Root (Band Nerd Book 2)

by Danica Avet

  He revs the engine, his gaze still locked on Hennessey. I don’t like it. He’s bad news and she’s a good girl. But he isn’t asking my opinion as he revs the engine once more and peels off down the street.

  “Drive the motherfucking speed limit!” Hennessey screams after him.

  The car disappears from sight, but not memory. Oh no, I’m going to have nightmares about this for the rest of my life. If I ever have children and grandchildren, I’ll probably tell them all about how I almost died and use it as a lesson in why not to lollygag while crossing a street. And if I have too much to drink, I might even explain that road head is dangerous for bystanders.

  My new friend turns to me, her face still red with anger, but her eyes sparkled as though she’d enjoyed herself. “So I’ve been thinking. Do you want to hang out with me, Jolene, and Becca tonight? We’re gonna pick up some food at Wilburn’s and go back to my parents’ house to watch movies.”

  I don’t know what to say, except I’m starting to think she really is crazy. And this is when I have to hit pause.

  I’ve never had one of those moments when I realize the decision I make is going to either change my life or keep it exactly the same. But I’m having one now. Maybe it has to do with the whole almost dying and realizing your life was one big blank, but suddenly the thought of going back to my ratty studio apartment for the rest of the night doesn’t appeal. I have a rare night off from work and I was looking forward to picking up the book I’d had to stop reading to attend camp. I even had a thought about sifting through my dad’s records and maybe playing them. Never mind, I can’t… Not going to think about that. No, those plans would only serve to make me depressed and more withdrawn. I don’t want to be that person anymore, but the fear of opening myself to new people has me wondering if it’s a good idea.

  I know Hennessey about as well as anyone, considering I’ve never had many friends, but the other two, Rebecca Cherry and Jolene Pickering, are just fresh faces. All I know about either one is Becca’s a four-foot-eleven spitfire majorette who has so much energy she tires me out just from watching her routines, and Jolene is a transfer student from Georgia who plays the trumpet so well that if she weren’t a freshman, she’d be section leader. That’s it.

  Will any of them accept me as I am? Weirdness, height, and quiet ways and all? I hope so. Heart pounding with nerves, I nod shortly. “That sounds like fun.”

  Hennessey’s beaming smile is full of understanding and acceptance. I just pray the other two feel the same.

  Anders

  “You sure you don’t want to come with us?”

  I don’t pause as I continue with my squats, the barbell weighing in at six hundred pounds, my quads, hamstrings, and glutes burning as the muscles push me up and down in a slow, steady pace. I suck in a breath as I squat then let it out as I stand, going to my tiptoes on the final push.

  “No,” I huff, as a couple of the trainers take the barbell from me. I roll my shoulders. “Got to study tonight.” It’s more like read a couple of required books for the upcoming semester, but to Savage that’s studying.

  Beau “Savage” Sauvage makes a face as he continues his own workout. Off-season training is a big fucking deal with our football program. Keeping ourselves in peak condition, strength and speed-wise, is what will lead us back to a bowl game. If we somehow retain the same magic as we had last year.

  Moving to the rows of barbells, I grab two dumbbells to begin my rear delt raises. Bending to a forty-five degree angle, I start punching up my reps, the trainers pressing on my shoulder to keep my form straight.

  “You’re always studying, even when classes haven’t friggin’ started,” Savage grunts as he works the leg press. “You need to get out more.”

  And he always says that too, but I don’t reply.

  He and I bonded last year. Both freshmen, new to the Spartan Football Program, not really knowing our asses from a hole in the ground, but we’re completely different. Not just the obvious ways like size, positions we play, or personalities. But in upbringings. See, I knew, even before I came to training camp last summer, that he was the great-great-great grandson of the university’s founder because it was all over the news. Not only is he a legacy, but he’s also rich, privileged, and the golden boy of the university with a real shot at the pros.

  Me? I’m just the kid from nowhere who managed to catch Coach Nielson’s attention during a random game I played against a much tougher, more popular school. With my grades and hunger to get the fuck out of Wisconsin, I already knew I’d go to college on an academic scholarship, but Sauvage State wasn’t even on my radar until Coach Nielson mentioned a hefty athletic scholarship. I jumped at the offer and managed to rake in enough to cover tuition, housing, food, and books with just a little bit left over. Hence the not going out much. Plus, you know, studying is how I relax.

  “Know I only go out once a month,” I groan.

  I’m not a complete fucking hermit, although my routine makes me sound a little like a senior citizen. But one night a month is enough for me to blow off some steam, chill with my friends, and stare at girls I have no intention of approaching. And it’s rare for any of them to come to me with Tight and Savage around.

  “Okay, how long until your next night out?” he asks, as he swings his legs to sit on the bench facing me.

  My shoulders are burning like a motherfucker, but I finish the final rep, sweat dripping down my face to hit the floor of the gym. “Two weeks.”

  “Fuck, man! How do you not go crazy?”

  So speaks the guy who doesn’t need to apply himself in anything except football, but I don’t say it. I’m not a dick. I start power lifts next. “Just used to it.” My breath leaves me in a huff.

  “Well you should at least stop by my place if you get bored. I’m sure the party’ll be going until the sun comes up and lovely ladies wantin’ that whole Viking shit you have going on,” he teases with a grin.

  I don’t answer, concentrating on my workout. I can’t disagree with him about the Viking thing because with a name like Anders De Groot from Wisconsin, plus my size, I’ve heard it a few times over the years. I don’t get how Ma came up with it, whether I was named after a relative back in Norway, but I do know she’s a first-generation American-Norwegian. So yeah, I guess I could claim Viking ancestry if I wanted. And yeah, the girls would probably love it.

  However, contrary to what my fellow teammates think—and because I don’t say an awful lot—I don’t fuck as much as they think. In fact, I don’t have sex at all. Never have. They’d probably shit a brick if they knew I was a twenty-year-old virgin, but it’s none of their business. I have my reasons. I jack off, watch porn, I’ve even made out with a few girls since I lost weight and started playing football, but I’ve never gone the distance and that’s my secret to keep.

  “At least stop by for an hour tonight,” Beau insists, returning to his original train of thought. This one-track mind of his is why he’s a great quarterback, but sometimes a shitty friend, because he won’t let things alone.

  “I’ll try,” I mutter as I start my stretches.

  And I will try. Just not very hard.

  Lena

  That whole, my life is going to change thing? Yeah, I probably should’ve taken the other option. These girls are certifiable. Wandering around Wilburn’s with the three of them is like trying to herd cats. Becca’s all about sugary foods—which she so doesn’t need because she’s already hyper. Jolene wants to make something called Brunswick stew, while Hennessey is all about the popcorn. Me? I just want to get out of the store without anyone coming to blows.

  “Why don’t we get a little of everything?” I ask in what I think is a reasonable tone when Becca and Hennessey, who’ve been friends since fifth grade, start arguing the merits of sweets over salty.

  All three of them look at me as though I’ve suddenly started spouting Klingon or something. I glance around the mostly deserted store, hoping no one’s watching us. No, there’s n
o one around, but I lose the attention of my new friends, who start bickering again. I think Hennessey and Becca are just going at it just to do it. Soft-spoken Jolene, who said she has five younger sisters, interjects here and there, egging them on.

  The four of us couldn’t have been any more different than if someone had just plucked us randomly out of a crowd. Of course I’m the tallest in the group, with Jolene the only other one over five-foot-six. Maybe. But although she and I both have blonde hair, mine is all blah while hers is golden and beautiful. Hennessey, of course, is the only redhead, while Becca’s deep brown locks gleam like polished wood. Body types? Yeah, different there too. I’m pudgy. Hennessey’s curvy, Becca’s thin, and Jolene looks like a Victoria’s Secret model.

  “I’m gonna kill you if you make me eat another goddamn bag of gourmet popcorn,” Becca says, drawing me back to the here and now.

  The only excuse I have for my contribution to the fight is comfort. I feel as though the four of us have been friends for years, even though I don’t know them that well, and I say in my best English accent, “Now let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who.”

  That shut them up again. Becca though, is the only one who starts grinning. Maniacally, yes, but it’s still a grin. “I knew I was gonna like you! And not just because you can help me reach things on the top shelves,” she adds with a tinkling laugh. “You know Monty Python!”

  My cheeks heat up. I’m not used to being the center of attention, yet all three of them are staring at me.

  “Um, yeah,” I mumble, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I used to watch it with my mom.”

  Before she got hooked up with my new stepdad and stopped caring about what I did, but I push the thought away, as Becca walks up to me and wraps her twig-like arms around me. I look over at Hennessey in a panic, not sure what’s going on, but my tuba-twin—as she started calling herself despite, you know, us looking nothing alike—just beams at us like a proud parent.

  “I love you.” Becca’s words, muffled against my shoulder, sort of sink into me like the warmth of a hot bath.

  Those three words are ones I haven’t heard many times in the last eight years of my life. That they come from a girl who’s probably just joking around doesn’t matter. Just hearing them, even if she doesn’t mean it, makes me feel like I belong to someone.

  Awkwardly reaching up to pat her on the back, gently because she feels about as substantial as a wisp of air, and for a lack of anything better, I say, “Love you too.”

  She pulls away, still grinning wildly, but grabs my wrist and drags me through the store. For such a little girl, she’s pretty strong. Then again, I’m not fighting too hard, eager to find out what she has planned.

  “You bitches can get whatever you want,” she throws back to Hennessey and Jolene before turning back to me. “We need cookies and cake. Can you jump in the air and click your heels? I feel like we need to skip or something. You know, because I’ve finally found the one person in my generation who even knows Monty Python isn’t a person but a comedy troupe. Do you know how rare that is? Nessie barely stayed awake through The Meaning of Life. I have some relatives in the U.K. who swore I needed to watch The Holy Grail. After that, I was a goner. Which is your favorite movie? Have you seen any of Monty Python’s Flying Circus? If not, we so need to have a Monty Python weekend.”

  Bemused, I look down at the top of Becca’s head as she leads me to the cookie aisle. I’ve never met anyone who talked so much, or so fast. I glance back over my shoulder to see Jolene and Hennessey following at a slower pace, smiling indulgently. I allow Becca to tow me down the cookie aisle. She immediately starts trying to teach me how to jump up and click my heels together. If I make it out of the store alive, I’m so going to enjoy having friends.

  Lena

  August

  Am I the only freshman who’s terrified of the first day of classes? It feels like it as I sit in the back of my first class as a college student and look around at everyone taking seats around me. All of them appear bored or sleepy. Sure, I try to act cool, as though this is nothing new. And it really shouldn’t be, I’ve been going to school since I was five, but this is different. This is college. The big show. The accumulation of years of studying, staying home at night instead of partying like other kids, of working my ass off to get a scholarship.

  And I’m nervous as hell.

  Someone sits in the seat right next to me and I look over absently, only to feel as though all the air left the room. That’s impossible, really. If all the air was gone I’d be dead, along with the other one hundred students piling into the auditorium style classroom. But that’s what it feels like.

  The guy sitting next to me is huge. As in, he makes me feel petite. I hit five-foot-eleven when I was thirteen and grew to a whopping six-foot-one before I graduated high school. If I had any athletic skill, I’d probably be a shoo-in for the Sauvage State University women’s basketball team. But I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, much less play sports—as evidenced by my sad attempts at jumping up and clicking my heels at Wilburn’s. The cookies didn’t survive my graceless fall. But I hadn’t laughed so hard in forever, so I didn’t mind the short-lived embarrassment. Although the girls did teach me the benefit of cookie crumbs on ice cream after we had to buy the damaged product.

  I’ve been called lots of names. Giraffe, Ostrich Legs, Spaghetti Legs, Legs, Amazon, Brunhilda, and a host of others I can’t recall now. It’s taken me a while to accept myself as taller and bigger than most of the guys I went to school with, but I’ve never before been around a guy who made me feel small and girly. Until now.

  Sensing he’s about to look at me, I quickly turn back to face the front of the class but, really, there’s no way to pretend I’m not sitting next to a modern day Viking. I blame Jolene’s fascination with the show Vikings, or rather Travis Fimmel. Since we’ve started hanging out, my studio apartment has become the go-to place to binge watch television, whether it’s Monty Python, Vikings, or whatever Jason Statham movie Nessie wants to watch.

  Personally, other than Monty Python, I’m so into Vikings it’s sort of become my favorite fantasy. You know, when I’m feeling the urge, which doesn’t happen often. Oh sure, I don’t think I’d take too kindly to being a woman back in those days, but I’m almost positive I could’ve been a kickass shieldmaiden, as long as I had a hunk like Rollo to go back to the longhouse to. You know, if I had the athletic thing going for me. Still, long hair and bulging muscles have become an obsession for me lately. It’s so bad, I’ve even been checking out the bikers around town, although the bad boy thing scares the pee out of me, so I only look. Never approach.

  The giant next to me reminds me a lot of some of the men on the show, except not as wild. His blond hair is longish on top, cut short on the sides in a Rothgar-esque style that totally works. In fact, he could almost pass for Rothgar’s son, making me revise my crush on Rollo. In the split second I saw him, I took in the high cheekbones, the long nose, and soft-looking lips. Peeking at him from the corner of my eye, I see the arm closest to me, which is almost as thick around as my thigh. The boy’s packing some serious muscles.

  I want to look at him again, but Ms. Frost enters the room just then and people start to settle down. Music Appreciation 101 is an easy elective. I wasn’t required to take it right now, but I figured I’d need the easy A to make up for my inevitable failing grade in Math 101. That whole thing about band nerds being good at math? It’s a complete and utter lie. Well, in my case it is. I can handle History, English, even Physics—to the baffled amazement of my high school Physics teacher who also taught Algebra—but put a Math book in front of me and my brain goes blank. Like there’s nothing there, as though I’ve never seen numbers before.

  I didn’t know, when I registered for classes back in May, that my band director and Music Appreciation 101 instructor were the same, but as I see a familiar face, I relax a little. While Ms. Frost had been a complete dictator on the field during b
and camp, she’s also cool and fun. Plus she’s something of a celebrity since she’s engaged to Shaun “Steady” Decker, who I’ve had a crush on since I was about thirteen and started actually paying attention to the sport my stepdad followed like a religion and championed just as strongly. You know, because he always had a bet riding on the games.

  “Good morning everyone, I’m Katherine Frost and welcome to Music Appreciation 101.”

  I glance around the room, actually looking at the other students this time, and realize there are several other band students taking the class. I haven’t actually spoken to any of them though. They’re the cool band nerds, a group I’m sure a lot of people don’t realize even exists.

  Unfortunately for me, while Nessie, Jolene, and Becca are taking this same class, it’s at different periods, which leaves me friendless in a group of a hundred and twenty students. My gaze pauses on someone who looks very much like the tattooed knuckle guy who almost ran us over, but he’s seated toward the middle of the stadium-style seating and it’s hard to tell for sure.

  “Hey.”

  Momentarily having forgotten that the Viking was sitting next to me, I turn to look and find myself pinned by his crystalline blue eyes. My heart flutters. He’s a lot cuter than I first thought, which means he’s almost unbearably attractive. His skin is golden, as though he spends a lot of time in the sun, his eyebrows two shades darker than the hair on his head, and his nose is slightly crooked, as though it’s been broken before.

  We stare at each other for several very long seconds, each one marked off by a hard thump of my heart. I don’t know what he’s looking for as he studies me, but I feel terrified and excited. Nessie and Becca keep telling me I’m pretty, that some guy would come along and sweep me off my feet, just like the heroines in the books I love to read. And I stupidly wonder if he’s the one.