Covering the Quarterback

by Amber Thielman

  “Do you have a name?” Jackson asked.

  “It’s, um. It’s Grace.” Why in the hell was it so hard to talk to this guy? He was a person like the rest of us, even if I did hate every fiber of his stupid being.

  “Grace,” Jackson repeated. He mulled it over, looking pensive. “You look familiar.”

  “Do I?” I said, innocently. “I can’t imagine where you’d know me from.”

  It was useless, I knew, to add that we’d gone to school together nearly every year since kindergarten. I wanted so badly to remind him that I was the girl in the hoodie in high school who his group of friends mooed at when I’d passed them in the hallway. I wanted to tell him that in fifth grade it had been my hair that the wad of chewed bubble gum he’d thrown had landed in and that it had been me who had to come to school the next day with a haircut so short that kids called me Bubble Gum Bob for the next two weeks. But I didn’t. I didn’t say any of those things.

  “You don’t look too familiar yourself,” I said instead.

  “Huh.” Jackson continued to stare at me, wracking his brain for some answer that I knew he would never find.

  “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “Hey, Tate!” A voice shouted from across the bar. “Stop jacking off and come get your ass handed to you at darts.”

  “I’m being summoned,” Jackson said, and his eyes flickered to my face, brow furrowing just a bit as he tried to catch my gaze. I didn’t look at him, even when he offered his hand again. It was rude, but I was too busy reminiscing painful memories to care too much about Jackson’s feelings at that moment. He shrugged, flashed a smile at Alex, and walked away, swaying slightly. As soon as he was across the room, Alex looked at me.

  “That was interesting,” she said.

  “What was?”

  “That awkward little conversation. It would have been the perfect opportunity to get to know him for the paper.”

  “I don’t need to get to know him.” I took another sip from the glass of water, feeling tired. “I have one job to do, and I intend to do it without getting mixed up with a guy like Jackson Tate.” There was a booming laugh from across the room, and I looked over my shoulder at Jackson. He had a dart in one hand and a skinny blonde hung off the other arm. “He’s probably forgotten about this encounter already.”

  “He doesn’t seem so bad,” Alex offered. Before I could answer, a second intruder lowered himself onto the empty barstool next to mine. This one, fortunately, I knew a lot better than I did Jackson. He wore a black Star Wars t-shirt paired with a tan pair of fraying work slacks. Glasses held together by black electrical tape sat perched on his nose, and his brown hair was overgrown and unkempt. The cologne he wore was overwhelming, and his tennis shoes were tattered and worn down.

  “Hi, Shawn,” Alex said. “What can I get you to drink?”

  “Lemon and water,” he said, sniffling. He turned to me. “I saw you talking to Jackson Tate. What does he want?”

  “A good kick in the junk, probably,” I said, and then laughed. “I don’t know, Shawn, I didn’t ask him.”

  While he wasn’t a total ass like Jackson Tate and the rest of the sporty jocks, he was a bit condescending in his way. He was a total nerd; the guy you’d find playing X-Box alone in his house on a typical Friday night. While he was a brilliant student, his social skills were less than par (not that I had room to judge when it came to social skills, we all seemed to be on the same level of complex awkwardness), and he’d been crushing on me in an unsubtle way since Freshman year. Alex couldn’t stand him, but she put up with him because she knew I was one of the few people who could tolerate his brooding teenage angst, and inconspicuous hygiene skills. Shawn was a loner, and he could be annoying, but he was my friend. Shawn was the kind of guy who would move mountains for those he cared about, and I cherished knowing that I had him in my corner.

  “If I were you, I would avoid any outside contact with him,” Shawn said. “Jackson Tate isn’t a good guy.” He dug into his pocket for some loose aspirin before he popped them into his mouth and chewed without water. I cringed, and Alex rolled her eyes so far back into her head I feared they would never come down again.

  “Outside contact?” I repeated. “This isn’t a bad thriller movie, Shawn.”

  “All I’m saying is, try to keep it professional, and only talk to him when you have to for the paper. I don’t want to see you get hurt.

  “Thanks for the advice,” I said. Sometimes, Shawn’s controlling manner bothered me, but since I knew it was his way of looking out for me, I let it go. I had very few friends, so the ones I had managed to keep around, I would do well not to scare off. Shawn was still staring at me as he dug his hands into the bowl of bar peanuts and tossed some back. He chewed loudly, like a cow with its mouth open; probably because his nasal passages were always blocked. It made tolerating his presence even more of a challenge. The lousy mood Jackson had put me in wasn’t helping, either.

  “I’m surprised to see you out here tonight,” Alex said, handing him his water. “No new Nintendo game releases?”

  “It’s an X-Box, Alex, and no there haven’t been any new releases.” Shawn sniffed again, and I had to resist the urge to throw a tissue at him. Behind us, Jackson’s football team of jocks were growing louder and louder as the beer flowed. I knew it was only a matter of time before some alcohol-induced bar rage combusted from one of these guys and Alex would have a fight on her hands.

  The place was packed with both familiar and unfamiliar faces. As Shawn and I sat in silence, deep in our thoughts, the shots from earlier hit my system. Like a switch inside my brain, the anxiety I’d had about coming tonight started to melt away.

  “So, what do you think, babe?” Alex asked, propping herself up on her elbows on the counter in front of me. “Should we find you a guy to nail tonight? Or a girl. A girl could work, too.” She winked but I shook my head.

  “I may be buzzed, but I am not a hussy,” I said. Granted, Alex did look damn tempting in her skinny jeans and a midsection-baring tank, but if I were going to sleep with anyone for the first time, it would be a guy. So far as I knew, I was straight. It didn’t help, however, that there weren’t many guys around I’d consider having sex with . . . although Shawn seemed to perk up considerably.

  “I kid, I kid,” Alex said. She leaned down again, sighing dreamily. “You want your first time to be sober,” she said. “It’s not an experience if you’re wasted.”

  “You’re a virgin?” Shawn asked. I was too inebriated to realize this was kind of an inappropriate conversation.

  “Oh, you’re one to talk, Mr. I-Still-Sleep-On-Batman-Sheets,” I said, sourly.

  “Iron Man,” he said. “Iron Man sheets.”

  At that point, most of the conversation wasn’t making much sense anymore. I could feel the booze take a more significant toll on me than I had anticipated. My stomach was aching, and every time I closed my eyes the world would spin. While this may have sounded like an exciting amusement park ride, it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. It wasn’t until I stood up to go to the bathroom that Alex decided I’d had enough when I almost biffed it on some girl’s purse sitting on the floor. I mumbled an apology, my face burning what I could only assume was an attractive tomato-red color, but the random chick sitting at the table with her boyfriend only sneered at me as if I’d intentionally kicked her bag, or something, just to be a bitch. Before I could ask her what kind of over-tanned, tangerine-colored idiot she’d have to be to leave her enormous bag sitting there in an open bar, Alex pulled me back.

  “Okay, sis,” she said. She flung my arm over her shoulder to support me. “I’ll call a cab. Let’s go get some fresh air.”

  Chapter 4

  Jackson

  It was a frosty night, so cold that I saw my breath in the air as I stepped outside and into the damp, rainy darkness. In Seattle, when fall approaches, the entire city turns into an ice bath. The later it gets into the night, the colder it is. Why I’d agreed to stay in Se
attle after high school graduation was beyond me because a warmer climate like Miami or L.A. sounded vastly more welcoming right now.

  It had rained a bit during the homecoming party, and on my way out of the bar, I stepped smack-dab into a deep puddle of water and oily sludge. Cursing, I shook off my leg, resembling a dog in the process of taking a piss. I was buzzed, but not drunk. I’d wanted desperately to stay and hang out with the guys, but I knew to avoid a hangover for football practice, I needed to quit while I was ahead and go home. Besides that, the blond girl I’d met tonight couldn’t figure out appropriate boundaries no matter how many subtle hints I’d thrown at her.

  Most of the early evening crowd had gone already, not counting a few drunk stragglers who thought they were too legit to quit. I stuffed my hands into the pocket of my jeans, tuning out the sounds from the bar. I was about to step off the curb and walk home when I spotted a couple of figures in the parking lot. I almost kept on walking, but hesitated for a second too long, just long enough for one of the women to call out to me.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Can I get a hand over here?”

  “Oh. I, um.” I looked over my shoulder, and then to each side of me.

  There was no one around that I could pin this on, not a scapegoat to be seen.

  “I’m kind of late for this thing ...” I mumbled, then trailed off, because the girl had a look on her face that assured me that she’d hunt me down and kill me if I didn’t comply.

  I sighed inwardly and walked towards the two women in the parking lot. The girl I’d met at the bar only a few hours earlier was now on her hands and knees in the gravel. She was vomiting into a shrub of sticker bushes, and the bartender—Alex, I think—was kneeling next to her, patting her on the back. Alex craned her neck to look at me, and for some reason, she laughed and rolled her eyes.

  “Out of everyone to come outside right now,” she said, straightening up. Before I could ask her what she meant, the girl, Grace, stopped throwing up long enough to wipe her mouth and roll onto her back to stare at the sky.

  “I was getting ready to call a cab,” Alex said. “We only live a few blocks from here, but I’m not off work yet.” She looked back down at Grace, and there was concern etched in her features. “She’s a lightweight,” she added, as if it wasn’t already undeniable. We stood in silence for a moment, watching Grace trace the air with her finger. She was utterly oblivious to my presence. I should have never stopped in the first place, I realized. I was tired and buzzed and had to be up early for practice, but my mother didn’t raise me an asshole. Mostly.

  “How can I help?” I asked when Alex made no move to phone a cab. She smiled at me, relieved.

  “I hate to ask, but can you walk her home? I have to get back in there.”

  My first reaction was to make up some lame excuse as to why I couldn’t take her home. I even considered offering to pay for a cab if that would be of any help. But then, as I stared at Grace, I realized that if anything happened to her because I was too big of a jerk to do it myself, it would be my fault. And this Alex girl would probably kill me. So instead of bolting, I nodded.

  “No problem.”

  Alex told me the address as we leaned down to pull Grace to her feet. She was so drunk she could barely stand, let alone walk, but she had no issue lightly stroking my cheek as Alex tried to explain that I’d be walking her home.

  “Thanks for this,” Alex said as she backed towards the front door of the bar. She stopped and wagged her finger in my direction. “If you make a move on her or try to get into her pants, I will find out, and I will destroy you.” Then she waved and vanished back into the bar where the party was still in full force. I looked down at Grace whose eyes were half closed. She had a vomit stain down the front of her shirt, and I rolled my eyes. Trying to get lucky with this chick certainly wouldn’t be a temptation issue.

  “Where are you taking me?” Grace mumbled, as we started to walk. Correction: I walked, she stumbled.

  “Home,” I grunted, steadying her as she staggered over her own feet.

  “But I don’t want to go home.”

  “And I don’t want to be doing this, but here we are,” I said cheerily. For the next few blocks, we walked in silence as Grace concentrated on not face-planting into the cement. I steadied her when necessary, ignoring her grunts of irritation when I offered my help. When we reached the apartment, I dug for the keys in her pocket. It took six attempts and many uses of the word fuck, but I finally got the front door unlocked and guided her inside.

  “Why are you helping me?” Grace asked. At least, I assumed that’s what she asked because it was hard to decipher her drunken slurs into words. For all I knew, she totally could have just shunned me to the fiery depths of hell. This wouldn’t have surprised me in the least, as she’d been nothing short of cold during our run-in earlier.

  “Because your friend asked me to,” I said. “And I’m a little afraid of her.”

  “I can take care of myself,” she said. While I didn’t doubt sober Grace could, I couldn’t muster up the energy to remind her that seven times on the walk home she’d tried to wander through somebody else's front door.

  “If it makes you feel any better, this is the last time you’ll see me,” I said. Grace, who didn’t seem to care if she ever saw my ugly mug again, rolled her eyes and mumbled something incoherent under her breath. Something that sounded vaguely like, “If only.”

  “Do you want some water?” I asked.

  “My room is there,” Grace said. She pushed my steadying hand away, slapping at me, and then proceeded to fall face-first into the living-room carpet. She was laughing now as I picked her up and carried her to the back bedroom.

  “Are you okay?” There was no visible blood or bruising, so I assumed she was okay, but I didn’t want Alex to think I’d tried to rape her, or something, and shank me in my sleep.

  “I don’t want to have sex with you,” Grace said out of nowhere. I lowered her onto the flawlessly made bed and yanked off her shoes, just to be a gentleman. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to worry; control-freaks weren’t my type, but I figured I’d do well to keep my mouth shut so she wouldn’t hit me. I didn’t know her well, and I didn’t intend to get to know her, but something told me she probably had a mean right hook.

  “Way to bash all my dreams,” I said, and Grace flung one arm over her face. As I turned to leave, flipping the light switch, I heard her speak.

  “Thank you,” she said, and then fell silent. I didn’t know if it was pity that urged me to go to the kitchen to get her a cup of water and some aspirin, or if I honestly didn’t want her in pain. Whatever the reason, I filled up a glass with water, found some painkillers for her inevitable morning-after headache, and set them both next to her bed for when she woke.

  “Will you be alright?” I asked, but she was already asleep, chest rising and falling with every breath she took. There was something about her that pulled at me to stay and make sure she was okay. She wasn’t the kind of woman I was attracted to, a mere plain girl with a surprising amount of issues that I wasn’t about to dig through. But even knowing all of that, I stood there and stared at her for a moment, admiring the way the moonlight through the window masked her pale skin in a milky glow. This passed out figure with the vomit-encrusted shirt and—

  What the fuck was I thinking?

  I backed out of the room, shut the door behind me, and hoped I’d never see her again.

  Chapter 5

  Grace

  The throbbing pain in my head woke me the next morning. I groaned and buried my face into my pillow. I must have died and gone to hell. My mouth tasted stale and disgusting, the result of bitter liquor and acidic vomit. My stomach swam with nausea as I rolled out of bed and rushed to the bathroom just seconds before I fell to my knees to dry heave in front of the toilet. When nothing came up but bile, I rose to my feet and stumbled to the bathroom mirror to survey the damage. That was my first mistake; one of many I would make that da
y.

  The night at the bar was mostly a blur. I was still in my clothes from yesterday, and what little makeup I’d put on for the party was now smudged and streaked across my face in a lovely display of what could pass off as a hungover prostitute. My hair, although it had never been particularly nice to look at, was a rat’s nest. I couldn’t force myself to examine it too hard, but there seemed to be what looked like a strand of dried vomit tangled in as well.

  I turned on the bathroom sink and splashed my face with cool water to ward off the dizziness. Through the thin walls, I could hear Alex snoring. As I brushed my teeth, trying to ward off the gag reflex, I managed to piece together what little bits I could remember from the night before. Then I hopped into the shower to scrub away my shame.

  I could remember Shawn sitting down next to me, right after Jackson bumped into me from behind. I remembered the shots . . . Yeah, I remembered those well. Just thinking about that vile taste made me dry heave again. Everything after that, however, was nothing but a blur.

  After washing the vomit from my hair, I trudged back to my bedroom for some clean clothes. As I was sifting through my closet, I noticed the glass of water and aspirin sitting on my nightstand. I took the pills to help my headache, assuming Alex had left them there for me. I made a mental note to thank her later.

  I was due on the football field in twenty minutes to interview Jackson Tate about the upcoming game on Saturday. Homecoming, an event that for some reason the university was crazy about, was a massive occurrence for our school. The students got insanely eager to watch bulky football players in their tight spandex tackle each other on the field. And while I wasn’t as boy-crazy as some of the girls, I was still human. If there was ever a legit reason to watch a football game, spandex and hot guys were it.

  I yanked on a pair of jeans which had seen better days. Too hungover to care, (yeah, like I needed an excuse) I pulled a hoodie over my shirt and flipped the hood.