Yesterday
“And that was it? You just left?”
The equipment bag’s zipper catches on the thick material before I zip it up, answering Donovan’s question with a shrug. “I’m done begging, mate.”
“Yeah, sure you are.” That wanker’s smirk is insulting, but I let the gibe go, wait for him to pick up the other handle on the bag before we head back to locker room. When he speaks again, Donovan is grunting from the weight of the bag. Pouncy bollocks. “I’m just…saying…I know you.” We reach the front entrance of the Athletic Building and then head straight into the equipment locker before my best mate finishes. “No way are you giving up.”
The door to the equipment closet thuds hard when I slam it. “No shite, arsehole, but I’m not going to continue to make myself look like a wanker just because she’s hacked off at me.”
Donovan’s hands go up, mildly conceding, before he trails after me into the locker room. “Isn’t that the point, man? You showing Autumn you didn’t walk away from her? Actions, not words?”
“Yeah, but—” His soaked shirt lands straight in my face, and I instantly recoil at the smell of grass and sweat. I throw it back at him, grabbing a clean towel from my locker and Donovan is next to me, his head shaking. “What?”
“I’ve known Autumn my whole life. We weren’t exactly close, didn’t run in the same crowds and she is a couple of years older than me, but you don’t grow up in a place like this and not know things about the girls here.”
“And?”
Donovan stretches, runs his hand across his damp hair, but doesn’t answer me immediately, only gives me a sigh before he relaxes on the bench in front of the lockers. My best mate nods toward the bench and I join him. “When I was seven, my dad threw me this huge birthday party; fun house and balloons, clowns, magicians, even this big son of a bitch dressed as G.I. Joe.” He looks down at his feet, to his bag before he continues. “Now, I didn’t give a shit about the clowns or the magicians, but the girls there did, Autumn among them. A bunch of them in their stupid little bows and pink ribbons sat down in front of the magician, all wide eyed like pulling scarves knotted together out of his mouth was this huge, incredible thing. They were all oohing and ahhing and highly impressed.”
I smile to myself, having a good sense of where Donovan was going. “Not Autumn, though, yeah?”
“Exactly. Not Autumn.”
When something yelps through the room I stand up, thinking one of the freshman had stayed after practice for a long shower, maybe fallen. But I don’t see steam coming from the bathroom and otherwise don’t hear the sound again.
“Probably nothing,” I say to Donovan who again looks at his bag when I sit back down.
“Anyway,” he says, “my dad told me later, Autumn sat there watching this idiot flick his ‘magic wand’ around his hat, pull out a rabbit; watched him pour milk into a rolled up newspaper with her eyes were all narrowed and skeptical.” Donovan throws the towel in his hand across the room to the hamper and my smile only grows.
I could almost see Autumn at seven, ginger hair pulled up into piggy tails and that full little mouth pouting out in disapproval. “What did she do?”
Donovan laughs, shoulders moving at the memory. “Dad said she badgered that magician for two hours straight asking him question after question, trying to guess how he managed this trick and that one. The pour guy ended up telling my dad to keep his money. He just skipped out to get away from her. And all she would say to him when he finally began to let some of his secrets spill was ‘prove it. Show me.’” My best mate lowers to his bag, unzips it and I think I hear him whisper, say something to himself, but his back is too wide, his movements quick.
“So what are you saying?”
He only moves enough to look over his shoulder at me. “Just that Autumn is a stubborn woman. Always has been. You can’t just tell her you’re sorry. You can’t just make her think you mean whatever you say to her. She wants you to prove it. Show her.”
“But how the hell am I supposed to—” my whiney little question is cut short when I hear a distinctive, loud bark coming just from Donovan’s ankles. “What’s that?”
His shoulders lowering, he pulls his bag open and lets a tiny little lapdog run around the locker room floor. It is white with great, thick curls covering its entire body. There is a pink bow between its tiny ears and a rhinestone collar that spells out H-O-N-E-Y. I know this dog. Shite. Donovan has really stepped in it now.
“Mate, you didn’t.”
“What? It’s just a prank. It’ll be funny.”
“She’s going to kill you.” I laugh when Donovan’s eyes go wide as though he’s only just thought of how stupid it was to knick Layla’s baby.
The little white rat runs around the tile floor stopping only for a few seconds to mark her territory and then back again to squat into Donovan’s shoes. “Hey!” he cries as Ms. Honey darts away from him.
“That’s the least of your worries, mate. Layla will skin you alive.”
Finally, Donovan catches the yapping beast and tucks her under his arms. “She’ll laugh. It’ll be fine.” He scratches the dog under its chin and the back leg starts shaking.
“If you say so.”
“Whatever. Besides we were talking about you and Autumn. Worry about that. Ow.” Donovan drops Honey to the floor when she nips at his finger. He doesn’t bother to chase her, lets her sniff and move under the bench and into open bottom lockers. “So? What are you going to do?”
It was a good question. Something I’ve wracked my brain over for days now. She wanted action and not the kind that had us sweaty and naked. Unfortunately. But I knew my angel. Knew that she didn’t expect me to wine and dine her. That isn’t who she is. Donovan’s face is worried, frown deep as he watches me.
“I’ve got no bleeding clue.”
“You better start thinking. Make it something that focuses on her. Girls love that shit. But it’s got to be something that proves that the only thing you care about is her forgiveness.” My best mate picks up his shoe and turns it upside down over the trash bin. “Autumn’s not the type to wait for things to happen. And trust me, you don’t want to have to live down the fact that she made up first. Girls are funny about that kind of shit and they have long fucking memories.”
“Says the man who kidnapped Layla’s dog.”