12. In the Margins
TWELVE
In the Margins
CALEB
Caleb thumbed through his outline as he waited for the rest of the group to arrive, and told himself it was for everyone’s benefit, not Shannon’s, that he left the training facility properly dressed and so freshly showered his hair was still damp. The pain in his ankle had lessened to where he could walk at a regular pace without dragging the boot, and suddenly all the extra time he built in to not be late made him ten minutes early everywhere he went.
“How’s it going with that thing?” Trent shot a sympathetic glance at the air cast as he claimed a seat near him.
“As well as it can be.” Caleb shrugged. “Off-season rehabilitation is slow. They’d have me sprinting if it was October.” He pressed his palm to the table to keep from smacking his head at the slip.
“Off-season for?”
“Football,” he mumbled.
“No way.” Trent’s curious gaze turned to admiration in a blink. “Stellar, man. You guys had a great season. What position do you play? ”
“We did, thanks. Great season.” He smiled cordially, then pursed his lips and opened his laptop, indicating the conversation was done and Trent could search him on the internet if he wanted stats.
Caleb loved the game, and with anyone who played it with or against him, he could talk for hours about cover-zero defense, nickel and dime packages in the defensive backs, and the ideal physical qualities of a good edge rusher. He’d wax poetic about the length of spikes depending on the playing surface and the weather, and choosing gloves to match opponents’ jerseys and reduce penalty calls.
With anyone else, he usually changed the subject.
Despite their mutual friendly nods on the first day, something about the amiable blond rower suddenly annoyed Caleb. He didn’t know what or why, but his stomach itched and his wrists cracked as he typed nonsense and tried to look busy until Shannon arrived—and he continued his attempt to look busy, only with flushed cheeks and more at stake.
She waved when she saw Trent and sat next to him so Caleb could barely see her. It didn’t matter, he assured himself, because he didn’t want to talk to her anyway. He also didn’t want to notice she’d curled her hair a little, and that her gray sweater was almost the color of her eyes. Almost, but not quite that perfect.
Which also didn’t matter, because as Isaac said, if he didn’t like her, there was nothing to do.
He sighed heavily. There was plenty to do, if only he could negotiate with his stupid brain and get up the balls to do it.
Olive announced it was outline day, and everyone should have brought several copies of their work for review .
“How do we decide who gets whose?” Blake asked, eyeing Caleb.
“Throw them in the middle of the table and see what happens,” DeShaun suggested. “Dogfight.”
Olive rolled her eyes and pointed back and forth between classmates, assigning partners, and declared the workshop in session.
Caleb kept his eyes down and slid his paper to Trent, who handed it to Shannon. She passed one to him. Caleb watched as Trent scratched the nape of Shannon’s neck and smiled, then pulled up a chair a few spaces down with Olive.
“What was that?”
“What was what?” Shannon scooted Trent’s backpack over and wriggled her chair a little closer without looking up.
“Nothing.” Caleb tapped the paper. “What do we do here, just look at organization and all that?”
“And pacing, probably,” she said. “How much time have we mapped out for the most important things.”
“I didn’t think about pacing.”
He’d been too busy in class thinking about the curves of her earlobes, the divot of her navel, and the downy blonde hairs on her knees that made it obvious she had not shaved her legs in the hope of a hookup. The innocence of her knees during the most passionate, connected moment that ever happened to him set his palms tingling. He dug his hands into his thighs to keep from reaching for her under the table.
“Then I guess we’ll think about pacing now.” She smiled. “Let’s take a first pass.”
He scanned her pages, focused as much on his own work as hers, and mentally noting ideas for his own improvements as he drew on the bottom corners of the pages without thinking. She was good. Really good—thoughtful and methodical, and included something he’d never tried.
“I like this,” he said, tapping a bullet point. “Is it weird that it’s never occurred to me to use what-ifs in a formal outline?”
Shannon shook her head. “I used to get in trouble for it. Teachers wanted a statement, not a question, which to me was always stupid. Who has all the answers during the outline phase? To me, outlines are maps of the places I want to explore, and maps are full of questions.”
“Give mine back. I’m going to redo the whole thing.” He cracked a smile and got one in return, then went back to sketching.
“You could do that here,” she said after a minute’s silence. She pointed to his section about symbolism, and he noticed a penciled border of dots and triangles she doodled in the right margin. “Where you’ve got all the ‘significance of’ lines in a row. Are you asking different questions about the ducks and the hat? Probably. So what are they?”
“How did you end up in a political science program?” he asked. “You’re not a very black-and-white-thinker, are you?” The words escaped his lips before he could stop them. Conversation about the class with a morality-free onetime soulmate was acceptable. Small talk was not, and jealousy over a touch on her neck where he once traced his name was not in the playbook. Neither were knees and earlobes, or the ridges of her ribcage pressing into his hands as he made her gasp for breath.
He was screwed.
Shannon looked up and barely moved her lips as she responded. “It’s a boring story. ”
It never occurred to Caleb to be jealous of Hayden, even when they were trash talking in the locker room and trying to get under each other’s skin. He didn’t like it and definitely didn’t understand it, but what took place between Shannon and Hayden was obviously over. He was annoyed, yes. Jealous, no.
Whatever was happening between her and Trent was here and now, and almost certainly the reason he felt sick before Shannon even arrived. The vibe from that guy. The nerve , trying to talk ball with him—like football could be an adequate distraction from the thought of anyone’s hands on her since he scrawled his initials all over her body. His stomach wrenched with a one-sided betrayal.
He slid the outline back, and couldn’t help himself. “You and Trent, huh?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“He’s friends with Missy’s boyfriend,” she said, shoving his outline down the table. “We’ve hung out a few times, not that I owe you an explanation.”
Caleb held up his hands. “Whoa. Just curious.”
“Sure you are.”
He fought the urge to yank her paper away and erase the border of ducks he’d drawn at the bottom. One of them wore a hat with earflaps and a long tail.
Trent stuck his head between them and grinned at Shannon. “How’s review going? My pen died.” He rustled in his bag on the floor between them.
“Good, good,” she said, glaring over her shoulder. “Did you know Caleb and I already know each other? He used to go out with Missy in high school. ”
“No way.” Trent turned to him with a broad smile. “All the surprises today, man. Missy’s great. Her boyfriend is one of my best friends.”
“Yeah, she’s… well, Missy is really something.” He bit the inside of his cheek. “Small world.”
Trent produced a fresh pen, held it aloft, and disappeared.
“Look, I just wondered about you and him,” Caleb said quietly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like… like that. Whatever it was. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
The delicate arcs of her brows flattened as she looked away and wriggled in her seat. “It’s fine. You’re fine. I don’t know what it is with him, so… anyway.”
Caleb took a deep breath. It wasn’t going to be anything if he could help it. “Would you mind walking me through some of this sometime?” he asked. “I get to a certain point with the symbolism and I hit a wall. It’s like my questions aren’t the right questions. I’ve read every stupid blog and analysis, and maybe I just over thought it, but—” He cleared his throat. “Please.”
“Sure,” she said, as if spending time with him would be nothing of consequence. “Late afternoons are best for me.”
Casual. A thing on a checklist, but a place on the list, nonetheless. It wasn’t supposed to be that easy. She was supposed to say no and start playing stupid mind games if she liked him.
She was also supposed to say no if she hated him.
Caleb stared between rows of shelves and begged the books for wisdom, nearly crossing his eyes as he tried to read the sign on the end of the closest row. Australian Geography. He vaguely recalled a large rock isolated in a massive desert and thought that sounded about as hopeless as it gets. Hopeless enough that most of the world left the damn rock alone.
Shannon tapped the ducks on the bottom of the first page of her outline. “These are cute. May I?”
He nodded.
She pulled a red pen from her backpack and filled in the hat. Holden Caulfield’s red hunting hat on a little sketched duck refugee from a frozen lake in Central Park. She drew a thought bubble above its head:
Why am I so worried about ducking fucks?
He couldn’t look up.
“Okay, she said we can meet to talk about the book,” Caleb said before greeting his brother on the video call. “What do I do?”
Eli raised an eyebrow. “You talk about the book, moron.”
“Yeah, but what else?”
“This is the ringer? The girl you love but swear you don’t like?”
“She’s not a—look, yeah. Same girl.”
“Then you do nothing,” Eli said. “You talk about the book, and then nothing. You’ve spent hours on the phone with one or another of us running your mouth about how you have some moral objection to her past, but there you are. Still looking for any justification to make a move.” He scratched the stubble on his neck. “But all jokes aside, I wouldn’t take a chance on her. She’s messy.”
“Your opinion has been noted,” Caleb said drily.
“I cannot recommend this strongly enough: get an uncomplicated girl who tells you exactly what she wants and needs, and your life will be smooth sailing,” Eli said. “Courtney makes schedules based on our classes and activities. I can tell you for a fact I will be getting laid tomorrow at eight forty-seven p.m. It’s incredible, and I am called the best boyfriend in the world in exchange for my compliance.”
“Sure, but you never get to make any choices on your own.”
“Choices are highly overrated,” Eli said. “Does your coach give you choices? Mine doesn’t. But if you must do this stupid thing, take a little good advice from your favorite older brother.”
“Go get him. I’ll wait.”
Eli stared. “When did you get comedic timing?”
“When did you get good advice?”
“Listen, I am the only one of us who had any experience for years. A quick search for something like ‘sex positions for tall guys’ will come in handy with anyone you date who is under six feet tall.”
“How much taller are you than Courtney?” Caleb asked, recalling the issue with not being able to kiss Shannon while he was on top.
“Fourteen inches.”
Caleb nearly choked on his tongue. “I feel better being the shortest now,” he wheezed. “But see, you do have complications.”
“At least my complications have solutions. One quick search, brother. You’ll thank me one day.”