CHAPTER EIGHT
HEATH
"There's the big man!" Craig hollers as soon as I step foot in Crazy Eights. "What brings you to my fine establishment when the sun is shining?"
"Long day." I heft myself onto a bar stool and spin the cardboard coaster in circles, watching the colors swirl into one. It's a bit like my head at the moment. "Can I get a Jack and Coke? Short."
"Always, my man. Tell Papa Craig why today is so terrible."
"It doesn't matter." I wave him off and focus on the coaster instead of shit meeting I just had with Coach. "Same shit, different day."
"You're a bit too young to be slinging that shit around. Old timers say that." Craig slides me the drink and leans over the counter. "Come on. Papa's here."
"You're a creep." I toast him with my drink and throw it back. The burn hits me hard and fast, which is exactly what I need. "Just tired of it all."
"Poor Heath. Life is so hard for the star football player." A voice mocks me with a sniff. "Whatever shall he do?"
I turn and see Leigh hunched over a tall drink. "Excuse me?"
"Everything handed to you, people adore you everywhere, and yet here sits poor Heath, wallowing away in a glass of Jack Daniels. Saddest story ever."
Craig walks away slowly with his hands up, very clearly staying out of whatever mess she's in. She doesn't look drunk, but she sure doesn't look sober either.
"All right, princess. Tell me why your day is so shitty."
"Don't call me princess."
"Fine. Buttercup."
"I swear to god, I'll break your kneecaps."
"I know you haul around all those heavy trays every day, so I don't doubt you've got some muscle to back that up." I finish off my glass and wave down Craig for another, motioning for it to be a tall. "But I don't think you could actually break my kneecaps."
She eyes me carefully, probably the longest she's ever looked me over in the several weeks we've been dealing with one another. It hits a thrill that is unexpected but welcome. After dragging her eyes off my arms, which I may or may not have flexed just enough, she turns her gaze back to the bar and sips her drink.
"Probably not."
"Come on, teach. What's bothering the woman responsible for keeping my ass on the field?"
"You don't give a shit."
"Probably not. But if your life sucks worse than mine, I'll feel better." When she glares at me, I grin back. Her edges crack, just a little. "Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine."
"I don't give a shit about yours, either."
"I find that very hard to believe. I'm the most fascinating guy on campus."
"Most arrogant, too."
"This has been long established between us."
Leigh sighs heavily, with a dramatic eye roll. I spin her back to face me again. Part of her flares up, indignant, but she doesn't move. This complicatedly independent girl goes through these motions every time we're together, and it's easily my favorite part of talking to her.
She wants me. She just doesn't want to want me. It makes not fucking her just as tasty as it would be to fuck her.
"There's some real assholes on campus." She finally says.
"There's some real assholes everywhere."
"Not to you, they aren't." Leigh says it with some bite. "Mr. Wonderful over here gets whatever he wants."
"Mr. Wonderful over here is battling a slipping GPA because he's dumping his whole goddamn life into a shot for his future. While allegedly fucking over another shot at a future I don’t even want."
She softens. "You aren't dumb, you know. You're a lot smarter than you think you are. Priorities are just a little backwards."
"I'll never be a genius. And my priorities are exactly where they need to be. I can't say the school agrees." I flick away a peanut laying out on the bar, remembering the conversation I'd just had with Coach. My grades were going up with Leigh's help, but my other courses were slipping in response. There wasn't enough goddamn time in the day and no one else seemed to understand my time here is inconsequential. I'm here to play ball. The end.
"At least people don't take one look at you and assume you can't do anything."
"You mean like you do?"
Leigh tries to fight off surprise or frustration or whatever it is she's battling with, but she slumps down just a little. "Whatever. Someone needs to keep your ego in check."
"Luckily for me, I've got the brainiest girl on campus to help."
Our eyes meet and the air snaps. She's brainy, she's funny, she's sassy, and she's fine as hell. She also wants nothing to do with me or my career, actively hates it, even. Which sort of makes her, well, perfect. I tuck a strand of hair behind her hair and let my fingers linger against her cheek for just a moment.
"Fuck the haters, Leigh. You've got the kind of brains people are jealous of and you're sexy as hell to boot. I've got the skill the whole damn school wants and a bigger dick, too. Everyone wants to be us."
Her cheeks flush a little and she clears her throat. "It's weird when you say... nice things."
"I don't believe in lies."
"Then what's your truth?" She swings to face me on her own now, our knees brushing against one another as she moves. I rest a heavy hand on each knee to keep her from leaving.
"That's a loaded question. Very open-ended."
"Okay." She concedes with a small smile, and the urge to kiss her strikes. "In this very moment, right now, what feels the most honest?"
"I don't think you want to know that truth." I warn. Mostly because that truth involves a lot of naked skin, going down a path I'd staunchly avoided. "What's your truth?"
"Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine." She says slyly and sips her drink. Watching the straw perch between her lips is incredibly distracting.
"I've already spewed enough truth for an afternoon."
"Which was?"
"You're as smart as you are sexy, Leigh." My fingers itch to pull her hair back, take her for my own. Have control over one goddamn piece of my destiny for longer than three seconds. "That's my truth right now. What's yours?"
The question catches her off-guard, like she didn't expect me to play along. Emotions flick across her face like flipping pages in a magazine and I half expect her to get up and run. I don't know much about the girl who grudgingly helps me with math in the library, but I do know she doesn't like to feel exposed anywhere near me.
I'm expecting some sass, a retort about my mediocre abilities in everything, but she pushes herself up against my legs and leans in like she's going to kiss me. The whole world slows down as her lips brush mine, not enough for a kiss, all her nerve stalled out inches away from the end zone.
"What are you doing?" I ask quietly, holding her waist and immediately rocketing back into the world of nude fantasies.
"I don't know." She admits, just as quiet. "I hadn't really thought things through this far."
"All I had to do was say you were sexy and I've got you in my lap?" I tease as I work my fingers through her beltloops, securing her to me. Now that I've got her this close, I physically cannot let her go. The small part of my brain that always reminds me girls are a waste of time shuts down after one glance down her shirt at the soft swells waiting.
"Sometimes it's nice to forget."
"I don't think you want what you're asking."
"I think you're afraid."
I pull her firmly into my lap by the waist. Leigh falls onto me and into a kiss that skips anything sweet and dives straight into poison. Her tongue grazes my lower lip and I've sold any last resolve I carried.
I'm going to fuck this girl. I'm going to fuck her so hard I can't remember anything but her name.