by Sam Ledel
“No,” she replies, reaching out to her toes in a stretch. “Well, I guess when it came to the team there was all of that drama with Jax. God, I haven’t thought about that since last semester. I think I blocked it out.”
I ignore the flip my stomach does at the mention of Jax’s name. Ever since that day in the ice cream shop, the image of her licking the ice cream off her fingers kept popping up in my head. It was distracting, to say the least.
Emily, taking my silence as an opening, divulges further in a low voice. “Jax had this on-again, off-again boyfriend. They had—have, I don’t know—the strangest relationship. We would literally have to peel her off him sometimes just to get her out of the parking lot before practice. He’d even hang around during scrimmages, hollering like a caveman whenever she did anything of notice. Then there were those screaming matches.” Emily swishes some water and swallows. “Those things always ended terribly. Especially at parties. The two of them can hold their liquor, but man, do those claws come out.”
I nod.
“Then, of course, an hour later there was the chance you’d stumble upon them going at it in somebody’s spare bedroom.”
My latest drink of water gets caught in the back of my throat. I cough and sit up, pounding on my chest.
“Whoa, are you okay?” Emily pats me on my back.
Finally, I clear my throat. I didn’t realize the image of Jax on top of some faceless guy could make me gag. “I’m all right.”
“Well, good,” Emily says. “Speaking of couples going at it…” She grins. “Has anybody struck your fancy since the school year’s started?” She pokes at me.
As if reacting to her comment, the fluorescent lights seem to brighten, ricocheting off the metal throughout the room and hitting me like a spotlight. I begin a set of crunches, hoping to hide the flush in my face. “Come on, Emily. I don’t know.”
She moves next to me, her hands behind her head. “Nobody can hear us, worrywart. I can barely hear myself think over that noise they call music. Plus,” she adds, gesturing to the room, “nearly everyone has earbuds in.”
Looking around, she seems to be right. Haley, with her bright blue headphones on while doing the elliptical across the room, sings a Beyoncé song as her head bobs along.
Emily sits up and rearranges herself to face me. “Come on, Kyle. We haven’t really talked about this since before school started. Don’t you remember how excited you were to begin college? This was going to be your fresh start. New places. New people. Away from your family.” She pauses. “This is a new place where—”
“Where nobody knows I have a thing for the same sex?”
Emily eyes me over her glasses. “Well, yes, there’s that, too.” She pulls back her shoulders. “But, Kyle, seriously! Nobody cares. Here is your chance to be open about it. Maybe you could even meet someone.”
My body squirms at the idea, and my legs stick unpleasantly to the mat beneath us when I sit up. Emily has a point. And I really thought that by now it would be easier to talk about it. It’s not like I just realized I’m gay. I’ve known for a while. But it was so easy back in high school to just shrug and say: Oh, just wait. Soon I’ll have this all figured out. Soon it won’t be a big deal.
But here I am, in my first semester of college, and all I have managed in terms of progress is a steady collection of LGBT literature, which is still hidden away in a special shoe box beneath my dorm bed.
“I don’t know, Em. You’re still the only one on the team who knows. I haven’t even told my parents yet.” She nods. “I know I said this would be a new start for me. But how can I even imagine dating somebody when you’re the only one I can be honest with?”
Emily gives my knee a squeeze. “Hey, we don’t have to think long term here. Just…relax a little.” I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry if this upset you. I was just curious. Besides,” she adds with a quirk of her eyebrow, “I am your wing woman. Maybe if I know who’s left an impression, I can help to make an introduction.”
I blush when I look over at Jax, who has begun a set of push-ups next to the leg-press machine. Her shirt hangs down while she lifts herself up, then lowers herself slowly down.
“Okay,” Emily says. “I see that face. Let’s see.”
“Emily—”
“No, let me guess,” she says and I sigh, forcing my eyes away from Jax. “Since we’re all here, let’s start with the team. Mary?” she asks, starting her way through the roster. “No, not Mary. Kris? She has a nice body.” I follow her gaze to the mirrored wall, where Kris passes a medicine ball with Sarah. Her arms are chiseled, and I wonder if she’s always been that cut.
I smirk. “You noticed, did you?”
Emily slaps my arm. “Oh, I know. What about Joey? Maybe your type is the tall Amazon girl.” She looks pleased at her description and raises an inquisitive brow. And admittedly, the image of Joey on that first day I met her in my dorm room does rush back to me. I smile, recalling the touch of her hand in mine. When I turn and catch Joey in a low leg stretch, something stirs inside me. But before I can dwell too long on the feeling, Emily has pushed on with her inquiry. “Am I in the ballpark thinking it’s someone on the team?” she asks.
My eyebrows shoot up, which makes Emily smile.
“All right, wait.” Her hands go up dramatically. “I thought this day might come.”
“This day? Tuesday?”
“No, Kyle,” she says, her voice now an octave lower, as if we’ve suddenly breached the topic of some national security scandal. “You know that I love you. I do. But I’m sorry. I just, I love men. Well, I mean, I kind of hate men. But you know what I mean.”
My mouth hangs open while she flips herself over and gets into a plank.
“Please,” she continues, her head tilted toward me. “Let me know if you need some time apart to get over me. I’ll understand.”
Before she can fully situate her feet, I’ve slapped her across her backside with my towel.
“Oh my God, Em.”
She collapses into a fit of laughter on the mat as I swing again, delivering a solid thwack to her hip.
“Fine! Fine! I couldn’t resist.” She adjusts her glasses while we recover our breath and sit up again. “Just, for all that is good in the world, at least tell me that it’s not Jax. I know she took you out for ice cream that one day, but it was just a getting to know you thing, right?”
A wave rushes over me and takes my laughter with it as it recedes, and I watch as it hits Emily, full force.
“Oh,” she says quietly. “Well, this ought to be an interesting year.”
Chapter Seven
“I’m not gonna, like, end up trashed out of my mind with my head in the toilet by the end of the night, am I?”
“Come on,” Emily says, lacing her arm through mine as I round the passenger side of the car. “When have I ever led you astray?”
“Well, there was that one time at the Sara Bareilles concert.”
Emily bumps me with her shoulder. “Really, Kyle? We were, like, ten.”
“Hey, I’m just saying. As the older one between the two of us, I feel like it only makes sense to say that you were the one responsible for losing me.”
“And apparently, you’re still not over missing ‘Love Song.’”
I shake my head, mock disappointment on my face. “My little heart was broken.”
“Oh my God.” Emily laughs as we stroll up the sidewalk to her friend Alex’s house. The weekend had finally arrived, and the house party she was so excited about last week is here. She spent the car ride talking about how good meeting new people would be for me. I have a feeling, though, that my confession to her the other day about Jax left her feeling like she has to help me realize I have other options. So, here we are now, knocking on the door that has a steady bass thumping on the other side of it. I toss a small sandstone rock I’d picked up outside of Emily’s apartment into the bushes when the door swings open.
“Hey!” A guy who I assume is
Alex greets us, raising his red Solo cup enthusiastically. “You ladies made it, awesome.”
Emily talks about Alex a lot. I’m pretty sure she has a crush on him. This theory is quickly given further proof by Emily’s dorky cheer, which makes her freshly coiffed curls bounce. Then she gives our equally enthused party host a hug that lingers just a little too long.
“Alex, this is Kyle,” she says once they’ve pulled apart. “My partner in crime and freshman rookie for our team this year. Brought her out to pop that college party cherry,” she finishes with a little shimmy of her shoulders.
I wince at Emily’s choice of wording. “Hey.”
“Come on in!” he says with so much energy I briefly wonder if he’s always at an eleven or if he saves his enthusiasm solely for Friday nights.
It’s about what I had expected to see from a college guy’s house, based on every TV show and movie I’ve ever watched. Our school’s banner hangs next to a small mirror. Shoes litter the tile floor. I glance into a dark side room and find gym equipment set up. We move down the entryway and eventually end up in the kitchen. It’s modest in size but feels small since it’s full of guys who look like Alex: tall, bearded, and the majority of them clad in untucked plaid button-downs over a white T-shirt.
“Would you ladies like a drink?” Alex is next to us and gesturing grandly to the makeshift mini bar lining the counter. None of the liquor looks appealing—granted, I wouldn’t know whiskey from tequila—so I just look at Emily.
“Got any beer?” she asks. Alex nods and in one move, slides over to the fridge. He pulls out two and pops off the tops. “M’lady,” he says with a smile when he hands Emily her drink. Her brown cheeks gain a tint of pink, and I snort as he hands me mine. She nudges me, giving me one of her looks that says I better shut up before I say anything.
We spend the next half hour in the living room, which, props to Alex, is pretty nicely decorated. I learn that he’s a junior, studying art history (explains the décor) and works part-time for the city’s local museum. Emily’s eyes practically fall out of their sockets she’s so in awe of everything Alex says. I give Emily a nudge with my knee, my worn jeans bumping against her bare skin since she opted for a skirt this evening. The reasons for which are now more obvious to me.
Emily and I exchange glances when the voices turn quiet. Everyone watches a couple guys play Grand Theft Auto while somebody who sounds like a mixture of Justin Timberlake and Ed Sheeran fills the air around us to an odd techno beat. I finish the last of my beer and stand up. Stretching my legs seems like a better alternative to watching my best friend get her flirt on.
“I’m going to get some air,” I tell Emily and nod toward the back door, where a few people are hanging around outside on the patio.
“Want me to come?” Emily asks, but she doesn’t stand.
I smile and glance at Alex. “No, I think I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Come find me if you need anything.”
I nod bye to Alex and step over an enamored couple making out on a pair of beanbags at the end of the couch. Sliding open the smudged glass door, I step out into the cool night air. Then I zip my black jacket and shut the door behind me.
There’s a small circle of people to my right in a mixture of metal patio and kitchen chairs. One girl gives me a wave while a guy smoking a cigarette says, “Hey.” I nod at the group and move to join them when I hear a loud roar of cheers coming from around the side of the house.
The cigarette guy mutters, “Beer pong tournament,” with a hitch of his thumb over his shoulder.
“Right,” I say, like it’s the most obvious answer there could be. At least he didn’t immediately assume I was an oblivious freshman. A beer pong tournament has to be more interesting than video games.
“Boom! What did I tell you guys?”
These are the exuberant first words I hear as soon as I’m on the other side of the house. In the sparsely grassed lawn stands a tall redhead, triumphantly posed with her hands on her hips on the opposite side of a Ping-Pong table, facing her opponents and now me.
“Whatever, dude,” one of the guys with his back to me grumbles before lifting a red cup off the table and to his mouth.
I take in the scene: a group of people leaning against the brick wall of the house, a makeshift scoreboard hanging in the middle of them from a precarious nail, and the name “Joey” is written in bold letters on the left-hand side of the board, with three W’s underneath.
“Hey, Kyle!”
Joey waves and starts toward me. I wave back meekly and my right foot fumbles over a rock. My face heats up. I haven’t seen Joey outside of practice yet. Despite the fact we live in the same hall, she must keep busy off the field. And seeing her now is kind of making my head spin. She looks taller outside of the goal. She’s wearing a pair of red skinny jeans and a blue V-neck. Her eyes are lit up, and I really can’t look at anything else but her.
“Hey there,” she says, now in front of me. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
I stare for a second, swallowing and fighting my nerves.
“Yeah, uh,” I mumble, motioning toward the house, “Emily thought…I mean…I came with…” Joey watches me, amused.
“I mean, I’m here with Emily,” I finally say, cursing my inability to speak to girls.
Joey nods. “Cool.” She steps back and motions to the table. “You up for it?” I look over her shoulder at the two guys setting up the red cups into a triangle shape on their side of the table.
“I’ve never played,” I say, hoping that doesn’t sound as lame as I think.
Joey shrugs. “Neither had I.”
One of the guys behind her groans. “Don’t rub it in.”
She grabs my hand then gently pulls me over to the other side of the table. “Come on, you and me. Just one game. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to stay.”
“All right.” I smile. “One game.”
* * *
Before I know it, one game turned into three. Turns out I’m actually pretty good at beer pong, which as it happens, is not great news for the teams of guys we keep beating. I drop the Ping-Pong ball into the cup of water next to me to clean it off. Beer pong is actually pretty darn fun.
“Okay,” Joey says, her hands out in front, and like a coach talking to her players, her voice is low and serious. “No pressure or anything. But if you make this shot, we win.”
I shake the water off the ball and try to hide my smile. I thought I was competitive. But Joey? Joey is in a whole other league. I practically had to restrain her in our second game when one of the guys watching—not even playing—started heckling us that our win streak was simply beginner’s luck. It took me and two other guys to keep her from throwing an empty beer can in his direction.
It’s hard not to smile now as she bounces nervously next to me on the grass.
I look first at the lone red cup across from me, then at the two guys we’re playing. One has completely lost interest and chats with a girl in a lawn chair nearby. The other watches me warily.
Lining up the ball with the cup on the other side of the table, I take a breath and let it fly.
Plop.
“Aw, come on!” the guy who had been watching moans and picks up the cup to chug the beer it holds. A faint mix of cheers and boos follow from the crowd. Thrilled, I pump my fist and turn to Joey. As soon as I do, she wraps her arms around my waist and, with unbelievable ease, picks me up off the ground and spins me. The crowd around us transforms into a whirl of colors, and the stars spin overhead. Their light seems to glow brighter as I tuck my face into her neck.
“Yes! You are amazing!” she cries.
Seconds later, I’m back on the ground. My head feels light, and butterflies have taken up residence where my stomach used to be. My face grows warm when I glance up at her.
“Well, you did most of the work,” I say, gesturing to the table as the crowd starts to disperse from the wall.
“No way,” she says, joy radia
ting from her megawatt smile. I shrug and she adds, “We make a pretty good team.” Then her hand is up, and I take the cue to high-five her, getting up on my toes to do so.
I mutter, “Short girl problems.”
“You got that right, short stack.”
Our hands have fallen back down, but mine is still in hers. She looks down at our fingers holding on to one another, and I do the same.
“Ladies and gentlemen!”
Our hands quickly fall back to ours sides, and we look toward the other side of the house. Joey gestures for me to follow her around to where we find the patio door ajar and Alex clearing his throat under the moth-covered patio light. Emily stands next to him, her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised in my direction.
“If you would please make your way to the living room, the weekly round of King’s Cup is about to commence!” Alex steps back inside after his declaration. Then, after giving me the “You better spill later” look, Emily follows suit.
I clear my throat and turn to Joey.
She shrugs and says, “After you,” with a flourish of her arm.
No wonder Emily wanted me to play here, I think as we head inside.
I remind myself to give her a hard time about pushing me to sign on at Meadowbrook. Only my best friend would know I can’t resist a pretty face in soccer shorts.
Chapter Eight
Aside from the fact that King’s Cup has about two thousand different versions and an ungodly number of rules to try to remember, it’s actually pretty entertaining. About ten of us are seated around Alex’s coffee table on the couch, love seat, and floor. Alex got us started by explaining what each card number stands for—some rule or action we have to do after each card is turned over. The goal, of course, is to ensure that we drink as much as possible.
Emily reaches out from her spot across from me and flips over a card. An eight.
“Eight is date,” one of the girls to her right says. “You have to pick somebody to drink with you each time that you do.”
