“Listen,” Judith added once the noise subsided, “I don’t mean that there’s no point for you to date Chris. Y’all seem good for one another. I’m just saying there’d be no point for me to date anyone. I hardly even know who I am yet. The odds of me finding the right person for me now and then both of us growing in the same direction over the course of, I dunno, even a year would be miraculous. And when it comes to miracles, I tend to get skipped over.”
“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it like that.”
The thing Jessica had always liked about Chris was that he didn’t really change over time. He was still the same Chris she knew growing up. Granted, he’d outgrown his kindergarten bully stage, but she never held that against him, considering his father had just walked out on the family the summer before.
She briefly imagined her Father walking out on her.
Man, wouldn’t that be nice?
Totally different situation, though.
So what if she wanted to grow and change? What if she wanted to experiment with different ideas and meet new people like Mrs. Thomas had suggested? Would Chris change with her, or would be become a cinderblock tied to her ankles?
By the time the Bobcats got the ball back, Jessica’s mind had settled into the rhythm of the game and Judith was buried deep in her phone. But to her credit, she wasn’t complaining about being there.
The announcers began discussing the freshman backup quarterback, and Jessica listened intently as they read off some of Chris’s high school stats, including three state championships. And the best part? Jessica wasn’t given an ounce of credit for it.
Good, Chris deserves this.
One row down from her, two thin, orange girls with board-straight black hair stared up at the picture of Chris on the jumbotron.
“Uh, yeah, I’d totally do him,” said one in a long-sleeved neon pink shirt.
“Really?” asked the other, who wore an oversized sweatshirt with tiny jean shorts and generally looked like she was freezing to death.
“Well, I’d probably wait until he wasn’t the backup anymore, but then, yeah. He wouldn’t stand a chance against me.”
Jessica smacked Judith on the arm to get her attention. “Do you hear this?” she asked, pointing down at the girls.
“No, what?” Judith whispered, leaning close, eager for the gossip.
“They’re talking about Chris.”
Jessica tuned in again.
“Nah girl,” said the one in neon. “Heather said she already did bang him.”
A wave of dizziness rolled through Jessica, scalding the back of her eyes.
“Uh, I call bullshit on that. Heather couldn’t get laid if she walked naked into a frat house with a gun to her head.”
“I dunno about that. Apparently some dudes dig smart girls. Besides, she’s not the only Delta who says she’s fucked Riley.”
“Oh, I mean, no doubt he’s probably fucking his way around campus. He’s a freshman, after all.”
The pulse of blood in Jessica’s ears made up her mind for her, and she lifted her right foot to hurdle the row of benches and strangle the girl in the neon pink.
But a hand grabbed her arm before she could push off, and she whirled around to see Judith staring at her wide-eyed.
“Let go of me,” Jessica hissed.
“What are you about to do? Are you about to fight them?”
“No. It won’t be a fight because they won’t get a single hit in.”
“Jess.” Judith’s grip tightened on her bicep. “Come on. They’re just a couple of worthless bimbos.”
“They don’t get to talk about Chris like that! They’re lying!”
Right? They’re probably lying. Chris wouldn’t do that.
She remembered her conversation with Miranda. Chris was going out to bars without her. Who knew how those unaccounted for nights had unfolded. Had it been a mistake to push that from her mind? Should she have stepped into the role of jealous girlfriend and confronted him about it? It sure felt like it at the moment, especially when she had the budding suspicion her risk of playing the fool had not paid off.
“So? They get to lie if they want.” Judith shook her head, blinking slowly as her grip on Jessica’s arm remained firm. “You think starting a fight is a great way to stay low profile on campus? Do you know how many journalism majors are lurking around, waiting for a good story to validate their terrible choice of major? Maybe you could fight whoever you wanted in Mooretown, but San Marcos is different. So you gotta be different.”
Jessica inhaled deeply through her nostrils and shut her eyes to regain composure.
Miranda wouldn’t have stopped me. She would have taken sweatshirt girl all on her own.
“Fine,” Jess conceded, and once she relaxed, Judith waited a few seconds more before releasing her hold. “I won’t kick their ass. But I can’t spend a second more around them if I don’t get to throw at least one punch.”
Judith nodded compassionately. “That’s understandable. Let’s get out of here.”
Jessica led the way out toward the stairs, but not before she heard neon girl add, “Sarah says he has an enormous cock. Wouldn’t mind finding out for myself.”
“Fucking bitch,” Jessica roared. Both girls whipped around to see who’d just shouted, but only the girl in the sweatshirt showed any signs of recognition, and her lips parted in an obvious admission of guilt.
“Ignore it,” Judith mumbled in Jessica’s ear as she gently pushed her forward.
“Yeah, I heard you, bitch,” Jessica yelled at the girls.
“Ohmagaaah,” said the girl in neon, “are you his sister or something?”
Her smug, amused expression was too much for Jessica to bear. She felt the energy gather in her. Aw hell yes.
Focusing her eyes on the iPhone in neon girl’s hand, Jessica wrangled the energy and then set it free. She was already grinning when the phone shattered with a plastic crunch, and Jessica didn’t even let the small jet of blood from the girl’s hand dampen her satisfying sense of self-righteousness.
“What the fuuu …” Judith couldn’t even finish the word as she shoved Jess forward and away from the girls.
As they scrambled out of the stands and toward the ramps leading to the parking lot, Jessica realized how reckless she’d just been. What if she’d missed the phone? She didn’t have any practice with aiming. She could have actually smote the girl. Shitballs. I got lucky. Well, really, neon girl had gotten lucky.
Midway down the ramps, Jessica’s satisfaction and victory dissolved completely.
What if that girl wasn’t lying?
Jess gripped the hand railing for balance.
Would Chris really cheat on her?
She supposed she couldn’t blame him too much if he did. They’d tried out the sex thing a handful of times since the first failed attempt—always during a major international shitstorm, on the off chance that God would be too preoccupied to notice and intervene. Most recently was when a cyclone ravaged the pacific islands. Chris had rushed over to Jessica’s dorm with a wild look on his face, and thanks to his heads-up text, Jessica had already shooed Leslie from the dorm and was waiting on the bed, naked, when he arrived.
But it hadn’t worked.
And then there was the large-scale terrorist attack in Europe only a month before when surely God would have His hands full and not have a spare thought for Jessica getting properly laid. But whether it was because God was onto their schemes or because both Jessica and Chris didn’t feel entirely right about exploiting the tragedy—so much carnage—Chris hadn’t been able to perform that time, either, though both decided that was probably for the best. Who wanted to lose their virginity on a day that would probably become an official international day of mourning a couple years down the road?
There simply wasn’t anything about Chris’s personality that would lead her to believe he would cheat. Except that one thing, the thing that set the two of them apart, the thing that neither of them
ever mentioned: he was only human.
The Chris she knew wouldn’t do that to her, though, human or not. Then a thought started to creep into her mind. Maybe she was the one who hadn’t changed. Maybe she was the cinderblock and Chris was the one dragging her around. He had been acting strange, tightly wound, since they’d left Mooretown. What if he’d changed and she just hadn’t realized it because she was still seeing the old him?
The crowd roared excitedly just as she crossed through the gates into the parking lot. She glanced back at the stadium. Things were finally coming into focus for her.
When exactly had her path diverged from Chris’s? And how the hell hadn’t she seen it sooner?
In the short span of two games, Chris had made a name for himself on campus, meaning he was being driven harder in practice than ever in addition to it being finals week. Well, almost finals week.
From Jessica’s understanding, the “dead day” leading into finals had been preserved under the pretense of it being a good opportunity for students to cram a little extra studying into their busy schedules. But when she’d been woken up at seven o’clock that morning from the sound of a body slamming against her dorm room door and had peeked into what used to be the hall but was now a makeshift slip and slide, she understood the real reason it was called dead day.
It was the day students were most likely to do something insane and get themselves killed.
So it was no surprise that Chris didn’t have a hard afternoon of studying at Alkek Library scheduled when she’d called him a few hours later to see if he wanted to meet up.
One six-pack of Lone Star later, she was feeling much less concerned about life, and so was Chris apparently, as he dry humped her in the backseat of his truck. Even with a few beers in her, the dry humping could become a little off putting over a long enough span of time, but she couldn’t fault the poor guy.
At least she knew he was still into her.
Even if he is banging other girls.
No. Chris wouldn’t do that. But maybe …
Her mind was split. She’d hoped the alcohol would put a stop to that, at least for a little while, but it hadn’t done much more than lubricate her imagination, turning her synapses into micro slip and slides upon which images of him dry humping other girls whizzed around freely.
She had to do something to keep him interested, and luckily she knew just the trick.
She slid her hand between them and beneath the waist of his jeans and he groaned. It wouldn’t take long; Chris had a real hair-trigger, from what she could tell. Of course, she didn’t know if other guys lasted more than thirty seconds past the first skin-to-skin contact, so it was difficult to know with certainty.
Was his ability to finish quickly a sign of cheating?
Shit. She’d never considered it before.
“Stop,” he said suddenly, grabbing her forearm where it poked out of his pants.
“What? Why?”
He set his jaw, removed her hand, adjusted his hips, then shifted to give himself some space by the window.
“Is everything okay?” she asked when he didn’t immediately respond.
He nodded sharply and hurriedly, swallowing hard. “Yeah, everything’s fine. It’s nothing.”
“No, it’s something.” She reeled in her accusatory tone. The last thing that would coax the truth out of Chris was fear. He’d never been great at hiding the fact that he still wasn’t one-hundred percent sure God wouldn’t smite him for messing around with His daughter. “Chris, you can tell me. You know I’m not going to judge.”
He couldn’t meet her eyes, opting instead to fiddle with the stitching of the seat in front of him. “I know. I just … I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve been acting strange lately.”
“Uh-huh …” she said patiently as her mind raced through a worst-possible-scenario montage.
“I’ve wanted to tell to you about it, but I just don’t know what to say.”
Her stomach began boiling over like a vat of scalding acid. “Tell me about what?” Her patience was starting to run thin. She needed reassurance that his hesitancy had nothing to do with her, but the longer he put it off, the more likely it seemed that it was entirely about her. And why not? She was the cause for all his sexual constipation.
“Lately, it’s just … and I feel so weird telling you this, which is, I dunno, dumb, considering.” He glanced down at her hand that just been crammed into his jeans. “But like, the past few times I’ve, um, you know, I finished, the weirdest things have been happening in my … in my mind. Like strange flashes of—”
“Wait. When did this start?”
“Huh?”
“Since when has this been a problem?”
The interruption of his confession tripped him, but he finally managed, “I guess I noticed it like a week and a half ago. Maybe two weeks.”
Her worst fears were coming true. Chris didn’t even realize what he’d just admitted to. “Oh, well that’s interesting,” she began, trying not to let her anger swell so quickly that she couldn’t carry on this conversation that unfortunately needed to happen, “considering we haven’t messed around in almost two and a half weeks.”
She arched her eyebrows and pressed her lips together, waiting for his excuse, waiting for him to try to cover his tracks.
But he just stared at her. “Yeah? So?”
“So who the hell have you been finishing with, Chris?”
“What?” It was starting to sink in, if the blood draining from his face was any indication. “No! Wait! I thought you said it wasn’t a sin!”
“Cheating?! How would cheating not be a sin?”
His shoulders relaxed and his wide eyes narrowed into two confused slits. “Wait. What the fuck? You think I’ve been cheating on you?”
Jess was forced to shut her eyes to regroup. “Well you just said …”
“I didn’t say I cheated! Because I didn’t!”
“But you—”
He threw his arms into the air and shouted, “Jerking off, Jess! It’s called jerking off! And you promised me it wasn’t a sin!”
“So you haven’t been—”
“Is jerking off a sin?!” He grabbed her shoulders and scanned her expression for any sign of an answer.
“Shit, Chris.” She swatted his arms off of her. “No, I think it’s fine.”
He leaned back again, exhausted. “Good. Because when we don’t get to hang out for long stretches, I feel like I’m going to die inside if I don’t give myself some relief. Like, my lower stomach’s just going to bloat up and my balls are—”
“No, it’s fine. I get it.”
He nodded and broke the silence a few moments later with, “Did you really think I would cheat on you?”
“No,” she said quickly. Then, “But I heard some girls at your game talking about, well, they said their friend had slept with you.”
He shook his head confidently, already looking more like the Chris she was comfortable with. “Not true.”
“And they said they knew a lot of girls who had slept with you.”
He shook his head again. “Also not true. Who were these bitches anyway?”
Jessica laughed. “I don’t know. I smote one of their phones, though.” The notion that Chris might have changed, that maybe he’d changed and grown without her even noticing, leaving her in his dust, had kept her from mentioning the little smiting incident before.
“God damn. No shit?”
“No shit.”
He lunged at her, pinning her down to the seat. “That’s so hot, Jess. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I forgot,” she lied.
“Man, if I weren’t legit terrified of gizzing, I’d do all kinds of things to you.” He planted a kiss on her neck and then sat back up again. “But I should probably get some studying done.”
Oh right. The orgasm thing. She should probably inquire into that, since it affected their relationship.
But when she opened her mouth to ask him
to tell her more about it, she realized the window of opportunity for that conversation had already passed them by.
And maybe she didn’t really want to know.
It was by no means a white Christmas, but it was about as close to one as Jessica ever hoped for in Mooretown, Texas. It was cold, maybe even below fifty degrees, but the cabin of Chris’s truck was nice and toasty.
Toasty enough to undress in, hopefully.
It was a clear day fading into a crisp night, and Jessica snuggled her head into Chris’s warm jacket as they watched the sun go down over the foothills of the Rockies, way off in the distance.
“Jessica McCloud,” he said, his mouth only an inch above the top of her head so that she could feel his warm breath, “if we can never have sex but can still spend days and evenings like this together for all our years, I’d die a happy dude.”
He kissed the top of her head, and she felt a familiar revving up between her legs. And maybe something in her heart. But mostly her crotch.
“That being said”—he shifted so that she could stare up into his face—“there are a thousand things I want to do to you tonight.”
That hungry stare. It set her body on fire.
He started slipping off his bulky down jacket. “Having to spend all day around you and your mom and Coach Rex, not being able to put my hands on you, I thought I was going to explode.”
She tried to think back on the day, but there was a white fog over it. They must have opened presents, right? It was Christmas, so of course they did. What did she get?
Didn’t matter. Chris was losing more bulk by the second, and it would be rude not to keep up.
“I know we didn’t get to spend a lot of time together during finals,” he continued as he fumbled with his belt, “so I want to make it up to you.”
Finals. Shit. She didn’t even remember taking finals.
Oh shit! Did I miss all my finals? Holy crap! How did I miss my finals?
Chris was completely unclothed and reached behind her, flicking the clasp of her bra open with deft fingers.
Something in her mind went, Ahh, okay, while failing to share with the rest of her brain what it had just discovered. But as Chris tasked himself with covering her neck in wet kisses, a knock on the passenger’s side window nudged the rest of her mind into line, and, feeling relieved that she at least didn’t miss all her finals, she grabbed Chris’s coat off the floorboard, shoved her naked boyfriend off of her, and covered up her private bits before rolling down the automatic window.
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