CHAPTER TEN
PAYTON
I had a good time Friday night regardless of the clusterfuck it became. It didn’t lead to anything, probably a first, but it was enjoyable all the same.
We hung out a bit more over the weekend, mostly with the others, but it’s Monday and time for yet another instalment of Bust Your Balls staring Captain J. Jennings.
Whatever did transpire last night, it’s worn Lacey out. She stands beside me yawning and covering her mouth.
The Captain’s halfway through a spiel on the finer points of fire-hose evolution when the phone on the wall rings.
The Captain puts his finger up. “Uno momento, folks.”
He picks up the receiver, his eyes turning from the wall to me.
Fuck. What now?
He places the receiver down. “Cox, you’re wanted in the Dean’s office.”
The Dean? I didn’t even know this place had one.
I stand and pass Hernandez, his lips parted in a ‘Boy, you gone done it now’ kind of way.
Lacey simply yawn-slash-smiles.
The receptionist ushers me straight in.
I’ve been in deans’ offices before, but nothing like this. Every square inch of the office walls has a framed picture on it—kids, men, women, even animals.
The Dean, in a white business shirt, stands there looking them over.
He turns when he hears me enter. “Mr. Cox, I presume.”
I stand at attention in front of his desk. I’m wracking my brain trying to work out what the hell I’ve done wrong.
He continues to stand, his arms crossed. He gestures to the wall beside him. “Do you know who the people in these pictures are, son?”
“No, sir.”
He points to one featuring a teenage girl with braces. “Emily Munroe, eighteen, rescued from the family home after a space heater caught fire.” He points to another. “Robert Fulton, or ‘Bobby’ to his friends, sixty-seven, dragged to safety from a burning car wreck.” He runs his hand across the wall. “All of these lives were saved by former students of this very academy, and I’m damn proud of that fact.”
I’m not sure of the angle here. “It seems like a fine tradition, sir.”
He sits and shifts in his chair, sliding across a sheet of paper. “I’ve got your preliminary scores here, Mr. Cox.” He looks down the list. “Physical aptitude—exceptional. Situational awareness—exceptional. But when I come to the end here at to written scores, things take a very different direction.”
Damn. “I’ll try harder, sir.”
The Dean leans back. “I understand you were on a football scholarship at Brown.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The Bears,” he smiles. “I heard you were a superstar, fast-tracking to the NFL, yes?”
I nod in the affirmative.
“What happened?”
He’s getting to the pointy end of it now. “I felt it was time to move on, sir.”
He slides another sheet of paper across the desk. “Your initial induction report. It says here you were found guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs, and given Brown’s no-tolerance policy on…”
“It was a misunderstanding,” I cut in.
The Dean shakes his head. “No, son. I don’t believe it was. You didn’t make mention of it on your induction paperwork, but we knew. We knew and let you in anyway. Do you want to know why?”
It’s a rhetorical question.
“It’s because I understand the need for second chances, Mr. Cox. Believe you me, I was a wild child once upon a time. I banged this gorgeous brunette right on the Dean’s desk,” he continues, knocking his own twice. “Can you believe that? Boy was she a moaner. Of course, the college kicked me right out on my ass after that, but I found redemption in the family that is the US Firefighters Association. It’s a brotherhood, but mark my words when I say we don’t let anyone put on the black-and-gold. You have to earn it. Am I making sense here, son?”
I’m surprised at how informal he is. “Yes, sir.”
He picks up the original paper. “Long story short, pick up your grades. You can be the next American Ninja out there in the gym, but if you don’t have the mental aptitude to back it up, you’re about as useful to us a chocolate teapot.”
“Yes, sir,” I repeat. “I’ll try harder, sir.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
Lacey’s waiting for me outside during the morning break. “Well, what was that all about?”
I take her arm and pull us into a corner away from the main thoroughfare. I could lie here, make up some extravagant excuse, but Lacey deserves the truth. I can’t look into those eyes and be deceitful. “I’m slipping.”
She looks confused. “I don’t understand. You’re killing it out there.”
“Not when it comes to the written work. I just can’t get my head around it.”
“But you went to an Ivy League college.”
“On a sports scholarship,” I finish.
She takes a moment to think it over. “So, I’ll help you.”
I laugh. “You will help me?”
“Sure,” she replies, but I’m naturally wary, letting my head drop towards my shoulder. “What’s in it for you, partner?”
“What? I can’t just help someone out, goodness of my heart, etcetera?”
“In my experience, nothing comes for free.”
“You’re helping me over the claustrophobia thing, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“So, let me even the score by helping you out with the written work. You’re not going to pass if you don’t get it down, and I am not going to pass if I don’t get over you-know-what.” She extends her hand. “Like you just said, we’re partners.”
But I want to be so much more than that, and this would mean more time alone with her, late-night study sessions… The possibilities stream wildly into my head. I shake on it. “You’ve got a deal, Miracle.”
She rolls her eyes. “Not you too. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”
I know something that would. “Hey, that was a miracle in my books. You’re lucky they don’t call you Jesus.”
She laughs. “If I could turn water into wine, you think I’d be here? Come on. We’ve got some serious book-bashing to do.”
*
Studying with Lacey hardly feels like studying at all. We sit side by side in the campus library. We’re sitting so close, in fact, I can feel the warmth radiating from her body, smell the sweet perfume of it. I can make out the distinct bands of color in her hair, admire the fullness of her lips… I steal these sideways glances like a schoolboy hot on teacher, but I’m not the only one. More than once I catch her eyes peeling away from the coursework to study my arms or chest.
I have no doubt there is something between us now, but I can’t handle this like I regularly would, playing up the alpha. No, Lacey requires thought, a higher understanding.
The words start to blur together as I read down a list of apparatus, the soft-breasted distraction beside me not helping.
Lacey’s finger slides up the page. “These ones are just repeats of the ones below, so it’s simple, really.”
“Simple for you, perhaps,” I reply.
She pokes me in side of my head. “Come on. It’s not all beer and brawn up there, is it?”
“You’d be surprised.”
She leans over to close the textbook, the side of her cleavage inadvertently brushing up against my arm. It’s the slightest of touches, but we both feel it like an electric shot—a shot that fires directly down to my crotch, my cock stiffening against the underside of the table.
She clears her throat, looking away from me nervously. “Why don’t we call it a night?”
“Well, well, my two favorite people.”
We both turn to find Hernandez standing there. “You guys coming to Dante’s?” he asks.
I’m about to turn him down, but it’s Lacey who speaks up first. “As long as vodka shots aren’t part of the equation, we’re in.”
Hernandez knocks on the table. “Whatever you say, Miracle. See you guys over there?”
“You will,” Lacey.
“You’re speaking for the both of us now, are you?” I ask her.
She smiles back, collecting the books. “I suppose I am.”
We grab our jackets and head over after dinner. I want to take Lacey’s hand. It seemed so natural on our date. With any other girl, I would. I’d do it and ask forgiveness later, but I don’t know. I’m cautious for some reason, held back.
Because you don’t want to fuck it up, big boy. That’s why.
And I’m awfully good at fucking things up.
Dante’s is going off. I swear the whole damn campus is in here tonight. It’s standing room only.
Hernandez pushes through the throng to a table at the back, the others already seated and drinking merrily given the collection of glasses.
Everyone’s gathered around Jackson’s cell, a YouTube clip of a large building fire playing. Jackson’s eyes are glowing from the screen. “Look at the speed of the thing. It’s fucking beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” one of the others questions. “You’re messed up, King.”
“Hey,” he replies, “the better you understand the enemy you’re facing, the better equipped you are to take it down.”
I’m starting to think fire ain’t the enemy at all to Jackson. I’m starting to think he’s getting his rocks off in the burn room.
“What the fuck is that racket?” I question. Someone’s singing Mr. Brightside. The ‘I never’ part at the end sounding like the poor bastard just sat on his nuts.
Hernandez takes a seat, offering Lacey and I a beer each. “It’s karaoke night.”
“I love karaoke!” shouts Lacey.
I look at her sideways. “You do?” I hadn’t pegged her for an extrovert.
“We should sing something,” she suggests.
I point between us. “You and I?”
“No, the beer you’re holding,” she teases. “Yes, us.”
Hernandez is laughing his ass off. “Oh, this is going to be good.”
The others are starting to egg me on. I’m many things.
A competent singer is not one of them.
Before I know it, I’m being pulled by Lacey’s hand towards the single pallet that’s doubling as the stage in the middle of the bar. The security guy’s doubling as the DJ.
Mr. Brightside comes to end—thank god.
The Dwayne Johnson lookalike scowls when he sees me coming up to the booth. I haven’t been in his good books since the initial tussle with Ryan. It looks like he’s swapping security duty for disc jockey duty tonight. “What’ll it be?” He looks me over. “Eye of the Tiger?”
“Living on a Prayer,” blabs Lacey, and I sure as shit want to put in a formal protest, but her hand is still in mine and it’s hot and perfect and I’ll agree to damn near anything right now if it means getting closer to her.
Security guy hands us mics and nods to the ‘stage’ (read: a wooden pallet), loading up the music.
Here we fucking go.
The crowd’s rowdy. They cheer when they see us stepping up and the ‘wah wah whoa whoa’ of the vocoded guitar riff kicking in.
Lacey winks at me, already dancing along, swinging her hips in a surprisingly sexual manner.
I watch the words come up onto the screen. “Tommy used to work on the docks,” we sing together, Lacey smiling and, miraculously, her voice actually making mine sound half alright.
By ‘For love, for looooove,’ I’m kind of getting into the swing of it myself, even hip-bumping Lacey along the way.
And then it starts to fall apart.
Lacey’s singing like an angel, but I make ‘We’re half way there’ sound like a throat cancer ad. I swear my testies drop on ‘Living on a,’ practically popping on ‘Prayer.’
It’s a fucking disaster.
But the crowd is lapping it up.
Fucking Hernandez is in hysterics, bent over on his knees with laughter, holding onto a chair for support.
King’s fucking filming it.
Lacey’s smile grows as we come into the second verse.
Embrace it, I realize. Embrace your vocal shittiness.
So I do. I pull out an air guitar for the solo, Lacey barely able to sing along she’s laughing so hard. We rock together, place our heads together through the chorus again, my voice soaring into strangled-sea-lion territory.
The last line and rapturous applause follows, even Dwayne Johnson forced to bring his hands together. We take a bow, hand in hand, and step off the pallet.
Hernandez is struggling to his feet, tears streaming down his face. He claps his hand on my back. “Brother, I’ve heard broken records more in tune than that, but Lacey… What did you do with your wings? Because, baby, that was fucking beautiful.”
She places her hand on my chest. “I don’t know. I thought we sounded pretty good together.”
We sure do, I think, and we sure will as soon as I get between those legs of yours.
The simple suggestion of her naked is almost too much to bear, my cock crying out for attention.
Bon Jovi’s not our last song of the night. Lacey manages to convince everyone at our table to get up for a group rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, an instant crowd-pleaser. I swear I even catch a glimpse of the Captain himself up the back bobbing along.
We’re so busy having a good time, drinking barely factors into it. Everyone’s having a fucking blast. It’s beautiful, but nothing compares to Lacey. She glows, cock-stiffeningly resplendent.
I can’t take it anymore. While someone sings KISS’s Do You Love Me? I take Lacey’s hand in my own and turn her towards me.
She goes to speak, but I lean forward and silence her lips with my own.
It’s a risky move, but the moment our mouths meet her entire body relaxes.
The others at the table are whooping and cheering. It’s all drowned away, because I’m lost in her, this incredible girl, her tongue the first to reach past no man’s land into my mouth, tangling with my own hot and sticky and fucking sexual in the extreme.
She leans forward, the kiss deepening and I know this is only leading one place.
It’s hard to say how long the kiss lasts—seconds, minutes, hours—but when we break I’m certain we both feel it, the start of something incredible.
I place my mouth against her ear, my breath hot on the shell of it. “Do you want to get out of here?”
She’s breathing hard, her mouth opening in a pant, the sugar sweet taste of her still on my lips.
But I want more. I want to taste her nipples, her pussy… everything. I want to lash her most private areas until she’s screaming, completely out of control.
“Yes,” she whispers back.
“Get a fucking room you two,” says Hernandez, skunk drunk.
We ignore him, standing and moving through the crowd hand in hand. We stop by the entrance to kiss again, the urgency of it growing, the arousal palpable between us. We’re trying to press ourselves together, her crotch hot and willing against my dick.
We run—literally dash—across the road back to campus laughing, my cock fucking iron in my pants by now.
We stop in the hallway. “You’re room or mine?” I question.
“Mine,” she replies, taking a handful of my shirt and tugging me inside. I shut the door behind us with the heel of my shoe, her face in my hands, and our bodies burning up with desire.
And this is it.
This is ‘The Miracle.’