by Teagan Kade
He signals the bartender. “How about you shut the fuck up and do some shots, Good Will Hunting?”
*
It’s the middle of the night. Leon and I are on the field, not another soul to be seen. The lights burn, far too bright. I lift my bat, but it’s too heavy, like someone’s coated it with cement.
Leon throws his first pitch. It’s fast, way too fast for me to catch it.
I shake my head, cursing myself.
Leon pitches again, a curveball that swings low before sweeping up. I can’t get any wood on this one either.
What the fuck is happening?
Third strike and I’m out, Leon laughing. The ground opens up and I’m swallowed into the dirt, suffocating.
I wake sweaty, my temples beating in time with my pulse. There’s something on my chest. I reach down and toss it, the black thong falling down the wall. I look to my side for its owner, but there’s only the lingering scent of sex to warrant anyone else’s presence.
My head splits in two when I sit up.
Fucking Leon. I should know. Never let him buy you shots—never.
I kick off the sheets, startling myself when I find my dick hard… and bright blue. It takes me a second to realize I’ve still got the condom on.
I pull it off and head to the bathroom, forced to stand there, hand against the wall, for almost a minute before I’m deflated enough to piss.
I close the curtains and get back into bed, the darkness as much of a comfort as the quilt. Still, the world continues to spin and turn, no ‘off’ switch on this ride. Thank fuck I’ve got nothing going on today.
Something about the thought forces me to straighten up. I rub my eyes.
Shit.
The volunteer thing.
I reach for my phone, knocking it onto the floor in my haste.
It’s five to ten. I’m supposed to be there in five fucking minutes.
I’m out of bed like Gordon fucking Flash, pulling on jeans and a tee, half-hopping out to my bike and swinging a half-clothed leg over, revving it to life.
I take off with one hand on the handlebars, unsteady. I barely dodge an oncoming car, swing hard and head for the address, manage to cop every red light on earth on the way there, my boot tapping nervously on the road.
I’m going to be late. There’s no doubt about it.
Question is, what’s it going to take for Willow Grant to let me off?
CHAPTER THREE
WILLOW
“I have a penis!” announces three-year-old Dylan, marching around the playroom. “I. Have. A. Penis!” he shouts, pants around his ankles.
I try to stop myself bursting out with laughter as I pull his pants back up. “I know, buddy, but why don’t we keep our pants on, okay?”
“Do you have a penis, Will-o?” he asks, genuinely curious.
I smile, standing. “No, buddy. I have a vagina. Girls have vaginas.”
With that, he resumes his march around the room, chanting, “Girls have vaginas! Girls have vaginas!”
All I need is Arnold Schwarzenegger and I’d be on the set of Kindergarten Cop.
But this is no movie. These kids come from troubled homes and families. Many don’t even have families, given up or orphaned. It almost brings me to tears looking at their chubby little faces and big, button eyes thinking about the kind of horrors they’ve been through so early in life.
I check my watch. Ten to ten and still no sign of Asher Slade.
Give him a chance.
When the Dean, the actual Dean himself, rang me up last night I thought it was to talk about my scholarship, but no. He wanted me to babysit his prize ballplayer, help ‘improve his image’ by having him help around the center.
I know the truth. Asher will show up, do his time and come away looking good having atoned for this crime. It’s such a cop-out. The others involved in the incident received a slap on the wrist, didn’t even have to cough up for damages.
Still, you don’t turn down the Dean, not when every brownie point counts. The Dean studied medicine. He’s got plenty of contacts that could benefit my career. I need any leg-up thrown my way.
So, I agreed to take Asher on. The Dean assured me I had a direct line to him, of course, that if Asher was late, absent or failed to pull his weight, I was to contact him immediately. That lure of power had me pressing the cell harder to my ear.
I smiled at the thought of getting one over on Penbrook’s glory boy.
How the tables turn.
Deep down, though, something more instinctual and primal is telling me this isn’t the worst thing to happen in the history of Willow Grant. Spending one-on-one time with Asher Slade, with his hard, cut body and bulging biceps, that perfectly messy hair and slab of abs I could do my washing on, that…
I stop myself. Yeah, because ‘one-on-one’ with fifty kids is real date material…
Glenda, one of the full-time staffers at the center stops by. “No sign of the prisoner yet?”
I check my watch. A minute to ten. “Not yet.”
Five minutes pass and what has been an odd kind of excitement over our reunion is fast turning into white-hot anger.
How dare he? As if the thing in the café wasn’t enough. Now he thinks he can show up late on his first day, no concern for punctuality, no concern for anyone but himself and his big, stupid penis. Little Dylan’s got more going for him than Asher Stupid-Face Slade.
I’m so worked up my glasses are literally fogged over.
I’m wiping them when the front door bursts open. In walks a blurry shape.
I put my glasses back on.
Asher Slade steps up to the playroom gate. The guy’s over six-foot tall. It barely reaches his knees. He’s smiling. The arrogant imbecile is actually smiling. “We meet again,” he says.
I cross my arms. “You’re late.”
“You’re late,” echoes four-year-old Maddy, looped around my leg like a python.
Asher crouches down, looking at her. “Can you forgive me?” He extends his hand through the bars.
The little traitor lets go of my leg and takes his hand. “Okay. I forgive you. Do you want to be my friend?”
Asher looks up at me, indigo eyes lit with the promise of dirty things if I only I were to say the word. “What do you say? Can we be friends?”
Maddy stands in front of the gate, the two of them looking up to me, and I swear to god Maddy’s puppy dog eyes are wet. They’re playing me.
Damn him.
“Fine,” I huff. “Come on.” I open the gate and let him through, Maddy pulling him towards the Lego blocks. She doesn’t even know his name.
Like he has asked the name of any girl he’s been with…
He stops beside me, whispering into my ear, breath hot on my lobe. “Thank you.”
I watch him go, sitting on the floor with Maddy, a few of the other kids crowding around the playroom’s latest attraction.
He plays for a while with them, building what appears to be some kind of Dali-like rocket ship-cum-seizure before the kids take over. He stands and walks over, hands in his pockets, a smug look on his face. “So, are you going to check me in?”
I can’t seem to uncross my arms. “’Check you in’? We’re not in grade school.”
He looks around. “Could have fooled me.”
Smartass. “I should report you. The Dean said—”
Asher’s hand goes up. “I know what the Dean said, but forget him. I’m here to please you, aren’t I?”
I almost expect him to wink the innuendo is so overt. A heated twitch zaps through me at the thought of what being pleased by Asher Slade would entail. “Don’t be late again.”
He salutes. “Yes, ma’am.”
I open the gate. “Come on. I’ll show you around, introduce you to the staff.”
Funnily enough, although the ladies who work at the center were outraged by Asher’s actions, now he’s here in the flesh they turn into a gaggle of schoolgirls, fawning over him like they haven’t seen a
n attractive man in years.
He plays the part perfectly, slyly pushing his chest out or yawning to flex, charming them with little tidbits about college life.
We leave them flustered.
“You’re quite the hit around here,” I tell him as we climb to the rooms upstairs.
He faces me at the top of the stairs, hands sliding into the pockets of his jeans. “They’re not my type, sorry. I prefer my women…” His eyes pogo up and down my body. “Petite.”
“Petite like your brain, you mean?”
He takes his cell out, dialing.
“Who are you calling?” I ask.
He looks at me seriously. “The fire brigade, because that was a serious fucking burn.”
“What’s fucking?” calls a small voice from down the hallway.
I glare at Asher. “Nothing, Timothy. Go downstairs and play with the others.”
‘Sorry,’ mouths Asher.
All I can do is glare.
I bet it’s not the first time that mouth of his has gotten him into trouble.
I show him the rooms, including the changing room. Asher picks up a diaper like it’s nuclear waste. Wait until you see one filled, my friend.
He prods at a stack of wet wipes. “So, why are all these kids here?”
Nice to see you did your homework. I take a deep breath. This room feels a lot smaller than usual at the moment. “All kinds of reasons—broken homes, abuse, death in the family. Some of them are too young to remember their parents at all.”
He leans against the wall, the definition of cool even here, the most uncool place on earth. “Why do you do it?”
I’m taken aback by the question. I fiddle with the changing table, shifting it back and forth. “I’ve never really thought about it. I suppose I want to give back to the community, do my bit.”
“It’s not to impress anyone? Have a shiny badge on your record when you leave here, ‘World’s Best Student’ or something?”
There is an element of truth in it, but I’m not giving him the satisfaction of feeling me out. “That’s not it at all, and frankly, I find the accusation offensive.”
Asher Slade takes a step closer. The dusty light beaming across the room catches the highlights in his eyes. He stops before me, all man, all muscle—a modern-day Adonis. “I bet you find a lot of things offensive. You’re the pretty, shy student that knows it all, who spends all day locked away in her dorm room studying and letting college life, the real college life, blow right on by.” He puffs into the air for emphasis, his Jolie-esque lips pressed together.
My mouth drops open in shock. I didn’t miss the compliment. It lights a small fire of arousal, but it’s fast extinguished by the rest of his diatribe, like he thinks I’m such a cliché, that he knows everything about me after, what? An hour? “You know nothing,” I tell him.
He shrugs, giant shoulders lifting and falling. “I know enough.”
Two can play at this game. I take a step closer. “You are an entitled, beefed-up jock with more muscle than brain who everyone knows is getting a free ride here.” My heart’s racing, my cheeks flushed. “And you know what?”
He’s smiling, the arrogant ass. “Please.”
“Once this all goes, once you graduate, you’ll be forgotten, ‘that guy’ who used to drink himself delirious and sleep with anything on two legs.”
I’m surprised how fiery I’m coming across, but I’ve had just about enough of this guy, even if he is pleasing to the eye.
He takes another small step forward until we’re breathing the same air, practically chest to chest. “Damn. Maybe I am wrong about you. How about lunch, back at campus, as an apology?”
The offer confuses me. I had been prepping to unleash hell. “Lunch?” I stammer.
“You do eat, don’t you?”
“Of course,” I say, dismissing him.
“So it’s settled. When do we leave?”
I look at my watch. “Lunch break is in half an hour.”
“Miss Willow?”
We both turn to find Emilie, one of the toddlers, holding the back of her pants. Her pudgy, pincushion face turns sheepish. “I had an accident.”
I look to Asher. “Perfect timing.”
*
I’m staring at one of the major causes of road fatalities in the United States. “There is no way I’m getting on that thing.”
Before me is a black and chrome death machine, handlebars high. It’s outrageous.
Asher looks from his motorcycle to himself. “The bike or me?”
I turn around. “I’m out of here.”
He takes hold of my arm, lightly pulling me back. “I’m joking. Come on. Live a little.”
I face him. He’s smiling, a half-face helmet in his hands. “I’ll walk.”
“It’s half an hour by foot back to campus from here.”
“It gives me time to think.”
He presses the helmet into my chest. “Thinking’s overrated. Put this on.”
It’s like I can’t say no, my lips are unable to form the word. I don’t like someone having that power over me, but still I put the helmet on and swing in behind Asher. His body’s warm as I press into it.
He switches on the ignition and turns, raising his voice. “Closer than that. I wouldn’t want you to fall off now.”
Rolling my eyes, I shift forward until my crotch is hard against his lower back, my arms wrapped around his torso.
“Hold on.”
And we’re off, my voice caught in my throat as the world curtains past us.
A half-hour walk becomes a drive of mere minutes.
Asher drives up onto the grass, cruising down the sidewalk, and parks right outside the same damn coffee shop we had our initial altercation at.
I get off the bike, legs surprisingly gelatin, the space between them hot and warm. It wasn’t… unpleasant. I take my helmet off and hand it over, gesturing to the café. “The Grind House? Really?”
He nods, pulling his own helmet off. “What better place than the scene of the crime to get better acquainted? Besides, Johnathan’s working today and he does a killer grilled onion and beef burger that’s not on the menu.”
“I’m vegetarian,” I announce.
I’m not, but I want to see Asher Slade squirm.
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Just an onion burger then.”
“I was wondering when your sorry ass would show up. Why have you been dodging my calls?”
It’s Taylor Vaughn, head cheerleader and Asher’s off and on girlfriend. She’s in her full training garb complete with belly ring and pleated skirt so short it’s a wonder she doesn’t create a black hole when she does the splits.
She ignores me completely at first, tapping her foot at Asher.
Asher places his helmet on the seat of his bike, the engine pinging with strange metallic noises. “Yes. I’ve been dodging your calls. So what?”
Now she turns her attention to me. “Who the fuck is this?” She looks me up and down. “Bit of a downgrade, isn’t it? Or are you slumming it now?”
I should say something, slap her maybe, but I remain mute.
Asher starts to walk towards the café. “We’re working together.”
“Bullshit!” she screams, standing where she is. “And where the fuck were you Sunday morning again, because if you’re fucking that little carrot-top, it’s over between us, got it?”
“It was never on between us.” He flips her the bird and opens the door for me. I brush past his chest on the way through, catching the faintest scent of leather and resin, the barest hint of freshly cut grass.
I go to stand in the queue, but he turns me towards a table. “I’ve got this. It’s the least I can do.”
I take a seat and watch him. He doesn’t cut the queue this time, even though people are waving him to the front.
He’s only trying to impress you to weasel his way out of working at the home.
“Pretty,” that’s what he called me. God, I can’t rememb
er the last time someone gave me a compliment like that.
Do not fall into his web.
Before I know it he’s before me again.
He places down a tray with burgers and milkshakes, handing over a burger with grilled onion, sauce, and little else. I look at his beef burger longingly.
That’s your own fault, bucko.
He picks up his burger one-handed and takes a bite, eyes closing in ecstasy.
That’s probably what he looks like when he comes, you know.
I picture him above me, deep inside me, face contorted like that, and almost choke.
He puts his burger down. “Shit, you okay?”
I put a hand up, trying to speak. “Yeah, it just… went down the wrong way.”
I bet he’d go down the right way…
I pinch my eyes together and try to concentrate, clearing my throat again. “All better.”
He smiles. “So, Willow Grant—vegetarian, philanthropist, tell me a bit about yourself.”
I take a bite of the burger. It’s pretty good.
But it would be better with something meaty inside it.
God, what is happening to me? I’m flustered, flushed. “What do you want to know?”
A tall guy I vaguely recognize as the pitcher of the Hellcats crouches down beside the table. He takes his cap off. “Well, lookie what we have here.”
Asher fist-bumps him. “Leon, my man.” Asher looks to me. “This is Willow, resident vegetarian.”
Leon takes my hand.
No. It can’t be.
I can’t speak, choked up. I know thig guy. We went to high school together.
I pull my hand back and stand, knocking my chair back in the process, that night and the horror of it returning to me in full-blown Technicolor. I can’t deal with this. Not now.
I point behind me. “I’ve got to go. Sorry.”
Asher looks at my burger. “You’ve barely eaten.”
Leon’s smiling. He knows.
I’m trying to think of an excuse, but nothing’s coming. I just want to get the hell out of here, away from my past.
“Sorry,” I stammer again, turning on my heel and almost taking out a girl coming through the door in my haste.
I run to the dorm, and only when the door is closed, when I’m seated on my bed and the world is once again quiet, can I relax.
