I’d sat with Jordan dead ahead of me, which was the worst part of all—an unobstructed view if it came down to him doing anything with another girl. A few guys from the football team were there: Rocco with the hoop earring and the brown comb over, Drift, mixed race with a fade. Rixton was the strawberry blond who looked like Clint Eastwood’s son—can’t remember his name—but it was him, only without the money or the fame. (Well maybe some of the fame. This was college football after all.) And the last person I was introduced to was Dan with the black buzz-cut and the most amazing eyelashes.
The girls—I had no idea who they were. Kit only thought it appropriate to run through the boy’s names. We used Julian’s empty vodka bottle after everyone helped to finish it off, and I was already buzzed. I was such a lightweight. When Kit spun the bottle I’d felt nervous, but I’d bet good money I was the only one. Everyone else looked relax—excited even. I held my breath as the bottle started to shed its speed. And then my breathing stopped completely when the bottle stalled, pointing directly at me. I stared at Kit in what may have looked to everyone else like fear. I was not going lesbian.
“You first, Angel.” She was giggling.
Oh, shit.
I smiled, a disguise filled with nerves, and felt a robotic sensation when my hand reached out to spin the bottle, my eyes seeking out Jordan. There was no good outcome here, I didn’t want it to land anyone other than Jordan. Then he would take a turn, and then what? Why did I agree to this? I could have said no. I should have said no, because the neck of the glass landed on Nicky.
I laughed, but not because it was funny—because I was shitting myself. Julian was right by Nicky, but he wasn’t laughing, he wasn’t even smiling. He looked mad and I found that small consolation pleased me. It was about time the smirk was wiped from his face.
But not in this way.
“Angel,” said Kit, “Get Nicky hard.” I could feel my mouth hanging open. “But you have to do it here, so we can all see that it really happened.”
I’d stupidly expected Jordan to shout out his disapproval of the dare, tell Kit there wasn’t a chance in hell he would watch me do that.
But his outburst of rage never vocalized.
I looked again at him. There was nothing of any substance in his expression. No encouragement, no resistance. Just nothing.
My heart sank when he Okayed it and sat there silent, more than willing to let me get on with it. Jordan had never fought for me a day in his life, and I felt in his own way that he was daring me himself, testing how far he could push me before I was totally broken. Maybe he didn’t really want me like I believed he did. Every fucking time I found myself here with him. This same scenario of feelings only a different circumstance of events. The cloud of doubt had always hung heavy, but it was finally raining the truth that he might not ever truly love me. Not as much as I loved him. And then I was slapped with another home truth.
It didn’t matter.
“Hey, are you crying?” Mia stood over me, peering into my face with a searching gaze.
“No.” I blinked, and two fat tears came loose. I quickly wiped them and smiled when she frowned.
Marilyn chose that exact moment to walk into the room that I shared with Mia. Marilyn had a bedroom to herself. “Don’t tell me,” she said, crossing her arms with a pissed off look on her face. “Jordan, right? I wish you would rub your eyes already and see what the rest of us do.” She lifted her messenger bag over her head, tossing it to the floor and dropped down onto my bed.
“So what has he done now? And do not say nothing or I will kick your ass all over campus. Mia, what did he do?”
Mia scowled. “How am I supposed to know? Do I look like an interfering bitch to you?”
Marilyn’s eyebrows crept higher up onto her forehead. “Did you just call me a bitch?”
Mia rolled her eyes and locked herself in the bathroom.
“So?” Marilyn dug her toes into my outer thigh, creating a blast of pain. “What’s going on?”
The embarrassment of last night was too raw to tell her the truth, so I shifted my leg from her creepy foot and said, “You know how it is. He’s blowing hot and cold constantly, and at the minute things are more on the frosty side.”
“You know you’re in an abusive relationship,” Marilyn stated confidently.
I slid her a disbelieving look. “I am not. This is why I don’t like talking about him to you. You only ever see the bad side.”
“Oh, there’s a good side? Sorry, I never realized.” Her lack of smugness let me know she wasn’t buying a word of it. We might not be blood, but she knew me better than anyone other than my mom. My dad married her mom, Pamela—a Boston native—when I was nine and Marilyn was eleven. The marriage lasted four years but Marilyn and I were for life. Pamela might irritate my dad to death but I loved her as much as I did her daughter.
“He doesn’t always act like what you see. When it’s me and him, it’s different… it feels different.” Marilyn had heard more of Jordan than she had seen him. The times she had been by to visit, not long after I’d moved to Boston, Jordan and I were barely friends. Any judgements she had were purely from my own confessions.
“This is me you are talking to here, Angel. I know what it’s like. You think he’s the be all and end all, the sun rises and sets on his ass, you’ll never find anyone as amazing as him. But if he’s only committed when there’s no one watching, is that really so amazing?”
I scraped two hands down my face. Marilyn’s words resonated with echoes of what I already knew were true. I turned sideways with a slow sigh. “I love him,” I said, pitifully. It was just that simple. “What am I supposed to do? I’m not ready to throw in the towel. He doesn’t do girlfriends, this is new to him. He’s still learning how to act.”
She leaned forward on crossed legs, her light-brown hair wrapping around her shoulders. “Love isn’t supposed to hurt. Not more than it’s supposed to feel good. I’m not denying you love him, I can see you do. But that’s because you haven’t experienced anything different. It’s none of my business what you do or don’t do, all I want is for you to smile once in a while. Maybe even be happy.”
“I am happy.” Truth or lie? I could no longer tell the difference.
“Now onto the juicy stuff.” Marilyn looked at me with a brightly-lit smile. “I happen to have it on good authority that you have been spotted more than once with Julian Lawson. What’s all that about?” Julian and Marilyn were both juniors, but as far as I knew they didn’t run in the same circles. “He is like the hottest guy at BU, but Kit is going to kill you, you know that, right?” She followed that with an exaggerated eye-bugging. “Michael won’t be too pleased, either. I can’t lie, I love it. My lil’ sis, kicking it with the baddest boy around.”
I was forced to smile even though she was nowhere near accurate with her observations. “We take the same Sociology class and he’s my partner for an assignment for the next eight weeks. But not for much longer,” I said, standing up. “Because I am going right now to get that changed.”
“Why?” Marilyn’s face dropped into a dissatisfied frown.
“Because,” I said, getting into my hoody, “I don’t like him and he has no intentions of helping me pass.”
“But he’s so fucking sexy,” she theorized, like that was all the consideration needed to get me my A.
“Sexy doesn’t really mean anything,” I clarified, starting for the door. “I mean, have you actually spoken to him? The guys a bit of a jerk.”
“Uh, yeah,” she clarified, “I’ve spoken to him. Many times.”
“Have you—”
“Slept with him? God no. But I imagine it’s one of those things you have to try before you die. Or at least graduate.”
I smiled, halfway out the door. “Paid education is wasted on you when you’ve already found the meaning of life.”
“I know you are being a sarcastic cow, but I’m taking that as a compliment!” Marilyn shouted before the door c
losed on her shrill voice.
<>
I knocked on the auditorium door with over exerted force so I wouldn’t go unheard.
“Come in.”
I opened the door and stepped inside the empty hall. Marcus sat behind his desk, in front of a splay of papers. He set down his pen and smiled at me. “Angel, is it?”
When I nodded, he said, “What can I do for you?”
I lingered by the door, not bothering to close it. I guess a part of me was ready for the immediate ‘no’ answer. “I wanted to ask if you could find me someone else to partner with, for the assignment.”
He was quick with the sympathetic smile, sloping downwards on his face.
Can’t believe I ever liked this guy.
“I’m sorry, you picked yourselves. You’ll have to get someone to switch with you.”
I was afraid he might say that.
“It’s Julian,” I rushed on, “I can’t work with him. He’s impossible.”
Marcus’s soft laughed drifted across the hall. “He’s a handful all right.”
“Well thanks,” I said glumly. For nothing.
I was about to leave when the sound of Marcus’s voice stopped me.
“Tell me the problem with Julian.”
I turned back, hope igniting in my lifted frown. “He’s intolerable.”
“You’ve both already made a great start.” He smiled. He was too young and excited to see the problem from my point of view if he was going to start his argument with a statement like that one.
I snorted. “How on earth do you figure that?”
“Opposites attract, and if things are already this insufferable, then the two of you could make a really great paper—really get to know each other and dig under those hard layers of protest and resistance. I think you might just end up with something great. Maybe you more than Julian. That kid doesn’t listen, he’s a law unto himself.” Marcus shook his head from the thought.
“Are you telling me that you are going to make me work with him?”
“You make excellent partners. Where’s the fun in pairing with someone who will make everything easy and reads like cardboard? Earn your grade, Angel. Everything’s better when you work for it; when you’ve truly earned it.”
I sighed in disappointment. “You are such a teacher.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“Are you sure you couldn’t move some things around, persuade someone to switch with me?” I would do it myself but having zero bond with anyone else in the class made the mission that much more difficult.
“If things get really bad and you’re banging your head against a brick wall, you know where I am. I’ll help you get it on paper. Trust me, this is an easy A.”
I sucked in an angry breath. “Easy for you to say.”
I was truly disheartened leaving the university. But then I was struck with sheer brilliance. If Marilyn saw Julian as a walking sex-god, then how many other girls did? Even I hadn’t failed to miss the attraction before he ruined it by opening his mouth. It might not be has hard as I thought, getting someone to switch with me. If anything, it was worth a shot, and I couldn’t really not try. Failing classes wasn’t something I enrolled for.
When my phone chimed displaying Jordan’s name, my school problems instantly ebbed. His name alone was enough for a lightweight smile to touch my lips.
Jordan: I’m outside your dorm. Think we could talk?
Me: Pick me up outside the university on Blvd.
Jordan pulled up five minutes later in his black Volkswagen Golf. He clicked the right turn signal to get back into the road. “You wanna go get a drink?”
I looked at him, siting relaxed in his hoody and jeans. His dark hair was cut shorter, slicked back and the tidiest I had ever seen it. He looked a lot more put together than he usually did—he had never been seen in anything other than sweats—but he looked good and he smelled phenomenal. I always loved his cologne, it was clean and fresh and whenever I caught the same stolen scent from someone else, I would immediately think of him. I loved it so much I would happily bathe in the damn stuff.
“Where you wanna go?” he asked, flashing me a quick glance.
“Uh…” I knew Boston as well as I knew the solar system. Jordan knew it better than me, he was raised here. “Anywhere. I don’t care.”
We pulled up outside of Marnie’s Coffee House and found a table at the front, looking out into the street. Jordan sat down with a strawberry milkshake for me and a caramel Frappuccino for him. Jordan could eat the whole of McDonalds and his physique wouldn’t bend an inch out of shape.
I’d crashed as soon as I was hauled from Kit’s party, leaving no time for the story of how Jordan ended up sitting across from me at the worst party in all of history. I was wide awake and all ears now, though. “Why were you there last night?” I asked. Honestly, Jordan’s appearance was more than a little strange. Going out of his way for me was not the norm.
“I missed you.”
“So you left your friends because you missed me?”
“Yeah. That so hard to believe?”
I sipped on my milkshake, allowing brain freeze to take hold. “Uh, yeah. It is.” I reached for his hand. It was strong and big in mine and my stomach rolled in waves of ridiculous bliss.
What happened last night was on the tip of my tongue, but fighting with him was never a sport I liked to get into. He didn’t either, because anytime one started between us he stepped out of it with a calmness that was both admirable and fucking annoying, and left me alone to stew in the unsettled debate. That was why I was so surprised to see him here now, twice in two days. Effort and relationship were two things Jordan had no concept of. And even though we were very much—after months of going back and forth—in a committed relationship, I embarrassingly put in way more than I got back. But in those moments we were alone and we managed to block out the rest of the world, we were nothing short of perfect.
“That was pretty crazy last night,” he said, looking at me through a carefully constructed film.
“It was shit,” I correct him. “I don’t want to kiss other guys. I don’t want you to want me to kiss other guys.”
His defensive stance was up like a flash. “I never heard you saying no.”
“In all the time we have been together you damn well know I don’t want to kiss anyone else.”
“Guess I never thought you’d really do it.”
Why did I always feel like I was losing him?
“I shouldn’t have,” I said, shaking my head. “I should have said no and I’m sorry. I’m a horrible and selfish drunk.”
He sighed and sunk lower in his chair. “Maybe it’s a sign.” He was shutting down right before my eyes. If I squinted hard enough I’d be able to see the fight being literally sucked out of him.
“A sign for what?” The familiar vise clamped tight around my chest. I was on a tightrope and he had the power to yank it out from under me at any time. Right now was one of those times.
“If you can just go and kiss someone else then that tells us something.” He spoke so casually, like this was my problem.
“It was a game,” I said in disbelief. “A game I didn’t even want to play. You wanted to stay, remember that?” My desperation had me internally cringing, but it wasn’t enough to make me stop. I’d stayed for a game I didn’t want to play, because I thought that was what he wanted.
“I never thought it would end like that.” Jordan’s frappe sat in front of him untouched, and the sweetness of my milkshake threatened to make an early appearance right back out the way it went in. “I just wonder if this is working out.”
I knew it was coming. I’d found myself taking a wrong turn into this conversation more than once, but I was blindsided every time. My reaction now was delivered with precision and complete surprise. Jordan looked exasperated with my stunned silence, but I spoke first. “What are you saying? You want to breakup?”
“I’m saying maybe we should take a break.”
“Take a break from what? We don’t go to the same college, we don’t have the same friends. We don’t live next to each other anymore. In what sense do we need a break?” I really wanted to be the strong girl here who says to hell with the dickhead who is breaking her heart, but I was so in love I couldn’t see straight. Tears leaked into my eyes and my heart was suddenly pounding. But Jordan was as cool as a cucumber, or a very good actor, because he didn’t look half as affected. “Are you not happy with me?”
He exhaled, his careless expression loosening. “You know I am. I’m just so…”
“So what?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want anymore.”
Okay, this was mildly bearable. I wasn’t being dumped on the spot. I could still save this relationship. But I seriously didn’t know what he wanted. I gave him freedom, he went out with the guys without a peep of objection from me. Now I was in university and he was working full-time we hardly even had to see each other. “Is it our schedules?” I asked. “Because I thought that would have suited you perfectly.” I was always busy. He was always busy…
“I’m not used to having a girlfriend.”
“But I thought we had fun. We’re still having fun.”
“We are, and when I think about you with anyone else, I fucking hate it.”
“I see.” My blurred vision grew in strength, but I dared one tear to drop. I had to talk over the lump in my throat. “Is that the only reason you are with me? Because you don’t want anyone else to have me?”
“No, it’s not the only reason.” He rubbed his fists over his eyes. His whole body hummed with aggravation and a visible surrender. “Man, I’m tired.”
“Why aren’t you at work?” I asked. He had laid the foundations for his removal from this conversation, or breakup or whatever the hell it was. There was no fight in him at all. It was there, just buried too deep to excavate.
“My head’s all over the place. I needed the break, Liam’s cool without me.”
Jordan and Liam Dallerton were taking over management of Liam’s Grandfather’s sports shop. They swore they could turn into a worldwide brand and prove that passing on college wasn’t a big deal anymore. Even though Jordan wasn’t that big of a drinker and he didn’t smoke or do drugs, his ambition was somewhat lacking and I would be one of many forced to watch him one day eat his own words. The optimist in me hoped he really made a go of it and one day rode the high wave of success. Thee pessimist in me found the birth of that day highly unlikely.
Falling for Seven Page 6
