Authors: Kelly Clark
“I don’t
really
know what to tell you then,” Matt said.
“Well,
tell me
something at least,” I said.
Matt sat there a moment, not
really
knowing what to say, or if he did know, he didn’t seem to have much interest in
saying
it.
“Okay, look,” Matt started, “I didn’t want to say anything, and I was avoiding saying anything at the party, but I think Jeff is only interested in you to get to me.”
I looked at Matt and rolled my eyes in disbelief.
“Why would he do that,” I asked, “What does he have to gain?”
Matt sighed.
“I think he’s trying to use you to get close to me because he’s made it well known that he wants to be team captain. If he’s with you, there’s probably a better chance that he’d get it.”
I laughed at first, but he didn’t join in, causing my
laugh to quickly fade
. He was
truly
serious
.
“You don’t
really
think that he’d use me to get to you. He’s a decent guy,” I said.
“Tell that to the last girl that he dated,” Matt added.
“What happened with the last girl,” I asked.
“After they started dating, it wasn’t long before he
was moved
up to starter. Then they broke up.”
“There must be a
reason why
they broke up that isn’t related to his moving up to starter, I just know it,” I pleaded.
“Well then, you’ll have to get the truth out of him yourself. In the meantime, you should get back to work. You have a mock trial in just two
days,
and you need to
be prepared
for it,” he said, “I gotta get back to my
own
homework, Holly.”
He leaned in and gave me a hug before taking his leave.
I needed to know what was going on more than I needed to work on my homework. I knew where Jeff would be, and that was exactly where I needed to go.
6.
I called
him,
but he didn’t pick up, which would only really mean one thing, he was probably working out in the gym. It wasn’t far, and it was a sunny day, so I walked that direction.
Then I spotted him talking with Matt in the distance. I wondered why Matt would be talking to him right now of all times. I thought he said he had some homework that he needed to finish.
The two of them were just barely in earshot.
“Why do you guys keep thinking that I somehow did something wrong to become a starter,” Jeff asked, somewhat furiously.
“You’re the one that dated the coach’s niece for a month to get your position. Now you’re dating my best friend so you can be team captain,” Matt added.
Jeff looked frustrated, and I was glad that neither of them noticed me, it gave me the chance to get a little closer to hear.
“I may have dated the coach’s niece but it wasn’t to become a starter,” Jeff said, “The coach gave me an ultimatum. Either I quit the
team,
or
I
break up with her. Sure, I cared about her, but I didn’t think our relationship was anything special.”
“Is that the same way you feel about Holly?” Matt asked.
“Holly is a
wonderful
girl,” Jeff said
simply
.
“Well then, I’ll
give you the chance
. If you break up with Holly you can be
team
captain,
and I won’t say a word to Holly about any of this,” Matt said.
I wanted to jump out and yell at Matt about how absurd his idea was. I wanted to tackle Jeff for even considering the option. I wanted to do a lot of
things,
but none of them came to me. I just left.
I
ran,
like I always used to do to clear my head. Except this time, I
ran
because I couldn’t
clear
my head at all. There was too much to think about, and I was starting to regret the freedom I had given myself just the other day.
Jeff
really
was a creep. I knew it in the back of my head all along, but I didn’t say anything.
He seemed so genuine.
Then my phone started ringing. I checked the caller
ID,
and it said that it was Jeff. I didn’t want to answer, but I had a feeling he was just returning my call from before.
I dabbed the tears that were forming at the edge of my eyes and wiped my nose.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hey, you called?” Jeff wondered.
“Yeah, I was just wondering if you wanted to get together for lunch,” I lied.
“Aww man, I would, but I’m a bit busy today. I have some good news,” he started.
“Yeah?” I replied.
“It sounds like I’m going to be team captain, isn’t that great?” he said.
“That’s great,” I said, gulping down my sadness.
“So, maybe I’ll see you
later,
and we can talk; maybe get some food?” he said.
“Yeah, sure,” I replied then clicked off the phone.
He had taken the deal. He
really
was just using me as leverage to get what he wanted. I didn’t want to tip him off, and I didn’t want to answer any more of his calls.
I returned to my dorm room and buried myself in my books.
7.
It had been a
couple of
days. Jeff continued to
call,
but I didn’t have any interest in talking. Today was the day of my mock
trial,
and I had to be alert and prepared. I spent most of the afternoon with my classmates getting ready.
No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get Jeff out of my head. It was an odd thing
too
because I
really
hadn’t had this feeling with any of my previous
ex-boyfriends
in the past. Breaking up in the past was easy; like changing out the ice in the freezer.
I was surprised at how attached I had become to Jeff in so short a
period of time
. But,
at least,
I could work on getting over it now. I wouldn’t need to worry about being close to him again. That ship had sailed. I couldn’t even come up with the courage to hear him break up with me, either. I knew it was coming, considering the conversation he’d had with Matt.
Matt made me just about as angry as Jeff right now. Who would go
behind
their friends back and offer a deal like that? I wanted to punch him, hard. I knew he could take it,
but, all the same,
I figured taking some time away from both of them would be good. I could get back to being the person that I was before this
awful
week started.
The classroom was
setup
like a classic courtroom. The teacher sat behind her desk as a judge would. Several tables were shoved together to make a prosecution and defense table. There were members of the class representing a
jury,
and the remaining members of the class were considered witnesses with roles to play in the upcoming trial.
I was excited for it to start.
But, then I saw Jeff and Matt sitting in the front row behind the prosecution desk. My heart
sank,
and my brain went completely blank.
Both of them stood up as I entered.
I ran up to both of them, grabbed them by the wrists, and led them to the hall.
“What the hell are you two doing here,” I said, seething with anger.
“We’re here to find out why you haven’t talked to us the last couple of days,” Matt said.
“Yeah, where have you been?” Jeff asked.
I rubbed my temples trying to drown out
the headache
that was coming to the forefront of my skull.
“You guys know where I’ve been,” I started, “I’ve been avoiding both of you.”
They looked at each other.
“Why?” asked Jeff.
“Oh, I think you know
why,
” I replied.
“Enlighten us,” Matt said.
“I saw you guys talking. I heard the deal that Matt proposed. The one that said that you would stop dating me and in return he’d cede team captain to you,” I said.
“I had a feeling you did,” Matt said, “I thought I saw you running away from us the other day.”
“Yeah, well it was me, okay? When I got the call from Jeff that he had become
team
captain, I knew he took the deal. I just didn’t want
to even bother
with either of you anymore.”
“He didn’t take the deal, Holly,” Matt said.
“Then how is he team captain,” I asked.
“Because I let him be,” Matt replied.
“Why?” I asked, becoming more confused by the second.
“You left before our conversation ended. I proposed he stop dating you and in exchange he’d get to be team captain. But, he said it was no contest. He wanted to keep dating you,” Matt said.
“Holly, you’re probably the most amazing woman I’ll ever meet in my lifetime. I would rather quit the team than quit dating you,” Jeff added.
“When I heard how genuine he was, I had a change of heart. He’s a good guy, Holly,” Matt said.
I looked at the two of them. They both looked like they were ready to break down and cry;
a very unbecoming look for two giant footballers
. I laughed when I looked at their puppy dog faces, and they just looked back in confusion.
“I’m sorry. You guys are just the most ridiculous looking people when you get emotional,” I said.
I pulled them in and gave them both the biggest hug I could manage.
“Hey Holly, we’re about to start, you
comin’
?” said my
class-mate
poking her head out the door.
“I’ll be right there,” I said.
“Alright, time for me to
go win
this; then I’ll take you two out for a
much-deserved
dinner, and we can talk,” I said.
I was feeling
clear-headed
; the fog was beginning to lift. I still had no idea what I
really
wanted out of life, but I was
beginning
to realize that it
really
didn’t matter. What mattered is who was there to enjoy it with me.
*****
THE END
Table of Contents
SPORTS Romance – One Game at a Time
MOTORCYCLE Romance – Outlaw Bad Boy Biker
MOTORCYCLE CLUB Romance – Bad Boy Biker SEAL
BILLIONAIRE BOSS Romance – Bought by the Boss
BILLIONAIRE BOSS Romance - He’s The Boss
ROCKSTAR Romance – Bad Boy British Rockstar
STUDENT TEACHER Romance – Professor London
MAFIA Romance – Bought By the Hitman
WESTERN BILLIONAIRE Romance - A Heart in Trouble
PARANORMAL Highlander Romance - Protected by the Highlander
PARANORMAL Shifter Romance – To Lure a Mate
MAIL ORDER BRIDE - A Sheriff’s Heart
MAIL ORDER BRIDE - A Baby for the Bride
MAIL ORDER BRIDE - The Heartbroken Bride and the Stolen Baby
1
Jennifer Walters groaned as her
six-year-old
son
leapt
atop her. She was in bed, and after opening one eye and squinting at her alarm clock, she saw it wasn’t even seven in the morning. In fact, it wasn’t even six thirty.
“What are you doing up so early?” Jennifer asked the little boy. His name was Jaxson, and he had the same blonde hair his mother
did
though his green eyes were his father's. That man was long gone, out of the picture and out of the state. It was just Jen and Jaxson, together in Arizona, in a small town named Harrisburg. It was dusty and hot, and Jennifer owned a small bar right at the end of the main drag, a place called Chuck’s, the name inherited by the man she had bought
it from
. Chuck’s was the local biker hang out, and there were plenty of bikers in and around Harrisburg.
“It’s not early, is it?”
“Six twenty is pretty early,” Jennifer groaned. “Go back to bed.”
“I don’t want
to; I
’m too excited about school.”
Jaxson was in first grade, and he loved it. He was
bright
and was already reading far beyond his level.
“Why? You go five times a week. How could you be excited?”
“Today is Chris’ birthday, and he’s bringing in cupcakes,” the little boy said with a huge grin.
“You got me up so early because you’re excited about cupcakes?”
“I guess so,” Jaxson said.
“Do you know how late I worked?”
“Yeah, you didn't pick me up until two in the morning. I woke up as we were driving home.”
On nights that Jennifer worked, which was most of them, an older woman named Barbara, who lived down the street, watched Jaxson. After leaving the
bar,
Jennifer would swing by and pick him up. Being a single mother was tough, but Jennifer wouldn’t have her life any other way. Jaxson’s dad had been an asshole, one of those tough guys Jen always found herself chasing after, and when she had gotten
pregnant,
he had disappeared. She was better off without him.
Jennifer’s mother lived across the
country
and wasn’t able to visit much, and had no money to send to help when Jennifer had needed such a thing.
Buying Chuck’s had been a big gamble, but it had
paid
off. Jennifer hadn’t gone to college. She had worked in the dingy bar for a couple of years. And then, when she was twenty-three, Chuck retired and offered the bar to the few employees he had. Jennifer was the only one who expressed interest in buying it. She got a loan, and she did so. She wanted to make a better life for herself, and her son.
Twenty-three turned into twenty-four, and that gave way to twenty-five, and the bar stayed afloat, and she finally had a monetary cushion. She wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck.
But she did stay up late, and she was tired, and she felt as though she was missing out on Jaxson,
particularly since
he was in school until three, and she went to the bar at five, six times a week.
“Turn on the TV, but keep it
low
,” Jennifer groaned as her son cuddled up beside her. He searched for the remote, tossed amongst the blankets on the bed, found it, and turned on the TV that sat on a long dresser against one wall of the bedroom. A blue light flooded the dim room, and Jennifer groaned once more for good measure, before pulling her pillow over her head and going back to sleep.
When she awoke
again,
it was because her alarm was going off. Seven twenty, time to get her son ready for school. Cartoons were on the TV, but Jaxson was sleeping beside her.
“Get up,” she said, nudging her son.
“I’m tired now,”
“Mom’s are allowed to sell kids you know.”
After they had
climbed
out of
bed,
she made breakfast and got him dressed. He was at school by eight, and she was back home ten minutes later. She collapsed into
bed
and went back to sleep.
Jennifer rose again just after noon. Her cell was ringing. She searched for her
shorts; her
phone was still in the pocket, and she had taken them off just before getting back in bed. She found her phone and looked at the screen. A name was there, across it. Ryan.
Ryan was
a nice guy
. Maybe that was why she didn’t like him. He came into the bar sometimes, completely out of place among the blue jeans and leather. He always looked
nice
. He was a fit guy, a bit on the thinner side, and he wore khakis and polo shirts. His shoes were
nice
and shiny, and his arms bare of tattoos or scars. He was wholesome. He had a good job, he was an accountant at a company twenty miles to the east, in a much bigger town called Grove.
And he was interested in Jennifer. He hit on her whenever he came into the bar. In fact, she was pretty sure he only came in to see her. She wasn’t sure how he had come to find his way into Chuck’s the first time, but he had seen her behind the bar, and he had kept coming in. And he had kept asking her out. For over a year. She flirted with him, teased
him; she
found it fun. She was stringing him along, and she knew it. He was handsome, tall and dark, his skin tanned, his smile dazzling. It was just those khakis. She didn’t like
those kind
of guys. Something was wrong with her. She needed a good
guy
. She knew it. So maybe, she would give one a chance.
She answered her phone.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hey, it’s Ryan.” The man sounded
surprised
as if he hadn’t expected her to answer. Probably because she never usually did.
“I know, what’s up?” the young woman asked. She laid back against her pillows, holding the phone to her ear.
“What are you doing?” Ryan asked. Jennifer smiled to herself.
“Lying in bed. I’m not wearing pants.”
She giggled. She knew that would drive Ryan crazy, and she knew that was rude, but she liked messing with the man too much. She heard him gulp, and she found herself thinking it was cute how intimidated he was by her.
“Oh, I can let you go,” Ryan said.
“Why did you call?” she asked.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me on Saturday. I have a work thing, down in Tempe. I know it’s a bit of a drive, but It’s a dinner.
I’m uh, getting an award, and it’s a get dressed up sort of thing, and go have a free meal, and listen to boring people talk about boring accounting things, and I don’t know why I’m even bothering to ask you, because it’s starting to bore me just talking about it.”
“You’re getting an award?” Jennifer asked him.
“Yes,”
“Wow, I’ve never known anyone who got an award. What’s it for?”
“I’m the Arizona accountant of the year,” the nervous young man said.
“Ryan,” Jennifer said, “I will go with you.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I can pick you up, uh, at three? We’ll be there by six then, and it starts at seven, but we can mingle, grab a drink or whatever.”
“Sounds great,” Jennifer said, and she hung up. She bit her lip as she stared at her ceiling.
She
wondered what she was doing. She needed a good man, a good guy. Someone who had a good job, and had to wear a tie to the office. That’s who Ryan was. She found herself feeling nervous suddenly, her stomach in a knot.
She stood up and took her tee shirt off. Then she unclipped her bra and let it fall to the floor before sliding her panties down to her feet and stepping out of them. She padded into her bathroom on
bare feet
, and stopped in front of the sink. If she backed up far
enough,
she could see most of her body, her face, her chest, her flat stomach. She was attractive. She always had been. She was the first girl in school to develop, and now, at twenty-five, her breasts were round and
heavy
. Her pubic hair
was trimmed
, a small strip above her pink slit. Her hair blonde and long, loose and framing her shoulders. Her lips were plump, and she had a small beauty mark above her lip on the right side. When she
smiled,
there was a
dimple
, just in her left cheek.
She was hot. Beautiful. And she had never been with
a good
man. Ever. Ryan was a good
man
. She was excited to go with him to Tempe that
weekend; she
was excited to go on a real date, with a good
man
. The last man she had
gone
on a date with was named Michael. He was an asshole, to put it simply. He never took her
out; he
just expected sex, and even then he never made love to her. It was just hard fucking. Hair pulling, ass grabbing.
Looking in the mirror, she wondered what kind of lover Ryan was. Would he pull her hair? Would
he
grab her breasts so hard that it hurt her? Would he smile when she yelled out in discomfort, or would he let up? Jennifer found herself wanting to know. She took a hot shower, thinking of Ryan.
She
let her hand fall between her legs, her fingers sliding over her slit. She came, and then she washed, and then she got out and dressed.
She spent a couple of hours cleaning the house, and then she went and collected Jaxson from school. They hung out for a while at home, but soon it was time for Jennifer to go to work. She dropped Jaxson off with Barbara, and then hurried to her bar.
She employed two other night bartenders, a guy in his thirties named Steven and a girl younger than her, with bigger tits and a more vacant expression named Brittany. It was Thursday, and Steven was working. One guy manned the bar during the day, seven days a week, an old man named Bert, who only had to come in from two in the afternoon, when the bar opened, to five, when the night tenders took over. Jennifer liked all of her employees, even if Brittany was rather vapid and airheaded. She also had two cooks in the kitchen who worked part time, alternating days. On that
Thursday,
the cook was Andre, a tall black man who had once been headed to the
NBA
before an injured knee brought him to the world of cooking. He was smoking a cigarette at the rear of the building when Jennifer pulled into the employee lot.
“Hey boss,” Andre said, and he smiled. He was always
smiling; Jennifer
wasn’t sure she had ever met a friendlier person.
“Hey,” Jennifer said. “How’s the wife?”
Andre was married to a petite white woman four years younger than him. She was eight months
pregnant
and looked as though she was ready to pop at any moment.
“Sherry is
fine
,” Andre said.
“I thought you were kicking the cigarettes,” Jennifer said.
“Before the baby comes,” Andre said with another grin. “He ain’t here yet, is he?”
“Not yet,” Jennifer agreed, and she went inside. She got to the bar just as Bert was leaving. Steven was already there, filling a beer for the only customer in the place, an older woman with a tattoo of a rose on her throat. Everyone called her Rose, and she was a regular.
She
came in every day at two, shot the shit with Bernie, and then left half an hour after he did, drunk as a skunk. Jennifer liked
her
though she was pretty sure her name wasn’t
really
Rose. She was also pretty sure Rose didn’t have a
job
and was getting disability
due to the fact that
she hobbled everywhere on a cane, and could afford to do nothing but drink all day.
“Hey kid,” Rose said.
“Hey Rose,” Jennifer replied. The old woman always called her kid. Rose was
a tough
woman
, a biker chick, clad in jeans and a black tee shirt with a Harley on the front, but she was warm and
nice
with Jennifer, taking on an almost motherly role.
The day wore on, and the night came fast, the burning Arizona sun dropping quickly from the sky.
As it grew darker, the place filled up.
If there
wasn’t, at least,
one fight which spilled out into the parking lot, it just wasn’t Chuck’s. That night the fight came early, just past eight, when two men started screaming at each other over a game of pool. Punches flew, Jennifer screamed at them to take it outside, and they did so, with three fourth’s of the other patrons slipping out behind them to watch. Jennifer took advantage of the sudden slowdown and did some cleaning behind the bar. When she spun
around,
she was greeted by Rocky.