by CoraLee June
I took a deep breath and turned my attention back to Chantell. I sat next to her on the bed and started rubbing her back in what I hoped was a comforting gesture. I didn’t have any actual siblings, but I had done this a thousand times, comforting my drunk sorority sisters back in California. “Chantell, sweetheart,” I cooed. “Everything is going to be ok. I’m going to help you. Your parents don’t need to know about tonight, ok? Do you have a friend you can go stay with?”
“Uh-huh,” she sniffled.
“Ok, good, that’s a good start.” I spoke gingerly. “Text your friend and let them know you’re coming. What’s her name?” I asked.
“Jessa,” she told me. After she texted Jessa, I took her phone and scrolled through until I found her messages with her mom. I didn’t trust Chantell to text her mom convincingly while she was so upset. I quickly tapped out something I thought was believable and hit send. Chantell seemed to be calming down.
“I’m going to get you an Uber. Make sure Jessa is waiting for you so that she can sneak you to her bedroom without her parents seeing. You need to drink tons of water. Dale, go get her some water.” Dale scoffed at me, but he left the room. I prayed to the flying spaghetti monster that he actually remembered to go to the kitchen, get the water, and bring it back.
I got the notification that Chantell’s driver was here. I helped her to her feet and started walking her down to the front. Oakley moved like he was going to try to help. “You’ve done enough,” I snapped at him. “Wait here for me to come back. Don’t move, we’re not done.”
We ran into Dale on the staircase. I grabbed the bottle of water he was holding and handed it to Chantell as I clumsily guided her back through the crowded party, past the formerly puking sorority girls who were now the passed out sorority girls, and into the car. It looked like she had sobered up quite a bit, and she thanked me profusely for helping her. I wrestled with my inner self trying to decide if I should try to manipulate a drunk high school junior into keeping quiet. But ultimately, I figured that she had more to lose by talking about her drunken night at a frat house than we did if it came out. So I shut the door and wished her good luck. Now to deal with Oakley.
I stormed upstairs and found him sitting on the bed where Chantell was just crying. “So what have we learned from this?” I sang in a sickly sweet tone while sitting next to him.
“Check the ID of every girl you want to bone?” he asked.
“Or you could just not fuck random strangers at parties. This could have been bad, Oakley. Forget your career, a pretty boy like you would not do well in jail.”
He scrubbed his hands down his face with a sigh. “Fuck,” he cursed. “Thank you. That could have really been bad.”
Fuck, indeed.
“No shit, Sherlock. I know we’re in this awkward stage of hating each other and not really wanting to work together, but I think tonight taught us a valuable lesson.” He turned to look at me, his expression full of annoyance. Tough shit, asshole. I didn’t want to be here any more than he did.
“And what is that?”
“You’re a fucking hot mess. And you need me,” I said matter-of-factly.
He rolled his eyes. Hard. “Fine. You did come in handy tonight. And it’s actually kind of nice that you organized my calendar. Even though the alarms piss me the fuck off, I haven’t been late to class in a while. Though the meditation and breathing exercises are a bit much,” he replied begrudgingly.
“Practicing mindfulness is good for your mental health,” I preached.
“Is that what you do? Because I do not want to sip from whatever Kool-Aid put that stick up your ass,” Oakley growled.
I could have punched him in the jaw. “Careful,” I began. “That stick just saved you from going to jail,” I reminded him, and I hoped he didn’t fucking forget it.
He stood up and stretched his hands over his head and rolled his neck in a stretch that had me salivating. “How about we go grab something to eat? We can start over or something, okay?”
My stomach growled at the mention of food. I didn’t really want the temptation of a restaurant, but the opportunity to put this feud behind us was too good to resist. “Okay, I’m down,” I replied with a fake smile.
Oakley looked me up and down, wiping his hands on his pants, as if he were trying to figure me out. “Okay. Let’s go, Solver.”
The nickname made me pause. “After you, Problem.”
7
Watching Oakley eat was disgusting but oddly fascinating. Did he even chew? I guess when you worked out and practiced a sport like he did, you didn’t really need to watch your calorie intake. I must have been staring, because he paused long enough to notice that I hadn’t even touched my grilled chicken sandwich in the time he had devoured his fries and half his burger. “You gonna eat?” he grunted in my direction.
“Yes. But I like to take the time to enjoy my food. My body is a temple,” I replied as I picked a piece of chicken free from the bun. That seemed to satisfy him, and he went back to his burger, although he seemed a little more mindful that I was watching him.
“How did you know what to do with that girl? Have a lot of practice getting drunk when you were in high school?” he asked. He looked at me and grinned like the thought of me having a scandalous past was hilarious. He had these really fucking sexy dimples when he smiled like that. Dimples that made me think of what it would be like to kiss him. What it would be like to kiss down his chest and follow the ripples down into his abs with my tongue.
“Well?” he asked, snapping me out of it.
“Umm…” I stalled. “I’m sure I had the same amount of fun as everybody else did,” I replied, not really wanting to get into the details in a diner in the middle of the night. I took a bite of my sandwich so that my mouth was full.
Oakley snorted with laughter. “Yeah, I bet you were the life of the party,” he teased. “Did you follow everybody around, telling them shit like ‘the things you put on the internet last forever’ and ‘make good choices’? Is that how you got interested in being a publicist?”
His assumption of me was exactly why I moved to Texas and started over. I didn’t want to be the party girl anymore. He might have been my first official job as a publicist, but my first true image overhaul was myself.
I debated on letting him continue to think of me that way, but maybe we could connect a little more if he understood that I wasn’t just trying to cramp his style. I was a living, breathing example of what could happen if you took things too far, and I had to live with the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life. I let out an exhale and pulled out my phone to find a video I should have deleted ages ago. I honestly kept it in a secret file on my phone to remind myself how sloppy I used to be.
“This was me,” I replied with a cringe before sliding my phone over to him. He grabbed it and positioned the screen so that we could both see what was happening. I took a deep breath and hit play.
The video started off out of focus and jerky but then stopped on a very, very drunk me wearing only a red lacy bra and jeans, sitting in a bathtub, my muffin top on full display. There were towels lining the inside of the tub and dried vomit in my hair. There was a lot of giggling from my “friend” Legacy who was taking the video. “Giiirrrrrrllllll,” drunk me slurred. “I just wanna dance. NO! I gotta daaance. WOOOOO!” The tiny me on the phone screen then stood up in the tub and started gyrating her hips.
I could hear Legacy calling to some other friends who were at the party. “Guys. Amanda is TRASHED. Get in here!” Soon there were at least three more people crammed in that bathroom.
My new audience was just in time to see me try to twerk and then start violently throwing up. All over myself. Again. I managed to stumble out of the tub and sit on the bathroom floor. I aimed for the toilet but went in a little too hard and slammed my head on the toilet seat. When I was finally done puking, I turned my head to the side on the toilet seat and looked up at one of the guys in the bathroom. “Hey, baby.
Wanna a blowie?” trashed me called out to a chorus of laughter as the video stopped.
I locked my phone screen and couldn’t bring myself to look at Oakley quite yet. He wasn’t saying anything, so to break the tension I said, “I learned later that I bruised my face and broke the toilet seat.” I snuck a quick glance at Oakley to try to see what he was thinking. To my surprise, he wasn’t laughing and he didn’t look disgusted with me either.
“So that’s why,” he mused while scratching his jaw. I watched him think over the very embarrassing video before prodding him to continue.
“Why what?” I asked.
He smiled a bit as he wrapped his large, veiny hand around his drink. “Why you’re so anal.”
My nose scrunched up at that term. “I’m not anal,” I spat.
“No? You send me a daily email of everything I need to do at exactly seven in the morning. Even on the weekends.” I pursed my lips. He wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t mean I was anal. Did he not just see the awful video I’d shown him? “You also coordinate your purse to your outfits. You try really hard to look like you threw your clothes together, but we both know you have designer sneakers on with laces color-coordinated with your yoga pants.”
I didn’t have to look down at my Nike shoes to know that he was absolutely right. “So what’s your point then?”
“My point is, you were such a mess that you went in the extreme opposite direction. You must have really fucked up to have gone to such extremes, and something tells me it wasn’t this video that made you move across the country.”
My mouth dropped open. How did he know that I moved? The sly look on his face made me feel like I was a math problem he wanted to figure out, and I didn’t like it one bit. My father might have paid a lot of money to keep my discretions out of the media, but that didn’t mean they were impossible to find. Anyone at my old school would happily supply the evidence of what I’d done. I needed to deflect.
“I could say the same about you,” I began as he took another bite of his meal. His eyes remained trained on me as I spoke, and I had to pause and lick my lips.
“Oh?” he finally replied, with his mouth full of burger. He lost hot points when he spoke with his mouth full. Maybe I should just keep feeding him every time we were together. He was absolutely disgusting while stuffing his face, and it helped keep me sane and my panties dry.
“People don’t party as hard as you do unless they’re trying to escape something. I mean, yeah, it’s college and we’re all stressed to hell and want to drink the anxiety away, but you take it a step further. Why?”
This question hit close to home, mostly because I felt its truth in my soul. I wasn’t running from anything too traumatizing, I was just overcompensating for my low self-esteem. Drunk Amanda liked to have fun. She didn’t care what anyone thought. She ate her feelings and knew that if she couldn’t be the prettiest girl in the room, then she’d be the loudest, drunkest, sloppiest, and funniest.
He set down his burger and eyed me for another long moment, then wiped his greasy hands on his chest. “I’m not running from anything,” he argued and then nodded at the waitress, asking for our check.
“Are you sure? Coach Howard hinted that the university needed to keep your family happy,” I prodded.
He gritted his teeth. Oh yes, talking about his family was definitely a sore spot. I made a mental note to prioritize research on them. For purely professional reasons, of course. It wasn’t like I was trying to figure him out. “I don’t have fucking Mommy issues, if that’s what you’re insinuating,” he growled.
“I’m not saying you do, I’m just saying—”
He cut me off before I could get to my point. “Just because you showed me your sloppy drunk video doesn’t mean I’m going to open up to you about my family life.” I let out a sigh and he continued. “I appreciate your help tonight. That was a fucking close call, and even though I like to have fun, I definitely don’t want to end up in prison. I’ll start being more aware if you stop trying to psychoanalyze me. I’m just a college kid making the most of his senior year.”
At that last sentence, his face turned into a full-on smolder. I could feel his heated gaze all the way down to my purring vulvarine. Shit. Why couldn’t he keep talking with his mouth full of food?
He dropped some cash on the table and peered at my full plate for another moment. “I’ll start listening more. But you’re gonna have to learn to hang. Part of my brand is being a local celebrity. This town is full of fans that want to see me at parties and bars. It’s seriously cramping my style having you tell me where to go and what to do.”
It made sense. He was like novelty ice cream: Everyone wanted a taste. And being seen in public was part of his role on the team, and as his publicist, it was my job to also fill stadium seats. “Fine. I’ll do better about bridging the gap,” I replied. I’d have to start low-key carding every girl that came up to him.
He tossed me another smile. “And if you ever wanna give someone a blowie…”
I rolled my eyes. Somehow, I knew that was coming.
“Not in a million years, asswipe.”
8
My clock said that it was 5:17 a.m. It was way too early—even for me—but I couldn’t sleep. Most of my night was spent tossing and turning. I spent fifteen minutes debating whether or not I wanted to get up or try going back to sleep. Ultimately, I decided to get in a morning jog. I had a meeting with Dr. Haynes today, and I needed to work out some, uh...tension and clear my mind.
As much as I hated to admit it, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Oakley since we went to dinner the other night. I started to grab shoes with laces that didn’t match my yoga pants just to spite the presumptuous asshole, but right before I left, I dashed back in my room and put on the right ones. Dammit.
While jogging down the crowded streets of Austin, my mind ran wild. I never understood why some people said working out cleared your mind. It just made mine go crazy. I thought about everything: what I was going to wear today; what homework I needed to do; Oakley’s smile; my meeting with Dr. Haynes; Oakley’s abs; my paper due in marketing; Oakley’s di—
“Lady! Watch where you’re going!”
I sidestepped a pedestrian carrying a large box and headed back to my apartment. I made sure to slam the door for a good morning jolt for my still-sleeping roommate, then headed to my bathroom, stripped, and jumped in the shower.
The hot water felt good on my screaming muscles. I may have hit it a little too hard on my run. The calories I’d burned blistered across my mind. I mentally tallied my daily intake. I thought about the lack of sleep I’d gotten and what self-care I could do to feel human again. Maybe I could squeeze in a few chapters of the new self-help book I just bought: Girl, You Fucking Got This.
And then I thought about Oakley. What wasn’t he telling me? I couldn’t understand what was so bad about his family that he didn’t want me to know. I was certain that the information wouldn’t be difficult to find with a little digging, but for some reason, it felt wrong. I wanted to hear it from him. My mind wandered from his family being Scientologists to porn stars until my fingers were so pruny I had to get out. I got dressed, grabbed my bag, and headed out the door. If it was even possible, my mind was more clouded than it was before my run.
I made it to Dr. Haynes’s office a few minutes early. I pulled out my phone, hoping to see a text from Oakley, but saw one from my mom instead. She sent me a picture of a teacup pig wearing a bright yellow raincoat.
Mom: Do you think Dad will let me get one of these?
Me: Where would you even keep it?
Mom: Well in the house, of course.
It was like magic, my mom always seemed to know exactly what I needed. I smiled and made a mental note to call her later to talk her out of the impulsive purchase of a teacup pig. Then, I knocked on Dr. Haynes’s door and waited.
“Come in,” he ordered, and I let out a large sigh, then opened the door and let myself inside. Dr. Hay
nes was wearing black slacks and a button up shirt that clung to his muscles. His hair was gelled back, and he wore thick-rimmed glasses as he thumbed through papers on his desk. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward the chair in front of him.
I sat down and started shuffling through my various binders in my messenger bag. Once I found the folder containing everything I needed to run Oakley’s image control, I pulled it out and started sifting through pages. “The first game is this weekend, but it’s an away game. We are gearing up for the home game next week. I’d really like to get him featured in some local publications in a favorable light. I’ve looked into a few charities, but no one wants to work with him. I had no idea how far his reputation reached.”
“Good morning to you too, Miss Mathews,” he replied with a chuckle. “I think you’re onto something. It needs to be something that doesn’t take too much time away from his studies or practice schedule, but also needs to be public enough that it improves public opinion.”
I nodded. That was mostly the problem. Working around his crazy intense schedule was hard. I was surprised he managed to pass any of his classes leading up to this point. “I’ll research some opportunities and email you a list of options later this afternoon,” I replied. I was confident enough in my skills to steal my client’s phone and take total control of his scheduling and social media, but I still felt like I needed reassurance from Dr. Haynes on Oakley’s first big positive publicity event.
“I’m confident you can handle this, Miss Matthews. But I’m happy to provide some extra guidance,” he told me. “I think you have done an excellent job in a very short amount of time. Especially after such a rocky start.” Oh snap. That was the first time Dr. Haynes had brought up “the incident.” I thought we were just going to let it go. I fought the urge to literally hang my head in shame. “I can tell that you get your business sense from your father. How is he, by the way? I read in the New York Times that Plotify just implemented a new advertising stream that looks promising.”