Big Man on Campus: an Enemies to Lovers College Romance (Big Men on Campus Book 1)

by Stephanie Queen

  “I used to work part-time cleaning at the Dowd mansion. I knew Charles had a crush on me. Of course I told him I was eighteen and he wanted to believe me so he did. We flirted, but it was nothing but an ego boost for me.” She sighs deeply.

  “Bad luck, bad timing. The night after Dashell and I told my mother and Giddy that I was pregnant and we wanted to get married, we were still together. Giddy hadn’t put his foot down. He wanted Dashell to leave. Mom wanted me to stay and finish high school. They said I could go to Dashell when I graduated if our relationship was meant to be. But there’s no way we could have a relationship in this town or anywhere near here.

  “Dashell didn’t like it and neither did I. Giddy and Momma left us alone to discuss it, to figure out what we wanted to do. They were gentle on us that first two days. My mother knew what I was going through and Giddy loved his son.

  “What about Charles?” I don’t need to hear about star-crossed love. It’s a myth, the kind of thing that lives only in a person’s imagination. If Dashell and my mother stayed together, they’d probably hate each other by now.

  “Charles came to my house that night. He found a bracelet I’d left behind by accident. It had been a gift from Dashell and it was inscribed Love always, but with no name. Charles used the excuse of returning my bracelet to come to the house, but he was jealous. He knocked on the door when Dashell and I were on the couch talking about what to do. I’d been crying. He’d been holding me in his arms.

  “Charles said he heard me crying so he opened the door and came inside. And he saw me in Dashell’s arms, kissing me. He reacted like you’d expect a man to do, with violence.”

  “I can imagine.” It’s hard to picture Charles as a young man with a crush on my mother, but not hard to picture him reacting with passionate violence. I’d witnessed it myself this morning. An age ago.

  “They beat each other up while I watched, crying. Charles wouldn’t listen to reason. He told Dashell he had to leave town or he would make it a police matter. My mother and Giddy came home while Charles was making his threats. And the rest is history. Dashell left, breaking my heart and Giddy’s too.”

  “Why didn’t you go to him after high school?”

  “We kept in touch at first. We’d meet here and there, hiding it from Charles. But he needed a steady job before I could stay with him. He finally got a job in Alaska in goldmining and I didn’t hear from for long stretches, though he sent me money. And then when you were about four years old and the mining season was done, he was coming back from Alaska for the winter, and he invited me to stay with him in Oregon. I went.

  “I left you here and went to him. He was disappointed that I didn’t bring you. Angry. We fought about it, but I told him Grandpa was like a daddy to you and it wouldn’t do any good to uproot you and turn your life upside down. Not unless we could get married.

  “He accused me of cheating and of gold-digging. I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. He knew I had no money and I couldn’t convince him that I wanted him and not his money, that the flirtations were harmless and meaningless. He said he wanted his son more than he wanted me. That scared me enough to come back to you. I didn’t hear from Dashell again. And he never sent money again.”

  “That was the beginning of being poor and miserable,” I said.

  My grandmother who wasn’t really my grandmother died shortly after and Grandpa went into a depression and drank. My mother went into a depression and drank. No one worked so we had no money. Food stamps. Grandpa’s disability. That’s what we lived on.

  “That’s when I learned I loved you more than your daddy, Jack.”

  “Could have fooled me. Uncle Dashell came back for Grandpa’s funeral. I remember meeting him. Why didn’t you tell me about him then?”

  “I wanted him to stay. I wanted to tell you about your dad, but Dashell made me promise not to, that you were doing fine without him. He would only complicate things, get in the way. I begged him to stay, but more for you than for me.”

  “Why didn’t he stay, Mom?” My voice croaked like it was dying, like something was shriveling inside me.

  “He said it was too late to take you. You were seventeen by then. But I always thought it was because he had another family, a legitimate wife and kids back in Alaska, and he didn’t need white trash like me claiming him. I dragged you down, Jackie, baby. I’ve always been dragging you down and I’m so, so sorry. I should have died and left you to your life long ago.”

  Joni lets out a sob and reaches across the table to hold my mother’s hands. I feel nothing.

  “So he left you.” I’m dead, my voice flat, my soul flattened with the certain knowledge that I truly don’t have a father. That fucking Uncle Dashell was the man who seeded me, the man who refused to stay and be my father.

  I remember when my uncle left after Grandpa’s funeral. I remember Mom crying in her room, but figured the tears were for Grandpa. That’s when she went on a drinking bender and had to go back into rehab. Tears stream down her face now as she watches me, pleading for forgiveness or understanding or something. But I have nothing. I’m empty.

  Joni rises. The story is over.

  “Let me get you a glass of water,” She says to mom. She goes to the sink and fills a glass.

  I laugh. Mom’s drink of choice in times like this—or any old time—would be a hell of a lot stronger than water. Looking around the kitchen, I don’t see any bottles and mild surprise penetrates my numbness. But only for a second before I fight it off. No feeling is allowed, not if I want to function, to survive, to achieve my fucking goal. There’s only a week until the Heisman Trophy is awarded.

  Joni brings tissues and the glass of water to my mother, taking care of her like the sexiest version of a do-gooder I’ve ever seen.

  “I’ll get our bags. We can stay here tonight,” I say, looking at her face for approval. She nods. The sun is already setting and my stomach gnaws, groaning like an unfed grizzly bear. Back outside I open the door to the truck and the urge to jump in and drive away rushes through me, but it’s gone before I blink, before it takes hold, like a discarded habit.

  As I bring our bags inside, moving through the kitchen to the short hall and my cell-size bedroom, I don’t know why I’m staying except for convenience. And the sudden absence of demons. Maybe I want to test myself, see if the demons come back in my dreams while I sleep in my narrow childhood bed. It’s probably the same mattress I always had, flattened with age and the weight of a boy grown into a man.

  Or maybe it’s a test of Joni. Let her see who I really am up close. If she didn’t mind sleeping on a shitty mattress in my room at BMOC House, let’s see if she minds the Full Monty experience of my childhood comforts. She’s passed the test of meeting my mother and hearing my fucking family history laid bare without running. Not yet, anyway.

  When I come out of my room back into the kitchen, Joni has Mom cleaned up and functioning.

  “Why don’t I make us some supper? You must be starving.”

  “I’ll help,” Joni says. She joins Mom at the stove and they start pulling things from the cabinets and I feel like I’m watching a bad sitcom, waiting for something to go wrong.

  “I’ve been calling you Jack.” Here it is. She’s going to ask for money. She turns around and faces me with a tentative smile. “I wanted to tell you about my new job. I’ve been working full-time at the grocery store. For two months now. As a cashier.” She waves a hand at the refrigerator. “I have plenty of food now.”

  I nod, glancing around the room again. It’s still old and battered, but clean and tidy like I don’t remember since Grandma—or the woman who played my grandma—was around.

  “I won’t need so much money from you between my government money and the job.”

  “That’s great,” Joni says. “You must be proud.” I nod, keeping my skepticism to myself.

  We eat grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. I eat four of them, but I’m still hungry, craving protein. Whatever. Mom cl
eans up and we go in the living room. Like the kitchen, it’s cleaner and tidier than it was when I tried growing up here. The last thing I want to do now is hang out. All the talking today drained me.

  “We’re going to bed now,” I say, not sitting down, holding Joni back before she has a chance to sit.

  “Of course you are. Good night.” She clutches my arm then hugs me like I came back from the dead, and maybe I did from her perspective. But I feel like I’m still in purgatory. Still fatherless except I know who the prick is now and I know he chose not to be my father. After meeting me, after there was no need for a secret and even with my mother still hot for him and begging him to stay.

  In bed, I say out loud, “Maybe Mom’s right. Maybe he has another family somewhere. Too much water under the bridge. Bad memories.” Joni snuggles into me though it’s not like she has a choice in this bed. We’re naked and covered with a rough blanket, sharing one lumpy pillow.

  “I bet that has a lot to do with it,” she says. “That and the fact that he’s an asshole who made the worst choice possible. And nothing at all like you.”

  I chortle without humor. “You forgetting the kid who bullied you mercilessly?”

  “I’ll never forget him,” she says. “He made me who I am as much as anyone else, more than most. He made me strong and determined to work hard and prove myself.”

  In spite of being bone tired and empty, my cock is alive and I need Joni. Neither the small bed nor the fact that my mother’s in the next room stop me from fucking Joni with all the violent passion that I have, releasing it the only safe way I can. The only way I can feel without being crushed with despair.

  Joni’s wrong about me not being an asshole like my father. I made the worst choice possible four years ago and that secret is still out there.

  Chapter 20

  Jack

  In the light of day, I feel hung over in a way reminiscent of my early teen years, though it’s not induced by alcohol. The airing of emotional baggage turns out to be more devastating than a pint or even a quart of cheap whiskey. There’s no bedside clock to tell me the time, but I see the sun glint through the holes in the shade on the one window in my room.

  “You’re awake,” Joni says, stretching against me, pushing her ass into my boner, making me groan, the memory of our volatile sex last night making my cock snuggle closer, growing stronger.

  “More than awake. Ready.” I kiss her and she squirms.

  “We need to talk.” Words a guy never wants to hear. Words I’m usually guilty of saying. My chest tightens, reminding me my emotional armor has eroded. Forcing myself back to a defensive posture, I climb from bed, throw on some shorts, and reach for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Joni sits up, staring, but I don’t see panic in her eyes.

  “To the bathroom, princess. I don’t have an en suite.”

  When I get back to the room freshened and clearheaded, sufficiently armored, I find her sitting on the made bed, dressed and determined.

  “Fuck.”

  “It’s not like that,” she says. “You’re holding things in, Jack. It’s not healthy. You need to talk to me.”

  I sit next to her. But there’s no way to stop the physical need as I pull her with me, lying against the pillow, holding one hand over her breast, the other on her thigh where I give it a squeeze.

  “Talk to me,” she whispers.

  “What’s left to say? My family is a worse shit show than yours. I win the dysfunctional family trophy.”

  “I don’t know. I think it’s a close contest. Your family has extenuating circumstances, like death, bad luck and—”

  “Poor choices.” More poor choices than she knows about.

  “My family’s made more poor choices than—”

  “But you haven’t.” I whisper the words in her hair.

  “Neither have you.” I laugh at her ignorance.

  “You mean other than choosing to bully you?” But I cut her off before she can answer. “I’m afraid there’s more than that, princess.”

  “Tell me.” My chest tightens and this time I can’t defend against the pain, so I let it ride. I’ll survive if Joni ditches me. She was never part of my plan, not really. She was only a dream, a symbol, a nice perk. None of these thoughts console me, but I take a deep breath and tell her unfiltered what’s in my head.

  “When people here at St. Paul U look at me they see an athlete and an A student, they don’t see a kid from a shack down by the tracks with a druggy alcoholic mother, a no-show mystery father, and who was raised by an ornery old gramps who limped around and grumbled under his breath.”

  “I remember your grandfather as a nice man, a charming man.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  “At football games. All the kids loved him. He was a hoot. Your mom didn’t sit with him, I remember noticing that. She didn’t sit with anyone and I always thought that was sad. It was like she was ashamed and afraid to claim you.”

  “She was ashamed. I didn’t want her talking to my friends.” I wonder if she’s listening now and decide it doesn’t matter.

  “She was pretty. Had a cuddly smile, the kind that made you feel like warm cookies and milk after school.”

  Laughter erupts from me, rolls through me in uncomfortable ironic waves until I need to take a breath. “That’s so fucking wrong. She was as far as the sun from warm cookies and milk after school, as far as a mother can get from that. How about stale beer and empty cabinets?”

  Joni strokes my ribs and I feel my dick swell up, getting firm and ready again in spite of the night we spent. In spite of the talk.

  “She had it rough, Jack. But so did you. Tell me about it.”

  Those words again, compelling me past the reflexive flash of horror. I try to take deeper breaths. It’s hard with her against me, but I don’t loosen my hold. The need to share, to let all the horror bleed out of me, spreads through the cracks.

  “I remember a conversation I had with Mom, just before I left for St. Paul’s. I was actually nervous about going there.”

  She laughs. “I can’t imagine you nervous.”

  “I know, right? But I was. We had a fight, me and Mom. I needed to know about my father and I felt like it was a now-or-never moment.”

  “Tell me about the fight.”

  So I do …

  Mom is lying on the couch and I’m getting ready to go out to one of the late graduation parties. Kids have had parties all fucking summer.

  Mom says, “Be careful. Use a condom.” She laughs. I grit my teeth.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I say. “Like you were careful.”

  She shrugs and turns away. “Don’t blame me for having you, Jackie. You’re the best thing that ever—”

  “Am I? Why is that? Who’s my father? Is he a rocket scientist? The school janitor?” I grit my teeth, forcing myself to stay calm.

  She shrugs, smiles. “Don’t be crazy, Jack. I told you I don’t know who he is.” She sighs then. “You have to understand, Jackie, I liked men and they liked me. There were a few boys and a lot of men. Can’t say I remember them all. I favored the more mature lovers. They were better at it.” She was purposely antagonizing me, exaggerating her whorishness and I let it get to me.

  I said, “You were underage. What kind of men—?”

  She put up her hands, getting angry under the I’m a callous bitch act. “Don’t go getting all bunched up. I told them I was eighteen. Looked eighteen—hell, I could have said I was twenty-one and sometimes I did so we could go out for drinks.”

  “That’s when I stormed out the door. I had a week left until I had to report for preseason camp at St. Paul’s, but I stayed with friends and only went back to the house to pack my things.” I remember my mom crying, but I don’t admit it, shame finally coming down on me for my self-righteous ignorance.

  “That’s so sad. For both of you. Especially now that you know she was covering for your father.”

  “Yes and no. She rea
lly did sleep around. I have no idea how she pulled it off, where she found these men. We’re in a nowhere town in New Hampshire. Masochistic curiosity wrenched me, so I asked her once. Know what she said to me?”

  Joni shakes her head like she doesn’t want to know, but I can’t keep it inside anymore. The fucking genie’s out of this fucking bottle.

  “Mom looked straight at me, her eyes honest and soft for a change, and says, ‘We have summer vacationers coming through.’”

  “I asked her what about when she was a teenager and she says that was a long time ago. That she used to hitchhike her way out of town and stay away for days. She said she thought about not coming back more than once. Then aimed her big bold sea-green eyes at me, the ones I inherited for better or worse, and said ‘Look, honey, however big a whore I was doesn’t matter because now I have you and you’re the best thing I ever contributed to this world.’ She grinned all-out and took me in a hug, saying, ‘Look at you, Jack.’”

  I squeeze the memory tight because I need it now, one of the good ones, one of the memories of Mom I’ve allowed to plague me in my weaker moments over the years. But I never weakened enough to go back. Until now. Because of Joni. But I don’t admit to that because I don’t know what it means.

  “She’s right about you. Look at you,” Joni says, circling her finger in a shivery motion around my pecs, keeping me in the present while my mind keeps circling back, trying to make sense of my fucking life.

  “And you took care of her, didn’t you? All this time?” Joni props herself up on an elbow and reads my eyes like tea leaves, her angelic face inspiring all kinds of non-angelic things in me, and maybe some good too. I want to be good enough to deserve her, though I should know better. I look at my mother again, taking away all the shadows, the pain, the resentment, and see some things, the things that made me want to take care of her.

  “She was my biggest fan. No matter whatever else her faults were, I couldn’t fault her for not thinking the sun rose and set around me. Even if that didn’t translate into taking good care, paying attention, and setting a good example. When I did have her attention, she was into me like a stereotypical proud mama, but with none of the worrying. She never worried about me. Waved off trouble or problems like they didn’t exist, or like she couldn’t take care of them and expected me to do it. So I did. No money for the electricity? No problem. Jack will take care of it.”