by Whitney G.
Silence.
I cleared my throat. “If you’re here because of my engagement—” My sentence ended against his finger.
“I don’t give a fuck about your engagement,” he said. “But if you’re expecting me to wish you well and hope it lasts, then don’t hold your breath.”
“I think Michael Router is going to be your best bet for this.”
“We’ll meet for the next few Wednesdays in a row, starting after I play the first round in the playoffs on Sunday,” he said. “I’ll fly you to whatever city I’m in, and I’ll answer your questions via email.”
“Why bother flying to you, if you’re just going to answer everything via email?”
“Because I need to get some other things off my chest.”
“I know a great therapist you can see.”
A faint smile crossed his lips, but he didn’t let it stay.
For a moment, it almost felt like we were in college again—like at the start of our friendship, before things took a turn neither of us expected.
“I’ll see you next week, Courtney.” He stepped back.
“That’s all you have to say?”
“Don’t marry that guy,” he said, looking as if he wanted to say far more. “I’ll see you Wednesday.”
Courtney: Then
Senior Year
Pittsburgh
* * *
Subject: Cheerleader M.I.A. + My Answers
I dropped two catches at my game against Penn State today. I think that’s because my favorite cheerleader wasn’t on the sidelines cheering me on.
Any chance of her making a return to the sidelines?
P.S. I answered the next set of your questions. Attached.
Kyle S.
* * *
Subject: Re: Cheerleader M.I.A. + My Answers
Kyle, today is a Monday.
There was no game, and there’s not a chance in hell that the cheerleader in question is ever returning. And she wasn’t cheering for you. She was cheering for the team.
P.S. Thank you very much.
Court
* * *
Subject: Re: Re: Cheerleader M.I.A. + My Answers
Did they let you keep the uniform? If so, any chance I could still see you in it?
This Wednesday would be nice.
Kyle S.
* * *
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Cheerleader M.I.A. + My Answers
“Friends” don’t ask friends to fulfill fantasies that will never happen, Kyle.
Court
* * *
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Cheerleader M.I.A. + My Answers
I don’t see why not.
I’m more than willing to fulfill any of yours ...
Kyle S.
Kyle: Then
Senior Year
Pittsburgh
* * *
I walked into the private gym that was a few blocks off campus and unlocked the doors.
Coach Whitten would never admit it—since he’d lose everything, but he’d had this place built just for me when I first agreed to play for Pitt.
Since members of the college football-obsessed media were now stalking our team facility every night (and I hadn’t had sex in what felt like a fucking decade), I came here to release all of my stress in private.
As I was setting up weights, my phone buzzed with a phone call.
Courtney.
“Yeah, Court?” I answered.
“Um, hey.” Her raspy voice came over the line. “Sorry to call you so late.”
“Don’t be. What’s up?”
“I have a few follow-up questions to some things you wrote,” she said. “I promise this will only take a minute.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, one, you said that sometimes you wish that the older fans would be more respectful of the team. What do you mean?”
“I think they tend to forget that the players that they’re criticizing are only a few years removed from high school,” I said. “That, and we’re not getting paid, so some of the rude comments aren’t warranted.”
“Do you wish your parents would show up to your games?”
“I wish you would.”
She let out a breath, and I knew that her cheeks were flushed red. “I’ve shown up to enough, I think …”
“Fair enough, Court,” I said, getting back on track. “I don’t wish that my parents would come to my games. I’m not ten anymore, and they have some heavier stuff to deal with these days.”
“Okay, thank you. If I think of something else, I’ll call back.”
“Don’t,” I said. “You could just come for me.”
“What?”
“Come up here and talk.” I smiled. “It’d probably be better that way.”
“Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re talking normally or insinuating something sexually …”
“It’s both when it comes to you.” I laughed and put her on speakerphone. “What else are you doing tonight?”
“Picking up the slack from my staff and trying to hold back on murdering my roommate,” I said. “Would you like to hear a rant?”
“Absolutely.” I leaned back on the bench and started lifting weights.
Over the next couple of hours, I listened as she told me the ins-and-outs of the university paper, how she took it far more seriously than anyone else.
I asked her questions like I was the journalist in the relationship, and by the time she’d laid out her last grievance, it was two in the morning.
“You want to know what I think, Court?” I said.
“Only if it’s not about sex.”
Silence.
She laughed louder than she had all night.
“It’s not about sex.” I laughed, too. “I just think that you need to spend your final semesters doing stuff for you instead of for other people. Otherwise, you’ll look back and regret all the time you wasted.”
“At this point, I’m just hoping that my upcoming time in London will erase all of my bad times in college.”
“London? What the hell is there?”
“One of the most prestigious writing programs in the world.” There was a smile in her voice. “They have a two percent acceptance rate and yours truly made the final round this morning.”
“So, even more years of school for something that you’re already good at? When does all of that learning turn into money?”
“Eventually,” she said. “We can’t all be superstar athletes.”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t waste any more of my life in a classroom, if I was as good at writing as you.” I admitted. “I’m not just saying that to be saying that either.”
“Thank you, Kyle.”
“You’re welcome.” I paused, honestly not wanting to get off the phone. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I called her back when I made it home.
I couldn’t help it.
“Yes?” she answered on the first ring.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I was about to go to sleep.”
“Liar.” I smiled. “You stay up on Thursdays for some reason. The Facebook ‘online now’ thing never lies.”
Her laughter came over the line. “Thursdays are the romance movie marathon days on The Pitt Movies channel. They always end the night with my favorite one.”
“There’s a Pitt Movies channel?”
“It’s on seventeen.”
I picked up my remote and turned on the television, flipping through the stations. I stopped when I saw Julia Roberts in a bright red dress, looking at Richard Gere.
“What the hell is this?”
“Pretty Woman,” she said. “One of the best romance movies of all time.”
“Wait …” I sat in my chair. “Isn’t this the prostitute falls for her customer storyline?”
“It’s a lot deeper than that, Kyle.”
“Is it?” I waited for her to explain, but she only laughed. “I’ll talk to you later so you can finish.”
“Or you can stay on the phone and watch it with me until I see you tomorrow.” Her voice was faint. “I mean, only if you want to, though.”
I turned up the volume. “Feel free to tell me the deeper part of their love story that I’m missing …”
Courtney: Then
Senior Year
Pittsburgh
* * *
I stepped outside of CVS and held a binder over my head. The early throes of fall in Pittsburgh always meant nonstop rain, and I wasn’t sure why I kept forgetting my umbrella at home.
I also wasn’t sure why I still had to force myself to take breaks from my work. I was three weeks ahead with The Pitt News, caught up on my two classes, and thanks to Kyle and his insistence on making me “see” his answers instead of asking them, I was twenty pages into my thesis.
And suffering from the thickest sexual tension I’d ever felt in my life …
Being around Kyle for longer than half an hour—even talking to him on the phone, was an exercise in resistance. Although I knew better than to ever give in to his witty words or sinful gazes, I couldn’t help but wonder how his lips might feel on top of mine or constantly replay the time he tackled me at the bonfire with a far sexier ending.
I forced myself to shake away the thought of him and made my way down University Avenue. Then I slipped inside of Hemingway’s Cafe and took a seat at the bar.
Pulling out my ‘Things I Want to Do During My Senior Year’ list, I placed a tally mark next to ‘Go to a bar that everyone has raved about.’
I started to signal for the bartender, but I heard a familiar deep voice to my right.
Kyle.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You’ll need to text me that’s what you want first.”
“Come onnnn …” A female voice followed. “It’s just sex, Kyle. With me, and as far as we go back, you know that you don’t have to be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t trust me.” She let out a soft laugh. “Like, that’s how you’re acting.”
“I don’t trust you,” he said, his voice terse. “I don’t trust anyone anymore.”
I looked over and saw him stand to his feet. Then he placed a few bills onto the counter.
As he was putting on his jacket, his eyes met mine. He blinked a few times, and a slow smile spread across his face.
I turned away, certain that he would walk past me and leave, but the next thing I knew, he plopped down on my left.
“I didn’t know that you were profiling me today,” he said. “Is it going well?”
“I’m not here for you.” I held up my list. “I’m here for this.”
“We’re supposed to do this together, Court.” He took it from my hands. “That’s part of our deal.”
“I can definitely do some of this stuff alone.”
“Yeah, like the student plays,” he said. “I can’t suffer through any more of those, whether we’re friends or not.”
The girl who he’d talked to earlier suddenly stepped between us, glaring at him. “I hope your draft stock falls by the spring and you don’t get picked until the very last round,” she said. “You’ve never been that good, on or off the field, and you’ll regret turning me down someday.”
She stood there, waiting for a response.
“I wouldn’t count this bar as one of the ones that people rave about, Court,” he said to me, ignoring her. “It’s a good dive option, but it’s not the best one.”
“He’s going to ask you to send him a fucking text or an email before he considers sleeping with you,” the girl said to me, continuing to bait Kyle. “He thinks that everyone is after his money, when he hasn’t gotten a single dime yet. How insane is that?”
Kyle’s eyes met mine, and he stared at me for several moments.
“What bar do you consider to be among the best, then?” I asked, ignoring the girl like he did. “I based my choice off the latest campus brochure.”
“Well, that’s your first problem.” He pushed a few stray hairs away from my face, instantly setting every nerve in my body on fire. “No one in their right mind actually reads those campus brochures, Court.”
“Someone once told me that they’re written exclusively for the helicopter parents.”
“They are.” He smiled. “I guarantee that the couple at the end of the bar is only here to see how much over-pour the bartender does, since their son has mentioned this place a few times.”
“How do you know that for sure?”
“Their son is my teammate,” he said. “If it wasn’t a severe conflict of interest, I’d introduce you to him. The two of you have a lot in common.”
“It’s not too late to do that.”
“It is, and it’s not happening.”
The girl elbowed Kyle before she walked away, finally accepting that he wasn’t giving her any more attention.
“Thank you for playing along,” he said, still toying with a few strands of my hair. “I appreciate that.”
“No problem … Is what she said true, Kyle?”
“This question isn’t a part of your thesis is it?”
“My thesis is rated G.”
“Oh, right.” He let out a low laugh. “In that case, maybe.”
“Well, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before she comes back and changes her mind.”
“We won’t be here to see.” He shrugged, standing to his feet. “Come on, let’s go to South Side, and I’ll let you pick the first bar.”
“The South Side via the Birmingham bridge?”
“Yeah,” he said, grabbing my wrists and helping me up. “That’s the only one there is.”
I followed him outside, and he let up his umbrella for me.
We walked an entire block in silence, and I couldn’t help but notice him staring at me with every step.
“I can send you a few pictures to stare at, if you’d like,” I said as we approached a crosswalk.
“I would like that.” He smiled. “Do I get a say in what type I prefer?”
I blushed, ignoring that question.
I pulled out my phone and pretended to check my email for the rest of the way.
When we made it to the parking garage, he opened the passenger door for me.
“Do I have to pick you up again to get you inside?” he asked.
“No, but you should know that I can’t stay out long tonight. I need to be back by nine.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I have a date.”
“Come again?”
“You know, that thing that you don’t do,” I said. “A guy on the layout team asked me out for coffee tonight.”
He blinked.
“That’s on my list, too.”
“South Side has plenty of places for coffee if you want to fulfill that this evening.”
“I’m referring to the ‘Find a Guy Who Loves Me’ part.”
“If a cup of coffee is all it takes, you may want to raise your standards.” He slipped his hand into my pocket and pulled out my list. “There has to be a reason this is the only one in pencil, and it definitely wasn’t on your Facebook status …”
He cleared his throat, mocking my voice as he read it. “I want a real deal romance. A ‘heart fluttering against my chest when he calls, tears pricking my eyes when he finally tells me that I’m the one’ type of love story. I want that ‘Can’t eat, can’t sleep’ type of high whenever we spend endless hours together. That type of romance.”
He lowered the sheet and stared at me.
“It sounds a bit more natural whenever I read it.”
“No, it sounds like all the symptoms of a disease,” he said. “You may want to check WebMD.”
“Funny.” I snatched the sheet from him. “Can you please get me back to campus by nine?”
“Not if the only reason is to leave me and go out with some other guy.” He looked into my eyes. “That’s not happening.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
I shrugged. “Weren’t you just about to have sex with some other girl?”
“I wasn’t quite expecting the girl I went to elementary school with to start talking about fucking in the middle of our walk down memory lane,” he said. “I would’ve turned her down, even if she did send me a consent text.”
“Well, still … Friends can handle their friends going out on dates with other people.”
“Then we need to call this little arrangement something else.” He suddenly pressed his lips against mine, ending my argument with ease.
Tightly gripping my waist with his left hand, he trailed his tongue against my bottom lip—silently demanding entry.
I obliged and grabbed the hem of his shirt—sliding my hand under the fabric and running my palm against his hard and chiseled abs.
He smiled as he continued kissing me, using his right hand to run his fingers through my hair.
“Fuck…” I cursed under my breath as he bit down hard on my bottom lip.
My eyes widened as his cock hardened against my thigh, and it took everything in me not to slide my hands into his pants.
As he slipped his tongue deeper into my mouth—owning me with every stroke of his tongue, my knees weakened, and I felt like I was seconds away from falling back against his car.
“Here,” he whispered against my mouth, steadying me with both hands before I could fall. “Do I still need to bring you back at to campus at nine?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He reclaimed my mouth with his. “I thought so …”
Half an hour later, Kyle steered his truck into an alley next to a pizza parlor.
I stared straight ahead, gently massaging my swollen lips.
“Okay,” he said, shutting off the engine. “Which of these South Side bars is your favorite?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Yeah, me either.” He looked over at me. “I mean, we can’t really go wrong with any of them, but I want to let you pick.”