CHAPTER FOUR
INDY
The pep rally makes it immediately clear how far I am from NYU. Out here in the country a bonfire rages into the night, embers spiraling up into the sky like rogue fireflies. I can feel the heat of the fire on my face, the glow of it illuminating the entire, boisterous spectacle before me. And it is a spectacle. While NYU had a cheer team and drumline, you couldn’t exactly light a fire like this in Central Park.
I scratch my back, taking a step back, away from the flames.
Keep it together, Indy. This is not the place to lose it.
“What do you think?” asks Lucy. She lights a cigarette beside me, blowing smoke out into the heated air.
I cross my arms, watching on. “It’s… loud.”
She laughs, smoke puffing from her lips. “And it’s only going to get louder as the night draws on.”
We’re suddenly swamped by a group of boys wearing horse head masks. “Trojans!” they scream, stomping off to the fire.
The fire.
I take a step backwards, and another, Lucy watching quizzically. “You alright?”
“Fine,” I nod, but it’s starting to come back.
I don’t want it to.
The drumline marches in front of the fire, silhouetted like devils. I tense. It wasn’t so long ago they were lynching people out this way. College football? It’s a religion out here complete with disciples and grand concrete churches, big corporate money and millions—a religion of which I am not a believer.
I bet Cayden Beckett could make you believe…
I’m busy silencing the voice in my head when I see him, ol’ Blue Eyes Big Arms himself.
He’s staring right at me.
Lucy flicks her cigarette in his direction. “Here’s the man of the hour now.”
Cayden Beckett saunters over with two others in tow, all of them in Trojan’s jerseys, the firelight licking the sides of their faces. People jump out at them, shake Cayden’s hand or clap him on the back. There is no question. This is his territory.
He stops before me. “Indiana,” he says, eyes dropping, voice honey sweet. “Thanks for coming”.
I’m less concerned about how he worked out my name and more worried about why the way he said ‘coming’ is making my stomach tumble over itself and my cheeks burn.
Thank god for bonfires.
“Lucy dragged me along,” I reply.
Lucy nods to him and the two others in turn. “Becketts.”
I look between them. “You’re brothers?”
The one that looks the youngest, with moppy hair and baby-face features, steps forward. “I’m Colton. You must be Cayden’s mystery woman.”
I reach forward to shake his hand, but he flips it and takes my own, leaning down to plant a kiss on the top of it. He smiles as he lifts. They’re all smiling, like some kind of Calvin Klein billboard come to life.
The one on the outside steps forward, pushing Colton away. “I’m Hunter, the brains of the operation.”
Hunter’s stockier than the other two. I don’t see quite the same cheekiness in his eyes as I do the other two.
He steps back, leaving only Cayden.
“And you’re Cayden,” I say, feeling naked again under his gaze, “Cayden Beckett.”
“You’re not wearing my jersey,” he notes.
“I didn’t want to get it dirty,” I retort, my quippage game suddenly on point.
He winks. “Let me know when you do.”
I roll my eyes. Enough of this asshat. “Are you serious? You can’t tell me this crap actually works on real women, with, you know, actual breasts and curves.”
Colton bends over in laughter, hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I like this one, Cay. She’s feisty.”
Cayden simply nods. “To answer your question, Indiana…”
“Indy will suffice,” I cut in.
“To answer your question, Indy, yes, it does. Ain’t that right, boys?”
Hunter nods in agreement. “You’d have to look long and hard to find a female on campus that hasn’t been privy to The Damage’s special form of training.”
“Christ almighty,” adds Lucy, stomping out her cigarette with the heel of her boot.
Now I’m laughing, addressing Cayden. “You can’t tell me people actually call you that, like you’re ‘The Rock’ or something.”
He takes a step forward. I hold my ground. “They do. I’m a god around here, the quarterback of the mighty Abbotsleigh Trojans, beloved by all.”
“Trojans!” someone shouts, hearing their cue.
“League champions, ass-kickers, and general legends of the game,” he finishes.
I note the way he says ‘the game’ as though he’s remarking on a great art form. I hardly think a bunch of muscly guys throwing a rubber sack around qualifies as great anything.
“So, yes,” he says. “People call me The Damage, but you…” He takes another step closer, close enough for me to smell the clean-cut draw of him. “You can call me whatever you want.”
I’m over this. “Okay, asshole,” I spit out, choosing my title, “One, I am not your property. Two, scoring with every girl on campus does not make you any more appealing to me, and three—” But I’m out of ideas. “Football’s stupid.”
‘Football’s stupid’? That’s the best you can come up with?
I stomp my foot a little to send it home, Lucy snorting beside me, speaking to Colton. “I’m with you. I like her.”
Cayden simply nods with the knowing smile that he’s making me wet simply by standing here, that his sheer presence alone will bring on an orgasm via osmosis.
Think again, buster.
“One date,” he says. “To change your mind.”
I haven’t been on a date in years, not that I’m about to let on. The drums beat and boom in the background.
“Why in hell would I agree to that?”
He points to me. “Because I’m going to let you choose where we go and what we do.”
Clever. He thinks that by giving me control I’m somehow going to agree to this madness.
You could? Would it be so bad? You’ve been through so much shit. It might even be fun.
Ha.
I picture a little comedian in my head, microphone stand in hand.
But this could be fun, my small revenge for the Post-It incident. “My choice? Anything? Anywhere?”
I’ve reeled him right in with that one. His eyes narrow with sexual possibility. I can see him conjuring up the many ways he’s going to take me already. He’s fucking me without even getting his clothes off.
“Whatever you like,” he replies, eyes shifting. “I’ll do anything once.”
We’ll see about that.
I look around. There are stalls set up to the left of the bonfire, various student societies looking for fresh members at this, the most hallow of social college occasions.
The cheerleaders chant in the distance, the drums boom, boom, boom-ing.
“Okay,” I agree, noting the surprise on not only Lucy’s face, but Cayden’s brothers’. They didn’t think it was going to be this easy.
News flash. It’s not.
Cayden claps his hands together, that perfect jawline firm. “So, where are we off to?”
I smile. “SDS.”
“SDS?” he repeats, looking to his brothers, both of whom seem as clueless as he is. “What the hell is SDS?”
“The Suck Dick School?” suggests Colton.
But Lucy knows. She giggles beside me, lighting another cigarette. She points it at Cayden. “Oh, you’re going to have fun.”
*
We left not long after the World’s Most Awkward Exchange. I saw Lucy off on my way to the dorms, coming in to the room to find Naomi still up, flicking through her cell on bed.
“You went to the pep rally?”
I sit on my bed and start to untie my shoes. “Yes, Mom.”
She rolls her eyes. “Sorry, it must be the maternal instinct in me coming out.”
“No, you’re right, and yes, I was at the rally with Lucy, the bartender from The Lab.”
Naomi nods. “The one with the bird tattoo?”
“That’s the one.”
“Do you have any…?”
“Tattoos?” I laugh. I shake my head. “I do not. Why, do you?”
Naomi lifts her shirt to reveal a small baby dinosaur to the right of her belly button.
I pull off the last shoe and sit cross-legged on my bed. “Oh. I didn’t mean any offense. It’s cute.”
Naomi laughs. “Cute? It looks like shit. I can admit that. Something about young and foolish something, something.”
“Hey, at least you’re not like that girl in Blindspot, covered head to foot.”
Naomi smiles. “You’re right. There are far worse tattoos.” She pauses for effect. “But not many.”
We both laugh at that.
Naomi places her cell down, tucking her legs under herself. “You don’t like tattoos?”
I instantly think about Cayden, and start picturing his hard chest and abs again, the small fire between my legs suddenly a blazing inferno. “I suppose some guys can pull it off. I mean, they probably won’t look so great in fifty years, but I think by then a droopy tattoo is the least of your worries.”
“You’ve got your eye on someone, an inked-up mystery man?”
I don’t know how the hell she picked up on that. Am I that obvious? Still, I feel like I can trust her. Maybe it’s the maternal thing again, that I’m projecting my missing mommy issues onto her.
Cue the violins, Indy.
“There’s this football jock who I can’t seem to shake.”
Naomi takes it in, drinks me in with her coffee-bean eyes. “Another one, hey? We can talk about it if you like? I heard you had a run-in with a guy in the bar the other night.”
“Wow, word really gets around.”
Naomi taps her nose. “I’m good at sniffing these things out.”
“How’s that?”
“Four brothers,” she replies. “Keeps you alert.”
“I bet.”
“So, is it the same jock?” she pushes.
I shake my head. “No. In fact, this jock saved me from the other jock at The Lab, not that I was in any immediate trouble.”
Pfft. Yeah, right.
“Because you can handle yourself.”
“Right. But he did help out, I suppose.”
“And now you want to have his babies?”
They’d be cute-ass babies… “Hell. To. The. N-O. I can spot a player a mile away, and this guy’s a master at the game, a real slam-bam-thank you-ma’am type, drop you to the curb kind of insta-lover. I do not need that right now. I have way too much going on for that drama.”
“Like what?”
It’s an honest question, but it comes across as a little forceful, a test.
“Study, my job, sleep somewhere in there, a future?”
“You’re smart,” says Naomi. She nods up to my Pop! Vinyl figure of Gandalf. “He says it all, tells me you’re not in this for this usual college experience of ‘drink ’til drunk, take a wide-spectrum antibiotic in the morning’ fucking around. Anyone who’s a Lord of the Rings fan knows what’s what. Am I right?”
I have to agree. “You’re right.”
“Take it from me,” she says, leaning forward on one knee. “You’re better off staying as far away from those jock types as possible. They only want one thing.”
She’s right again. Ding ding. Spot on.
So why can’t I stop thinking about Cayden ‘biggest jock of them all’ Beckett?