Shark Out of Water (Grab Your Pole, #3)

by Jenn Cooksey

  You see?! I knew he had something treacherous in mind! Not that I had any kind of Plan B after going ape on his ass and failing miserably at it, but still, I knew it.

  “You ready to do this?” I asked him.

  “No,” he answered like a spoiled baby, even if it was honestly.

  “Are you at least gonna play fair?”

  “We’ll see, but I wouldn’t hold your breath again if I were you.”

  Aw goddamnit…

  Stalking something ~ Tristan

  “Hey, what’re you doin’ out here?”

  Breathing the same air as Camie.

  “Nothin’…just gettin’ some air,” I told Brandon when he showed up Friday night and caught me across the street from MaryAnn’s, leaning against my car and staring at the house and the party that was going on inside.

  “Are you comin’ or goin’?” Good question.

  “Neither.”

  “Huh. So level with me, how much does it bug the fuckin’ shit outta you now that Camie’s a cheerleader?” He asked and leaned against my car and stared at the house with me.

  “You have no idea.” And she’s not just “a” cheerleader…she’s one of “my” cheerleaders. Aside from football which all the girls cheer, every Varsity sport has a cheerleader assigned to it who’s responsible for making spirit posters and going to the all the games to show support and other shit like that. Candace was my swim team’s cheerleader so now…I have Camie. And it was within my power to prevent…

  But, I didn’t. I also did not, however, cast either of my votes for her. I just couldn’t. Shit, I couldn’t even bring myself to actually watch the tryouts. I have no fuckin’ clue how any of the chicks did. And there were only three of them! I simply rocked back in my chair and stared vacantly at the A/C vent on the wall above their heads and had myself a mental concert the likes of which has never before been heard.

  Limp Bizkit and Eric Clapton were there, Fuel, Zac Brown Band, Journey…the original with Steve Perry singing…Heart, Lynyrd Skynyrd…I really should thank the three deceased members for making the trip, so, thanks guys, you rock…Tim McGraw and Faith Hill made an appearance, and I’m not entirely sure why they showed up, but Abba put in a solid performance of “Dancing Queen.” Oh, and I think I might’ve found a suitable ringtone for Camie when Shinedown hit the stage and rocked the house with “If You Only Knew.” I’m not sure though…Theory of a Deadman’s “Bad Girlfriend” and George Jones with Pattly Loveless’s “You Don’t Seem To Miss Me” are still contenders.

  It wasn’t until I had to actually vote that I started to feel like shit. And I can’t believe I actually did it, but I did and I split my two votes up between the other two girls so they cancelled each other out. The only problem—well, not counting not supporting the girl I love, was that one of my votes went to her archenemy, Teresa. Jesus, I’m such a tool. But in my defense, I didn’t even realize that vapid bitch was one of the chicks trying out until after I voted! Yeah yeah, I know, weak defense…I’m still a tool. And you know, somehow someway, I think that might come back to bite me in the ass one day.

  “Yeah, I kinda do…except I’m still with my insomnia inducing ball and chain.”

  “Humph. Yeah, and there’s my point. How’s that goin’?” I guess I’m not the only guy I know who has a hard time sleeping at night because of a girl. Huh. Good to know.

  “Eh, you know…you were there,” he answered with a slight edge to his voice that I heard clear as crystal, regardless of my absorption with pretending like I have x-ray vision that allows me to see my baby inside those four stone walls.

  I didn’t turn my head but I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes and saw that he’d just put his phone in his pocket and was glaring at the house. “No, I really wasn’t, man…three dates. Very preliminary dates at that…nothin’ more.”

  “Oh fuck, no…I know that…I just meant you know what she’s like. That was the fourth fuckin’ text of the night asking me where I am. Seriously, dude, it’s gotten so bad that I changed her fuckin’ ringtone when I was at the gas station tonight to Hinder’s ‘Get Stoned.’ You know, don’t get me wrong here, I like that she wants to see me and everything, but Jesus Christ she’s insecure. I mean, how’d you put up with it?”

  “I didn’t…thus only three dates.”

  Melissa and I just did not work. Right from jump she expected one hundred and ten percent of my attention and I flat out couldn’t give it to her. Did I like her? Yeah. Did I find her attractive? Of course. I mean she’s undeniably gorgeous. Did I imagine what she’d be like in bed? You bet your ass I did. Did I wanna spend every single fucking moment of my life with her and be held accountable to her for every goddamned thing I did if I didn’t? Not a solitary fucking chance in hell. So, in my opinion, Brandon hit the nail squarely on the head with his newly applied ringtone, and I’m sure if Melissa and I had gone out longer, I would’ve been hearing Hinder constantly too.

  I’m just glad I picked up on it as early as I did. I even put her through a little test to see if my initial appraisal of her personality was right. She failed it miserably and proved I was spot on. It probably wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but I was kind of in a shitty mood that night and Mia was there and had already offered anyway, so I figured why not kill two birds with one stone. I let Melissa see me with Mia and then I let Mia cheer me up. We had sex a couple times and then she took me out for ice cream…I had chocolate peanut butter. It was pretty good. Anyway, I asked Melissa out the next weekend and when she got all possessive like she had something to prove and I was a trophy of some kind, the fact that we would never work became even more glaring. Because in all seriousness, I pictured it like I had with every single other girl I’d ever gone out with or been interested in and discovered I couldn’t have cared less if she’d even banged some other guy right in front of me…the chemistry just wasn’t there.

  “Oh, yeah, but I meant Camie…how’d you put up with Camie’s bullshit?”

  “What bullshit?” Honestly, his question caught me off guard. I don’t really think I put up with a whole hell of a lot with her. I think she did more putting up with bullshit than I did.

  “Well, it’s obvious to me you still have a pretty serious thing for her so don’t take this the wrong way, but she’s kinda whiny and needy. Because believe me, I’ve been with Melissa longer than I’ve been with any other chick now and I’m tellin’ ya, I know from needy and insecure,” I was shaking my head as I thought back over the last couple of months and I gotta say, I was comin’ up with a big bunch of nothin’ that really bugged me about Camie’s personality. I mean there was her massive fear of touching my rod in any way and her lack of initiating anything physical that got to me after a while, and there were a couple specific incidents that really fucking pissed me off, but once we talked ‘em out and I understood where she was coming from, we were cool. “You don’t see it, do you?”

  “Uh-uh, I guess not.” I guess since she was up front with me in the very beginning about her inexperience I knew I was gonna be dealing with a little insecurity, which was completely understandable and fine, but really, I never felt like she was demanding of me or my time. If anything, I was the one who soldered myself to her like a fucking piece of sheet metal and when we were together, we were both genuinely just happy to spend time with each other.

  “But you broke up with her…”

  I like Brandon, I do. He’s a lot like me in certain ways, and plus, I trust him. He comes off as being insensitive and kind of a prick, and he sort of is in some ways I guess, but he’s also sharp. I picked up on that when we were at the desert and he asked me why I wouldn’t try persuading Camie to pitch something I could hit out of the ball park. She took it as him being an asshole who doesn’t see anything wrong with manipulating girls to get them in the sack, but that’s not what he meant. He was evaluating me and my character. So knowing that was what he was doing, I gave him honesty and after reading between the lines, he identified with and appr
oved of what my answer told him about me. And I know he wasn’t prying tonight either. He was just trying to be a friend and wrap his head around all this shit at the same time, because I think, although I’m failing to see them, he’s finding some similarities in our relationships with our respective cheerleaders.

  Fuck.

  My girlfriend is a cheerleader. I feel like crying again…

  “Brandon man, I trust you and I think you know how to keep your mouth shut when it matters so, I’ll let you in on a very little known secret…I didn’t actually break up with her…sooo, technically, she’s still my girlfriend,” I admitted and glanced at him out of the corner of my eyes again.

  He took a moment and then nodded his head in acceptance. “Huh. So why are you standing out here instead of being inside with her?”

  He handled that pretty well; so let’s see…how can I put this?

  “You ever love something so much that it caused you physical pain when it’s gone?”

  “Yeah, actually, I have,” he answered automatically and subconsciously rubbed at the tattoo on his neck.

  Hm… “Melissa?” Personally I don’t see it, but hey, to each his own…

  He laughed and then floored me. “Nah, dude…my mom. My dad didn’t treat her right and she felt trapped. Plus, she really didn’t like bein’ a mom, but, she was good at it, you know? At least I remember her being good at it, and most of the pictures I have agree. But then one day she decided she was done pretending to be someone she wasn’t and wanted a life that she chose for herself so, she flew the coop, so to speak. She left my brothers and me each a note telling us it wasn’t our fault and that she did love us but she never wanted to be a mother and couldn’t do it anymore. She told us that no one else is responsible for our happiness but us and to go after our dreams and follow our hearts no matter what…so, I try to do that. But I know that’s not what you were gettin’ at so you wanna try again?”

  Well fuck.

  I didn’t even know what to say to that…seriously, fuckin’ wow…so I just rephrased what was supposed to be a rhetorical question like he said.

  “Alright, how’s this? You ever love something so much it causes you physical pain to be close to it, but you’re okay with that because the pain of bein’ away from it feels like you’re literally fucking suffocating because Satan’s sitting on your chest and using a goddamned brimstone branding iron to mark you as his and then on top of that, been eaten alive by a deserved guilt so intense that it burns hotter than the fucking blue flames of Hell for hurting that something, only that something really has no idea about any of it so you let that something believe the less hurtful lie and then you suffer in silence while you’re trying to decide if you and that something should maybe give it another go?”

  He chuckled a little at my quick, albeit severely anti-prosaic acquiescence of his offer to try again and said, “Nope, can’t say that I have.”

  “Well, it’s like that except worse and I wouldn’t wish the experience on my worst enemy, but in a nutshell, that’s pretty much why I’m stalking my girlfriend.”

  Brandon was nodding again and then he reached into his pocket to clear the text he just got and said, “Okay, well, as much as I’d rather not, I gotta get my ass in there before Sexy hires Jillian to spy on me…she thinks I’m screwin’ around on her.”

  “Are you?”

  “Nope, just followin’ my heart and tryin’ to go after my dreams. Why, would you try to kick my ass if I were?” He asked with an eagerness I’m all too familiar with that made me laugh.

  “Nah, I was just curious…but hey, how bad did you wanna get in the ring with Jeff and me last weekend?” I’d bet my Camie cuddle pillow it was really fuckin’ bad.

  “Aw dude…my pipe was like fuckin’ iron ferrite. Hey! Is that joystick quarterback in there?” He asked with a jerk of his head, indicating the house.

  I scanned the street looking for Keith’s Acura and when I found it, I nodded and said, “Yep. But you’d be on your own in there…I like you more but he’s still a buddy.”

  “Yeah I know, I can take him on my own…it’d just be more fun with someone who knows how to embrace the pain,” he told me with a laugh.

  I chuckled and reminded him that that, embracing the pain, is exactly what standing out here is all about. “I’m not goin’ in…blue flames of Hell, remember?”

  “Oh yeah, stalking your girlfriend…well, good luck with that,” he said and started across the street. Then he turned back and with what sounded distinctly like true concern and compassion, he said, “I mean it, dude…good luck. And just so you know, if I wasn’t Swiss with this whole thing, I’d have your back so if you want my advice…shit or get off the pot, you know what I mean?”

  I nodded my understanding and watched one the most likeably unpredictable people I’ve ever had the good fortune to call friend go in the house as a means of placating his insecure, cheerleading girlfriend’s feelings even when he really didn’t want to and when it dawned on me why he was doing that, I realized that maybe Brandon was right about some of the similarities in our relationships, and then I thought about his parting wisdom…

  Shit or get off the pot indeed.

  Don’t bite the hand that feeds you ~ Brandon

  She’s worth it, she’s worth it, she’s worth it…

  That’s what I was repeating to myself when I finally crossed the threshold of MaryAnn’s place and walked into a house filled with people I don’t know while feeling like a tiger in the circus. You know what I mean…they’re given commands and when they perform they’re rewarded, but if they don’t, they’re whipped and beaten. But the thing is, after living in captivity for so long, they come to enjoy the company of their trainer and appreciate all the perks of not having to fend for themselves out in the wild, so, the smart tiger simply puts up with all the bullshit and instead of doing it, he just fantasizes about what it would be like to tear the throat out of his meal ticket so he can be free.

  As I went in search of Melissa or a familiar face, I tried to remind myself of what happens to those tigers that forget themselves and go for the jugular. They get their fuckin’ freedom alright, but it’s only freedom in death because they’re immediately put down.

  I found MaryAnn standing in a group of three other cheerleaders, all of whom looked at me with either interest, suspicion, or just plain ol’ undisguised invitation but none of them had been pestering me to know my whereabouts for the last two hours so I ignored them. “Hey, MaryAnn, you seen Melissa?”

  “Uhh, I think she’s outside…hey, where’ve you been? She’s been kinda worried about you, you know?” She asked and I about fuckin’ growled at her in response but realized she wasn’t accusing me of anything or really even asking for a literal answer. She was just letting me know Melissa hasn’t kept her stupid fuckin’ theories about what I do when I’m not with her to herself tonight, which means as soon as I find her, I get to either perform like a good tiger, face the goddamned whip, or bite the hand that feeds me and get fuckin’ euthanised in return.

  That’s just fuckin’ beautiful.

  “Yeah, I know…hey, isn’t Derek supposed to be here?” I asked as I remembered him saying earlier today how he wanted to go to Heather’s going away party but he wanted to support his cousin and see his girlfriend too, so he was gonna just suck it up like a smart tiger would.

  “Oh, yeah…well, he was but I knew he really wanted to go to that going away thing so when he got here, I told him to just go to that and have fun. He said he might come back later though...” Like I said, the smart tiger performs and gets rewarded. But then again, Derek’s handler is still a virgin so the rewards are gonna be substantially different, plus, she isn’t insecure like mine is so he has considerably more pacing room in his cage than I do.

  I prowled my way outside and did my damnedest to set my mind to just jumping through this goddamned flaming hoop because I’m really not in the fuckin’ mood to be beaten. And, obviously, after not seeing he
r all week and thinking about her for most of the day, I wouldn’t mind a little reward, you know? I was sorta hanging back in the shadows of the house looking for Melissa when I heard crying and some familiar voices coming through an open window of a bedroom behind me so, of course, I moved closer so I could hear them better and although I probably missed a bunch, what I did overhear just made me feel even more goddamned grateful that I still live in captivity, because as much as the thought of freedom appeals to me at the moment, the king of the jungle just gave me a glimpse of what it’s like to be put down and it’s anything but quick and painless, but now I also have an idea of what the handler goes through and quite honestly, I don’t know which is fuckin’ worse.

  Jillian: “…get it, believe me, I do. You just have to remember that not everyone’s world revolves around you and there’re repercussions to the things we do and say, which means that sometimes we need to sacrifice a little and put other people ahead of ourselves even if it’s difficult and it hurts.”

  Camie: “I know and I’m trying. It’s just so hard right now and I really don’t mean to be so bitchy…he’s just got me all screwed up, you know?”

  Jillian: “And I get that too.”

  Camie: “So you still love me?”

  Jillian: “Camie, just because I think you’re being stupid doesn’t mean you’re not my sister anymore…we’re not always gonna see eye-to-eye on everything, but the day will never come that I stop loving you.”

  Camie: “Okay, I just know I haven’t been all that easy to love lately.”

  Jillian: “You know, I don’t think loving a person is ever all that easy. I just don’t think human beings are made that way. We’re complicated and we’re always making mistakes and unfortunately, sometimes those mistakes end up hurting the people we love the most…so I think loving another of our species and forgiving them when they do something to really screw up is probably gonna be a difficult thing to do more often than not.”