Page 22

TWENTY-TWO

cameron

“Quit stealing my razor,” I grumble when I walk into the bathroom to find Reeve shaving on his side of the double sink. “For the fiftieth time, there’s an industrial-sized pack of disposables in the cabinet.”

Reeve pauses and looks in the mirror at the silver-handled razor poised under his chin. Then he holds it out to me, shaving foam and stubble still on the blade.

I shake my head. “Fuck it.”

“Still with the shitty mood, Cam? Come on, man, you didn’t have a bad game today.”

I take a clean razor from the cabinet. “I didn’t have a good game either, did I? I can’t fucking afford anything less.” I slam the cabinet shut, sending something inside clattering against the door.

“Damn, son, you need to hit the joint a couple times before we head out?”

“No.”

“All right, then find another way to relax your sphincter, dude. It’s Saturday night.”

We shave in silence, and it reminds me of high school. In those days, Reeve lived at my house most of the year and always used my stuff, even though my mom made sure he had his own of everything. And when he’d go back home to stay with his mother for a while, it was always weird to find my razor and hair gel and cologne exactly where I’d left them instead of somewhere on Reeve’s side of the bathroom.

Reeve keeps checking my reflection in the mirror, and each time he does, his smile widens a little. I ignore him.

“It’s girl trouble, isn’t it?” he finally asks.

“Girl trouble? You sound like my grandpa.”

“Pops is the man.” He turns toward me and leans casually on the counter like his face isn’t half-covered in shaving foam. “So I saw you out with Lenni the other night.”

This catches me off guard, but I try not to show it. “Yeah. And?”

“And you’ve been out with the girl one time and you’re already miserable. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“Yeah, it tells me you don’t know what you’re talking about.” I towel off my face.

“Come on, Cam, you’ve been one surly motherfucker the last few days. You weren’t even like this when Kira dumped you.”

“Let’s drop it. I want to booze, and I want to get out of this house. You almost ready?”

“Five minutos, hombre.”

I rinse my razor, feeling guilty. I have been a dick lately, and Reeve’s gotten the brunt of it because he’s the only one who won’t hold it against me. “Hey, fresh haircut,” I tell him as I walk by, raking a hand through the undercut faux-hawk he’s got going on. “Better reap the benefits of that tonight before Coach tells you you look like a clown.”

I don’t know why, but girls go batshit when guys on the team switch up their hair, and no one’s into funky hairstyles as much as Reeve. Coach Haskins, on the other hand, isn’t shy about letting everyone know he finds Reeve’s sense of style a disgrace.

In my bedroom, I pull on a clean shirt and try to forget the past few days. It’s been a shit week between my mediocre showing on the field, my lingering guilt over uninviting Serena and Liam to the game and, of course, Lenni.

She’s blowing me off, and I keep thinking I should have taken her out for a classy dinner instead of a musty museum and a two-dollar ice cream cone. I mean, what was I thinking? But I know what I was thinking: Lenni doesn’t care about fancy restaurants or which credit card her date pulls out when the check arrives. Lame as my plans were, I don’t think she hated them. And I know she didn’t hate the kiss. I can still hear the soft little sigh she made when I kissed her and feel the way she just melted under my hands. My dick stirs in my jeans.

So I come back to the place I’ve been in too long. I don’t get Lenni. And it sucks hard because it’s the only problem I can’t work with. It doesn’t matter how hot our kisses are or that being around her brings an ease I’ve never felt before. She’s not the girl for me if I don’t know how to make her happy.

The party is lit by the time Reeve and I roll up with Lorenzo. People spill out the doors, and beer cans and red plastic cups line the porch railing. Normally I put a time limit on parties like this, but tonight the idea of disappearing into a houseful of people and loud music has its appeal.

We’re five steps across the front porch when a trio of sorority chicks descends on us. There’s squealing about Reeve’s hair, and Lorenzo and I laugh watching him waver between being pleased at the attention and annoyed that all those girly fingers might be shifting some perfect strands out of place. Then one of the girls wraps her hand around my arm and leans in close.

“Hey, Cam. Great game today. You played so awesome.” So either she didn’t watch, or she doesn’t understand football.

“Thanks.”

I can’t remember her name, but she hangs out with Alexis a lot. I almost ask her if Alexis is here tonight because goddamn, if she is, I’m outta here. I try to never be a dick to girls, but Alexis gets on my last nerve on a good day. Tonight I might just go off on her.

The girl looks me up and down and smiles like she’s inviting me to reciprocate the compliment. She’s pretty, but I’m not feeling it.

“Maybe I’ll see you in there,” I say and gesture my friends inside before she can respond.

Inside, we grab drinks and Reeve drifts off to introduce everyone to his mohawk while Lorenzo and I find Cash and a couple other guys from the team. It’s hard to talk over the pounding music, and after a while we move out back.

That’s where I see her.

Lenni’s angled slightly away from me, pressed up against the house, but even if she were facing this way, she probably wouldn’t see me because the dude drooling all over her basically has her caged in. I’ve seen him before. He’s a lacrosse guy, and I just figured out I hate him.

I stare at them longer than I want to, completely caught off guard by how much it stings seeing her with someone else. She’s not at home slaving away over articles. She didn’t blow me off because she doesn’t have time, she blew me off because she’d rather be here with him.

Lenni looks incredible: skintight jeans, heels, a tank top that does a hell of a lot more than just hint at her amazing tits. She didn’t dress like that for our night together. Did she dress that way for him?

He’s looking down at her with that unmistakable look of a dude who thinks “I’m in.” The bitter side of me wants to laugh and tell him, “Good luck, man.” Lenni can pull the rug out without even trying. But I don’t wish him luck. I watch her laugh at something he says, her hands tucked behind her back and her boobs on full display. I curl my hand into a fist and imagine how good it would feel to knock it right into his teeth.

“Good,” someone says behind me. Reeve has materialized from nowhere. “It’s better this way.”

“What’s better?”

He nods toward Lenni. “She’s showing you who she is.”

I shake my head, irritation and bitterness colliding inside me. “Who is she, Reeve?”

“Jersey chaser in training. Last month it was football players, October must be lax dudes.”

I spin to face him. “Dude, shut the fuck up already.” I keep my voice down but I’m right in his face, all the ferocity I feel watching Lax Dude touch Lenni flowing straight toward my best friend. “Don’t talk about her. Ever.”

For once, there’s not a trace of humor on Reeve’s face. Behind me, our friends have gone silent. I feel a tentative hand on my shoulder.

“Everything okay?” Cash asks carefully.

I shrug him off without taking my gaze off Reeve. By now the surprise in his eyes has been replaced with a flicker of anger. “All right, Cam. Just chill.”

No apology of course, just like he never apologized to Lenni for treating her like shit. I turn away, sick of looking at him.

Our friends are watching me warily. They’re all familiar with the dynamic between me and Reeve. As much brothers as best friends, we’d kill for each other, and sometimes we want to kill each other. But I guess they sense this is something different, and they’re right. I’m about ready to lose it on Reeve, and over a girl neither of us has even slept with.

I push past them toward the house, sparing a glance at Lenni. She hasn’t noticed me.

Inside, I get myself another beer but don’t drink it. She said she doesn’t hook up and she doesn’t do relationships, so she and Lax Dude aren’t a thing. Of course, she also told me she doesn’t kiss, and that lasted three days. Is she going home with him tonight? Maybe I ripped the Band-Aid off when I kissed her, and now she’s gonna fuck every guy who looks at her right.

I think about embarrassing myself—going up to her, pushing him out of the way, telling her I’m not leaving until she tells me where I went wrong. It’s not my style at all. She doesn’t belong to me. Maybe they’re actually together. But fuck it, I don’t care if they’re engaged. I can’t leave tonight without getting something from her. Anything.

Then there she is, shouldering her way through the crowd. The man of the hour is nowhere in sight. She moves slowly, her eyes darting from one person to the next. I watch her stop in front of Lincoln Braggs, our fullback, and say something into his ear. He nods and looks around. It doesn’t take him long to find me and when he does, he points, and Lenni’s gaze follows. Our eyes meet across the crowd, hers steely and fierce. I forgot how prickly she can be, and if I thought for a brief second she had reconciliation on her mind, I stand corrected.

She picks her way through the party toward me, decidedly less determined than she looked a minute ago. I fight with myself to stay neutral, not to be as angry with her as I am and not to want her as much as I do.

“Hey,” she says tightly when we’re finally face-to-face.

I nod.

She opens her mouth to say something else but stops and looks around like she expects to see the whole room watching us. It’s not. She turns to me again. “Can we talk somewhere?” She almost has to yell to be heard.

I nod for her to follow me and lead us outside to an empty corner of the front yard where we face off again.

“Look,” she starts, her chin jutting out defiantly. “I don’t know what happened the other night.”

“You can’t know any less than I do,” I say before she can continue. “We had a great night together and then you blew me off. That’s about all I know.”

“You forgot the part in between where you dragged me across the street like a dog on a leash.”

I pause. “What?”

She looks down at the ground, her face contorting briefly like she’s in pain. I’ve been so angry at her, at how much power she has over me. I don’t do relationships like that. But looking at her face now, the anger’s gone. “Were you embarrassed to be out with me? Or for your friends to see us together?”

“Are you fucking nuts? Where do you get that from?”

“From the way you acted when you saw Reeve!”

“No, I...” Then everything clicks into place. Of course she’s pissed at me; that’s exactly what I did. “But Lenni, that wasn’t—okay, yes, I hustled us across the road, but come on. You think I’m embarrassed to be seen with you? Really?”

“Why else would you practically break into a sprint when you see your friends coming?”

I can’t stand the way she’s looking at me; like I disgust her. “Because I just had the best date of my life, and I didn’t want to run into Reeve. He’s...he’s weird about me being into you. And he doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up.”

She stares at me, her eyebrows drawn tightly together.

“I just didn’t want him to say anything to you.”

She takes this in. “That’s it?”

“Have we not been all over campus together? I sit next to you in class and make googly eyes at you every week. We drank at Shafer’s most popular dive right after a huge football win. The whole school knows I’m into you. And you’re really going to stand there and tell me I’m an asshole who’s embarrassed to be caught in your company?”

She looks down at the ground. “Sorry. I guess—I guess I overreacted. Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly.” She looks back up at me. “But you should have told me about Reeve. I can handle him.”

“Yeah, okay, I should have. And you should have told me this was the reason you’ve been ignoring me.” Anger flares back up again. “You think I’m that kind of person?”

“I’m sorry.” She reaches out to touch my arm. “Don’t be insulted.”

I turn and look out toward the street so she won’t see just how insulted I am. “I’ve never given you any reason to think of me like that.”

“I know. I have some stuff to work on.”

We exchange an awkward look, something still looming heavy over us. “It’s Reeve, right?” I ask.

Lenni only blinks.

I think about Reeve and the ugly way I went off on him, but I’m not sorry. “Okay, I should have said this a long time ago. Nothing about how Reeve treated you is excusable, and I don’t want you thinking that me being close with him means I condone his shit.”

“I know you’re best friends,” she says like this is a fact she’s just barely tolerating. “I don’t expect that to change.”

“It’s more than that. Reeve lived with me for the better part of high school; he had family troubles. I know how he seems, and I know how he really is.”

Lenni looks unmoved.

“My point is he acted like a total dick, but if that’s who he really was, he wouldn’t be my friend. He’s just really good at hiding his decent qualities.”

She puts her hands up to stop me. “I don’t care about Reeve or what happened with him. It wasn’t about that.”

Silence settles over us. What happened to everything being easy between me and her? “I don’t know what to say, Lenni. You could at least let me screw up before you give up on me.” I shove my hands in my pockets. “I don’t think this can work otherwise.” I glance toward the street, ready to walk away. I’m embarrassed that I read her so wrong.

“Don’t go, Cam.” The panic in her voice is, ironically, reassuring. She’s not ready to let this go. I wait, but I don’t say anything else. It’s her turn to explain. “I really am sorry. I know how I come off, but the truth is...” She swallows and comes closer. “I like you. So much. And I want to be the girl that jumps in headfirst, I’m just not.”

“I never asked you to jump in headfirst. I’d say we’ve been wading in inch by fucking inch, wouldn’t you?”

“You and I are so different. We’re not coming at this from the same place.”

“And that was fine with me. I can move as slow as you need me to. But I’m not fine with you thinking I’m a piece of shit. I thought I made it pretty fucking clear how much I liked you.”

“Do you still?”

“Honestly? Right now I wish I didn’t.” I blow out a breath. “But in case you couldn’t tell by the fact that I’m still standing here, yeah. I do, Lenni.”

“Enough to work with me?”

“Tell me what you’re asking for and I’ll tell you if I can do it.”

She blinks like she’s thinking this over. “You deserve more trust than I’ve given you, and I’m going to work on that. I guess I just need you to know where I’m coming from. I’ve got this baggage and zero relationship experience and...it’s not a sexy combination.”

I don’t know exactly where she’s coming from except a place of hurt. But I guess that’s not so hard to understand. “Don’t worry, I see that. You’ve been pretty obvious about it,” I say, trying to soften both of us with some humor.

She gives me a grateful smile. “Does that mean you forgive me for freaking out?”

“I forgive you.”

She closes her fingers around both my wrists and leans in. Her hips are dangerously close to mine. “Can I ask for one more thing?”

“One more.”

“Leave this shitty party with me?”