~ Fifteen ~
“Some things never change.”
Drew spun on his barstool, taking it all in, shaking his head and smiling. Colt looked around the pub as well, just as they took a spot at the bar, noticing all the things he generally took for granted. It was true. Mulvaney’s was mostly unchanged since their college days, and there was something reassuring about that.
There were still signed pictures on the wall of famous Hoyas, like Patrick Ewing, and Allen ‘The Answer’ Iverson, Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning. Colt still held out hope that one day, he would be right up there with them. Some players only ripened and reached their peak around their third season. He was on his fourth, so it felt like he was overdue.
“Good to be back home, though.” Drew turned to face the bar again and lifted a hand to summon the bartender.
“How long you here for?” Colt asked.
Drew shot him a grin. “That’s the thing, man. Maybe longer than I thought.”
“Yeah. How so?”
“Talking to the Wizards. So, you know … maybe I’ll be back stateside sooner rather than later.”
Before Colt could respond, the bartender approached and took their orders.
In Mulvaney’s, the staff didn’t generally give special recognition to anyone famous, or semi-famous. Congressmen and -women, athletes, actors and other public figures came in fairly regularly because of the pub’s proximity to Capitol Hill, and as far as the staff was concerned, no matter how famous the face, they were just another customer. Other than an occasional discreet offer from the manager to send over some free food, or a complimentary round of drinks, it was a good place to just be a regular person.
Drew ordered a vodka tonic and Colt said he would have the same, then they both looked up at the television above. ESPN was on.
“I thought you liked it over there,” Colt said. “I heard Spain was treating you well.”
“Who you hear that from?” Drew laughed. “My moms?”
Colt shrugged.
“You know how that is, bruh. When you far away from home, you lie. Especially to your mother. No sense making ‘em lose any sleep.”
“So, you don’t like it over there?”
“It’s a’ight. But who doesn’t want to play in their home-country? Their hometown if they can pull it off. And you know …” Drew turned to look at him, head on and eye to eye. “There’s other reasons too, that a man might want to come home.”
“Yeah?” Colt grabbed one of the small plastic straws from the nearby holder and twirled it between his fingers. “Like what?”
“We ain’t kids no more,” Drew said, looking him in the eye. “C’mon, you know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.”
“No, I don’t. Maybe you better speak your piece, bruh.”
“You been keeping Sam close for years. Like you own her. And I know you want to be protective of her or whatever, but …”
“It’s more than that.” Colt shook his head. “Much more. But since you been away a long time, and you obviously ain’t heard it from her, you gon’ hear it from me. Sam and me … we’re together now.”
“Oh, I know,” Drew said.
The bartender returned with their drinks, setting them down atop white square napkins and moving on. Colt took a long swallow of his.
“You know, huh? So, then that was just some disrespectful shit, you showin’ up at her house when I’m not there. Especially since it sounds like what you tryna say is that part of the reason you’re comin’ back is to try to get with Sam.”
“Lemme put it this way,” Drew said. “Before tonight, I suspected about you and her. Tonight, I knew. Even before you dropped that ‘baby’ in there to put me on notice. The way she acts around you is different, bruh. Always has been. Like she can’t be herself, or something. She’s too busy trying to be who you want her to be.”
“The fuck? Like you know her or somethin’? When did you even meet Sam, Drew?”
“Man, that ain’t got shit to do with …”
“When?”
“When we were like ten, eleven …” Drew shrugged, looking unfazed. “Somewhere ‘round there. What’s that prove?”
“I been knowin’ her since before we knew how to spell our own damn names. I know her inside and out,” Colt said leaning in close, gritting his teeth to prevent himself from raising his voice. “If she’s herself with anyone, it’s with me.”
Drew laughed and took a gulp of his drink. “You think so?” He shook his head.
“I know so.”
“So, then you know about when I went to Spain. The year I signed with Real Madrid.”
Colt shook his head, impatient with Drew’s leisurely, unbothered tone. “What about it?”
“If you know her so well, seems like something she would have told you,” Drew continued at the same unhurried pace. “That we got together back then, Sam and me. That we stayed together. For almost two years. And that I asked her to marry me.”
After prom, about a dozen of their friends headed upstairs to a suite that they’d all chipped in to pay for, for the evening. There was alcohol that they’d smuggled in—sweet stuff for the girls, and hard stuff for the guys, who wanted to feel and look hard—and about ten pizzas. And of course, there was music, turned up loud enough for them to party, but not so loud that other guests would complain. Because they were all, at the end of the day, ‘good’ kids, who didn’t want to cause any trouble.
Colt still had Kimi on his arm; and in the breast-pocket of his tux, he had a keycard for the room that he’d rented with his own money, because at least when the night started, he was sure he would need it. But as the party in the suite got underway, Sam and Drew sat together, talking. Just talking. Around them, everyone else was drinking and ready to get crunk, but they seemed content to just sit and talk.
Colt had never seen Drew like that with a girl before. He was a player, he clowned around with girls, and teased them. He told them with his actions, even if not with his words, that he didn’t take them too seriously. But with Sam, he looked serious. He was leaning in when he spoke to her; and listening intently when she spoke.
And suddenly, Colt’s plans to spend the night with Kimi Alvarado and strip her of the red sequin gown seemed seedy and second-rate.
Everyone was drinking, eating pizza, and hamming it up to the loud hip-hop tracks someone had the foresight to bring on a mixtape to play through the suite’s speakers. The window shades and curtains were pulled wide open, and in the distance, there was a postcard view of Washington DC at night—the monument, the Capitol, and the lights from the most powerful city in the world. It was a view that was destined to stay with a person and come back to them many years later when they reminisced about the night of their senior prom.
Oblivious to the noise and mayhem surrounding them, Drew and Sam had gone to look out the window and take in that view. Leaning against the backrest of the suite’s sofa, as the party around them raged on, they were having what looked like the conversation of a lifetime.
Colt started drinking.
And he didn’t remember much after that.
But he remembered the next morning well enough, waking up in the room he’d rented, fully-clothed and lying across the bed. Next to him, Sam was curled on her side, shoeless and wearing her diaphanous green gown. When Colt sat up, she opened her eyes.
‘What happened?’ he croaked. His head was pounding, and it hurt him to look at the sunlight coming through the windows.
Sam said nothing at first. She averted her eyes from him and sat up as well, sighing a long, deep sigh. Twice she tried to speak, and twice she couldn’t seem to decide what to say. Finally, she managed something.
‘We should probably go home.’
Only later did Colt learn that sometime after one in morning, while Drew and Sam were still sitting on that couch, still talking, not bothering anyone—and certainly not bothering him—Colt had gone charging across the room, tackling Drew to the ground and attempting, unsuccessfully, to beat the crap out of him. After some of the other guys pulled them apart, preventing the party from turning into a complete melee, Drew had taken responsibility for getting Kimi home.
And Sam insisted on staying with her best friend, to make sure he safely slept off all the alcohol.
Sam opened her eyes to the simultaneous sound of her phone ringing, and the commotion of someone pounding on her front door. Heart racing, she sat up, not knowing which to take care of first. Grabbing the phone off the charger, she stumbled out of bed, almost tripping as she hurried for the stairs. She answered the phone, just before looking out the peephole and then opening the door.
Colt was on the other end of the line, and on the other side of the door. His eyes were bleary, he was unsteady on his feet and so obviously intoxicated that Sam instinctively glanced behind him to see whether he had driven himself.
He had. His SUV was parked haphazardly in her driveway. The lights were still on, the engine still running.
“You drove? Like this? Are you out of your mind? And why were you making all that noise at my front door? You have a key.”
“Is it true?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“Colt, you shouldn’t have …”
“Is it true?”
“Colt …”
“Is it true?!”
Sam swallowed hard and looked down. She shoved her way past him and—barefoot and wearing just her nightshirt—went down to the driveway to turn off the lights, shut off the engine and take the keys out of the ignition.
Colt was waiting in the living room. Sitting on her sofa with his legs spread wide apart, he was leaning forward and looking down at the rug.
“Why do you even have an alarm system?” he asked, looking up at her. He ran his hands over his head. “That’s why I didn’t use the damn key. Because I thought you had the alarm system on.”
“What? What are you …?”
“You opened the door just now,” he enunciated. “And the fuckin’ alarm system wasn’t even on. So if someone broke in …”
Sam exhaled and rubbed her eyes. “Why are we even talking about that right now? What time is it? And why were you driving? You could have killed yourself. You could have killed someone else.”
“Three guesses what motherfuckin’ Drew told me tonight.”
“Colt.” She shook her head. "Stop cursing at me."
“Three guesses,” he said, ignoring her admonition. His lips curled in an angry smirk.
She didn’t have to guess. She knew. She had known from the moment the two men walked out of her townhouse together that Drew was probably going to spill it. Part of her wanted him to, because it was long overdue that Colt knew, and she wasn’t sure she would ever have the bravery to be the one to tell him. And part of her was relieved when it got late and the anticipated call from Colt hadn’t come. She had gone to bed thinking that Drew may not have told Colt after all.
“You were going to marry him, Sam? Marry him. And I didn’t even know you were kickin’ it …”
She shook her head. “I was never going to marry him. Not really.”
“Not really? What the hell does that mean? He asked you, right?”
“He asked me,” she confirmed.
Colt bit down into his lower lip and looked up at her, his face pulling in on itself in a deep grimace.
“He wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. As his wife.”
“Is that so hard to believe?” she snapped.
“What’s hard to believe is that you were with him for almost two fuckin’ years. That I was your best friend and you never once mentioned his name to me. Never once even …”
“Do you even remember what you were like back then, Colt?” Sam spat. “Do you?”
“Nah. Tell me,” he said, his voice bitter. “What was I like back then? What about me made it possible for you to lie like you did?”
“I never lied!”
“Okay. Yeah. If you want to play that game.” Colt shook his head. “When you talked about some nigga you were wit’ back then, it just never occurred to you that I might want to know that it was Drew.”
“You were totally occupied with you own life. I never thought …”
“That’s bullshit! You deliberately hid that shit. Don’t even …” He broke off and shook his head again, this time looking pained.
Sam stood there. She felt awkward and misplaced in her own living room, not knowing what to do with her hands, or her legs. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, then finally went to sit across from him.
“What do you want to know?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Everything.”
Sam shook her head. “You don’t have a right to that, Colton. To know everything.”
“Were you fuckin’ him?”
Sam sat back and folded her arms, shaking her head. “Does everything have to be reduced to that?”
“Okay, so that's a yes,” Colt said. He made a scoffing sound. “Of course you were, because Drew wouldn’t even think to wife some chick he hadn’t tried first. And he definitely wouldn’t have hung around for more than two weeks, let alone ...”
Sam sprang out of her seat, feeling her face grow hot. “Get out of my house.”
“Sam …”
“Get out, Colton!” She turned away, then thinking better of it, grabbed his car keys off the side table where she’d rested them. “But find some other way besides driving, because you’re just selfish enough to get behind the wheel without thinking of who you might be endangering out there.”
Upstairs, she shut and locked her bedroom door, tossing Colt’s car keys on the bedside table, then spending the better part of the next fifteen minutes lying completely still in the center of her bed, and listening for the front door. But she didn’t hear anything, and after a while decided that it was more likely that Colt had decided to crash on the sofa and sleep it off.
Colton wasn’t wrong to ask her about Drew. But he wasn’t right, either. She wasn’t wrong to have kept her relationship with Drew private. But she wasn’t right, either. That ambiguity was exactly the problem, and had always been, when it came to their friendship. They were neither this nor that; neither here nor there.
They had never been ‘just friends’ but until recently, they hadn’t been more than that either. And even now, what they were remained undefined, because it was a secret from some of the most important people in their lives.
With Drew, there had never been any ambiguity. From the moment they met, when they were eleven, Sam had caught him looking at her, differently than Colt looked at her. While Colt sometimes overlooked her, or at least seemed to overlook the fact that she was a girl, Drew never had. But the connection between her and Drew, and any time they spent together was facilitated mostly by their mutual connection to Colt. They never called each other on the phone or hung out separately. Colton was the glue.
Until senior year. That was when they were both in AP English and had sometimes walked to class together. That five-minute walk before class, and the times they lingered afterwards, were the only times they were together without Colton. They talked about books they were reading; or at least, the books they were supposed to be reading. Sam devoured them, no matter what they were, but Drew sometimes found them boring, and hard to relate to.
‘Like, ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’,’ he’d complained to Sam one day. ‘Didn’t you think there’d be more, you know, of them doing the nasty?’
‘What are you talking about?’ Sam had laughed. ‘Almost one-third of the book is them doing it!’
‘Then I must’ve missed it,’ Drew said.
That day at lunch, when all their friends were busy playing around, goofing off and gossiping, they sat, heads close together, while Sam explained ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’.
‘She’s been raised to be led by the mind, and by duty,’ Sam told him. ‘She’s married to a man who is the same way, and to make it worse, they aren’t able to have a physical relationship. But through her lover she learns that she has other needs: emotional, sexual … They have plenty of sex, but when you read about it? Even in the places where they’re having sex, she’s in her head. Like here … and here …’
As she flipped the pages and pointed out places in the text where the sex act was described with a subtlety that would escape many a modern eye, Drew had smiled. He teased her because she had them all highlighted.
‘Even physical sensations, she often experiences as thought, and not as feeling,’ Sam continued. ‘Until her lover begins to change that. See?’
Lifting his head, Drew stared at her, his eyes meeting hers. He nodded.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I see.’
Something about the way Drew looked at her in that moment made her lift a hand needlessly, brushing a phantom strand of hair from her forehead.
Two weeks later, he asked her to prom.
Prom night felt like the start of something. Even though they were weeks away from leaving, and going to different colleges, and his was far away, it felt like … something.
And then Colt had done what he did, bringing a premature end to the evening. What felt like a beginning had ended decisively that night. Drew called her, asked her out, and told her he was sorry prom had been ruined. But Sam had been cool. Friendly, but a little resistant. She stalled on the question of a date until it was too late, and they were all focused on leaving for college. And Drew left her alone.
She felt too guilty to tell him what was really going on. While Colt’s behavior at prom had angered her, it had also reignited in Sam the long-dormant, and secret hope that maybe, just maybe, he felt something more than friendship for her after all.
On the last day of class, Drew left something in her locker. It was a copy of his AP English thesis. He had gotten an ‘A’ and next to the grade was a series of enthusiastic comments from their AP English teacher.
The subject of Drew’s thesis was D.H. Lawrence’s classic novel, ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’.