Chapter 45 - Brock
Brock
The four of us enjoyed a drink together, then went our separate ways. For the next week leading up to final exams, it felt like we were all holding our breath to see what Jerry would do.
Then, on Thursday, he came to the bar to collect his free drink.
He was back on Friday, and I was thankful that Lila was laying low, otherwise their paths might have crossed.
Jerry was back at the bar on Saturday, taking up a booth with half a dozen open textbooks while he studied for his own exams.
I texted our group chat and told them that Jerry wouldn’t be giving us any trouble.
“What’s the deal with him?” Kayla asked, nodding toward Jerry in his booth in the corner. “What do you owe him?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
She looked sideways at me. “Does it have anything to do with your professor girlfriend?”
I spun around to face her so fast I almost got whiplash. “What?”
“Okay, first of all, you need to not react like that,” Kayla said. “Because I meant it as a joke, but your reaction just told me that there’s something there.”
I exhaled slowly. “Shit.”
“Relax. I love you as much as a lesbian can love a man,” Kayla said. “I would never get you in trouble. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Thanks. Now please never mention this again.”
“Deal.”
A few minutes went by while we served customers at the bar, then Kayla casually leaned closer to me again.
“You two are really cute together,” she said. “She pretends to grade papers when she’s here, but when your back is turned, she checks you out. I was going to mention this before now, but I realized she was a professor and didn’t want to coax you into making bad decisions.”
“What happened to you never mentioning this again like I asked?”
“I just want you to know I’m rooting for you!” she added. “That’s the last thing I’ll ever say about it.”
“Lila says my drinks are better than yours,” I teased.
Kayla rolled her eyes. “Since you two are together, she’s required to say that. If we ever have a blind taste test, I know you’ll lose.”
“Keep dreaming,” I replied.
She playfully shoved me, then went down the bar to flirt with one of the members of the women’s basketball team.
Sunday was my day off, and I spent it at the library with Jace. We studied together for our Criminology class for a while, then moved on to our own individual classes. Cam arrived sometime in the afternoon.
“Nice of you to join us,” Jace said. “We said we were meeting at ten.”
Cam dropped into the seat next to me. “Cut me some slack. I was up until three in the morning.”
“Hacking into someone else’s email?” I asked.
“Studying!” Cam replied with indignation. “I’m a night owl. I do my best work when everyone else is asleep.”
“I used to be that way when I was your age,” Jace said.
I snorted.
“What?” Jace asked.
“You sound like an old man.” I took on the tone of a decrepit grandfather. “Back in my day, we stayed up until sunrise before taking the L-train to the soda fountain! Milkshakes used to be two for a nickel!”
“That’s a good impression,” Cam said. “Jace sounds exactly like that.”
“Another word and your laptop is going to accidentally get broken in half,” Jace said.
“I’m usually the one making computer-related threats,” Cam said.
Jace smiled. “I’ve been studying all week. My fuse is shorter than usual.”
“Message received,” Cam said, giving an awkward salute.
I chuckled and buried my head in my textbook again.
For a while, we all worked in mutual silence.
I’d grown to really like both of them, especially Cam now that he was warming up to us.
I considered them my closest friends here at school.
Which was crazy considering we were all sleeping with the same woman.
If I could go back in time to last year and tell myself how the semester would go, I never would have believed it.
After a while, I pinched my eyes and said, “I need some caffeine. Anyone want an energy drink from the vending machine?”
“Yes please,” Cam chimed in. “Jace wants one, too.”
“No I don’t.”
“You keep nodding off,” Cam said. “Trust me, you need a boost.”
I went to the nearest vending machine and returned with three drinks that each had enough caffeine to kill a small animal. Jace and Cam were in the middle of a serious conversation.
“We were talking about Lila,” Jace explained when I sat down. “I don’t want to up the stakes too much… but I think she might be the one.”
I gave a start. “Like, the one, one?”
“Is there any other kind?” Jace replied. He looked pained by the confession.
“What do you think about that?” I asked Cam.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I freaking love her. I mean, I don’t love her, like, dropping the L-bomb. But I love everything about her, I love being with her, I love… all of it.”
“Same,” I said. I wasn’t ready to admit that she might be the one—even just thinking about it terrified me—but I was already beginning to picture a future with this woman.
“Okay, then,” Jace said.
“Let’s make a pact,” I said in a burst of inspiration. “L-bombs aside, the three of us all really like this woman. We all care about her.”
Jace and Cam both nodded along.
“No matter what happens, let’s agree to never fight over her. A little playful jealousy and competition is fine, but I don’t ever want it to get to the point where we see each other as competition. We’re allies, right?”
“Right,” Jace said firmly.
“However long this lasts,” I circled my finger to include all of us, “let’s always put her needs first. Maybe it will end eventually, or fizzle out before it really begins, but while it’s going strong? Lila is all that matters.”
Both of them sat up a little straighter, treating the pact with as much seriousness as I intended. “I agree,” Jace said.
“And my ax!” Cam declared loudly.
Two tables over, a pair of girls shushed us.
“Sorry,” Cam said with a little wave. His cheeks were already red.
“Your ax?” Jace asked.
“It’s a Lord of the Rings reference,” I said.
Jace snorted. “Nerd.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“So we’re all in agreement?” I said.
Jace held out his fist. Cam and I both bumped it with our own fists.
“The Fellowship of the Criminology Professor,” Cam said.
“We don’t need some big official title for it,” Jace replied.
“It’s another Lord of the Rings reference,” I explained.
Jace rolled his eyes. “You two are killing me. For fuck’s sake.”
We spent the rest of the day at the library together, then got a late dinner at the school cafeteria before heading to our respective homes.
And after making the pact with Jace and Cam, my mind was at peace about everything with Lila.
Normally, I wouldn’t be able to sleep the night before exam week began. But I felt more prepared than I ever did when I was a student athlete the first time I gave college a try.
My first exam was Monday afternoon, and I crushed it. My first instinct was to see if Lila wanted to hang out, but I stopped myself.
We couldn’t do that. We were supposed to be keeping our distance.
Even though it made sense for us all to lay low until the semester ended, it was difficult not to text Lila.
She had become such a big part of my life that I instinctively wanted to text her about my anxiety for the final exams. I wished I could leave campus and go to her house for the night.
Not to have sex, just to cuddle and fall asleep with her curled against me.
It had been easy keeping our distance the previous week when the blackmail was hanging over everything we did. But now that was over, it felt like we should have been allowed to go back to normal. Staying away was tortuous.
It was probably for the best, though. It forced me to study.
My next two exams were on Wednesday, followed by Criminology 101 on Friday afternoon. The first half of the final was multiple choice, but the second half was essay format. We were given four hours to complete the exam, and I used up about three hours and fifty-five minutes of it.
Lila gave me a hopeful smile as I left class.
Even though I was well-prepared, and even though I thought I did well, I was a nervous ball of energy while waiting for the grades to be posted online.
I wanted to text Lila about it, to tease her until she gave me a hint about my grade, but I knew she was swamped since she had to actually grade the papers.
That night, while I was driving to the bar, my sister called me. “How’d exams go?”
“Too early to tell,” I replied. “I’ll have them all back by Sunday.”
“But you should have an idea about how they went. Did you do well? Did you blow it?”
“I think I did well,” I said cautiously.
My sister scoffed on the other end. “That means you aced them all. Trust me, I know you, Brock.”
“From your lips to my professors’ ears.” I cleared my throat. “Actually, there’s something I wanted to tell you, Kerry.”
“Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of that.”
I pulled into the parking lot behind the bar and turned off the engine, but I didn’t leave. This was something I had wanted to tell Kerry for a long time. We didn’t keep secrets from each other, not since Mom had died, and this had been weighing on me all semester.
“I’ve been seeing someone,” I said. “And it’s getting pretty serious.”
“brOCK ALLEN RADLEY!” Kerry squealed. “You’ve been holding out on me!
How long have you two been together? What’s she look like?
What’s her chest situation like? You’ve always been an ass man, but you did date Courtney Perkins in middle school, and she had some secret biggins underneath her sweater. ”
“One question at a time,” I complained. “We’ve been hooking up since February. She’s gorgeous, Kerry. Beautiful in a way that makes it difficult to breathe. And I’m pretty sure I’m in love with her.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been keeping this from me since February,” Kerry said. “Which means something is wrong. I can hear it in your voice.”
Yep. My sister knew me better than anyone else in the world.
“Her name is Lila Carrington. And… she’s kind of my Criminology Professor.”
Kerry immediately erupted in laughter. It was so loud that I had to pull my phone away from my ear.
“Are you done?” I asked thirty seconds later.
“Tell me everything,” she demanded.
“I have to go to work.”
“Your shift doesn’t start for another ten minutes, which is ten minutes you’re going to spend telling me every detail about this professor you’re sleeping with,” she argued. “Start from the beginning. If you leave anything out, I’ll know.”
Relieved that I was no longer hiding this from my sister, I explained the first day of class and how Jace had shown me his Tinder messages with Lila.