Freaking Unicorn
“We are never, ever speaking about it.”
I whisper this to Will at breakfast the next morning while he drinks a protein shake large enough to contain the nutritional requirements of a moderately sized horse. Did I mention he’s a large guy?
He looks at me over the rim of the blender cup. “About what?”
Then he takes one enormous gulp.
“Good.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Perfect.”
Will Mercer understands female subtext. Excellent news.
I turn towards the fridge, take out the orange juice and pour myself a glass like a completely normal person.
Not a recovery-weed-kisser. Not a woman who spent half the night replaying the exact pressure of Will’s hand at the back of her neck.
Not somebody who woke up this morning with the realisation that she now knows what Will Mercer tastes like.
Normal. Calm. Very emotionally regulated.
I pour the orange juice into a glass with the concentration of a surgeon, which is the exact moment Will decides to pull his T-shirt over his head.
He is standing there in black athletic shorts with the shirt bunched in one hand, his shoulders broad and his expression far too innocent.
He catches me staring. One corner of his mouth lifts.
Not widely. Will never needs to do anything widely when he knows he has the advantage. His gaze drops to the orange juice that is rapidly approaching the top of my glass.
“Could you be any more obvious?” I ask.
“What?” He glances down at himself as though surprised to discover his own chest. “You said nature had been generous to me.”
That was days ago.
“You remember that?”
“Remember what?”
Will turns before I can accuse him of psychological warfare and heads through the open patio door, where Nate has assembled a collection of weights on the lawn.
He was already lifting before breakfast.
That is why he is drinking the monstrous shake.
There is no reason for him to go outside and begin lifting again except vanity, provocation or a deeply concerning exercise dependency.
And I refuse to investigate which explanation applies while he is standing ten feet away beneath the morning sun, bare-chested, curling a dumbbell slowly enough for every muscle in his forearm to announce itself.
To be fair, Nate is also shirtless. But who cares?
There are simply too many people without shirts in this house. Including DJ.
I fill my glass to the absolute edge and drink without sitting down.
Honestly, this is Collins’ fault. Everything can eventually be traced back to Collins Fairfax. Sue me.
I am the youngest Fairfax, which means I am legally permitted to become a menace to my family and society at large whenever one of my older siblings is involved.
I will never forgive him for my sixteenth birthday, when I walked into him pressing against my friend Annabelle in our family kitchen. Kitchen was for ice and extra foods, not a demonstration of why the Fairfax family had received several strongly worded phone calls from mothers across Manhattan.
Then, because he was Collins and therefore born without an ounce of shame, he drew back approximately one inch, glanced over me and said, “Watch. This is how you kiss. You’ll thank me later.”
Any normal little sister would have screamed, or thrown something.
Instead, I watched my brother making out with Annabelle for two whole minutes, next to the sausage rolls.
I was sixteen and curious.
There was technique.
The hand at the back of her neck. The slight tilt of his head. The way he did not attack her mouth as though trying to retrieve a coin from inside it. The pause before he kissed her again, as if he knew she would close the distance herself.
I told Collins I hated him and bolted before it turned into very expensive therapy. Then I spent the next two years discovering that he had permanently damaged my expectations.
Most boys I kissed after that appeared to have received entirely different training materials.
Their tongues arrived too quickly. Their hands remained uselessly polite or became aggressively ambitious. Their heads tilted at angles that created dental risk. And nobody seemed to understand that touching a girl’s face should involve more than trapping her skull between two damp palms.
Collins Fairfax had shown me a unicorn and then released me into a world populated by poorly coordinated horses.
No.
Freaking Will Mercer.
Because Will has now demonstrated that unicorns exist outside my immediate bloodline, apparently lives in New Jersey and constantly measures his macro intake.
Because there is nothing irrational about kissing a unicorn and enjoying it.
Very much enjoying it.
Panic-enjoying it.
Still-hot-the-next-morning enjoying it.
Cannot-under-any-circumstances-enjoy-it-again enjoying it.
He is my roommate.
He was Collins’s teammate.
He lives approximately twelve steps from my bedroom.
More importantly, I have a business to build, a sociology essay to finish and a fitting this afternoon. I do not have time for this. And most importantly, I do not have time to deal with my brother’s wrath for kissing his former teammate.
It is Saturday, which means I could go to the library. The library contains books, fluorescent lighting and almost no shirtless basketball captains deliberately flexing within my field of vision. I need to reset my brain back to its factory settings.
I take out my phone.
Maddy: u up?
Her reply arrives immediately.
Jenny: I’m not hooking up with u
I stare at the screen. What? Have I gone insane, or has the world deteriorated independently?
Maddy: NO
Maddy: library? sociology essay is trying to kill me.
Three dots appear.
Jenny: y r u texting like ur anxious
Maddy: academically anxious.
Jenny: sure babe
Jenny: ur using punctuation
I delete the full stop at the end of my next message.
Maddy: see normal
Maddy: LIbrARY?
Jenny: sorry babe spending the day with my brother
Jenny: monthly movie
That is disappointing. But potential ideas.
I text Lizzie.
Maddy: movie sis?
I exhale at her immediate replies then sigh dramatically.
Lizzie: brunch with DJ
Lizzie: but in 2 hrs?
I check the time, then search the cinema schedule.
The earliest movie that does not involve an animated animal learning self-confidence starts in forty minutes. Allowing two hours for the screening, advertisements and travel, I would arrive at Mike’s fitting at least forty-five minutes late.
Maddy: won’t work. Appointment at 1
Maddy: enjoy brunch!!!!!
“Baby girl, what’s wrong?” Nate comes through the patio door carrying two dumbbells, with Will following closely behind him.
Both are sweating. This house is hostile.
“Nothing,” I tell him, locking my phone. “I just can’t make the movie work with Lizzie.”
Nate goes straight to the fridge and begins collecting ingredients for his usual scrambled-egg breakfast, despite having already consumed something before lifting. Athletes eat as though famine has been personally scheduled for the following afternoon.
“I’d go with you, but I have a group-project meeting.” He nods towards Will. “Take him. He looks sad, tired and over-lifted.”
Will leans one shoulder against the kitchen doorway.
He says nothing. He only looks at me with the same quiet amusement he has worn since breakfast, as though the two of us are participating in a private conversation conducted entirely through eye contact.
“No.” I gather my phone and orange juice. “I need to finish my essay.”
“You wanted to go to the movies thirty seconds ago,” Nate points out.
I walk towards the stairs.
“Baby girl, you’re stomping,” Nate calls after me. “Did somebody upset you?”
Yes.
No.
Maybe.
I am upset because my head has become a smoothie of thoughts I cannot separate.
I am not upset because Will has agreed to exactly what I asked. He has not mentioned the kiss once.
I reach the top of the stairs.
Behind me, Nate asks, “What did you do?”
Will’s voice follows, calm and amused. “Nothing.”
————
Four hours later, I carry my exceptionally professional and academically defeated ass through the glass doors of the campus athletic centre with four pairs of men’s shorts in one bag, and absolutely no remaining thoughts about Will Mercer.
Or the phenomenal kiss.
I already know the shorts will fit. The question is whether they will make Mike look strong and sexy without crossing the very fine line into a photograph that appears to be begging the viewer to lick him.
The campaign needs aspiration. It needs to sell a fantasy. Not desperation. Which makes it very difficult when working with sweaty athletes.
The fitting is in one of the smaller team strength rooms rather than the public gym.
My three male housemates are already there when I walk in.
Nate is spotting DJ at the bench press. Will is standing beside a rack of dumbbells wearing a tight black compression shirt, which should count as progress. At least fabric has become involved. Except, the fabric appears to have been painted directly onto him.
“Fairfax!” Mike crosses the room and slings one heavy arm around my shoulders in greeting.
“Mike.” I step back and assess him. “You’re already sweating. Excellent.”
“Nice to see you too.” He grins.
“I need test photographs.”
My housemates greet me from across the room. Nate waves. DJ lifts two fingers from beneath the bar. Will does not use words either.
His eyes move over me slowly, pausing just long enough to communicate that his preferred greeting would involve significantly less conversation. Long enough to say I could kiss you hello.
I quickly look away before my body volunteers and hand the bag to Mike. “Put your own shorts on first so I can get a baseline, then we’ll try these. Put on the black pair first. Then the navy. I want to check the cut from every angle.”
Mike grins, hooks his thumbs beneath the waistband of his training shorts and begins pulling them down.
My attention snaps towards his hands. “Wait. You’re changing here?”
Mike looks around the strength room. “Yeah. Why not?”