by Shealy James
I shook those thoughts from my head. I didn’t like thinking about my mom. She’s been gone for almost two years, and I still thought about her as if she was at home waiting for me to call. Pops pretended she didn’t exist. The day after the funeral, his personality changed. It was like he was a different person, and that is when the lectures and disappointed glares started.
We ran a little over two miles before we went our separate ways to our dorms. I showered, shaved, and then threw on a black polo with khaki shorts and my tennis shoes. I went ahead and threw my soccer bag together since I knew I wouldn’t have a ton of time to come back to the dorm after class.
Even though we both had class, I headed out the door before Max because I wanted to grab coffee and breakfast then run by the bookstore to grab my last textbook that I didn’t order online. I arrived at my first class early. There were about five people there when I arrived to the room, so I went ahead and sat in the back. It was calculus, so I needed to pay attention, but there was no way I was sitting in the front. I hated not being able to see the whole room.
The professor came in and set up his laptop with the projector as several more students came in the room. It was an advanced class. Most people didn’t take Advanced Calculus for fun, so I was actually surprised to see a fairly large number in the class. Pops said that a lot of people would drop after the first day or week, but I wasn’t worried about it being difficult. I was glad Pops wasn’t my professor. He had taught this class, but this year he was teaching some theory course and focusing on research, so I would never have to have him.
The class went by quickly. My next class started fifteen minutes later, so I hurried to get over there to make sure I could get a seat in the back. When I arrived to my Intro to Poli Sci class, I saw it was in an auditorium. As I walked in the back of the room, I glanced around and noticed an oddly familiar messy, brown-haired bun sitting in the back of the large room with a guy with curly brown hair, so I headed that direction. Sure enough the unmistakable hair pair was indeed Max and Maggie.
“If you guys want to take notes for me, I’m going to go ahead and go.” Both their heads turned in my direction at the sound of my voice.
“Hey Parker. I didn’t know you were in this class,” Max said as Maggie scooted her bag out of the way, so I could sit next to her.
“Yeah. I have to have it as a poli sci major, so I wanted to get this out of the way early.”
Maggie looked at me surprised, and then she smiled as she said, “You’re a poli sci major?”
I took a second to take in the features of her surprised face. She really was beautiful. Her nose had a speckling of light freckles, and her brown eyes seemed to sparkle when she widened them in surprise. She had a little make-up on today, and for the first time I noticed how long her eyelashes were. I bet it killed other girls that this doe-eyed beauty had eyelashes that almost touched her eyebrows. It was probably a little weird that I even noticed, but I noticed everything about Maggie. “Yeah,” I said simply to answer her question trying to ignore the response my body was having to my perusal.
Her cheeks turned faintly pink and she broke our eye contact. “Me too.”
I grinned knowing that was the longest she had ever held eye contact with me. Progress. I saw she was continuing to glance at me from the corner of her eye. “Well Maggie, you and I seem to have a lot in common. Soccer, piano, political science. What’s next?”
Maggie turned bright red this time and smiled sheepishly at me. Her cheeks were still pink when the professor started his lecture. Maggie had put on a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses and took hand-written notes furiously throughout the class. She looked so serious. It was cute how she squinted as she was looking up to the projector and down at her paper throughout class. I shifted in my seat thinking about the painfully innocent beauty seated next to me who took notes like her life depended it. When did I start waxing poetic about girls? Get it together, Parker. You want to fuck her. That’s all.
I tried to listen as I tapped my pen against my knee, but I knew whatever I missed I could catch up on in my reading. Max typed on his computer the whole time, but at one point I looked over and he was playing solitaire. He and Maggie studied together, so I was guessing he wasn’t worried about getting the notes either.
After class, Max asked where I was headed. When I told him economics, his head quirked and he said, “Us too.” We all started walking to the business building together. Maggie wanted to stop and get lunch at the student union since we had an hour before our next class, so we stopped on the way. I grabbed water and a sandwich. I had practice that afternoon, so I needed some sustenance. Maggie and Max each grabbed sandwiches as well and found a small table near the door.
It appeared I would be spending a lot of time with Max and Maggie, but I really didn’t mind. They were both really cool. Maggie seemed so naïve and timid, but she was much funnier than I could have ever guessed based on that first meeting. I didn’t think I was going to mind spending time with her. Not worth the trouble, Parker, I reminded myself.
“Parker!” I looked up at the sound of my name. I saw a couple of the guys on the soccer team, Garrett and Wade, strutting towards us. “Hey man! How’s it going? Ready for sprints today?”
“Yeah. I guess. No scrimmage today?” I asked with disappointment. I hated conditioning days. I would much rather have a ball at my feet any day.
“No. Just some running, sprinting, and stairs,” Garrett said absentmindedly while staring at Maggie. Finally he stuck his hand out to Maggie and said, “Hi. I’m Garrett. I play soccer with Parker.”
She shook his hand timidly and replied quickly, “Hi. Maggie. This is Max.” Max nodded to the guys before returning to his phone to play Candy Crush.
“And you belong to?” Garrett said pointing at me then back at Max.
“Umm…” she said looking confused and tilted her head to the side as if she didn’t know what he meant. “What?”
“Which of these guys is your boyfriend?” He clarified for her.
Seriously? He was hitting on Maggie. I physically wiped the annoyed look off my face with my hand and looked over at Max. He was looking down at his phone not even paying attention. Maggie eyes widened and cheeks reddened. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, I interrupted. “Ok, ok, Garrett. That’s enough. Quit sniffing her. Leave Maggie alone.” Maggie looked at me relieved.
“Ah. I see. So I’ll be seeing a lot more of you then.” It wasn’t a question.
She replied, “I guess so,” and then went back to staring at her hands in her lap.
Wade patted Garrett’s back and said, “Alright man. Let’s get some food. We have class in thirty.”
They said bye and headed away. Garrett turned around, caught Maggie’s eye and winked. She looked away embarrassed but smiling. For some reason that irritated me even more than him hitting on her in the first place.
I squeezed Maggie’s shoulder enjoying touching her for a moment. “Don’t worry about Garrett. He’s harmless. He thinks he’s a lady’s man. He’s a hell of a forward though. He was the top scorer on the team last year.”
She smiled sweetly, “They seemed nice.” I didn’t miss that her cheeks pinked up again. I wondered if it was at my touch or about Garrett. I preferred to think it was the former.
“Ha. Nice. Yeah. Y’all ready for class?” We threw our trash away then headed to class. It was really bright when we stepped outside. I immediately squinted and pulled my aviators out of the collar of my shirt. The day turned out to be really hot, high 90’s, so I was surprised when I realized Maggie still had her jacket on and zipped up. It was cold in the classrooms with the air conditioning on high, but outside it was like we were walking on the sun.
“Aren’t you hot?” I asked.
She smiled and said, “Yeah.” She set her backpack down, took off her jacket revealing a black shirt over her khaki skirt, “It is going to be a rough practice today in this heat.” She pulled her sunglasses off of her head an
d covered her eyes. I picked up her bag for her to help her slide it back on to her back then handed another penny to her for luck. She looked up surprised and said, “Thanks.” That smile rewarded me for keeping that penny for her from this morning when I saw it on my way to m first class.
I smiled down at her and said, “Anything for my twin,” as if it was no big deal that we were practically dressed the same. She blushed and laughed silently as she stuck the penny in her pocket. I smiled a little wider when I saw that she kept the coin. If only she knew the good luck coins were another thing that I only shared with my mom. It was our thing, but something about giving them to Maggie felt right.
“Let’s move it or we’re going to have to sit near the front,” Max said. “Maggie hates sitting near the front. She has a thing about people sitting behind her. Although I doubt anyone is going to throw stuff at you and pull your pigtails at this school.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder in a friendly gesture.
Maggie elbowed Max in the side. He pretended to be hurt, but I could have cared less about him. I looked at her stunned, and then I looked at Max. “People used to do that to her?”
Max replied and put his arm back around Maggie’s shoulders as she slumped and stared down at the ground. She made no attempt to stop him from telling me the story though. “The girls were bitches. When the guys realized she could probably beat them up, they started teasing her as well. Our little Maggie developed a ridiculous belief in karma when her mother wouldn’t let her daddy interfere, so she wouldn’t let anyone do anything about it even when she had to have gum cut out of her hair three times in one week, which resulted in the bob of two thousand nine.”
The thought of anyone picking on Maggie rubbed me the wrong way, whether they were flirting or not. The more I learned about her, the more protective I was becoming, and I was starting to think I was in trouble with this one. She seemed so tough, but I already knew for a fact that her mother could torture her with her words. “I can’t believe anyone would pick on you,” I said to Maggie. “I would think that all the guys were trying to get Max out of the way.” I knew I was flirting and she would probably be blushing, but I didn’t care.
She laughed out loud at that notion. I liked that sound. “It was more like the girls were trying to get me out of the way to get to Max. They loved him. You should have seen how many girls had ‘I heart Max’ written on the inside of their notebooks. They had t-shirts made for homecoming that said ‘keep calm and vote Max king’. I think I still have one that they stuffed in my soccer bag.” She was teasing Max, but there was not a hint of jealousy. She sounded proud. He rolled his eyes and shrugged. Nothing bothered Max, but I couldn’t see him loving the attention either.
We made it to our seats in the next auditorium, and it was more of the same. We sat in the back of a large room and listened to the professor go through his lecture. This class had a lot more people in it though and was going to be a lot tougher, but Maggie furiously took her notes while I tapped my pen and Max typed notes on his laptop. I was suddenly really glad I had become friends with two people who took school so seriously.
Chapter 3
Maggie
All of our classes seemed to be going really well. Max and I had a few classes with Parker, which would work out really well when we have to study for midterms and finals. Spending all of this time with him didn’t mean I could stand making eye contact with him yet, but I could be around him without fear that I would be tortured for saying the wrong thing or acting strangely. I felt comfortable around Parker, and that only made me want to spend more time with him.
After class everyday, I had practice. Today was an easy day, just some ball handling and shooting, but it was really hot outside. Afterwards I went over to the gym to try out the pool to cool down. It was a large facility that was open for anyone during a few hours each evening. The smell of chlorine and the heat and humidity were almost overwhelming, but I found the water comforting. There were a few people already in the pool, so I threw my towel on the bleachers and grabbed my goggles to go claim a lane. I jumped into the warm water, and immediately felt freer. I swam freestyle for the next twenty minutes and forgot a world outside of that water existed.
By the time I headed back to the dorm, I was starving. I threw my wet hair up in a bun, and I texted Max and Sarah looking for a dinner buddy. On my walk back to the dorm, I heard my name shouted out. I looked around and didn’t see anyone right away. I also didn’t recognize the voice.
“Maggie. Over here.” I saw Garrett, Parker’s teammate, running towards me. His dirty blond hair was wet, and he had his soccer bag hanging across his body. He was a cute guy, but all I could think about was the ladies’ man comment Parker had made at lunch that day. “Hey. I thought that was you. What are you up to?”
“I was heading home to meet some friends for dinner. Did y’all just get done with practice?”
“Yeah. It was really hot today, and we ran stairs and hills. It sucked big time. I’m headed to get dinner now if you want to join me.”
I wasn’t sure if I should go with him or not. Max and Sarah hadn’t texted back me yet. Parker did say that Garrett was a good guy, but I wasn’t so sure about going to dinner alone with him. I would feel more comfortable if Max knew him or if we were going out with a group of friends. “No. I already have plans. Maybe another time.”
“Yeah. Sure. Why don’t you give me your number? Next time I can call ahead, so I can be the plans you have that night.”
I felt my cheeks heat. Darn my stupid blushing. “Oh…yeah. Sure.” I gave him my number and said good-bye. As I walked away a smile crept across my face. Oh my god. I think he asked me on a date or at least I think that’s what that was. I was going to have to ask my sisters and face the teasing squad. I could ask Sarah, but I didn’t want her to know I had never been on a real date. I’m sure I would never hear the end of it. It seemed like something most girls my age had already experienced.
Just then my phone buzzed.
Sarah: Sure chica. Meet you at the room.
And then it buzzed again.
Max: Yup. Parker is in too.
Me: Ok. Sarah is coming too. Meet us at my dorm.
Max: k.
We met at the dorm, and I threw my stuff in the room. Sarah was at her desk, which looked more like a vanity now, fixing her hair and make-up. “Hey Sarah. Parker and Max are coming to dinner, ok?” I plopped down on my bed to wait for her to finish up. There was no telling how long that would take.
“Great! How was your day? I’m going to have a lot of papers this semester. Busy, busy!” She said everything in a cheerful rush.
“My day was good. I saw one of Parker’s soccer teammates after I swam. He asked me to go to dinner, and when I said that I had plans, he asked for my number,” I said timidly and braced myself for her reaction.
She pulled the lip-gloss away from her mouth and turned to me with a smile. “That a girl! Are you going to go out with him?”
I shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t know. I don’t know him.”
“That is how you get to know him. You should go! You have a hot soccer player asking you out! Lucky bitch.” I knew she was teasing and didn’t really think I was a bitch, so I laughed and wondered again if this was how normal friendships were.
Then the guys knocked on the door. She dropped her lip-gloss and grabbed her purse. When she was ready I opened the door to find Max and Parker leaning against opposite walls. “Ready?” Parker asked. With a nod of my head, we headed out.
Parker was looking especially good in a red t-shirt that was washed and worn and dark jeans. Something about the red with his dark hair and eyes made him look extra hot. Maybe it was the way the t-shirt fit him. You could tell he was lean and muscular making his jeans hang perfectly on his body. I could imagine him with his arms above his head and his shirt off showing off his amazing…OMG! Stop it Maggie. Stop it right now! Get your mind out of the gutter! I looked around at everyone to see if they noticed
my flush and blatant perusal of Parker’s body. They were all conversing about who knows what, but they didn’t seem to notice my absent mind.
We went to the Bold Eagle again and talked about our days. Sarah went on and on about one of her professors who was sweating through the whole class. “Seriously,” she said, “He kept raising his arms to point to important information on his slides, and all I could think was that it wasn’t that hot in the classroom. I have no idea what the lecture was about.”
Parker laughed and said, “So, Professor Pits was too hot for you? I guess you won’t be banging your teacher anytime soon.”
“Professor Pits was about as hot as Lady Leather.” Sarah said and laughed so hard that beer came out of her nose, which only made us laugh harder.
To get me back for laughing at her beer snot, Sarah raised her perfectly plucked eyebrow and asked, “Maggie, did you tell them about your new boyfriend?”
I looked at her shocked, and I felt my cheeks turn bright red. “What? No! I don’t have a new boyfriend.” Max looked at me and waited for an explanation, so I explained that Garrett saw me on my way back from the pool and asked for my number.
I saw a look that could have been anger flash across Parker’s face, but he quickly changed his expression when he saw me looking. Maybe I misread his expression. I probably did. Surely he wouldn’t be angry. Garrett was Parker’s friend, and he said he was a nice guy.
The conversation quickly changed when Sarah started telling stories about “back home in Bama.” She was fun and spunky, so I was glad she was there to take the attention away from me even though she was the one who brought up Garrett in the first place. Sarah was an open book. Her stories about her family and their farm growing up were so different from how Max and I grew up. As strange as it was to hear a girl with a Chanel purse talk about living on a farm, it all made sense with Sarah. It was no wonder why she wanted to move to the city though. She had to shovel animal poo at home. Gross.