His easy smile fades and he shakes his head. “He doesn’t get it. Brandon, Summer and all those other rich babies living north of Main are gonna go off to their big universities and get their big jobs. They’re gonna waste their whole lives dreaming of better things. But you and I know that we’re already there. We’re already living the good life. The best life. I mean, shit, Brandon’s the most high-strung kid I know. He and Summer spend all their time worrying about being perfect- doing right by God and their parents, getting perfect grades, being the best athletes they can be. And what the hell does any of that matter in the big picture? It don’t. Life should be enjoyed and you should start enjoying it as soon as possible which is what I’m doing with you. He doesn’t understand that they’re the ones wasting their lives – not us.”
“Oh, yeah? Is that what my mom and sister are doing out there? Living their lives to the fullest? And your dad and brother? And might I add, Mr. Football Star who has spirit girls doing all his homework for him and an open account at every establishment in town, that I don’t get free passes to skip school and that I have to work my ass off because I don’t get things handed to me. You might be living but I’m still just trying to get by.”
“You’re not using that pretty face and this sexy body the way God intended for you to use it. Like any guy at school wouldn’t do all your homework just for the chance to talk to you. And hell girl, if you worked your schedule right and made sure all your teachers were males and you sweet talked them a little, you could skip any class you wanted. And as far as getting free shit, all you gotta do is spend all your spare time with me. I can get you anything you want.”
“That’s great, Nash. So I should turn out just like my mom and sister – drop out of high school, become a stripper, get knocked up by some pretty boy asshole then spend the rest of my life just trying to find a guy willing to stick around long enough to buy me a few groceries?”
“You’re not listening – just stick with me, baby. I’ll take care of you.”
“You realize that in five years you’re gonna be a carbon copy of the guys that shuffle in and out of my mom and Tally’s lives.”
“Maybe. But unlike those guys, I would never leave you.”
“Great. So I’d be stuck with an alcoholic, ex-football star who can’t hold a job and will never leave Carver… for the rest of my life.”
“Well, yeah. But that guy would be me.”
“Not that it makes a difference, but I want more than that.”
“Why would you ever need more than me?”
“Well, Nash Carter, you do know how to please a girl, those bedroom eyes and your fat lips are hard to resist, I’ve never seen a body quite like yours and for the most part you’ve always been around when I’ve needed you for pretty much my whole life.”
“Exactly.”
“But on the other hand, you’ve slept with more girls than the rest of the football team combined, you’re drunk just about every day of your life and you actually want to stay in this town for all of eternity.”
“You know if you’d let me have you, you would be the only girl I’d be messing around with. And just because I drink every day, it doesn’t mean I’m drunk – you know I’m not. And what’s wrong with wanting to stay in Carver? It’s a good town. It’s where we grew up. It’s our home.”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter, ‘cause we both know I don’t have a shot in hell of ever getting out of here.”
“Well, good ‘cause I don’t ever want you to go. Is that enough talking now? Can we get you naked and listen to your cries of ecstasy instead?”
“Yeah, babe, make me forget that this is my life for five minutes.”
“Five minutes, my ass. You’re in for a long night,” he tells me with a cocky grin while pulling my shirt off of me. He picks me up and throws me down on the bed and for a moment, here with Nash, I’m happy in the middle of this hell.
2
I wait in the cab of my truck as Nash gets his last few minutes of flirting in with my mom. When he finally climbs in next to me I tell him, “You’re such a pain in my ass.”
As I pull out of the driveway he wraps one of his big hands around my waist and brushes back my hair with the other one so he can kiss me on the nape of my neck…on that spot that, for some strange reason, makes me want to do things for him…on the spot that he kisses when he wants something. “What?” I ask him.
“There’s a football banquet I gotta go to on Thursday. You gonna be my date?”
“Hmm,” I ponder as I pull down the dirt road. “Let me think… I have to work and, oh yeah, I hate football.”
“Come on, Tatum. Take the night off. For me. I want you there with me.”
“I love you Nash, you know I do, but I’m not your arm candy. Get one of the spirt girls to sit through that boring ass shit with you. Even if I could get the night off, that’s the last place I’d want to spend it.”
He lets out a long breath and runs his hand through his hair. “Fine. That’s cool.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t act all pissy. You know you have more fun with those girls anyway. They worship you like you should be worshiped at a football function.”
“Pissy? Are you trying to start a fight with me? I know how much you like to fight and you know you’re never gonna get me to do it. Not with you.”
“Trust me, I have plenty of people to fight with if that’s what I’m looking to do. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Yep,” he says. I look over and see him resting his head on my old, tore-up vinyl seats, his eyes closed.
“It would be nice if you’d get pissed off every once in a while,” I tell him because maybe I am trying to fight with him. He’s the most laidback person I’ve ever met and I can’t help that it gets under my skin. Maybe it was the conversation we had last night – the fact that he’s content with this shitty life. Or the fact that everything comes so easily to him and even when it doesn’t… it doesn’t bother him. Nothing does.
“Damn it Tatum, you’re such a selfish bitch. You take advantage of my body, use me whenever you need to get laid, but when I need you to come to one little party, maybe just as a small thank you for my sexual servitude, you won’t even do that for me,” he says with no conviction and the hint of a smile on his lips, his eyes still closed.
He’s got me smiling against my will. “Fine,” I tell him as I pull into the parking lot.
“Fine, what?” he says, cracking one eye open to look at me.
“Fine, I’ll go to that ridiculous football dinner with you because you’ve been such a good sexual servant for so long.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. Maybe I can find some idiot there who will actually fight with me. Maybe I’ll pick a fight with Brandon.”
“Hell, yeah. Let’s fuck that banquet up,” he says, sitting up and leaning over to kiss me. He kisses me long and hard, his hands wrapped around the back of my neck. When he releases me he gives me a cute, boyish smile and slaps my thigh before getting out of his side of the truck. I roll my eyes at his excitement before getting out on my own side. He meets me and wraps an arm around my shoulder as we cross the lot.
“What’s up, Carter?” Reggie Norris, the Cougar’s receiver and a total egomaniac, shouts across the parking lot.
“Life’s good man,” he shouts back, “Austin’s coming to the banquet with me.”
“Oh my God, shut up,” I tell him.
“Yes, my man. Tie that girl down.”
I remove Nash’s arm from my shoulder and turn long enough to flip Reggie off.
“Woo, hoo. She’s a feisty one,” he calls out.
“Don’t I know it,” Nash calls back, waving to Reggie before picking up my hand as we head down the sidewalk.
“You guys are all idiots, you know that?”
“There’s nothing you can say to bring me down,” he tells me with a smile.
“Maybe I changed my mind about that banquet.”
“Nah, nah, nah. You already said yes. The
re’s no getting out of it now.”I roll my eyes but don’t comment.
As we enter the school it’s like a grand day parade. The guys practically line up to slap Nash’s hand and there’s a trail of girls ready to ogle him. I pull my hand out of his and tell him, “Later,” as I see Brandon and Summer approaching.
“Hey,” he says, pulling me back to him. “Thanks.” I flare my nostrils at him. He’s acting like I agreed to marry him. It’s just a stupid football dinner and he could get any girl in this school to go with him. “Seriously. I know how much you hate this shit. Thanks for agreeing to go with me. It makes me happy.”
I nod my head at him, then turn around, carefully exiting his inner circle that is threatening to trap me.
“Tatum?” a girl says heading towards me. I don’t recognize her but she’s got a black and red ribbon in her streaked hair which means she’s a spirit girl, so as is the case with all spirit girls, I ignore her.
What they do is humiliating, just being around them makes me cringe. It’s bad enough that there are girls in this world like Summer who spend hours of their lives practicing being peppy and flexible in order to support football players with their chants, but the spirt girl is a whole other level of low. I’m not any kind of feminist but, Jesus, have a little respect. Who would voluntarily waste all of their spare time decorating lockers, baking cookies and performing whatever menial, or sexual, task these guys deem them worthy of? A spirit girl. That’s who.
“Hey… Tatum?” the girl says, persisting after me once I’ve walked on past her. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I stop and turn towards her and she practically bumps into me. I’m tall, five-ten, but this girl’s tiny – at least half a foot shorter than me. That’s the first thing I notice. The second is the pin attached to one of her big breasts – it’s a picture of Nash in his football uniform. It takes a minute for my eyes to travel back to her nervous face. “What?”
“Well… umm…”
“Listen, I have a class to get to and an assignment that I have to talk my way out of. If you’re wasting my time with your hemming and hawing because you’re scared to tell me that you’re Nash’s spirit girl and that yes, you are going to bake him cupcakes and make your body available to him, but you think I have something going on with him and you don’t want me to take it personally… save it. You’re wasting your breath and you’re not worth my time.” She stares up at me with a blank expression on her face so I turn and continue down the hallway.
“Wait,” she calls after me. I walk quicker. “It’s just, I’m new here. My parents just got a divorce and my mom and I moved in with my aunt and her family, which includes my cousin Jolee. Do you know her?”
I turn my glare on her. “Yeah, I know her.” She’s the sluttiest cheerleader Carver has ever seen.
“Those things you just said to me… I would never do that. I don’t want to do that. I don’t know how I let her talk me into this. I mean, it’s totally degrading and I have a boyfriend back home. I told her I didn’t want to do it but she said it was too late and the only way I could get out of it was by finding a replacement but everyone I ask is terrified of you. So I thought, since he’s your boyfriend… maybe you would just want to do it?”
I stop at the entrance to Mr. Lawrence’s English lit. class and laugh at her. “What’s your name?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m Presley. Presley Knox.”
“First of all, Presley… I’m sorry that you’re related to that slut. Secondly, you can tell those other girls that they don’t need to be scared of me - Nash is not my property and those sad girls don’t register on my radar. Thirdly – spirit girl is not a real thing. I mean, Nash doesn’t need a girl with a title to bring him baked goods, do his homework or get down on their knees for him. Just about any girl in this school would do those things for him regardless if it’s their job or not. So tell your cousin to fuck off and throw that stupid button in the trash.”
She lets out a breath of relief and practically tears the button off her shirt. She holds it out to me. “I don’t want it,” I tell her, backing away and into first period. When I turn around, Mr. Lawrence is looking at me with disappointment. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m sorry I said the ‘F’ word. I’m having a bad day.”
He takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes and lets out an amused laugh. “I would send you to Principal Reynolds’ office if not for the context in which the offensive word was used. I’ve wasted plenty of my own time in her office trying to convince her that this school needs to ban spirit girls all together.” he takes a deep breath, regaining his composure, then asks me, “To what do I owe the honor of your, very out of character, early arrival to my class, Miss Austin?”
I take a seat on the desk in front of his. “Do you want the whole sob story or should I just skip to the part where I didn’t get the book read or my essay written?”
He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. “If I recall, the last book I assigned didn’t get read because of personal family issues and the fact that you are working twenty five hours a week at The End Zone. Can I assume your story hasn’t changed much?”
“The song remains the same,” I tell him.
“Considering that this is becoming a regular issue, I took the liberty of speaking to Mr. Lane – he’s you’re guidance counselor by the way. I realize you may not know that - he informed me you haven’t been to visit him once during your time at Carver High. Not even for your mandatory progress check ins.”
“He’s one more thing I don’t have time for.”
“He’s there to help you, Tatum. If you would have explained your situation to him he would have helped you schedule your classes so that you could handle your course work more effectively.”
“I’m taking the most basic classes that I possibly can- minimum requirements.”
“That’s true, but if you would have visited with him he could have informed you that, for example, if you would have opted for Mrs. Harbor’s poetry class as your literature requirement instead of my class, your coursework could have been cut in half.”
“Are you kidding me? That’s great. I mean, can I switch?”
“I will pretend like I’m not offended by your excitement at the notion of leaving my class. And no… you’re stuck with me. But I have a solution for you, one that will kill at least three birds with one stone. One that I’m guessing you won’t like based on the conversation you just had outside my classroom.”
“You want me to be a spirit girl?”
He lets out an unamused laugh. “No. Definitely not. I want you to cover the sports section for The Carver Observer.”
I stare at him blankly.
“The school newspaper,” he clarifies
“What? How is that gonna help me? I don’t need any more responsibilities and if you haven’t noticed, writing is not something I have time for as it is. And… I hate sports. All sports. Not just football.”
“I feel for students in your situation, Tatum. I know you have a lot of stress and responsibilities outside of this classroom. When you do, on occasion, hand in your essays they’re good. You can write. I’m also aware that there are students in this school who ace all of their take home assignments because they aren’t actually doing them. I feel the need to level the playing field at Carver in any way possible. Would you like to hear my solution?”
“I guess I don’t have a choice.”
He ignores my pissy attitude and carries on. “Because you will be spending a significant amount of time interviewing players and attending sporting events, taking this position would not only fulfill your literature, but also your physical education requirement. Which means you’ll have two free hours during the school day to complete your assignments for the paper and plenty of left over time to catch up on your other courses. And… you will have an extracurricular activity to put on you college applications.”
“That’s great Mr. Lawrence but honestly, I’d rather fail this class than have to
associate with anything football related.”
“I think you need to put your personal opinions aside and think about your future. I’m giving you a chance to turn your grade around. I suggest you take it.”
The last bell tones and the class quickly fills up. I’m still staring at Mr. Lawrence with a tense jaw. “Fine,” I mutter. “Can I get started now?”
He pulls out a slip from his desk and fills it out before handing it to me. “Go introduce yourself to Mr. Lane. If all goes well, I’ll see you in the computer lab for last period.”
“Thanks,” I tell him, grabbing the paper and heading out the door already wondering what the hell I got myself into.
3
The fact that I didn’t have to change into gym shorts and run laps seemed like enough reason to make the deal that I struck with Mr. Lawrence worth it, but as I walk into the computer lab instead of the gymnasium for last period, I think I might be wrong. Every overachieving, AP class-taking, fighting-tooth-and-nail for valedictorian kid in the senior class is slotted into a computer station. No wonder sports was the only open assignment.
I throw my bag down on a chair and hand my schedule change slip back to Mr. Lawrence. He smiles at me triumphantly. “Welcome to The Carver Observer,” he says, slapping my shoulder. “Everyone, I want you to meet our newest staff writer; Tatum Austin. She’ll be taking over the sports section.”
The room breaks out in claps and I hear kids muttering their thanks to God.
“That’s genius, Mr. Lawrence. Send the hottest girl in school to talk to those jackasses,” a lanky kid with a shock of long, bleach-blond hair hanging over one of his bright blue eyes, and an eyebrow full of piercings perched over the other says, holding his hand up for Mr. Lawrence to slap. He doesn’t – obviously. “Alright, fine, I get it, that could have been perceived as sexist. My bad. But hey… it’s true. I mean, I’m assuming since you’re dating one of those Neanderthals that you know why we can’t find anyone to cover sports?”
A God in Carver (Carver High #1) Page 2
