A stupid smile spreads across my face. I knew I liked this girl. Any female that’s seen Anchorman and can quote lines gets a vote of confidence from me. “Best movie ever.”
“Wow, brutal honesty. And you’re not even in the least bit embarrassed. Just owning it. Owning that shame.”
“I’m man enough to give it a bear hug, even.”
She looks away, hides the full-blown smile sliding across that fine pale skin of her beautiful face. Seeing that smile makes the load I’ve been carrying around the past few days feel a little bit lighter.
“I’m impressed,” she tells me.
“Really? If that’s what it takes to impress you then ‘you’re a smelly pirate hooker.’” A burst of laughter rips out of her. It’s full-throated. And God, yes, I’ll have another. “‘Why don’t you go back to your home on whore island.’ I could do this all day.”
“Please don’t,” she laughs.
I pull the Jeep over in front of her dorm and park. “I’m going to make it my mission to make you laugh more, Bailey.”
Her laughter slowly dies down but her smile remains as she studies my profile. She doesn’t want to like me. I can feel her resisting the pull. What she doesn’t understand is that I’m a natural-born competitor. I live for a challenge and she’s just issued a major one. It only makes me try harder to win her over.
“Don’t fight it. My suggestion is that you let yourself like me. It’ll be easier for you that way.”
Rolling her eyes, she chuckles. “So modest. So humble.” Her dark eyes sharpen and narrow as we exchange a sixty-second stare-off. “So sure of yourself.”
“That I’m a likeable guy? Yeah, I’m sure.”
Shaking her head, she tamps down another grin. “First of all, I find it incredibly creepy that you stalked me all around campus.”
“I prefer to think of it as moxie.”
“Moxie is for mousy twelve-year-old girls yearning to make it on American Idol. What you did was borderline cause for a restraining order.” She studies me. “Why do you want to drive me? Seriously, why insist? You can walk away from all of this. I’m happy to let you.”
Tension rides up my back. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be asking.”
“You can’t get around this campus on crutches.”
“I mean why do you care, Reagan?”
Two things happen at once. Something inside of me wakes up from the dead at the sound of my name being spoken in her voice, and that something travels straight to my dick. I shift, pull the hem of my t-shirt over my shorts.
Then my father’s face crops up. Those two things should never occur at the same time and yet sadly they have.
My smile loses its shine because the prior makes me hard as Valyrian steel, and the latter kills my boner instantly. I don’t think a girl’s voice has ever made me hard before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. The second would kill anyone’s boner. Probably won’t be the last time, either.
No one on this planet knows the real story of the family Reynolds and it’s going to stay that way. Deflection is the name of my game and I mean to play it to the bitter end. I can’t tell her that I’m ashamed of my father. That he’s everything I don’t want to be. So I whittle it down, reduce it to something that will make sense to her.
I send her a casual smile. It’s become second nature and therefore not hard to summon. “I feel responsible. It’s my fault you’re in this mess and I need to fix it.”
The weight of her stare on the side of my face is palpable. I’m seconds from piling on more bullshit to my explanation when she speaks.
“Okay,” she quietly concedes. So quietly I have to look at her face to make sure I heard her right.
“Yeah?”
“You can drive me to my Thursday night study group. It’s off campus, on PCH. That’s more important. But only on the condition that you drive me. I’ll fend for myself on the days you can’t.”
“Deal.” A grin spreads across my face. A real one. “Now email me your schedule.”
Chapter 9
Alice
“Why aren’t you ready?” Zoe asks as soon as she and Blake step into the suite. Zoe places a tray with four iced coffees on a side table and we all reach for one.
Have I mentioned the suite? It’s decked out like a penthouse at the Four Seasons. Or what I imagine a penthouse would look like. 60-inch flat-screen television with cable and Netflix, abstract art prints on the walls, rugs, and a feather-stuffed couch. All courtesy of Zoe’s decorator. Not kidding.
It stinks like school spirit today because both of them are wearing tight-fitting Malibu U Water Polo t-shirts and frayed jean short shorts.
I glance at Dora and find her stuffing a powdered donut hole into her mouth. She shrugs and pauses the show we’ve been watching.
“Ready for what?” I ask.
Perching her pink mirrored sunglasses atop her head, Zoe gives me and Dora the once-over. “The water polo game.” Her tone suggests I’m an idiot, her expression says more of the same. “You said you’d come.”
“I said I’d think about it.”
“We don’t have time to debate details. We’re playing Cal today. It’s gonna be jammed.” Zoe’s scrutiny moves to Dora, giving me a precious moment’s respite. “You too, Red. Let’s go. Chop, chop. Out of the maternity clothes.”
“But…” Nose crinkling, powdered sugar dusting the corners of her lips, Dora looks adorably put out. “We’re watching Gigolos…and the guys forgot Steven’s birthday.” She examines her oversized teal-colored sweatpants and frowns. “And these are really comfortable.”
“Yeeaah,” is Zoe’s answer to that. “Time for an intervention. You’ve been mainlining that show since you discovered it and enough is enough. Go put on some clothes that don’t make you look like a middle-aged third-grade teacher from Poughkeepsie who gets off by creeping on her young, shirtless neighbor from her upstairs bedroom window while he’s washing his car.”
“Wow.” I choke down a burst of laughter. “That’s a mouthful. You put a lot of thought into that one.”
“Sounds like someone is speaking from experience,” Blake snickers.
Dora pops another donut in her mouth, this one glazed. “Have you ever even been to Poughkeepsie?”
Zoe blinks. And blinks. “Do you want to die a virgin, Ramos?”
Dora freezes. She’s the epitome of wide-eyed innocence. “How do you know I’m a virgin?” The note of challenge in her voice makes me smile. She so seldom sounds confident that it’s nice to see her flexing some muscle.
Zoe crosses her slender arms and cocks a hip, her glossy lips lifting in a smug smile, and with each silent moment that passes, Dora’s confidence fizzles.
Swallowing the last mouthful, she puts down the box of donuts and sighs. “G-gimme a few minutes to get changed.”
A few minutes after that I hear Zoe’s voice coming from Dora’s room. “No, you’re not wearing that…because you’re not...because…Blake, explain it to her.”
“Nuh huh, keep me out of this.”
“Because it makes you look like Mr. Rogers. Okay. There, I said it. Now take it off.”
I button my worn Levi’s, grab my Yankees hat, and make my way there. Inside Dora’s room, I find Blake with her lips curled around her teeth, a burst of laughter imminent, while Zoe stares into Dora’s closet like she’s staring into the bowels of hell.
“Khakis. It’s all khakis. Button-downs and khakis,” she mutters.
“I don’t like to think about w-what I’m wearing.” Dora shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, her cheeks flushing pink.
“Clearly.” Zoe looks down at the bottom of the closet. “Are those actual pennies in your penny loafers?”
Dora chews on her lips but the corners of her mouth are already lifting. “Umm, maybe.”
Zoe throws up her hands. “This wardrobe has officially put me in a sad coma.”
Half an hour and three wardrobe changes later, my crutches earn us seats in the first row of the bleachers around the outdoor pool.
The stadium is packed with screaming fans, a highly disproportionate percentage of them female. I’d have to be blindfolded not to notice––and wearing noise-canceling headphones to safeguard my ears from all the trash talk around me.
“I’d do him,” one snickers.
“I’d do all of them at once,” the other serves back.
Next to me, Dora makes a face and squirms. The tight designer magenta top and white shorts she’s wearing are not hers. Quite frankly, watching Zoe harass Dora into borrowing her clothes––in which she looks amazing––was worth the price of having to sit under the blazing sun for an hour.
As soon as we get settled, I go through my routine: adjust my Yankees ball cap low over my eyes, fish the SPF out of my messenger bag that’s tucked against my Leica D-Lux, and slather it over my arms and thighs.
Zoe squeezes her skinny ass in between me and Dora and announces, “One game and you’ll be a fan for life.”
“I’ll keep an open mind,” I reply dryly, but the truth is I’m already having a blast and the game hasn’t even begun yet. I’ve never had a group of girls to hang out with and damn if it isn’t underrated. I haven’t had this much fun in forever.
“I love that you think I’m exaggerating right now,” Zoe continues, bouncing in her seat. Her giddy delight is starting to rub off on me. “Wait till you see all the tan, wet muscles. All the touching and ass grabbing that goes on.”
“What are the r-rules?”
“Similar to basketball.”
When neither Dora nor I respond, Zoe rolls her eyes. “Okay, here are the basics: six on six plus the two goalies. You can move the ball by dribbling it, which in water polo means swimming with it in front, or they can one-hand pass it forward, sideways, and backward. You get thirty seconds to score. You can’t foul by taking someone under, or the ball, but shit happens underwater all the time.”