Landslide

by Jenn Cooksey

  “Why would I wanna quit? No one likes a quitter and besides,” I take another drag and smile huge so all of my teeth show, “everyone knows guys who smoke are hot and have enormous cocks. You’re just jealous because all the chicks want me.”

  To prove my point, another Walmart employee of the female variety pushes through the backdoors talking on her cell and when she looks over at us, I give her the what’s up nod and wink at her. She gives me a little wave, smiles, and covering one end of her phone, she whistles and says, “You are one sexy beast, Cole.”

  “You know it,” I answer around the cigarette in my mouth.

  “And you’re a horrible flirt. Wanna grab something to eat later? You still owe me Cold Stone you know.”

  Out of the corner of my eyes I look at Holden and catch him shaking his head again and chuckling to himself.

  “Sorry, beautiful, I don’t get off until three this morning and I have to be at the golf course by 4:30. Maybe hit me up next week after New Year’s.” She nods and goes back to her phone call, and I turn back to Holden. “See?”

  “You’re impossible, dude. Why do you owe her Cold Stone?”

  “Not a clue, man…I don’t even know what her name is,” I admit and we both start laughing.

  “So if we’re not gonna get any hang time this week, am I at least gonna see you at Erica’s on New Year’s Eve?” he asks, watching me finger-punt my spent cigarette into the darkened alley.

  “I dunno, man, I think I might be pullin’ a double that night.”

  “Cole, come on, that’s bullshit and you know it. You just don’t wanna go to a party that parents and little kids will be at, but, dude…I fly out early on the first so the party will be our only other chance to catch up if you can’t get time off this week. I miss you, man, and you can afford to take one night off to party and have fun with your best friend before he has to go back to school. So, whatdaya say? Will you show?”

  All true. And he knows what a good guilt trip will do to me, the fucker. I open my mouth to answer and then shut it just as quick when I see him pull his phone out and smile as he looks at the caller ID.

  “Hey, Babe!” … “Yeah, I’ll be there soon, I’m just trying to get Cole to commit to your party.” … “No, he hasn’t.” … “Yeah, he’s right here, I’ll put him on,” he says, grinning at me and holding out his phone for me to take.

  I roll my eyes in response.

  Except in passing, I haven’t really seen or talked to Erica since Holden and I graduated this past June and he went up to Oregon on a full-ride to play college football. I still know what’s coming though. Holden shoves his phone at me again and while sighing and taking it from him, I light up another smoke just to be a dick.

  “Damn, girl, I only left your bed an hour ago, you miss me already?”

  Anyone else would’ve been cold-clocked.

  No one talks to or about Erica Taylor like that. No. One. Not even the love of her life and my best friend, Holden St. James. I’m not entirely sure why I can get away with it, but no matter how crude or outlandish, any time I’ve ever popped off with some kind of remark in regard to Erica and mine’s nonexistent love affair, all Holden does is shake his head, smile and/or chuckle.

  Not that he has anything to be worried about with her and me. Or with her and anyone really. I knew her before he did, being that her house is around the block from mine, and her grandma used to babysit me when I was a little kid. Although despite her being admittedly prettier than your average cheerleader, she’s never done much of anything for me. Even if she did though, everyone knows she’s taken and therefore completely untouchable. I mean tons of guys think about it, I’m sure, but I don’t care who you are; as long as she’s going out with the town’s golden boy, you just don’t admit out loud that you want to bang her. If you were dumb enough to let something like that slip, somehow, someway, you’d end up with a fist in your face at the very least. It’s just a fact.

  When they first started dating, most everyone thought she was a rebound. Erica was a fifteen-year-old sophomore and Holden was a seventeen-year-old junior, and the relationship he’d been in for about six months had just come to a crashing halt when the chick dumped him on the dance floor at Homecoming. It was the longest relationship he’d ever been in and having always been the dumper, he never saw it coming. He was a wreck for all of two days until he started talking to Erica on Facebook. From the time he and his family moved here shortly before he and I went into sixth grade, he and Erica only had one class together and it was when she was a freshman. They’d never actually talked to each other though until she posted that infamous “Truth Is” status the Monday evening after Homecoming and when Holden “liked” it, she actually followed through with writing a truth statement on his wall the very same night. From there they started texting, by Wednesday they were FaceTiming, and by Friday night, he was shaking hands with her grandparents at a family barbecue.

  That was just over two years ago. They were Homecoming King and Queen last year and although she was a junior, everyone voted them Prom King and Queen. Holden graduated with a full scholarship to play football for the University of Oregon where he spent this last fall being the only freshman getting starting, televised game time, and Erica…? Well, she’s still here in California, a senior in high school and captain of Varsity Cheer, of course, but even being over a thousand miles away from Holden, she’s still untouchable.

  I pull in another long drag and pretend to listen to what Erica is yammering at me about, however all I can really focus on is the way Holden keeps staring anxiously at me and fiddling with something in his pocket. I mean I know I’m a damned good-looking guy, but, Jesus, dude, ya don’t gotta rub one out right in front of me.

  “Yeah, yeah. See you on New Year’s, bitch,” I say and hang up. Bitch being used as a term of endearment of course. Erica’s not a bitch. I mean she can be, but for her to get bitchy with you, you have to seriously screw up and if you have, you’ve probably already had a fist in your face, so it’s rare to see Erica actually be a bitch. In fact, she’s one of those unrealistically nice people who reads to old people in nursing homes and to sick kids in the hospital. You know the kind…a chick who would give a stranger the shirt off her own back; someone no one ever thinks twice about defending or coming to her aid in the form of punching someone’s lights out.

  “She tell you to quit smoking and stop being a pansy-ass and come to her party?” Holden asks me, chuckling and taking his phone back.

  “Of course. She also told me she loves me and can’t wait for you to go back to Oregon so we can have wild monkey sex.”

  “She did, huh?”

  “Well, maybe not in those words…she did tell me to fuck off though, so it’s really just a matter of reading between the lines.”

  “Well yeah, when you put it that way,” he says with a grin and then as he begins another disturbing round of pocket pool, his face turns serious, “Can I tell you something and have you promise you won’t tell a soul? I can’t take it anymore, I’ve gotta tell someone…”

  Warning! Warning!

  All kinds of alarm bells and red lights and shit immediately go off in my head. I don’t want to know what this is, because I swear to God if he tells me he cheated on his girlfriend, I’ll deck him. I mean I understand we’re best friends and keeping those kinds of secrets is part of my job, but come the fuck on! Erica’s my friend too. Not only that, but she’s like Mother Teresa and Gandhi’s love child for crying out loud and you just don’t cheat on a chick like that, you know? Seriously, that’s like asking for Karma to bitch slap the shit out of you.

  I drop my smoke and use it as an excuse to look down as I crush it under my foot, buying myself a quick second before responding. “Before I promise to keep my mouth shut, answer me one thing.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Am I gonna wanna hit you after you tell me?”

  “What? No! God, at least I hope not.”

  “Then I’ll take it to th
e grave.”

  “I’m gonna do it,” he says, a big grin spreading across his face, “I’m gonna ask her to marry me.”

  The fuck?! I thought he said I wasn’t gonna wanna hit him!

  “Dude! Are you insane?! She’s in fucking high school!”

  “She is? Oh, wow. I didn’t know that about the girl I’ve been going out with for two years and two months. Jeez, thanks for pointing that out, you’re a good friend, man,” Holden says with wide eyes, and I must say, his use of sarcasm has really come a long way since we first met back when we were twelve. I’m so proud…

  Funny as his retort is, I just stare at him, trying to figure out what he can be thinking asking a girl in high school to marry him. True, Erica will be eighteen in February, but still. What in the actual fuck? He’s not even twenty yet; he’s in college and has more than three years to go there, if the NFL doesn’t draft him before he’s done matriculating that is. Regardless, he has his whole life ahead of him, and it’s been shaping up to be a great life. I just don’t get why anyone in their right mind would willingly sell themselves short on getting to live the life Holden has the opportunity to live by proposing to a girl who can’t even vote yet.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but I love her, Cole. I can’t even picture a future or a life without her in it. And before you say anything, I’m not proposing because she’s pregnant or anything like that…I don’t think I’m even gonna do it until after she graduates, but I am doing it. I don’t care if we don’t get married until after she finishes college even, as long as she’s wearing my ring and promises to be mine forever, I’ll die a happy man.”

  I honestly don’t know what to say. He’s one hundred percent serious, though. I can hear the conviction in his voice and I can see the sincerity in his eyes.

  Holy shit, are those tears?

  “You wanna see the ring?” he asks and digs into his pocket. And actually, now I’m sort of wishing he had been stroking himself earlier. I mean I think knowing he was petting a damned diamond ring is even more upsetting than thinking my buddy was getting hard for me. I don’t know why, but I think I convinced myself I should be flattered before and now I’m just…disappointed. “I just picked it up before I came to see you.”

  “Wow, Holden…it’s really, um…” Okay, so I’m no connoisseur of jewelry, but… No. Just, no.

  “It’s great, huh? You think she’ll like it?”

  Honestly, no. I think it’s ridiculously ostentatious and it doesn’t look like anything Erica would ever wear—not that I know what kind of jewelry any chick would wear, but it just doesn’t look like Erica to me. And yeah, I’m pissed that I’m even having to use words like ostentatious in the first place, but I’ll be goddamned if that isn’t what this ring is!

  “I sold my truck to pay for it.”

  That’s it! I’m gonna strangle the stupid out of him! “You sold your truck to buy that thing?! That truck is practically brand new!”

  “Yep! I don’t need it up at school and my parents were just wasting money paying for my insurance on it every month, so selling it to get the perfect ring for Erica was a no-brainer. I just know she’s gonna love it.”

  I blow out a breath and rake a hand through my hair, feeling guilty as hell for half-heartedly wishing he’d told me he cheated on her instead of this, and trying to compose myself enough to not let my disapproval show. I mean what does a guy say when he’s like 98.5% sure his best friend will be making a mistake by getting married?

  “You realize if you do this you’ll never get to have sex with anyone else, right? And I’m not saying this as a joke or to be a jerk, but you gotta think about it…is the sex that good right now that you could live with never being tempted to dip your wick someplace else? I mean ’til death do we part is a long-ass time, man, so…you gotta be honest with yourself. Is the sex good enough to keep you faithful in body and mind?” I ask hopefully.

  Holden shifts on his feet uncomfortably for a second and I think for sure I’ve hit upon something he hasn’t considered. “Actually, I uh…I don’t know.”

  “So maybe you should rethink get—”

  “No, dude, I mean I don’t know as in we haven’t done it yet,” he admits and waits for the teasing, which I’ll be honest, I really want to commence with, although I go the adult route and keep quiet.

  Again, it’s not surprising from the All-American boy and girl, but even though we’ve never actually talked specifics or score cards, I’m pretty sure Holden isn’t exactly a saint.

  “Okay, so um…can I ask why not? You guys have been together forever…are you a, um…are you still a virgin?” Did I seriously just get uncomfortable and stumble around asking my best friend if he’s a virgin?

  Yes, yes I did.

  Well son of a bitch, I think that calls for another smoke…

  “No, but she is. We used to tease each other relentlessly about doing it, but we just took everything physical really slow and now we’re waiting until her birthday. I hear what you’re saying though, and honestly, Cole, I’m not worried about it. I’m sure once we do, it’ll be great and if it isn’t, it’s not something that we can’t improve and certainly nothing to keep me from wanting to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her.”

  Well, so much for bad sex or a lack of it being a deal-breaker. Don’t get me wrong here, it’s not that I don’t believe he loves her with all his heart and vice versa—if ever there was a textbook example of the clichéd perfect couple, Holden and Erica are it—it’s just that they’re both really young still and I think he’s asking the two of them to make a lifelong commitment too soon. Then again, what the hell do I know? Maybe I’m just transferring my own wants and desires for the future onto them. That has to be it. But on the other hand, they haven’t even consummated their two-year relationship and he’s talking about forever. You know, buying the cow before even knowing if the milk is good or if it’s sour.

  Did I just…? Yep. I did. I swear to God, when did I turn into someone’s grandpa? Buying the cow…Jesus Christ.

  Jesus, Cole, he’s your best friend, just be happy for him already…

  Sucking in a deep breath, tossing my less than half-smoked cigarette away and plastering as genuine a smile as I can muster onto my face, I give him a hug and say, “Holden, man, I couldn’t be more happy for you.” Looking at the ring again, I add, “And I bet you’re right, she’ll absolutely love it.”

  Yeah, I totally just lied to my best friend. That ring is god-awful, but hey, you do what you gotta do sometimes.

  “Thanks, buddy, your support means a lot. And one other thing I gotta ask you…”

  “Hit me.”

  “Will you be my best man?” he asks like he thinks he needs to. Like I’m gonna say no.

  “Holden, I’m almost offended that you even thought you had to ask.”

  He smiles and hugs me again when the Cold Stone chick walks back around the corner and taunts, “Hey, you two are looking pretty cozy over there. I think I might be jealous.”

  “Aw, don’t be jealous, beautiful, I’ll make it up to you next week. Promise,” I tease, checking my watch to see that my break is just about over. I look back to Holden and say, “Okay, I gotta get back to work.”

  “Yeah, I gotta get goin’ too,” he nods as I start walking away, “You should get her name, bro!”

  I look back at him and shrug. “Does it matter what her name is?”

  He laughs, and just as I jog up and put an arm around the chick’s shoulder and turn to walk back inside, Holden yells out, “New Year’s, yeah?!”

  “I’ll be there!” I call over my shoulder.

  That was the last time I saw Holden St. James…

  2

  “She Talks To Angels”

  —Erica—

  All I can see in front of me is Holden. His taut chest rippling with muscles and beaded with sweat, making his body practically glisten; his broad shoulders sweeping down into powerful arms and hands. Looking up I see his stro
ng jaw leading to those oh-so kissable full lips. And his eyes; his piercing blue eyes look back at me from under thick lashes and the fall of his warm, sandy blonde hair…

  Sighing, I shake myself and try to focus on my own reflection rather than the imaginary one I’ve conjured up.

  “Erica, sweetheart, I think this is the one,” my grandma squeals and claps once before spinning me around again to look at the back of the dress I’m trying on, “Yes, indeed! I think we finally found it! The length is just perfect and with this elastic band of sequins, I won’t even have to alter it to fit your tiny little waist. Oh! I just wish your grandfather could be here to see you, God love him.”

  Smiling at her, I lift light caramel-blonde tendrils off my neck and turn to look at my back in the mirror, making a mental note that I need to touch up my roots with more color before this week’s ceremony. My cell pings with a text, interrupting my consideration of maybe adding some chunkier lowlights to my hair as well. With butterflies already going berserk in my stomach from my daydreaming, I scoot over to my purse sitting on the dressing room chair to fish my phone out.

  Holden: One more day! <3

  Grinning to myself and biting my lower lip, I reply: I know, I wish it were tomorrow already! I’ll see you bright and early at the airport though. <3

  Holden: It’s been so long, how will I recognize you? <3

  I huff a small laugh at that and type: Easy, I’ll be the one tackling you and smothering you with kisses the second you step off the plane. <3

  Holden: I’ve never looked forward to getting tackled more! I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow! <3

  I start typing out another quick reply so he’ll see it before he leaves the locker room, but I jump when my phone starts ringing in my hand. “Holden! What are you doing calling me? I thought it was a field training day!”

  “It is, but it doesn’t start for five minutes and I needed to hear your voice. God, Babe, I can’t wait to see you. And hold you. And kiss you. And…”