“It’s true,” she says. “I just needed some time to myself.”
“Time for what?” he demands. “Time to figure out just what day you would dump us?”
She makes a noise of surprise. “Dump you? Let me point out that you were the one who made it very clear that we were nothing more than fuck buddies.”
Kade crosses his arms. “You were supposed to be ours.”
“Are you going to ignore what I just said? What do you want Kade? Really? What is it you wanted? You’ve always said you don’t have girlfriends but you treated me like I was yours. Which is it, huh? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t do whatever you want and expect me to sit at home waiting for you.”
She hit the nail on the fucking head. She’s called Kade out big time.
Air stings as it enters my lungs. I hold it there and wait. He can’t deny the truth that Tracey-Ann has just laid out.
Kade pales. “You’re asking what I want? I want you gone. Forever.” He looks at me. “Both of you.”
“You don’t mean that,” Tracey-Ann pleads.
I recoil. His hateful look is worse than a fist in my stomach. He’s never said something like this before. He has a temper, but not in his worst moment has he told me he wants me out of his life. “Kade, think for a second.”
“You think.” He stands up. “Just do it as far away from me as possible.”
“Kade.” I jerk to standing. My head spins. Tracey-Ann’s hand slips from mine.
Kade’s face is marble smooth. “You’ve made it clear which side you’re on. You two have fun together.”
He storms towards the door, his hands in tight fists at his sides. The door slams behind him.
“Oh no,” Tracey-Ann moans. She buries her face in her hands. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s my fault. I should have approached this whole thing in a different way. He hates being cornered.”
“You make a lot of excuses for him, Connor. He’s an adult, not a kid.”
“He hasn’t had it easy.”
“No one’s childhood is perfect.” She pauses after saying it, and in that brief moment, I’m sure there’s a whole lot more to her.
“Look, I get that. I may be enabling him, or whatever the psych term is. I don’t care. He’s my closest friend and I don’t plan on letting up.”
“Only because you feel you have to.”
“No. I want to. There’s a difference. Anyhow, the point right now is it doesn’t matter whether there was a good reason or not. In Kade’s head it’s all the same. I lured him here under false pretenses. I need to go apologize.”
She nods. “I’m coming with you. There’s still something I want to tell you both.”
It might be better if she doesn’t, but I’m at the end of my rope. I’ve tried everything to get through to Kade. Maybe whatever Tracey-Ann has to say will make a difference and he’ll finally listen. It’s extreme, but all I’ve got.
I toss some bills on the table and grab my jacket. “Let’s go.”
Going into the February night is like diving into a freezing lake. Rain that’s colder than rain should be pummels my head and shoulders. I zip up my jacket peer down the street. The block is empty except for the one hunched figure headed south.
“Kade!”
He doesn’t turn around.
“Where’s he going?” Tracey-Ann asks from next to my shoulder. “He can’t walk in this weather.”
“He’s probably just walking home.”
She pulls her scarf over the top of her head. “He’ll get pneumonia walking around in this rain. I’m going to get him.”
“Hey. Hold on.”
She runs down the block.
“Tracey-Ann!”
My foot hits a patch of ice. I slide and stumble and almost bust my ass on the pavement. I look up to find Tracey-Ann already at the parking lot down the block.
“Damn it,” I groan.
I hustle to my car. As I turn on the engine Tracey-Ann’s headlights sweep past me. Ice is already collecting on my windshield. The wipers sweep it into piles along the edge. I peer into the darkness and follow Tracey-Ann down the street.
I keep my eyes on the sidewalk, searching for Kade. The walk to our house is doable in the best weather. Tonight, it’s idiotic.
Does Kade really hate us that much? Nausea attacks me. We’ve had plenty of fights, but he’s never looked at me with such hatred.
The next block is deserted. I lean forward in my seat and look down the street. The dark and the rain make it difficult to see anything other than traffic lights. Tracey-Ann's brake lights shine and she takes a right turn. I follow her onto the side road leading towards the frat house.
Kade is there, a dark figure hunched over and creeping down the sidewalk. Tracey-Ann parks in one of the spots on the side and I pull my car in behind hers.
I brace myself for the icy rain and climb out of my warm seat.
“Kade!” Tracey-Ann runs from her car and onto the sidewalk. She shouts something else at him. The words are lost in the noisy downpour.
Tracey-Ann rushes towards him. I follow, making sure to be careful. Falling and getting a concussion isn’t what I need right now.
Kade acts like he doesn’t know we’re here. He just keeps walking along.
Tracey-Ann stops right in front of him. He comes to a halt.
Rain slides down my collar and along my back. I don’t remember ever being this cold. Not jumping into the quarry last year. Not streaking across campus in the snow two winters ago.
“I care about you!” Tracey-Ann yells. Her hair is slicked wet from the rain. I catch up to them and glare at Kade.
“What the fuck are you doing, Kade?” I demand.
“Stop the bullshit," he growls. "Go back to the bar and have your drinks. Maybe afterward you two can get married, pop out a couple kids and adopt a dog. But don't come crying to me because the American dream isn't everything it was promised to be."
My jaw drops. His words are beyond stupid at this point. I can’t make sense of what’s going on in his brain.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Get in my car. I’ll drive you home.”
He steps away from me. “No.”
Kade starts walking again. Tracey-Ann throws herself in front of him. A patch of street lamp light pools around them. “You’re not doing this, Kade! Get in the car!”
He stares at her, his face getting redder by the second. Every muscle in him seems to tighter. He reaches his hands up and clutches at the air like he’s trying to squeeze it. He leans forward and puts his face inches away from Tracey-Ann’s. “Leave… me… alone!”
Tracey-Ann steps back from the abruptness of his shouting. Adrenaline floods my veins. I shoulder my way between the two of them. Kade gets pushed back in the process.
“Get away from her!” I tell him. I plant my feet and fist my hands. The person standing in front of me is someone I don’t know. I have no clue where my best friend is, but he’s not here anymore.
Kade’s face reddens. He’s mad as hell and he has no right to act this way. He looks past my shoulder at Tracey-Ann. I hold my breath, ready for the worst and praying it doesn’t come. I don’t want to fight Kade, but if he gets violent I’ll do what I need to.
Suddenly, Kade's shoulders slump. His head drops and he takes a step backward. Rain slides down the sides of his head.
I step back as well and wrap my arm around Tracey-Ann’ shoulders. She stares at Kade and shivers against my shoulder.
“Come on,” I tell her. “Let’s get out of here.”
I reach into my pocket for my keys. Kade may be going off the deep end but I’m not going to leave him out here in this weather.
“Here.” I shove my keys at him. “Take my car home. Tracey-Ann has something to tell us when you calm the fuck down. You’d better have an apology ready for her. And one for me.”
His fingers uncurl and he grudgingly accepts the keys. He looks down at them like he doesn’t understand what they are
or how he’s supposed to use them.
I guide Tracey-Ann around Kade. She shakes against me and leans into the crook of my arm.
“I’ll drive,” I tell her at the car.
She hands me the keys. I put her in on the passenger’s side and walk around the front of the car. Kade stands in the spot we left him, but he’s turned around to watch us.
I slam the car door behind me and collapse into the seat. The car is still slightly warm but I turn the engine on and crank the heat all the way up.
The car’s headlights envelop Kade. Part of me wants to stay and make sure he gets in my car and part of me is done caring. I pull Tracey-Ann’s car onto the road and head for her dorm. I’ll have to call one of my teammates to come pick me up there.
I sneak a glance at Tracey-Ann. She looks down at her lap. Droplets of water slide down her hair and hit her thighs. I want to say something. I want it to be the right thing.
There just is no right thing to say.
24
Kade
The rain pummels my skin until it turns numb. I feel nothing anymore.
Tracey-Ann’s headlights move around me and turn at the end of the block. The car vanishes.
Connor vanishes. Tracey-Ann vanishes.
It’s a dark wave rising up in my core. I see it rushing forward, but I’m powerless to stop it. It’s going to suck me under like a tsunami. This darkness is my future. It’s my destiny.
I’m just like my parents.
The realization tears me open. Sensation jumps back into my nerves. I feel it all. The freezing rain. The fear from Tracey-Ann pushing me away in August. The anguish over losing her. The disappointment in myself for being such an asshole.
She’s never coming back. I know it now. I saw it in her eyes while I yelled at her to leave me alone. She was afraid of me. Really afraid of me.
She’s gone, and Connor might be gone with her.
I bow my head against the wind and get into Connor’s car. I swear Tracey-Ann’s scent is baked into the seats. I drive slowly back to the frat house and take my time going inside. I can’t get any wetter than I already am.
“What the Hell happened to you?”
I stop at the staircase and look across the living room. Ryan lies on the couch, his legs over the end and a textbook propped up on his stomach. Instead of waiting for my answer, he buries his nose back in his book.
We used to be friends, I realize. Everyone on the team used to be my friend. Because of my attitude the last few months I’ve pushed them all away. Now I have no one left.
I trudge up the stairs and strip in the bathroom. The shower burns my skin but I accept it. I deserve the pain.
Pulling on some fresh clothes, I go sit on my bed. It's the very spot Tracey-Ann sat in the day she came into my room for the first time. I thought she was like any other girl. I thought I'd have some fun with her and be done. I never expected her to change me.
I care for her. I don’t want anyone to know it. It’s sad and stupid. I know where I get the shame from, though. That’s how it is in my family. You hide the good feelings and parade the ugly ones. If you can’t handle something you shove it away into dark corners. You conceal. You don’t admit.
I never wanted to be like my parents. My whole life, all I’ve wanted is to escape them. It turns out I’ve become them.
I need to reverse the pattern. I need to turn myself around. Maybe if I do it right away there’s a chance I won’t lose Connor and Tracey-Ann. At the end of the day, Connor is my only family. And Tracey-Ann… She’s the one woman who really knows me.
There’s a knock on my door. “Kade.”
I take in a heavy breath at the sound of Connor’s voice. I don’t deserve to see him. I’m a failure as a friend.
“Kade,” Connor says again.
Time to bite the bullet.
“Come in,” I say.
He walks in wearing a dry change of clothes. “Damian picked me up from Tracey-Ann’s.”
I nod. He doesn’t look as angry as I expected him to be. He just looks sad. There’s a hint of pity on his face, too. He shuts the door but hovers around next to it.
“I thought you would stay at Tracey-Ann’s,” I say.
“No.” He walks over and takes a seat on the bed next to me. “There’s too much going on. She needs some time.” He pauses. “We all do.”
I look away from him and focus on the carpet instead. The threads jump out at me. Even they know what a failure of a human being I am. “I lost it. I lost it big time.”
“Wow… I’m glad you said that, because, yeah... You did.”
“I wouldn’t hurt Tracey-Ann.”
“It looked like you were about to.”
I have to look at him. His eyes are cold and distant. I'm the one that brought us to this place. There's no one to blame for this shitshow but myself. "I'm sorry."
He says nothing.
“I’m like my parents.”
His lips twist. “Huh?”
“I am. It’s a pretty fucking disappointing realization, actually.”
“You’re not like your parents.”
“No, I am. Think about it. I may not drink myself to sleep every night or expect my kid to be perfect in every way, but I’m like them. I don’t trust people. I don’t know how to talk to people or show them I care.”
“Shit,” Connor hisses. “I’m sorry.”
We sit in quiet.
“Therapy might be able to help,” Connor suggests.
I nod in acknowledgment. “Tracey-Ann doesn’t deserve this. Neither do you.”
Connor sharply inhales. "Thanks, man." He's still not happy. I've screwed up a lot. It's going to take a while to make things right again.
“I want to see her,” I tell him. “Just not yet.”
“But what do you…” He looks up at the ceiling. “What do you want from her? Really?”
My chest burns. Words I’ve never said are brewing in me. Letting them fly isn’t easy. “I want her.”
“For sex?” His eyes land on my face.
“No. For more. She’s amazing, Connor. She’s like no one else. I’ve been too fucking stupid this last year to see it.”
“No one’s perfect. It’s taken me some time too. I didn’t think I’d want Tracey-Ann to actually be mine.”
Hearing him talk about the idea makes it less assaulting.
He keeps going. “I told her we need to take some time to cool down and that I’d get in touch with her once the combine is over. We need to focus on getting to that. We can’t get distracted.”
“Right.” We haven’t been selected for the combine yet and there’s no guarantee we will be. If we do get invitations, they’ll be coming in any day. “After the combine.”
“After the combine,” he agrees.
We don’t say precisely what we’re going to do. I don’t have the perfect plan yet, but whatever it is it’s got to be better than the way I’ve been going about things.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Connor. “I’ve been a real dick.”
“You have.”
“I need to apologize to Tracey-Ann too.”
He puts an arm on the bed and leans into it. “Yeah, but just wait a while. You know, these last few months I’ve thought being without her was good for you. It helped you focus on football.”
“Then what changed? Why did you fool me into coming to meet her tonight?”
“I guess I kind of saw the truth. She made me see it. We may be winning games… but is everything else right? Are we doing the right things?”
I purse my lips. I know what he means. We’ll graduate from college soon. Everything is on track surrounding football, but the rest of life isn’t as rosy as I’ve wanted to believe. If we let Tracey-Ann slip away again it could turn out to be the biggest mistake of our lives.
There’s no guarantee she’ll accept my apology, but I have to try.
“Soon,” I say. “Soon.”
25
Tracey-Ann
&n
bsp; I gnaw on the side of my thumbnail while I scroll through the Google hits. It feels dirty getting online to read up on Kade and Connor. But what else am I supposed to do? I’ve only heard from Connor once since the drama in the rain. Kade has been avoiding me. Or ignoring me. There’s radio silence and nothing else.
Not that I shouldn’t expect him to be. He blew up on the sidewalk. It was terrifying.
And yet I still can’t stop thinking about him. Seeing him that out of control made me realize he’s really hurting inside. I want to be there for him. I need to help him.
Am I foolish to feel that way?
I ask myself that every day. Am I turning into another enabler for Kade, the way Connor already is? Or do we both just see the torment storming within Kade and feel we can help him through it? Maybe my life would be calmer if I just went ahead and let all of this go. Chasing after Kade and Connor hasn’t done me any good.
It’s just not that simple. If I never talk to them again they’ll still be on my mind. Thirty years from now I’ll be wondering what happened to the two jocks who took my body, kick-started my heart, owned my soul, and turned my life upside down.
And I’ll be wondering whether or not they’re still thinking about me.
During Connor's one phone call he told me Kade regretted the way he acted. He also let me know they were going to focus on getting to the combine and they would get in touch soon.
I don’t know how long soon is supposed to be. It’s been several weeks already. Kade and Connor both got selected for the combine. Judging from the football lingo I’m piecing together from UT athletics department website, they both did well.
Maybe this means they’ll be in touch soon.
I can’t get my hopes up. I have to live my life and at least go through the motions of being a normal human being.
I kill the screen and put my phone away. Soft murmurs drift from a study group nearby. I’ve been spending a lot more time in the library the last couple months. Lily’s been seeing some guy she met at a concert over Christmas break, which means she hasn’t been at our dorm much. All my other friends are busy with school and jobs.
Two Jocks Next Door: A Bad Boy MFM Romance Page 13
