by Allen, Jacob
Rough Guy
Providence Prep High School Book 3
Jacob Allen
Contents
1. Samantha
2. Nick
3. Samantha
4. Nick
5. Samantha
6. Nick
7. Samantha
8. Nick
9. Samantha
10. Nick
11. Samantha
12. Nick
13. Samantha
14. Nick
15. Samantha
16. Nick
17. Samantha
18. Nick*
19. Samantha
20. Nick
21. Samantha
Epilogue
1
Samantha
I like this whole waking up at 8 a.m. on a Sunday thing.
I rubbed my eyes open, eagerly kicking off the covers on my bed, sitting on the edge, and stretching. I looked at my bookcase, full of great Russian novels my best friend Emily had gifted me, historical non-fiction books, and science books. They were books that, if I so chose, I could have read this morning.
I went to the window, stared at the quiet street, and thought of how no one would be out right now except for the church goers. If I wanted to, I could have gone for a run or just walked along the roads without consequence.
I then went to the bathroom. I wasn’t going to be throwing up because I’d drank too much. I wasn’t going to be spending all day in here with indigestion from crappy food from the night before. I was going to be able to enjoy my day.
I could do all of these things because I chose not to engage in the drama-filled, back-stabbing, enemies-yesterday, friends-today, enemies-again-tomorrow lifestyle that seemed to permeate Providence Prep. My only regret with the decision to escape that lifestyle was that I hadn’t had the courage to do it sooner. Who knew how much trouble I could have saved myself or my two closest friends if I had?
I glanced down at my phone and read the group texts from last night. Unfortunately, it seemed that I couldn’t say the same for Emily and my other closest friend, Jackie.
Peppering the thread that contained the three of us were photos of Emily and Adam, Kevin and Jackie, and even all four of them. Comments like “Wish you were here!” and “OMG what a party” and “We miss you girl!” went as late as two in the morning.
I missed my friends, sure. But I didn’t miss them enough to be the fifth wheel, awkwardly standing by while I watched my two closest friends fall for guys who had tormented them for years, if not months. While I didn’t exactly have a bully right now determined to ruin my life, I knew my reputation. I was the tall, gangly, nerdy girl who spoke too bluntly and didn’t know how to mask her language with sweetness and kindness. The only reason I didn’t have a bully was because I was smart enough to keep myself from having a bully.
“Nice.”
That was all I wrote back in the thread. They wouldn’t see the conversation until probably ten in the morning, anyways. And when they saw it, it wasn’t like they’d have the awareness or mental energy to be upset. They’d probably drag themselves to the sink, grab a glass of water, fight to keep it down, and then go back to sleep. That was the lifestyle they’d chosen to take up, a one of love and emotion over rational sanity.
I got up from the bathroom, grabbed “War and Peace”—I might have been the only person in all of Providence Prep history to read that book for pleasure—and went to the third chapter in Book Eleven.
Imagine my surprise when the next thing I read was not the first sentence in that chapter, but a text message from Emily after my phone buzzed. I reached over to read it more out of surprise than anything else.
“It was nice! Too bad you weren’t there. We’ll sneak you into the next one :-)”
Sweet. But not necessary. You two have love. I have a love of books.
I certainly wasn’t an expert in actual love. Quitting the party lifestyle wasn’t going to help that, but it wasn’t something I was feeling pent up or hurt about. I was awkward with boys; I was too tall for the nerds, too nerdy for the tall ones, and unobtainable for perhaps the three boys in school who were both tall and nerdy.
So maybe Emily and Jackie knew something I didn’t. But the kind of knowledge that I was seeking wasn’t really knowledge of love.
I read through about three chapters in “War and Peace” before I closed the book and headed downstairs. If I stayed upstairs for too long, my mother would come knocking on the door, demanding I get up so I could get a jump start on my studies. It was such a blessing, I have to say, to have a mother who acted more like a computer program than an actual mother. Dad wasn’t much better.
I came downstairs and saw two newspapers, each covering the respective faces of my parents. One was the New York Times, and the other the Wall Street Journal. That mental image—two bodies with newspaper headlines and photos instead of warm, emotive faces—so perfectly summed up my parents that I knew I’d never be able to see anything that matched them.
“Good morning,” I said.
“What time are you heading to the library?” my mother said.
Typical. My mother was a physician at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center; I think her devotion to my academics had as much to do with the fact that she was in school until her early 30s. My father, a professor at Vanderbilt, wasn’t much better; I think he’d only stayed in school until his late 20s.
I liked school too, but I liked my own school. I didn’t like that my day was so regimented I couldn’t even have the chance to read “War and Peace” and pretend for thirty seconds that I wasn’t someone who was so socially awkward she wrote one-word replies to her best friends for fear of sounding even worse.
“Probably around eleven,” I said. “It won’t open until then.”
“And how are you going to spend the next two hours?” my father said.
I wish I had a sibling. Someone who could also take the brunt of their attention and interest in my academics.
“Reading.”
That wasn’t a lie. I just hadn’t specified—
“Reading what?”
I let out a slow breath of air, trying to do it quietly enough that they wouldn’t pick up on my frustration.
“Probably something for English class. We have a test on Thursday, so—”
“Good,” my father said, cutting me off. “I believe you can also go to the library downtown. That should open sooner.”
I hated the downtown library. It was crowded, had homeless people annoying me all the time, and was near a bunch of fields that had a bunch of bros talking loudly. It didn’t reach into the confines of the library, but entering and leaving the place was a real nightmare. It was like everything that wanted to make fun of me rolled up into a single square mile, all set to make my life hell.
“It’s a bit of a drive,” I said. “I—”
“If it opens at ten, please go there instead.”
And as usual, I was left with no option but to say yes to this. If I didn’t, well, it wasn’t a possibility I could even consider, because the only person who cared more about my academic success than my parents was me. Is that because you care about it, or because it allows you to not care about other things?
“I will do my best, father.”
He grunted a nod and said nothing more. He wasn’t going to follow up on me; he’d done his job. He knew that I didn’t have it in me to disobey a request when it came to academics.
I made myself some oatmeal with blueberries and took it upstairs. There was no reason to eat at the kitchen table. Mom and Dad had their newspapers, and I had my “War and Peace.” If we had conversation
, it came maybe on Friday or Saturday night at the dinner table, but even then, it was, well, like me.
Stilted, awkward, unfiltered, and way too intellectual for most people to keep up.
I sat at my desk, pulled up the library’s website, and let my head drop when I saw that it opened at 10 a.m. I really didn’t want to go there. I really could have done without the bros yelling at me, the homeless people begging, or the random street performers asking me to provide some change.
But at this point, well, what was I going to do? Reject my father?
* * *
I parked my car downtown near the Nashville Public Library. With it being early enough on a Sunday, I didn’t have to fight the mess of downtown crowds that might have occupied this area on a Friday or Saturday evening, though a few hungover people staggered to their cars after getting out of Ubers, paying the literal price for drinking hard the night before. There was no possibility of understating just how glad I was not one of those people.
I walked inside, and as if putting on the world’s greatest headphones, it was like all of the insanity of the outside world, all of the noises, all of the distractions just simply vanished into thin air. I didn’t have to deal with parents with standards too high, I didn’t have to deal with friends who didn’t know better, and I didn’t have to deal with bratty peers at Providence. I had reached my bliss, my happy place, the place that most easily attuned to my needs and wants.
I got to the reading room, excited and hopeful to find some quiet, when I saw someone on his laptop typing. Technically, this was allowed, but I knew in a place like this—especially with his keyboard’s clack-clack-clack audible from the entrance—it was going to distract me. I just had to hope that his typing wouldn’t last long.
I moved toward him, thinking that the screen of his laptop would at least mute the sound of his typing some. As I got closer, though, I realized I knew who was sitting in that chair.
Nick Locke, one of the members of the Broad Street Boys.
At the risk of continuing my bluntness, what the hell was he doing on a Sunday morning in the public library? He was supposed to have been partying hard last night, not furiously working and typing on some video display on his screen this early. What was he doing there?
I paused in my tracks. He had no idea I was behind him. He had headphones on and was leaning forward intently, almost like his life depended on staring at the screen. I couldn’t yet see what he was looking at, other than there was a lot of movement on there, suggesting a video of some kind that had a lot of jumps and edits to it. I moved closer and closer to Nick, trying to not get caught… but also kind of curious to see what would happen if I did.
I got about three feet away, close enough that if I lunged forward, I could have tapped his shoulder, but not close enough to do so just from a normal standing position. He didn’t notice me—he continued to click and type things without change to his pace. From this vantage point, I could finally see what he was looking at.
Given he was a Broad Street Boy, I should not have been surprised in the least by what I saw.
Highlights of himself.
The highlight reel showed him catching tough passes, catching touchdowns, and making strong blocks. I recognized some of the games as ones that I had attended—some of them, in fact, came from years past—but all I had to wonder was, why? Why would someone who would never play football at Providence Prep ever again feel the need to watch highlights of themselves?
The only answer that made any sense was someone with an unhealthy degree of narcissism, which pretty much fit every Broad Street Boy to a T. Adam, for sure. Kevin, maybe not as much, but still sure. Adam’s brother, whatever his name was, Ryan, I think, for sure.
And now Nick, the one who seemed the most normal but apparently just hid it well through his silence. Yep.
They were all self-absorbed, foolish boys. Handsome boys, mysterious boys, maybe even curious boys, but self-absorbed all the same. Definitely not the men that Emily and Jackie so proclaimed them to be.
I took a seat at the end of the table, about ten chairs removed from Nick, as I opened the novel for class, “Of Mice and Men.” It was a book I’d read many times over, but I didn’t have anything better to do. Not like I was going to indulge in the fantasy of watching highlights of myself over and over again.
And yet…
For some strange reason, I found myself continuing to look at Nick. OK, let’s be honest, it wasn’t strange. I knew the book better than I knew my mother, and I could practically recite the dialogue verbatim. Nick may have been a douche, but he was nice on the eyes. Of course, so were a whole lot of poisonous frogs, but, hey, there was nothing wrong with just looking.
This went on for about two hours. I never saw Nick look my way, because why would we? I was the tall, awkward nerd of the class, probably one of about three people in my senior class who still tried to get A’s in her last semester at Providence Prep. He was the athlete from a family of many other athletes, the one who hung with the most popular group—bullies—in the school. The only time we would ever associate with each other was in a classroom project, and even then, that hadn’t happened yet.
After two hours, I jumped when I heard him slam his laptop, curse under his breath, and stand up to leave. He was shaking his head the whole time in frustration, though in regards to what exactly, he didn’t specify. I assumed it had something to do with boys being serious about their sports, but it wasn’t anything I could really figure out.
Still, by this point, I’d already flipped through “Of Mice and Men” cover to cover twice. Granted, I was distracted, but I could have been distracted by Emily and Jackie talking to me and I’d still know the book well. This was going through the motions, if I ever saw it.
Still alone in the library—it was a Sunday, and that applied to the entire population of Nashville, not just the students—I packed up my bag, slung it over my shoulder, and headed for the exit.
I got just outside the entrance when I saw Nick standing there, one arm folded over the other, his ripped biceps protruding from his shirt, the rest of his shirt resting easy on his well-sculpted body, and his eyes looking at… me?
“Hi, stalker,” he said. “Did you enjoy watching me work on my highlight reel? Did you get sick of your stupid friends too?”
2
Nick
To say that senior year had gotten off to a disappointing start and was now mired in disappointment still was an understatement.
It was also wrong. It would have suggested that I might have still had a good senior year while expecting a great senior year. No, it was more accurate to say that senior year was becoming a disastrous finale to my athletic career at Providence Prep.
Of course, there was other bullshit with the Broad Street Boys that I didn’t much care to think about for fear of getting angrier by the second, but the athletic thing… fuck, man. It was like no amount of highlight reel videos were going to suddenly convince any of the SEC coaches that I could play football.
Hell, I couldn’t convince any Division I coaches that I could play football.
I’d long given up on the idea of playing for a ridiculously good school like Alabama, Clemson, or Georgia. Notre Dame never called, and neither did Texas. I didn’t mind that; I was confident, but I wasn’t delusional. But not even a school like Vanderbilt? Not even fucking Kentucky, or Missouri, or even Tennessee?
My coaches tried to warn me before the season started that there was a decent chance that I would not get the scholarships I believed I deserved. I heard it all—the market for wide receivers six feet tall and under two hundred pounds who ran their forty yard dash just barely under five seconds wasn’t rich. I heard that white boys couldn’t play wide receiver, not when they lacked the explosiveness. I heard that even if someone could look past those factors, I just wasn’t as productive as I needed to be.
I wasn’t sure what the fuck more they needed. I caught a dozen touchdowns this past fall, matching the hig
h that both of my brothers had hit in their time at Providence Prep. I got in the best shape of my life.
And still, no fucking biters.
And don’t even get me started on basketball. I had a healthier relationship with my lack of college offers. Not being at least 6’3 was basically a death kneel for my chances of getting a scholarship for basketball. But that, combined with my lack of football offers… fuck!
And now, to top it off, I had Samantha Young watching me in the fucking library, giving me that blunt, judgmental gaze that she so seemed to give everyone.
It was a damn shame that someone so pretty could be so awkward in their language. I liked taller girls—I liked the feeling that they could stand up to me. I liked that she was plain—I hated the girls who felt they needed to get dolled up with excessive makeup or cleavage-revealing dresses to get attention. Really, anyone who felt they had to hype themselves up to get attention was someone I disliked.
So was it any small wonder that I was not liking myself at the moment because of how much I was having to pimp myself out just for a last-second scholarship to a football school I was likely to lose more than two-thirds of my games at?
“I had no idea it was your highlight reel,” she said. “I just assumed you were just watching videos of yourself.”
“Yes, well, they have a purpose, you know,” I said, rolling my eyes, even though my anger had little to do with Samantha—though she sure did make for an easy target. “How am I supposed to get a scholarship if no one will notice me?”
“Be good enough to get noticed?”