When it’s over, I head back to BMOC house. I have no choice but to call my mother now, to find out what the fuck she’s been telling people about us. She knows better. She doesn’t know where I get the money I pay the bills with, but she knows it’s too much money to come from something like a part-time job at Aroma Joe’s. I wish it did, but it doesn’t.
One week to go. Saturday is the last away game of the season. I need to make it through without any distractions. Circling the wagons, the emotional and personal wagons, I head to my room and hit my mattress. Down close to the floor, I look up at the ceiling and it seems a mile away, somewhere in the stratosphere.
Slipping my phone from my jacket pocket, because I haven’t taken off my suit jacket, I dial Mom’s number with a shaky hand.
“Hello?” Her voice is melodic, light, but unsure, the kind of voice that instantly triggers the protective instinct in anyone who has one. Including me. Fuck.
“It’s me. Jack.” It’s been so long since we’ve spoken I’m not sure she’ll recognize my voice.
“Jack! Honey.” She gives a trill of excited laughter, trembling with emotion. “Oh, Jack you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice—of course I know it’s you. I’ll always know your voice. You’re my son.”
“Sure. Listen we need to talk—”
“I got the money you sent two weeks ago and I—” I cut her off before she can ask for more money, before I have to tell her the gravy train has slowed down to a stall.
“Have you been talking to reporters about me?”
“What? I don’t … not unless that man I ran into at the Burnt Timber was—” I don’t want to hear about her picking up some man at the bar, but I wonder if it was Voland.
“Was his name Xavier Voland?”
“Voland, yeah. I called him Vol. He was nice and bought me dinner. He didn’t mind me bragging about you. I hope you don’t mind?”
Fuck. “What did you tell him, Mom? He was a fucking reporter.”
“If he was, he didn’t say. Don’t be upset with me. I didn’t … I don’t remember what I said.”
I hear the helpless tears in her voice, the desperation, but she surprises me.
“He was a perfect gentleman. I want you to know I haven’t been dating anyone. I’ve been working. I have a job, Jack.” Her voice has a happy proud note that I barely recognize, but whatever she’s talking about, whatever little job she has probably won’t last and I need to find out what she said.
“I need you to think about what you told him. It’s important.”
“Why? What’s going on, Jack?” I pause, wondering why I ought to bother telling her, but I do.
“I’m being investigated by the NCAA. They’re looking into my finances. They’re suspicious about where I get my money.”
There’s a few beats of silence on the line and I know she’s absorbing what I’ve said, because I know underneath everything, the emotional wreck that she is, she’s also a smart woman. She knows I’m her gravy train, her means of survival, and she’ll protect me.
“I don’t need to know where you get the money, Jack. I know you do whatever you’re doing to support me, so I won’t judge you. If you want to tell me.”
“No, I don’t. But you can’t talk to anyone about money. Ever. Did you say anything to Voland about money?”
“I told him you sent me money. Bragged about what a wonderful son you are.”
The stab across my back feels real, like she’s in the room with me wielding a knife. Because we both know I’m the exact opposite of a wonderful son. And it doesn’t mollify my conscience—or my back—right now that she’s less than a wonderful mom. I wouldn’t even know any more what kind of mother she is, truth be told, because I haven’t let her be a parent to me in a long time. Not since I became the man of the house when Grandpa died and we switched roles.
“Are you sure that’s all you said? Did you mention anything about Grandpa?”
“No. Why would I? It feels like he’s been gone forever and it’s only been four years.”
Four years. Forever. Same thing. All I can afford to think about is now.
“Don’t talk to anyone about me or money. If they call you asking, hang up on them. If they knock on the door, don’t answer. If they approach you on the street, ignore them. Do not talk to them.”
“Who is it, this mysterious them that I can’t talk to, Jack?”
I almost forgot that Mom is a cagey one, that she has good survival instincts to back up her poor decision-making skills or she’d have been dead long ago.
“Any stranger. Reporters, NCAA officials. Don’t even talk to the FBI.” I hear her suck in a breath. When I’ve shocked my mother, that’s when I know I’m in deep shit. Fighting through my self-inflicted dizziness, I have to say to her words that make me sick.
“If anyone tries to talk to you, especially NCAA officials or the feds, call me.” My words reverberate in my chest, hollowing me out. “You have my number now.” Fuck.
I think of Majik and the image gives me hope. Maybe Mom will get her act together. Damn the searing sensation in my chest as I feel the shadow of painful disappointment on the horizon even as I set myself up with fucking hopeful thoughts.
“Goodbye, Mom.” I hang up before she can say anything, before I have to listen to that voice anymore. The voice of the angel from my earliest memories. And the voice of the helpless disappointment from the time I was five.
The week goes by without calc tutoring, without seeing Joni. I make excuses and Joni lets me off the hook, riding by on the breeze of her B+ midterm. We leave on Friday for our away game, a win, a dozen bruises.
On Sunday after the team gets back amid the hassle of TV cameras, she calls, wanting to celebrate. I’m reluctant to commit after putting some distance between us this week and I can sense she doesn’t realize it. I need to be more forceful. I tell her to celebrate with Dooley and Izzy.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, for tutoring?”
Damn. I should beg out of it permanently, talk to Lassiter, talk someone else into taking my place as her tutor. But I find myself nodding, “Sure. The Majik kitchen, nine p.m.”
“That’s late,” she says.
“The Heisman finalists are going to be announced.”
“Wow, that’s so exciting. Tomorrow? Do they make some sort of announcement on TV or will they call you?” I smile. Her sincere and innocent pleasure coats me like honey, like a balm on an open wound. Like a drug I thought I didn’t need anymore. I go for one more fix. What can it hurt?
“Why don’t you come over at eight? We’re going to watch the announcement on ESPN.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Jack. I wish I was there right now. I’d hug you so hard.” I can feel the squeeze around my cock, feel the want and need I’d been burying under my football focus, under the Heisman tension. Behind the wall of protection I’ve erected against the coming threat of exposure and truth.
But it’s all gone now. Whatever defense I had against Joni is dust. My heart is exposed, thudding hard and loud, emotion choking to the surface. I want her. I need her. And I don’t care how desperate I am, how pathetic that makes me.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” I manage to end the call without telling her to come to my room right now so I can fuck her silly, using my one last vestige of control, forcing me to wait until tomorrow. Maybe I’ll regain some cool by then, regain some sense, the rational use of my mind. But I doubt it because I’m grinning into the dark of my room, the excitement of anticipation to see Joni glaring my vision, obscuring whatever problems filled my soul a few minutes ago.
Everyone at BMOC House sits in the living room on the couches, chairs and the filthy floor. Joni sits on my lap in the throne chair, some reject recliner one of the guys brought from home and left here after graduation. I have the remote and crank up the volume when the sportscaster cuts to the live press conference from the Trinity Building at 111 Broadway in New York City.
When the re
presentative of the Heisman Memorial Trust, former winner Jim Tevlow, takes the podium to announce the finalists, the room quiets.
“This is it, Jack,” George says. Joni squeezes the hand I have on her thigh, squeezing her exposed flesh.
“Last chance to call it, men. Anyone doubt I’m in?” A chorus of noes rises and I punch the air. It’s as close a gesture as I can make to Babe Ruth pointing to the fence in left field while standing at the plate for his last at-bat. Ballsy man. My heart speeds up as the sportscaster stops talking and the man at the podium clears his throat, getting ready to speak. I forcibly slow my breathing to prevent a heart attack as my chest pounds.
“In no particular order, the finalists for this year’s Heisman Trophy are . . . running back Henry McCarthy from Clemson.” Tevlow pauses as murmurs from the press rise and a clip of McCarthy running for a touchdown plays on the screen behind him.
“Next finalist, from Notre Dame, Quarterback Breece Neville.” The camera zeroes in on film of Neville throwing a forty-five-yard touchdown strike. My chest tightens. Joni murmurs something soft, I don’t know what it is. The room tenses, people move, lean into the eighty-inch television sitting on a long low table.
The camera cuts away from the clip and goes back to Tevlow. He clears his throat again. My head pounds with the hard beating of my heart and I wonder if I’m going to have a stroke, so I force a deep breath.
“The last finalist for this year’s Heisman is the quarterback from St. Paul University, Jack Hunter.” As the room explodes around me, I close my eyes and pull Joni close, breathe in and out to get my heart under control.
“Fuck. That was tense,” I grin. Everyone laughs. Then I stand, lifting Joni with me, as she laughs, kissing my face. Someone blows an airhorn.
Lifting Joni off the floor, I swing her around to hoots and hollers and hugs and back slaps. I’m surprised when Majik appears like magic, bringing in a cake. When I put Joni back on the floor, Majik puts out a hand for me to shake.
“Congratulations, Jack. You’re halfway there.” Instead of shaking her hand, I embrace her in a grateful hug.
“Thanks, Majik. I literally couldn’t have done it without you. I’d have starved to death.” She laughs. Joni’s grin looks like it’s going to break her face. George is jumping around, mimicking the clip of me running for that infamous touchdown they showed for my highlight.
“Coach is going to be pissed they used that clip,” Tristan says.
“Fuck him,” I say.
Someone says time for a toast. George brings in a giant display-size bottle of Jack Daniels and I laugh, but he’s serious.
“Everyone’s gotta have a drink from the bottle.”
I drink milk when everyone else drinks shots from the bottle, but even the strong guys have a hard time lifting it, spilling it and laughing and getting whiskey everywhere. Someone hands the bottle to Majik and my eyes meet hers. I hold my breath knowing she shouldn’t drink it. I shake my head and grab it away from her.
“Majik has to stay sober. Someone has to take care of this pack of wild animals.” I raise the bottle up, knowing I’m strong enough to take a drink. And then strong enough to stop. Because I don’t need it for a crutch, I don’t crave it like a lover. I’m not like my mother. I tilt the bottle and take a sloppy sip, letting the burning liquid touch my throat and dribble down my chin. Then I stop, bypassing Joni, I hand the bottle on to Dooley and wonder what the hell he’s doing here until I see Izzy with him. He takes the bottle and gives me a wink.
“Hey, I didn’t get a celebration drink,” Joni says, reaching for the bottle, but I grab her wrist, feeling the bracelet under my thumb and I hold her back, pulling her back down into the chair with me.
“No whiskey for you. I want you stone-cold sober when I fuck you into oblivion.” I whisper the words into her ear but it wouldn’t matter because the room is loud and everyone is dancing and laughing and talking shit about the other candidates and laying odds on my chances. She shudders in my arms and turns to me.
“I’ll go anywhere with you, Jack. You know I’ve lost the battle long ago.” She doesn’t explain what battle she’s talking about, but I know exactly what she means. Elation grips me until guilt mixes in. But the power of Joni is too strong and I lift her and carry her from the room like some conquering hero cheered by the crowd, and carry her up the stairs to hoots and hollers as she laughs, giggling and giddy, looking so impossibly happy. And I fucking hope her happiness isn’t impossible, but I know better than to hope.
Instead, I make good on my promise of bliss and oblivion and hold onto the moment, the joy we have now, the victory and hold back the knowledge that it’s only one step and tomorrow isn’t promised.
I wouldn’t take that bet on me winning the Heisman knowing what I know.
And I wouldn’t follow me anywhere if I were Joni, knowing what I know.
Chapter 17
Joni
It’s slightly embarrassing when the limo pulls up to the curb to pick me up. Most of the students have left campus, but Jack waits with me in the lounge and carries most of my bags out to the car, except the two I insist on taking from him because I’m not helpless.
“You sure you don’t want to come with me back to Moreland? My house is big enough to find a hiding place for you.”
“I’m too afraid if I return to Moreland the ground will swallow me up like the mythical figure Shame.”
“What? Shame? There’s no mythical figure Shame. You made that up.” He tugs me by my faux fur coat as I laugh at him. He pulls me against the hard wall of his chest and I suddenly wish I was wearing a lot less clothes. But even through our interfering coats I can feel the solidness of him, the sureness, smell the reek of confidence, his maleness.
He takes my face in his hands. They’re warm in spite of the frigid weather. He lowers his forehead to touch mine, a wavy lock of his hair tickling my face as it falls against my cheek.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” I tell him. Am I really serious about convincing him to come stay at my home? No. but I’m desperate not to leave him.
Instead of answering me, he lays his lips over mine, presses the hot succulent flesh of his mouth against mine, making my gut tumble in sudden lust.
The car door opens and I reflexively pull away from Jack’s kiss as he chuckles at my discomfort. He holds me close, nuzzling my ear while the driver, Eddie, gets out of the car, picks up the bags Jack dropped by the trunk and puts them inside.
“Promise me you’ll call. You sure you’ll be okay?”
“Don’t worry about me, princess. Tristan’s family will take good care of me. They always have a house full of good people and excellent pie.”
“Then maybe I should come with you.”
“Maybe you should.” Then as if he senses my wish is too genuine, he adds, “but I wouldn’t want your parents to think I kidnapped you.”
“I told you they don’t know about you—about us. Though I think Dad suspects.”
“He knows.” He’s looking over my shoulder at Eddie.
I nod. Eddie clears his throat. “Miss Dowd, we really should get going. Greta is planning dinner at six.” Since when does he call me Miss Dowd? I feel silly, but I don’t call him on his ridiculous formality. Not now when I’m leaving Jack.
“Okay, Eddie. Just one more minute.” I watch him until he gets back inside the car then I throw myself back into Jack and hold him, hoping he doesn’t get freaked by my sudden reluctance to leave him behind.
“Hey, princess, what’s wrong?” He backs me up to examine my face and I push my fear aside, not sure what it’s all about. Something has me uneasy. I shake my head.
“We’ll be back in a few days. Then we’ll have the world by the tail. The Heisman voting is coming up.”
He kisses my smile. A short kiss, but deep and true. “I needed to keep a piece of your happiness with me,” he says.
I laugh. “You should write poetry.”
“Song lyrics,” he says. “
That’s where the money is.” He pushes me away as I swat at him playfully.
“Way to ruin a romantic moment, Hunter.”
“Exactly,” he says. He opens the door and puts a hand on my back to encourage me inside the limo, and even as I feel the warmth of his hand, breathe the scent of him, oak and man, his comment chills me.
“Have a happy Thanksgiving, Joni.” He licks a finger and touches my lips with the tip, then closes my door. I nod. I’m already feeling the pains of withdrawal, already getting that feeling that things won’t be the same though I don’t really have any objective reason to feel this way. Except that this is Jack and there’s always reason to fear losing Jack.
The car pulls forward and I watch him shrink into the landscape in his faded jeans and black Salvation Army pea coat, his wavy locks blowing in the wind, looking impervious to the cold. Maybe made of the cold, part of the cold. He shrinks down small until he looks like a young, vulnerable kid. That heartbreakingly exposed and hopeful kid from the barbeque at Lake Winnipesaukee.
Shit. I need to get my head on straight. I need to take advantage of the break from too much Jack Hunter influence, too many JH-induced orgasms fogging my mind, taking a toll on my good sense.
Grabbing two of my bags because I feel silly having Eddie try to juggle them all, I wonder what it is with these men treating me like I’m a princess? They don’t treat Izzy this way and I know for a fact she’d relish it. I walk in the back door to the kitchen, my favorite entrance. The scent of cinnamon rolls reminds me of the best parts of home and I smile, dropping my bags and going to the platter on the counter. Taking one of the flaky treats, I stuff it into my mouth whole.
Eddie laughs at me and I try not to laugh as I chew and swallow. I’m about to call out for Greta, but shouting from another room interrupts me. It’s my mother. My body stops and I feel my nerves buzzing with dread. My mother never shouts in anger like what I’m hearing now, ugly gut-spilling screams of rage. I look at Eddie, but he says nothing. Turning away, he picks up all the bags and takes them up the back stairs to my room.
Big Man on Campus: an Enemies to Lovers College Romance (Big Men on Campus Book 1) Page 23
