“Are you hungry?” Jackson asked. It took everything I had in me not to make some inappropriate comment like, Yes, I’m hungry. Hungry for you, stud.
“Um,” I said instead. I took a seat on Jackson’s couch, reaching tentatively for a pair of what I could only assume were a dirty pair of Levis. I picked them up with one finger and flung them away.
“I have cereal,” Jackson said. He sounded mighty proud of that fact.
“A man of many talents, I see,” I said. Jackson pulled his head out from the cupboard to look at me.
“Cheerios,” he said.
“Do you have sugar?” I asked, and he furrowed his brow.
“No.”
“Then no thanks. I only eat my Cheerios with sugar.” I was kidding, of course, about being interested in having a bowl of cereal, but I think Jackson figured I was serious because he kept looking through the cupboards as if trying to dig up a bag of sugar for me.
“I have maple syrup,” he offered, withdrawing a sticky bottle of sketchy looking pancake goo. I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
“Do you not grocery shop?”
“Groceries? Who has time for that?” Jackson stuck the bottle of syrup back into the cupboard and came into the living room. Despite the intense workout the team had just endured, he didn’t smell too bad for a sweaty guy. In fact, he smelled lovely.
I turned my head away as the thought crossed my mind, praying he hadn’t just caught me inhaling his manly odor. Jackson sat down on the couch next to me, probably because there was nowhere else in the living room to sit. Our thighs and arms were touching, but while this little sensation made my entire body tense up, I don’t think Jackson even noticed.
“Okay,” I said. “Football.” I pulled the tape recorder and notepad from my backpack. “We’re here to talk about football.”
“Do we have to?” Jackson asked.
“Yes.” I furrowed my brow at him. “Yes, we do. Because that’s why I’m here.”
“I thought you were here to inhale my manly scent,” Jackson said. He smirked. I couldn’t turn my head away fast enough before I felt my face erupt into a fiery ball of scarlet. I couldn’t look at him, could only stare at the floor and debate whether I should bolt for the door.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “It’s not you that smells good; it’s the apartment.”
“Of course, it is,” Jackson agreed. “Dirty laundry and a booze-stained carpet are a favorite with you women.”
I had nothing to say to this, not even if I wanted to. Rather than digging a hole I wouldn’t be able to escape from, I sat back into the couch, tense and humiliated, but determined to stick this out. Thankfully, Jackson didn’t bother to keep up with the jokes. While I was glad for it, I wasn’t sure the silence settling over us was any more fitting.
“This is awkward,” I said finally, after a long silence that nearly crushed my soul into a million tiny bits of confusion. “I should probably just go.”
“You don’t have to go,” Jackson said. “You’re one of the only people I know who is tolerable to be around for longer than ten minutes at a time.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” I asked. Jackson shrugged and rolled his head to the side to look at me.
“If you want it to be.”
“Don’t you have, like, friends you can do this with?”
When Jackson didn’t answer, I made it a point to look at the time on my phone, hoping that if I gave him enough minutes to work through his abundance of prominent social issues that we’d get somewhere with the interview. Once upon a time, I’d wondered what it would feel like to sit on the couch of a popular jock. It had been a fleeting thought, one that came and went within three seconds or so, but now that I was there, sitting awkwardly on Jackson Tate’s couch in silence, it wasn’t exactly what I’d often had in mind. Feeling slightly irritated, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love,” I muttered. I hadn’t realized I’d said it aloud until I opened my eyes and saw Jackson look over, eyebrows shooting up.
“Did you just quote Gandhi to me?” he asked.
“Not to you,” I said. “To myself. It helps with my irritation.”
“Am I your opponent?”
“What?”
“The quote, you—”
“I think I’m going to go,” I said finally, cutting him off.
“Where to?” he asked as I got up off the couch.
“Anywhere but here,” I replied, and gathered my things. “Probably to the bar to drown in booze and forget that this whole thing ever happened.”
“I’m sorry.” Jackson got to his feet to follow me as I headed towards the front door. “Sometimes it’s nice just to have company that doesn’t want anything from me. All I seem to do anymore is try and please people.”
“Yeah, it must be hard being you.” Part of me wanted to acknowledge what he’d said, but the bigger part of me wondered if it was even true. Could a guy like Jackson actually be lonely, or was he full of it? “I can’t imagine how difficult that would be, having women throwing themselves at you daily.” I flung my pack over my shoulder and turned to look at him.
“It really is,” Jackson said. “I don’t know how I get by day to day doted on and loved.”
“I’m sure.” I smiled at him, a bit sarcastically maybe, then raised my hand in a salute. “We’ll try this again when you're not creepy.”
“That’s not going to happen, you know,” Jackson called as I walked away. “I will forever and always be just a little bit creepy.”
I put my hand in the air to flash him the peace sign but kept on walking. “Goodnight!” I called.
“What if I don’t want to go to bed yet?” he called back.
“You don’t have to stay home, but you can’t go there,” I said. Before Jackson could respond, I was out the door and on my way to the bar to see Alex.
It was a beautiful Saturday night and The Boat House was brimming with people. I ordered a club soda the moment I sat down at the bar. Alex eyed me as I drank, looking somewhat curious as to why I probably had a permanent frown line etched into my face.
“You look rattled,” she said a few minutes later, taking a moment to catch her breath and greet me.
“I just had the oddest encounter with Jackson Tate,” I told her. “I was trying to get another interview, but he didn’t want to talk. We just sat on his couch in silence. Then he told me he was lonely. Sarcastically, of course, because Jackson couldn’t be lonely. Right?”
“Wow, did you guys get to half a base or what?” Alex teased. She shrugged. “Maybe he likes your company.”
“Only you enjoy my company,” I reminded her. “And it’s because you’re a bit of a bitch, so I don’t rattle you.”
“Just a bit of one?” Alex asked. “I prefer Queen Bitch, thank you very much.” She took my empty club soda away and made me a fresh one, this time with alcohol, and slid it in my direction. I took a long swallow, the buzz hitting my head almost at once. After the weird last few days, it felt good.
“Oh, hey, speak of the Devil,” Alex said a moment later. “This will likely be the best thing I see tonight.”
“Fancy seeing you here, Harrison.”
“Jesus,” I said. “I don’t know if you just can’t tell, or if you genuinely don’t care, but I’m a little busy here.” I looked over at Jackson who had taken up residence on one of the empty stools to the right of mine. Shockingly, he was still alone and not being trailed by a mob of sweaty jocks and half-naked drill team members trying to unbutton his pants and slip their tongues down his throat.
“Free country,” Jackson said. He took the beer Alex offered him with a grin.
“Shouldn’t you be doing something else right now?” I asked. “Like, I don’t know, jacking off in your shower?”
“Well I wouldn’t have to do that if I just had somebody to screw now, would I?” Jackson said, and he
swiveled around in his seat to scope out the bar.
“Whatever happened to that Amelia girl?” I don’t know why I asked because I didn’t much care, but it seemed like the proper bar-style conversation to be having. As much as I wanted to bring up some touchy politics or religion subject just to see what Jackson had in him, I felt like it wasn’t the appropriate place to be discussing it.
“One and done,” Jackson said with a shrug. “Time to move onward.”
“You’re disgusting,” I said.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Jackson said. “Hey, wanna be my wing woman?”
At first, I thought he was kidding, because the mere thought of me being someone’s wing woman was both comical and just a little bit tragic, especially if it were for someone like Jackson. If anything, I’d scare off any potential female for him with my eccentricity alone. I knew there was zero chance of Jackson ever going after me, but I wasn’t excited about the prospect of helping him get laid, either.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever—”
“Are you scared?” Jackson asked. I stopped mid-sentence, swinging my head around to look at him. He was giving me that preppy half-smile that made my knees weak, but all the while my hand itched to reach out and slap him.
“I’m not scared,” I said, a bit too forcefully. “What is there to be scared of?”
“Nothing,” Jackson said. “But that didn’t stop you from tripping over yourself during that last interview.”
“I didn’t trip over ... I ... You don’t know what you’re . . . you’re stupid, okay?”
“You only live once,” Jackson said. I reached for my drink and held it up to toast him, taking on the challenge. Jackson clinked his glass of beer with my shot of vodka and grinned. I turned in my seat so that we were both facing the main bar room, regretting my decision but knowing it was too late to turn back now.
“This might be the biggest mistake you’ve ever made,” I said. “But if I fail, you fail, too, and that has to be worth it.”
“You must not know me very well, Grace,” Jackson said, smirking at me. “Because I don’t fail. Write that down on your little notepad.”
“You are just . . .” I trailed off, unable to conjure up an appropriate word that described my feelings for Jackson. Everything I had in mind to call him was too filthy for even my mouth.
“I am a lot of things,” Jackson said, “charming is number one.”
Alex and I exchanged a look over my shoulder. She was smirking. I scanned the crowd of people and spotted a busty brunette sitting by herself in one of the booths. She was sexy in a conventional way; perfectly curled hair, too much makeup, and manicured fingernails which looked like they hadn’t ever seen a hard day’s work. She was perfect for him.
“Watch and learn, Jackson,” I said. I snagged the beer from his hand, took the last swallow, and handed it back to him. I didn’t know if it was because the alcohol was taking effect, or because merely cowering down to Jackson’s idiotic challenge wasn’t going to fly with me, but I walked towards the girl’s table as if I was headed for the bathroom, pretending to trip over her bag on the floor.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” the girl said, reaching down to move her bag. “I shouldn’t have put that there.”
“No problem,” I said, brushing it off. “Cute bag, by the way.”
“Oh, you like it?” she asked, and made it a point to admire the felt badge sewn into the fabric.
“I like it,” I said. “Sorority, right?”
“Yes!” she said. She looked a bit too surprised that I recognized the symbol, and went down a few points in my book just for her peppy assumptions alone. It wasn’t like I could blame her, or anything; I sure as hell wasn’t sorority material, but she didn’t have to act that shocked. “Kappa Delta.”
“I don’t know much about it personally,” I said with a shrug and a smile. “It’s my brother. He’s the fraternity guy. He loves being a part of something so noble.” It was difficult not to gag on my words, but the girl didn’t seem to notice. “May I?” I reached for the bag, pretending to be interested in admiring the badge on her Prada purse. I turned to look at Jackson, waving a bit to catch his attention, although I know he was already watching us intently. “Hey bro,” I called. “She’s a Kappa. Come check this out.”
Much to his credit, Jackson took my story and ran with it, successfully hiding any confusion he may have felt. He approached the table and took the bag from me, eyes landing on the emblem sewn into her bag.
“You must be the brother,” the girl said, and I had a sincere hope that her tongue wouldn’t fall right out of her mouth as she held out her hand to him. “It’s so cool to meet someone else involved with it as I am.”
“That’s me,” Jackson agreed. “I’m all about the Delta . . . Pie. Kappa. Yeah, it was life-changing.”
“Right?”
“Excuse me, I’d better run to the bathroom,” I said, slipping away. Neither of them noticed that I was going, and right before I closed the bathroom door behind me, I heard Jackson ask if he could buy her a drink.
Score one for Grace.
Chapter 12
Jackson
Her name was Candy, and she was about as interesting as she was intelligent, which was not at all. I had hoped that her involvement in the Sorority would make her just as exciting as she was beautiful, but no such luck. After half an hour, I found myself zoning in and out as Candy rambled on incessantly about how good of friends her cat and dog were. No, seriously. Apparently, that was a thing.
Back at the bar, Grace was chatting it up with Alex. She hadn’t looked back even once to see how we were bonding. I was offended. As Candy proceeded to talk, I made a mental note to tell Grace that wing persons were required to take care of their own in situations of dire desperation. For all Grace knew, this girl was some psycho who would tie me up and take me hostage in her closet, and Grace would never see my face again. Not that she’d mind, I was sure. Grace didn’t seem too keen on seeing my face, anyway.
“That’s awesome,” I said the moment Candy stopped to take a breath. I had no idea what she was talking about at this point, and I didn’t much care. I had two choices: I could blow her off and go home alone tonight, or I could put on my big boy pants, ask her over, and hope for the best. I chose the latter.
“I’d love to see your place,” Candy said. Her eyes were huge, practically bugging out of her skull; the eyes of a psychopath. At this point, being taken hostage by this girl was the best-case scenario. The more likely possibility was that she’d murder me in my sleep and stuff me in the bathtub, but I guess I was still willing to take that chance to get laid.
“Hey, sis,” I said, coming up behind Grace. “We’re out of here.” I clapped my hand on her shoulder and squeezed, a little harder than necessary. She swiveled around in her seat, saw that Candy was still loyally by my side, and laughed, shaking her head.
“Have a good night, bro,” she said. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow so we can finish that, um, homework assignment I tried to work on with you today.”
“Sure thing.” I made it a point to wrap my arm around Candy’s backside and draw her into me as Grace watched us. She still looked amused, even proud of herself for snagging me this girl in the first place. Alex was eyeing me over the bar counter, one eyebrow raised as she watched us. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Alex scared the shit out of me.
“Ready?” I asked Candy, and we walked hand in hand out the door.
It was difficult not to wonder what Grace thought as I walked with Candy back to my apartment. Candy was still talking, of course, rambling on about something I couldn’t give a shit about. She seemed content with the occasional grunt of agreement and nod of the head, so I allowed myself to zone out. It was an odd feeling, I found, getting ready to jump into the sack with a cute girl while I was still thinking of someone else. Granted, I wasn’t thinking of Grace in a sexual way;
not at all. But damn, she’d already proved to be so much more than the average sorority girl, and I longed to be back at the bar having a conversation with her; not that she would share that same desire.
“Your sister seems nice,” Candy said, drawing my attention back to her. “Is she in a sorority, too?”
I almost laughed at loud at the thought of Grace prancing around in skanky clothes with a bitch beer in her hand. I didn’t know her well, but I did know she’d probably die first before succumbing to the world of Kappa parties and Brazilian waxes.
“No,” I said. “She’s a writer for The Bengal.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” Candy said, not sounding interested at all. “You guys don’t look like brother and sister.”
If only she knew.
“Here we are,” I said, unlocking the door to my apartment. We stepped inside, and I closed it behind us, heading to the kitchen for a beer. I offered Candy one, and she took it, but not before she kicked off her high heel shoes and made herself comfortable on my couch. She was dressed scantily in a tight, black dress that barely covered her ass, dark hair cascading over her shoulders. She wore a bit too much makeup for my taste, but I wasn’t about to complain.
“How about we take this party to the bedroom?” Candy said after a few moments of silence. The girl moved fast, I’ll tell you that, but I didn’t have a problem with it because any form of intelligent conversation was most likely not going to happen. I smiled at her, noticing the way her slender legs flashed just enough skin for my liking.
“After you,” I said.
Chapter 13
Grace
Covering the Quarterback Page 7