Rough Guy: Providence Prep High School Book 3

by Allen, Jacob

  “Nick? As in Nick Locke?”

  “Yeah, you don’t know? I figured you would’ve with you and Adam still being a thing.”

  I could never quite shake the judgmental tone out of my voice whenever that guy’s name came into play. I knew Emily was happy, but until graduation day came and went without incident, I’d still believe he was planning something nefarious.

  “No? Tell me, Samantha.”

  “I’m almost a hundred percent certain that Nick planted a bottle of liquor in my locker and then called the principal on it. Then, somehow, he got himself thrown in detention.”

  “What?!? Wait, seriously?”

  I found myself nodding. Emily’s tone much better captured the “what the fuck” feelings I had with all of this than anything else.

  “That boy has been all over the place ever since Christmas break,” Emily said with a sigh. “Adam’s worried about him, but of course Adam doesn’t know how to handle it. Any idea why he put the bottle of liquor in your locker? I didn’t think you two even chatted with each other?”

  “We didn’t, until Sunday.”

  I proceeded to recap everything that had happened, from running into him at the library to the conversation we’d had about him quitting basketball just an hour or so before. The whole thing just seemed surreal, and when I retold the story to Emily, it felt like I was missing several key points. If I better understood Nick, the story would probably make some level of sense, but since I didn’t, there was no chance of me getting anywhere except stuck in the mud, trying to make sense of it all.

  “So, yeah, if you can figure it out—”

  “He likes you, huh?”

  I laughed. No, I didn’t just laugh—I broke into sarcastic laughter.

  “Sorry, Emily, but really? He doesn’t like me. He hates me.”

  “No one can hate someone just that quickly. He’s probably had his eye on you for some time, tried to make a move, and left it at that.”

  That… that seemed pretty improbable. I’d never noticed Nick having an eye on me.

  Then again, I was pretty awkward and bad at noticing social cues, so it was very probable that Nick had wanted to date me or go out with me for some time and I had just completely missed it.

  “That’s crazy talk,” I said. “I’ve had to slap him twice now for inappropriate behavior. That’s not the behavior of someone that wants to go out with me.”

  “If he wasn’t a dick, would you go out with him?”

  The question seemed ludicrous enough to produce more laughs, but when I gave it a serious thought…

  Well, trying to remove Nick the human from Nick the asshole was like trying to remove Samantha the nerd from Samantha the human; it was just so much a fundamental part of me that it made no sense. But, for how handsome he was, how smart he was, and how thoughtful he had shown me to be in those brief text messages… maybe it was possible?

  It would be worth a first date, at least. That was, if my life wasn’t so controlled and militantly organized as to prevent any dating.

  “I don’t think that’s possible to consider,” I said.

  “Well, I thought that way with Adam—”

  “And you two had dated before,” I reminded her. “You had history. But anyways, can we not talk about boys? I’ve dealt with boys all week. Can we talk about girl’s night?”

  “Sure,” Emily said, although her tone suggested she wasn’t so willing to leave the topic behind. “Was thinking we could meet up for dinner somewhere before seeing that new romcom, ‘A Train to Chicago.’ You in?”

  “Why not,” I said.

  Romcoms seemed stupid to me. They weren’t very smart, and too often, one of the characters overlooked an awful lot in the other to make it work. But then again, if rationality and smarts won the day, why was love an emotion and not a logical solution?

  Maybe I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was.

  “If nothing else, it’ll guarantee the boys won’t show,” I said with a chuckle.

  “OK, I’ll invite Jackie then. Let’s meet by the Regal at seven and go from there?”

  “Perfect.”

  I didn’t think anything of it. I hung up shortly after, spent a few more minutes affirming that I wasn’t on death’s door with my Ivy League apps, and drove over to the Regal, which had a Chili’s next door we liked to eat at.

  Imagine my horror, then, when I walked up and I saw Emily and Jackie… and Kevin, holding Jackie’s hand.

  “Hey,” I said. “I thought we said no boys.”

  “You didn’t tell me it was a girl’s night,” Kevin said.

  Jackie blushed.

  “I just didn’t want anyone to feel left out.”

  “Oh, fuck,” I said.

  I knew what this meant. If Kevin was here, then the other Broad Street Boys were likely to show. And among their members…

  Sure enough, as if on cue, about three rows away, Adam and, yes, Nick got out of Adam’s Corvette. I glared at Jackie, who looked like she wanted to shrivel up and hide in the corner. Good. I wanted to kill her.

  “I’m sorry, Samantha,” Emily said. “Let’s just make the most of it.”

  “For now,” I growled. “I’m leaving if this gets weird.”

  And I did not have a very high bar for weird. I’d had a shit week, a shit afternoon, and a shit feeling about the evening; all it would take was one comment from Nick or anything to that effect for me to walk out.

  “Hey, baby,” Adam said as he came up.

  At least Emily kept her kiss shorter than usual with Adam. I turned my back on Nick before he could say a word. Part of me just wanted to leave right there, but while I may have been awkward, I wasn’t so oblivious as to just pull a move like that. I still had some sense of social decorum.

  “So, we can do dinner at Chili’s right?” I said.

  “Well, sure, if your fake ID will work there,” Nick interjected.

  And I’m out.

  “Can I speak to you for a moment, Jackie?”

  I grabbed her and moved her away from the group before she had a chance to interject. She looked uncomfortable with what I’d done, but at this point, I didn’t really give a fuck. I was furious she’d failed to follow the no-boys rule, and I wasn’t about to have sympathy for her.

  “When we do spring break,” I said once we were out of earshot. “Do you intend to turn this into a boys and girls trip?”

  “Well, yes, we were going to rent a boat house, all of us. The boys were going to pay for it and it was going to be all of us. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel excluded—”

  But you wouldn’t mind making me feel uncomfortable with Nick’s presence, huh?

  “No, it’s all good,” I said. “You can plan whatever you want. I’m not going to come.”

  I left as she stammered, asking me to come back. I heard Adam yelling for me too, but the only person who actually came up to my Accord was Emily.

  “I didn’t know she was going to be bringing Kevin and the rest, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I can tell them—”

  “Emily,” I said, and for one of the few times I could ever remember, I snapped and criticized my best friend. “I am not going to turn out like you and Jackie. I am not going to hook up with Nick and make this peaceful. I’m not like you.”

  As soon as I’d said the words, I knew I’d badly hurt Emily. She didn’t move forward. I could see her eyes watering. But I was too enraged at the moment to apologize. I was too hurt by what Jackie had done. I didn’t want to be near anyone but myself.

  “Have a good night.”

  I saw tears start to come down her eyes as I got in the car, which only hastened my escape. I threw the car in drive, peeled out, and left the Broad Street Boys with a middle finger.

  I won’t be like them. I won’t. I refuse to be.

  Even if they do seem happier than not. Even if they seem genuinely, really happy.

  10

  Nick

  “I’m so sorry, I just, I don’t know, I—�
�

  “Hush, it’s OK.”

  Kevin was consoling Jackie. Adam was looking at Emily from afar, unsure if he should go and comfort her or give her space. And I was just feeling fucking stupid.

  I was feeling stupid because I couldn’t believe that I didn’t think to realize that the girls would be part of this group. I felt stupid that I never bothered to ask what “hanging out and watching a movie” entailed when Kevin mentioned it. I felt stupid that somehow, this whole thing had led to… whatever the hell was going on between Samantha and me.

  All week at school, I’d felt certain that she had acted out on me. I’d felt like I was the victim of her pushing me away. It wasn’t until I got out of detention and took a moment to detach that I realized just how stupid and ridiculous that all felt.

  I still wasn’t sure that I was a fan of her. She had, after all, slapped me twice. But if my mere presence, if one stupid joke about using a fake ID, was enough to get her to run away for the hills like hell so she wouldn’t have to hang out with me again, then something was wrong. Something had gotten drastically fucked in the past week.

  I whipped out my phone and texted her, even knowing full well that she wasn’t going to respond until she got home.

  “So one bad joke and you just leave like that? Is this how it’s really going to be?”

  Her response pissed me off.

  “Yes.”

  Just “yes.” Not “Yes, because” or “Yes, and you did this.” Just “yes.” She had to have known that a mere one-word answer would infuriate me, and damnit, she was right.

  Was no one respecting or listening to me right now?

  “Goddamnit,” I mumbled, looking at my phone.

  I looked up to see Kevin and Jackie having gone to the entrance of the restaurant. Adam had gone over to Emily and was hugging her. The girl looked like she had been crying, albeit not a ton. I was suddenly the lone wolf, the isolated Broad Street Boy, the fifth wheel that was bound to come off so the rest of the ride could be smooth.

  But more than that, I could have been the second or fourth wheel under different circumstances. Had homecoming gone better, Adam would be on the fringes—something he more likely deserved than me, given how much of a jackass he was. Jackie wasn’t as clear cut, but I certainly had treated her better than Kevin had.

  And I was planning on going to spring break with everyone?

  Yeah, fuck that.

  I didn’t know what I was going to do, other than spend the time working out and hoping—now praying, really—for a scholarship to appear. But I wasn’t going to subject myself to abject misery.

  I left without another word. I hadn’t even gotten out of the parking lot when Adam called me, but I let him go to voicemail. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  It seemed like every time I tried talking to someone, it wound up with them pushing me away.

  * * *

  Perhaps the most “impressive” part about my decision to leave Adam and Kevin for home was the fact that it put me in conversation with my father for the first time all day about my decision to quit basketball. Suffice to say, it was not an especially productive conversation.

  As my father roared at me for quitting the team, for setting a bad example for my family—a rather amusing comment, considering I was the youngest—I couldn’t help but think of how little I cared about this argument. I wasn’t trying to defend my honor or my decision to quit the team; it was just so self-evident to me that I’d made the right choice that what my father was saying went in one ear and out the other.

  My mother tried to defend me at some point, but my father shot that down quickly, suggesting that maybe I needed to get my ass kicked to understand what it was like to not be able to do what I loved. That was just my father being my father, though. Perhaps realizing there was no real punishment he could deliver, he eventually just gave up on the whole thing, saying he hoped I learned a lesson that no punishment could teach.

  The only lesson that I really pulled from all of this was that wherever I wound up, it needed to be far from home. It needed to be away from all this madness. It needed, in short, to not be Vanderbilt.

  That was one of the more drastic realizations I’d had since the semester started, but the more I thought about it over the weekend, the more it made sense. Both of my brothers had gone to Vanderbilt, and if I wanted to break away from them, trying to walk-on to where they’d made it would only make things worse for me. My happiness wouldn’t come from being like them, but being on my own path.

  And being the hell away from my crazy father if I could help it.

  But where that would be, I had no clue.

  When Monday came, it felt strange to be able to sleep in without having to stress about a morning weightlifting session. It also felt nice.

  What did not feel nice, though, was that I had to keep doing detention with Samantha, especially after the way we’d ended on Friday. When I first walked in, she didn’t look up at me at all. I tried to turn to her and talk when Mr. Smith left the room, but she was better than she had been last Friday. She wasn’t going to crack as easily as she had before. She wasn’t going to let me get to her.

  I spent the entire week trying to get her to say something, anything. She was not like Emily or Jackie, who seemingly fell into the arms of Adam and Kevin after a period of time. But no, that girl was tough and stubborn.

  Granted, a couple of times, I caught her looking at me in a way that suggested something more than just disgust. If I got bold, I could even say that it was a look of attraction, of curiosity. But that was probably more just due to the fact that we were now spending an hour a day with each other, not anything else.

  On that last Friday, with just half an hour left before our run of detentions came to a close, I again tried to engage her.

  “Wouldn’t it be funny if another bottle of liquor popped up in your locker?” I said once Mr. Smith had left. “Wouldn’t it be hysterical to see you as a repeat criminal?”

  But she kept her head down. She had a pen in hand, writing something out on paper.

  “C’mon, you know if you keep ignoring me, I’ll put another bottle in your locker.”

  “So it was you,” she said dryly, not looking up.

  “Well, duh, how could you be so stupid as to not realize it before?”

  “I think the better question is, how were you smart enough not to admit it until now?” she said. “Because now, if you do pull it off, I can say that you admitted to doing it the first time. So, if anything, I can do it myself, blame you for it, and get you in trouble.”

  Shit. It can’t be that easy, but if it is…

  “I know how to play the game too, Nick. I’m not stupid.”

  “Hmm.”

  But she didn’t say anything else.

  “Well, what if something else happened?”

  But she didn’t engage back. Mr. Smith walked in the door, and for another fifteen minutes, I was reduced to silently staring at my textbooks, not really reading them, just looking like I was reading them.

  When Mr. Smith left, I knew I couldn’t keep asking the same questions and expect her to actually answer. I went meta instead.

  “So why have you ignored me all this week?” I said. “You were so talkative last Friday. You even responded to my texts. And now, cat got your tongue? Is there a reason that you’re so hesitant to engage me?”

  She put her pen down, looked at me, and sighed.

  “Maybe because you set me up on something that I didn’t do for, I don’t know, reasons wanting to do with attention or something silly like that. And now, because of that, I have to worry about if my dreams are ruined because of your little prank. Imagine, if you will, that as a joke, I put something in your football cleats that caused you to injure your foot and you lost out on scholarship offers because of that. How would you feel?”

  A part of me wanted to crack “what offers?”

  But put in the terms that she did, I could see it as one of the worst thi
ngs that I could have done. I wasn’t quite believing that she would suddenly get rejected from Harvard because of this, but if she did…

  “This is all I’ve been working for over the past four years,” Samantha said. “I’ve skipped so many parties and passed up chances to hang out with Emily and Jackie so many times in the last four years so I could get an A on my tests when they got a B. I skipped games so that I could prepare for the SAT. If this all falls through suddenly because of one little thing that I had nothing to do with… well, fine. I’d make do, I’d move forward, and I’d figure it out. But I am fucking terrified that what you did will cost me a shot at Harvard.”

  Damn. That bad?

  “Well…”

  I almost said I was sorry.

  “Your dream is still alive, at least,” I said. “I don’t think anyone is going to come calling in late February for some white guy to help.”

  “You never know,” she said.

  “Yes, you do,” I said with a sigh. “OK, yes, I am sure some school somewhere can produce a scholarship at the last moment and get me in. But no one is going to at this point. It’s just not going to happen.”

  “So do what I said before. Go to an Ivy League school. They don’t have scholarships, but—”

  “I could,” I said, somewhat admitting to the thoughts from the previous weekend. “I need to get the hell out of here. I don’t want to be near my brothers or my dad. So, yeah, I might.”

  A long pause filled the room, one that seemed to suggest we weren’t taking advantage of the chance to talk very well. And then Samantha said something I didn’t think either of us expected to be said.

  “This is stupid that I’m telling you this,” she said. “But I feel the same way. I don’t belong with my family. I don’t belong here at this school. I don’t feel like I belong anywhere. Like you with your family.”

  Typical Samantha. It was so painfully honest that it hurt.

  But it was very much true.

  11

  Samantha