“Well, let me know when you figure that out,” I said quickly to Fin. He scowled at me, again not expecting me to dismiss him so easily. I ignored the small pang of disappointment I felt because we wouldn’t get to continue this banter. Grabbing Britte’s arm I yanked her toward where we stashed our stuff on the bleachers. “We’ve got to go!” I called back over my shoulder. “See and talk to you Monday Fin.”
That was my warning. He better heed.
“What is wrong with you?” Britte whispered harshly.
“Beckett,” I replied, that one word causing her to sober immediately. She tensed under my grip, and picked up her pace.
She didn’t even turn to wave to Fin and his friends behind us. She just dutifully picked up her things and marched along beside me as we went to face my brother. I could feel her body continuing to stiffen next to me and I had to wonder why she was as nervous as I was. She believed all of my brothers were hot, as did the majority of females that came into contact with them, but this was a little absurd for Britte. She was usually laid-back enough to not let her nerves get in the way.
“Are you Ok?” I asked in a whisper just before we reached Beckett.
“Probably not,” she admitted. “But you will be, you didn’t even look suspicious with Fin, so don’t let him guilt you into feeling bad.”
“Thanks.”
“Morning, E,” Beckett called out. “Changed your running schedule?”
Seriously? Was nothing I did private?
“Yep,” I answered easily.
“I caught you talking to Fin again,” he stated simply. His eyes were heating with some angry emotion and I was just waiting for the fall out.
“Yep,” I echoed. Short and sweet. It seemed to work with Fin.
“Does your project include working out together?” his expression was sharp and accusing. “And you,” he swung on Britte. “Were those guys bothering you?”
“B-bothering me?” she sputtered. Britte, one of the most poised and well-spoken people I had ever known sputtered! What was happening?
“Yes,” Beckett snapped. His attention was completely off me now and centered wholly on my friend. “Were they bothering you?” Each of his words were precisely clipped as if he were barely restraining his temper.
“Becks, what is wrong with you?” It was one thing to overprotect me. It was another thing entirely to give Britte a hard time.
He ignored me, of course. “You’re my sister’s best friend.” He was stating obvious facts, but his tone and locked jaw made it seem more like an allegation.
“Yes, I am,” she found her nerve again, talking to Beckett like he was a small child.
Beckett narrowed his eyes further, seeming to catch on as well. “You should be a better influence. She shouldn’t be hanging around with Hunter, any more than you should be partying and-“
“Oh, lord,” I cut in, realizing this was all my fault. “We’re going now!” I spoke over Beckett and started dragging Britte along with me. “I’m so, so, so sorry B! I have no idea why he is acting so crazy!”
She allowed me to pull her along again, but cast a glaring look over her shoulder at Beckett, who at least hadn’t followed us.
“He thinks I’m a bad influence on you?” she asked with more outrage than I expected, which was a lot to begin with. “He doesn’t know the half of it!” She suddenly yelled in a very loud voice, with her head still turned back towards my brother, “Come on Ellie! Let’s go get sloshed! I need a drink so bad right now!”
“Oh my gosh,” I mumbled. “We are never running in the morning again. This was a nightmare.”
“Ha!” She turned back around so she could stop stumbling over her own feet. “This was a nightmare,” she agreed and then back to the yelling over her shoulder thing, “Your brother’s a nightmare!”
“So, you’re still bummed you missed family dinner on Wednesday?” I asked in a light tone.
“I finally get it, Els. I mean, all this time and I thought I got it. But now I really, really get it. You should never have come here. Next year, you and me, we will both transfer back to UW and we will never have to see these people again.” She was at least a little bit calm now, she sounded more bewildered than hurt or offended. Which was a good thing, I hoped….
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I agreed.
----
The next day I walked into my Econ class feeling so off kilter. At the forefront of my mind was Beckett attacking Britte. Truthfully, I never really had a best friend before her. Growing up, I had my brothers to play with, and my parents’ house sat on an acreage far from any other houses where I might have found children my age. My mom homeschooled all of us through private tutors until we were middle school age. She sent each of us off to public school at that time, hoping we would gain the necessary social skills to cope in real life. My brothers were all good-looking, extremely athletic and unable to ever be embarrassed. They did fine.
Me? I was painfully shy and reserved. I tried to follow their footsteps in the only formula I had seen work and that was to play sports. That opened up my social circle a little bit, but I never made any lasting friendships.
Finally, Colton walked into my life and kind of took over. Suddenly I had weekend plans and someone to text and talk to. I had someone paying me attention and making an effort to be with me. The best part was that he didn’t let my brothers intimidate him. Well, to a certain extent of course they did. He wouldn’t so much as hold my hand if we were anywhere on my parents property and the few times he accidentally bumped into me, he apologized like we were strangers. But my brothers didn’t stop him from coming around. He at least showed up.
And at the time that was all I was asking for.
Even after we went our separate ways for college, he still tried with me. He called me all the time, texted all the time, spent weekends traveling to see me. He was never the perfect boyfriend; he flirted shamelessly with other girls and often forgot things I thought were important. But I was all about giving A’s for effort and he was exceeding in the effort department.
Things didn’t take a terrible turn until I followed him to La Crosse. It was his begging that initially brought me here, but once we were together full time it was obvious how little we still had in common, how all his effort would still pull us up short. He cheated on me and I should be outraged. And sure, my vanity was offended and I was more than embarrassed. At first, I could even say I was almost heartbroken. My trust in someone I cared about was shattered and that rocked me.
But now looking back on what happened, with a little bit of perspective, I saw that we were headed toward the finish line anyway. He just maybe jumped the gun a little bit, but our breakup was inevitable.
I think even my brothers and parents saw that coming. Nobody was particularly shocked with the news, although my brothers did make an effort to save face and protect my reputation.
I could be bitter about the move to La Crosse now, and there were some moments when I was. But I would do it all over again just to have Britte.
When we met at that special orientation, we bonded immediately. She sat down next to me with a sigh of aggravation and launched into a story about Admissions messing up her schedule. She was furious until we realized her mistake would put us in the same English 102 class. Her ire subsided and our friendship grew as we continued to talk through orientation. At the end, we exchanged numbers and then the texting began. She started it, of course. I was still reeling with rollercoaster emotions that included insecurity, elation and most brightly self-doubt.
All those feelings were quickly erased though when I realized how easy Britte made friendships in general. It was probably through that relationship that I started to see all the flaws with Colton. Not that I was thinking of Britte in the same light, I mean…. ew. But it was the first real relationship outside of my family that just happened naturally. I understood then that I didn’t have to fight to make something work, if it wasn’t. Colton didn’t have to be “the one?
?? for me just because I had been with him so long.
I might have stopped trying so hard.
And that’s when Colton probably started looking around elsewhere.
I should have just ended it when I realized I could never marry him, but there was safety in the familiar and I had just moved schools for him. My pride forced me to see it through. Besides, I reasoned that maybe if I stopped trying so hard things would become more natural for us.
I wondered if there was more to Beckett’s outrage with Britte than just trying to protect me. It was easy to reason that Britte was the one thing I had left in my life outside of my family and that if she hurt me I could very well be traumatized. It could also be reasoned that everyone in my family was so frustratingly pig-headed and domineering that any small slight by Britte could be construed as a bad influence.
Or it could be something entirely different….
“We’re friends, right?” a deep voice interrupted my mental-sleuthing to the right of me. “I can sit here?”
“Huh? What?” I was oh so eloquent when being pulled from deep thoughts.
“It’s Ok if I sit here?” the voice asked again and I finally focused on the face long enough to determine who it was.
Jameson.
“I know you?” I asked just to be bitchy. Which wasn’t technically directed at him, but I felt like Fin had something to do with this.
His pale cheeks flushed a blooming red that made his skin so attractive. “Jameson,” he whispered as if super embarrassed to have to remind me. “We met yesterday.”
“Oh, right, Fin’s friend.” I smiled a little, softening up. “Did he send you to spy on me?”
He ducked his head, and then looked up at me from under dark eye lashes. “Uh, no.” He cleared his throat nervously, and then admitted, “Not today.”
“So before?” I narrowed my eyes on him, feeling no more mercy. “You’re the reason he knew I was failing Econ?”
His blush deepened and I was happy to see he at least felt bad. “Sorry. I was just doing a favor for a friend. I had no idea what kind of trouble you were in.”
“I’m not in trouble.” I said defensively while dropping my voice. “My dumb ex-roommate, Tara the Taker is in trouble. She stole my identity.”
He snorted a little at that, rebounding from his earlier insecurity. “Fin said you’d say that.” I opened my mouth to give him my side of the argument but he just talked over me. “You know usually girls don’t forget my name.”
Oh, no. Another one of these guys. I paused for a moment, letting his cocky words hang in the air to see if he would pick up on his out of place arrogance. He didn’t, so I had to stoop to a tactic I usually reserved for my brothers. “I don’t really know what you want me to say here? Uh, congratulations?”
His blush was back in full force and I had to mash my lips together to keep from grinning. He ran a hand through his naturally auburn-highlighted hair and cut a look to me out of the corner of his eyes.
On a frustrated whisper he said, “I’m on the track team, it’s not like I’m invisible.”
“I’m sure you’re not,” I agreed sympathetically.
He let out a nervous burst of laughter and shook his head. “Fin is in so much trouble with you.”
Gah! It was my turn to blush. “Don’t say things like that,” I snapped. “I’m just trying to get out of this situation that he put me in. Nothing more.”
“That’s what I’m saying; he’s not used to girls like you. He’s used to girls that get close to me and Charlie just to get close to him. Most girls remember my name because I’m named after whiskey or they think of me like a hurdle on the way to Fin the finish line.”
I snorted a laugh. “Fin the finish line.”
“Tara the Taker?” he grinned down at me.
“Well, trust me, I fully plan on leaving Fin’s finish line and your hurdles completely alone,” I assured him. Which earned me some muffled laughter. “And whiskey? Really?”
He winked at me so I didn’t know if he was serious or not, but I didn’t get a chance to find out. “So you know Ty?”
“He’s my boss,” I explained, although I felt like it should have been obvious since he was at Bailey’s last night with Fin.
“Ty likes you,” Jameson stated as if that were a really important fact.
“Of course he does!” I defended myself, but inside I kept hearing his weird comment about Fin being like his son, and me being like his daughter and how that would be oh, so wrong. I shuddered against the memory. There wasn’t anything between us, but if there was even the smallest chance of a relationship with Fin the last thing I wanted to associate him with was another brother.
“You’re not what I expected,” he said seriously and in my opinion, out of the freaking blue!
“What does that mean?” I demanded but our professor had just entered the room and was already opening his book to launch into his horribly monotone monologue.
“Hey are you still failing this class?” Jameson whispered. He pulled out a thick notebook filled with handwritten notes and for some reason that endeared him to me.
I grunted some kind of affirmative noise, not willing to actually put words to the fact that I was actually failing at something.
“Are you going to get a chance to make up any work you missed?”
The professor cut his eyes to us; clearly we were disrupting his speech. He gave Jameson an intense look that would have had me trembling with remorse, but Jameson just shrugged one shoulder. Eventually the prof got back to price theory.
As soon as his attention was diverted off us, I whispered, “as long as I get all the remaining attendance points, homework points and ace the midterm and final.”
Jameson snickered at that. “Sounds easy enough.”
I turned to face him and gave him a pointed eye roll.
“Well, do you want my notes for the weeks you missed, then?” he dropped his eyes to his notes and scribbled something down from the lecture.
I let that slide. Normally it annoyed me to no end when people could simultaneously talk in class and listen to a teacher at the same time. I could only do one or the other. So getting caught up in an in-class conversation meant I had no idea what the teacher was saying. I usually chose listening to the teacher.
“Really?” I hedged, feeling like this was too good to be true, like maybe there was another hidden fee attached to this.
“Sure,” Jameson grinned over at me. “As long as you can read my writing.”
“That would be fantastic, thank you!” Maybe imminent failure in this class wasn’t so imminent after all!
He leafed through his notebook and then gathered together some more loose papers tucked inside his text book. I would probably have to spend some time sorting through all this, and his handwriting would definitely be a problem, but these notes were invaluable to my grade.
“Do you want them back next class or sooner? I want to give you enough time to study for midterms.” We didn’t have class until Wednesday and our midterm was a week after that.
“Are you going to Fin’s this weekend?” Jameson asked casually, glossing over the entire reason Fin and I spent time together to begin with. Fin called me his “slave” in his text message.
“Not till Monday,” I admitted with a shrug.
“I’ll just pick them up then.” Jameson shot me another look out of the corner of his eye. “You’re not going to his Grandma’s Sunday dinner?”
“Uh, no.” Weird question, right? “Why would you think that?”
He shot me a slow grin and shook his head a little. “It’s a coveted invitation. But it’s probably too early for that. You seem like the kind of girl that scares easily.”
“Omg,” I whispered, feeling like there was no other word or phrase that could sum up all of this building frustration. “I’m going to stop talking to you now and start paying attention.”
Jameson laughed at me one more time, softly, casually, familiarly, like w
e were old friends. It kind of freaked me out. But he didn’t say anything more and let me tune back into Professor Boring so I could take my own notes instead of stealing all his.
Chapter Eight
The weekend flew by in a haze of work and sleep. Finally, with the apartment to myself I could relax completely. I didn’t have to worry about Tara’s extremely loud 90’s punk blaring late into the night and her weird early morning routines that left messy breakfasts, she never cleaned up or meeting up with her stoner friends so they could wake and bake in community. Not that I would judge them or condemn 90’s punk. Both had their place in this world probably, it just wasn’t supposed to be in my apartment, at inconvenient hours, while Tara stole money from me I didn’t even have and chipped away at my dignity.
Still, as nice as the solitude was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to maintain it. Even though she was months behind on her rent, she had been helping me with the utilities, which now fell solely to me. And I could barely cover her share of the rent. Pretty soon I would have to decide between keeping water or electricity. Which, let’s face it, was a terrible situation to be in.
Finding another roommate freaked me out though. I couldn’t handle another taker like Tara. Literally I couldn’t afford to lose any more possessions. And what if I got someone worse than her? I needed an online vetting site for roommates.
Too bad one of my brothers wasn’t a cop. I would have totally made them do background checks on all potential candidates.
Ugh. Plus, there was still the whole matter of Fin Hunter expecting me to fork over seven thousand dollars in four weeks and two days.
With the little free time I had over the weekend I tried really hard to hunt down Tara. I called her cell phone which was now disconnected. I Facebook stalked the begeezus out of her, but she hadn’t had any activity since before she abandoned me. Same with Twitter, Instagram and her blog. Really, Tara? A blog?
Next I tried to hack into her old voicemail and email account, but she surprisingly used complicated passwords, or just not obvious ones, like her birthdate and address, because I could not figure out anything. And since her cell phone was no longer in service, apparently her voicemail wasn’t either.