“Oh dear,” she chuckled. “I’m sure when you finally meet Randolph you won’t feel threatened in the least.”
I chuckled. With a name like Randolph, I thought to myself before wrapping things up with mom, how could I be?
Fourteen
Craig
“How’s the leg?”
I limped across Dad’s office, cluttered and dusty as always. It was a quiet, studious office, matching Dad’s quite, studious personality. He was dressed, as always, in tan-colored corduroy slacks, a wrinkled purple dress shirt and black suspenders. He had a lively head of wavy gray hair and a fleshy face made pale from his sedentary lifestyle, most of it lived in this very office or—barring that—his beloved classroom.
“A little better every day,” I said, sinking down into the chair across from his crowded desk. “That why you summoned me?”
He smiled softly. “Is that what you call it when I ask you to come by my office?”
I shrugged. “It is when you only do it once a year.”
He chuckled. “Can I help it if you’re busy all football season?” he asked.
“I suppose not,” I said, not in the mood to fight. My father and I had a complicated relationship. He was proud of me—so he said—but frustrated that I’d devoted so much of my life to sports. “Academics,” he was fond of saying, “lead to a bright future. Athletics leads to a bright past.” As a result, we saw little of each other throughout the school year, even though he was a professor at the very college I played ball for. “You’d probably see a lot more of me if you know, you’d come to a game or two.”
His cheeks colored. “You know I have departmental meetings every Friday night,” he blustered, an old—and lame—argument. “We’re just at a personal and professional impasse, that’s all.”
“In English, please?” I teased. He hated when I played dumb, which is one of the reasons I did.
“You know very well what I meant, Craig,” he scolded me, literally wagging a finger. “We’re both growing toward our goals and eventually, will have more time to see each other.”
“How about right now?” I asked, squirming in the uncomfortable wooden seat. “Now that our season’s over, I’ve got all the time in the world.”
“What will you be doing with yourself?” he asked, sitting back in his creaky wooden desk chair and sliding laced fingers beneath his chin. “Usually your season lasts quite a bit longer, doesn’t it?”
“We usually go to Districts,” I reminded him, avoiding his eyes as I focused on my shoes. “There’s… a lot… involved in that.”
“And now?” His voice was patient, yet prodding, as I looked up from my shoes to find him peering back at me curiously.
“I suppose I’ll get a lot more reading done, right?”
He chuckled, dryly—it was an inside joke. All my life dad had wanted me to read more, giving me books—stacks and stacks of them over the years—for every birthday, Christmas and gift-giving holiday in between.
I’d tried numerous times to get into the books he gave—big, weighty tomes that now served as doorstops and stabilizers for wobbly tables—but after a few pages all I ever wondered, often out loud, was, “Does he even know me at all?”
“I’ve given up on that,” he said dismissively, waving dramatic fingers. “You’re either too busy chasing opponents—or girls—to ever find time to read.”
“Not anymore,” I said, wondering if he’d take the bait.
Good old dad, he did. Arching one salt and pepper eyebrow, he pressed on. “Well, football season’s over, so you won’t be chasing opponents, but son, giving up on chasing girls? Whatever does that mean?”
I chuckled at his dramatics. “Nothing,” I hemmed, not having told a soul about Avery and her magnetic hold on me. “It’s just that, well… I think I finally found someone worth seeing twice.”
Dad’s eyes widened. He seemed genuinely surprised. “Do tell,” he said, piercing me with his pale blue eyes.
“Not much to tell,” I said. “She picked me up on the way home from the game the other night and we’ve seen each other a few times.”
He nodded somberly. “A few times, huh?” he asked knowingly. “That must be some kind of a record for you, huh, Craig?”
“Something like that,” I said, somewhat embarrassed I’d gushed about Avery so obviously.
“And are there a few more times in your future?” Dad asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ve never gotten this far with one girl before.”
“Jesus, kid,” Dad said, wearily, as if exhausted by my macho jock antics over the years. “How are you a junior in college and have never had anything more than a one-night stand?”
“I don’t know,” I chuckled. “How come you’re a fifty-year-old college professor and never got married?”
“Touché,” he chuckled, a bit wearily. “I suppose those of us who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones…”
“Weren’t you seeing someone new?” I remembered Dad talking about a new acquaintance, as he called his lady friends over the years, during a recent phone call.
“I was and am,” he said almost defensively. “In fact, that’s why I called you here today.”
“You mean… summoned… right?” I teased.
“Very funny, Craig. I thought, I thought…” He paused, as if searching for the right words.
“You thought what?” I asked.
“I thought I might be dining with my… lady friend… this Thanksgiving,” he said. “But apparently, she has other plans. So, I was hoping that, well, you and I could hang out?”
“Hang out?” I teased. “Do you even know how to do that?”
“Not really,” he chuckled dryly. “I was hoping you could help?”
“Sure,” I sighed, figuring Avery already had plans. “Your place or mine?”
“How about neither,” he suggested. “My place is a mess and yours, well, I’ve never been a fan of student athlete housing.”
“How would you know?” I chuckled. “You haven’t been over since freshman year.”
“Like I said,” he sighed dismissively, reaching into a pile of leaning papers to snatch one and examine it. “Not a fan.”
I nodded, thinking how different our two bachelor pads were. Mine, cold and sterile and on high while Dad didn’t live far from campus in an old Victorian two story, rooms cozy and quaint with antiques and of course, a bookshelf in every room.
“So, dinner out then?” I prodded.
“I think that sounds nice, don’t you?” he asked.
“What about this new lady you’ve been dating,” I mused as his eyes drifted more and more frequently back to the paper on his desk. I could tell from the printed lines and hasty scribbles it was a student assignment. “Don’t you want to invite her?”
“Maybe for Christmas,” he said, wrinkles crinkling around his eyes as he forced a dutiful smile. “It’s a little early yet to introduce you two, don’t you think?”
I shrugged. “Sure, it’s fine with me, but… don’t you want to spend the holiday with her?”
He peered back at me, curiously, a little evasively. “Who says I won’t be?” he teased, readjusting his bifocals as I blushed. My dad had been a widow for nearly a decade, ever since Mom passed away while I was still in junior high school. He’d dated occasionally, but kept mostly to himself. He’d been talking about the new woman in his life—that’s literally how he referred to her—more and more often lately, but I’d yet to meet her. I supposed he was right. Christmas would be here soon enough and I could meet her then.
That is, I thought, if they were still together. I wasn’t the only one dad treated like a student. His past relationships had all failed because he was, let’s face it, socially stunted. Books had made him smart, but not necessarily in life. Even now, after complaining about not seeing me for ages, he couldn’t put his work second to his own son.
I smiled wryly, though he couldn’t see me. Dad was a brillia
nt man, well read and well-educated, but as complex as he could be, he was brilliantly simple. Like now. He’d gotten what he’d summoned me to his office for—my acceptance to his invitation for Thanksgiving dinner—and satisfied, had dismissed me. He’d never admit it of course, but watching him sit at his desk in silence, scrutinizing some student’s term paper, made it clear our time together had ended, no matter how long I stuck around.
“Well,” I said after a few quiet moments, standing up from the chair. “I guess I better get going.”
“What?” he asked, as if we’d been in mid-conversation. “Why not stay awhile? I never get to see you anymore.”
“You gonna keep grading that paper?” I teased, already halfway out of my seat and slowly rising.
“I wasn’t grading it, per se,” he said, anxiously looking down at it as if it had a dwindling fuse that he had to blow out before it exploded all over his desk. “But I do need to wade through this stack if I’m going to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.”
I kept rising, reaching for the cane I hardly needed anymore and limping toward the door. “You picking me up?” I asked, lingering in the doorway.
“Hmmm?” he asked, hardly bothering to glance up from his paper.
I chuckled. “Never mind, Dad,” I said, peering at him from the open doorway. “I’ll drop by your place around five? That good?”
“Five is fine,” he mumbled, absorbed in his paper. “See you then, son.”
His soft voice followed me out into the quiet hallway, all but deserted with the holiday so close. Campus was no different, all but barren and complete with crisp, autumn leaves rasping across the empty pavement as I crossed the quiet quad.
I felt cautiously optimistic as I limped through the deserted campus, sunset an hour or two away, the sky a crisp, clear blue as my cane crinkled the fallen leaves. Dad and I rarely had Thanksgiving dinner together, let alone just the two of us. Typically, he went to the annual collegiate holiday dinner, a pity party for single professors held at the college president’s mansion not far from Frat Row. Sometimes he brought a date but mostly he just stood around in some rumpled tan jacket looking awkward until after dinner when he slipped back home to read and sip brandy in his favorite wing chair by the corner window.
I sighed, thinking how a night out with his son might be just what the doctor ordered. Until then, I had a whole day to kill—and only one person I wanted to kill it with.
She answered on the first knock, nearly an hour—and several quick errands—later. “Craig?” she chuckled, shyly, holding the door to her apartment open as I struggled with arms full of treats. “What is happening right now?”
“I’m being hopefully romantic,” I said. “Don’t judge.”
“I’m not,” she laughed, unhanding me of several gift bags dangling from each finger. “I’m just questioning your sanity. And your bank account. This must have cost a fortune.”
“Not really,” I lied, having maxed out my credit card to treat Avery to a little pre-Thanksgiving indulgences. “Besides, I wasn’t sure what you were up to tomorrow and wanted to make sure I saw you before Thanksgiving.”
“How sweet,” she said as I followed her inside, dumping bags and sacks on the kitchen counter. “What is all this?”
“See for yourself,” I said, sliding into the nearest barstool as Avery gently unwrapped the box of chocolates I’d gotten her at the bodega around the corner. Next, she unwrapped the Crisp Autumn Night jar candle from the gift shop next door to that, and then the bottle of red wine from the liquor store, and finally, the “Gobble Till You Wobble” boxer shorts from the drugstore downstairs.
“I… I’m overwhelmed,” she said, sitting across from me at the table.
“Why?”
“I thought,” she began, nervously fiddling with the medium size boxer shorts. “Since I hadn’t heard from you in a day or two, I thought maybe you’d left campus for the holiday.”
I shrugged. “Same here,” I said.
She chuckled. “What would you have done with all this loot if I’d been out of town?”
“Given it to your roommate, of course,” I teased, hinting around even as I looked around. Looked around the apartment, that is. “Is she… here?”
Avery gave me a sly grin. “Gone back to Texas for the holiday weekend,” she said. “Why?”
“Because this wine won’t drink itself,” I chuckled. Relieved—and anxious—I leapt from the stool to find a bottle opener in the kitchen. Limping without my cane, I hardly felt the vague tingle that still troubled my calf and ankle. Her kitchen was spotless, I noticed as she giggled politely at my clumsy segue into getting tipsy, like maybe she’d been cleaning ever since her roommate left.
“How’d you know I’d be in the mood for a good red?” she asked, even though the wine was hardly good—merely passable, and just within my $6 budget after all the other extravagances.
“I don’t know,” I said, sliding her glass across the counter toward her as I leaned on the opposite side. “I didn’t even know you liked red.”
“Well, I do,” she sighed, missing the hint as she sipped the vintage and managed not to wince.
“I… I feel like I hardly know anything about you,” I said, sounding needy and clingy all at once. “Red wine? White wine? Beer? Scotch?”
She nodded, peering up at me from where she sat cozily in the barstool. She wasn’t dressed for company—black yoga pants and a soft grey zip-up hoodie over a pink sports bra—and yet managed to look simply radiant with her dark hair tied back in a ponytail and her bright brown eyes peering back into mine. “I feel like I know even less about you,” she said.
“You mean like my phone number?” I teased. “I mean, ever since the other night, I haven’t heard a peep…”
She snorted indignantly. “Right back at you, Craig!”
We chuckled, lazily sipping our wine in the too clean apartment. “I guess I’m not very good at all… this,” I said, waving my stemless wine glass in no particular direction.
“This?” she asked knowingly.
“This,” I confirmed, dancing in circles around saying the words as I glanced back at her. “What we’re doing.”
“What are we doing, Craig?”
“I have no idea,” I sighed, topping off both our glasses. “But I know one thing—whatever it is, I like it.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment before smiling. “Me too,” she said finally. “Although I guess I’d feel better if I knew what to call…” Now it was Avery’s turn to wave her wineglass around the room indistinctly. “This,” she finally added.
I nodded, wondering the same. Were we dating? Just friends with benefits? Fuck buddies? Drinking buddies? What were we, I wondered, and why the living hell did I care so much? “Maybe,” I said, bringing the bottle of wine around the bar with me and sitting back across from me. “Maybe we can talk more about what all this is after the holiday,” I suggested.
She snorted, sliding one foot out to gently turn my barstool left and right in a teasing manner. “Which holiday? Christmas? New Year’s? Easter?”
“All of the above,” I murmured, liking the saucy look in her eye almost as much as the way she pursed her lips. “But I was talking specifically about tomorrow…”
“You make it seem so close,” she said, her body language getting more expressive as she sipped her wine and leaned a little closer. Or was that just me? “Whatever shall we do until then?”
“I have some ideas,” I murmured, polishing off the last of my wine and setting the glass down before reaching out toward her jacket. “But none of them involve any clothes.”
“Funny,” she purred, body tingling as I unzipped her yoga hoodie all the way to reveal full breasts straining against her bra, her nipples poking out like headlights as she stretched like a cat. “None of mine do, either.”
My fingers ached to stroke and tease them as she shrugged off her jacket, her bare midriff trembling as I slid a single finger against, then arou
nd, then against once more, her right nipple. I could feel her heat, urgent and uncomplicated, through the fabric of her bra and eager to get closer to it, used my other hand to roll it up and pull it off.
Bare-chested and panting, still sitting on the edge of the barstool, I gazed upon the beauty of her naked breasts as they stiffened beneath my fingers. I wanted her squirming, begging for it later, but much, much later. For now, I could have stared at her perfect breasts all night.
It took very little to drag her yoga pants down and even less to slide her pink cotton panties over to one side. Her pussy was sweet, wet and pushing on my fingertip as I circled it slowly—so slowly she wiggled and thrusted her hips impatiently against it. Her pubic hair was dark and now wet from her desire, and her pussy lips splayed gently apart each time my finger made another pass across them.
Every so often I’d slide my finger inside her up to the first knuckle and no more, then slide it slickly out again to use her own juices to wet her bud, hard and taut against my fingertip. Slowly, I let her crescendo build, enjoying the long, slow rhythm as the sexy sounds she moaned out made my dick hard inside my cargo pants.
Feeling her passion mounting higher and higher, I teasingly slid my finger away, hearing her moan with the bittersweet pain and ecstasy of denial. She squirmed and sexily bit her lip, but said nothing to quicken my pace. Instead, I slowed down, reveling in the control I had over her.
“Damn,” I murmured, my voice cracking. “I could do this all night.”
“Craig…” she moaned, her voice sexy and deep. “So could I…”
“So why don’t we then?” I asked, making her gasp as I gently pressed the pad of my finger flush against her swollen clitoris.
She murmured and moaned, our eyes meeting at last. “Just remember, Craig, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” she purred.
“I might have better luck remembering it,” I said, easing my finger off, then putting pressure back on her clit, “if I knew what the hell it meant. Damn! Your clit is amazing. You like that?” I pressed along the side, then ran my finger in a circle around it, slowly, teasing her.
Time Out: A Holiday Sports Romance Page 8