by L.J. Shen
I watch his back, knowing the knot in my stomach—the one I’d formed when I was ten and he moved next door—is going to tighten. As if on cue, it does. Blinking, I pour myself a glass of orange juice, spilling some on the countertop, knowing the rest of my night is a bust.
Twenty minutes later, he walks through the door clad in a navy varsity jacket, dark distressed jeans, and his I-just-fucked perfect hair, looking like the perfect sin.
Forty minutes later, Chelsea appears at my door armed with Halo Top ice cream. (I liked Brandon, but not enough to waste my Pilates body on real ice cream because of him.)
An hour later, I get a stream of text messages.
Sage: Dedication doesn’t have an off-season. Get ready for me, JoJo. Because I’m coming for you. And guess what? You’ll COME for me, too.
Sage: Please told me you got the sexual innuendo.
Sage: *tell. Not told. Don’t give me shit. I’m not drunk.
Sage: Also, we’re out of milk, but don’t worry, I’ll buy some on the way home. Notice how I don’t didn’t use any sexual innuendo even though it’s white and sticky…
“Please tell me you didn’t forget to ask her this time.”
Mark’s elbow is propped against the kitchen island I’m leaning on. The party is a bust. Even though it’s at a big-ass mansion on the outskirts of Baton Rouge, the vibe is just…off. Every fucker in my year seems to be here and I don’t know half of these people who talk to me, but everyone knows me. This chains me into a string of endless, meaningless, mundane conversations about grades and football, two things I shouldn’t be thinking about during my time off.
Mark snaps his fingers in front of my eyes and I blink, realizing that he’s been doing it for some time now. He is the tall, dark, handsome, nice-enough-not-to-fuck-his-secretary-in-twenty-years type. Congressman daddy. English teacher mommy. Three sisters. Perfect reputation. White picket fence and two dogs with adorably stupid names. Wholesome and nice. He is the exact opposite of me.
I chew on the red Solo cup that I’m holding and zone out again, letting the half-naked bodies and the heaps of alcohol melt together in my vision.
“Asked who what?” I buy time.
“Your hot roommate. Did you ask her if she’s into me?” Again, I find myself wanting to punch my own balls for downplaying my relationship with Jolie. This is all my doing, and the reason I don’t tell people how close we are is because I don’t want any cock-blocking scenarios to get in my way of a good pussy. Well, this month it backfired in my face. Not only did I experience a life-changing moment with another girl, which pretty much served as a wake-up call to who I really need to be with, but now I have to deal with my smitten teammate, too.
Ever since Mark Tensely struck up a thirty-minute-long conversation with Jolie when he swung by to pick up some football gear the other day (specifically the day before I ran into her naked in the hallway—insert fucking fist-bite) he’s been eyeing my best friend and begging for me to hook him up with her number.
Yeah. No.
Perhaps the worst part is that Mark is smart, good-looking, rich, and is actively seeking a steady girlfriend. Unlike Barf-worthy Brandon, he’s actually genuine. The whole package. Me? The only thing I have to offer is my package. I’m swimming in small endorsement deals and have a scholarship, but I’m so far from well off, I can barely fucking spell the term. Plus, Jolie knows about my antics. She constantly tells me that STD stands for Sage the Douche. We joke about it, like it doesn’t worry her and it doesn’t insult me. But the truth is, my string of one-night stands have all ended in disaster recently. Though, even before that, I was starting to get bored with the constant hopping from one strange bed to the other.
Look, I know I’m a hypocritical bastard. I fuck around, but the minute my roommate gets a suitor, I go all Jason Momoa on his ass. But I can’t control it, can I? And if it makes things slightly better, I haven’t porked anyone since Mark made that comment about JoJo. Between throwing him off, dealing with my latest disastrous fling, and jerking off to memories of Jolie’s naked body, sex with strangers is the last thing on my mind.
Thing is, I can’t really relationship-block Mark right now. What the fuck would I say to him? “Hey, listen, man, there’s nothing going on between Jolie and me, but I still don’t want her to date you?” Even I know it’s a solid ten on the Douche-O-Meter. It would be much easier to just say, “Look, bro, I’m tapping that. Why don’t you go ahead and move along to someone less attractive and, I don’t know, less Jolie?”
“Jolie! I’ve been asking you to ask her about me for weeks. Forget it.” Mark waves me off, grabbing a beer bottle from the fridge. There’s a keg right. Freaking. Here. But I guess he’s too rich for Solo cups. “I’ll just ask her out. I see her around campus every Monday at three.”
Over my dead body, bro.
“Get some chill, yeah? I got a lot on my plate this month. I’ll ask her as soon as I get home.” I clutch his shoulder and offer him the most casual smile in my arsenal. Inside, there’s a green angry monster wreaking havoc in my body. If Mark takes Jolie on a date, it wouldn’t be the first time she went out with someone else. JoJo had two serious boyfriends in high school and dated a string of douches ever since we started college. But they all seemed so temporary. Her mind was always elsewhere. School. Family. Even the Pilates classes that gave her that bangin’ body. But this is all going to change at the end of May when we graduate. I know my best friend. Know her well.
She’ll want to settle down.
Find a nice teaching job.
Get married. Have babies. Mark’s babies. No way is she having Mark’s babies. That fucker doesn’t drink keg beer and knows how to tie a tie without looking in the mirror. He’s not the type to run in the mud and rain for her. To climb on trees with her. To sit on the sidelines at school and talk shit about people in codes only she and he know.
I’m that person. I’m her person.
“I’ll deal with it tonight,” I stress again.
“Yeah, okay, man,” Mark mumbles, pupils dilating, and that’s when I realize that I’m squeezing his shoulder super fucking hard. He shakes me off, taking a step back and bumping into two girls who are yelling the latest gossip into each other’s ears over the sound of “Fetish” by Selena Gomez. They both shoot him a pissed look that softens when they notice me. “I’ll text you tomorrow.” Mark points at me. Is this a fucking threat? I don’t owe him shit. Better to get it out of the way, though, than have him approaching her on his own.
“Sure.” I shrug, raising my cup in the air and backing toward the landing. “See you Monday at practice.”
You know shit is going downhill when you find yourself listening to a pop princess and there’s no blowie to stop you from leaving. I turn around and a girl from computer science slams into my body purposely. She does the whole laughing nervously and pretending to be embarrassed charade—sweetheart, I’ve seen this show a thousand times—and introduces herself. I can take her home. Hell, I can even take her upstairs. A month ago, I would have. But tonight, all I can think about is that Jolie is hella bummed about what I told her about Brandon, and I’m bummed about that goddamn tool, Mark.
“I’m Stephanie,” she yells into my ear.
“And I’m not interested,” I yell back.
The mask of her syrupy smile falls to the floor, almost with a thud, and her eyes narrow before she sulks and leaves. I dig out my phone and send Jolie a string of semi-coherent text messages. Then I come up with a plan to eliminate Mark Tensely from the picture.
By the time I drive back home, stone-cold sober, making a stop at a gas station to get some milk, my plan is bulletproof.
Jolie is not dating anyone.
Jolie stays with me.
“We need to talk.”
Reluctantly, I crack one eye open, while still rolled between my white cotton sheets, the TV still playing the same channel I fell asleep to the night before. After Chelsea left, I watched When Harry Met Sally. Then I opened
a bottle of wine, downed three glasses, and waited for the alcohol to run through my bloodstream before I willed myself to answer my male BFF’s texts.
Me: Do you think Brandon cheated on me because I’m a prude?
Me: Maybe it’s because I went to see my family every other weekend when he wanted to hang out. Although, screw him, right? So I like spending time with my grandmama and parents. Ain’t no shame in that.
Me: And yes to you bringing milk. I will need something to help the hangover tomorrow morning.
Me: And no to you and me sleeping together. I already told you, Sage. I care too much about you to lose you for a fling. Even if the feeling is obviously not mutual…
My bed dips under the weight of my quarterback guy friend and I bury my face into my pillow, inhaling the vanilla, lilac, and lavender of my body creams and shampoo. His warm hand sneaks under the covers, cupping one of my feet and tugging me away from the pillow and toward him. With my ankle on his lap, he massages my foot. And I should really get a gold medal, or maybe a simple acknowledgement, for not spreading my legs for him right here and now and giving him exactly what he has been begging for.
Because. Sage. Poirier. Is. A. God!
That’s why he’s a manwhore in the first place. There is no denying his masculine appeal, raw beauty, dirty mouth, and cocky confidence.
“What do we need to talk about?” I murmur into my arm, which I’ve thrown over my face to block the sun seeping through the thin curtains of my window. He elevates my foot and kisses just below my kneecap. Shivers run down my spine, racing down to my tummy and making it roll with delicious anticipation.
“I need a fake girlfriend,” he announces, his voice grave.
“Then go get one. Literally, you can step out of the building and every single woman with a pulse and no ring on her ring finger would gladly fill out an application,” I say, hyper-aware to my morning breath. He plucks my arm from my face and throws it on the bed, leaning into me so we are nose-to-nose.
Great. Just great. Now he can smell my dead hyena breath.
“I’m serious,” comes his dark whisper, and he no longer sounds like my Sage. I mean, Sage. He is not mine. I know that. Duh.
“So am I. Why do you need a fake girlfriend?” I speak into my cupped hand, my eyebrows crinkling.
“Want the truth?”
“No, please lie to me. But make it a spectacular lie. Something with unicorns.” I widen my blurry eyes, and he chuckles, grabbing one of the pillows I kicked in my sleep and throwing it in my face.
“Rascal,” he says.
“Wifebeater,” I groan. He stands still, stares at me. What? It was a figure of speech. I didn’t mean it like I was literally his wife.
“I can’t tell you why, but I can tell you that you’re the only girl for the job. I have a Christmas fundraising thing happening in New York next month and I need someone on my arm. You’re the only girl, other than my mama, I’d like to take with me. The only one I trust not to let me down. And my mama can’t get time off work, so that leaves me with you. Say yes.”
I swallow, not really sure how this is different from all the other times I accompanied Sage to his football events. There’s something desperate and utterly determined in the way he looks at me. Like there are so many words on the tip of his tongue that he’s biting down, afraid to use.
“I don’t need to be your fake girlfriend for that.”
“You do. It’s important. Everyone at school needs to know that we’re a thing.”
“But why?”
“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Now, I’m pretty sure I’d be a top in jail, not a bottom, but still—not really into dudes. So, yes?”
Ugh with this man. “Ugh with you. What do I get out of this?”
Before you throw rotten tomatoes at me (understandable), accompanied by a collective ‘boo’ (reasonable)—let me explain why I ask: there’s definitely something Sage is gaining from this, no doubt at all, and I’m trying to figure out whether it’s a bet, or if he’s gotten himself into some kind of woman trouble—a stage five clinger or something. Sage scans me through his signature droopy, ink blue eyes, and I swear my ovaries are singing a cappella at the sight of his jaw of steel. He should come with a book-long warning label. I’m half-tempted to Google a question about getting pregnant just by looking at him. Sage grabs the tip of my blanket, unplasters it from my body, and yanks me by the pajamas to straddle him. It happens so fast the oxygen leaves my lungs in a short whoosh. I’m panting now, on top of him, and his hands are on my ass, and I’m not stopping him. Why am I not stopping him? I know I should. He will break my heart and I’ll have no one to blame but myself. I’ve seen it happen countless times before. By the time we finished high school, eighty percent of the girls broke out in hives just from hearing his name.
“You’ll still get free rent, but for as long as you’re my fake girlfriend, I’ll also pay the bills. You’ll get free access to my truck—anytime you want. Last but not least: you’ll get me. All of me. No other women. No distractions. No games. Just you and me, JoJo. Because it’s always been the two of us, and it’s time we act this way, even if only for a little while.”
He smells of wood and mint and a real Christmas tree. Like a sweet memory I want to cling onto. My limbs are lax and I know I’m making a huge mistake, but I’m done resisting. Believe me, I’ve tried. It brought me nowhere but to square one, salivating over my best friend.
I nod slowly. “Okay. What’s the deadline?”
“End of May,” he shoots, letting out a long sigh and placing his forehead to mine. It’s intimate. So much more intimate than anything I’d ever done with the Brandons of the world, and I never stopped and debated whether I should date them. May is graduation month. Sage is offering me a free ride till the end of school. And let’s not kid ourselves—I could use my waiting money for other things. Paying my student loan debt, getting a faster laptop. That kind of stuff.
We sit like this for a long minute before he cups my ass again and squeezes. It’s so playful and friendly, I don’t bark at him to stop.
“Welcome to couplehood, bae. We’ve got this.”
“Hey, man, bad news.”
For you, not for me, I’m tempted to add. Fucking fantastic news for me. I still can’t believe she said yes. Then again, I’m not entirely sure she knew what this would entail. When I told JoJo I wanted to be her fake boyfriend, I meant it. We’ll be doing things couples do. In bed, and the kitchen, and the bathroom, and even the fucking stairway, if we can’t help ourselves.
“What’s up?” Mark lifts his head, a towel wrapped around his waist. He slams his blue locker shut and uses a second towel to rub his black hair dry. Even though he’s on my team, he’s been riding the bench for the last year-and-a-half. I can’t help but internally curse him. Who the hell does he think he is, checking out my JoJo? Whoa. My JoJo? She’s not mine. Only that’s not entirely true. She feels a lot like something no one else can ever have, so who the hell says she’s not mine?
And if she isn’t, I’m going to make her mine.
Because I’m done fucking around after what happened last month.
Done messing with a bunch of time-wasters while the Marks of the world are making moves on. My. Girl.
“So, Jolie and I are kind of together.” I prop my shoulder against my own locker, looking down at him. God bless my late father. He gave me the height to tower over most motherfuckers who aren’t signed with NBA teams.
Mark’s eyes widen in disbelief before he schools his features and clears his throat like the good, rich boy that he is. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yep.” I pop the P out with a grin.
“Let me get this straight. You slept with her this weekend, after I asked you for the one-hundredth time to sniff around for me?”
“Look,” I say cuttingly, evading the question, “I’ve known this girl since we were ten.” Since she promised me I’d always be a huge chunk of her world and I blossomed in her friend
ship, set roots in our companionship, and grew up to be someone strong. “This shit is not going away, so I suggest you move on.”
“You’re kind of a prick, you know that, Poirier?”
Oh, I know. Grew up with one. Became one. Vicious cycle, etc.
I clutch my navy football jersey and gasp loudly and comically, flattening my back against the row of lockers. “Now I’m butthurt. Which means that the only way I’ll get over this is if you kiss my ass.”
“Well,” Mark says, his face red now, and I’m so going to find a way to kick him off of the team if he oversteps. I have that kind of power, and I’m not afraid to use it. “That’s not going to happen.”
“In that case, you better stay the fuck away from my girlfriend and me, yeah?”
He doesn’t answer.
Just walks away.
I watch his back, and for the first time in my life, the taste of victory bursts on my tongue outside the football field. I savor it, my throat bobbing with a swallow. I know I was being an irrational prick to Mark. I know that. But I couldn’t stop it.
This whole thing made me crazy, and as much as it put me low on the moral scale—because let’s admit it, I had zero reason to feel bitter about any of this—my temper won. It won, and I lost.
I lost my cool.
I lost my patience.
Then I lost my control.
Where the fuck did all this come from?
What the hell is happening?
What. The. Hell. Is. Happening?
I’m having the worst day of my life. It starts with Chelsea accidentally spilling her hot coffee on my white blouse—I don’t have time to go back home and change between classes, so the stained shirt remains. It continues with my favorite professor gathering us in class and announcing her sudden departure due to a tragedy in the family, then sometime before noon, Mark Tensely, a guy I’ve been crushing on for six months now (silently, of course. I’m so shy I almost combusted when he came in the other day to return some of Sage’s gear) came to ask Chelsea on a date, all while ignoring my existence.