by Kristi Ayers
Now that I was sufficiently settled into my new life in the dorm, and friends with my eccentric roommate, Violet, I needed to find a part-time job. I’d finally figured out the lay of this college town, a world in and of itself, with a big ocean-side city just on the outskirts. I knew I didn’t want to work at the diner or the pizza place on campus, or at a mom and pop restaurant that likely wouldn’t offer decent tips. I had no car, so I could only venture out so far, preferably walking distance, so I wouldn’t have to pay a bus fare.
I regarded the coffee shop I sat in, wondering if it would be worth the tips to work in a relaxed, heavenly aroma-filled location. There were many students here, some at tables under soft lighting typing on their laptops, and others sitting in couches and bean bags surrounding a heavily rocked fireplace that stood as the focal point. The relaxed ambience, the steady influx of caffeine-driven students, and the full tip jar by the cashier—it all looked promising. My eyes took one last scan of the room and stopped abruptly at a pair of brown eyes that were gazing intently at me, probing really, as if working out some epic and terrible problem.
I averted my line of sight elsewhere, attempting to be nonchalant and not give the notion that I was slightly spooked. A sip of my latte and a deep breath made me feel better. He was just a fellow student, after all. But when I glanced in his direction again, I was stunned to see him striding toward my corner table. His face held such concentration that I felt he could literally see right through my skull to my thoughts. Immediately, my guard went up.
“Do I know you?” he asked without a hello or an introduction.
I huffed a humorless laugh. “Is that your typical pickup line, because it keeps thematically with the jerk persona that desperate guys exhibit.”
“It is you! Holland Cates. I would have never thought I’d be running into you here of all places.” He took the seat across from me, but I didn’t point out that he did so uninvited because I was too flustered he knew my name and how he inadvertently offended me, though I wasn’t sure it was my scholastic intelligence or my financial ability he was jabbing. Yet for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out who he was.
“Well, are you just going to sit there slack-jawed or are you going to say something cordial, like maybe, ‘Hi, how have you been?’”
“Maybe I would if I knew exactly who you are.” I flipped through the mental pictures in my brain of elementary school, junior high, family acquaintances, neighbors who had moved away. Clearly this was some little boy I couldn’t remember who had grown into a rather attractive man. I studied his hair, dark brown and slightly longer on top, but it was the dark chocolate eyes that seemed slightly familiar.
He sat back, a smug smile tugging at his mouth. “You really don’t recognize me? Holland, it’s only been three years. How could you forget the school’s best percussionist?”
Now I was the one scrutinizing his face like a math problem. “Adam Porter?” Even as I said the name aloud, I still couldn’t believe it was truly him. I expected this guy to come back with “No, it’s so-and-so.”
“In the flesh. Or maybe less flesh.” He smiled and waited to see what reaction I’d provide.
This could not really be Adam Porter. The Adam Porter I knew was fifty pounds heavier, wore glasses, and faded into the background, except in Orchestra, where his percussion skills, whether it was the drums, cajon, or xylophone, gave our sound a fullness that would otherwise be lacking if it weren’t for his affinity for detail. He disappeared after our sophomore year. There was a low buzz, more like an afterthought, that he’d moved away, but the reason why had been unclear.
“And still, she says nothing.”
“I—Uh, well, you caught me by surprise.”
“Why is that? Is it because we ended up at the same college out of all the others across the Atlantic? Or because I used to be fat and unremarkable? Unseen on a daily basis like a ghost?”
Why did he have to make this awkward? “Just a mix of… many things. I mean, when one moves away, especially when he didn’t let anyone know where he was going, I just assumed you left because one of your parents got a job somewhere else.”
“Did you bother to ask any of my friends where I went?” There was a glint in his eye, one that said he already knew my answer.
“Well, no. I–”
“Did you notice I was gone, what, a week, two weeks, a month into junior year?”
Without missing a beat, I said, “Day one in Orchestra. Our sound was never the same.”
That caught him off guard, his eyebrows raising just a hint in surprise, but he recovered quickly, effectively changing the subject. “So what’s your major?”
“Music, of course.”
He silently admired me for a few beats too long, making me shift in my seat. “You were always the best violinist there. It was obvious even then that music would be in your future.”
I hadn’t expected a compliment, and I probably didn’t deserve it since I’d never really spoken to him in school. When he moved, I never bothered to ask his friends where he went. I failed to care enough. Many failed to think twice about him, and he likely knew that fact.
“Hey, let’s get out of here. It’s past noon, time for a different kind of elixir.” He nodded toward the door, already halfway out of his seat, and only pausing to see if I was coming. He seemed to be in a slight rush.
“Sure. Where are we going?” I gathered my purse and jacket, only vaguely remembering I had wanted to pick up an application but decided it could wait another day.
“My place.”
“Your dorm room?”
He laughed. “I don’t have just a room. My house, silly.”
“You rent a house?”
“I own a house.”
I looked at him as he led the way down the sidewalk. Everything about him was different. Not just his weight, but also his stride, the way he held his head up, no longer one to cast his eyes to the ground. His arms swung leisurely at his sides, his black leather jacket lightly creaking with each step. The dark jeans he wore fit this body I no longer recognized, and the dark cloud that hung over his head in high school was now replaced with sunlight. He looked…like an entirely different person.
“What? You’re making me feel like an animal at the zoo. I feel like I need to charge admission.”
He’d caught me staring. “I’m sorry. It’s just surreal seeing you again. Three years is a long time.”
“True. A lot can happen in three years.”
Those words, I knew, held more meaning than what was being said. All I could do was nod in agreement.
His house, only a few blocks away, was the second surprise of the day. A two-story grey Victorian house with dark grey shutters and a small porch with ornate woodwork. It was beautiful and spooky at the same time, and nothing like what I would imagine him laying money down to buy. Just how did he afford such a house? I knew it had to be expensive, since it was in such close proximity to the campus. Tall trees stood around it and dropped fiery red and sun-golden yellow leaves on the neatly trimmed grass. Manicured bushes outlined the edge of the porch.
“Cates, are you coming in or are you going to stand out here all day and stare at my house?” He had already made it up the stairs and held the front door open. I hurried to catch up. Twice now, he’d caught me staring, at him, his home—I needed to be more present and less inside my head.
Inside, it was cozy in a masculine type of way. He led me to the kitchen and got two beers out of the fridge, popping the lids off and handing one to me.
“Beer at 2pm on a weekday?” Did he have a fake ID?
He eyed me with an incredulous look. “What’s wrong with that? You’re an adult now. You can have a cupcake for breakfast if you so desire. No one’s stopping you.”
I arched my eyebrow and answered with a sip of beer.
“There you go,” he approved. “I want to show you something.” Intrigued, I followed him down the hallway until it dawned on me what he could be showing me.
“Whoa, wait. Are you taking me to your bedroom?”
He laughed and pushed open a door. “Relax, Cates. I have a girlfriend.”
He has a girlfriend? Of course he does. He’s hot now. I was so used to him never having a girlfriend, it never crossed my mind that he’d have one now. If he had a crush in school, I’d never heard about it. No one in his group of friends dated; they just stood around debating on the latest political drama.
“Behold my pride and joy.” He extended his arm out, referring to the entire room. “I never gave up music.”
The room was large, open, and in the corner sat an impressive set of drums. A microphone stood to the side, along with a few electric guitars and amplifiers. A couple of nice leather couches were pushed against the wall, and above them hung artwork that looked to cost a pretty penny. “Wow. You have a band?”
“Well, I certainly don’t jump to each instrument and play it for forty-five seconds so that I can get through one song.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Hey, you get what you ask for.” He finished his beer and threw the bottle in a trashcan. I was nowhere near finished with mine. “Are you a lightweight, Cates?” He nodded toward my bottle.
“No. I’m just not used to going from drinking coffee directly into drinking beer.” I took another sip to show I was at least trying.
“Again, you don’t need to be so rigid with your time schedule and drinks. Or foods, for that matter. Have chili for breakfast and a bottle of Jack for dinner if that’s what you want.” I made a sour face as he led me back into the kitchen to get himself a second beer, and then we went to the living room. He shed his jacket, so I followed suit. “It’s a little drafty in this house, but I can start a fire if you’re cold.”
“No, I’m fine, thanks.”
He sat in the loveseat, so I took the larger couch. I noticed the detailed tattoos peeking from the end of his shirt sleeve, but I couldn’t really make out any without getting closer. I also noticed how defined his arms were, how the lines of muscle revealed how hard he worked out.
“You’re staring again.”
I blinked and looked away. “Why did you move after sophomore year?”
He sat silent for a few moments, eyes downcast, and then he wryly smiled at the floor. When he looked up at me, his eyes echoed remnants of a cheerless history. Suddenly, I wanted to take back my question. “Basically, shit happened, it got better, and here I am. Circle of life. Tell me what’s new with you.”
He had the uncanny ability to deflect, but maybe it was better to not delve into dark subjects. God knew I had my own. “Not much really. I took a year to work and go to the community college, and then started here.”
He finished his second beer and absently thumbed the puckered lettering on it. “Well, I for one am glad you’re here.” My eyes darted to him, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was far away. “You never knew this, but I had the biggest crush on you in high school.”
I nearly dropped my beer onto the hardwood floor. “What? Really? I had no idea at all.” I thought back to Orchestra. There were no recollections of catching him looking at me. No whispers of rumors. We were together as a class for many recitals and competitions, in addition to a few other subjects; biology one year, English the year before that.
“Yeah, I made sure you never found out.”
“Why?”
He stifled a laugh that held no humor. “Because I was the fat kid.”
“I would have liked to have known,” I offered gently.
“Why? So you could keep passing by my stare in the halls? Or giggle at the very thought of the fat, nerdy kid liking you?” He stood up and got himself another beer. At this rate, he’d be smashed before dinner.
“I—You don’t know that’s what I would have done.”
He threw me a doubtful look. “A beautiful girl like you would have never gone out with a fat guy.”
My brain wanted to argue and not let him accuse me of such shallowness, but my brain picked up that he’d called me beautiful. An image popped in my head of a sixteen-year-old Adam watching me as I, oblivious, played my violin in class.
“Are you aware you have this goofy smile on your face? You have drunk,” he lifted my beer, “only half your beer and you’re already inebriated.”
“I am not.” I noticed his movements were more languid. He was the drunk one, not me. “And I have nothing against anyone…larger. Not then and not now. As a matter of fact, I had a chubby boyfriend in grade school.”
“Yeah, Robert, the kid who gave out shiny stickers to bribe girls to be his girlfriend for the day. Did you wear your sticker on your shirt?” God, yes, I did… His sleepy eyes leveled me with a challenging stare. “Come on. You never, not even once, looked at me in that way. You can’t honestly say you would have given me a chance. That’s why I came to accept admiring you from afar was enough for me.”
That silenced me. The harsh truth of it was, he was right. Back in high school, I was all about appearance and fitting in. I didn’t want to do anything to cause myself unwanted attention and embarrassment.
And I hated myself for that.
Chapter 3
Max
“It’s good Tuesdays and Thursdays are not chock full of classes for us. I mean, when else would we be able to practice?” Douglas walked beside me as we headed to Adam’s. “But I swear, if Bex shows up and ruins our session…”
He had a point. We needed to practice. “If all else fails, we can go back to our room and play acoustic.”
“And do you think if you get me in a room with my games that I’d actually not pick up my controller?”
I shook my head. “Then you’re just as bad as Adam!”
“Except that I’m not having sex with my game controller.”
“Well, you might as well be,” I spouted off. Douglas’s mouth opened for a retort, but the warped image in his mind failed at producing any snarky comebacks, so he tossed me a scowl instead. “Just saying, if you put that much effort into other things–”
“Like dating?”
“Dating, yes, but that’s not what I was going to say.” He instantly looked bummed about his lack of a social life. “You know the right girl’s out there. One that loves gaming just as much as you.”
“Yeah, like one of those jungle animals you only hear about existing but happens to be so rare, they were only able to catch a blurry picture as it scurried away.” His shoulders drooped in defeat.
“Okay, Mr. Positive. We need to fix that. Go out more. You can’t meet anyone while sitting in front of a screen.”
“Says the guy who never goes out.”
“Yes I do.” He was not going to turn this around on me.
“The skateboard park does not constitute ‘going out.’” He effectively turned it around on me.
The park was my escape. I could forget everything for hours at a time. Sometimes Adam joined me, and unspoken words would transcend any conversation two guys could have, and we’d come out feeling better. Lighter. If only for a while.
The counter-argument died on the tip of my tongue, because when I opened Adam’s front door, my world froze. Sitting on the couch with the afternoon sunlight streaming from the window behind her was the girl. The one who never let my thoughts focus on much else for long; each one unfailingly would carousel back to her. I’d kept my eyes open every time I left or returned to the dorm, just hoping to run into her. I would have never guessed I’d see her in Adam’s house, of all places.
Her curious eyes met mine, unsure what to think about two guys walking in as if she were the one interrupting something. “I should go.” Her voice sounded as soft and pretty as I remembered.
Adam sat forward. “Why hurry off? Stay. You can watch us.”
“Watch you…?”
He chuckled. “This is my band, Max and Douglas. Guys, this is Holland. She’s from my old high school.”
So, they went way back. Back when he was an entirely different person. Int
eresting. I wasn’t sure how that made me feel. I did know I wanted her to know more than a couple of random names tossed toward two guys, so I walked over to her with my hand outstretched. “Hi, I’m Max.” I watched her face to see if she remembered me, but she offered no hint of recognition. I tried not to feel disappointment, but there I was with many hours’ worth of her image almost palpable behind my eyes, haunted daily, like a photorealistic painting.
Thick chocolate hair down to her waist, sunburst hazel eyes, earth-toned clothes and boots—I wanted to memorize it all. She looked even more beautiful than she did the other day, if that was even possible. Her name suited her too. Holland.
Adam stood and clapped his hands once. “Let’s get started. Holland, bring the beer you’ve been milking for far too long and have a seat in our studio.”
Douglas piped up, “You mean ‘nursing,’ not ‘milking.’”
“Oh no.” Adam smiled. “I mean milking. Like a maiden’s first time with a cow’s tit.”
“Udder–”
“Dougie, stop trying to correct me. I assure you I mean every word I say.”
I glanced to see Holland’s slightly mortified face, but she followed us to the studio, where she stopped squarely in front of Adam, waited until his eyes met hers, and chugged the beer. All of us were stunned into silent admiration of this girl, and I for one wanted to know her better. Not because she put back a beer like a pro, but because she wasn’t going to let Adam fly with making fun of her. He tipped his invisible hat to her, an approving smile on his face, and took his place at the drums.