Going Long (Waiting on the Sidelines)

by Ginger Scott

  “You sure about that, asshole? I’m not the one who knocked her up, and left her alone to figure shit out on her own. I mean, who abandons his own baby? You’re fucking weak, man,” he said, barely getting the end of his sentence out before I had him pressed with his back flat against the wall, my nostrils flaring, and my eyes fighting against angry tears.

  “You. Don’t. Get. To. Talk. About. That!” I gritted through my teeth, inches from his face, my forearm pinning him still. “You got me? That’s not yours to talk about. Ever. Not a word.”

  I could feel his breathing change; he wasn’t as sure of himself as he’d been minutes before. I waited for him to nod in understanding before I let up on his shirt, shoving him once more into the wall. “You leave Nolan the fuck alone. Or I swear to God, I will rip your pretty fucking teeth from your mouth, and you can use them to strum your fucking guitar, understood?” I waited again, and again he nodded.

  One more shove, and I let my hands fall back to my side. I left his room without turning around to see his face again. I was done with Gavin. My blood was pumping through my entire body, and I wanted to scream, but I reminded myself that my message was heard. And I was pretty sure Gavin understood me loud and clear.

  It was seriously a good thing I had more than an hour to calm myself down after dealing with Gavin. I drove up to a nearby corner market to get a Gatorade and just reset my thinking. He had me so angry, and I didn’t want any of that flowing over into the night I had planned. Tonight was important, and I had to be very careful. I pulled onto a neighborhood side road and propped my leg up on my seat, popping my headphones in one ear and thumbing through my phone to make sure I knew where everything was. I found myself obsessively checking the time, recalculating how long it would take me to get back to Nolan’s campus. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, I pushed my keys back into the ignition and revved my engine.

  I was 20 minutes early, but I could hear Nolan in her room getting ready. I paused at the door to listen in to her phone conversation a little. It was either Sarah or Sienna on the other line, I was sure.

  “He said to wear something nice…but I don’t have anything nice! And I don’t know what to do with my hair. Oh my God! He’s going to be here any minute…are you sure? Yeah, that’s what I’m wearing. Do you think it’s nice enough?”

  There was a long pause in her conversation, and I bit my lip to keep myself from laughing outside her door. She was nervous, and it was the cutest thing in the whole damn world. I was starting to think she had hung up when I heard her start talking again.

  “Okay, if you promise me that it looks good and everything’s okay. You swear he’s not going to give me awful news and just smash my heart to pieces? Because I can’t take that…not again,” she said. Her words broke my fucking heart. She was worried that this was some trick, or that I was taking her out to end our relationship, for closure. I leaned against the wall, listening to her finish getting ready for another few minutes, my mind heavy with the thought of Nolan staying awake at night worrying about us. I wanted to fix everything, but I knew it would also take time. We’d both lost trust in one another, and we were going to need to get it back for us to be whole again.

  I took a deep breath, and finally rapped on her door, my forehead flat on it as I listened to her approach. I straightened my posture and readied the mixed bouquet of wildflowers I’d gotten for her at the store, when I heard the lock twisting.

  “Hey,” I said, just smiling softly and taking her in. Her hair was straight, and swept over one shoulder. She was wearing tight black pants and a dark blue sweater that hung off one shoulder. Her exposed skin drove me wild instantly, and I just wanted to take a bite out of it, but I had to take baby steps, so after giving her a once over, I forced myself to keep my gaze up high, at her eyes.

  “Hi,” she said softly, unsure of herself. I noticed the slight tremble when my hand touched hers as I handed her the flowers, and I took it as a good sign. “These are amazing. Thanks, I don’t get a lot of living things in here. I mean…unless you count the mold I’m growing on my bread.”

  She giggled at her words, my heart leaping from my chest at the sound. I laughed at her joke, trying to set her at ease. “I wasn’t sure if you had a vase or anything. I think they’re okay in a cup or whatever,” I said, looking around her room. It looked the same, everything still in its place. But somehow, it seemed darker, lifeless. It made me sad. Nolan found an empty cup near her sink and filled it with water, setting the flowers on her night table. It made me feel good to know that she’d wake up to such a vivid reminder of me, and of tonight. Now all I had to do was not fuck things up. “Easier said than done,” I thought.

  I held out my arm and guided her from her room out to the Jeep. We were both quiet, and with each minute that passed without conversation, the more nervous I became, my palms actually sweating.

  “So…do I get to know where we’re going?” she asked, flittering her lashes at me just like she used to do in high school. God, I was done. I took a deep breath, and turned to her with a full smile.

  “Sort of. I’ll fill you in as we go. Like, right now? We’re going bowling,” I said, buckling up and starting the engine. Nolan’s face lit up a little. She liked bowling, but we’d only ever been once. Tonight was going to be about doing all of those stupid little things we never did, or didn’t do enough. And bowling made my girl smile, which was the first thing on my list.

  The drive to the bowling alley was dead quiet. I tried to fill the air with my constant flipping through the various radio stations, and when I caught Nolan tapping her leg to the rhythm of one of the oldie stations, I stopped. I loved that she liked the old songs. She had an old soul. That’s what Pops always said. And something about hearing some doo-wop band sing, while I looked at Nolan’s smile in the moonlight, seemed right.

  I thought about reaching for her hand when we walked into the bowling alley, but she had grabbed her jacket and purse, and was hugging them close to her chest, I think partly to shield herself from me. She wasn’t herself anymore, and she was so damned uncomfortable around me. It was killing me. I hadn’t kissed her in weeks, and all I wanted was to taste her lips, crush my mouth to hers and make her drop her purse to the ground, reaching for neck and hair. God, the way she used to tug at my hair and wrap her legs around my waist like I was some sort of tree, and she was the spider monkey…I had to quit thinking about it, because tonight was about taking it slow. And right now, I was seconds from throwing that theory out the window.

  We picked up our shoes and headed to our lane. I found a ball right away, but Nolan was always picky. She wanted the perfect weight, the perfect thumbhole, and the perfect color. She finally settled on an ugly lime-colored ball and set it on our return.

  “Really? All that time, and you come back with the slime ball?” I teased her. Her smile was refreshing, and I watched her shoulders relax while she swapped out her boots for her retro black-and-white bowling shoes.

  “Hey, fancy-ass quarterback. You might be able to throw a pigskin, but I bet me and slime ball can school you out here,” she sassed at me as she lifted her ball and propped it on her hip like a six-shooter. Slow was going to be really fucking hard tonight.

  I considered her wager for a bit, and it gave me an idea. “Okay, let’s have some fun with this,” I said, lifting my ball now and mimicking her pose. “If you win, you get to pick what we do next. But if I win, we go skinny dipping.”

  This marked the first time ever—in the history of my knowing Nolan Lennox—that I saw her jaw actually drop. I also knew she didn’t like to back down from a bet. I raised the bar with this one, and probably threw my whole plan to shit, but I didn’t care. She was chewing on her bottom lip and wiggling it side-to-side when she finally nodded once. “Okay, you’re on,” she said, a flash of passion in her eyes. I hadn’t seen this side of Nolan in months, and if I had to throw 10 strikes in a row to keep it alive, I was going to summon everything I had.

  I set N
olan up to go first, because I wanted to know exactly what I needed to keep up with each round. She was good at bowling, so I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But, it wasn’t a game of pool, so I had a chance. And the fact that she knew I did, excited me even more.

  She scored a nine her first frame, and I matched her pin-for-pin. She followed that up with two strikes and a couple of spares, and I was starting to fall a little behind. I had to do something to get my edge back, so I headed to the snack bar while she was throwing her sixth frame and grabbed a pitcher of beer and some nachos.

  When I came back, she had her arms folded and was staring at me like I was in trouble. I just shrugged a bit and gestured what? “So, I’m guessing I’m not getting a real dinner tonight then, Johnson,” she said, reaching for a glass and pouring a beer.

  I held out my glass, and she poured me one next. “Noles, are you telling me nachos aren’t a real dinner?” I said, grabbing one that was dripping with peppers and cheese, and tilting my head back while I ate it, smiling at her while I wiped my mouth on my sleeve.

  She reached for a pepper then, and just ate it straight, looking right in my eyes while she did. “It’ll do,” she said with a wink, and then took a small sip of her beer. I was glad to see her go slowly. I’d had my fill of Nolan and drinking when she threw up on my best jeans the other night.

  She still seemed in control on the lanes. I was hoping to get inside her head a little, make her miss a shot here and there, but she was too cool for that. I was down seven pins by the time the last frame came up, and I knew I’d need her to miss at least one toss to have a chance. She was standing at the ball return waving her hand in front of the air when she turned to me, a cocky grin on her face. “Looks like I’m picking what we do next, Wildcat,” she teased, turning around to reach for her ball as it slid up the belt.

  Her back was to me and she wasn’t paying attention. I capitalized on this moment. It was my only chance, and it was the slightest opening to do something I’d been dying to do since I’d picked her up that night. I rushed up behind her as she lifted her ball, and leaned forward so my mouth barely grazed her ear. “You…are beautiful,” I whispered, lingering there just long enough for her to feel my breath and anticipate my touch that wouldn’t come, and her body reacted. I backed away slowly, satisfied by the tiny bumps raised on her neck and arms by my breath. More than wanting to rattle her enough to win our bowling match, I wanted to see if Nolan still felt me. And I knew instantly then that she did.

  She refused to turn around, but she walked up to the wood floor slowly, holding her ball delicately in one hand. She tossed it down the lane, and knocked over only a pin or two. She turned slowly to walk back to the return and locked her eyes on mine. They were serious now, not angry and not nervous, but considering perhaps? She kept staring at me until her ball returned and rolled into her hand. She lifted it, and walked backward to the lane before she dropped it, not even looking, down in the gutter, and pushed it to the pins.

  She just fucking threw in the towel. On purpose!

  She walked back to me, her eyes hooded ever so slightly, and her breath held. I picked up my ball, and held her gaze until I turned and lined myself up, and threw three strikes in a row. When the last pin fell, I turned at the end of the lane to look at her. She was standing next to the ball return, staring right back at me, hungry.

  “Screw it,” I thought, as I walked up to her and pushed my fingers through her hair, and covered her mouth with mine. I reached around to her lower back and lifted her into me, her feet gliding up from the floor slightly as she reached around and pulled herself up with her hands gripping my shoulders.

  I kissed her for a full minute, and I kissed her hard. And she kissed back. The lanes were filled with nothing but old smokers and drunks, and no one cared about the scene we were making, but I knew I had to cool it off. If I was planning to make her go through with her bet—which I had no intention of letting her out of—I was going to need to slow this down.

  I slid my hands to her face and pulled my lips away softly, looking into her eyes the entire time. She looked like she wanted to weep from the loss of my touch, so I just reached for the small hairs that had slid into her face and smoothed them behind her ear. I tilted the corner of my mouth into a grin then hoping that would ease her worry. “So…where’s the nearest pool,” I asked, reaching down for her hand and kissing the top of it.

  I think maybe there was a part of Nolan that thought I was kidding or wouldn’t go through with the bet. So when she told me the closest pool was probably at one of the nearby hotels, and I pulled right into the Tempe Double Tree Resort, I think she was reconsidering throwing that bowling match.

  “You coming?” I asked as I hopped out of the Jeep and walked down the main corridor for the hotel. I heard Nolan shut the door timidly behind me, but I knew she was there. The pool was in the back at this hotel, which was good, because it gave us a certain amount of privacy. I didn’t even turn around to see her reaction when I kicked off my shoes, yanked down my jeans, and tossed my sweater on a nearby chair. I ran at the pool and dove in head first, figuring getting the shock of the freezing water out of my system quickly was probably the best move. I began to rethink that when the first touch of the water left me breathless.

  “Whooooooaaaa ohh ohhh ohhh,” I screamed as I popped back up from the water. Nolan started giggling then, and shrinking herself out of embarrassment.

  “Shhhhhhh, you’re so going to get us in trouble. You can’t be loud,” she said, kicking her shoes off now. She managed to strip herself down to her bra and panties without pausing and realizing how crazy this was. She stopped, though, when she realized I was watching her every move. I’d missed her body, and I’d wanted to take a bite out of her bare shoulder all night. Seeing her porcelain skin delicately wrapped in tiny black lace about had me undone. Realizing she was nervous, I kicked off my boxers and tossed the soaking material up on the deck, grinning at her from ear-to-ear.

  “Bet’s a bet, sweetheart…pay up,” I said, proud of myself. I kicked backward to the other side of the pool and propped myself on the edge with my elbows, watching and waiting.

  Nolan looked around again and chewed on her fingernails while she stepped forward and dipped her toe in the pool. “Ohhhhh no way, that’s fucking freezing!” she whispered loudly. Sometimes it was cute when she swore. She hardly ever did, and for some reason it made it special when she would—made her seem real, and in-the-moment.

  “Nah, you get used to it fast,” I said, my teeth chattering just a bit. “Come on in, the water’s fine.”

  Nolan wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself a bit, and then finally slid both straps of her bra down her arms before reaching around and unhooking the rest. She held the material in place for a few more seconds before she finally tossed it in the pile with the rest of her clothes. Instantly, I realized what a bad, and wonderful, idea this was at the same time. She was stunning, and perfect, and everything I ever wanted physically. And she was so fucking vulnerable.

  She moved forward to the steps and walked into the pool quickly, dunking her head and then coming up, gasping for air. “Shit! That’s realllllllly cold,” she chattered. “You asshole!” She splashed water at me then, and I laughed, reaching for her hands to stop them from flailing waves at me. When I finally grabbed hold of her arm, she relented instantaneously, and just stopped and stared into me, grazing her bottom lip with her teeth. She reached down to pull her panties off and tossed them behind her with the rest of our clothes on the deck.

  “Okay, you win. Now what?” she said, her face challenging me. I just held her hand in mine and stood there in the near freezing water, my teeth no longer chattering because of the heat firing through both of our bodies. I moved a little closer and held her eyes with mine.

  “Now I’m going to kiss you…again,” I said, moving even closer, and reaching down to hold her up in the water at her hips. Her breath hitched at my touch as I leaned my forehead into hers, our brea
th combining with the frostiness of the pool water to make fog. I slid my hands up her sides, under her arms, careful not to take anything too far. I was fighting against every instinct I had, but I was determined to leave her wanting more tonight. When my hands made their way to her jaw and her face, my thumbs stroking each cheek, she closed her eyes completely, and she leaned her face sideways into my palm. Leaning forward, I kissed her softly. It was our kiss, slow, and patient, and tender. She didn’t need to know how sexy I thought she was; she needed to know I still loved her. And this kiss was the only way I knew how.

  I spun her around slowly while I brushed my lips on hers over and over, taking small nips at her bottom lip and tasting her softly with my tongue. It was probably only minutes, but it felt like I had been kissing her for hours. When her body finally started to shake from the chills in the night air, I stopped, pulling her close, her body pressed tightly to mine. God it felt amazing.

  “I think we need to get you dressed. And I think we need to turn on my heater,” I smiled, pressing my forehead to hers again.

  “I th…th….think, that’s a g…goo…good idea,” she said, her body starting the quiver uncontrollably now.

  I chuckled a little as I climbed out of the pool and pulled on my jeans. I handed my sweater to her to cover up with as soon as she climbed out of the pool water. We quietly gathered up our clothes and sprinted back to my Jeep where we redressed and cranked the heat, giggling like the 16-year-olds we used to be. When we finally got control of our laughter, I reached over and pulled Nolan’s chin up toward me, and kissed her once more, softly, before leaning back into my seat, buckling the belt, and pulling out of the hotel lot.

  It was maybe 11 p.m. when I walked her back up to her room and kissed her on the cheek to say goodnight. I could tell she wanted me to stay, and every piece of me wanted to. But that was too fast. Hell, I jumped over five or six spaces on the game board already tonight.