time when they were such pivotal years in both our lives. There were so many questions I had for her, but was it better for us to start fresh or rehash our past in order for us to put it behind us?