His laugh sputters as he holds up his hands like he’s warding off a blow. “Sheesh, man, I take it back. If I ever thought about asking her out, you answered my question about whether you’re interested.”
“Don’t you already have a girlfriend?” I’m just going to ignore the last part.
Troy instantly turns serious. “Not anymore. We broke up last week. The whole long-distance thing is not going to work.”
I could have told him that. As a matter of fact, I did during football camp. But I’m not going to tell him I told him so. I hate when people do that to me. It’s bad enough being wrong much less having someone throw it back in your face.
“Right.” I nod.
“Seriously,” he says after we’re both in the truck, “is there anything going on between you two?”
One look at his face, and I can see he is serious and in that moment I know I won’t like what comes out of his mouth next.
“Because if there’s not, I was thinking of asking her out.”
Yeah, that.
I let the deafening silence say what I won’t and when it becomes stifling, I shoot him a glance. “You really want to go there, April’s best friend?”
He turns his head and stares out the passenger window. “April and I are just friends so she won’t mind.”
I choke back a laugh. Right, and I’m an alien from another galaxy. Who the hell is he kidding? “You sure about that?” I ask, eyebrow cocked.
“You got it all wrong, man, we don’t see each other like that.” This time there’s a forced quality to his laugh.
“So you wouldn’t mind me trying to get with her?”
For about a good ten seconds, I don’t think Troy even breathes as he sits motionless beside me. Then he chuckles softly, the sound coming from deep in his chest. “Got ya. Olivia’s yours. Hands-off.”
The tension knotting my shoulders and arms seeps away and I turn my attention back to the road. Perfect, we understand each other.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OLIVIA
“Sit.” Rebecca points to the red plastic chair across the table from her.
Upon comparing our class schedules last week, we discovered that on Mondays and Wednesdays we both have second period lunch free. We’ve quickly fallen into the routine of meeting up at the school cafeteria to eat together.
Today there’s a small crease between her eyebrows and her perpetually sunny smile is noticeably absent. Her lunch tray, holding a sandwich, an apple and an individual-sized carton of orange juice, sits untouched in front of her.
At her tone, I immediately place my tray on the table and sit. “What’s wrong?” I ask urgently.
Rebecca’s gaze drops momentarily before skittering back up to my face. “I know we haven’t known each other very long but I’d like to think we’ve become pretty good friends.”
I wonder where she’s going with this. “Of course we are.”
Her mouth curves up the barest bit and her eyes have an almost pleading look. “Then I hope you know you can tell me anything.”
Okay, what on earth does that mean? It feels like she knows something I don’t. Something about me.
I shake my head in bemusement. “Okay, just tell me what you think you know because honestly, I’m not harboring any deep, dark secrets.” At least none I’ll ever share.
Rebecca chuckles softly but the fact that she can’t seem to hold my gaze tells me she’s uncomfortable. “Is there a guy named Joe in your geography class?”
No one by that name comes immediately to mind. “I don’t think so.” That geography class is held in a lecture hall and has at least eighty students.
“Dark hair, military cut, huge, his t-shirts fit him like they’re two sizes too small,” she prompts.
“Oh him. I’ve seen him in class but I don’t know him.” The guy’s so huge, it would be impossible to miss him.
“Well he knows you.”
Startled, my eyebrows shoot up. “Is that what he’s saying?”
Rebecca’s eyes go heavenward. “You don’t want to know what he’s saying,” she mutters.
The hell I don’t.
“Tell me.” I’m not even conscious I’m gripping the tray with both hands until I feel the smooth edge digging deeply into my palms.
“He’s telling guys you put out.”
As often as I’ve been the target of rumors, I’m wholly unprepared for this.
Shocked and tamping down rising panic and horror, I can only stare at her with eyes wide and disbelieving.
“What?” The question emerges choked from my barely parted lips.
Rebecca shakes her head, her blue eyes pinpoints of sympathy. “I know. I wanted to punch him when I heard. I wonder if you can complain to the university or something. Isn’t what he’s doing considered slander?”
“Oh yeah, let me go and tattle to the school that some of the guys are saying I’m a slut.” They’d probably laugh me out of their office. I’d be the laughingstock of the school and be treated like a pariah. “Did he actually say something to you?”
“You think?” she asks dryly before taking a bite of her turkey club sandwich.
The thought of eating even a leaf of my Caesar salad makes my stomach roil, my appetite as good as gone.
“So how did you hear?” I’m trying not to get ahead of myself and draw any conclusions before I know all the facts.
“I heard Joe talking to another guy on the football team before psychology this morning. He said someone who went to high school with you said they slept with you and so did a bunch of other guys on the football team. Normally, I’m not one to eavesdrop—” she sends me a feigned look of innocence “—but the minute I heard your name—you’re the only Olivia I know—I had no choice but to listen, right? And then he described you. Well I knew for sure they were talking about you. I mean how many hot blonde freshman girls named Olivia can there be?”
Although I am listening to her, I stop actively hearing what she’s saying the minute I hear the word high school. My stomach gives a sickening lurch and for a second, I think I’m going to throw up.
Zach. My worst fears realized.
It can’t be anyone else. No one else here knows me and it has to be someone from back home. Which means it can only be Zach.
But even while my mind accepts his betrayal, my heart is crying there has to be an explanation. In the week since we almost kissed in my room, our friendship has progressed. Nothing groundbreaking, but in ways that would be considered incremental like talking before and after French class. Last Friday he’d offered me a ride to my dorm when he saw me waiting at the entrance of the science building in the midst of a torrential downpour wearing only a corduroy coat and no umbrella.
Zach’s a good guy. He’s a nice guy. He makes it infinitely easy for any girl to fall for him.
“That miserable son of a bitch.” Despite my words, I’m more hurt than angry. However, I’m sure that will hit me full force later.
“Who?” Rebecca asks, her brows furrowed.
“Zach.” I utter his name like it’s a curse word. And right now it is.
Her eyes fly open wide. “Not sex-on-two-legs hottie in French class? Nooooo. He cannot be the only person here you went to high school with.”
“Gee, when you put it like that, it can’t be him because he’s—well jeez, just too hot for this lowdown kind of treachery.”
“But why would he make up a lie about you? And a lie like that? Especially when he’s always looking at you like he’d like to have his wicked way with you himself.”
Fifteen minutes ago, her admission would have thrilled me, now it just makes the lies he’s spreading hurt all the more. “Because he’s a jerk,” I snap.
In high school, when the rumors had started I hadn’t done anything except deny them—scoff at their absurdity, but that had been a futile endeavor. If Judy Blanchard—a popular cheerleader—hadn’t gotten pregnant senior year, mine would still be the most sensational story of my four
years there.
But if Zach really thinks I’m just going to do nothing while he starts this kind of rumor about me, he’s got more looks than he does brains. No way, this time won’t be like the last time. This time I’m going to nip this shit in the bud. Having implants is one thing, being a slut is something else entirely.
Damn, and to think I was starting to like him, I mean really like the “real” Zach I’d gotten to know.
~*~*~
In my room after my last class, I whip out my cell. Zach missed another French class on Monday because of a game and dutiful friend that I am, I gave him my notes to copy. I’m usually not in a rush to get them back but then getting stabbed in the back isn’t a normal thing in a day in the life of Olivia Montgomery either.
Me: When are you returning my handout?
After the stunt he pulled, he doesn’t deserve a hi or bye.
Zach: I thought u said I could return it 2morrow??
Ha! In your dreams.
Me: I want to finish it now. Got a ton of other homework.
Zach: No prob. Give me 30. Coach wants to talk to me.
Me: Cool, I’ll c u in 30
Jerk!
I plop down on my bed, my mind working furiously.
Rebecca had tried to calm me down, be that calm voice of reason. As if I needed one. “You can’t know for sure he’s the one who started it.”
I folded my arms across my chest and rolled my eyes. “Who else could it have been? No one up here knows me.” She just can’t believe it because he’s hot.
“Well if you’re determined to confront him, make sure you give him a chance to explain.”
My eyes could have been tumbleweeds, they were rolling so much.
Yeah, sure. I’ll give him time to explain. But first he’ll hear what I have to say about him and his petty attempt to get back at me. Jeez, I thought you left stuff like this back in high school. And seriously, I can’t believe he’d stoop this low and make up something so vicious and blatantly untrue.
I’m such a mix of anger and anxiety, I can’t sit so I pace the whole time I’m waiting, my empty stomach churning so much that even the thought of the strawberries in the refrigerator tempt me not at all.
When I hear footsteps approaching, I jerk the door open mid-knock. Zach’s brows lift in surprise but his lady-killer smile is in place.
“Um, okay, can I assume you were waiting for me?”
I can barely believe he has the gall to tease, knowing what he did. Talking to me like he isn’t deliberately trying to ruin my life—or the very least my college experience.
Opening the door wider, I let him in. I ignore how good he looks, his dark hair ruffled from the wind, his jeans snug and loose in all the right places. I decide right then and there I hate green-and-blue stripes because that’s the color of the shirt he’s wearing.
He’s holding the handout in his hand and the moment he extends it to me, I snatch it from him. I haven’t said a word because I’m really trying to stay calm. I don’t intend to ream him out like some dumb hysterical girl. Hysteria has no place in what I’m going to say to him as my words will only lose their effectiveness.
His eyebrows draw together and his expression becomes guarded as he looks down at me. That’s when I wish I was taller.
“Is something the matter?” he asks cautiously.
“You know I really thought you’d changed. I actually believed you when you said you wanted us to start over. Well my life was a helluva lot better when you ignored me. At least then you weren’t busy spreading nasty rumors about me.”
His head jerks back as if I struck him. And if I were a guy, maybe I would have. Isn’t that how guys solve their issues, beat the crap out of each other? Since Rebecca told me, my anger has had time to ferment so my bloodlust is at an all-time high.
He shakes his head as if trying to clear it. “Olivia, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” And he looks genuinely perplexed but that’s probably because he didn’t think it would get back to me…so soon. I mean it’s only the third week of school.
My hands fly to my hips. “I’m talking about the fact that you’re going around telling your football buddies that I’m a slut.” Fierce and raw, my fury helps mask the deep well of hurt that’s settled like a boulder on my chest.
A look of comprehension dawns in his eyes. He knows exactly what I’m talking about, which makes him guilty as hell.
“Hey, that wasn’t me.”
“Yeah, right,” I practically hiss. “Who else can it be, Zach? You’re the only person I know here and the only person I went to high school with.”
I can see the precise moment he starts getting angry. His expression hardens and his eyes turn to ice. “You really think I would do that to you, say that about you?” He’s wearing such a look of affront, for the briefest instant I waver in my conviction.
“Who else could it be? It’s your football buddies saying it. You have them thinking that we slept together and that I’m all game to make my way through the entire football team.” Something in me wants to believe it’s hurt I see on his face.
“Right, so as the most likely suspect, you convict me without a shred a proof? You don’t even think to ask me if I did it, just blindside me with your version of my crime.”
Now he’s going to turn this all on me, like I’m not the injured party here? Hell no. “You want to talk about being blindsided. Try always having rumors dog you no matter what school you’re in. And all because I wouldn’t—wouldn’t…” I honestly wasn’t going to bring up that almost kiss or suggest it played a part in why he’s spreading these lies about me.
Suddenly he’s towering over me and standing so close I can feel his warm breath on my face. “Because you wouldn’t what? Let me kiss you? Go ahead and say it,” he demands, his jaw locked, his teeth gritted.
Angry, he’s a pretty intimidating sight but I sense I have nothing to fear from him. At least physically. Emotionally is a whole different matter altogether.
“That’s right you can’t. And you know why?” His blue eyes are shooting off enough sparks to reduce a hundred acres of trees to dust. “Because it’s bullshit. Sweetheart, I may be a lot of things, but I’m not the type of douchebag that would spread lies about a female. And do me a favor, why don’t you wait until you’re asked before leaping to conclusions. If I wanted to kiss you, I could have done it a long time ago. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you wouldn’t have been all in.”
Caught up in a storm of indignation, I’m so POed, I can’t even talk.
“Thanks for the notes and the vote of confidence.”
With that, he turns on his heels and two seconds later he’s out the door. It would have given me a greater satisfaction if he slammed it shut. But it’s as if he’s determined to thwart me on all fronts today when the door drifts slowly closed with a quiet click.
***
ZACH
Un-fucking-believable!
And just imagine, I defended her to that a-hole. What the hell had I been thinking? That she’s this nice girl—who also happens to be the girl I’m hot for—who doesn’t deserve to be slammed having guys talk shit about her.
As it stands now, I should have kept my mouth shut and let him say whatever the hell he wanted.
I take the stairs two at a time and must have a thundercloud of an expression because when one of the two girls who let me in the dorm the other night looks up at me as I pass her in the opposite direction, her smile falls faster than an anvil.
At the apartment, I’m glad I have the place to myself, at least for a little while. Troy won’t be home until after his evening class.
When my cell rings, I instinctively think Ashley before I recognize it’s not her ringtone. I check the screen and recognize my home number. Damn, don’t really want to talk to my mom right now. Not with the mood I’m in.
“Hey, Mom.”
“It’s not your mom,” barks my dad.
Great, just what I need. My da
y only gets better and better.
“Hey, Dad, what’s up?” I have to force myself to sound normal, like I have no idea what he’s calling about.
“Your mother tells me you aren’t coming home during your break.” The disapproval in his voice is only a ramp up to the spitting fury I know is coming. This, if you can believe it, is the calm before the storm.
“Yeah, school trip to Paris.” Which is a trip, after what just went down, I’m not sure I want to take. If it wasn’t too late to bail, I would sit this one out.
My dad clears his throat, a distinct grumbled sound that means he’s preparing for the speech. “What the hell are you going to do in Paris? When the hell are you ever going to need French? I mean Spanish, I can see, but French?”
I lean back against the kitchen counter and cross my legs at the ankles as I stare down at my scuffed Nike sneakers. Since he’d probably drive out here and kick my ass if I cursed him out, I have to satisfy myself with letting loose in my mind.
“What’s the big deal, Dad? It’s a week during a break from school. We don’t have practice.”
“Just because there’s no practice doesn’t mean you don’t practice!” My dad’s voice booms so loud through the speakers, I’m pretty sure he's pushing his already high blood pressure up. He actually expects me to surpass my brother’s accomplishments, which include two Super Bowls, two MVPs and a complete passes record. Records it took my brother six years in the NFL to accomplish. Simple, right?
“Christ, Dad, I can practice when I get back. I’m not even the starter.” The minute the words are out of my mouth, I realize my mistake. But it’s too late to call them back so I brace my ears for the fallout.
“Jesus H. Christ, haven’t I taught you anything about drive? You’re not starting because you don’t want to start. I’ve seen Cardello throw. He throws like a pussy. You’ve got more talent in your pinky than he has in his throwing arm.” Franklin Pearson worked up into a lather isn’t a pleasant thing to hear but it’s a hundred times worse witnessed in techno-color 4D. I’m relieved I’m only getting the half show.
When in Paris... (Language of Love) Page 12