by Ginger Scott
I left home early, before the sun was up in fact, and drove to the same corner where Hollis and I gave in to everything last night. Well, not everything. I didn’t need it, though, my God, did I want it. I wanted every inch of her, to touch and taste her body in all the places, and mark her as mine in every place I’d been.
I’m attracted to every trait she possesses, from her physical form to the confidence that radiates from her. Her raspy voice, her shortened words coated in her native New York roots, her feistiness.
I managed to avoid talking to Zack when I came home after dropping her off. He was locked in his room with the music up annoyingly loud. I gave my dad what’s been serving as my room for the night and slept on the couch. I have to take my father to the airport after school today, and I hate letting him go, though he’ll be back in a few days. I’m done being here, in this house. I’m ready for our own walls, my own rules. This constant air of suspicion I have for Zack and his motives makes my stomach hurt nonstop. There are moments it’s downright hard to breathe.
I can’t lie. There have been moments when begging my dad to move back home have crossed my mind. We’re here for more than just me playing my senior year with my cousin, though.
My dad misses family. My grandparents are dead, and he and my uncle are all each other has. Despite how different they are, there’s a bond between them that’s unbreakable, forged from memories and time. One day, Zack will be all I have, at least in blood. And now that I have Hollis, well, leaving has lost its appeal.
Ready?
I send her the text then pull my truck up closer to her house, but still not directly in front of it. My hands still buzz with the feel of her, and the thought of making eye contact with her father right now is a torture I don’t have the balls for. The man is intimidating, and he still holds my future in his hands.
Yes. Be right out. Also, uhm. Need a favor.
I cock my head and stare at her message for a full breath. It’s that uhm part that’s got me a little nervous. I type back ok, but two full minutes pass without a response.
Rolling up to her driveway, I brace myself for a lecture from her dad as the garage door rolls up. When I see her legs, tight black jeans and bright white Nikes on her feet, I grin. Then there’s a matching version, only shorter and topped with a New York Islanders sweatshirt that’s about two sizes too big.
I roll the window down so I can talk to her and her brother.
“So, uhm,” she says, a continuation of her message. “Can we give Ben a lift to school? My dad has a meeting, and my mom is already holding office hours online.”
“What’s up, Cannon?” her brother says, giving me a nod but not a glance as he rolls an over-stuffed hockey bag toward the back of my truck. I’ve never officially met the kid, but he’s immediately made us bros. I laugh and have to admire him.
“What’s up, Ben?”
Shit, I hope I remembered his name right. He doesn’t flinch, so I feel more certain than not that I nailed it. I hop out of the truck when the latch releases in the back. He’s hoisting the bag by the time I join him, but he’s struggling. I slide it the rest of the way in and pull up the tailgate, locking it in place. I’m about to jog around to the driver’s side again when Ben reaches up and squeezes my bicep with his much smaller hand.
“Whoa, serious guns there. A’right, a’right. I feel ya, Cannon. I feel ya.” He winks and backs away, leaving me there speechless with the dumbest smile on my face. I think I’m actually flattered by his compliment.
Ben climbs in the back seat of the full cab and Hollis slides into the passenger seat. Our eyes meet briefly and her cheeks blush, likely remembering what we did in here just a few hours ago. Awkward thought now that her baby brother is buckling up in the back.
“Sorry,” she apologizes for her brother.
“Dude, no problem. Ben and I are buddies now. Aren’t we, Ben?” I look into the rearview and wait for him to lift himself enough to make eye contact with me. The kid twists his lips, considering my offer, then reaches forward, patting my shoulder with three heavy slaps.
“Let’s take things slow, Cannon. That’s my sister, after all. I’m watching you,” he says, pointing with one hand at his eyes then flipping his fingers to point at me in the mirror. This kid is unreal!
“Got it.” I agree to his test. “Slow it is.”
My gaze automatically moves to Hollis, a double meaning on that promise. She slides her hand across the console for me to take, and I do, even through her brother’s remarks that we’re making him vomit up his oatmeal.
I like this kid.
We get Ben to school and I help him wheel his bag up to the entrance where he leaves me with a handshake he suddenly decides to invent for just us. By the time Hollis and I get to school, the bell is ringing so we have to rush from the faraway spot where I had to park, peeling into our first hour together with laughter as we race to our seats.
Everyone’s eyes are on us, and I don’t care. So much so that I hook my pinky with hers to form a bridge between our two seats. Neither of us sees Dr. V approaching behind us, so when he taps our linked knuckles with the end of his ballpoint pen, we both startle.
“This is not a school dance, thank you, Mr. Jennings. Miss Taylor.” His tone is more teasing than angry, so we shrink in our seats and suck in our smiles. “Though, I do find the odds of this fascinating. Have to admit, I didn’t see this coming.”
His joke draws a few laughs from the class, but he doesn’t dwell on us after that.
The rest of the day flies by, but this new normal seems to have crawled up into my chest cavity and helps keep that pitted feeling I’ve been living with at bay. Hollis makes me happy. Liking Hollis so much makes me happy.
I have to take off to drive my dad soon. In fact, I’m probably a little late, but it’s worth it to see her one more time in the daylight. I’ll miss practice today, and even though it’s optional, I let her dad know. Coach. That part is going to take a while to get used to. The things I did to her, want to do to her, need to stay on lockdown when I’m in Coach Taylor’s presence. I have this unearthly fear that he can read minds. Last night, I had a nightmare that he kept piling on the laps, making me run faster and faster by shocking me with a cattle prod, all because he thought he saw us kiss. I’m all for keeping us secret from him for a little while longer.
My entire body lightens when Hollis walks around the corner. I don’t even mind the way her freshman shadow, Maddy, squeals about how cute we are.
“Hey, I thought you’d be gone,” Hollis says as I take her hand and pull her into my chest.
Catching her jaw with my hand, I tilt her head just enough to get kissed.
“Uh uh,” I say through a smile that hasn’t left for almost twenty-four hours. “Couldn’t leave without one more of these.”
I catch Maddy’s blush over Hollis’s shoulder as I go in for a deep kiss, taking her mouth over completely and walking her backward a few paces so she bends into my embrace. When I pull away, she’s left breathless, and I’m beat-my-chest proud. Also, a few of the other guys who I know have been checking her out now know not to bother.
“Hi, Daddy,” she says, looking over my shoulder and waving. I swallow my heart, feeling it lodge somewhere in my throat while I forget how to breathe. I turn to find nothing but a closed door and a long, empty sidewalk.
“That was so mean!” I poke her side where I know she’s ticklish. Her laugh is loud and free, and she rushes at me for one more kiss on my cheek while she and Maddy pass to head into the locker room.
“Keeping you on your toes, Cannon Jennings from Indiana.” She winks just before the door closes behind her, and I am slayed.
My grin carries me all the way to my truck, and I wear it all the way back to Uncle Joel’s where my father is waiting anxiously, slapping the boarding pass he printed out in their den last night against his open palm.
“Cutting it close, aren’t we?” He gets in while he gives me the mini lecture. Rather than
make up an excuse, I decide to give it to him straight.
“Had to see a girl.” I hold his stare while I back out the driveway, his stupid sideways grin sliding up to match mine.
“Yeah, I thought there was something more to this whole Hollis thing.” He settles into his seat, smug as if he knows it all. He probably does, clever old bastard that he is.
“Your mom’s gonna love her.” He chuckles, unfolding his boarding pass to check the gate and time for the millionth time.
“You know you can do that all by phone now,” I explain. He quirks a brow because he’s old school. The man still has file folders for everything. It’s a wonder he’s an engineer because I don’t think he likes computers all that well. He just likes math.
“What are you going to do if they change your gate?” I glance his way in time to watch his mind work, and he finally gives in and pulls his phone from his back pocket to open the browser.
“Fine, I’ll modernize,” he grumbles.
I laugh and already miss him before he’s gone. That feeling tugs away pieces of everything that’s been so good. The moment my father is gone, I’ll be left with Uncle Joel and Zack and all of their opinions. Aunt Meg won’t be the voice that stands up for me; she avoids conflict. But I know it’s coming. I feel it in my bones.
“Spit it out,” my dad says, his sudden break in the silence jarring as I maneuver onto the freeway on ramp.
I draw in my brow as though I’m not sure what he’s questioning, but after he shakes his head with a grimace, I know it’s no use.
“Uncle Joel and Zack aren’t big Hollis fans. And before you bring up dinner, I know, they weren’t blatantly mean. At least, not there. But Uncle Joel feels threatened, and so does Zack, and I—
“Is she better?”
My dad breaks in with a succinct question. I don’t have to think about my response, but I let the pregnant pause build because the minute I answer, my dad will work to convince me that all problems are solved. He sees things black and white, right and wrong. If Hollis is better, which she is, then she gets the job, and Zack has to work hard to take it away from her. But in that gray is all the stuff that makes me sick—my cousin hating me for rooting for her, him maybe improving enough to take that starting position away from her, me resenting him for it down the road. And then, Uncle Joel playing politics. That is perhaps the heaviest blanket of them all.
“She’s amazing.”
Now it’s his turn to let my words linger, followed by silence. He never addresses them at all; in fact, just nods when I finally glance in his direction. I meant what I said, and it covers all things Hollis. My nagging worry over my father’s relationship with my uncle finally scratches at me enough that my new worries come out as I exit the freeway.
“I’m afraid Uncle Joel will try to do something, I don’t know, illegal?” I scrunch my shoulders, tucking my neck in at how foolish that sounds. It only gets worse when my dad laughs.
“He’s not going to do anything illegal. Is he going to be loud? Oh, for sure. Will he complain that life isn’t fair? My brother has been doing that since the first time he got in trouble for punching me in the arm. But in the end, it’s all noise. If Hollis wants to walk this path, I’m sure she’s gotten used to hearing a lot of noise. You just need to train your ears on when to tune it out.”
My brow dents at my dad’s incredibly wise advice.
“You sound like Mom,” I compliment. He breathes out a laugh because we both know Mom is the one with the most level head of all.
“I learned a lot from that woman.” He glances out his window and I can tell he’s thinking of her, his mind on getting back to her and making this trip again with her by his side.
I’ve learned a lot from Hollis, too. I’ve known her for a month, not quite even, and when I compare the man I am right now with the one who didn’t think he had much to learn, I’m kinda proud of my progress. Turns out a faster mile time isn’t the only self-improvement on my resume this year.
Full breaths no longer elude me by the time I drop my dad off at his terminal, and I manage to slip back into highway traffic on the verge of rush hour, which puts me back on campus before the sun is down. There’s an off chance Hollis is here still, but when I see my cousin pulling from the school lot with Roland and Jay, I know there’s no way she’d let them quit workouts before her.
I pass Zack and roll down my window, figuring he’d stop to talk, but he doesn’t even glance in my direction as he drives by with the guys. I spend the next few seconds, as I pull in and find a spot, convincing myself he didn’t see me or that he waved and I missed it. That’s not the case, though. With nobody here to witness, he decided to be a dick, and those knots I finally untangled in my chest? They’re back again, and a fuck-load tighter.
Deciding this parking lot is too damn far, I pull onto the curb and drive along the wide sidewalk between the buildings and the fields, getting as close as I can to the places where Hollis could be. My chests thumps with worry, and the quiet out on the baseball field leaves my stomach unsettled.
Goddamn, Zack. What did you do?
I don’t know when her dad will be here, or if she planned on walking or having her mom come. I wasn’t supposed to make it back this fast, so she’s not expecting me, but if something is wrong, she would have called, right? She would have called.
I’m out of my truck in one second, jogging toward the clubhouse with my phone clutched in my hand, hoping to feel it buzz with a text from her that tells my gut I’m wrong. I can make it to her faster than my call would go through. The more strides I take without feeling a vibration from a text, the more my pace picks up until I’m sprinting toward the freezing metal door that shouldn’t be so easy to lock.
Gripping the handle, I pull it open hard, not mentally prepared for what might be on the other side. I don’t know if he hurt her, if they all did, or something . . . worse.
Worse.
It takes my eyes a few seconds to focus on her, my next breath filled with relief that her shirt doesn’t look torn, that her body doesn’t look bruised. Fuck, the evil thoughts were so bad that I’m honestly glad she’s clothed. I feel sick, and arrange my features before she turns and faces me, but I let everything go when I see how soaking wet she is.
“Hollis, are you okay?” I rush to her, expecting tears or rage, but when she spins to face me, her expression is nothing but even.
“Oh! Hey, I didn’t think you were coming.” She grips the front of her T-shirt and undershirt in her hands, twisting to wring out some of the water. It pools on the floor between her feet. Her pants, socks, everything is plastered to her body as if she jumped, fully clothed, into a swimming pool.
“I made good time. Why are you . . ?” I reach forward and tug on a soaked sleeve.
“Oh, yeah. So, just me being silly. I was in the showers, and I thought I’d rinse off some of the dirt in my hair. You know, by leaning forward?” Her laugh is suspicious and my gut tells me she’s making up some bullshit right now. I say so with my face, my head cocked to one side while my eyes grill her for the truth.
“What? Oh, just me not thinking clearly. I’m fine, maybe cold, but . . .” I swear there’s a slight quiver in her lips, but she stretches them into a smile before I can call her on it.
“And you’re in here because?”
Her eyes flare briefly with her quick swallow. She’s thinking of an excuse. This doesn’t add up.
“Clothes. I thought maybe I left some in one of the cubbies, or maybe there were some shirts in storage.” She wraps her arms around her body and bounces on her feet, letting her mouth shiver with the chill. She isn’t making up being cold.
I glance around the space, then move to the corner where boxes from past seasons have been stacked for what looks like years. There’s a layer of dust on them that is scoopable. I slide one box to the ground and it sends a cloud of shit into the air. I wave it away from my face, coughing.
“There might be some in here,” I say, flipp
ing open the cardboard flaps to reveal yellowed long-sleeve shirts. She’s probably screwed in the pants department.
I toss her one from the middle of the stash and she peels her clothes away without warning, saying thanks as if this isn’t a big deal.
“What? You’ve seen all this,” she says, laughing through the words. Her hands shake as they work to pull her wet shirts away, and I swear there is more to it than just her being cold.
“Oh, I remember.” I smile as I move closer to help her pull the rest of the sodden mess over her head. The wet fabric keeps rolling. I play along with her, flirting. But now that I’m close I study her bare arms, her neck, the small of her back, looking for signs that something else happened here. Her skin is blotchy in places, red spots on her arms that could either be bruises forming or a reaction to the cold and the wet fabric.
I ready the dry shirt for her to slip her arms inside while she pulls her sports bra down her arms. My damn male instincts can’t help but look at her breasts, nipples puckered into tight tips that make my mouth water. She reaches her hands into the bottom of the shirt I hold up, the length gathered in my hands, and I help her work it up her arms and over her head.
“Maybe . . . two of these,” she says through chattering teeth.
I breathe out a short laugh, her hard nipples practically cutting through the cotton shirt. I nod, knowing in my gut that now is not the time to respond to this physical craving I can’t help but feel. She’s comfortable with me, but she’s not okay. Something else is going on.
I grab another shirt from the box and help her layer it over the first, then flip through the rest of the boxes in the pile, coming up with old scorebooks and helmets but nothing that will warm her.
“Alright, well.” I shrug, tugging my sweatpants down so I’m in my boxer briefs and a black hoodie. I toss my sweatpants at Hollis and she catches them in one hand while holding the other against her mouth in a fist, poorly hiding laughter.
“What?” I hold my arms out, knowing how funny I probably look. Also knowing that my reaction to her naked body is very apparent. When her eyes lower to my erection, I shrug, and her cheeks redden.
