Tackled, Page 24

  mother asks. Even on the phone, her fishing for information is transparent.

  "I don't know, mom." I give a sigh. "Are you never going to let up about her?"

  "Not when she helped my son get the best grades he's gotten in college or high school," she says.

  "They rearrange the tutors. Or maybe I won't get one at all in the fall. I don't know."

  "You haven't asked her?"

  I swallow hard. Nope. We've both been avoiding mentioning anything beyond this week. It's finals, and then I get two weeks before all the craziness of the season begins.

  "I haven't thought about it," I lie.

  "You need her," my mom tells me.

  I know.

  "How do you figure that?" I ask, my voice tight.

  "Because I know you."

  "I can study on my own. It's not like studying is going to be my priority come fall, anyhow."

  "You know I'm not talking about studying," my mom says knowingly.

  "Well I didn't ask for your advice," I snap, then immediately regret it. "Shit. I didn't mean that, ma."

  "Don't get mad at me because I'm saying something you don't want to hear."

  "There's nothing going on with Cassie and me," I lie.

  "Are you having a end-of-finals-party this weekend?" she asks.

  "Probably at the house," I say. "I haven't thought about it. Saturday, I guess?" I try to remember how long it's been since I went to one of the parties at my house. I've spent the last month out in the country with Cassie, or holed up in her room.

  Between her legs.

  I don't want anything to change when summer session ends.

  Actually, I don't want anything between us to change at all.

  "Then I'll be there Friday," my mom decides. "Don't give me any grief. You boys need food."

  "Fine, mom."

  I know she just wants to come up here to push me and Cassie together. I don't know why the thought of that doesn't bother me so much anymore.

  * * *

  "Why are you answering Drew's phone?"

  "I always do," Beth says. "You know that. He's in the shower. How's your girlfriend?"

  "She's not my girlfriend, Beth."

  "Close enough," she mumbles. "Are you going to go public?"

  "What? No. She'd lose her tutoring position."

  "But you don't deny that there's something to go public about," Beth fishes.

  "Yeah, sex," I blurt. "Good ol' fashioned fucking. That's it. Happy now?"

  "Sure that's all it is," Beth says. "That's why you've been dipping your wick in her and only her for months now."

  "You don't know that," I say, an edge in my voice. "I could have been dipping my wick in her and every other girl in a twenty-mile radius, for all you know."

  "Not possible."

  "Because you know what I'm doing here?"

  "Because you sound happy."

  "Maybe I'm happy because of all the girls I'm screwing."

  "Don't lie."

  "Then don't act like you know what I want, Beth," I say, irritated. "Maybe I don't want to be pussy-whipped like Drew is."

  "What's that about pussy?" Drew's voice gets closer.

  "He thinks you're pussy-whipped," Beth says.

  "I am," Drew says. "Thrilled to be pussy-whipped."

  "He wants Cassie to be his girlfriend, but doesn't want to admit it," Beth says, "because he's scared."

  "You can lay off with the armchair diagnosis, Beth, unless you became a psychiatrist and I hadn't heard about it. I'm not scared."

  "She'll want to be your girlfriend, Colton," Beth says. "She obviously likes you."

  "I'm not afraid she's going to turn me down," I say angrily.

  "But you are scared, though."

  "Screw you, Beth. Next time, answer your fucking phone yourself, Drew."

  "You're a good man, Colt," Beth insists. "Just admit it to yourself."

  "I have to go." I hang up the phone before either of them can try to add anything else about how I'm good and relationships are good and Cassie and I should grow old together.

  What the hell do they know?

  36

  Cassie

  "I'm so happy your exam went well," I say loudly, wrapping a towel around my wet hair. "Seriously. I'm so excited for you. You rocked finals week. You should be proud."

  Colton doesn't respond, and I walk from the bathroom to the open bedroom door to repeat myself.

  "What is this, Cassie?"

  He's holding a stack of papers and I glance at the notebook on the floor, my heart sinking. "It's nothing," I say immediately, then regret it.

  Just tell him. It'll be fine.

  Except I know by the look on his face as he reads it that it's not.

  "The football player demonstrates hyper-masculine behaviors off the field as an extension of his aggressive identity on the field."

  "It's not what it looks like," I start.

  Colton looks at me, his expression somewhere between irate and hurt. "This is about me," he says. "It's about my friends."

  "No, that's not it at all," I protest. "It's general. It's not specific to any of you. I'd never write about you."

  He reads from the draft of my thesis and I wince. "His hyper-masculine behavior may be a defense against a fragile sense of –"

  I rip the papers out of his hands. "Colton, listen," I say, words spilling out of my mouth quickly. "This is not about you in any way. I was studying masculine identity. When I started tutoring, I had the idea to look at it in football. My advisor thought it was a good thesis idea. But the thesis doesn't have anything to do with you."

  Colton looks at me with disgust. "You've been using me as a guinea pig this whole time."

  "No, no, no," I say. "It's a literature review. It's all from books. It's just a review of existing research. There's nothing in there about you or anyone on the team. I promise."

  "You promise?" he asks, laughing bitterly. "Well, then, as long as you promise, I definitely trust you."

  "I wanted to tell you," I say.

  "I've spent how much time with you this summer?" Colton asks, his voice angry. "And you never quite found the time to mention what your thesis was on?"

  "You never asked."

  "So it's my fucking fault I didn't ask whether you were doing a case study on me? Yeah, fuck me for just assuming that's not something you'd do."

  "It's not a case study," I protest feebly. "I – I didn't know you, not really, when I started writing it. So I didn't mention it then. And then the longer it went on and I didn't tell you, the bigger it got. I didn't want you to hate me."

  "Well, not telling me was a great fucking way to make sure that happened," Colton says. "Was the whole 'I don't know anything about football' a lie, too?"

  "What? No," I blurt. "I didn't know anything about football. Or you. Shit, Colton, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I know it looks bad."

  "You have no idea how it looks," he says, picking up his t-shirt from the bed and sliding it over his head.

  "I didn't know anything about you when I met you, Colton." Oh, God. The look on his face – hurt and betrayal – is like a punch to the gut. I think I'm going to puke.

  "It's not even what you wrote," he says. "It's the fact that you've been hiding it this whole time, lying to me. What the fuck else are you lying about?"

  "Colton, I'm not –"

  But he turns around and walks out the door.

  * * *

  "Why are you sitting here in the dark and –" Sable stops short inside the apartment door, Tank standing behind her. "Oh shit, what happened?"

  "Nothing," I say, sniffling. "I mean, it was my fault. Colton left."

  "When it comes to Colton, there's no way anything was your fault," Tank says. "Are you sure he didn't fuck a cheerleader or something?"

  "Jonathan!" Sable says.

  "What? If they broke up, it would be because of that, not something Cassie did."

  "Not helping at all," Sable groans, slapping him on th
e arm.

  Tank clears his throat. "You know what, I'm going to just… go get something. Outside."

  The door slams closed behind him.

  "I should have just told him before, like you said," I say.

  Sable sits beside me on the sofa, taking my hands in hers. She reaches up and wipes her thumb under my eye. "Your mascara is all over your face, honey," she says. "You told him about the thesis?"

  I shake my head. "Worse. He found it," I say. "I left my notebook on my desk. It was a copy I printed out to proofread. I didn't even think about it. And he must have moved the notebook or dropped it on the floor or something, and I came out of the shower and he was just standing there."

  "And he read it?" Sable asks. "Okay, that's not so bad. I read it. You're not ridiculing him or his sport or saying that football players are compensating for small penises or anything."

  Even though I'm upset, I can't help but snort. "Yeah, I'm definitely not saying that."

  "What did he say?"

  "He only read part of it, the beginning of the literature review – you know, theories about aggression being compensation for a fragile masculine identity, and –"

  Sable groans. "Okay, that part's not the greatest," she agrees. "So he thinks you're talking about him and you secretly have disdain for him."

  "Yes, exactly."

  "And that you've been secretly using him as an 'in' for insight into the mind of football players so you can write your thesis."

  I nod.

  "And that you knew that when you started tutoring him," she goes on. "And tutored him under false pretenses, which makes you a lying liar who lies. And then slept with him on top of that, which would just make you a ho-bag."

  "I'm clear on my list of offenses, thanks, Sable," I state, my voice hard. Then it breaks, because my eyes tear up and I can't stop the tears from falling down my cheeks. "I'm an awful person."

  Sable puts her arms around me. "Oh, sweetie, you're not at all," she says soothingly. "You just made a mistake. I'm sure he's going to think about it and realize that you're not any of the things he's assuming."

  I shake my head. "It's the end of the summer anyhow. He's going to be playing and it was going to be over anyway. He so much as said that."

  "Did he say that?"

  "Basically."

  "It wasn't just hooking up anymore, was it?"

  "It was," I insist. "It is, I mean. It was just a fling. That's all it was supposed to be, so I don't know why I'm even upset. Something's wrong with me. It feels like someone punched me in the stomach and like I'm on the verge of throwing up, except I can't throw up and I just want to cry."

  "I think that's maybe how you feel when you're in love," Sable says.

  "Like you're going to vomit?"

  "You're asking the wrong girl, but that's what I hear."

  "Don't be ridiculous," I snap. "I'm not in love with him. I just like sleeping with him. A lot. More than I thought I could ever like anything. And I want to hang out with him…all the time. He's and he makes me laugh, and I want so much for him to be happy and –"

  Oh God.

  I stop short in the middle of vomiting up a torrent of words.

  "It's only been a summer. And it was just supposed to be sex. I'm not in love with him. I can't be in love with him."

  But as soon as I say the words out loud, I know it in my gut.

  Sable just sits there looking at me. A faint knock on the door interrupts us and then the door swings open. Tank stands there with three shopping bags in his hands.

  "Oh, God," I say, the realization washing over me. "I'm in love with Colton King. And I totally fucked it all up."

  "Shit. Don't get mad," Tank says, a sheepish look on his face. "I'm interrupting, I know. I walked in at a really bad time. I just brought you something." He sets the bags on the coffee table and pulls out a bottle of tequila. "The good stuff," he promises. A couple of limes roll across the table, stopped by the bottle. "And snacks. Because, well, I don't know anything that doesn't feel better after tequila and snacks."

  "Are those Oreos I see in there?" Sable asks.

  "Two bags," Tank confirms. "Okay, one and a quarter. I got hungry on the walk home. I didn't know what snacks you liked, so I grabbed a whole bunch of different ones."

  I sniffle. "I want to hug you right now."

  Tank blushes and looks at Sable, who practically beams at him. "Thank you for that," Sable says, standing up. "So…why don't we get good and drunk?"

  "You girls go ahead," Tank says. "I just came back to drop these bags off and run."

  "You don't have to go, Tank," I say.

  "Yeah, I do. Mrs. K is coming. She's making dinner. I need to get back to the house before she gets there. I'm going to kick Colton's ass for making you cry, and it's not cool to do it right in front of his mother."

  "Don't kick his ass," I protest. I'm not actually sure if Tank is serious or joking. I'm leaning toward serious.

  "I don't understand," Tank says. "How else is he going to know he did something bad?"

  "He didn't do anything bad," I say. "I did."

  Tank looks back and forth between the two of us. "I doubt that," he says. "And I'm not making any promises when it comes to the ass kicking."