As I begin to explain what I know about the game, a group of girls walks over. Embarrassed, I stop talking, but Alissa knows them from her psych class. One of them introduces herself to me, saying, "We overheard you explaining football and wondered if we could sit in?"
I flush, but Alissa grabs my arm and says, "My girl Serena works in the stat booth for the Otters games. She knows her shit." She winks.
One of the girls named Erin asks if I spend a lot of time with the football team. I shake my head at first, but admit that Talon Kelly is my research partner in one of my classes. Erin sits down across from me and starts talking. "I heard he's been totally different since he hurt his knee. My roommate kind of knows him from high school, and he used to sleep with anyone with a pulse. Now, she says he doesn't even get wasted at parties."
Alissa gives me a knowing look. I shrug and Alissa says, "Well, I'm dating his roommate, and I have about 3 days to learn the game so I don't look like an idiot watching the Super Bowl with them." I start to explain the different positions and tell them the names of the SCU guys who play those positions. Eventually someone suggests we move to the bar and before I know it, the five of us are closing down the place.
It usually takes me awhile to open up to people. I've been so scared to trust anyone since my parents died. I never had another woman around to hold my hand through social situations, and after my dad died, I felt like all anyone at school wanted to talk to me about was my dramatic orphan tale. I'd spent the last 2.5 years of college just burying my nose in my books. As we walk home, I tell Alissa, "I'm really glad housing services stuck me with you freshman year."
She gives me a hug. "Same, Serena," she says, squeezing my arm.
Sunday afternoon, Alissa and I make a 7-layer dip and get ready to go to the guys' apartment for the Super Bowl. She follows my lead for once and agrees to wear a football jersey and jeans, even if it's a bit baggy. "Look," I tell her. "Most people there are probably going to be rooting for the Giants, but we are going to cheer for the Steelers." For as long as I'd been alive, my dad was a Pittsburgh fan, and even in my moments of greatest loathing about football, I still at least followed the Steelers' progress in the news.
I feel pretty good wearing my old Troy Polamalu jersey. I'd gotten it in middle school, so it fit pretty tightly and seemed like a good compromise for Alissa's insistence that I needed to just remind Talon that I had a sexy body beneath my big stats brain. She swats my butt approvingly and we set off for the party.
CJ opens the door and Alissa immediately stretches up to kiss him. "It feels good to just do that!" she shouts, thrusting the bowl of dip into his arms and pulling me into the apartment. We hang up our coats and I see CJ's eyes widen when he notices what we were wearing. As I'd predicted, everyone else in the room is decked out in Giants gear.
"Dude, Smith, who let in those Pittsburgh fans?" Brandon Ream, who plays safety for SCU, shakes his head disapprovingly at us, but Talon makes everyone move around until there is space for us on the couch. Brandon sees my Polamalu shirt and his face softens. "I guess I can agree to sit beside a Troy fan."
"Shut up, Ream," Talon says handing me a beer. "You know Serena--from the stats booth? I told you she was coming."
The other guys nod and gesture with their beers. CJ and Alissa are too busy cuddling and greeting each other, but Brandon asks me, "Care to join our pool for the game? Twenty bucks to enter, winner takes all."
Talon shakes his head. "No way, man. She's, like, running the numbers about all these guys. Totally unfair if Serena enters. I'm telling you."
Brandon slides the clipboard toward me and I rush to defend myself. "Player stats don't predict the score, of the game, so it's not like I have any kind of advantage. Plus I haven't been paying a ton of attention lately, as you know. I'm not in top form." I look up and Brandon is staring while Talon is laughing at me. I feel my whole body relax as I make my guesses about the score for each quarter and toss in a wild bet that Pittsburgh will get a safety before the end of the first half.
As the game starts, the guys quiet down and I feel Talon's arm slip around the back of the couch. He doesn't drape it around my shoulder, but his palm rests, open and warm, at the base of my neck. I stare around the room, full of his friends and teammates. Alissa and I are the only ladies present, and she has clearly declared herself to be CJ's girlfriend.
There is quiet chatter around me as the guys pass snacks around and open beers, but nobody is looking at me as if I don't belong. I see CJ and Alissa cuddling, watching the game, and I realize how badly I want things to be that way with Talon. I want all that we've been doing, and I want so much more. I want him to ease the throbbing ache between my legs. I want to nibble on his neck as he's watching the game. I decide to be bold and move closer to Talon. He's fixed on the TV, watching the Giants quarterback intently, but doesn't flinch when I lean right against his shoulder.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Dude, I can't fucking believe you called that safety in the second quarter!" Brandon is counting out twenties from the pocket of his jeans. He slaps the wad of bills into my hand. I do a little dance, excited to have won $200 on a football bet among a room full of football players.
The Steelers won, and as the quarterback ran in the final touchdown for the win, I leapt off the couch screaming. Regaining my composure, I looked around the room. Talon was smiling with a crooked grin and the other guys booed. Now, they're filing out of the apartment, slapping me on the back and giving me fist bumps. "Yo, Claw, this girl can hang any time." One of the linebackers named Alex had gotten into a long discussion with me about Troy Polamalu during halftime. He hugs Talon and CJ and winks at me as he leaves.
Talon gets up to put the food away, and I start to help him, working beside him in friendly silence. CJ and Alissa, meanwhile, start making out on the couch. I alternate between being happy for her and wishing she'd take it into the bedroom at least, especially when CJ slips a hand up her shirt. Alissa bites his lower lip and opens her eyes, meeting mine. She gives me a look, and then peels herself away from CJ's lap, pulling his hand down the hallway.
Talon groans as he shoves the last of the empty beer cans in the recycling. "They're going to be making an unholy racket for at least an hour."
I touch his arm and say, "Walk me home? Then neither of us has to listen to it." He nods and throws me my coat. He pulls on a beanie and heads out, wearing a short-sleeved Giants jersey. "I never get over how you're always hot," I say. A light snow has fallen during the game and it crunches under our feet as we walk. "I'm surprised you're not wearing shorts."
I've decided I'm going to touch him as much as he will let me tonight, and so I push his side playfully while I tease him about his internal furnace. He says, "What can I say? I have a high metabolism."
"I'll say. You'd have to, to look like you do and eat--what are you up to right now? 6,000 calories per day?" He nods. I put my arm around his waist. "It's freezing out here for mere mortals like me." I sigh happily when he pulls me closer and walks beside me. The streets are full of laughing people walking home from Super Bowl parties. Anyone could see us, anyone would recognize Talon Kelly here with me.
But then I remember how many women Talon Kelly has walked home from parties. My heart sinks again and I don't say anything else on the walk to my apartment. As I fish for my keys, he drops his head back against the wall. "God, I'll probably get back there and they'll just be getting warmed up. Did you know it was them for, like, this whole month?"
I shake my head. "You can hang out for a little…if you want." I don't want to sound desperate. I'm not going to beg him to sleep with me, but I also don't want to say goodbye to him tonight. He follows me inside and I toss my coat over a chair at the dining table. I go into the kitchen to pour two glasses of water as Talon sinks into the arm chair by the TV.
I walk over to him, standing in between his long legs to hand him the glass of water, and I let my hand drop to his rock-hard thigh after he takes the glass from me. I mee
t his eye and watch as he swallows, his Adams apple rising and falling.
When I put my other hand on his chest, he sets down the water glass and puts his hand over mine. His voice is a whisper when he says, "Serena. I can't."
I feel a lump in my chest and my ears are burning. "Why? Why will you fuck anyone but me?"
"Don't be like that, Serena. You're not just some girl to fuck and never talk to again. God, don't you know that? I fucking care about you--you're my friend."
I shake my head and close my eyes, willing myself not to cry. "Friends don't spend the night sleeping in each other's arms, Talon. I know you feel something for me. I'm not crazy." I meet his gaze, my eyes wide with anger now, my fingers squeezing into the material of his shirt. "Do you not want me? Am I not hot enough for Claw standards? Is that it--"
"What? No. Fuck. Serena, you know you're fucking gorgeous. How can you say that?" He is shaking his head, but won't meet my eye.
"Then what is it, Talon? What are we even doing?"
His mouth opens and closes a few times, but no sound comes out. He puts one hand on his forehead. "If you weren't a virgin I would have fucked you six weeks ago and forgotten your name an hour later. Do you know I've never, not once, slept with the same woman more than once? I would have cum inside you and walked out of your apartment five minutes later and blocked your number. Ok? That's what I do to women, Serena."
I open my mouth to say something, but he holds up his hand. "And then I feel like a fucking piece of shit the second after I finish. My skin crawls. It's…it's terrible. And I'm not going to do that to you."
"Talon, I know you're not going to do that to me. I know that." My eyes are pleading with him, begging him to see that what we have started here is different. "If you were still that person, with me, you would have fucked me that night I was drunk in your apartment. But you didn't. You got me a clean shirt and slept on the couch even though you'd just had surgery."
He shakes his head slowly. He stares at the wall behind me, then slowly meets my gaze. His eyes are cold. "Do you want me to be your boyfriend, Serena? You want me to buy you flowers and talk about our feelings together? I'm not going to do that. I have to focus on my recovery and my football career. I can't handle a girlfriend." He picks my hand off his leg and stands up. He puts a hand on my shoulder and says, "Find someone else to pop your cherry. You won't have any trouble."
Talon turns and walks out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. And then I really do start crying.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
In the morning, I'm too upset to go to class, so I just stay in bed. I hear Alissa slink in around mid-day and she does a double-take when she finds me in my room. She pulls me into her arms and I tell her the whole thing.
"Lis, I know he has feelings for me. I'm not making this shit up!" I moan.
"Listen, you are definitely not making this up, Serena. He spent the whole fucking Super Bowl with his arm around you, in front of his best friends. That wasn't some bar party where everyone was picking up women. That shit was intimate."
"Thank you!" I shout, indignant, but then I just remember him telling me to find someone else to sleep with, and I start to cry again. "I don't want to sleep with someone else," I wail. "He smells so good and makes me laugh and he just…Alissa, he did really wonderful things to my body. Until I told him I was a virgin."
She holds me a bit longer and tells me she needs to go make a call. A few minutes later she returns and drags me out of bed. "Go. Shower. And then we're going to get cheesecake with Erin and the girls."
I start to feebly protest, but Alissa has the shower running and threatens to yank off my sweatpants if I don't agree to clean up. An hour later, we're in a booth at the cheesecake restaurant with the 3 girls we'd met in the student union. Erin, Sara, and Mindy listen to the whole story as Alissa tells them everything. They're polite enough not to look at me when Alissa even includes the bit about me being a virgin.
Erin whistles when she hears Talon told me to go find another guy. She grabs the arm of our waitress and tells her we need a round of whiskey shots. "My girl here with the red eyes needs a double," Erin says. As the waitress leaves to get the shots, Erin chews on the end of her straw. "Serena, do you want to say fuck you to this dude and find someone else?"
I exhale. "No. I want him. I want him to want me."
I'm about to start crying again when Alissa assures me, "He does want you. I saw his face when you won the bet money. He couldn't keep his eyes off you when you were talking to Alex about that curly-haired guy."
"Troy Pola--" I start to correct her, but she cuts me off.
"Erin, tell me if you think I'm wrong, but I think the thing to do here is for Alissa to seem like she's taking Talon's advice, and for Talon to see her doing it."
Everyone nods in agreement with Alissa. The drinks arrive and I swallow the warm liquid in two gulps. Sara pipes up that she volunteers to do some recon on the football guys to figure out where they're going out over the next few weeks. "Do not interact with him before this weekend," she says. "You need to hide how much this shit is bothering you." Another round of agreement.
By the time I've had a few more "supportive shots," I know I'll be nursing a hangover in class the next day, but the girls assure me this is a good thing, as I'll care less about avoiding Talon if I'm spending all my energy not puking in class.
As it turns out, I get the hangover without the worry. Talon isn't in class. I have to fight the urge to text him and ask what's wrong. I don't even want to assume that he's avoiding me, because that would mean he thinks I'm important enough to adjust his day. At the end of the lecture, Matt walks over and asks me if everything is ok.
"You look a little under the weather…and it appears your research partner is missing," he says.
I try to smile and shrug it off. "Well, you see, I played the stats and won a Super Bowl betting pool. I might have gone a little overboard spending my earnings…"
"Nothing contagious then. Well, good." He crosses his arms, and I notice he's keeping a wide distance between us. "I would hate to have you as one of my research subjects." He grins.
I grimace, as it's kind of a morbid joke, and I start to see why Talon always makes fun of Professor Jacobs as a super nerd.
On Thursday, I get to class with Matt and see Talon is already there, but he's sitting in the center of the back row. This causes everyone to stare at him as they walk in, and then they all stare at me. People don't just change seats around. I spend the entire class feeling hot and embarrassed, as if it's somehow my fault that Talon Kelly disrupted the unspoken seating rules.
He hasn't texted or made eye contact, and this hurts me worst of all. I start to feel furious with myself for being so forward the night of the game. I miss those electric moments of teasing, flirting, cuddling with Talon. Before I had to go and say anything, we had an exciting tension buildup. I found it thrilling, texting back and forth with him at night, studying with him.
"God, Lis, I miss him," I say, a week later as we eat dinner in our apartment. She pats my hand. I know she's going over to their apartment later to see CJ. "He's probably going to go fuck some random girl while you and CJ are using the apartment tonight," I say, stabbing my food with my fork.
Alissa shakes her head. "Nuh-huh." She swallows. "CJ says he's been moping around like an asshole. I didn't tell CJ anything about what happened--I swear. But he brought it up. He said something like, 'I just hope Claw isn't home when you get here, baby. He's been so fucking depressing lately.'"
Alissa promises to discretely gather as much information as she can, making me promise to do something involving other human beings tonight.
As she leaves, my phone rings, and I look down, surprised to see it's my uncle calling. Shit, I think. For the first time since he died, I'd forgotten my dad's birthday.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"Uncle Travis. Hey."
"Serena, I thought I'd hear from you earlier. I wanted to make sure you were doing
ok…you know, considering."
"I feel kind of awful. I actually forgot the day."
I can hear that he's shaking ice in a glass. Probably finishing his annual toast to my dad. They always used to find time to go to their favorite whiskey bar once a week, regardless of football season pressure. "That's really unlike you, sweetheart. Anything wrong up there in New York?"
I tell him I'm starting to make some friends with some of the girls here at school. "We've been going out for cheesecake," I say. "Between that and keeping up my grades, I got so busy I didn't take note of the date."
We talk a little about my stats class, how I'm still planning on grad school as my next step. He says, "You've always got a home here. You know that, right?"
"I know, Uncle Trav. Who knows? Pitt has a pretty good PhD program in statistics…"
I hear him set his glass down and he says, "Hey, speaking of Pitt, I know you watched the Super Bowl! How about that game, huh? Man, your dad would have loved to watch the Steelers win it."
I agree with him on this, and we talk a bit about pro football, which seems like a relatively safe subject until he tells me he had an email from Coach Burns. "He remembers your dad really fondly, sweetie, and Coach asked if you were coming back to work in his booth this fall."
This surprises me. Quite a lot, actually, since I told Coach I was done with football stats and sort of stormed out of the booth at the end of last season. When Talon got hurt, actually. "What did you tell him? When he asked about me?"
My uncle chuckles a bit. "I told him he'd have to give you a call himself."
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