by Hughes, Maya
My eyes shot open and I jumped up from the couch, staring out the window. The afternoon sun was no longer beaming me in the face. I snatched up my phone off the floor, still vibrating with its silent alarm that had been going off for thirty minutes.
I snatched my backpack up off the floor and leapt off the porch, missing every step on the way down. I made a beeline straight to my car and raced to campus. I should’ve just found somewhere to crash on campus. So stupid.
Feet slipping on the tile floors, I rushed around the corner of the liberal arts building. I slung my backpack up onto my shoulder and slowly turned the knob to the door. Buchanan’s back was to the class and he was writing on the board.
Jules sat toward the middle of the room with her notebooks neatly in front of her and another on the desk beside her with her bag on the chair. Her pointed gaze shot from the seat to me and back to the seat.
She’d saved a seat. For me.
Trying to be quiet, I squeezed between two of the desks to get there. Lifting my backpack, I made the tight squeeze and picked up the bag Jules had put on the seat.
“Mr. Vaughn, I made it very clear in my email to the whole class that lateness would not be tolerated.” Professor Buchanan didn’t even turn around from the whiteboard.
“I’m sorry I’m late. It was unavoidable.”
“It wasn’t. You’ll lose five percent off your final grade and you can leave now. Get the notes from one of the other students who made it a priority to be here on time.” He crossed his arms over his chest, holding his whiteboard marker like a sword.
My shoulders dropped. Already down five percent and I hadn’t gotten to show him the true depth of my stupidity yet. Could a guy catch a damn break?
Jules shot up from her desk. “He was buying me tampons!”
18
Jules
“He was buying me tampons.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think of something better to come up with. Like he was getting my medicine or rescuing my dog from a burning tree—not that I had one, but the professor didn’t need to know that. No, I went straight for the vagina problems: A professor’s kryptonite.
Someone’s desk chair combo squeaked across the floor. Probably as they were craning their neck to see which psycho had shouted out ‘tampons!’ in the middle of a full college ethics class.
“Excuse me.” The professor’s wide-eyed gaze swung to me.
A few people snickered behind me and my stomach knotted. Well, I was in it now, might as well pull out all the stops.
Leaning forward like I was telling him a secret and not broadcasting it to the entire class, I laid it on as thick as I could. “Professor Buchanan, I have an extremely heavy flow and I wasn’t sure I could make it to the student center without bleeding through my clothes, so I asked Berk to buy some for me. He was in the classroom before you even got here with me, but then he left to go get the tampons.”
“Wha—” The professor stared at me.
I side-eyed Berk, telling him to open the bag.
He moved his hands like if he touched the zipper he’d die of radiation burns.
With another nod from me, he gingerly unzipped my bag sitting on his desk.
I leaned over and shoved my hand inside and grabbed a handful of my emergency stash from my purse. The cotton-packed missiles were wrapped in bright paper wrappers. I raised them in the air, waving them like a pirate ship flag on the high seas of my period cruise. “See, super heavy duty.”
Berk stared at me, slack jawed. Hell, half the class did—scratch that—the entire class stared at me like I was undergoing a werewolf transformation in front of their eyes. My neck and cheeks were on fucking fire, but I had to save Berk from being unfairly punished.
I waved them at the professor. “Heavy flow.” I repeated the words, slowly enunciating every syllable.
Buchanan mumbled and sputtered. “Please put those away. I’ll allow it this time, but in the future, please take care of your personal needs before class.”
“Thank you, Professor. And I will do. You know how those periods are sometimes. They jump out of nowhere and hit you like bam.”
“Do you need to…” The professor eyed the door, clearly afraid that one false move from me and we’d have a re-enactment from The Shining going on.
“Right. Yes, I’ll go take care of that.”
I did a ginger duck-walk out of the classroom with my wad of tampons in my hand, and walked to the bathroom. I splashed some water on my face to look appropriately femininely distressed and waited for what felt like an appropriate amount of time to deal with a period snafu of such epic proportions that you’d blurt it out in front of the whole classroom.
When I went back inside, the professor didn’t even bat an eye as I slid into my seat. Berk mouthed ‘thank you’ and I tamped down that little giddy thrill that fluttered in my stomach.
The rest of the class went along without a hitch, except for the looks people kept shooting toward my ass like I was going to shoot up off my seat like a geyser at any second.
“Acting has shot to the top of your list of talents.” Berk walked backward in front of me as we crossed the main quad after class.
“What acting?”
“In there with Buchanan and the…” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Tampons,” he whispered and looked over his shoulder.
“Oh, you mean the heavy-duty, super-absorbent tampons? Sure, you can have one.” I raised my voice.
His eyes widened and he stopped mid-backward walk.
I burst out laughing, skirting around him. “You saved me during my sister’s engagement weekend and at B&B, I figured I should return the favor.”
“It means a lot, Jules.” He switched from in front of me to walking beside me, bumping into me with his backpack that felt like he was transporting boulders.
“What do you have in here?” I reached for it.
He swung it to his other shoulder. “Just some crap. Nothing to worry about. Back to more important things. If I got screwed this early on, it might mess with my eligibility to play this season, and I can’t let the team down like that.”
“It’s important to you that you not let them down.”
“It’s the best thing going in my life. Got me through some tough stuff.”
“When you were a kid.”
He stopped. “Yeah, how’d you know?” He looked at me and my stomach dropped like an ice block had crashed into me. That was something he’d told me in his letters. In person, Berk talked like there’d never been a cloud in the sky, let alone bringing up something hard from his past.
“We’re only seniors. I figure you had to have played before in high school and stuff.”
He started walking again. “True. It got me outside and doing something physical. A way to burn off all that energy and pent-up emotions.”
“I’m glad you’ve found something so important to you.”
“And the paychecks won’t hurt, which is why I need to kill it this season to get a good draft pick.”
“How can they deny your skill on the field?”
“Know a lot about football?” He cast me a sidelong glance that required an underwear change.
“Even someone as uncultured as me can see how well you guys were doing in the last game.”
“Half of us, anyway.” He dragged his hands over his face. “Do you want a ride back to your place?”
I felt like the nerdy girl getting offered a ride home by the star football player. I guess that was appropriate, because that was exactly what was happening.
“I’ll repay you in peanut butter cup double chocolate cupcakes.”
“I’d give you a ride for free, Frenchie, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take you up on the offer.”
* * *
My phone buzzed as we pulled up to the front of my house. I stopped with my foot resting on the curb. Laura’s name flashed on the screen.
“It’s my sister.”
“Tell her I said hi.�
� Berk leaned over the hood of his car looking like he was starring in the next Marvel movie; all he was missing was the leather jacket and the motorcycle.
For a split second, I thought about saying the call had been dropped just to squeeze in a little more Berk time now that I wasn’t avoiding him. Then guilt pitted in my stomach. What kind of sister did that make me?
“Hey, Laura, what’s up?”
“Can I come over to your place?”
For a stunned minute, I lifted the phone from my ear and stared at it.
“Hello?” Her small, tinny voice escaped the phone.
“I’m here. Sure you can come over.” I motioned to my house and Berk nodded, waving and taking off to his side of the street.
“I’ll be there in five.”
Was something wrong with Mom? Laura never came over—well, except for that one time before the engagement party. I hadn’t even known she knew where I lived.
I barely had time to put my bag down before she knocked on the door. Had she been waiting around the corner? I opened it and she barged in, wringing her hands and looking disheveled. Disheveled for her, which would be supremely polished by anyone else’s standards.
“Laura, what the hell is going on? You’re freaking me out.” Was she going to call off the wedding? Suddenly had the crashing realization that she’d been a jackass to me my entire life? Just wanted to go out to lunch?
“Chet wants roses in the wedding.” She paced like he’d said he wanted to club baby seals during the reception.
“And that’s a problem?” I kicked the door closed and crossed my arms over my chest.
She threw her hands up. “Of course, it’s a problem. We’re supposed to be having peonies. Shades of pink peonies. But roses will ruin everything. They’re trite and expected. This is supposed to be a trendsetting wedding. We need peonies.”
And here I’d thought it was something serious. “They won’t ruin everything. I’m sure the florist Mom has working it will make sure everything is perfect.”
“He squeezes his toothpaste from the middle. And he leaves the milk out on the counter every time he uses it.”
“Like a monster.”
She stopped and faced me. “Thank you! I tried to tell Kaitlin, Gretchen, and Beth about it and they blew it off.”
“That was a joke. It seems like you’re freaking out over nothing. Or stuff you should talk to him about.”
“There’s two months until the wedding.” She looked down at the couch before perching on the edge like she was afraid she’d catch something from it. Honestly, I didn’t blame her. If I lifted the fitted cover I’d bought for it, she’d probably have an out of body experience.
“I thought you were getting married in the spring.”
“Mom moved it. Discussed it with Chet and changed the date. The mayor’s daughter is getting married in the spring and Mom doesn’t want to compete for attention.”
“Of course she doesn’t.” My eye roll was barely contained. “But it’s your wedding. Why don’t you tell her no?”
She tilted her head and stared at me with a look that only people who’d been in the trenches of childhood together could share.
In the grand scheme of things this wasn’t a big problem—it was barely a problem—but when had Laura ever had to deal with anything real? When hadn’t Mom and even Dad been there, brushing aside even the most minor inconveniences to make her happy? So I could see how in her head this was like flunking out of a semester or having someone smash into your brand new car.
“Right.” I nodded. “It’s not something I can help with. I’m surprised she sent me an invitation at all.”
“You’re used to her being mad at you all the time. How do you talk to her?” She looked to me as though I had any answers when it came to Mom.
“I don’t, not unless she forces me. You’re the favorite. You should be able to tell her what you want.”
Her humorless laugh summed that up. “Her favorite as long as I do everything she wants. For my senior prom I told her I preferred a different dress over the one she picked. She didn’t talk to me for two months and cancelled all my credit cards.”
“What? No way.” That was my sophomore year. By that time I’d decided steering clear of both Mom and Laura was best for me.
“Yes way. You were too busy hiding out at school and going straight to your room, so you never noticed.”
I sat on the couch beside her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her cheeks pinked up. “I—I guess I didn’t want you to know.” She clasped her hands on her lap. “It was always me and Mom, and you and Dad. And then once Dad died, it was only Mom, so I felt like I had to keep her happy.”
“There is no happy when it comes to her. At least not that I’ve ever found.”
She made a small sound. “You just have to know what she wants.”
“Everyone and everything to be and do exactly what she wants. I can’t do that anymore. And you shouldn’t either.”
“I don’t have a choice.” She wrung her hands in her lap and looked around my place. It wasn’t much, but hell, I was in college. But compared to the cushy place Mom had put her up in during college, this was probably a half step above a homeless shelter in her mind.
“Of course you do.”
“You’ve always been fine on your own. I’d like to actually have my mom like me,” she snapped. Then her eyes widened and she shot up. “I didn’t mean that, Julia—Jules, I’m sorry. I’m just really stressed out right now.”
I’d never had the wind knocked out of me, but I’d imagine this was what it felt like. A burning in my chest. Hard to catch my breath. And a pain radiating out through my body.
“I shouldn’t have come.” She picked up her bag off the couch.
And just like that, our sisterly bonding disintegrated into a pile of ash, like that tray of cookies I’d baked during finals last year. I’d had to throw the whole cookie sheet away. But I couldn’t do that with my family. They were all I had left. My only connection left to my dad.
19
Berk
Rubbing my towel over my head, I stepped out of the shower. I wiped the steam off the mirror and wrapped a towel around my waist. Weight training sessions sucked ass. It was all the physical exhaustion of being on the field without the benefits of hitting anyone. I wrapped the towel around my waist and opened the bathroom door.
“Berk, hurry up. The game’s starting in twenty minutes,” Keyton called up the stairs.
“I’ll be down in five.” I checked my phone for any texts and threw on a t-shirt and some sweats. Damn, I wanted a beer, but during the season we kept that to a minimum, and only on weekends. This season was the most important one of my life and I wasn’t going to throw it away over partying. Next year, all this would be worth it. Everything in my past would be a distant memory once I finally got the security that came with a seven-figure paycheck. But I still had to get through the season.
At least some of us were already living our dream. I jogged down the steps.
“Should I grill some burgers and hot dogs?” LJ stood at the bottom of the steps.
“A little late now. Reece’s game is starting in less than five minutes.” Fans stood in the stadium waving their team banners. One of us could be playing in that stadium once we were drafted.
“Damn, Nix was always the one cracking the whip on this shit and getting us organized.”
I knew the feeling. I missed the guys too. Marisa and Keyton were our roommates, but Nix and Reece had been like brothers.
The front door burst open. “Did it start already?” Nix came barreling in with his arms loaded with food.
Keyton, LJ, and Marisa cheered.
“You saved us. Marisa was offering to cook.”
Everyone shuddered. Her cooking was more likely to send everyone straight to the ER than have us full for the game.
“Good thing we’re here, so you don’t have to.” Elle walked through the door balancing a plate of
cookies.
I hopped to the bottom of the steps. “Are those Jules’s?” I peered past her through the open door to the house across the street.
“They are.” She smiled.
“Is she planning on coming?” I dragged my fingers through my hair.
“I’m not sure. Why don’t you ask her?” Elle nudged me out of the way with her elbow.
“Since you’re her friend and all, maybe you should invite her.” I followed Elle.
“Not my house,” she called out over her shoulder.
I’d been trying to play it cool with Jules. Flirty texts were one thing, but I didn’t want to be the clingy stalker guy who couldn’t stop thinking about her, and invited her to everything after one almost-kiss.
* * *
The stadium Reece played in dwarfed our own, but that didn’t mean we would give any less heart. Our first game of the season was against St. Francis University—STFU to their student body no matter how much their administration tried to make it SFU.
At the line of scrimmage, my fingers sank into the short, perfectly manicured grass. Johanssen stared back at me through his face mask.
“Had a nice summer, Vaughn?” He sounded like he was grinding glass with his teeth.
“Serenaded any other girls since last semester?”
He’d been stalking our street last semester and we swore he was going to try to torch our house or some other insanity fitting him, so imagine that jaw-dropping shock when we woke up one morning and he was out on the small patch of lawn a couple houses down, singing his damn heart out to a girl.
“Met with any agents lately?”
My head shot up, breaking my stance just as the call for the snap came. For a split second, I lost my contact with the ground as Johanssen shouldered past me in a way too familiar way and nearly broke through the line.
Regaining my focus, I shifted my weight and banged into him. I wrapped my arms around his chest and pushed him to the side, narrowly missing Austin as the ball sailed over our heads.