Page 27

TWENTY-SEVEN

cameron

I wake with a vague sense of dread in my stomach.

The room isn’t light yet, and I fight the crushing urge to hit snooze on my alarm, instead silencing it and sitting up before I can sink back into oblivion. I need to get in an hour in the weight room before my eight a.m. class. I tug on the blinds behind the bed to let in the sunshine that’s just barely illuminating the sky outside. Pale light spills onto my desk cluttered with books, papers, and electronics, and I remember what that sick sense of anxiety is all about: I don’t have a solid grip on a single thing in my life.

I pull on shorts and a sweatshirt, trying to ignore the unfinished internship applications on my desk that had me up until three a.m. Then I move onto trying to ignore the fact that I finally submitted my midterm essay for my ethics class last night and it’s making me want to shit a brick. I shouldn’t think about that right now. I shouldn’t think about how I have zero sense of where my life will be after college or in a year, or hell, even a couple months from now. I should silence the barrage of questions.Is football my future? Or will I end up a nobody? Just some guy who might as well be named “wasted opportunity” because that’s what everyone sees when they look at me. And the biggest question of all: Will Lenni be at my side?

Lenni.

That’s the one I can’t stop thinking about, the one I don’t ever want to stop thinking about. Just the sound of her name in my head makes everything feel okay. All the shit that’s weighing me down feels small and surmountable when I think of her and the way she moves through life.

I brush my teeth and check Reeve’s room, but his bed is empty. Either he spent the night with a girl or he’s already in the weight room, probably both. Grateful for the solitude, I grab a frozen smoothie and decide on walking to campus instead of driving for the extra thinking time.

Ever since that day in the orchard when I confessed to thinking about a backup career, I’ve wanted to tell Lenni I’m not just thinking about it, I’m planning for it. She’d know what to say. But I don’t want to drag that mess into the world Lenni and I have created. In there it’s sex and the smell of her skin and the feeling of being the luckiest dude on the planet. It’s the one place that feels insulated from worry. Maybe that’s why I haven’t told her the real story of Liam and Serena either. Why bring that ugliness into something so perfect?

Of course that’s not the only reason I haven’t told Lenni my doubts about my future; the future is the one topic we carefully avoid, and I’m starting to wonder if that’s because she doesn’t see one for us. That’s the uncertainty that’s really eating at me.

If I knew she felt what I do, everything else would fall into place. But things are still new between us. Am I risking scaring off a girl who doesn’t even do relationships by asking her where we’re headed? Definitely.

Too bad I can’t keep it in much longer.

The next night, I’m in front of the bathroom mirror trying to make my hair less of a mess. I’m surprising Lenni with dinner at this chic Vietnamese restaurant that opened downtown last week by some chef who won a cooking show, because she once told me she loves celebrity-chef restaurants. And if it sounds like I have a plan, I don’t. But she needs to know what I feel for her. And somewhere along the way, I’m going to find the words for it.

The door’s closed, but Reeve barges in anyway. “Hey, beautiful. What the hell are you doing in here for the last twenty minutes?”

“Date night. Where’s that pomade stuff you stole from me?”

“Oh, yeah? With who?” he asks, reaching under his sink. When he hands me the pomade, I shoot him a look. Reeve can be a real passive-aggressive tool sometimes. He shrugs. “Just checking. I keep expecting one of these days you’ll come to your senses and figure it out.”

“Figure out what?”

“That she’s not the girl for you.”

I turn around to face him. “All right, dude, this is so old. What’s your problem with her?”

Reeve checks himself out in the mirror. “Told you before. Not your type.”

“That’s not all it is.”

He wets his hand and smooths down one side of his hair, not looking at me.

“I like her. And she’s not going anywhere.”

“Cool. And?”

“And so you need to tell me what’s really going on, asshole.”

His gaze swings over to me. He looks like a sulky little kid.

“Come on. I’ve dated girls you didn’t like before, but you managed to act halfway decent around them. Remember Bailey?” Bailey was my girlfriend for a few months in high school, and the girl was even more attention hungry than Reeve. He couldn’t stand the competition.

“Yeah, she sucked, but at least she was nice to me.”

I give a short laugh. “That’s it? Lenni’s not nice to you? God, you are a delicate little flower, aren’t you? She doesn’t even talk to you.”

“Right, Cam,” he snaps, turning to me. “She hates me!”

I stare at him. Where’s this coming from? “Okay, she doesn’t exactly hate you. I mean, you were a total dick to her, and I’m still waiting to hear you apologize, but that doesn’t mean?—”

“I’m going to apologize to her, Cam. Let me do it in my own time.”

“I am. If you were doing it in my time, you’d have said sorry before she left your bedroom.” I take a breath, trying to cool the heat rising in my head. I hate this subject. “Anyway, so what if she’s not your number one fan? You two don’t have to be buddies.”

He looks away, scowling at the window instead.

I should let it go—he can act like a toddler if he wants to—but I can’t. Reeve has had my back on everything, big or small, since our first season together as scrawny kids. He doesn’t have to like Lenni, but he does have to accept her.

“I like her, Reeve. You know that. More than I’ve liked anyone in a long time.”

His expression doesn’t change. “Yeah.” He’s still giving the window the stink eye.

“So tell me why you refuse to be on my side for the first time in my life.”

He finally looks at me. “I don’t like her talking shit about me.”

With that, it all clicks into place. “You think she’s going to turn me against you? Seriously?” I throw a soft punch at his shoulder. “Like I don’t already know what a massive asshole you are? We’ve lived together since eighth grade. Believe me, dude, I had it figured out by day two.”

Reeve gives a halfhearted smile. “Yeah, okay.”

I turn back to the mirror and unscrew the lid of the pomade, but Reeve’s still wearing an expression that reminds me of Liam after Serena tells him no more cookies. “I’m not going anywhere,” I say, keeping my eyes carefully off his face. I feel his gaze on me for a second, then he nods. “So quit being an asshole around my girl and help me with my hair. It looks like crap.”

Reeve appears behind me in the mirror, his self-assured smile back in place. “Relax, man, you look slick. The only reason you’re doubting yourself is you’re standing next to me. Your outfit, on the other hand, is shit.”

“What do you mean?”

“That tie? Christ, is that from our old school uniform? You look like you’re getting ready to knock on doors and spread the gospel.”

“I’m taking her to a nice dinner.”

“Then dress like a man, not a third grader on Easter Sunday. Hold on.” He heads for his room and comes back a minute later with a slim silver tie.

“Silver? God, you’re tacky.”

“Trust me.”

He watches impatiently as I swap out my tie for his, then steps in to adjust my work. “There. Now you look slick.”

We both step back to check the final product. I nod. He’s right, I do look pretty damn good.

“Thank me later when you’re enjoying a nice, sloppy blow job,” he tells me.

“Shut the fuck up.”

We both laugh.