by Mariano, Sam
“Yo, Mahoney!”
The shout breaks the spell. Carter’s arm falls from my shoulders. We both look up as one of his teammates stalks toward us, nodding at Carter, then looking over at me. His smirk grows when his gaze lands on me.
“Careful, man, you don’t wanna mess around with Zoey the ho. She’ll run and tell her mommy on you for lookin’ at her wrong.”
I stiffen, but tilt my chin up stubbornly. “No, you can look all you want, just don’t touch unless you want a criminal record.” My tone is deceptively sweet, but my eyes are two orbs of blue ice.
He shakes his head at me, his gaze dropping to the most inappropriate parts of my body. “It’s a damn shame someone so fine has to be such a prude.”
“I prefer selective. Tossin’ a ball around with your buddies doesn’t really go the distance in impressing me. Sorry.”
Scoffing, he says, “Tossin’ the ball around with our buddies? We don’t play ball in someone’s backyard, darlin’; we’re champions.”
God, who cares? I’ve talked to jocks enough for one day, and I’m definitely not going to get any more insight into Carter with his bonehead friend here, so it’s time to wrap it up.
“Great. Well, if you’re so impressive, surely there are girls who want your attention, so there’s no need to force it on the ones who don’t,” I point out.
“No one buys your bullshit, Zoey,” he tells me, his blue eyes glowing with contempt. “Parsons has never struggled with the ladies, and frankly I don’t see anything so special about you to make him lose his damn mind.” Advancing a step closer, his voice drops with menace. “We all know you’re just a stuck-up, lyin’ little bitch.”
I swallow, resisting the urge to take a step back. It’s easy to run off at the mouth with these meatheads, but when they bring physicality into the arena, I can no longer compete.
“That’s enough,” Carter says, surprising both of us.
My gaze darts to him, and his friend’s eyebrows rise, but he takes a slow step back. Despite his obedience, he regards Carter with the confusion of a junk yard dog whose owner just commanded he let a thief escape unscathed.
Carter doesn’t explain himself. He moves away from me and nods at his friend as he walks ahead of him, clearly expecting him to fall in line and follow his lead. “Come on, I’m starving. What’d your mom make good for me today, Cartwright?”
His friend smiles, shaking his head. “You’re such an asshole.”
As unimpressed as I am when other girls are struck stupid by the sight of Carter Mahoney, I find myself watching him disappear down the hall, wondering endlessly about why he does everything he does. Why did he let me mouth off like that without joining Cartwright’s side. Why stop Cartwright when he got mean? What just happened doesn’t jive with Carter’s all-important image. I’m the enemy, and Carter let them chant at me just this morning.
I’m so distracted that I don’t even realize Grace sidles up beside me until I hear her voice. “Why were you walkin’ with Carter Mahoney?”
Finally tearing my eyes away from his disappearing figure, I force my feet into motion. “I wasn’t walking with him. We were both leaving class at the same time, that’s all. He’s in my history class.”
“I’m aware of that. But it definitely looked like you two were talking until his friend broke up the party.”
I shrug. “Sometimes when he leaves class and doesn’t have anyone else to talk to, he talks to me.”
“Now that I think about it, I haven’t heard him joinin’ in lately when people are talking crap about you with that lame nickname the jocks used absolutely no brain power to dream up,” she says.
“Right? Zoey the ho is so easy. They could have at least gone with something fun, like harlot or trollop.”
“Harlot is such a fun word,” Grace agrees. “Ho is unimaginative.”
“Yeah, well, they’re not popular for their cunning wit,” I point out.
Glancing over at me, Grace decides to go fishing. “Carter Mahoney is kind of gorgeous. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed.”
“Ugh.” I roll my eyes, shaking my head. “Don’t do this. Not today, Satan.”
Shrugging innocently, she says, “I’m just saying, he doesn’t follow me out of classrooms talkin’ my ear off. Do you like him?”
“Definitely not. No. He’s… bad news.”
“I can’t disagree with that,” Grace says, hugging her own books as we walk. “I don’t like to gossip, but considering the women he’s known to spend his time with, I’m sure he’s way too fast for you anyway. Romantically, I mean. If you’re just reaching out in a casual, Christian way then no big deal, but he’s definitely not waiting for marriage, I’ll just say that.”
I nearly stop in my tracks, staring with new eyes at my best friend and possible fountain of information. “You know things about Carter’s sex life?”
Heat blossoms on Grace’s cheeks. “It’s not nice to gossip.”
My mind shoots off so many questions, I don’t even know what to ask first. “No, I know. It’s not gossip. I won’t tell anyone else, I promise. Tell me everything you know. Everything. Leave nothin’ out.”
Grace fidgets. “Well, I don’t know all the details. I try to close my ears to that sort of talk.”
Dammit, Grace! Don’t be a goody two shoes right now!
“I do know he generally sleeps with women a lot older than us, though. For the most part, he acts like high school girls are beneath him—not like he hasn’t slept with any, but the only one he kept around for a while was Erika Martin, and that’s probably just because he’s stuck with her in his friend circle so he got pushed into dating her.”
I suppose that sounds feasible. Carter guards his image, and Erika is popular, too. I’m not familiar enough with their dynamics to know how her social power stacks up to his.
“I heard the reason they broke up was because Carter slept with a teacher, and Erika caught them red-handed, makin’ out in her classroom. Remember last year when that pretty redheaded art teacher just disappeared halfway through the term? Rumor was, that’s what happened. Once their affair was found out, she had to resign and leave town quietly before it all blew up into a big legal hoopla. It was crazy too, because she was married, and she and her husband had bought a house from Barbara Lane from church.” Grace shakes her head. “It was a terrible situation.”
“What?” I demand, wide-eyed. “How do I not know these things?”
Grace shrugs. “You’ve never cared about Carter. Why do you think I was so surprised to see you talkin’ to him? Not to make you sound like a snob, but I always thought you were too swept up in your own world to even notice the jocks until this Jake thing happened.”
Why does everyone keep saying that? When the jocks suggest I’m a stuck-up bitch, I’m not surprised, but my own best friend? Grace wouldn’t be mean to me on purpose, so she must really think that.
“Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard not to notice a guy grabbing your breasts,” I mutter.
“I heard Carter dated a stripper once. I bet she wouldn’t have noticed,” Grace jokes.
Chapter 9
Everything Grace told me about Carter Mahoney should have diluted my interest in him. While I don’t have a clear picture of who he is, one thing is abundantly clear—whatever he is, for whatever reason, that guy is every variety of bad news.
I tried to fact-check Grace’s story about the art teacher, but there’s no record of it. Of course, there wouldn’t be. I may not pay attention to the goings on around school, but Carter would have been 17 a year ago, and if a scandal involving a minor and a teacher had made the news, I would have noticed that.
I try to distract myself with things that actually matter—homework, a four-hour shift at the bookstore, and the $1 clearanced paperback I couldn’t resist bringing home with me since I don’t have to pay actual money to buy books right now.
Around bedtime, my mind drifts back to Carter. I decide to check on his social media again,
and the newest picture causes my stomach to sink and my face to curl up with distaste.
It’s his rally girl, mooning at him as she leans in the window of his car. His number is painted on her cheek, her top is cut so low she might as well be wearing a Band-aid for a shirt, and she’s holding up a tray of carefully detailed chocolate-covered strawberries, decorated to look like footballs.
“Post-practice treat. Best rally girl ever,” he commented, with his stupid Longhorn hashtags.
As I’m giving my phone dirty looks, I shift my body, suddenly uncomfortable for reasons I don’t even understand. Then I pick the phone back up, my thumb slips, and the worst possible thing happens—I accidentally ‘like’ the photo.
Gasping, I stare, horrified, at the little red heart. “No! No, no, no, no.” I quickly click the button again to unlike it, then I drop the phone like it turned into a tarantula, afraid to even touch the damn thing.
It takes a moment for the screen to go dark, but I stare at it the whole time, as if it’s a bomb that might detonate. The panic begins to subside, and my desperate hope is that he’ll never know. I may have unliked it fast enough and he’ll never get the notification. As much action as his profile gets, it’s not at all unreasonable to think he would never even notice a single like. Unless he’s literally looking at his phone right now, surely by the time he checks, a dozen more people will have interacted with the post and our names will all be grouped together. Surely as many people as like his posts, he must not even read all the names—
My hopes die as my screen lights up with a notification that he just sent me a message. Motherfucker!
“Shit,” I hiss, grabbing the phone and sliding the message open.
“That’s shady,” he says simply.
My face flushes, even though he can’t see me. I can’t even think of a way to defend myself—I am outright stalking his profile like a creep. Telling him I can’t seem to sate my curiosity about him would be even worse than letting him think I’m a psycho stalker, so I figure I’ll just let him think that and ignore his message.
Only he doesn’t wait for me to respond; he sends another message. “Was that a passive aggressive like because I posted a picture of a girl, or an accidental like because you’re keeping tabs on me?”
All I can do at this point is roll with it, so I send back, “Neither. It was an intentional like, but it was all for the strawberries, not you OR the rally girl.”
“Uh huh,” he sends back, clearly unconvinced. “Strange how you saw my picture, but you’re not following me…”
“Your profile is public,” I tell him. “People on my feed follow you, and I saw that they liked that picture. Purely accidental. I didn’t even realize it was your profile, I just thought the football strawberries were super cute, so I gave them a like. I thought I was liking that girl’s picture, not yours. Once I realized it was your account, I unliked it.”
This is a feasible explanation. It’s total bullshit, but it sounds enough like the truth that I will cling to it with my dying breath.
“I see,” he answers. “Well, if you like the strawberries so much, I’m happy to share.”
“I’m good,” I assure him. Then, before I can even stop myself, I type out, “Did you date a teacher last year?”
“Date? No.” A moment later, he follows up with, “Asking around about me, huh?”
“No, my friend saw me talking to you and she thought I should know that you usually date teachers and strippers, so we’re not in the same league.”
“Didn’t date the stripper, either. You have bad information.”
“I may be using overly polite terminology,” I admit.
“Fuck is the word you’re looking for.”
I roll my eyes. “Gross. A teacher?”
“She was in her mid-twenties, definitely not gross.”
“And married?” I demand.
“I forgot to ask,” he sends back glibly. “Ordinarily I would never sin, being the good Christian boy I am.”
“I’m legitimately stunned you didn’t burst into flames just typing that,” I reply.
He doesn’t reply. I wait, wondering if he’s sending a long message. Maybe he stepped away. Finally, I close the app, figuring he abandoned the conversation.
I should probably get to sleep anyway. It’s late, and I’m already dreading the sound of my alarm in the morning. I climb off my bed and head to the bathroom to brush my teeth. As I’m swishing the water in my mouth, another notification pops up.
It reads, “Were you convinced?”
I frown, typing back, “Convinced about what?”
“That I had burst into flames.”
I cock my head, momentarily confused, then I scroll back up read the conversation. Once it hits me why he stopped responding, a short laugh of surprise bursts out of me. “It didn’t feel like the world had suddenly become a better place, so no,” I send back.
“All that sass,” he types. “You need another lesson about manners, princess.”
“My manners are just fine,” I assure him.
“Come get some of these strawberries and we can have some fun.”
Shaking my head that he would even try, I shoot back, “I’m sure your rally girl is up for all sorts of fun.”
“She is,” he replies, not even denying it. “But I’m inviting you.”
“Should I feel special?” I ask, hoping my sarcasm translates.
“You can feel special if you want to. I’d rather make you feel dirty. I’d rather see all your feelings in your eyes when you hear the cold bite of my voice telling you how to please me. I’d rather you half-naked, on your knees, waiting for permission to suck my cock like a good little whore.”
His words steal the breath right out of my lungs. I don’t have a snappy comeback for that. The agonizing part is his words take me so completely off guard, they cause a pleasant stirring between my legs.
It’s a wicked scene he describes, but as I read his words, the scene unfolds inside my mind and I can see it. Half-naked and little afraid, just the way he likes me. He doesn’t hurt me though, not in my mind. We both know he could, but we both also know he won’t.
I try to shake off the image he planted in my mind. I’m sure that’s not what the scene looks like in his, so I can’t afford to let myself get carried away.
For a moment, I’m almost ashamed to feel a pang of arousal, but I immediately walk myself back out of that trap. Hell no. I’m not going to feel badly about that. It was my body’s natural reaction, and the words are written on a screen. If I just happened across naughty words like those unexpectedly online, of course my body would react to them.
It’s not because they’re from him.
I should probably try to use this to my advantage, try to get him to admit to what he did to me last time he had me on my knees. The way he worded it in this message, just like in the “notes” he wrote me in history class, it all sounds consensual. Naughty talk between lovers, not communication between a psycho and his victim.
Then again, it might be hard to sell that I would even be responding to his messages, if I wanted people to believe that. Maybe if I turned the tides right now, said something about what he did in that classroom to try and trick him into admitting to his crimes, but I’m tired, I don’t feel like potentially provoking his mean side, and I don’t think he’d fall for that anyway.
Instead of trying to trick him, instead of responding at all to his highly inappropriate message, I close out of the app, set my alarm clock, and climb into bed. I know I’ll have to see him at school in the morning, I just hope that visual he planted doesn’t get stuck in my head. The last thing I need is the inability to escape Carter Mahoney even in my dreams.
* * *
I’m running late on Wednesday, so by the time I make my way into the school, there are no longer kids assembled outside in their various groups: mere mortals sitting on the black metal benches, the jocks assembled around Carter in front of the wall. I make my way insid
e with no nasty looks, no whispers, no “Zoey the ho” nonsense. It’s lovely.
Being late to school seems to set me on a path to rushing all day long, though. I barely make it to history before the bell rings, and when I fall into my desk with a huff, I don’t even have time to glance in Carter’s direction before Mr. Hassenfeld begins his lecture.
Once class is over, I gather my things and head straight out the door, lamenting the rumbling of my stomach. Since I got so far behind this morning, I didn’t have time for breakfast, and I didn’t pack myself a lunch. I could buy food in the cafeteria, but that would require going to the cafeteria, and I won’t do that.
Once we are out in the hall, Carter falls into step beside me. “What’s up, Ellis?”
“Nothin’ new,” I tell him.
“Did you fall asleep on me last night?”
I flash him a smile. “Nope, I just stopped responding.”
He feigns a puppy dog pout. “Meanie.”
“I’m sure you didn’t lose too much sleep over it,” I say casually. “You could have always hit up your rally girl; I’m sure she’s always around, ready to dirty talk with you to keep up your team spirit. Best rally girl ever and all that.”
Carter grins over at me. “Man, you are insanely jealous of my rally girl.”
My gaze snaps to his and narrows. “I am not jealous. That’s absurd. Do I find the whole concept of a girl literally assigned to cater to you, give you presents, and fawn all over you just because you know how to throw a football a little archaic? Yes. But it’s not jealousy, and it has nothing to do with you.”
“Hey, rally girls boost our morale and give us encouragement. Our own personal cheerleaders.”
“Right,” I say dryly. “And I’m sure none of you ever take advantage of the stars in their eyes to have sex with them.”
“Is it really taking advantage if they want it?” he questions.
“It’s icky,” I inform him.
He shakes his head, rejecting my explanation. “You’re jealous. Are you territorial, Ellis? Now that you’ve sucked my dick, you don’t want anyone else to? You’re gonna have to be more diligent, if that’s the case. My dick requires a lot more attention than you’re giving it.”