16. Cameron
SIXTEEN
cameron
I wait an embarrassingly long time. When Lenni finally walks out of the building, the first thing I notice is her T-shirt; baggy and ancient looking like everything she wears, but this one, with “The Gits” plastered across the front in bold block letters, catches my eye. It’s the same one she wore the night we met.
Lenni looks startled to see me and then pleased. Then she looks like she’s trying not to look pleased.
She puts her hand on her hip, smiling coyly. “Look, if you wanted the rain jacket that badly, you could have just called instead of stalking me.”
“Ha! You wish. It’s not the jacket I’m after, it’s the blue car. Liam’s been asking, and if I tell him I let some girl play with it, he’ll be pissed.” I stand up. “You might not know this, but you have cooties.”
She laughs and I swear I feel it under my skin. She looks down at the ground before meeting my eye again. “I actually can’t tell if you’re joking about the jacket or not.”
“I’m joking. You can keep the jacket; the car too.”
“Well, thank Liam for me.” She looks me over. “So if you didn’t come for the jacket, what are you doing here?”
“Just needed a pick-me-up.” I move closer to her, but not too close. “You walking home now?”
She nods. Her hands fiddle with her necklace, a teardrop-shaped slab of resin on a gold chain, and I wonder if I made a mistake by ambushing her like this. She definitely likes to be in control, like during the interview. But I like catching her off guard.
We fall into step together.
“So,” she says, “bad day to be a football star?”
“See, that’s the problem. I haven’t exactly been playing like a star.”
“That’s not what I hear. You’re one of Shafer’s best.” I wish it was a compliment, but clearly she’s only repeating what she’s heard.
“Do you know anything about football?”
“Sure. There are two teams, one ball, and a lot of injuries.” She gives me a sidelong grin.
“I can’t believe they haven’t hired you for the play-by-play.”
“So what’s the problem?”
I wish we were talking about something else. “Guess I’m just not living up to expectations.”
“Which ones?”
“Let’s see...being the best receiver in the country, winning a national championship, getting drafted in the first round.”
“Whose expectations are those? Yours?” She takes in my silence. “Can I say something that’s going to sound harsh?”
“Careful, I’m more sensitive than I look.”
She gives me a dubious look. “All right, here it is. Nobody cares about your football career.”
I laugh. “Jeez. Wow. That’s just...that’s the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“No, hear me out. You might have the entire college football fandom watching you and expecting an amazing professional career, and when it doesn’t happen, they’ll be disappointed. But a few months later, when there’s a new crop of potential draft picks to obsess over, they’ll forget you.”
“Just when I thought you couldn’t get any meaner,” I joke. I guess there’s some comfort to be found in the logic of her words; somewhere. Up ahead, a few food trucks sit parked in the lot next to a row of frat houses. The smell of grilled meat wafts through the air, and suddenly I’m starving.
“I’m sorry.” She looks over at me. “That was supposed to be reassuring. Take the pressure off? I guess it didn’t work.”
“I forgive you. Just promise you won’t start an advice column in the school paper.” I nod toward the lot. “You a food truck kind of girl?”
“Always. I hear next month we’re getting a curry truck started by some chef that won a cooking show.”
“Curry from a van? Sounds like trouble.”
“I’ll give it a shot. I’ve kind of made it a personal mission to eat at TV-chef restaurants anywhere I get a chance.”
“Let me know how the curry experiment goes. So you hungry?”
“I can always eat.”
I feel disproportionately triumphant at getting a yes out of her. We divert toward the parking lot and survey the options. “Let’s see. Burgers, ramen, barbecue, or burritos. I read Cal’s Burgers is damn good; wonder where I read that.” I head toward the burger truck.
Her head swivels toward me. “You read my article?”
“I always do. What do you think, single or double?”
We stand in front of the menu posted on the front of Cal’s truck, but while I’m reading it, she seems to be reading me. “You read all my articles.” She sounds unconvinced. “So what do you think?”
Uh-oh. Is this a test? Her mouth is pleasantly relaxed, but her eyes definitely aren’t, and her arms are crossed. Danger! Definitely a test. “I like the positive spin you put on everything. I’m saving that one about graduation anxiety for next year. I gotta say though, even you can’t convince me the women’s volleyball team has a chance at a winning season.”
She makes a sound that’s not quite a laugh. “Yeah, I had to dig deep for some optimism on that one.” I think I’ve passed the test. She looks at the menu. “Definitely get a double,” she tells me. “Because I’m having a double and cheese fries and possibly even a shake, and if you’re a gentleman, you’ll at least try to eat more than me.”
“I’m a huge gentleman, just wait and see.”
I skip the double and get a triple, one-up her cheese fries by picking the cheddar bacon ranch option, then order the largest milkshake they have and ask them to sprinkle bacon on top. Then I throw in a basket of onion rings. She holds back her laughter as I order, looking slightly embarrassed, then puts in her own. She lets me pay without making a thing of it.
When we sit down, Lenni pauses before turning to me. “I really am sorry for what I said about nobody caring whether you get drafted. I guess I thought it was this brilliant perspective.” She twists her straw around in her shake. “It wasn’t.”
“I know what you were saying. It might’ve helped if it was the fans I was worried about.”
“Then who is it?”
“My mom, I guess. She decided a long time ago who she needs me to be, and anything less would be a shocking disappointment.” I’m tempted to tell her the other part of it; that some days I just want to prove to my father—wherever he ended up—how much he gave up when he decided one family wasn’t enough for him.
“She needs you to be a first-round draft pick?”
“She needs me to be the best at what I do. I’m the winning athlete. Period.”
“Well, not to sound trite, but don’t you think your mom just wants you to be happy?”
I snort. “You don’t know Minnie Forrester.”
“I remember you telling me she was a beauty queen. And a southern belle. What else should I know about her?”
“Look, my mom’s a good mother and a nice lady and all that, so don’t get the wrong impression. But her greatest strength is projecting the image she wants people to see. And she wants everyone to think we’re the perfect family, especially after my dad died and we realized our family was even more fucked up than previously known.”
I’m waiting for her to ask what my dad did, but she doesn’t. “So part of the perfect family image your mom wants is you being a professional athlete?”
“She’s been telling her friends I was destined for the pros since I was in high school. Anything less would suggest that maybe Minnie Forrester doesn’t have it all.”
“That’s a lot of pressure.”
“It’s not all her,” I say as guilt creeps in. “I want to make it happen too. My mom completely devoted herself to my athletic career from day one. She saw a little flash of talent and she made sure I didn’t waste it. She deserves the payoff.” I shrug. Lenni is studying me with a look I can’t read and that I’m really hoping isn’t pity. “Okay, now tell me all the ways your family is screwed up.”
“Got a week to spare?”
“For you? Sure.”
She looks up at me, her cheeks flushing pink with a small, embarrassed smile. But the smile fades quickly.
“That bad, huh?”
She dips a fry in cheese sauce and keeps her eyes down. “My mom’s an alcoholic,” she says. “She’s sober at the moment, but that could change at any second; literally. A few years ago, she and my little brother had to move in with my grandparents because she couldn’t hold down a job. And my grandparents had no money to begin with.”
I probably have guilt written all over my face. For all my family’s issues, money was never one of them. Money might not save you from problems, but it can definitely soften the landing from the fallout.
“I really haven’t been around for them, especially my brother. And I know my mom wants me to come home for summers and after graduation, but I won’t go back to my hometown. I just haven’t worked up the nerve to tell her that. So yeah...guilt city.”
“Why won’t you go back?”
I see the storm clouds in her eyes before she breaks my gaze. “I hate everyone there. I hated high school. I just had a...bad experience, I guess.” She swallows hard.
My mind goes to that night in Reeve’s bedroom. My chest hurts at the memory of her tear-stained face stricken by humiliation and confusion, and it hurts more to think maybe that wasn’t the first time she felt that way. I want to punish whoever did that to her, including Reeve.
I put down my burger, suddenly not hungry. “Doesn’t sound like a place worth going back to.”
“Unfortunately, my mom doesn’t get that.”
“Does she know what you went through?”
“The whole town knows. But she seems to think it’s all in the past, that I shouldn’t still let it affect me.” She shrugs. “But we’re not one of those families that talks openly about feelings, you know? So I can’t blame her for not getting it.”
“Sounds like we have one more thing in common.”
“What’s that?”
“Problems without solutions.”
“No, I have a solution.” She sits up straighter. “Once I start working, I’m moving my family out of there too.”
“A girl with a plan; I’m impressed. Told you, you’re always on the lookout for the positive.”
“Well, it won’t all be sunshine and roses. I’ll be eternally poor, but that runs in the family.” She looks around at our table covered in wrappers and half eaten food. “Are you done? You never even touched the onion rings.”
I slide them toward her. “Want one?”
“I’m stuffed.”
I take a big bite of one, then shove the rest aside.
Lenni’s watching me, looking amused. “I hope you don’t plan on kissing anyone after that.”
Instinctually, I look at her lips, then busy myself gathering up wrappers to throw away. I wonder if she can tell how much I want her.
On the walk to her place, she tells me about her classes and her grad school plans while I try to figure out where we stand. I know there’s more than just friendship between us—I can feel it, hear it, almost taste it. It’s right there. But one wrong move and I could kill it.
When we reach her building, she turns to me. “Thanks for dinner. I hope I was the pick-me-up you needed.” She smiles like she doesn’t totally believe my excuse for, well, stalking her.
“I can finally call it a good day.”
I watch her take the steps up to the front door. Her jeans are too loose for me to make out much of her ass—the one part I didn’t get an eyeful of in Reeve’s room—but the bare skin on her lower back peeks out, and she’s got those two little dimples there. Sexy.
Almost to the door, she turns slowly back to me. Her expression has turned mischievous, like she’s about to tell a dirty joke, or maybe I’m just horny. “You never answered me. Are you going to be kissing anyone tonight?”
For a split second, my eager ass thinks she’s asking me to kiss her, but no. She’s up there and I’m down here and there are people around and I’ve seen the “kiss me” face on enough girls to know that’s not it. But she wants to know if I’m hooking up with anyone, so she knows whether to be jealous. And she wants to know bad enough that she’s asked twice.
I’m sure I’m grinning like a cocky bastard, but I don’t care. This feels better than any touchdown catch. She wants me.
I take my time answering. It’s almost a shame I can’t tell her yes just to see what jealousy does to her, but I’m not going to lie to Lenni. “No. Are you?”
She laughs, surprised to find the question turned back on her. “Definitely not. But ask me again in five years, maybe I’ll have a different answer.”
“Nah, I’m not gonna make you wait five years for a kiss, baby,” I tease her.
She shakes her head and blushes. “Good night, Cameron.”
“Night, Lenni.”
Just before she opens the door, she adds, “By the way, I don’t believe you.”
She’s gone before I can ask which part she doesn’t believe.
On the way home, I manage to keep my smile contained, but I can’t help walking with my chest puffed out.
Reeve is in front of the TV when I get back. “Hey, I thought you were studying,” he says.
“Not yet.”
“Where were you?”
“Just walking Lenni home.”
He lifts a can of beer to his lips, keeping his eyes on me, then swallows. “That’s a little weird, don’t you think?”
“Not really. Give me a beer.”
He hands me a can. “You like her?”
I want to deny it, but he knew the answer before he asked. He’s witnessed every crush I’ve had since middle school. “There’s something about her.”
“I’d say there’s two. Two big, juicy things.”
“Not that.” I give the back of his head a shove and then find a seat on the couch. “I like being around her. She’s different.” Blah. I hate the clichés coming out of my mouth.
“Yeah, I guess. Different from Kira for damn sure. But maybe that’s why you’re after her; trying to wash away the old with something new.”
“Quit talking like you’re some wise fucking elder statesman.”
He holds up his beer in cheers and takes a huge swig.
It hits me then I have no reason to keep pretending I have no history with Lenni. “Remember at orientation when I met that girl I told you about?”
“The night the rest of us got laid and you wanted to be left alone? Yeah.” He keeps his eyes on the TV. “You said nothing happened with her.”
“Nothing did happen. But that was Lenni.”
His head swivels toward me. “Why didn’t you say anything before, you weirdo?”
I shrug, wishing badly that I had. “You were into her, and she was into you.”
“Eh, not really,” he says, confirming what I already knew; Lenni was just a game. He looks thoughtful for a moment, then turns back to the TV. “Still, you and her?” He shakes his head and makes a disgusted face.
“You were just jerking her around. It shouldn’t bother you I’m talking to her.”
“Doesn’t, I just think it’s crazy. Any girl on campus would hop into your bed at the snap of your fingers, and you pick her?”
“Crazy because you think she belongs to you? She wasn’t even a hookup.”
“She would have been, except she fucked it up with her shitty timing.”
“Yeah, okay. And you seemed real broken up about it too.” I stare at the TV, trying not to think about what almost happened between them. I can’t even entertain how different things would be if Dina hadn’t been in the house that night.
“Look, I’m not into her. I was flirting with her to see where it would go; it didn’t mean anything.”
“Great.”
I finish the rest of my beer and get up to grab a few more from the kitchen. Studying isn’t happening tonight. Reeve doesn’t like more than a few cans before he switches to bottles so I get two bottles for him. Back in the living room, I hand him the beers and he nods his thanks. We watch TV in silence for a few minutes and then he looks at me.
“She’s not your type at all, Cam.”
I consider this, calling up the familiar images of her body covered in nothing but a few inches of red lace, her hair in wild curls around her shoulders, the smile she gives when I’ve made her laugh.
“Actually,” I tell Reeve, “I just figured out exactly what my type is. And you’re wrong.”