Chapter 5
Caleb
I’ve kept some stupid things in my life. A bent paper clip might be the dumbest.
I’ve had it for six days.
It lives in my pocket, and I mess with it when I’m bored, which I keep telling myself is a habit and not a thing.
But, um, it’s a thing.
Here’s what I’ve got on Jasmine Dixon after six days of paying attention like the idiot stalker that I have become.
She eats lunch alone in the east stairwell because it’s quiet.
She takes the long way around the loud hallway by the trainer’s room.
She does her building rounds before anybody’s awake.
And she pulls her sleeves down over her hands when a room gets to be too much for her. Kind of like sensory overload.
I’ve also started taking the east stairs. Every day. Like a guy with a problem, which is what everybody’s always telling me I am.
I swear to God, I should leave her alone. I don’t have the greatest track record with women. Shit starts out cool, but then eventually I make them cry, which sucks, because I never mean to hurt anyone’s feelings. I just do sometimes.
More importantly, I didn’t come to West Bubblefuck, Nevada, to obsess over some girl. I’ve got one strike left in my whole career, and her old man holds all the power. The smart play would be to stay far the fuck away from Jasmine. Even a five-year-old could call it.
So naturally, I ignore all the common sense of a five-year-old and show up to our Tuesday review with bells fucking on.
She’s already there when I walk in, papers squared up on the table. I sit, line my pen up straight with the edge, and drop three sugar packets next to her cup.
She looks at them like they’re dirty tissues. “What are those?”
“You said you take it with a lot of sugar. I didn’t know how much a lot is. Three’s a starting bid.”
“That is not in our work agreement.”
“It’s sugar, Dixon. Not a felony.”
“You remembered that?”
“I notice everything. We’ve been over this.” I lean back. “You gonna use it or just stare at it?”
“I’ll use it when you stop watching me do it.”
“Can’t. I notice everything.”
“So you keep saying,” she says, using an exasperated tone.
She still does not touch the sugar. She also does not move it away from her cup. I count that as a win.
“You brought a pen,” she says, like she just clocked it.
“You told me to. It’s in the notes. New me follows orders.”
“There’s no new you. There’s a you who hasn’t gotten caught yet.”
“Same guy, better behaved.” I tip my head. “You look tired.”
“Discussing my appearance is not in the agreement either.”
“Wasn’t a conduct note. Was a hey, you okay?”
She blinks, like nobody’s asked about her in a while. “Conduct review. Academic check. You have a quiz Thursday in Sports Management.”
“Studied for it.”
“That would be a first.”
“For who?”
“For any player on this team.”
“Well, I’m not like those eggheads. Plus, I’m full of firsts lately.”
“Such as?”
“Reading the fine print. Showing up early. Bringing my own pen.” I count them off on my fingers. “Real personal growth.”
“That’s three things,” she smirks.
“I’m pacing myself.”
“How’s anger management?” She’s got the pen ready to check a box.
“That Gary dude has got a poster of cartoon weather. Wants me to point at how I feel.”
“What do you point at?”
“The sun. Every time.”
“You are not a sunny day, Adams,” she scoffs.
“Yeah, but Gary doesn’t need to know that.”
A sound comes out of her. Almost a laugh. She shuts it down before it gets all the way out, but I caught it, and now I want the whole thing more than I want most things.
“That’s not a real coping skill,” she says.
“It’s working, isn’t it? Am I in a fight right now?”
“The day is young.”
“See, that’s funny.” I laugh out loud. “You’re funny. Nobody knows that about you.”
“Nobody knows me at all.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Why?”
“Because the second people decide you’re a person, they start having opinions about you.” She says it light, but it isn’t light. “I prefer to be furniture.”
“You’re the worst furniture I’ve ever met.”
“Uh, thank you.”
“Wasn’t a compliment.”
“I’m taking it as one anyway.” She slides the form over. “Sign where the tabs are.”
“This is a real question. Why so much paper?”
“I like the feel of paper. I think we lost something when the schools went all digital.”
“You talk like my Aunt Joyce, and she’s seventy-three.”
“I also take that as a compliment.”
I take my time. Read every page, because reading what you sign is rule one, and because going slow makes her a little nuts, and she gets chatty when she’s a little nuts.
And boy…I could chat with her all day if she’d let me.
I’ve got the paper clip out without deciding to, working it on the tabletop while I read. Out and back. She watches my hand do it.
“You still have that?” she asks.
“Told you. I keep dumb stuff.”
“It’s been six days.”
“Yeah. Well.” I set it on the table between us, same as I did at the rink. “Still yours if you want it.”
She looks at it. Doesn’t take it. Again.
“You keep not taking it,” I say.
“Taking it would mean something to you?”
“Everything means something with you. It’s my favorite thing about you so far.”
She grows quiet, and I go back to the form.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” she says after a second.
“Doing what?”
“Reading slow.”
“Is it working?”
“Page four, Adams.”
I flip there. “Okay, this is the same thing your dad said. One incident, I’m done, no appeal.”
“And I won’t cover for you. I want you to know that going in. We’re not buddies. You mess up, I write it down. That’s the job.”
“I know it’s the job.”
“Then we understand each other.”
“Yep.” I sign the bottom of five and six and put the pen down. Then I don’t pick the conversation back up where she parked it, because I’ve got a question that’s been sitting in my chest for days. “Can I ask you something that isn’t about hockey?”
“No.”
“You cut the crusts off your sandwich yesterday. In the stairwell.”
She goes very still. “You’re watching me eat lunch now?”
“Not watching. Noticing. Different thing.” I lean in. “The crusts. Is it because of the texture?”
For a second, I think I’ve gone too far, and she’s going to bolt. Her thumb starts going on the edge of the table, slow, the thing she does when the room gets loud in her head. Then, in a soft voice, like it costs her something: “Texture.”
“Okay.” I nod. That’s it. I don’t make a face about it. “Good to know.”
“Most people are confused about the stuff I do.”
“I’m not most people. Ask Gary.”
“Why is that good to know?”
“Why do you think, Jasmine?” I stand and stare at her intently, challenging her to answer my question in her head.
She stands up fast, and for a second, I figure that’s it, she’s done. But she doesn’t go for the door. She grabs the back of her chair like it’s the only thing keeping her on her side of the table, and her voice drops low and shakes a little.
“This is a conflict of interest. A documented one.”
“Catastrophic,” I agree.
“My father will end your career.”
“Without breaking a sweat.”
“I don’t do this.” Her voice cracks right down the middle. “I don’t do reckless. I have never done one reckless thing on purpose in my life.”
“I know.” And I do. She built herself a careful little life with no doors so this exact thing could never happen, and she’s standing there holding a chair instead of walking out of it.
“Then sit down,” she says. “Tell me to sit back down, and we both pretend this never came up.”
“Not gonna do that.”
She sighs, “I know you’re not.”
I come around the table slowly, telling her with every step that she can call it, can tell me to sit back down, can put the table between us again. She doesn’t. Her chin’s up. Her eyes come to mine and stay there, which I’ve learned is one of the hardest things for her to do.
“Tell me to stop,” I say, close now.
“Stop what?” she whispers.
Then I kiss her.
It’s tentative at first until she kisses me back like she’s mad about it, both hands fisting my shirt, and every loud thing in my head goes quiet for the first time in years.
I get one hand in her hair and the other flat on the table by her hip, where she can see it, because I don’t want her to feel cornered.
She pulls back an inch. Breathing hard. Her eyes come up and stay on mine, and I know how that kind of intimacy is much more difficult for her than that kiss was. It makes me feel important. Warm.
“That was a mistake,” she whispers, and doesn’t let go of my shirt.
She’s lying.
“Worst one you ever made,” I tell her, and lean back in.
Her phone goes off on the table.
We both look at it. Face up, buzzing, lighting up the whole dim room. One word on the screen.
DAD.
The cock blocker himself.
She backs away from me like I burned her.
Smooths her hoodie, her hair, her whole face, the mask snapping back into place in under a second.
Just like that, I’m looking at the VCU ice hockey compliance officer again instead of the girl who kissed me like she’s been wanting to jump my bones for six days.
She picks up on the third buzz. “Hi. Yes. I’m finishing Adams’s review now.” Flat. Even. Perfect. Her free hand is shaking. “Ten minutes. I’ll bring the eligibility sheet up with me.”
She hangs up. Doesn’t look at me. Stacks her papers with the edges all lined up, as if she gets the corners square enough, the last two minutes didn’t happen.
“That,” she says, to the table, “cannot happen again.”
She’s gone before I can tell her the truth, which is that it’s already going to.