False Idols: A Dark College Romance, page 17
I frown and run a finger over the rice paper I used. Maxwell. That’s the only name for the one I have right now. I don’t know if it's their first name or their last. It’s for an infant, just a few months old. The headstone was so small when I did the rubbing. There wasn’t much else to it and I didn’t see any headstones marked mother or father near it, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. I don’t like to think of the baby being all alone. Where did their family go? Did they stay in Bloom or did they move on?
“Ummm, helloooo. Because he likes you!” Sunny exclaims and breaks through my brooding session over Baby Maxwell.
“I don’t think that’s true,” I lie and tuck Maxwell’s paper into my binder before I close it. A gust of wind blows hard and kicks leaves up around us. I shove my hair out of my face while Sunny scowls at me.
“He is so into you and you know it. He said that you have a class together.”
I nod. “We do.”
“Okay, so why haven’t I heard anything about him?”
I shrug and lean back to stretch my arms over my head and turn my face up to the sky. It’s a nice day. The sun is out and the weather is perfect. It’s easy to feel normal sitting here with Sunny talking about boys, but there’s a feeling I can’t shake that comes with Dean.
Talking about Dean unnerves me.
“There’s not much to tell. Dean is my friend. He’s a nice guy.” Again, I lie. Dean seems like he’s a nice guy. He hasn’t done anything weird or made any moves, but it feels like he’s waiting for something. He watches me almost as much as Beau does, too.
“You don’t think it’s weird that he found you on socials?” I ask her. Dean found me and I didn’t give it much thought. Not until he showed up at the party. He’s been nice in class too. Sticking by my side in Psych while Beau pretends I don’t exist, while the blonde girl I’ve seen with him giggles and leans into his side. My fingers clench. I hate that girl.
“Nah, he said I had Algebra with him, but I guess I didn’t notice. That class is really, really, huge, though,” she tells me and I pause. Sunny doesn’t sound worried. She’s a lot more normal than me and she didn’t let the guy she put in prison cut her and take her virginity, but then again…I don’t think many people can relate to what I’ve done with Beau, so being more normal than me is pretty easy. In any case, she’s not worried about Dean, so maybe I’m just overreacting.
“Dean is just a friend and I’d like him to stay that way,” I tell her.
Sunny looks like she might throw another fry at me but when she takes in the look on my face she stops and straightens up. “Oh, wow, you’re serious, huh?” She shoves the fry in her mouth and chews with a nod. “Okay, I’ll stop playing matchmaker, even if I think you two would be cute.”
I let out a sigh of relief. Sunny is actually going to listen to me. I’m not used to anyone listening to me. Not my mom, not the cops when I wasn’t sure about that night, not Beau when I tried to say I was sorry.
I smile at Sunny. It’s nice to be listened to. “Thank you for listening to me.”
She gives me a salute with one of her fries. “Of course. That’s what friends do. Speaking of friends…how is everyone else? People leaving you alone?”
“They are. I think they’re too excited for the football game to care about me right now.” I tell her and close my binder and put it in my backpack.
“Yeah, I kind of don’t get that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, after what happened to that girl they found in the river. Everyone just…went back to normal. It’s like someone pressed the reset button around here. It’s so weird.” She looks around the quad and shakes her head. “This place is kind of messed up, Nev.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“We’re going to that football game though.”
I snort. “What happened to ‘this place is messed up?’”
“I mean, it is messed up, but we have to carve out as much of a college experience as we can. That means we are going to the first football game. If you aren’t going to let me be a matchmaker, then come to the game with me. What’s the worst that can happen?”
The last time I did as Sunny asked for the sake of a college experience I ended up alone and bleeding with Beau. I won’t tell her that, though.
“I don’t know…”
“Come on, Nevvvv. Please? It’s going to be so fun! It’s all anyone is talking about on campus. We have to go. Say we will,” she raises a finger in the air and leans back to look at me, “and before you try and get out of it, you need to come to this game. You’re going to graveyards and spending way too much time studying.”
“It’s for the Death and Dying database!”
“I said what I said, Nev.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
17
BEAU
I’m giving Nevaeh distance. Space or whatever the fuck it is. I didn’t want Nevaeh thinking about what we’d done and running home right after I finally got my first taste of her, so I let off the gas. I fucking hate it, but I’m doing it. Seems like the student body is taking its cue from me and are giving her breathing room too. I’m still keeping an eye on her, though. It wouldn’t suit me for someone else to sink their teeth into my girl while I’m taking a step back.
So far no one has made a move. I haven’t seen her go home once or her mother visit, which seems odd. From what I know, Nevaeh never spent any time away from home other than the church summer camps she helped at or the youth conferences Pastor Mike organized every year. My mother made sure to keep tabs on Nevaeh and her mother while I was locked up. She kept a close eye and did everything she could to keep them close and well connected in the church for fear they might move away from Bloom, but they never even made a move to spend time away, not even for vacations.
She’s not used to being away from her mother, so why is she now? Something doesn’t feel right there.
No one from Crown of Thorns talks to Nevaeh. There’s only her roommate that sticks by her and that fucker I want to gut when I see him sit next to her in class. If I’m reading things right, Nevaeh doesn’t like him much, but for some reason she doesn’t tell him to fuck off.
“The game is tonight. You ready, man?” Jordan claps me on the back so hard that if I wasn’t bigger than him it might make me stumble forward a step, but I just smile.
I plaster a fake as hell smile on my face. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Grateful for the opportunity.”
“Don’t worry about a thing, brother. I’m going to take care of you out there. You’ll make that bench look good, but we’re going to bring you in for some action, okay? It’s not a conference game so no worries on how it goes. We all know you’re not going to be solid right out the gate, but all you have to do is watch me.” He takes a deep breath and puffs his chest out as he walks. The sight is comical, because Jordan isn’t a big guy. You can’t be if you’re going to be a QB. You have to be fast, smart, and lean. Not big. So he looks like a fucking chicken with the way he’s strutting, but I keep my mouth shut while he talks. “I know you used to be top dog, but times are different. You’re doing good in practice and with the footage, though. I’ve been getting the run down on your progress and it’s good for what you’re working with. I guess they don’t really push cardio in the clink, right?” He laughs and it sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Like a fucking donkey braying with how loud and abrupt it is. He reaches back and claps me on the back again. My skin stings and there’s no denying that he’s trying to send a message with that hit. “You’ll learn everything you need. If you’re lucky, we’ll let you get some touches in a low stakes conference game. How does that sound?” Jordan sounds like a condescending fuck. It’s not what he’s saying but the shit eating grin on his face and his tone.
He thinks he’s better than me. He wants me to understand that tonight. Interesting. Why is he so threatened by ex-felon? I don’t give a fuck about the game, even if I’ve been going to practices twice a day faithfully and attending the team meetings and running footage with the rest of the team and coaches. I’m under no illusions that I’m not a charity case, being on the team as a third string QB as a twenty three year old freshman, but no one on staff or any of my teammates lets on they see me that way. Even if football isn’t something I care about anymore, it is nice to sink into a little bit of normalcy. I’m surprised I even recognize normal anymore, considering that I’m fucked up as they come.
In love or not, cutting Nevaeh shouldn’t have made fucking her all the sweeter. It did though. The control I had over her with the knife in my hand when we were together. Ecstasy. I played my role perfectly. I was exactly who she told the cops I was, told the entire town even, but she liked it. I could hear it in her cries. The way she moved under me. Nevaeh wanted to be with me, even when I spanked the shit out of her.
“It’ll be good to just get out on the field,” I tell him while memories of Nevaeh’s ass jiggling beneath my hand play on repeat in my head. In prison I got good at retreating into memories. Into those perfect slices of life that you swear you won’t forget but we all do, because they happen so fast. In prison, I learned to slow down my life enough that the seconds and minutes I took for granted were easier to grab hold of and stay a while. It helped me keep most of my sanity, most of the time. I suspect I’ll be doing it again here while I try to play it cool with Jordan and the others. Ali is already on my last fucking nerve. I let her kiss me at the party but that’s it. She’s arm candy for campus and for pissing off Nevaeh, but nothing more. My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s probably Ali bringing up the football game, too.
Exhausting. I’ll have to cut her loose soon, even if her presence is a nice fuck you to Nevaeh. That only entertains me when it’s not inconvenient to me, and Ali is starting to become a burden with her uncanny ability to materialize wherever I am. I don’t like that she’s watching me that close. I glance over at Jordan. He’s talking again, another guy from the football team is with us now so at least I don’t have to pay attention to what they’re saying.
We’re walking across campus. Towards the quad for food. We had a pretty low key workout today more meant to keep us warm rather than push us to our limit. That’s going to come tonight. Right now we need fuel. With Jordan calling me brother and falling into step beside me, I’m going to fucking get stuck eating with this asshole, I know it.
I hate that I’m right and end up at a table with Jordan and half the team. Everyone is hyped for the game though, so it’s easy enough to blend in and watch Nevaeh. She’s just outside the doors. I can see her through the windows that line the dining area. She’s with Sunny and working on something. She’s bent close to it and even at a distance, I can spot the distinct dark smudges of the gravestone rubbing.
I don’t know why the fuck Nevaeh wanted to end up in a class called Death and Dying but she did, so I made my advisor make it happen. The class seems interesting enough, even with the time we’re going to be alone in graveyards. A dumb fucking choice given the fact that The Reaper hunts at random, but whatever. Bloom doesn’t seem to care much about the killer in the everyday scheme of things. The class is good though. I have Nevaeh close and I plan to make use of our alone time for the database project soon.
“Hey, Beau!” Ali’s voice makes me wince but I force it down and lift my head to see her approaching the table with a smile on her face. Somehow, Ali is in the class with Nevaeh and I even though it’s hard for underclassmen to get in.
“Hi, Ali. What’s up?” I ask. I catch Jordan straightening up across the table from me. I thought he cut her loose, but from the look on his face he doesn’t want anyone else talking to her. I decide to have a little fun since it’s a sore spot with the fucker.
“Haven’t seen you in a while, beautiful. You mad at me?”
Ali blushes and giggles while the guys at the table settle down. They were all busy laughing and eating but Ali is a pretty girl, so they’ll pay attention if she’s here. “Oh, I’m not mad at you. I tried texting you earlier but you didn’t answer me, so don’t push it.” She wags a finger at me in a flirty move but the only thing I want to do is slap her hand away from me.
I lean back in my seat and shrug. “Busy with the game and school, but I knew you’d catch me.” I’m not lying. I knew she would find me, which is why I have to get rid of her. Maybe having fun isn’t the play I want to make right now. I glance over at Jordan and shoot him a smile. “You know my friend Jordan though, right?” I ask.
Jordan perks up when I mention him but Ali crosses her arms and shrugs. Maybe he didn’t cut her off. “Yeah, sure. We’ve talked before.”
“Nice to see you again, Ali,” Jordan offers and a few guys snicker and elbow one another. I shoot them a sharp look and the laughter dies down. Even if I’m third string, they want me to like them. Fuck if I know why. “Uh, h-how are you these days?”
He’s nervous. The fucker that wanted to establish pecking order to a too old third string QB, is nervous around a girl like Ali. She was definitely the one to cut it off. I wonder what a golden goose like Jordan did. He’s the man to be on campus. Looks like I read her all wrong at the party. Ali was using me for sure, but not in the way I thought. Ali can’t be talking to me for any other reason than to make him jealous, I decide.
“I thought I saw you two talking at the party last week. We’re supposed to have another one tonight. You invite her yet, man?” I ask Jordan.
His eyes go wide and his cheeks go pink. “W-what?” he stammers.
“The party,” I say, feeding him the answer. “Weren’t you going to invite her?”
Jordan is a dumb fuck so he stares at me for a hot second before he bobs his head. “O-oh yeah, yeah, I was. Uh, thanks for reminding me.”
“No problem, brother.” I want to puke after saying that but ‘When in Rome’ and all that shit.
I look at Ali and she’s got her hands on her hips. She raises an eyebrow at him. “Well, are you going to ask me or was that it?” she snaps with a tap of her foot. She’s wearing heels so there’s a definitive click to punctuate her question. I have to hide my laughter, but the guys at the table don’t bother. They burst into hysterics and start fucking with Jordan, who ducks his head and mumbles a, “Do you want to go to the party with me, Ali?”
“No,” she snaps.
Yeah, Jordan fucked right up somewhere. Maybe he didn’t pick up dinner, I don’t know. Seems like the type of thing Ali would lose her shit about. Instead, she looks at me.
“How about you take me to the party, handsome?” It’s a question, but it sounds like a statement. I don’t want to do it, but at least if I do, I’m fucking with Jordan.
“Yeah, all right. I’d like that.”
“Awesome! I’ll meet you after the game tonight, okay?” Ali bounces on her toes and winks at me before she gives me a little wave. “I have to go, but call me okay?”
“Sure thing.”
“We are going to have so much fun,” she tells me while she makes a point not to look at Jordan. She flips her hair over her shoulder and struts off. The whole table falls silent to watch her leave. Ali might not be my kind of girl, but there’s no denying she’s got an ass on her.
No one says anything for a beat before someone clears their throat and tosses a wadded up napkin at Jordan. “What the fuck did you do, man? Cheat?”
“No, I didn’t fucking cheat, asshole. I didn’t text or whatever when she wanted and she’s been like that since the goddamn dorm rager.”
“Thought I saw you making out with that one girl. The redhead,” someone else says. And Jordan ducks his head.
“Look, I was really drunk that night.”
I clear my throat and shrug. “It happens,” I lie. I’m a lot of things and I’ve been a lot of things, I’ve killed and stolen, lied and broken laws to get what I needed, but I’ve never cheated. I’m a one woman kind of man. Always have been and always would be. Lucky, fucking Nevaeh. She’s never going to be free of me.
Jordan glares at me. “Don’t fucking start with me. You’re taking her to the party.”
“I couldn’t tell her no. It would have embarrassed her,” I say and gesture around the table. “You think she was gonna talk to you again if she got embarrassed in front of the entire starting line?” I ask.
Jordan stops, his mouth opens like he’s going to speak but then he closes it and nods. “Yeah, okay, that makes sense.”
I lean forward, brace my elbows on the table and pitch my voice like I give a fuck about him, or Ali, or anyone at the table. “Listen, it’s easy. I take her to the party as a way to get her there and you swoop in like prince charming and ask her to talk. I’m not going to stand in the way and you can fix whatever the fuck happened, okay?”
“That’s a pretty good plan,” Billy chimes in. The rest of the guys murmur in agreement and Jordan stops pulling his bitch ass face.
He smiles at me and nods. “All right, brother. Sorry, I read that shit wrong. Shoulda known you got my back.”
“Always man. You know it. Besides, I’m into another girl, all right?” It feels safe to tell them there’s someone else. They’ll have to see Nevaeh and I together soon enough. I’m breaking my liar, my beautiful fucking angel, shattering her into a million little pieces that I can put together in the way I like best. But when I’m done, I don’t plan on being shy about showing the world she’s mine.
“Ohhh, so there’s a lucky lady for you then? Nice to see you didn’t waste any time from being locked up.” Jordan is a loud fuck and as much as he swears that he’s my friend, he sure does bring up me being in prison an awful fucking lot. I’ll have to watch his ass for more than the jealous boyfriend and insecure athlete bullshit.
I nod and brush past his mention of my time behind bars. “There is. Four years was a long time to go without a good woman. Don’t plan on wasting time now that I’m free.”
Billy grins and raises his soda can to me. “That’s fucking beautiful, man. Good luck with her.” The rest of the idiots raise their cups to me and give me their blessing like it means anything to me.
