Falling for Seven (11 page)

She speared a look of boredom over her shoulder when Nicky’s gaze latched onto me, alerting everyone to my entrance. “You look like you need a drink,” said Drift. “What was all that with Seven?”

“You saw that?”

Nicky laughed and Katlyn rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. “Heard it, more like.”

“Good thing he’s got Kitty Kat to calm him down,” said Drift, smirking at Nicky. “She’s fucking smokin’ tonight.”

“Aint nothin like a nice bit of pussy.” The look Nicky gave me made my skin crawl. “You know any?” he asked me with a sick grin on his face.

“Nicky!” Katlyn jabbed her fist into his chest with a scowl. “Don’t be gross.”

I picked up a bottle of beer from the counter. “Can I have this?” I asked no one in particular.

“Sure. I spunked in it, but it’s yours,” Nicky joked. He and Drift cracked up and I put the bottle back down, the glass clattering loudly on the tiles.

“There’s more in the fridge,” Katlyn said, shooting Nicky daggers. “Ignore him.”

“Baby…” Nicky nibbled at her jaw and she instantly softened in his hands, smiling.

I got a beer from the fridge and stood, not particularly enjoying myself and finished it quickly. No one noticed when I left to use the bathroom, and I rushed to go pee, checking the time on my cell for Jordan’s arrival. They might not have seen me, but I saw Kit and Julian perfectly.

I took a step to the side to get more cover, unreasonably feeling like I’d stumbled upon something I shouldn’t. Even though they were in the open, I didn’t want them to know I was there.

Julian sat on the stairs, his legs spread wide, and Kit was on his knee, her hair a shield preventing anyone seeing his face. I’d known it would happen, I was the one who helped her get here. I watched as Julian’s hand flattened on Kit’s thigh, his fingers spread for maximum contact, dipping into the hem of her dress and grabbing at her skin. And then he stood with her in his arms and carried her to the top of the stairs, out of sight.

Yeah, um, peeing could wait. There was no way I was going up there with those two on the loose.

<>

I reached for my phone, calling it time to message Jordan and see what was taking him so long when the front door opened and he materialized before my eyes. I slipped my phone into the torn pocket of my shorts. “I’d have come out,” I said, taking a few steps forward to meet him.

He shrugged one shoulder, his eyes skimming the hallway before landing on me. “Thought maybe you’d want to hang a while.”

“I’m happy to go,” I said, swallowing how much it bothered me that he wanted to stay. He didn’t really know anyone here. And—oh god—Nicky was here. I dragged a hand from my hairline through my hair, not even trying to hide my dismay at Jordan’s need for a good party.

“We could just stay an hour or something. I could use a beer, actually.”

Why? Was staying here so much better than being alone with me? Clearly it was because he had already abandoned ship and started making his way through the living room. One quick glance over his shoulder confirmed I was trailing behind him like I always did.

See, the thing about Jordan is, he can make a friend in a fucking black hole, and that was exactly what he did—made a friend. And with Nicky, no less.

Kit and Julian had re-joined the living and we were on the garden patio, the tepid night air a whole world better than being stuffed inside the cramped house, no matter how much of a mansion it was.

Nicky sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his large body imposing on the miniscule deck chair. “I know I would kill it playing soccer,” he said, rolling a joint.
Always rolling a joint.

“I used to play football in high school,” said Jordan.

Nicky licked the paper, sealing up his hefty blunt. He should look into rolling and smoking for a career if he didn’t make it to the NFL. I knew my dad would kick some serious ass if he knew his team was sitting here smoking their asses off. He hated drugs and partying in general. He was far too sophisticated for fun. Or laughing. Or smiling. Oh sorry, my bad—unless it was his own jokes he was laughing it, which in general were not funny.

“What position you play?” Nicky lit his joint, basking in the heavy fumes.

“QB.” Jordan looked at me, a small smile lighting my heart like a match. Of course Jordan had been quarterback for our old high school team, his lithe, muscled body had made him the perfect choice. His perfect body would suit most sports, and that wasn’t me being biased, just honest. He preferred soccer now, though. Playing, that is. Something my dad couldn’t get his tiny little head around.

Julian sat back from the conversation, appearing to have adopted the ‘if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all’ attitude, if his stony expression was anything to go by.

“I reckon we could replace Seven for you. His shit is slackin’.” Nicky grinned at Julian, whose features sharpened. Just a bit.

“Ah, I don’t play anymore.” Jordan glanced at Julian. “Football’s not for me. I’d rather watch than play.”

“They don’t got practically naked cheerleaders in the world cup, bro.” I levelled a slow-burning glare at Nicky. I realized that that kind of harmless statement should not bother me, but given the fact that Jordan spends forty percent of his day commenting on other girls, for obvious reasons this topic of conversation was not digesting well on me.

And still Nicky didn’t shut up. “Oh, man. I love women, don’t you?”

Jordan didn’t even answer, just had the gall to look sheepish.
That’s because he does!
My inner masochist shouted. When Jordan and I first started dating, on the exact same night that our mutual minds truly connected, we had both blurted out how since we’d taken our friendship to this new level, neither of us could bare to look at another person. And it wasn’t for lack of wanting to, we just stopped seeing anyone else. It was literally me and him and believe me, Jordan confessing such a bold statement was the biggest, unexpected declaration in all my history of knowing him.

And it had lasted quite a run before cracks started to show and the old Jordan clawed at the surface, shredding my perfect bubble. Before us, Jordan was infamous for his inability to be strapped down. He likes girls. A lot. But he likes his friends and his freedom more—girls are there strictly to enjoy, and he was always clear about that. It was sad to say I was honored he had chosen me out of everyone.

I zoned out of my rocky walk down memory lane just in time to catch Jordan sneak Kit a lengthily glance, as if to confirm my inside reminiscence.

The first thing I thought to do was look at Julian, who of course hadn’t missed a fucking moment of my humiliation. He stared back at me with his steel gaze, showing no emotion, but I was sure ‘I told you so’ was in there somewhere.

I dropped my gaze, pretending I hadn’t seen anything. While the conversations were in full flow, Julian stretched out his long legs and went inside. He never came back and Jordan and I left early. The static between us was a light one, but the uneasiness I was carrying around refused to shift.

In the car, Jordan laid his hand on my thigh with a soft squeeze, despite hardly sparing me two minutes at the party and choosing everyone else over spending time with me. But he smiled at me with a genuine affection and it loosened a knot inside me that I’d thought was hard to budge.

He dropped me off at my dorm, and if I didn’t have a roommate he would have definitely been coming up. I’d spent all night with him, but at the same time hardly had anything to do with him. It was like we’d been on opposite sides of a mirror, and I was the one who was trapped—trapped with my own evil thoughts while he had a great time without me.

But his great time didn’t look that great to someone like me, who knew his mood as well as the back of my hand. His smile was skin deep, his eyes full of something darker that only I picked up on.

After a kiss neither of us wanted to end, I got out of the car, my heart leaving with him as he drove away.

<>

The next morning after an early routine run-through with Calvin, I changed for my scheduled classes, walking the stretch of the huge campus to Sociology.

Last night had ended well enough in spite of the unsteady start, but I was awash with the stickiest sense of nausea rolling around in the pit of my stomach. My anxiety had a life of its own and my legs felt like Jell-O underneath me. The urge to throw up hit me around the same time my hands started shaking, and then my phone chimed out a text message from inside my pocket.

And I knew.

In those handful of seconds… I just knew.

Time stopped, my breathing stopped.

There was a chance my heart had stopped.

I knew before reading the message what it would say. The wrong kind of butterflies took flight in my stomach and my heart rate kicked in, excelling to dangerous proportions. I was sweating, hot and cold at the same time. I will never know how I did it, but I freed my phone, and with a pounding in my chest and blurred vision, I read Jordan’s message.

Jordan:
I’m sorry, Angel. I tried, I really did. And it’s not that I don’t care about you, because I do. But I’m not cut out for a girlfriend. I don’t want this to change our friendship. You are still my best friend. Xx

That was it. Three fucking sentences and my whole world had fallen completely apart. Three sentences and my heart was broken beyond the point of repair, the splinters taking my breath away.

One simplistic message and every single mundane word had defined everything about me.

ANGEL WAS RIGHT AT THE bac
k
in the full auditorium by the time I got ther
e,
haul-assing all the way from the other side of the university. I fucked up with my schedule, but it was too late to change it now, and I didn’t care enough. I considered it a form of exercise instead.

Angel was caged in on either side and I subtly told the guy on her right to move, which he eagerly did. When Angel didn’t react with some smart mouth comment, I knew something was up. She stared down at her book in front of her with a quietness that really fucking bothered me.

I vaguely heard Marcus-Lucas-Maximus-Meridius-whatever the fuck, tell us to partner up and carry on with our assignments. I kicked my bag under the bench and water dripped onto angel’s paper as I brought my head up.

“Whoa,” I said, watching the ink spread on her page, “are you crying?”

She wiped a finger under her eye and shook her head, sniffling like a mouse. “I have allergies.”

“Your allergies are so bad you cry about it? Not buying it, Angel.”

“Don’t talk to me.” Her voice was so clogged, I could barely hear her. But she wasn’t asking me to shut up with any hostility, she was too upset for that.

“Tell me what happened.”

She sniffed back another tear. I could tell she was the kind of girl who would rather go without hundreds of people’s attention on her if she could help it. I wasn’t expecting it when she got up from her seat and shoved past my legs. She was out the door at the top of the stairs before I could register what was happening. I thought about it for a full five seconds before I got up myself and went after her. I caught up to her at the end of the hallway, and then she dodged me by walking into the girl’s bathroom. I did a double-glance to see if anyone was watching, and then I followed her inside.

Only one stall door was closed and when there were no incriminating sounds of peeing—or worse—I knocked against the door and called out, “Angel?”

No answer.

“I’m not going anywhere till you tell me why you were crying in the middle of class. I mean, we all hate Marcus, but crying about it?”

Still no answer.

The bathroom door opened. “Oh!”

I whipped my head up. A girl stood in the open doorway and then checked the sign on the door to confirm she’d picked the right bathroom. She looked at me, a smile forming. “You’re Julian Lawson.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Her smile grew hesitant. “In the girls’ bathroom…”

“This is kind of important,” I said, “do you mind?”

She shook her head, hesitancy gone. “No, not at all,” she said, perking up.

This girl just didn’t get it. “Listen,” I stepped away from the stall, “could you maybe give us a sec?”

She looked past me at the closed door, then chewed on her lip. She might have been offended but I was guessing she was too bold for that. “Who’s in there?” she asked.

“My girlfriend,” I deadpanned.

“Kit’s in there?”

“Did you hear me say her name?”

“But—”

“Would you leave already?”

The sour look on her face made me think she was going to argue how she had more right to be here than me, but in a bout of defeat she turned and left.

Well that was fucking hard work.

The sliding of a door lock had me turning back to see Angel coming out of the stall with a giant wad of tissue in her hand. “You had no right to make that girl leave. It’s you that doesn’t belong in here.”

I ignored her display of righteousness. “Are you going to tell me what’s happened?”

The door opened again behind me and I swore loud enough to make Angel scowl. “Sorry,” she said to our new acquaintance, “we’re leaving.”

“That’s okay.” The blonde’s eyes followed us as we walked past her and out the door.

I kept quiet, walking by Angel’s side. She hadn’t told me to fuck off, so that was something. Outside, near the park benches, she sat down on the grass, resting against the trunk of a tree. The shade was a cool escape from the morning sun. She never said she wanted me there, but I threw my bang down and sat next to her, my back hitting the rough bark.

She offered me nothing but silence for a while, the sound of our breathing the only real noise between us.

“He dumped me.”

Her revelation hit me with the force of a brick, and I squinted against the sunlight. “What?”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

I side-glanced her, noticing the bobbing of her throat and the slow build of tears in her eyes. I had a mountain of reasons why crying over a loser like Jordan was a total waste of time, but I could see she was too upset to hear any of them. I dropped my legs and relaxed against the tree.

“Why?” I asked.

Angel stared at the ground, occasionally swiping at her eyes and nose with the tissue. “Because he meant it when he said he wasn’t ready for anything serious.”

“So that’s it?”

“I can’t see him changing his mind. I always knew it would end. Eventually.” The end of that sentence was swallowed up in a choked sob that Angel tried to cover up with a deep breath, but it still had me frowning.

“Don’t you think you got off easy? I know you saw him checking out Kit last night. You telling me that you’re okay with that shit?”

“He wasn’t perfect,” she said, “and neither was I. He made me happy. Now I don’t know how I’m supposed to be happy, and it hasn’t even been an hour. I don’t think it will feel real until I see him.”

“Tell me he did not breakup with you over the phone.”

“Okay. I won’t.”

God, I wanted to strangle her so bad. It was just as well I didn’t hit women or I would have my fingers around her neck so fast, sense would kill her.

Neither of us spoke, and how much time had passed was a mystery. For the most part, Angel kept her shit together, but then I made the stupid mistake of asking how she was and her shoulders shuddered with ugly sobbing. “Whoa,” I said, wrapping my arm around her shoulder, “someone might see you.” I pressed her face into my shirt, her tears steadily soaking into a damp patch under her cheek.

When the sounds of her crying eased up, I said, “Angel, is he really worth this?”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” She lifted her head, hair stuck to her wet cheek. She looked a fucking state. An utter mess. “And I don’t need you to sit with me.”

“It doesn’t feel right to just leave you.”

She scraped her hair from her face. “I’m better now. I feel better.”

I didn’t believe her. Her eyes were blotchy and puffed up, her lashes stuck together with tears, but I’d sat here long enough. I thought the guy was a dick, and she was no better, crying after him. “I’ve got stuff I need to do anyway.”

I stood up and Angel’s eyes stayed fixed on the grassy floor. I wanted to say something but there was nothing to say that wouldn’t make this morning any worse for her.

“You aren’t going back to class?”

“No. What’s the point without my partner?” That was bullshit, but I wanted to soften her up a bit now that Jordan was out of the picture. “When you feel better, come see me, yeah? And I’m telling you, you
will
feel better.”

I leaned down to pick up my bag and she slowly raised her doubtful gaze to look at me.

“Not today,” I said, “but you will. One day you’ll wake up, and you’ll be okay.”

<>

I walked away, leaving the campus an hour earlier than I needed to. I drove to Dorchester with my music loud, trying to block out what had happened to Angel. I didn’t feel sorry for her because she saw it coming a mile off, and she was an idiot for even putting up with his shit. But her devastation was real. She looked like she was in pain. My mom looked like that when my dad walked out seven years ago, and seeing it again made me really fucking pissed. Pissed at someone I hardly knew for being so weak, and pissed at my dad for sending my mom into months’ worth of depression. She was still depressed for all I knew. I heard her cry when she was supposed to get her few hours of hard-earned sleep. I couldn’t ignore it, as much as I wanted to. Whatever my dad had done to our family and my mom’s confidence, it hadn’t made her love him any less. She never dated, never took his pictures down, all because she refused move on. He didn’t want her, but that didn’t make a blind bit of difference.

His hold over her had me pumping the gas, sending me over the speed limit. When I pulled up at Kristina’s, the skin of my knuckles stretched to white where my hand was choking the steering wheel. I flattened my hand, flexing my fingers to regain some feeling.

I got out, jogging up the stairway to her apartment. She opened the door before I got a chance to knock. “You’re early,” she said, opening the door wider so I could come inside.

“Guess I am.”

“You look stressed. Everything okay?”

I took a seat on her couch, not getting comfortable so she knew I was in a hurry to get going, even though that would mean turning up early to a pre-natal appointment that I didn’t actually want to go to. “College assignment,” I said. “I really need to pass this one.”

“Got it,” she said. “Say no more. There was a reason I skipped college and you just mentioned it.” She pushed sunglasses up onto her hair and picked up a bottle of water. “Shall we get this over with?”

The waiting room at the Doctor’s Office was full. So full I expected to look around and see someone I knew. “You coming in?” Kristina asked when her name was called.

I stared at her blankly. Did she expect me to go into that room with her and listen to the midwife discussing her baby with the guy she cheated on me with? “I’ll wait here,” I said.

It was the wrong answer, that was clear in her eyes, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I was changing my mind.

“Okay. I shouldn’t be too long.”

When she was gone, I took out my phone to read latest NFL news. The waiting room was stuffy as hell and I pulled at the collar of my T-shirt to circulate some air. I read all the football updates, then moved onto hockey. I avoided soccer purely because of Jordan, and then somewhere along the line I had Angel’s name up on my screen and I had pulled up the keyboard to send her a message.

Me:
Text back if you have managed to go a full hour without committing suicide.

No reply.

Me:
I’m worried. Answer or I’m coming to find you.

I waited a few minutes and then her name flashed up on my screen.

Angel:
I’m fine. DO NOT come and find me. I’m turning my phone off now.

“Who you texting?”

Kristina stood looking down at my screen without trying to hide her curiosity. I slipped the phone into my back pocket as I stood up. “No one. Everything go okay in there?”

“Yeah. Midwife seems nice.”

We started walking together and I was glad to reach fresh air. My skin was crawling with imaginary germs from the cramped waiting room. I unlocked the car and turned over the engine.

“She said I’m nearly sixteen weeks along. Four months, can you believe that?”

I looked down at her flat stomach. “No. I can’t,” I said, still staring. “You ready to be someone’s mom?” It was hard to visualize. Kristina was mature, but she enjoyed her freedom more than me.

Her smile turned down and she lay her hand across her belly. “No. Not really.” She looked out the side window. “In my head, I didn’t picture it like this. If I’d have thought before—” She glanced at me as I put the car into reverse. “—Before I fucked things up with us and completely lost my head over some guy that I’ll probably never see again. If I’d have known this would happen, I wouldn’t have let myself end up in someone else’s bed.”

Her hand dropped onto my knee. “I’m sorry, Julian. I’d go back and change it all if I could.”

I wasn’t opening up old wounds, not today. Not any day. I was over it, even if she wasn’t. “Forget about it,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. “You got something better now. You’re gonna be a great mom.” The next part was stuck on my tongue, but it was the truth so I might as well say it. “And you’ve got me, you know that right? I won’t just turn my back on you.”

Kristina’s fingers trailed higher up my leg, making me shift like that would help me get away. “I wish—”

“No. No wishing. It happened, and yeah, I wish like fuck it never. But it did and now you’re pregnant. Wishing won’t change anything. You’re scared, but us getting back together won’t fix a damn thing. Leave the past in the past.”

Kristina sighed, her hand disappearing from my thigh. “I miss you. I still love you, Julian.”

She was fucking killing me here and there was nothing I could say that she would want me to. “I love you, too,” I said. “As a friend.”

“But you were in love with me, weren’t you?”