by Sam Ledel
“Sure,” I say more to my cup than to her, “because you flirt with all of your friends, right?”
My comment surprises me as much as it does her. She takes a step back. When I finally look up, her eyes have shifted, and it looks like Jax is seeing me for the very first time since last fall. I force myself to take another sip just as the newcomers, including Jax’s ex, stroll up to us.
“Jax, you’re looking good,” says the lanky, unshaven guy in the middle of the group. Through my now slightly blurry vision after chugging half my cup, he resembles one of those emo-pop band members that hit it big in the early 2000s. Someone from a group with a name like Two-Car Garage Door Depot or Idiot Glitter at the Disco. He wouldn’t be the lead soloist, I decide, eyeing him over my cup. Maybe the bassist.
Jax scoffs at him. “And you look like shit.”
Everyone in the group laughs nervously, and I do my best to maintain my upright stance against my basketball post as a wave of nausea hits me. I take a deep breath to calm myself. I don’t exactly know why I feel so worked up all of a sudden as Jax’s next comment pulls me back into their conversation.
“What the hell are you even doing here?” she asks, one hand on her hip. The rest of the newcomers take this as a cue to start their search for a drink. The bassist is smirking and turns to me.
“Please excuse Jax’s lack of manners.” He sticks his hand out. I take it firmly. “I’m Steven. Jax’s—”
“Ex-boyfriend. As of seven months ago,” Jax finishes for him, her eyes narrowed.
“Was it really that long ago?” Steven muses, his eyes locked on Jax. “Seems like it was just last week when you and I were in the back of Rayner’s truck. You remember that night?”
“Oh, was that with you?” Jax frowns as if trying to recall. “I could have sworn it was the chick from my chem lab.”
I nod to no one in particular and take another drink. Maybe if I stare at the bottom of my cup long enough, I can crawl down into it and away from this drama.
A hand gently touches the small of my back. Joey appears beside me, and I’m thankful for the break in the tension that has built up around the three of us.
“Hey,” she says to me, with a small nod to Jax and Steven. “I put us down for the next round of beer pong. I’ll find you again in about twenty minutes, okay?”
I’m about to reply when Jax tosses her arm around me and pulls me close. The gesture is quick, and my feet skid in front of me to keep from crashing fully into her. “Sure thing,” she says to Joey. “I’ll take care of her until then.”
Joey raises an eyebrow, glancing between the two of us.
Steven snorts. “What are you, her girlfriend or something?” He pops open a beer can.
Jax, her arm still around me, grins. And that grin is all I have time to register before she turns and crashes her lips against mine. My heart picks up its pace and I struggle to breathe. I have to be dreaming. There’s no way this moment is actually happening. This moment I had played in the dark recesses of my mind when I first saw Jax on the practice field almost nine months ago. This moment that, ever since initiation night, Jax had helped slip into quiet moments when I least expected it. This moment that, despite myself, brings a rush of heat to my lower body when her slick lower lip brushes against my own.
I taste the beer on her tongue when she pulls back. Her eyes meet mine. I try to focus on those pools of blue. They’re swirling with—what is that? Excitement? Lust? Satisfaction?
“Great,” Steven mumbles before walking away into the crowd near the pool.
Jax gives me a quick kiss on my neck, followed by a wink. Then she calls out after T. and runs off to the beer pong table.
I turn around, still flushed. Everywhere I look, Joey is nowhere to be found.
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-Four
I roll onto my side as the bathroom door opens. She’s silhouetted in the light, allowing my eyes to trace the curves of her body. It’s dark in my room, but the light from the streetlamp outside my apartment pours through the blinds, and I can just make out Jax’s face amongst the shadows when she crawls back into bed with me. The makeup is smudged around her eyes, and her blond hair is disheveled. I swallow as she lies down, one hand behind her head.
“So…”
“So,” she echoes, turning on her side to face me. She traces her fingers up and down my arm. “That was fun. As usual.”
“It was fun.” My voice cracks, and I clear my throat. Now I feel like that silly streetlamp outside; my entire body buzzes, and I swear my legs are tingling, just like they have every other time we’ve done this. Even now, as I watch Jax watching me, I struggle to recall how all of this began. After that kiss in May, things became a little gray. I remember her cornering me again that night of the party, both of us several more drinks into the evening. I remember looking for Joey but Jax finding me instead. There are flashes of us stumbling into Emily’s bathroom, her hands roaming over my body, my own hands touching Jax in ways I never imagined. From there it’s a collection of dark, scattered nights that fill my mind, where every moment felt like a camera shudder, focusing in and out as we end every night tangled in each other’s arms. Nights spent around campus, in her back seat, at a bar, almost anywhere. Nights where I forced the image of Joey from my mind. She wasn’t returning my calls, so what else could I do? Then Jax became this thing I couldn’t say no to. All summer long. Until I came to the conclusion that maybe I’d found what I was looking for in Jax. Somebody to hold. Somebody who didn’t ask questions. Somebody who could make me feel what I was so afraid to feel before.
“Water?” Jax offers, reaching past an empty bottle of wine on my bedside table for the glass she’d brought in once we’d come back from dinner. Practices don’t start for another week. So Jax and I passed the day on my couch until we ventured out to TJs, the local Mexican joint, for margaritas courtesy of some fake IDs. After a couple of hours, we’d stumbled back to my place and, like every other weekend this summer, ended up in bed.
“No thanks,” I reply, watching her take a sip before replacing the glass on the table. The sheet slips, exposing her midriff. Jax turns to face me, resting her head on her hand so that we’re face-to-face again. Her blond hair is a messy halo around her head.
“Kyle,” she says, her eyes lowered. “This summer has been fun. I really like you.”
I blink a couple of times, not sure if I heard her correctly. “You do?”
She hums, low and deep, and her eyes flicker up. “Yeah. Obviously.” She laughs, running a hand absentmindedly over my shoulder.
“Oh,” I stammer. My stomach leaps into my throat. “Uh…thanks.”
Jax laughs again. She leans forward and kisses me quickly. My head rushes as her lips part from mine. “Want to be my girlfriend?”
I stare at her for a moment. She seems amused as I search her face. Then my eyes fall to the sheet draped over her; I envy the way it clings so effortlessly to her curves. My stomach twists, but I figure it’s just the margaritas from earlier talking back to me. Did I really just hear Jax ask me that? She wants to date me? Me?
“Jax…I…”
I don’t know what to think. My mind drifts back to last year. To all of those moments on the field, in the weight room, in that ice cream shop. Was she getting at this all along? Then there’s Joey. I bite my lip as I think about her. She hasn’t spoken to me since the party, since Jax kissed me. I understand why. I understand she deserves somebody who can give her what she wants. I had begun to think that could have been me one day. But now…maybe I was meant for this instead.
Jax grabs my waist and pulls me closer. My thoughts falter and trip over themselves as she traces her fingers down my arm and along my body.
“Say yes, Kyle.” She grins again, pushing her hips forward so that they bump mine. My body reacts in kind, and I can’t help but grab her, removing the sheet from around her waist. Then, in one smooth motion, she moves so that she’s on top of me, straddling my hip
s. Slowly, the friction from her own hips moving over mine leaves me gripping her thighs, my fingers pressing desperately into her skin. Instinctually, I thrust up into her. She cups my breasts in her hands. My back arches, and her hips quickly put us into an easy rhythm. The groan that escapes my throat makes her laugh. Then she’s leaning over me, one of her hands snaking down my stomach, moving lower, then lower. Then her other hand reaches up to cup my face. “Say yes,” she whispers next to my ear.
I moan and kiss her. “Yes,” I finally say between breaths. She smiles into my kiss, and I lose myself once again in Jax. I let the night fold its dark blanket over us and we slip down into its folds, deeper and deeper until there’s no one and nothing else but us.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After a quick kiss, I say good-bye to Jax while trying to wriggle myself from her grip on my shorts. Our impromptu scrimmage with half the team, organized by Emily, has just ended. The evening air holds the last few hints of summer, and a warm breeze blows a few strands of hair across Jax’s face. She leans into me as I brush them out of her eyes.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asks before biting her bottom lip—a gesture she knows turns me into nothing more than a puddle of helpless hormones.
With a sigh, I reply, “Definitely.” Jax gives me one more kiss, then grabs her bag she’d dropped at our feet five minutes earlier. As she turns away, the spell of her begins to fade, and I can suddenly feel somebody’s gaze burning the back of my head. I turn to find Emily making her way over to her car two spots away from where Jax and I had been standing.
I glance back at Jax, who saunters over to a car that pulls into the parking lot. She leans down to chat up the driver through their rolled-down window. When I hear the trunk of Emily’s car slam down, I jump.
“Sorry,” she says. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was trying not to interrupt you guys.”
I look back at Jax once more to see her join the driver in their car for a ride back to campus. Then I walk over and pull open the passenger side of Emily’s car, throw my cleats and bag into the back seat, then plop down as she starts the engine.
The radio plays a recent Top 40 tune while Emily and I sit in silence pulling out of the lot. Which, really, is fine by me. The quiet means I have time to relive the past few months with Jax, to go through those all-consuming moments that leave me reeling each morning. I close my eyes and am once again standing at a bar we took to frequenting over the summer. I can feel her hand slide into my back pocket before she pulls me against her in a dark hallway. The camera shutters and my memories flicker to a new image: Jax is crawling toward me on the couch in her apartment on a lazy Sunday. Her breath is sweet, with traces of an empty bottle of wine. Click. I blush, thinking of being with Jax in the shower after a workout—
“So,” Emily says, yanking me out of my thoughts. I brush a few sweaty hairs out of my face. “It seems like things are going…well.”
I nod. “Yeah. They really are.”
“That’s wonderful.”
I glance over at Emily when we pause at a light. She’s staring straight ahead, her index fingers tapping a persistent beat onto the steering wheel.
“Em.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re doing it.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Doing what?”
I shoot her a look. “What do you want to ask me?”
Emily shakes out her shoulders as we take a right and head toward our apartment complex. She narrows her eyes—a sign that she’s weighing what she wants to say to me before speaking. A habit I’ve witnessed since we were kids. I’d watch her make that face for decisions such as what to buy from the ice cream truck, or how she was going to tell her mom we had broken a rather expensive pot in her family’s green room after a rambunctious game of hide-and-seek.
“It’s nothing,” she finally says.
I reach forward and turn the music down, then turn in my seat so that I’m facing her. She glances over at me before rolling her eyes in defeat.
“It’s just…Okay, I’m happy for you, Kyle. I am. I’m just curious about Jax. I mean, she had you missing calls from me all summer long. I didn’t even realize you weren’t going home over the break.”
“I called you about that.”
“You did…in June, after I went by your house thinking you’d be home and your parents told me you were staying out here to work out through the off-season.”
I sigh. “Okay. I could have mentioned that a little sooner. I just…was busy.”
She licks her lips, another familiar nervous habit. “That’s okay. I guess, if this is really happening, I want to know more. I want you to be able to talk to me about this. So, why don’t you tell me a little bit about her?”
My brow furrows. “You just want to know more about Jax?”
With a nod, Emily says, “Yeah. What’s she like? Because, you know, despite playing with her for two years, Jax has always found a way to fly under the radar. She…she never shares much.”
I watch a group of students, who must be incoming freshmen, hurry past our car, looking a little lost at a crosswalk before Emily turns into our sprawling apartment complex. “Okay,” I say. “Well, she’s from the Houston area. She’s a year ahead of me, which you know, obviously. Played soccer since she was five.”
Emily turns to steer us toward her building in the back of the complex. “Does she have any siblings?”
I frown. “You know, I’m not sure. I never thought to ask. She’s never mentioned any.”
“What’s her major?”
“She was pre-med. But she just recently changed. I, um, I can’t remember what she is now.” I flash back to the night she told me she was “giving up the doctor gig.” She had insisted we celebrate her liberation with a bottle of wine. The rest of that night, I realize now, is blurry.
Emily nods. “Does she have a favorite class?”
I furrow my brow, thinking back. “Jax doesn’t talk much about school.”
“What about her parents?”
“I know they’re both doctors. Or surgeons? Something like that.” I pause. “She doesn’t mention her family very often.” My throat feels dry, and my face grows hot as Emily fires off another question.
“What does she want to do after college?”
I swallow. “I don’t know.”
“What about—”
“Emily!” I snap and throw my hands up as we pull into a parking spot. Emily puts the car in park. Her hands fall into her lap, but she keeps her gaze forward. “Okay, Em. I get it.”
“Kyle, you’re my best friend.”
“Is it a best friend requirement to give me the Spanish Inquisition about the girl I’m dating?” I feel anxious, like suddenly I’m ten again and have been caught sneaking cookies out of the pantry with Kevin. “All right, so, I don’t know everything about her. Is that so weird? We haven’t been dating that long, you know.”
Emily nods and turns to me. Her face is conflicted, like the time in middle school when I dyed my hair blue, and she wasn’t sure how to break the news that I had made a terrible decision. Still, her eyes are soft, though her voice doesn’t waver when she finally speaks. “I know. I’m sorry. I was just hoping you could shed some light on the girl that had you disappearing for days at a time all summer long. I mean, it isn’t like you to miss my calls. And you didn’t even tell me until last week that you guys were together.” She pauses. “And honestly, I thought you and Joey were heading that way.”
I glance down at my hands. Maybe we were. But I wasn’t sure what I wanted with Joey. Part of her scared me. The way she could see into me. Nobody could do that. “Joey deserves better than me,” I say, finishing my thoughts aloud.
Emily shakes her head. “Kyle, come on. That’s not true. You two—”
“Are friends.” I look out the window. “We were friends. I don’t know.”
“She hasn’t returned your calls?”
“Can you blame her?”
Emily nods. �
��She comes back to town next week when practices start. Kyle, what happens when she hears about you and Jax?”
I pick at my nails, unable to make eye contact. “I’ll tell Jax to keep a low profile.”
Emily laughs, loud and sharp. “Because that is definitely her style.”
“Em, come on. I’m finally with somebody. Isn’t that good news? Things are easy with Jax. Just let me have this, okay?”
She sighs. “I’m sorry about all of the questions.” She licks her lips, then adds, “I just want to know that she’s good for you.”
My eyes meet hers. “Do you think that she isn’t?” I ask, agitated.
Emily looks at me. “I’m not saying that.”
“You kind of are, though.” I unbuckle my seat belt. All of a sudden, I feel the desperate need to defend Jax. “You know what, I don’t want to do this right now, Emily. I’m tired. And I have homework.”
“Kyle.”
But I’m already out of the car. I open the back door, grab my stuff, and then shut it a little harder than I normally would. Emily gets out and stands next to her open driver’s door. I start off down a paved sidewalk path lined with geraniums, toward my apartment building. All I want to do is forget about this conversation. I don’t want to think about Emily, or Joey. I just want to see Jax. I want to feel her arms around me. I want her to tell me everything’s fine.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Emily,” I huff over my shoulder.
She calls after me. “Wait, Kyle.”
But I just keep walking and reach into my workout bag for my phone.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I don’t understand why she’s being so negative all of a sudden.” I grab the beer Jax hands me before she joins me on her couch and pops open the top. Right away she swallows half of it.
“She’s probably just jealous,” Jax replies, licking drops of beer from her lips and tucking her legs beneath her.