by Claire Adams
So after a quick session of fooling around, Devon and I both got dressed, and I made myself gather up my things and give him a quick kiss before I ran out of the frat house, headed to my class. I had wished him luck, and Devon looked as calm as a person possibly could be, considering that he was taking a test that would determine whether or not he would be able to continue going to school. I knew I had made the right choice—after all, if I skipped class, all I would be doing would be sitting around or pacing the length of Devon’s room or the living room at the frat house. I couldn’t go with him, I couldn’t do anything else to help him. He was either going to pass or he wouldn’t.
As I sat in class, trying—and failing—to pay attention to the lecture going on, to take notes that made some kind of sense, I thought that even though I couldn’t actually do anything to help Devon, I was so invested in his success that I might be more nervous than he was for him to pass with a high score. I’m going to have to get the notes from someone else, I thought ruefully, glancing at the clock on the wall, out through the window, as if I would see some kind of sign or omen of what was going on with Devon. It was pointless for me to be in class; I would get points for being physically present, and the class was attendance-mandatory, so at least I wouldn’t have to come up with an excuse, but I was absolutely useless. I couldn’t keep my mind on what was going on around me, and I didn’t even participate in the discussion. You did everything you could. If he doesn’t pass, he doesn’t pass. But he has to pass. Whatever happens, you and Devon will find a way to deal with it. I had to be content with the knowledge that Devon and I had done everything we could together to make sure that he would be able to clear his name and get the score he needed; if he wasn’t able to get it, then neither of us could really be blamed. I checked my phone again and again, wishing I could get some kind of news of what Devon was doing, how he felt, what he thought his score would be.
Chapter Eight
I tried to put my worried about Devon’s test behind me as I went to my classes for the day, but it was impossible for me to not think about it every few minutes. I didn’t even know where on campus he’d be taking the test—or even if it was on campus. I didn’t know how long they were giving him. I had no idea when I would even be able to find out. Throughout my classes I was a distracted mess, and my only saving grace was the fact that the professors seemed to have decided to take it easy on me; I didn’t contribute anything to the conversations, yet I wasn’t the one they were calling on when the in-class discussions languished.
At the end of the day, as I was headed back towards the frat house, walking across campus, I finally spotted Devon; he was coming towards me, a smile on his face. “Dev!” I hurried to close the distance between us, throwing my arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.
“Hey, babe!” Devon kissed me, giving me a slight spin as he lifted me up off of the ground. “I was looking for you.” I giggled.
“I didn’t even know when you’d be done with the test, or I’d have come looking for you,” I told him. I squirmed free of his tight embrace and looked up into his face. “How did the test go? You said they would score it immediately, right? What did you get?” Devon laughed, and even though I knew that he couldn’t possibly be so lighthearted and happy if he hadn’t managed to pass highly enough to justify the scholarship he’d been given and get himself out of trouble, I had to hear it from him.
“I got a 32!” He kissed me on the lips once more. I clung to Devon, relief washing through me; he had done as well as I had—which definitely showed that he was much smarter than he needed to be to get the scholarship. And this time, there could be no question that it had been Devon who took the test, and that he had earned the score. Devon broke away from my lips, looking into my eyes with a loving, charming smile. “You’re the first person I told,” he said, his arms tightening around me. “Wanna come with me back to the frat so I can tell the rest of the guys finally?” I laughed.
“Seriously? You told me before you told the team, even?” Devon shrugged, letting me slip out of his arms and taking my hand.
“The coach knows—but that’s because he was there. I figured you deserved to know before anyone else did.” I laughed again, delighted beyond anything I could imagine feeling that everything—so far—had turned out so well.
We went back to the frat house, and Devon gathered everyone who wasn’t in class in the living room. “Guys, I have an announcement to make,” he said, standing before ninety percent of the Phi Kappa household. I was seated off to the side, already beaming with my knowledge of the news he had for his friends.
“Oh god, did you knock Jenn up?” One of the guys shouted out; for an instant I was appalled, until I realized that it was a joke—everyone laughed.
“Not yet,” Devon said, grinning archly. “Plenty of time for that later.” There were more chuckles, and I forced myself to relax. “As most of you know, I had to re-take the ACT in order to lift the suspension the school put me under. That’s because like an idiot I cheated the first time around—so don’t ever let me hear about any of you making a deal with some high school kid to take his tests for him.” He looked out over the assembly of brothers sternly.
“This PSA brought to you by Devon Sealy,” one of the other guys commented. “Come on, man! Tell us the news!” Devon grinned, rolling his eyes at the impatience of his frat brothers.
“I got a 32! Way more than enough to pass it, and to get re-enrolled. Coach says I can play at the championship!” The room erupted in a loud, raucous cheer, and I found myself laughing, watching as the guys jumped around, pumping fists in the air as if the victory wasn’t only Devon’s—as if it was a victory for the entire frat. In a certain respect, I thought, it kind of was. Devon held up his hands for quiet, and gradually the cheering dissipated. “I just wanted to say that I couldn’t have done it without Jenn, and you guys had better all be insanely jealous of me with a girlfriend who can get me an almost-perfect score on a test along with being hot and a good cook. That’s all.”
The guys in the frat went back to cheering and jumping around, some of them taking a moment to send text messages to the brothers who were in classes. Someone proposed throwing a little “mini-party” to celebrate Devon’s return to the team and to the school, and everyone—Devon and me included—was on board. A couple of the guys went on a beer run, and someone ordered in about a dozen pizzas of different kinds, and as the frat house filled up with the rest of the brothers—those who had been away—along with the members of the team who weren’t in the frat, the atmosphere was a lot like a regular Phi Kappa party.
Devon and I were both only too happy to indulge, hanging out and eating pizza and drinking beer. Every time someone congratulated Devon, he directed their praise at me, telling whoever would listen that he would never have been able to pull it off without me. I didn’t know if that was strictly true; he was an incredibly smart guy. But I knew that we had both worked hard to get him ready for the test, so I was pleased to take the small amount of credit I was entitled to in helping him, and pleased beyond measure that the major source of stress in my life was over and done with. Devon had proved himself; he would be re-enrolled in his classes without losing any of his standings, and he could move on with his life.
We stayed up late, laughing and talking, and by the time we went up to Devon’s room at the end of the night I felt uncomfortably full from all the pizza and beer. My cheeks ached from smiling so much, and I was completely and utterly exhausted. It had been such a good night that in spite of how tired I was and in spite of how bloated I felt, I was more than happy to extend it in Devon’s arms, fooling around and making love until neither of us could possibly move anymore. “You are so amazing, Jenny,” Devon murmured in my ear as we cuddled together, too exhausted to get up and turn off the light but not yet able to fall asleep.
“You, too,” I told him, my cheek pressed against his chest, my arms and legs draped over him. I was so comfortable in Devon’s bed and in his a
rms; it was strange to think that I had ever doubted him, that I had ever even thought that he was anything other than perfect for me. Devon was exactly what I wanted in a boyfriend, and I was so glad that I had listened to my heart, that I had let what Kelly had called my naivety guide me to give Devon a chance. I hadn’t thought about Kelly in days; soon I would need to start working on moving out of the dorm room we shared. That was an issue for another day, I decided firmly, shifting closer to Devon in the bed. As long as I had him in my life, anything seemed to be possible. I couldn’t even imagine a life without him anymore, and we’d only been together a few weeks. It was so perfect I almost didn’t want to breathe. As I fell asleep in Devon’s arms, the only thing that I could hope for was for Devon to live up to the hype and win the next game—the championship.
Chapter Nine
With the test behind him, Devon’s focus turned once more to basketball. While he didn’t neglect his classes altogether—which made me glad—he definitely needed to work hard in order to be ready for the championship game. In spite of the fact that Devon was the best player on the team, and he had been doing what he could to keep himself in peak physical shape—apart from the binge on pizza to celebrate passing the ACT—he hadn’t been able to practice with the team, and the team’s play had shifted in his absence.
So whenever I wasn’t in class, it seemed, I was going to one of Devon’s practices, watching him get back into the rhythm and flow of playing with the other members of his team. Everyone was excited that Devon would be back on the team in time for the ultimate game of the season; the team was more than happy to have him back, and everyone who followed the school’s basketball program was relieved. Even if we had won the game that he’d had to sit out, it had been a close thing—and the championship would be an even bigger challenge than the previous game had been.
Devon and I still studied together every night in his bedroom, because he told me that he wasn’t about to throw away the good habits he had already acquired from me; but we weren’t grinding down to get him to pass one single test—we were busy catching him up on what he had missed. The class that we were in together was the easiest; I had been giving him the assignments the whole time that he was away. But the other classes he had to hurry to catch up, in order to be ready for the finals in a few weeks.
In addition to his practices with the team, and his study sessions to catch up with his classes, Devon and I spent hours—almost any time we were between classes—on the basketball court together. Devon ran drills and taught me everything he knew about playing. Even though I was a very big basketball fan, I had never tried to play the game myself. Devon used the excuse of teaching me how to throw a foolproof three-point shot to improve his own techniques, and we chased each other back and forth across the court, keeping the basketball away from each other. Devon was just as good as he had ever been, and I was so happy that he was teaching me; I couldn’t imagine learning how to play from anyone else.
The team joked that the next year, I’d be on the girl’s team, Devon was doing such a good job teaching me. “I’ll leave the sports stuff to him,” I told them, grinning at Devon. “I mean, if I’m not careful he’ll steal my superiority in academics; we should probably just stick with what we’re already good at.”
“You are in no danger of ever not being smarter than me,” Devon told me in front of his friends, kissing me quickly on the lips. “But if you do get into sports, I’m doomed.”
I was surprised and not surprised to realize that even though we spent most of our time together, Devon and I became closer and closer every day. I had been afraid—in spite of the fact that we’d done so well while we were cramming for Devon’s ACT retake—that once the drama was out of our lives, there would be very little keeping us together. There was still the drama of Devon needing to get ready for the game, of course, but other than that everything had relaxed so much I almost couldn’t believe it. There was nothing hanging over Devon’s head that he’d never dealt with before, and although my friends occasionally whined and bitched about how little time I spent with them, I had separated from Kelly for good—and I didn’t even miss her.
I started to make deeper friendships with Devon’s frat brothers, learning their stories, getting to know their girlfriends—at least the girlfriends of those brothers that had them. I had become completely and totally one of the accepted additions to the household at the Phi Kappa frat; and while I was not someone who liked to party all the time, the day-to-day life was not as wild as I would have thought weeks before. I even managed to make friends with some of the girlfriends of Devon’s teammates—something I would have given long odds against if I had thought about it.
Envy raged as it became more and more obvious that Devon and I was a settled, serious couple. I heard that Kelly was enraged at the fact that Devon hadn’t just dropped me after he’d passed the ACT; I hadn’t been there to see her meltdown, but it was apparently epic even by campus standards. It seemed like people’s opinion of Devon was slowly shifting. Girls who had considered him absolutely the scum of the Earth had now started to say that if only he wasn’t in a relationship already, he’d be a great catch. And of course with that, I had to deal with basketball bunnies throwing themselves at Devon more than ever. But I didn’t care; I knew that no matter what a girl did to try and draw his eye, Devon was interested in me and serious about his feelings for me. He wasn’t going to wander off and abandon me just because some cute girl flirted with him.
I put in my paperwork to change roommates, explaining to the Resident Advisor that things just weren’t working out between Kelly and me. I didn’t want to get into specifics, but she told me she had heard everything about what was going on between us; it was an open secret on campus that Devon had been the cause of my falling out with Kelly. When the semester ended, I would be able to move my things into a new dorm, with someone I barely knew. I didn’t mind it too much; I knew that I would barely ever be in my dorm anyway.
The more Devon and I spent time together, the closer I felt to him, and the more secure I became in our relationship. “You are the best thing that ever happened to me,” Devon told me one night as we laid around in bed together, binge-watching the series Breaking Bad on his computer.
“I’m not a thing,” I countered playfully. Devon laughed, rolling his eyes.
“You know what I mean,” Devon said, pulling me close. “Meeting you—and convincing you to hook up with me—was the best thing that ever could have happened to me.”
“I’m pretty pleased with the results, myself.” I kissed him lightly, for the moment not even remotely interested in the drama of Walter White’s life. “Though I’m human enough to wish that Kelly hadn’t turned out to be so crazy about things.”
“She was crazy long before you came on the scene,” Devon told me soothingly. “She had already been trying to manipulate me and control my life from afar when we met.”
“Yeah,” I had to admit that everything pointed to that; it amazed me still that somehow, Kelly had been able to hide her craziness from me for so long. Until I had hooked up with Devon, she had never even really mentioned him to me. I hadn’t even been aware of the fact that she knew him, much less that they had been involved. “I don’t miss her, exactly…but I guess I miss having someone I’m that close to, you know?”
“If you ever feel like I’m taking you away from your friends, you’re allowed to tell me to back off, you know,” Devon said, looking at me with concern.
“You aren’t. I’m just not that close to anyone else. I guess after a while I’ll have a friend like that again.” Devon kissed me lightly on the lips, his hands beginning to wander over my body.
“Until then, I will be your best friend.” I chuckled as he started to slip his hands under my skirt, his warm skin gliding against my inner thighs temptingly.
“Oh no—you are not going to be my best friend. I am not fucking my best friend; it’s against my policies.” But in spite of my words, Devon really wa
s—in a way, at least—like a best friend. I could and did talk to him about everything, and I didn’t want to spend time with anyone else as much as I wanted to spend time with him. I thought with more than a little trepidation that eventually, from spending so much time together, we would end up squabbling; we did have a few arguments, but Devon was so easygoing at the most basic level that he never really got heated.
The majority of our free time was devoted to getting Devon ready for the championship game. He made a vow—and his frat brothers held him to it—that he would party no more until the game was won. He and I went to bed early together, and he woke up even before I did a few times, leaving quietly to let me sleep in until my alarm while he went down to the gym, or to the courts, to get in another practice. From the day of the test, Devon had only a few weeks to get ready for the big game. He wanted to be not only at his peak—but to set a new standard for himself. I respected the fact that Devon wanted to be even better than before, that he wanted the championship game to be a total lockout; he wanted to score more points, he wanted to play harder.
I loved the focus he brought to everything he did anymore. He was just as determined to do well in his classes as he was to do well in the final game of the season—and all this he credited to me. “You make me a better guy,” Devon told me while we were taking a break on the courts, sitting and drinking water.
“You make you a better guy,” I told him firmly. “I’m just here to lend a helping hand. If you didn’t want to be a better guy in the first place, no woman would have been enough to persuade you.”
Just as Devon was improving his own life, I was improving mine. Studying with Devon was even better than studying on my own, and I realized that we were exactly suited to each other. Devon had a knack for science that helped me get better at Chemistry in spite of my ineffective professor, and even when we studied other subjects together, I was better—sharper—for having talked to him, for having discussed things and taught Devon about them. We were so perfect for each other that I could never imagine being with anyone else; my relationship with Devon eclipsed every other relationship I had ever been in before him. I knew without even having to discuss it with Devon and without even having to hear it from him that we were at the beginning of a very lasting, deep partnership. I had never been more comfortable with anyone else in my life as I was with Devon—and I didn’t think that I would ever be as comfortable with anyone as I had been with him, even though we’d only been seeing each other for a few weeks. We had been through the most stressful beginning of a relationship that I could imagine, and we had come through it stronger, both of us more and more certain that we had made the right decision every day.