28 - Fallon
~ 28 ~
FALLON
Dinner was nothing short of amazing, as monstrous Italian family dinners tended to be. Along with the fifteen or twenty other dishes laid out on the table, Momma Marshall opened the tin of anchovies as well. She most likely did it for me, which was endearingly sweet, but by the time Dalton and I noticed it was there, his father and Trey had already helped themselves to half the can. I distracted his mother so he could quickly make it disappear, but by then the damage was already done.
Luckily, through some incredible miracle of digestion, no one ended up in the hospital. There was an apocalyptic cleanup, after which Dalton and Emerson’s parents headed back to their hotel. The rest of us stayed up late watching Disney movies with the siblings, from the mother of all tent forts ever constructed. Morgan had Trey’s room, Ripley took Emerson’s, and Dalton had given his up for Sadie. Most of the kids drifted off to sleep on the floor however, in a pile of pillows and blankets, right alongside the guys.
And yes, it was the most adorable thing in the whole fucking world.
The next few days were busy ones, with the guys hard at practice and me spending most of my time at work or school. The family, on the other hand, had the run of the house. Momma Marshall took the kids to Amarillo one day, and Lubbock the next. Mr. Marshall spent all of his time working on various projects throughout the house, a few of which actually looked great when finished. His big payday came at the end of every evening when we all arrived home, and he could show off his handiwork. The look of pride on the man’s face matched anything I’d ever seen from him, even the many times he’d come down over the years to watch his sons play.
Each night, the guys offered to send out for food. Each night, they were savagely rebuffed. Lisa went above and beyond, committing such a hostile takeover of our kitchen that none of us dared stand in her way. Trey became her cooking assistant and new best friend, especially since he ate everything she put in front of him. One night he devoured an entire loaf of garlic mozzarella bread, only to have his cheeks pinched so hard by Momma Marshall they were bright red for hours. Their visit had made him especially homesick, but she was so happy with how much of her food he consumed, both parents joked about officially adopting him.
All of this, of course, precluded the four of us getting together. Sneaking around the house with so many people was damn near impossible, and none of us would take the risk. Other than the occasional stolen kiss or errant grab, we were perfectly platonic roommates. We rebuffed any casually dropped comments, and laughed it off when Lisa outright asked if I was dating anyone on the football team, including the occupants of the house.
“You know we’ve been friends forever, right?” I told her one night, while leaning on the shoulders of both Dalton and Emerson. “Your boys are merely helping me out this semester. I needed a place to stay, and this place needed a woman’s touch.”
“A woman’s touch,” Lisa teased, twirling a finger around the unfinished house. “Is that what this is?”
“You just come back next semester,” I promised, adding a wink. “And we’ll have this talk again.”
It was fun, having so many people fill the house with chaos, laughter, and love. Even so, having my supercharged sex-life crash violently into a brick wall tended to suck more than I could’ve possibly imagined. I was already horny the first night, after my dirty little walk across campus, but by the second night I was positively randy. By the third and fourth nights, I was crawling the walls. Our stolen kisses became more daring, and the hugs lingered, but these were only teases in the grand scheme of things. Each night, I retired to my cold, empty bed. Every morning, I showered alone. Emerson had taken to using the showers in the practice room, much to my disappointment. But he knew the same thing I did; that if we’d ever started something, neither of us would’ve been able to stop.
I even debated sending out a group text, offering to take each of the guys for a ‘midnight ride’ around the block, one by one, while the others hung back to make sure the coast was clear. In the end though, I decided against it. Momma Marshall was already skeptical of my sisterly role around the house. She’d given me the once-over more times than I could count, and I was sure she would instantly read the look in my eyes if I’d done anything like that with Dalton, Emerson, and Trey.
At one point I pulled the guys into my bedroom to show them the old photos I’d found, especially the Polaroid of the beautiful girl tied to the headboard. They stared at it for a long time, passing it back and forth between them until Trey raised an eyebrow.
“You wanna try something like this?” he asked, tapping the photo.
I shrugged at first, then eventually nodded. “Sure.”
Shit, at this point I was so horny I’d try anything.
The guys muttered something between themselves that I couldn’t quite hear. Then they dispersed, at the growing noise of Dalton’s sisters, chasing each other down the hall.
By Friday afternoon, I was desperate. I was down in the Commons, crossing the food court, when I saw Emerson sitting at one of the tables, eating a sandwich. I approached him from behind, my mind working feverishly to think of some secret place I could drag him to, or maybe even beg him to take me to a cheap motel. I stopped short when I realized he was talking intently with someone; a dark-haired, bearded man sitting directly across from him. The man’s hair was streaked with enough gray to make him a professor instead of a student. That, plus the cane that was leaning against their table, told me I should probably leave them alone.
I was halfway back to my car when my phone buzzed. The solo text message I had with Dalton popped up, along with a photo of an old building.
Know this place?
I squinted down at the building curiously. Recognition finally dawned.
Yeah. I think I had a class there,
sophomore year.
The little ellipses blinked busily as Dalton typed back.
You probably did.
Meet me there in ten minutes.