by Teagan Kade
“What about when you’re with me?”
He sits back, eyes just sex incarnate, arms outstretched on the back of the booth and his hard body just begging to be touched. “I feel plenty when I’m with you, but it ain’t peace.”
“Is that a compliment?”
I’ve never seen him smile so naturally. “You bet your tight little ass it is.”
*
I’m weightless as I sling my jacket onto the bed.
Amber sits up, takes off her headphones, a Hershey bar in her hand. “Someone’s chirpy.”
I smile at the ceiling, pulling my hair out. “It’s been a good day.”
“How is the ‘King’? You still haven’t told me about the royal scepter.”
“What do you want to know?”
She measures the air with her hands. “Bee sting or baton?”
I laugh. “He’s more than enough for me.”
“Not that you’ve had much experience in the matter…”
As if to somehow prove my worth, I blurt out, “We did it in the stacks, you know? A restroom.”
Amber raises her eyebrows. “Kinky. Maybe you are getting into this whole college thing after all.”
“I’m trying.”
“Speaking of which, your darling daddy the Dean swung by while you were out last night.”
My heart freezes over. “He did?”
“Yeah, really drilled me about you and Nate. Had a bit to say about your grades, too, actually asked me to keep an eye on you. Do I look like a responsible individual?”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. We’re sisters, Gamma Phi to death blah-blah.”
“How did he seem?”
“Like the Panthers just lost another season.”
“That bad?”
“Put it this way, he wasn’t walking on a rainbow. He told me your grades have slipped, that he can never find you around campus. He’s onto you guys. My advice? Watch your fucking back.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NATE
Basketball used to consume my life. I would lie in bed throwing imaginary shots, visualize every move and muscle. Not anymore. She has taken me over, body and soul. When I close my eyes, I see her. When I wake, she is there. She is everywhere and I still can’t decide whether that’s healthy, if it’s even right.
I know the shot’s wide as soon as it leaves my fingers. It doesn’t even make the backboard.
“Christ, Compton, you need your eyes checked?”
“Sorry, Coach.” I am off my game. Lucy told me her dad came around looking for her last night. He knows she was with me, which means he has to know we’re a thing. He’ll confront me. He has to.
Charleston’s watching on carefully, but he ain’t about to say jack shit if he wants to keep those marbles he calls testicles.
Coach takes me to the side, one hand around my arm. “Look, we’ve been through this, son. Your head’s not in this. I need it back—pronto.”
“I guess I’ve been distracted.”
“Hot piece of tail will do that, but remember where you are and why you’re here. This ain’t the School of Second Chances. You blow this and you won’t find another open door in all of America.”
“I know.”
He lets me go. “Good, now show me you can actually find the basket.”
*
“Everything okay?”
Lucy has noticed my despondent mood in the library. It’s like the ocean is falling from the sky outside, a torrential downpour that’s doing little to lift my somber demeanor. Coach is right. I can’t have both.
“Fine,” I reply, tapping my pen on the tabletop.
“Sure doesn’t seem like it. Is it the thing with Dad? Because I can throw him off.”
“It’s nothing.”
She places her own pen down and leans forward, her emerald eyes flicking up towards me glowing even in the gloom of the library. I look at her and it all comes rushing back—the way her nipples hardened under my hand, her molten core enveloping me with every stroke, milking me of everything I had and more. It’s so intense, so different to the usual pump-and-dump I’ve been accustomed to. No, what we’ve been sharing is more than sex. You’ve fallen for her.
“I was there, during training now,” she confesses.
“You were spying on me?”
“I’m no James Bond—not with hips like this—but yes, I was there.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see you, watch. Last time I checked that wasn’t a crime.” She sees I’m struggling to even break a smile. “Right?”
“Your decision.”
“I heard what Coach said.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I think he’s wrong. You can have both. In fact, I think it’s good, beneficial even.”
There she is, my Lucy, all logic and sense, the voice of reason in my world of shadows. “How so?”
“You’ve been playing the best ball of your life, right? You told me.”
“I have, until today.”
“What, you think because you ‘deflowered the virgin’ that some ancient curse has fallen upon your head? That your magical b-ball mojo has somehow filtered out of your penis when you… you know.”
Now I smile. “You can say it.”
She says it with a little squinty eye, a questioning yelp that’s so cute I have to shift in my seat to stop my erection splitting the table in two. “When you… cum.”
“It was more than that, trust me.”
She seems pleased by this announcement. “But you’ve been with lots of girls, right? Not that you have to tell me. I’m not going to hunt them down one by one.”
“A few, but none like you. Being with you is different.” I get a memory of our mouths pressed together, her hands trembling as they clutched my arms. “You’re good. You see the best in people.”
“I see the best in you, the marshmallow man under all that ink and bravado.”
“Marshmallow man? You calling me fat?”
She wags her finger. “Hell, no. A girl could cut her hand on those abs.” She reaches across and rubs the bulge in my pants. “But you’re wrong, Nate ‘King’ Compton. I’m not good all the time.”
She rubs a little firmer, a vortex of need opening up inside me so great it threatens to turn me inside out.
“I remember,” I reply, breath wheezy, a strangled sound following as she lightly grips my balls below.
She lets go and straightens her shirt. “Enough play for now. I want to hear all about the fascinating subject that is gender roles in the twenty-first century.”
I smile. “Only you, Lucy Middleton, could make social studies sound sexy.”
*
“The hell, Compton?!” Coach holds his head.
Game night and it’s not looking good. I only made four rebounds in the first two quarters, handed the opposition two turnovers on a silver platter, even sent the mascot ass over end trying to get the ball back into play. For the first time this semester I’ve spent more time ass-kissing the bench than pounding the boards.
“Watch twenty-seven!” I yell to Charleston, but he’s blindsided, completely blown away by the opposition power forward.
“Cunting shit-fucking mother slutter!” Coach is bashing his clipboard against a chair, clearly not pleased by our progress tonight.
There was none of this waiting around in the estate. You played as long as you liked. It wasn’t a dictatorship.
I stand up. “Come on, Coach. They’re murdering us out there!”
“Sit the hell down, Compton. You’ve done enough already.”
I take a seat and run my hands through my hair the way Lucy did last night in the apartment. I close my eyes and she’s there, sprawled out before me, the ringing scent of sex heavy around us, her swollen lips beckoning the blunt head of my cock to enter. I see her but I hear the game, the crowd’s collective disappointment as the opposition jumps ahead.
I can’t take it. I open my eyes and take Coach by the back of the jacket, spinning him around. “You have to let me get back in there.”
He shakes. “Fine. You want in? You want to try and clean this cluster-fuck up? Be my guest. Charleston!”
Coach calls for the swap and I don’t even look at Charleston on my way in.
A mantra runs through my head:
Don’t fuck it up.
Don’t fuck it up.
The whistle blows and I’m straight into it, taking the pass and hauling ass down the court. I spot Lucy out the corner of my eye. It’s just a second, but in that moment I neglect to see the opposition point guard snake out behind me and make the steal, the ball gone before I know it.
“Fuck!” I cry out, the ref throwing me a warning.
The clock kicks down to five minutes and it’s now or never.
I take the pass and power straight for the center.
“Compton!” Lewis, one of our point guards, is open, but I can’t risk it. If you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself. I dodge a defender from the left and head for the ceiling.
Something knocks me hard from the side, the ball spiraling out of my hand. I take the brunt of the fall on my arm, rolling over but too pissed off to feel any pain.
I don’t even think. I just leap up and start swinging.
Chaos ensues, but that’s what I want. I’m punched in the jaw, responding with a hard right of my own, hand connecting and the familiar satisfaction following.
I’m about to go again when I’m pulled back. “Calm the fuck down!”
I twist in Tyson’s grip, two more team members coming forward to help him drag me away from the fight.
Seconds later the clarity returns, the what-the-fuck-am-doing moment every anger fiend knows so well, every drunk and wife-beater. In that moment I’m coming down from the high, reality like concrete waiting to catch me.
I can’t even look at Lucy.
“You’re out!” the ref’s whistle is my drum call.
People are booing and I’m certain it’s directed at me, and why not? This was inevitable. Eventually, I snap. When I do my entire world goes with me. It’s simply not fair to ask anyone else to jump in the fire.
*
My knuckles are bleeding as I punch the locker door, punctuating each blow with a “fuck.”
Someone takes my arm and I swing around to collect them, only stopping when I realize it’s Lucy. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
She lets go of my arm and stands back. She’s scared. “Are you okay?”
“Do I fucking look okay, Lucy?”
The buzzer goes and there’s no lifting swell of approval. We’ve lost. I turn and place my head against the locker, trying to breathe but the pain and frustration blotting everyone else out. The only thing I feel with any kind of tangible sensation is the broken skin on my hand.
She takes a tentative step forward, hand light on the back of my shoulder. “It sucks. I get it. Just calm down.”
I spin around and he’s there again, just like he was back in the home, Jekyll and Hyde. “Calm down! Why the fuck should I calm down?” I point at her, force her to step back. “You worried about what your dad, the almighty Dean, might think?”
“He just wants the best for you.”
I laugh. “Does he?” I can’t stop myself, can’t stop the anger speaking. “Why don’t you ask Dad of the Year why I’m here? You think he just happened to stumble upon me out there in the estate? Bullshit.” I tap the side of my head hard. “Think about it. Why would he do it?”
“I don’t know, Nate, but you’re scaring me. We can figure it out.”
I open the locker door and pull my singlet off. “You’re so naïve. You know that? I thought you’d put it together from the start, but you’re still clueless.”
“About what?”
“You’ve got to go. The rest of the team will be back soon.”
But she won’t let it drop. “Clueless about what, Nate?”
I show her my bicep, point to the tattoo of the little girl in the window. “You want to know who this is?” I’m practically screaming it at her, assaulting her with my words. “You really want to know?”
“I, I-”
“It’s you, Lucy. It’s you.”
One rounded second passes before it clicks. I see the realization snap in, the pieces finally falling into place in her head, but I can’t be here to witness her breakdown. I’ve got enough going on. This, whatever it was, was a mistake.
I slam the locker closed and get the fuck out of there, her hysterical pleas falling unanswered.
This has gone far enough, playing college boy. It’s time to end it and get back to where I belong.
Coach tries to stop me outside the stadium, but I push past him. There’s only one person I want to see.
My pulse races as I come down the hallway to the Dean’s office. There’s light coming from underneath the door, a good sign.
I’m about to blow through the double doors when I hear her voice.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LUCY
My heart’s a battle drum standing before Dad. I’m angry, my world of order slipping, everything I know challenged.
He sees it, sees I’m close to breaking point.
“Who is he, Dad? Tell me!”
He sits down. “Okay, okay. Sit.”
I take a seat and wait. Dad just sits there. I can see him trying to work out how best to phrase it in his head. “Do you remember the day I picked you up from the foster home?”
“Of course.”
“Do you remember what I said in the car on the way home, that I’d chosen you out of all the boys and girls there?”
“I do.”
“The truth is, it was a choice between you and another boy. He was a year or two older, I think seven or eight at the time. His name was Jackson.”
“I remember him, I think.”
“I wanted a boy, Lucy. I wanted a boy to throw hoops with and discuss the birds and bees, to build a treehouse for and ride go karts with, but I chose you.”
“Why?”
He takes a deep breath. “When I got to the home, they brought Jackson down to meet me. His eye was swollen up and his arms were bruised. He was filthy. The foster parents told me he was a troublemaker, and I believed them. Later, I learned the truth, that he was abused at that cursed place. Stabbed the father in self-defense.”
I remain quiet, the truth my protector.
“I gave you the best life I could, everything you could want, but not a day goes by when I don’t think about that boy.”
It all starts to come together—those eyes, that lick of hair and cheeky smile. I’ve shut out those days at the foster home, but painfully the memories return one by one until I’m looking at Dad through wet eyes.
Finally, I know. All along I’ve known. It’s only now I’m willing to accept it.
Dad senses the shift. “Lucy…”
“Nate Compton is that boy, isn’t he?”
“He changed his name, wanted nothing to do with his former life, but yes, he is that boy.”
“And what, this scholarship, this whole thing is an act of redemption, to make yourself feel better for leaving him there that day?”
“To give him a better life, to make amends. He’s suffered, Lucy. He really has. Don’t you think he deserves a chance, like you?”
I don’t know what I think. This is all too much information to process. I thought I had left that place behind, but now it’s back. It’s all back and I don’t know whether I have the strength to let it back in. “Why force us together?”
“I thought it would make a difference, help him heal.”
“Has he known this whole time?”
Dad nods and I cannot believe it.
That’s why he pushed me away, and here I was thinking it was me.
“I’m so sorry, Lucy. You have to believe me. This wasn’t a setup. I needed to get his GPA up and you were dep
endable. I never thought…”
“What?” I press.
“I know you’re seeing him, romantically. I’m old, Luce, but I’m not stupid.”
I swallow hard. “It was your idea for me to spend time with him. Surely you knew I’d find out, but still you let us get together.
He sounds firmer. “No, I didn’t let anything happen there. You did that all yourselves. It certainly doesn’t have my blessing.”
I can hear the way my voice strains, the pitch rising as I makes my impassioned case. “Why, Dad, because he’s not good enough for me? Because we had sex? Yes, we did it. I’m eighteen, Dad! I can make my own decisions.”
“And your own mistakes.”
“Is that what you think he is, a mistake?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you even bring him here?”
“Because I felt sorry for him, okay?”
“No, you felt sorry for yourself. This was all just to make you feel better about leaving him there with that monster all those years ago.”
“Perhaps, but I’ve been around a lot longer than you, Lucy. I know trouble when I see it, and Nate Compton is trouble. He’s a low-life brought up in poverty, and from what I saw tonight he’s destined to return there. You are too good for him, for a criminal.”
“A criminal! Can you hear yourself?”
“There’s more.”
“God, what now?”
“There’s a reason you were in the home together.”
And I know what he’ll say before the words hit his lips.
“He’s your stepbrother.”
*
I leave the administration building in disarray. How could I be so blind?
I’m angry at Dad, but also at myself for not figuring this out sooner. There’s a reason I feel so comfortable around Nate. We have a history. We share the same past.
One half of my head says it’s wrong, to get the hell out of there. The other, logical, wants me to work through it. It feels wrong, but is it really? I mean, we’re not blood. We were just kids back then, and now?
I can’t think straight, but I know one thing. I have to talk to Nate. He can yell and cuss at me all he wants, but we need to have this out if there’s any hope of what we have surviving, and deep down I want it to survive, to flourish. Nate Compton in all his inky man-god glory has stolen my heart, and more. I can’t imagine life without him now. That reality is black, no light left inside it.
