Noticing me, Jenny widened her eyes as if mocking April’s antics. “So, Tegan, you dating anyone?”
“Yeah, but he’s going to school in Texas.” I tried shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal, but I didn’t think I was all that convincing.
“That’s rough. Not sure I’m cut out for the long-distance thing.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. “Since when were you cut out for any type of relationship?”
Jenny raised her eyebrows in a mocking way. “I’m not a fan of routine, unlike you and Seb, who are practically married.”
“Please.” Michelle ripped the lid off a Pringle’s can and chomped into a chip. She offered the can to the group and then dipped into the cooler to retrieve red grapes, setting out the container for the group after plucking a handful for herself. “We’re only living together because it saves on rent. Not all of us have Mommy and Daddy paying our bills.”
Jenny, unperturbed by the last comment, snatched a chip. “Let me see your ring finger. Got the circle of death on it yet?”
Michelle proudly displayed her middle finger. “Not everyone can be a player like you.”
Jenny thumped her chest like Tarzan. “Damn right and proud of it.”
“Although I’m getting some, and your vibe screams sex deprived.”
Laughing, Jenny shook a fist at Michelle. “Whatever.”
I nibbled on a chip, pondering Jenny’s words since I hadn’t pegged her as a player. Not once in the past week had I seen her flirt with a dude. I wasn’t throwing myself at the hotties on campus, but I had a reason, namely my boyfriend. What was holding her back? “Have you ever dated anyone?”
Jenny hitched a shoulder, avoiding my eyes. “Not for long. A couple of weeks here and there.”
“I’ve had colds that lasted longer.” Laughing, I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t spray chunks of chips on Gemma. “That doesn’t count. Not at all!”
“I’m with Jenny. Relationships are for suckers. With all the items on the menu, why limit yourself?” April grabbed a handful of Pringles.
Jenny placed a finger on her nose and stretched out her other hand toward April. “There’s a reason we’re roommates.”
Sophie B. Hawkins’s song “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” played softly over the speakers.
“I love this song.” Michelle cranked the volume.
Singing the lyrics, Jenny seized her beer can. April joined in, looking like Marilyn Monroe singing to the president, giving the word “provocative” a whole new meaning. Michelle egged them on, cheering like a foolish roadie. Gemma squirmed on her towel with an uncomfortable smile. When the song ended, Jenny waggled her eyebrows at April, who giggled like she thought Jenny was actually making a play for her.
“What about you, Gemma? Got someone back home?” Michelle lit an American Spirit, handing it off to Jenny, who took a drag and passed it back.
“Nah. Slim pickings in a town of only four hundred.” Gemma blinked excessively, straightening the corners of her towel. The sun had reemerged from behind a cloud, but I wondered if there was another reason why Gemma looked... ashamed.
“Four hundred?” Michelle held her cigarette in front of her face as if too stunned to take a drag.
“Four hundred and seven according to the last census. Minus one now.”
“That’s a quarter of the size of my high school.” Jenny whistled and grabbed another beer from the cooler. “I can’t even imagine. Alfrid must seem like a metropolis to you.” She held her arms out wide. “And as the saying goes, the world is my oyster. That’s my motto.”
“God, you’re such a dork.” Michelle motioned for a beer.
“I may be a dork, but I’m a free dork. Not like you and Tegan, tied down before you’re even twenty.” She turned to April. “What do you say, April? Want to take a splash with me?”
The two of them jumped over the ledge, disappearing from sight, although I could hear April’s scream all the way down.
Michelle met my eye. “Jenny’s always been crazy. I like that about her, but I don’t believe her for one bit. She acts tough, but Jenny wishes she was in a relationship. Not that she would admit that and… She’s too easily influenced.” Michelle stared at the ledge. “I worry about her.”
Before I could ask why, she dove off and hit the water seconds later, leaving Gemma and I alone on the rock. I turned to the redhead. “It’s just you and me, kid, against the world,” I said in what my mother always claimed was my over-the-top voice.
“I got your back.”
“Speaking of, I should sunscreen yours.” I shook the Coppertone.
“Nah, it’ll be fine.” She settled back onto the towel as if to prove her point.
“You sure? You don’t want to be tan on only one side, and it wouldn’t say much as a future nurse if I sat by why you turned into half a lobster.”
Gemma shielded her eyes, studying me for a second before she said, “I wouldn’t want you to slip up because of me.”
Chapter Four
“Gemma and Tegan, you two belong together, like gin and tonic.” Michelle took a drag from her cigarette and then blew smoke upward into the haze clinging to the low-hanging popcorn ceiling. Torn and wrinkled posters ranging from Nirvana to Pearl Jam to Alice in Chains to Stone Temple Pilots were taped to the drywall in the unfinished basement. The wall on the other side was cement. The previous owners must have started renovating the space but then abandoned the job halfway through, opting to rent out the three-bedroom house to college kids who wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the state of things. The worse shape the house was in, the cheaper the rent.
Gemma and I were squeezed into a rattan hanging swing chair for one, but we made it work.
Jenny bolted upright in the vinyl navy beanbag held together with duct tape. Her movement caused a handful of beads to spill onto the concrete floor. “Dude, you’re so right. Gemma is totally the gin: quietly confident and dependable, and TR is the spazzy fizz.”
“I’m not a spaz!” I sloped forward in the hanging chair, shaking a fist at Jenny.
The egg-shaped chair, attached to a wooden stand, wobbled precariously to the left and then to the right.
“Whoa!” I clapped a hand over my red Solo cup, swaying with the chair.
Gem placed a foot on the threadbare area rug to save us from careening into the paint-splattered concrete off to the side.
“You see. Steady Gemmy saved your ass again while your gut reaction was to save your drink.” Jenny giggled, twisting her face into the crook of her arm as if she had said the most hilarious thing in human history.
I giggled with her, rolling my eyes. “Whatever.” Then her words sank into my gin-foozled brain. “What do you mean again?”
Sebastian held up a scratched-to-hell plastic Coors Light pitcher he had “procured” from O’Neil’s sports bar one town over last year when he was a freshman. “Refill?” A chain was clipped to a belt loop in the front and draped halfway down his thigh, loosely connected to the wallet in his back pocket. Maybe O’Neil’s should chain down their pitchers the first weekend of the semester since it was a rite of passage for many Hill University newbies to nab one. Unfortunately, I hadn’t learned about this rule until the second week, seriously damaging my street cred. Now that we were well over a month, practically two, into the semester, it was seriously too late to pilfer my own pitcher, and I’d never be a freshman again. As mom liked to say, “There are no do-overs in life.”
“Please.” I thrust my plastic cup for him to refill with gin and tonic, heavy on the gin. Then he plopped a lime wedge into my glass, making the concoction fizz.
Gemma nodded her head for another round. “Thanks, Seb.”
Early in September, our group had initiated the first G&T Thursday after listening to “Hey Jealousy” by the Gin Blossoms. Jenny had said she’d never sampled a gin and tonic, and before any of us knew it, a tradition had been born. Over five weeks and still going strong. If a person didn’t like gin and tonic, there was no
need to show up on Thursdays. That was until the gin ran out and we switched to Bud Light.
“Yoo-hoo, Seb. I need more.” April batted her eyes seductively and smiled at Sebastian, Michelle’s boyfriend of two years.
Michelle met my gaze, chomping on her bottom lip. The only reason any of us still tolerated April was because she was Jenny’s roommate.
Sebastian’s unbuttoned shirt flapped to the side, revealing a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt. “Right. Sorry about that, Apes.”
April’s lips puckered. I hadn’t been brave enough to use the nickname. I rubbed the top of my head, wondering if anyone else had or just Sebastian. He had a look of innocence with the right amount of cluelessness and could get away with it. However, I suspected he knew what he was doing and used his naïveté to his utmost advantage. It was always best to keep an eye on the quiet ones.
Gemma glanced at me with her emerald eyes, eliciting a sensation in my chest that I couldn’t put a name to. We’d morphed into best friends almost instantly after our first day in the dorm.
There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for the shy redhead from Nebraska. I nestled against her shoulder, smelling her just showered fresh scent and fruity shampoo. I was on my fourth gin and tonic while steady Gemmy nursed her second. Maybe that was one of the reasons why people thought her more confident—she’d rarely got as drunk as the rest of us.
I nuzzled into her shoulder, thinking how good it felt to have her so close. I slurred, “I-I like this,” and then took a sip of my drink. To strip away the bad taste in my mouth, I ran my teeth over my tongue, which was coated with a layer of booze funk.
Gemma winced, but her only response was to guzzle half of her drink.
“Tegan.” Michelle snapped her fingers to get my full attention. “When’s your boyfriend visiting? I have to meet the man who tamed you.”
I sprung upright. “No one’s tamed me!”
Once again, Gemma made sure we didn’t tumble onto the floor.
“Methinks you hit a sore spot,” Jenny said, raising her glass toward Michelle who did the same. She turned her head to me. “What’s the matter?”
I took a nip of my drink, stalling, which did not escape their notice. Both motioned for me to come out with it.
“I don’t know. I just don’t miss Josh. Shouldn’t I miss my boyfriend who lives in Texas while I’m in Colorado? We’re 600 miles apart, but it feels more like 6,000.” I shrugged, settling back against Gemma’s comforting shoulder. My feelings for Josh, or lack thereof, had been weighing heavily on my mind. I peered out the tiny basement window and glimpsed the auburn, yellow, and orange leaves.
“Why did he go to school in Texas?” Jenny asked. Coloradoans weren’t known to be partial to Texas or Texans.
“All the men in his family have gone to school in Lubbock.”
Michelle lit an American Spirit by using the red tip of her nearly extinguished cigarette and circled back to what I’d said. “Hmmm. In the beginning, was your relationship hot and heavy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Passionate. Like Heathcliff and Catherine.”
“Who are they?” My voice cracked.
Gemma placed a hand on my thigh, smiling. “You know, Wuthering Heights.”
“Oh, I know the Kate Bush song,” I confessed sheepishly.
Michelle leaned forward on the tattered brown and orange plaid couch she and Seb had claimed after a neighbor three streets over set it on the curb. This was another tradition in Alfrid—college students who lived off campus scoured the streets for abandoned couches to put on their front decks and in their basements. Older residents appreciated the scavengers saving them a trip to the dump. “Is your relationship like that?”
“God no! Josh is mellow. So mellow sometimes it’s hard to know what he’s thinking, let alone that he’s breathing.” Not that many of the boys I went to high school with had dazzled me with their charm. There wasn’t an Indiana Jones in the bunch. As far as I could tell, only one thing got Josh excited, and it was the thing I’d been taught never to discuss in public. Or private for that matter. “At least, that’s how I remember him. It feels like ages since I’ve seen him.”
Michelle and Jenny exchanged a look that said, “Where do we go from here?”
“What attracted you to him in the first place?” Michelle asked into her cracked Solo cup.
When Josh had first shown an interest, my initial thought had been whether or not he was available. My second was whether or not he was non-threatening. My third was I better latch onto him or my mother would keep trying to set me up with sons of her friends. And let’s be honest, if their moms had to set them up, there was a reason. After a painful incident with a boyfriend I had been crazy about, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of dating another boy from my high school. How to explain, though? “He wasn’t on the football team and didn’t want to be.” That was true. After dating a few jocks, I had realized I should steer clear. Their massive egos and my double D boobs made for many uncomfortable nights shoving a big galoot, who only was interested in S-E-X and nothing more, off of me. The word that came to mind when I thought of Josh was safe.
Michelle crinkled her nose like she did when presented with a mental conundrum. “Huh, so more of an artsy type?”
“Not really. He’s the type that likes to sit on a deck with a twelve-pack and only utter ten words all day. It’s easy being around him. Takes zero effort.” After living with my mother, who ruthlessly henpecked everyone in the family, including my father, I desired a drama-free life.
“Sounds like a real wiener.” April theatrically covered her mouth. “I mean winner.”
Whenever April contributed to any conversation, it was the equivalent of slinging ice water into everyone’s face.
“You like easy?” Michelle adjusted on the couch, tossing an arm along the back, looking completely at ease.
I raked my blonde hair. “I don’t know. With Josh, yes. He’s extremely uncomplicated, but…”
“But what?” Jenny peered at me.
The thought vanished before it had to chance to take root. “I don’t know. Too many of these today.” I raised my half-empty cup.
“How’s the sex?” Michelle asked.
My face went up in flames, and I gasped. “Who are you? Dr. Ruth?”
“In training.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“You want to be a sex therapist? Not your typical headshrinker?” My voice was practically operatic.
“I haven’t decided on my specialty, but I am drawn to sex—”
“Who isn’t?” purred April with a smile bordering on lecherous.
Michelle flashed her tight-lipped smile and then mouthed “Later” to me.
I nodded and snuggled against Gemma again in the swaying chair. She downed the rest of her gin and tonic and promptly knifed the air with her finger for a refill.
Seb, the gracious host, hopped up. “There you go, G. How about you, Spazzy?” He swirled the contents in the pitcher.
I hitched a shoulder. “Sure. I don’t need to go to my classes tomorrow.”
“Tegan, have you been shopping yet for your Halloween costume?” Jenny grinned. “Only two weeks until the big day.”
“I told you I’m not going as Princess Leia.”
“But you promised.”
“That was before I got a load of her outfit. Come to think of it, she wasn’t wearing much at all.”
“You saw the movie before agreeing. How could you forget?” Jenny joggled her head in a drunken fashion and slurred, “A promise is a promise.”
“The only thing I remembered from seeing the movie when I was a kid were the furry things. Not a woman in a bikini chained to a hideous, slimy ogre.”
“He’s more like a slug from outer space with a toad face,” Gemma corrected.
“You aren’t selling it.” I poked her in the ribs. Her eyes met mine, and I felt like I was swimming in a calming pool of green.
“I’m not letting you off the h
ook, Spazzy. You’re the only one here who can pull off Leia, and all of us”—she motioned to the group, including April, who had been vague about her costume choice—“agreed to go as different Star Wars characters.”
“Dude, I’m down with that, but not as Leia in that outfit.”
“I’ll do it,” April said, and no one paid her heed, not even Jenny, until she added, “But Tiny T, you promised. It’s not our fault you didn’t know what you were talking about when you made the promise.”
I could practically feel the death rays shooting out of my eyes at April. When we’d had the conversation, she’d confused Star Trek with Star Wars, and now she was acting like an expert on the George Lucas trilogy. Her motives were just as baffling as Darth Vader.
“She wasn’t in her slave outfit in all three of the movies. Most of the time she’s wearing a long white dress.” Gemma took a nervous sip and edged away from me some as if startled or disappointed.
I squinted at the ceiling but couldn’t conjure up the white dress in my memory from the most recent viewing a couple of weeks ago. Only the bikini registered.
Hours later, Gemma and I stumbled into our dorm room. I had one arm around her shoulder, and she had one arm encircled around my waist.
“Here you go.” Gemma sat me on my unmade bed, yanked off my shoes, pushed me down on the sheet, and tucked me in under my pink and white comforter. “Cozy?” She arched a ginger eyebrow.
“Snug as a bug.” I tittered like a fool.
She stared down at me with an odd smile on her face. “I’m going to shower,” she said with a sort of swallow.
“Righty-O, space captain.” I sat up unsteadily to snap a salute, but only managed to slam the side of my hand into my eyeball.
As soon as the bathroom door shut, I chastised myself. “Righty-O, space captain?” I groaned and fell back onto my pillow, baffled by why I suddenly felt uncomfortable around Gemma. No, not uncomfortable, per se, but tongue-tied. Like I was trying too hard to be cute, funny, and charming.
Girl Love Happens : Season One Page 3
