by Teagan Kade
He points up to the roof. “Full moon, man. It brings out the crazies.” He leans close. “And I intend to fuck crazy ’til sunrise. Know what I’m saying?” He grabs his crotch. “It’s been a fucking week, man. If my balls were any bluer I’d be the fucking cookie monster.”
I nod, signaling the bartender for a drink. “You can’t pick up without me.”
He nods. “You’re Asher fucking Slade, bro, the ultimate wingman. With you, I’m the Cubs when it comes to picking up pussy.”
“A hundred and eight years without a win?” I tease.
He punches me in the shoulder. “Fucker. No, I’m talking miraculous, the messiah of love-making.” He turns around, surveying the crowd. “And I’m definitely putting you to work tonight. Hell, maybe we’ll find you a nice piece of ass to split in two.”
A CC & Dry sits in front of me. I pick it up and down half. “I don’t know if I’m really in the mood.”
Leon looks sideways at me. He sniffs. “Holy shit.”
I pick up my bottle again, hold it poised before my lips. “What?”
He’s shaking his head. “I can smell it all over you.”
“What’s that? Success?”
“Pussy,” he says. “You reek of pussy. The same pussy. It’s Willow, isn’t it?”
I’m going to need a lot more of these if this is how tonight’s going down. “Okay. Sure. I’m seeing her. What’s wrong with that?”
“The great Asher Slade, king of cunnilingus, master of mooch, is a taken man. What next? Minnesota takes out the World Series? Kanye for President?”
I raise my finger. “Don’t even joke about that.”
Leon leans back. “I just cannot believe it. Of all the girls…”
“Hey. She’s got more depth in her pinkie finger than all these bimbos combined.”
“Depth?” Leon laughs. “Yes, I’m sure you’re getting real deep with her.”
He eyes me when I don’t immediately reply. “You have fucked her, haven’t you?”
Normally, I can let semi-drunk Leon rattle on without issue, but he’s irritating me tonight. I don’t know why the hell I’m even telling him all this. “We’ve slept together, yes.” I take another swig.
Leon reaches behind himself and slams down another shot. Given the empty glasses collecting on the bar, he must be six or seven down at least.
He grabs his crotch again. “I’ve got to go fight a fire, but we’re not done here.”
I put my hands up. “Whatever you say, Goose.”
He smiles, punching me in the chest. “That’s the fucking spirit.”
I watch him go. He’s walking at an angle, almost smashing into a table on his way to the bathroom.
Lenny, our shortstop, takes Leon’s place beside me. “It’s good to see you, Cap.”
“You see me at training all the time.”
He glances over to a collection of Alpha Phi sisters dancing in the corner. “You know what I mean.”
“Right. Say, what’s with Leon? It’s a little early for him to be this wasted already, isn’t it?”
Lenny shrugs. “Must be the community service thing.”
“The what?”
Lenny seems surprised. “You didn’t know? He glassed this guy in here a week or two ago, an out-of-towner. Poor prick has to go do community service like you did at that kids’ home, with that redhead, what’s her name?”
“Willow?” I offer.
“Yeah, that’s the one. It’s the same shit you had to do, right?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
This is news. Willow mentioned nothing about it. Why did she even agree? Maybe she didn’t have a choice, and why’s Leon getting off so easy?
Things start to click. Perhaps this is what Willow’s meeting with Karen is about. She might be trying to get out of it. Still, I’m slightly annoyed she didn’t tell me about it. I could have spoken to Leon, made sure he knew not to play games.
Lenny continues to talk, mostly about ball and women, but I drift away into my own thoughts, drinking more out of habit than want. Three more CC & Drys and a bourbon later, I head off to the bathroom.
I’m wondering where the hell Leon has got to when I find him in the first stall, cutting coke on the lid of the toilet seat.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I start.
He turns around, sniffing, razor blade in his hand. “Don’t worry, man. It’s my own product.”
He goes to keep cutting, but I reach in and pull him out.
“What the fuck?” he protests.
I start walking him to the door. “It’s for your own good. Do you know what would happen if someone caught you with that shit?”
He pulls himself out of my grip. “What the fuck? Who even are you? The fucking fun police now you’ve shacked up with Miss Perfect?”
One of the lights is flickering above. It’s irritating in the extreme. A tap drip-drips in the basin beside me, the music muffled.
I point to the door. “Go, before you say something stupid.”
He laughs, stepping forward to front me. “You want to know something?”
“Leave,” I warn.
He’s a good foot shorter than me, his eyes at my neck. “You’re little girlfriend? This girl that’s got your balls in her hand? I was her first.”
Everything stops. “What?”
He laughs again. “I popped her cherry, bro.” He puts a finger into his mouth and pops out his cheek. “Fucked her real good back in high school.”
Anger starts to swell inside me. “You’re lying.”
He smiles, pleased with himself. “She cried, you know, blubbered like a fucking baby when I put my dick in, bleeding everywhere and shit. It was fucking embarrassing.”
I shove him so hard he hits the wall on the far side of the bathroom. He’s so wasted he barely feels it, peeling himself off and coming forward again. He’s not done.
“Once I ran her through, she became the biggest slut in school. Within months she’d blown and fucked her way through the entire eleventh grade. I mean, fuck me, talk about stepping it up.
“Shut your fucking mouth.”
“That night I was talking about,” he continues, stepping closer. “At the party? Before her little freefall she rounded up a group of us, took us downstairs into the basement and—”
I swing. My fist collects the side of his face.
He doesn’t see it coming, spinning off to smash into a stall door. He turns, his mouth cast into a sneer, his eyes bloody and wild. “You’ve fucked up now, man.”
He’s still holding the razor blade.
Fuck.
He starts to approach. “You fucking hit me? All I’m doing is giving up a heads up here, a bit of truth, and you hit me? What kind of brother are you?”
I’m so stiff I could snap in two. I jab my finger at him. “I’m not your brother.”
He spits at my feet. “Fight for your fucking whore then.”
That does it.
I rush forward and collect him around the waist. We smash into the wall, the blade falling from his hand and clattering across the tiles.
He gets a solid right in, a shimmer of pain running down my jaw, but he’s drunker than I am.
I punch him in the face, hard enough for his nose to crumple under my hand.
Blood gushes out, black in the light. I hook right, left, pummeling him, feel the sickly impact of his teeth against my knuckles.
He laughs through it, spitting out blood and coughing as his head snaps back and forth under the onslaught. “She was so fucking tight, man.”
I hit him—one, two—square on, my fist slipping off the side of his face and cracking the tiles beside him.
With a sudden burst of energy, he propels forwards, collecting me and driving the both of us towards the other side of the room.
I grunt with pain as my back smashes into one of the sinks, a shower of porcelain shattering to the floor, water spraying to the ceiling.
We both slip, struggling and reaching for one another,
but finding purchase proves hard in all this water.
All I’m seeing is red—pure hatred. I want to end him. I don’t care what we’ve been through, what we’ve shared. He crossed the line.
I wince as something cuts the air in front of my chest. I look down to see my shirt coming apart in the middle.
The motherfucker cut me. He laughs, blade in hand again. I take his wrist and bash it against the wall, and bash it again until the blade looses itself.
One hand pinning down his wrist, I lift my other high and prepare to bring it down right into his smug fucking face.
“Go on,” he taunts. “Fucking do it, you faggot.”
I notice people assembled in the doorway, watching. They stand there with open mouths, at least two of them filming on their phones.
My fist unclenches.
Two security guards rush in. One pushes me away, holding me back with a hand as I try to regain my breath.
The realization that follows is so heavy, so utterly weighty as I look down at Leon, that it threatens to destroy me. Even when the cops arrive, my hands pulled together behind my back, I remain numb and distant.
It’s just a dream, I tell myself.
It’s all just a bad fucking dream.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WILLOW
The last person I expect a call from following my successful meeting with Karen is Constable Granger of the Penbrook Police Department.
So, here I am, waiting down at the police station with a prostitute on one side of me and a prime candidate for People of Walmart on the other.
“Willow Grant?” calls a stocky officer from the front of the room. “You’re up.”
I collect my bag and follow the officer down to the back of the station.
From what I was able to piece together, there was an altercation between Asher and Leon at the Quagmire. Both wound up bloody, but early reports suggest Leon got the short end of the stick. I’m praying it was simple misunderstanding.
Because ‘simple misunderstanding’ ends with someone’s nose being broken.
In truth, I have a pretty good idea what this was about.
The officer pulls us up in front of a cell. “I’ll be right outside if Evander Holyfield here tries anything.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
Asher’s sitting on a bench against the far wall staring down at his bruised and broken knuckles. He looks up. “Thanks for coming.”
I step closer to the bars. “What the hell happened?”
He stands and leans against the wall with one hand, the other running through his hair. There’s blood on his shirt. “I don’t know. I snapped.”
“I’m going to need more than that.”
He pushes off the wall, pacing in the cell. “Your friend Karen just left.”
“Did she? I was just speaking to her this afternoon.”
He nods solemnly. “I know. Why didn’t you tell me they had Leon volunteering at the home?”
I have to look away for a moment. “I guess I was embarrassed for not saying no in the first place. The Dean, Karen… I didn’t want to let them down.”
Asher starts to pace again, hands on his head. “Yes, the Dean. Karen came on his behalf, you know. They found a small bag of cocaine on Leon. He’s suspended. I’m surprised he wasn’t expelled, truth be told. There was a fucking snowstorm in the first stall.”
I try to put a lid on the unease welling up inside me. “And you?”
He stops. “No more baseball this year. No more team captain.”
“They can’t—”
He looks dejected. “They can and, honestly, I deserve far worse. There’ll be plenty of community service lined up as well, though I imagine the McMahon Center’s off the list now. I really fucked him up, Willow. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.”
“What did he do?”
I see a cold glint in Asher’s eyes I’ve never seen before.
I don’t like it.
“It’s more about what he said,” Asher continues.
I take a step back. “Are you angry with me?”
He comes forward and holds the bars. “Leon told me about you and him. He was boasting about it, shoving it in my fucking face. Do you know how that felt? How could you neglect to tell me about that?”
He is angry.
“I told you. That’s all in the past. That’s not who I am any more. Leon’s part of that past, yes, but I didn’t think it was important. I’ve moved on. I didn’t know how to tell you without upsetting you.”
“He told me you slept around with everyone. The entire fucking…” He stops, shaking his head. “Said you were a…”
I step up to the bars. “What? What were you going to say?”
He pushes away and steps back into the shadows. “Does it fucking matter?” he snaps.
“Don’t take this out on me, Asher. I understand why you feel this way, but it doesn’t give you any right to speak to me like that.”
He rushes forward and slams his hand against the bars. “I’ll say whatever the hell I want.”
I flinch back. “What’s going on with you?”
“Me?” he bellows. “What’s going on with you that you didn’t think you could trust me, that I had to find out about all this from my supposed best friend? It was fucking humiliating.”
“It’s the past!” I scream, losing control. “I’m not that person anymore.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure I’m the only guy you’re sleeping with? Fuck. I mean you might be creeping around when I’m sleeping, knocking on doors, happily spreading your legs and lips for anyone.”
“Fuck you,” I jab, the cursing foreign in my mouth.
He laughs, mocking me. “You’re such a badass now, aren’t you?”
“You have no right!”
“Go!” he yells back. “You were nothing but another lay anyhow.”
I fight back the tears. “You don’t mean that.”
He’s locked into this now. He can’t back down. “Don’t I? Let me spell it out: You. Are. Nothing. To. Me.”
I swallow hard, voice caught in my throat when I go to speak.
I can’t take this. I signal the officer outside and start to walk.
“Yeah, go on,” yells Asher. “Lot of fucking good you could do anyhow.”
With those hateful words ringing in my ears, I run out of the station into biting cold.
How could I be so stupid, so delusional?
I don’t stop running until I’m back in my room, mercifully no Amy around to witness my subsequent breakdown.
*
“Ms. Grant, would you like to join us in the land of the living?”
I jerk awake, my cheeks glowing hot when I realize every eye in the auditorium is on me. “Sorry, professor,” I squeak, mortally embarrassed.
Everything has gone to hell. I’ve become that student, the one who falls asleep in class.
I’ve barely been sleeping. That’s the problem. Every time I close my eyes I’m right back at the police station with Asher, his eyes narrow and his words cold. I haven’t been hurt like that in a long time. The way he cut me to the bone, digging right into my deepest fears and emotions, was so hurtful, so completely out of character I’m struggling to believe this is the same man I was so at the home with, the same Asher who I shared my soul and my body with.
Big mistake.
I should have known it was too good to be true. The most eligible bachelor on campus suddenly develops an eye for the nerdy, pale waif he’s forced to do community service with—it sounds like the plot of a romance novel, pure fiction. Those kind of ‘I can’t live without you’ relationships don’t exist in the real world. They’re nothing but fantasy.
Still, it was a nice fantasy while it lasted. If I forget our last encounter, what we had was special. We connected and it was more than physical. Surely he can’t deny that, or maybe I’m deluded. Maybe this is what all the girls he sleeps with think, that they’re special in some way, the one girl who will make h
im settle down and commit.
Yeah, right.
Like I’ve done for days now, I head straight from class to my room. Amy’s always out these days, which has worked well. I lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling wondering where it all went wrong, trying to force myself to study but seeing only him—stupid, cursed him.
No charges were laid, for either of them. Their sporting status means more than one get-out-of-jail-free card it would seem. I’m just thankful I don’t have to deal with Leon at the home any more. Last I heard he’d been assigned to a soup kitchen downtown.
Good.
As for Asher… If he is back on campus, he’s keeping an awfully low profile. Even when I pass the Quagmire it seems like the place is in mourning. Without Asher, the chances of another championship are slim. He wasn’t just the team captain. He was the Hellcat’s top hitter, too.
In habit, I pull out my cell and hold it in front of my face, but the screen’s as black as it was yesterday—no messages, no calls. Deep down I’d hoped he might try and contact me, at least explain, but no. We’re done. Maybe he was speaking the truth. I was nothing but another girl, another notch in his bedpost.
I toss my cell aside and cover my face with my pillow. I’m tempted to keep it there.
Word has spread around campus, too. I see the way people look at me now, like I’m part of Asher’s exclusive little club. I can’t pinpoint the look exactly, but it’s a cross between a sneer and curiosity—the kind of look you’d give to a plate of rotting fruit.
This will pass, I tell myself. It passed before, didn’t it? You survived.
Yeah, by changing my name and moving halfway across the country. Even then I haven’t been able to escape my past.
It’s too much to think about.
I remove the pillow and take a deep breath.
It will get better…
…Hopefully.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ASHER
It’s strange watching training from up here. The players are more ant than cat—stripy little ants. Naturally, Leon’s nowhere to be seen. The college managed to sweep up the whole incident quite nicely, I thought. I guess it helps when half the police force in town attended Penbrook. Still, Leon will be stuck down at that soup kitchen for the better part of a year making nice.
