The Jock and the Dreamer

by Shana Vanterpool

His tongue darted out to lick his bottom lip, getting the pizza sauce from the corner of his mouth. “Are you dating anyone?”

  “Nope.” I looked back at the TV. “I’m as single as the last tampon in the bottom of my purse.”

  “That’s entirely relatable. Great example.” He snorted out a laugh. “It’s probably not them, it’s you.”

  That made me laugh. “Okay, I’ll try and be serious.”

  “No, don’t. You’re making me laugh. I haven’t laughed in…” His smile faded as he tried to remember. “Guess that answers my question.”

  I hated how sad he looked. A moment ago, his eyes had danced with humor, now they were dull with something that looked like pain. “My favorite color is blue,” I answered. “The same color as your balls.”

  His eyes snapped to mine, and then he threw his head back and laughed, shaking his head at me when he calmed down. “More like a lovely shade of eggshell.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “There goes my daily omelet for breakfast.”

  “So, where’d you really get a job?” he asked next, making me freeze.

  “I told you. At Campus Chaos.”

  “I know the owner. He doesn’t hire young, hot bartenders. As sexist as it sounds, he’d hire you to work the floor in those short shorts the waitresses wear. Men man the bar.”

  I gasped indignantly. “What a pig.”

  “Tell me.” He nudged me with his knee.

  “Don’t laugh?” I wagered.

  He nodded, lips pressed firmly together.

  “At Furry Frenzy.”

  “The dog washing place?”

  “Mhm.”

  “What’s there to be embarrassed about? A job is a job. I respect hard work more than I do spoiled brats.”

  Is that why he’d disliked Bri? Her dad covered her portion of the rent whenever she needed the help, and she hadn’t had a hard day’s work since I’d known her. But that didn’t mean she was a brat. She studied her ass off for her dream. I admired her dedication. And I didn’t appreciate that he may feel that way, but I especially didn’t appreciate that I liked that I’d somehow gotten his respect.

  After eating a few more pieces of pizza, I crawled onto the couch and sat beside him, bringing my knees to my chest. I watched him carefully, making sure not to keep my eyes on his face long enough so he wouldn’t sense my stalkerish behavior. His jaw was lovely, powering through his food. I wanted to lean over, and kiss right below his ear, or brush my lips over the faint wisps of hair on his temples.

  When my tongue darted out on its own accord to lap at my bottom lip, I felt parts of me revolt. I was struck by how intensely I doubted myself. How grossly I was killing my dreams one by one. And like the masochist I was, I opened my mouth and ruined everything before he’d gotten a chance to do it first.

  “Wade?”

  He glanced over curiously, mouth full of hot wings. “Hmm?”

  “Do you believe in fate?”

  He shrugged, giving me the same weird eyes that he’d given me all night, waiting for the punchline. “In regard to what?”

  I held his gaze, showing him how screwed up I was inside. “Love.”

  He coughed on his wing and then reached for the bottle of water on the coffee table, taking a drink as he tried to maintain eye contact. “I’m not exactly sure where you’re going with this. Why?”

  At least he didn’t spit it all over me this time. “See, I do. I believe in fate, and it takes the magic out of everything I do. I’m fine not suffering for the things I know I’ll end up with. I’m okay with the possibility of being perfectly happy. The problem is, no one else I’ve ever met felt the same way. Not my mom, who was too mentally ill to ever give me good advice, or to choose me over her ailment. Not my dad, who chose mom over me. Because I was “normal,” and she needed him more than me. Not my ex, who let me go so easily I have to wonder whether he even cared to begin with. Not my time at college, which I screwed up all three years by partying too much and avoiding everyone. And not even my friends, who berate me constantly for not having my life figured out. I just want one thing to finally work out. I want to be right about the dreams I have. I don’t question the feeling of wanting something I don’t even know. I just go with it. Every time.” I turned to face him, blinking the burning from my eyes. “I get that feeling about you. I feel this sense that one day I’ll be Mrs. Wright, and everything will feel that way, right. But that relies on you. It always relies on someone else. Are you, or are you not, going to be like everyone else and tell me I’m a silly dreamer? Or are you going to be the first person to make my dreams come true? Just tell me now so I can start licking my wounds. Tell me before I waste a single second chasing another fruitless dream.”

  He gaped at me, eyes wide as saucers. Mouth partially open. Shock and unease entered his gaze, and in that look, I had my answer. The problem wasn’t with everyone else. The problem was with me.

  I gave him a sad smile and reached over to pat his thigh reassuringly, even though I was the one who terribly needed to be reassured. “It’s all good. You’re just like everyone else. Normal.”

  Chapter Four

  Esmaie

  The cool thing about self-preservation was that the moment it kicked in, it was hard to think about anything other than surviving the day.

  Soap landed on my face and I brushed it off, wrestling with the lab I currently had in the basin. She was a year old, and she was doing her best to get out of the water. “Stay still,” I whisper-hissed. I was exhausted. Class had started a few weeks ago, and on top of working full-time in the evening, I had classes from six in the morning until my shift, which started at three in the afternoon. I had no free time, no time to think. I smelled like dog butt and dry-erase markers. “Oomph.”

  The lab broke through my grip and leapt out of the basin, slipping and sliding on the floor as she tried to scurry away. I ran after her, slipping in her sudsy trail and sliding roughly into the pipes under the sink. Thankfully, the doors were closed, so the mutt couldn’t escape completely.

  I rose onto my feet. “Stay.” I pointed threateningly at her. “Good, doggy. That’s right. I’m your friend. I like bacon, too.”

  She wagged her tail, looked to the right, and then to the left, and then darted between my legs. It took me almost a half-hour to wrestle her down. And I suspected the only reason she conceded was because she was tired… and thirsty; she drank happily from the shower nozzle as I rinsed her off.

  When the last client had picked up their pet, I closed up shop and walked the fifteen minutes to my place. I needed a car, obviously, but I needed money to do that and eight bucks an hour washing dogs wasn’t cutting it.

  I was too tired when I got home to brace myself. I did it every night, hoping Wade wasn’t around. Sometimes he was, sometimes he wasn’t. I did my absolute best avoiding him. He did, too. Which was probably why we were so good at going days on end without running into each other. So, of course the night I’m too exhausted to check for his truck in the driveway, is the night he’s home.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  I heard the laughter before I saw her. Bri told me that he’d shot her down when she’d asked him out, so she now hated his guts, and thought I did also. I didn’t stop her when she spent hours bashing him. Her revulsion made my attraction less revolting.

  There was a woman in the kitchen with a beer in her hand, sitting on the counter swinging her high-heeled clad feet back and forth. She looked over when she saw me. She gave me a polite smile and then glanced to her left.

  “I thought you said we’d be alone tonight,” she whispered.

  Loud enough for me to hear.

  “We are,” Wade’s familiar, deep voice said, popping his head up. I couldn’t place the emotion on his face that went along with the look. Annoyance maybe, regret hopefully, or plain old-fashioned boredom. “We were.”

  I rarely got angry. Truthfully, it wasn’t an emotion that took me out of my character. Determination? Sure. Fear? Absolutely
. Emptiness? Drowning in it. Right then, however, I felt rage so extreme it burned its way across my body and took control of my mouth. “This is my fucking house. If you want to bring your ‘friends,’ around, that’s fine, but don’t you dare make me feel like I have to take off, so you can get off for five pathetic seconds.”

  Wade’s eyes tightened. He had a beer in his hand as well. One for her and one for him. None for me.

  “No one told you to leave,” he said, so calm and deep I knew that was his way of being a dick in front of his date.

  The rage in me unfurled like a flower made of fire, petals dripping steam. Putting myself out there had been stupid, but damn it, sometimes in life you had to take chances, even if they blew up in my face. Taking a chance on Wade had blown up in my face royally. “This isn’t going to work out. You should look for a new place to live.”

  His calm intensified. He was still, eyes cracking like glass. “I’m on the lease until the end of the school year. That’s how long I’m staying. Deal with it, or you move out. Save us both the trouble.”

  “Um…” his date mumbled, gazing between the two of us in concern. “Maybe I should go, Wade.” She hopped down, giving Wade a wounded look when he didn’t stop her.

  “Maybe you should,” I sneered. “He doesn’t do relationships. Isn’t that right, Wade? He’s a big, busy soccer player.” I pouted my lower lip out and crossed my arms over my chest. So I wouldn’t claw his stupid eyes out.

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s a lonely, bitter psycho. Who does that, Esmaie? Honestly? Who throws themselves at a guy and then hates him when he doesn’t catch her?”

  I thought I’d had my heart broken before. I thought I knew what it felt like for it to shatter and explode. I was wrong. I grabbed at my chest, checking to see if he hadn’t ripped it out like it felt like he had.

  He kept going, breaking his poise. He stalked toward me, anger sizzling in his gaze. “How can you get mad at me for not falling for that shit? You spring something about destiny on me after we just met, and I’m the bad guy for not buying into it? Oh, yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. You’re the one who fucked up. Not me!” he roared, patting at his chest roughly.

  The front door closed, but it barely penetrated our intense, furious war. I shoved at his chest as hard as I could, getting angrier when he didn’t even budge. “Don’t you dare talk to me that way. You think you’re so awesome, don’t you? Such a commitment-phobe, a player, a jock. That’s an old story. It’s been told before! You’re not original. You’re just like everyone else!”

  His nostrils flared. “You sure sounded interested. Ready to marry me.”

  My face exploded with heat. I didn’t have to look to know I was burning red with embarrassment. I could hardly speak around the mortified, furious lump in my throat. “You’re right. I was wrong about you. So incredibly wrong. Maybe what I felt wasn’t fate. Maybe it was a warning that I was about to live with a horrible, pompous jerk who thinks his existence is a gift to all.”

  He laughed derisively, bitterness coating every syllable. He stepped so close I could smell something fruity on his breath. There was also a clear smear on his bottom lip. “That wasn’t fate. That was the little voice in your head screaming get help.”

  “Did you kiss her?” I studied his lips closely, touching the smear of what looked like gloss.

  He stepped back, licking at his lips to remove it. “What I do with other women isn’t any of your business.”

  I shook my head in amazement. “Would it hurt to be considerate? Like maybe not bring girls back to the same house we share together?”

  “Why?” His eyes bugged out of his head. “We were never together!” He jabbed at his temple and then made circles around it, indicating I was crazy.

  “I’m not crazy,” I growled, hating the burn in my eyes. “Don’t call me that again or I’ll throw your shit and you out of here.” I wasn’t kidding. Crazy was a mean word. It wasn’t an insult he could just throw around. It was crude and cruel to tease someone over their mental illness.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You have to admit that you’re doing insane things. How many guys have you done that to?”

  May as well make this worse. “Two. My ex, and…”

  “Me,” he finished. Now he just looked confused. “Why, Es? Why me?”

  “I don’t know!” I threw my hands up in frustration. “I get feelings about people and I go with it. I don’t like to make things hard on myself. I don’t need to fight and hurt for something to be real.”

  “I do.” He took a step for me. “You want that? You want a guy who hurts you? Doesn’t see you?”

  “Doesn’t want me,” I inserted, because that’s what he was really saying. “Not anymore.” As I said it, I didn’t believe it, but he did.

  His eyes loosened from their narrowed set, and he swallowed hard. “So, we’re going to be adults about this? I can’t live like this anymore. Avoiding you all day just so I don’t have to see that look in your eyes is exhausting. I didn’t do anything. I’m sick of feeling like I did.”

  I nodded, and it was hard as hell to do. I was so embarrassed and honestly, hurt, I couldn’t fathom how we were going to live together for the rest of the school year. I was struck by how alone I felt. How empty. “Sure, whatever. You’re the good guy. I’m the lonely, pathetic psycho living across from you.”

  He sighed roughly. “I didn’t mean that.”

  I walked around him. “Yes, you did.”

  “Esmaie,” he muttered sadly, letting me leave.

  Living with Wade after that got easier, and also harder. I no longer avoided him. We all four ate dinner together a few nights a week. Sometimes him and I studied together. Him on one end of the sofa, and me on the other. I didn’t know what to say during moments like that. It was the perfect time for whispered conversations in the middle of study breaks, the perfect time to meet in the middle. Instead, it felt like he was pulling me close only to make sure I didn’t get too close. College was a second-choice goal for him. His real passion was soccer. His major was business, and he took enough classes to qualify him to stay in the game. He ate, breathed, and lived soccer; sometimes, it felt more like soccer was hiding something, instead of guiding him.

  Tonight was different. Bri and her hot nerdy friends, brainiac’s with sex addictions, wanted to throw a party, and since we were the only ones with housing off-campus they knew, we’d had no choice but to concede. It had been a couple weeks since Wade and I erupted. Every day I felt myself detach a little more from the world. From my dreams. I was trying to think past him, even if deep down it felt like all I needed was a spark, a chance to unearth the feeling of gravity missing beneath my feet. Every time we spoke, I did my best to keep it friendly, empty. I didn’t check him out. I didn’t look at him unless he talked to me first.

  But I always saw him.

  It was a rare Saturday night we all had off together. No homework. No work. No practice. The house was filled with music and people. Some half-dressed, some stumbling. The scent of beer and perfume filtered out onto the back deck. I was crammed between Bri and her friend, Kloe.

  “I just don’t know,” Kloe was saying, shaking her head with a miserable pout to her glossy lips.

  Bri sighed dramatically. “It’s not always about superficial things.”

  “That’s a superficial thing?” I asked, just as Wade came out onto the deck. He looked around, spotted Bri, and then me, and then he ran his hand through his hair, taking a seat close by. And I was the weird one…

  I swore, it felt like he sought me out sometimes just to watch me squirm. As if he got off on sensing my uncomfortableness. For someone who felt put-out, he didn’t try that hard to eliminate the problem, aka, me.

  “Esmaie,” Bri grumbled. “Be sympathetic. Imagine if the guy you fell in love with had a small dick.”

  Wade spit out his beer. “Sorry,” he coughed. “Went down the wrong hole.”

  I glared at him.

  �
��Chance won’t have that problem. He can’t even get it in the right hole.” Kloe put her face in her hands.

  I gaped at her.

  Bri tried to hide her laughter with her golden strands. She fixed her face and patted her back. “Well, how is he with his tongue?”

  Yeah, because that’s what she wants to do forever. Get licked like a cat every night before bed. “How small are we talking?” I set my beer on the glass patio table in front of us, getting down to business. “I can kind of feel it, maybe if I get on top small, or I didn’t even know it was in, he’s already done small?”

  Wade grinned at his beer.

  Bri laughed into her palm.

  Kloe sobbed into hers.

  “That small?” I rubbed her back. “Buy a vibrator and a dildo and make a thing out of it. What’s a big dick when the guy’s an asshole? Chance worships you. There are worse things, I promise.”

  Like not being wanted at all.

  She wiped her snotty nose. “You think?”

  No. “Of course. Love is bigger than his dick.”

  “Everything is, by the sound of it,” Wade inserted.

  Bri guffawed into the air.

  Kloe got up and ran away, like one of those bad 90’s horror movie spoofs. Bri followed after her. “Kloe, I’m sorry. It’s probably really… cute!” Faintly, I heard Kloe cry harder.

  Wade looked over at me. “So that’s what girls talk about? Tiny dicks? I always wondered.”

  I sat back, crossing my legs. I figured I’d put some effort into my outfit tonight. Spending five days a week covered in dog hair and soap was starting to make me feel like I’d turn into one. I chose a black skirt and paired it with a long-sleeved, black and white striped blouse. I’d even done my hair and makeup.

  Wade, on the other hand, hadn’t changed out of his work clothes. He worked at a grocery store stocking shelves and unloading between classes and after practice. His gray work shirt hugged his body and the same went for his jeans. He had a tired, easy-goingness about him that night that made him look so domestic and sexy.

  “We talk about other things, too. World peace. Politics. You know, intellectual things.”