Falling for Seven

by T. A Richards Neville

  I observed the night’s view from the passenger window to avoid the cocky grin Julian was showing off. He was force-feeding me my own words and it was just the trick to bring me back to my senses. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I said, “You have to get under someone to get over someone. I was testing out a theory.”

  He hedged me with a doubtful look. He didn’t believe a word of it. “Did you bring your notebook?”

  My face scrunched. “No. why?”

  “Notes for Sociology.”

  “Notes for Sociology?”

  “You talk shit when you’re drunk. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  <>

  We didn’t make it to Five Guys. Mia let me know that Julian brought me home, empty stomach still empty, and crashed out deep enough that I was snoring.

  After a cold-ish shower, I sat on my bed while Marilyn—after five minutes from walking in, still in last night’s outfit—let loose like a grenade. “I shared a cab with Jordan, in case you’re wondering.”

  “I wasn’t.” Total lie.

  “He stayed all night, in bed with some ho.”

  “Were calling other girls hos now? And you stayed all night.” Pointing out Marilyn’s same mistakes was the easiest way to take the limelight off of me.

  “He’s fucking you around. I’m not.”

  I balanced my heel on the edge of the mattress to fix the laces on my vans. It was a waste of time, my wrist splintered with pain every time I dared move it. I remembered falling over, and my hand slipping on something wet when I tried to save myself. “We split, remember?”

  Marilyn heaved out her chest, her sigh reaching the ceiling. “You did not split. He dumped you. Huge difference, right there.”

  “I don’t care what he did.”

  “You need to save that bullshit for someone else.”

  I yanked my bag out from under the bed and stood up. “Marilyn, stop. I can look after myself.”

  “You are torturing yourself, more like.”

  “I can handle Jordan.”

  “I so wish you would handle him.”

  “Goodbye!”

  I quickly started my playlist on my iPhone and let the music crash and mingle with all the crap jumbled up in my head. As much as I was in love with Jordan, I was really starting to hate him. Even if nothing had happened with him and the girl, he had lain with her all night. He’d shared a bed with someone else, and I was so crazy jealous I wanted to beat someone up. Preferably Jordan. But I had classes, and thankfully, my last one finished at 2p.m.

  I got through the day without hearing a word from Jordan and headed straight out to see Nellie afterwards.

  She was in the dayroom when I got there, another elderly woman in the chair next to her, both chatting through a gameshow that was showing on the TV. The woman swatted Nellie’s hand away and laughed at something she said. I smiled watching them, although what they were laughing about was another matter entirely. Nellie was as crude as a teenage boy.

  I said hi to Stella, Nellie’s partner in crime, and sat on the windowsill absorbed in their unfiltered banter. “My, is this your daughter?” Stella asked, putting on her glasses that hung round her neck on a chain.

  “No, you silly old bat. That’s the nurse.”

  “She looks like I did ten years ago,” said Stella, then choked herself up cackling.

  My cell rang out signaling a text, but I couldn’t bring myself to check it just yet. I wasn’t ready for whatever it might say.

  “Answer your telephone,” Stella prompted. “It might be your lover boy.”

  Nellie looked over at me. “Who is that trying to contact you?”

  “Some fit, young thing I should expect.” Stella started to cackle again, her headscarf coming loose around her perm and dropping onto her forehead. Nellie pushed it back for her too hard, and nearly snapped her neck off in the process.

  “They don’t make ‘em like they used to,” Stella said, shaking her head. “Men are not men anymore.”

  “Then you’ve never met my Sam. Just yesterday he took me to the playground after dark and—”

  “Okay! Don’t say anything else. You two are dangerous,” I said, springing for my cell.

  “I know that look,” Stella observed. “He either did something really bad or really good.”

  “Hmm.” I opened up the message. “That depends who we are talking about.”

  “By god.” Nellie clutched her chest over her cardigan. “She has two. No wonder we are suffering a drought.”

  I laughed, reading the message. It was from Julian, and like always, straight to the point.

  I got you tickets to the game. Just think about it. 7 x

  I deleted the message and put my phone away.

  <>

  Friday—game night. I sat at my desk with Mia’s silence for company, the end of my pencil tapping against paper, numbing my wild imagination. My body was fidgety from memory of Julian’s hands on me, my hands on him, bringing me to life. Then I turned a dark corner and thought about Jordan and his lack of giving a shit. I was turning to Julian for the sole purpose Jordan didn’t want me. It was a slippery slope and I would have to dig my ski poles in deep to stop from slipping any farther. I wasn’t interested in Julian, like that. Not really.

  I was sure I wasn’t.

  Yeah, I was pretty sure.

  My gaze slanted to my cell and my finger robotically swiped the screen. It was five minutes to eight. Only another five minutes till the opening kickoff. Julian had left three tickets under my door in an envelope. Mia very impolitely declined, and Marilyn was out on a date with the hockey team’s center forward, Mario Demara.

  My body was moving before my mind had made its decision.

  I was wearing white sweatpants and a pink, ribbed tank top. I looked like a slob, but there wasn’t enough time to change. I zipped up my training jacket in the car and as usual, fastened my hair into more of a knot this time than a bun. Yeah, I was your everyday mess.

  I got to Julian’s house in just under half an hour and I jogged up to his front door, rapping my knuckles against the scuffed wood. I stood a moment and then the door was flung open.

  Taj smiled up at me, his game console hanging by his side. I saw you from my bedroom window. Julian’s got a game tonight, he signed. He’s not home.

  He took a huge bite of a Twinkie, the whole thing almost disappearing down his throat. I supposed a ten year old had to eat.

  I signed back, I know. Want to come? I looked around him, inside the hallway. Where’s your mom? Are you home alone?

  Right after I said it, footsteps rushed down the stairs and Kristina patted Julian on the shoulder. She frowned at him. She mustn’t be able to sign, or he knew that expression too well. She gave him a slight shove and he shuffled into the living room without argument.

  “I never normally need to worry about him answering the door to strangers, but he fled. I didn’t know what was going on.” Kristina crossed her arms over her chest, but didn’t invite me in. Her stance told me she wanted me to leave.

  “I came by to see if he wanted to come to the game with me. It’s already started but we could catch the second half.”

  “If Julian wanted Taj there, he would have asked me to take him.”

  “Oh.” Coming here suddenly seemed like the worlds dumbest move. “It was just an idea. Can I say bye to him?”

  Kristina let go of her breath like I was hugely putting her out, and disappeared into the living room. Taj came out, a fresh Twinkie in hand.

  I wanted to take you to the game, but I don’t think that was such a great idea. I’ll speak to Julian and I’m going to try and swing it for next week, okay?

  An away game? Taj was beaming, bouncing on his heels. You should give me your number so I can message you about it.

  I grinned. He was smooth for a kid. I Agreed and programmed my number into his phone.

  I had one hand on the handle of my car door when Kristina shouted out, “You’re wasting your time with Julia
n.”

  I wasn’t here for Julian, and I didn’t like her assumption. “You’ve got it all wrong,” I said, feeling the need to explain myself to this girl, who was obviously somebody in Julian’s life if she was in his home and minding his little brother. “He’s my friend.”

  She snickered, shaking her head disbelievingly. “They all are… at first. But they don’t know him like I do—never will.”

  “That’s really not my issue.”

  “Just leave him alone. He’ll never choose you.”

  “But he’ll choose you, right? I don’t know what your problem is, but I came here for Taj, not Julian.”

  “I’m trying to save you some time. He might let you into his pants, but he will never let you into his heart.”

  I opened the car door. “I don’t want in either of those.”

  <>

  The stadium looked bigger, the bleachers filled with the Lions dark-green and orange jersey colors and foam fingers. The floodlight’s white beams glared underneath the blanket of inky-blue sky. I sat anywhere, shuffling in on the end of a row that had a space upfront. I had been to a solid few football games in my life. After my dad moved back to Boston when I was little, his enthusiasm and professionalism for the sport had no direct effect on me and I never followed his career, and the only sport my mom bothered with was the running away kind. She excelled in that division.

  On the field, cheerleaders enthusiastically kicked, gyrated, and punched the air with pom-poms to the beat of hip hop, the crowd getting pumped for the rest of the game. I recognized one of the girls as Katlyn, her brown hair tied up in an orange ribbon, her side-bangs flopping on her forehead as her leg came up in a high-kick.

  Half time was almost over and both teams jogged back out onto the field from the tunnel. The whole world slowed down, dulling into an insipid and discolored background when I saw Julian emerge into the spotlight, his helmet in his hand and eye-black hiding part of his face. His shoulders were wide and powerful in his armor, his muscular arms bronzed under the spark of the lights. His sculpted thighs moved with purpose in his dark-green football pants.

  I was seeing him differently, looking at him with a fresh pair of eyes. He was too much, and I was sure every other girl and woman in the stadium would agree. I looked around at how many banners were dedicated to ‘Sexy Seven’.

  It was going to take all of my strength to salvage this friendship that had only just really started, but I had to somehow make it work. I could never allow there to be a repeat of what happened in the teams’ showers. Getting over Jordan with Julian was never going to work out. Not in the long run. It was destined for failure, and as long as Julian behaved and I kept myself in control, we’d be good. We’d carry on amicable—as friends—and I wanted to be able to say that out loud and mean it. And if we couldn’t even do that, then I wanted to at least get our assignment finished. That was priority. Not how hot Julian was, or how he was hiding a decent human being beneath many layers.

  During the final hour of the game I learned that Julian was quite clearly the star of the team (with good right) and that Nicky was his wide receiver. Together they dominated the game. The lions won 30:24 and the players were celebrating on the field while the opposition filtered onto the sidelines with slumped shoulders. One slung his helmet against the advertisement boards, kicking up a chunk of turf. Then he spat, his face ugly and red.

  Only a small part of the crowds started to leave while the majority stayed to celebrate and cheer on the team. I got up to go. I’d wanted to see Julian, but now the game was over I had convinced myself I would only be intruding. And then there was that mega-annoying thing called my dad. He was happy. Or as happy as he could get. I had seen a smile, or he had wind. But that happiness from his win tonight wouldn’t stretch as far as me, he would find something to nag me about. Or I’d find something to start on him with. If we were together too long, it was likely to end on a sour note.

  I got to the bottom of the bleachers, angling my body to get through the crowds quicker. My attempts were futile. I shouldn’t have looked up. Julian was already walking across the field toward me. It was too late to act like I hadn’t seen him, our eyes had already locked together.

  And what the fuck was that in my stomach? Butterflies?

  He pushed a gloved-hand through his short hair and quickened his pace into a jog. I stopped at the railing, wrapping my fingers around the cold metal, hoping the contact would drag me back down to earth. The stadium was still in boisterous uproar, but in those few seconds I watched Julian get nearer, everything was silent, fading into a kind of nothing.

  He held his arms out to me, and I smiled, perplexed. The noise from the stadium returned, filling my ears.

  He kept his arms out, prompting me with his fingers. “Come on,” he said, smiling.

  “Forget it,” I said, harnessing a smile of my own. “I’m not jumping down there.”

  “Im’a catch you.” He was still smiling.

  “No.”

  “Come on. I won’t wait all day.”

  “What if I fall?”

  “I told you I got you, didn’t I?”

  My mind flashed to him in the showers. With me. Right before we kissed. I’ve got you.

  Too surreal.

  I blinked it away.

  He was still waiting for me, arms stretched out. Julian lived in the moment, and if I hand any chance of keeping up with him, I had better get my ass in that moment with him. I climbed up onto the first rung and then brought my leg over the railing, holding my balance with my arms, then shuffled to a sitting position. Julian moved forward ready to catch me, and I let myself drop—right into his arms.

  He held me where I landed, pressed up against his jersey, looking down at me over his eye-black. The thick stripes made his eyelashes stand out more—dark on dark against his deep-blue eyes. There might as well have been no one else on the field but him. I shouldn’t have jumped, but it was too late now to dig in my poles. I was past slipping, and however much I hated to admit it, I was flat-out falling.

  My fingers were wrapped around his thick biceps and the corner of his mouth curled up into a smile. “It’s noisy as fuck out here,” he said, his arm cradling the lower of my back. He tapped his helmet over my chest, his gaze drowning in me. “But I hear you, Angel.”

  It was noisy, deafeningly so, but where our bodies collided and his gaze held me captive, no words were necessary. The trance I was caught up in was so overpowering, that honestly, I couldn’t agree with his body more. “You wanna hear without the noise?”

  Speak.

  Do something…

  Those eyes.

  Those magnetic blue eyes.

  Too late.

  Julian leaned down, his lips hovering for a second or two before they melted onto mine, into a kiss for the whole goddamn stadium to see.

  16: Angel

  HE PULLED AWAY, like what he had just done was the most normal thing in the world.

  “Man, I need a shower.” And just like that, Julian had succeeded in chasing away the thick and heavy static that fizzled between us. “A bunch of us are heading to Emery Lake, you coming?”

  I was stunned into a silence.

  “Angel, you coming?”

  Speak.

  I swallowed, moistening my mouth. “I don’t know where that is.”

  This made him laugh, and I became aware I was still caught in his arms, our bodies still molded together after my second kiss with Julian, my dad’s QB, my Sociology partner, and the guy I had no doubts that Kit was possibly in love with.

  So many bad choices, where the hell to start?

  “You don’t need to know where it is. I’ll drive.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay you’re coming?”

  “It beats going back to my dorm and not being bothered by Mia.”

  “Chick is insane,” said Julian. “I don’t know how you room with her.”

  “She’s not so bad, just quiet.” Until she’s had a few
drinks. “I’m sure we’ll graduate to be the best of friends,” I joked.

  “I wouldn’t put money on it. Anyway, I’m gonna hit the showers and I’ll meet you out front. Wait by my car, I’m right by the locker room.”

  He took his arm away, jogging backwards toward the tunnel. “Don’t bail on me.” He called out.

  I was still on the field when Katlyn came to a running stop by my side. I kept walking and she fell in step with me. “I guess that was Seven inviting you to party with us tonight?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That one’s got it bad.”

  “Not with me,” I blurted out. “I know the deal with him and kit.” Did I, though?

  Katlyn glanced sideways at me. “They aren’t together, together. I can’t see it ever happening personally.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “Even if it did, it wouldn’t last. You can’t hold down a guy like Seven forever. Even if they miraculously survived until senior year, Seven will be drafted into the NFL, and then the world is his. Kit will be long forgotten.”

  “What about you and Nicky?”

  “He’ll get picked up too. I’ll become a professional cheerleader, and our paths will cross, they’ll have to. But he’ll have other girls and I’ll be lucky to be one of them.”

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  We came out into the parking lot, the crowds fanning out around us, splitting off into smaller groups to make the walk home or get into parked cars.

  “It sucks,” Katlyn carried on. “But he’s what I want.”

  “Then maybe that’s what will happen for Julian and Kit.”

  Katlyn gave her head a severe shake. “No. That would never be enough for Kit. You know, I could be wrong. It’s pretty much been kit and Seven all the way through college. Who knows, they could work out. Kit’s nothing if she isn’t determined.”

  I let what she said sink in. She was right about one thing, holding down a guy like Julian would be like trying to pin down a bucking bronco. The outcome wouldn’t be pretty. Not until he was ready to be pinned.