“She gets lucky often enough,” Big-D muttered from across the table. A tiny girl with shiny hair hung on his every word. At Big-D’s not-so-subtle attempt to impugn my character, she gave a loud giggle.
Only a dumbass like Big-D would have to put me down just because I won some fake money off him. Sigh. “That bugged the shit out of you, didn’t it?” I asked. “Losing to a girl. Is that why your date isn’t playing?” I studied the sweet young thing on his arm. Her Casino Night getup included a shimmering, spangled top, an up-do that must have taken an hour and a half and gleaming red lipstick. I decided she was a freshman, because she was trying way too hard for Saturday night in a skeevy frat house.
I looked her right in the eye. “There’s room at the table if you want to play.”
Pursing those shiny lips, she shook her head and smirked.
“Suit yourself.”
Whittaker shuffled the deck. I placed a new bet and waited for Whittaker to deal. This time he dealt me an ace. And when I asked for a hit, I got ten and won. “Gotcha again, Big-D,” I said a little too cheerfully.
There was a roar from the TV room. Truthfully, I was starting to care more about the hockey game than blackjack.
I lifted my eyes over Big-D’s shoulder and found Rafe staring at me. In fact, he looked as if he was about to head in my direction. Not going to happen. If he had something to say to me, I did not want it said in front of Big-D, his simpering date and Whittaker.
“I think I’m done for the night,” I said suddenly, passing my fat wad of Casino Night money over to Big-D.
“What? Why?” he asked. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
“I’m sure you can find another girl to warm you up,” I quipped. “And now you have a thousand extra dollars to play with.”
“You’re just giving this to me?”
“I’m so promiscuous like that,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.
When I turned away toward the TV room, Whittaker followed me. “Hey, you need a beer?”
I could, in fact, use a beer. But I didn’t want Whittaker to get any ideas. “If you’re getting one for yourself, I’d love a refill,” I said, meeting his eyes. There was absolutely interest there. Too bad I wasn’t big on football players. And I really wasn’t big on fraternity houses. This wasn’t going to turn out the way Whittaker hoped.
“It’s no trouble,” he said, touching my elbow.
“Thanks. I’m going to see how the Rangers are doing,” I said, pointing into the TV room.
“I’ll find you,” he said, his eyes scanning the room.
I’ll bet you will.
“Hey, pledge!” he called out to some poor schmo whose lot in life was to be Whittaker’s minion. “Deal this table for me. I’m taking a break.”
Turning my back on him, I went in search of the Rangers’ score.
The TV room was pretty small — it was more of an alcove than a room. But since TV was the lifeblood of the pack of athletes who lived here, it was probably the most popular room in the house.
There were five guys in there already, and I evaluated my seating options. There was a small wedge of sofa available between two frat guys, but I didn’t feel like jamming myself between them. There was a tattered footstool, but… Eew. Fraternity house furniture was a dicey proposition, even when it didn’t look as if it had been recently chewed by rats.
Luckily, one of the chairs had been taken by Pepe, an enormous French Canadian defensive hockey player and one of my on-again-off-again fuck buddies. “Belluh!” he crowed in his thick French accent. “Zhere is no score yet! But your Rangers look like poo poo tonight.”
I walked over and sat down in his lap. He stuck his big feet out onto the coffee table, making both of us more comfortable. And just like that, my seating problem was solved. “Twenty bucks says the Rangers win tonight,” I challenged him.
“Noh,” he said, his accent thick even on the one syllable word. “I cannot take money from a friend.”
I snorted at his overconfidence. He and I had a longstanding Rangers-vs.-Canadiens rivalry, because those were our teams. Pepe and I were the same age, although he was only a freshman. He’d spent two years after high school playing semi-pro on a farm team for — wait for it — the Canadiens. So for him, this game was personal.
Unfortunately, he was right that things didn’t look so good for my Rangers. The score was still zip-zip, but the Canadiens had already taken twice as many shots on goal as the New York team had.
Behind me, Pepe got excited about the on-screen action. “Oui! Oui oui oui!” he yelled at the screen as his team’s forward drove the puck towards the goal again.
“Stop him,” I yelled. But it was no use. The lamp lit before I could even get the words out.
Pepe threw his scruffy head back on his broad shoulders and whooped.
There is nothing cuter than watching a giant man-child get delirious over his team’s goal. Pepe’s hands wandered down my sides, and he gave my hips a squeeze. I felt his erection begin to poke me in the lower back.
Turning to whisper into his ear, I asked, “Pepe, did you seriously just pop a boner because the Canadiens scored?”
“Noh,” he said. “I have zee bonnaire because now we are weening.”
I giggled, while his hand found its way onto my boob, which he gave a single squeeze. Sports, food and sex. Those were the things which made the men in my life tick. It was really that simple.
“I theenk we need a different bet,” he said. “Not money. Les vêtements. Clothing. I score a goal, I choose a piece of yours.”
I turned my head so I could see him. “You want to play strip hockey?”
“Oui. Keep it interesting.”
What a goofball. “Fine. But we’ll have to watch the game in my room if you want to get naked.”
“Not naked. Just take off zee sweater.” Carefully, he lifted it over my head, tossing it aside. “It is itching me.”
“Sorry,” I laughed. It was an itchy sweater. Wearing only a tank top now, I settled back against Pepe’s broad chest. He was excellent furniture, as long as you didn’t mind the sensation of his dick poking at the bottom of your spine.
And I didn’t.
I thought of Pepe as the human equivalent of a black Labrador puppy. He had a clumsy, happy attitude, big feet and a lot of dark hair all over his body. (All over his body.)
He wasn’t the deepest man I’d ever met, but he was a good friend. And tonight I didn’t mind soaking up some of his light-hearted affection. Nothing would happen between us, because Pepe had gotten back together with his high school girlfriend over the summer. So a few risqué jokes were the only sex Pepe and I would be having.
Whittaker didn’t know that, though. When he came into the TV room with two beers, his eyes narrowed as he found me sitting in Pepe’s lap. With a frown, he handed me a glass.
“Thank you,” I told him.
His response was a grunt. Whittaker took his own beer and sat on the skeevy ottoman.
The Canadiens, unfortunately, picked that moment to secure a breakaway. Behind me, Pepe sat up a little straighter as his team chased the puck down the ice.
Uh-oh.
“C’est magnifique!” Pepe roared in my ear. “Formidable!”
Pepe was a very enthusiastic guy, and all that enthusiasm translated well during sex. We’d shared some very energetic sessions, usually with me bent over some piece of furniture while he panted French words of encouragement into my ear. (C’est bon! C’est bon! Magnifique!)
“Exceptionnel!” Pepe screamed now as they scored for the second time.
“Come on, guys!” I hollered at the screen. “This is Montreal you’re playing! You’re not supposed to lose.”
Behind me, Pepe laughed like a little kid. “Eef we were playing for keeps, now I would win this little blouse.” He tugged on the fabric of my tank top.
“Sure.” I shrugged. “But if you can pretend-win my top, I can pretend to put on my rally cap. You guys are going dow
n.”
“Non, l’amour. You will watch and see.” Pepe took the beer out of my hand and stole a sip.
I took it back, giving his thigh a little pinch. “Pay attention, babe. The Rangers are getting a power play. Your D-man got called for slashing.”
The next half hour of the game was intense. My Rangers pulled it together enough to score once. I pretend-demanded Pepe’s pants. But then Montreal scored an ugly goal in front of the net. Again. And Pepe pretend-claimed my jeans.
In the grand tradition of inside jokes everywhere, we thought our game was hysterical. “If we were playing for real, you’d be sitting here in those teeny tiny purple briefs, right?” I teased Pepe. Because the man did have peculiar taste in underwear.
“C’est possible.” He chuckled. “And you — a pair of panties with no…?”
“Crotch?” I guessed. Pepe was in fantasyland now. Sexy lingerie was not my style, and he knew it.
“Oui.”
“Sounds tacky. What color are they?”
“Striped. Like zee hide of a zebra. And the brassiere has the same.”
I laughed, because you had to give him credit for imagination, and Pepe gave me a wet kiss on the cheek. (Come to think of it, his kisses were all really pretty slobbery. That too reminded me of an enthusiastic puppy.)
We both turned back to face the screen. “Third period, mon amie. We find out who ends up naked.”
Too bad it was only a pretend naked. I’d rather not go home alone tonight.
Both teams skated well during the third period, and Pepe and I were glued to the screen. Whittaker started rooting hard for the Rangers, probably because I was a fan, and hope springs eternal.
The clock ticked down. Several times the Rangers almost tied up the game.
Almost, but not quite.
The game paused for a media time-out. And since I’d had a few beers tonight, I really needed to pee. “Whittaker? Any chance there’s a bathroom somewhere without a line in front of it?”
“Pledge!” he bellowed. A few seconds later a freshman — dressed as a twenties casino operator — came skidding around the corner. “Unlock the bathroom off the kitchen for Bella.”
Remind me never to pledge a fraternity, I thought as I followed the poor plebe to the secret bathroom. “Thanks, dude,” I told the freshman. “You don’t have to wait.”
The kid tipped his rented bowler hat at me and disappeared.
If the game weren’t on, I would just get the heck out of here. Beta Rho had always left a bad taste in my mouth. They were famous among women for their nasty little habit of awarding the Skank of the Week trophy to whichever brother had managed the most unsavory hookup.
I’d seen the trophy once. It was shaped like a pig.
After I did my business in the frat’s least disgusting bathroom, I slipped back through the crowd to watch the last few minutes of the Rangers’ game.
Or rather, I tried to.
“Um, Bella?” Rafe stopped me at the doorway to the TV alcove with a hand to my elbow.
“Yeah?”
“Could I, uh, speak to you a sec?” he asked. He ran a hand through his dark hair. His eyes traveled down, briefly landing on my skimpy tank top before guiltily snapping back to my face again.
I tilted my chin toward the TV. “Well, it’s the last couple minutes of the Rangers game and I was hoping…”
Inside, Pepe started yelling. “Le chasser! Le tuer! Merci! Merci!” And then there was a victorious yodel of: “Ouiiii!”
I was definitely losing this game. Ah, well. I lifted my chin to get a better look at Rafe. And when his big dark eyes looked down at me, I fought off a shiver. Damn him. Why did he have to be so sexy? It was hard to pull off the indifferent vibe that I needed to show him. “What’s up?” I checked my watch, as if I had someplace to be. Subtle, right? I felt like slapping myself.
If I was honest, my encounter with Rafe had unsettled me, and I couldn’t figure out why. If there was anyone who understood the fickle nature of a hook-up, it was me. The fact that he’d been so awkward afterward was a letdown, though. Apparently Rafe was a shamer. Shamers felt guilty after having sex, sometimes even apologizing for it, the same way they’d apologize for bumping into you with a dining hall tray. Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I’ll try not to be so clumsy next time.
It didn’t matter that they were sincere, because shame flowed in both directions. If a shamer had impulsive sex, which he considered a misdeed, then by definition he thought I’d done something wrong, too.
And I was sick of people judging me. Really, really sick of it.
“Bella,” Rafe began. “I wanted to invite you out for lunch next week.”
That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. He wanted to take me out for lunch? Why?
I didn’t get to answer, though, because Pepe began bellowing from the other room. “Belluh! I win the lingerie, cherie! Take everything off!”
Aw, hell. “Pepe, just give me…”
Then he was standing behind me all of a sudden, his giant body pressing against my back. “Show me the boobies! Zee score is four-one.”
Dear lord, just shoot me already. I gave Pepe a backward shove. “Just a second, okay?” But it was really too late for Rafe not to get the wrong impression.
When I risked a look at Rafe’s face, I saw it turning quite a dark shade of red. “We’ll talk another time,” he stuttered.
“Rafe, wait. It’s just a…” I stopped myself before explaining. Even if Pepe wasn’t kidding, I didn’t have to apologize for myself.
But Rafe was backing away from me, a pained expression on his face. He held up two hands. “I’m sorry.”
“God, why?”
“For… I feel like the world’s biggest jackass.”
“Because of… two weeks ago?”
He made a guilty face.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “The fifties are over, okay? It was just sex, Rafe. And you’re a bigger jackass for not getting past it than for doing it in the first place.”
He swallowed. “Well. Whichever kind of jackass I am, I’m sorry.”
He still didn’t understand. “Nobody took advantage of me, Rafe. I’m not fragile like that.”
“Okay.”
“You can’t rape the willing,” I whispered.
At the word “rape” Rafe’s eyes bugged out.
“It’s just an expression,” I qualified.
“BELLA!” Pepe howled from inside my room. “I am going to have the panties! Montreal has power play!”
I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.
Rafe’s expression shuttered. “I’ll see you in class,” he mumbled. As Rafe backed away, I could practically hear him making a list of my sins in his head.
“Good night,” I called after him anyway.
He raised a hand in a half-hearted wave before disappearing into the crowd.
Lovely. He couldn’t even look me in the eye.
I turned around and marched into the TV room.
“Two minutes left,” Pepe announced. “Zee power play did not go as planned.”
I didn’t care about the game anymore. The disappointment on Rafe’s face was seared on my brain. He’d looked horrified when he thought that Pepe and I were talking about actually stripping down. Although he’d done the same thing in my room not so long ago.
Where’s the sense in that? Even though I hadn’t done anything wrong, it still smarted to know Rafe was disappointed in me.
That was the trouble with shamers. They got under your skin.
The Canadiens won, of course. After the buzzer, Pepe gave me another wet kiss on the forehead and got up. “You want me to walk you home?”
“I think I’ll stay a little longer,” I heard myself say. I don’t know why, but I really didn’t want to walk out the door under Pepe’s arm while Rafe looked on. I shouldn’t care what he thought. But I did care. And that bugged the shit out of me.
“Good night, cherie,” he said.
r /> “Night, honey.”
On the footstool, Whittaker perked up. “Another drink?” he asked.
I sat back down on the chair and wondered what I was doing. “Maybe.”
“How do you feel about a gin and tonic?” he asked.
“That would be great,” I lied.
“Be right back,” he said.
Like a fool, I stayed there, waiting to drink a gin and tonic with Whittaker. Knowing that it was a terrible idea.
It was, too. Although it would take me weeks to learn just how terrible.
Eight
October
Rafe
October was rainy and cold, and my team was on a four game losing streak. Not fun.
When I wasn’t chasing down the soccer ball, I took to jogging around campus listening to bachata tunes on my iPod. Alison hadn’t liked the Dominican music I listened to, so it was kind of funny that I now used her gift to play it constantly.
Ear buds firmly in place, I headed for an Urban Studies lecture. The class had remained an uncomfortable place in my life. Alison still shot me remorseful looks whenever I happened to glance at her. In contrast, Bella studiously ignored me. The longest conversation we’d had in the past two weeks occurred when I held our entryway door open for her, and she’d said “thank you.”
The lecture hall was nearly full when I slipped in, nabbing a seat against the back wall. “Let’s get started,” Professor Giulios called. “We have a lot to cover today. I’m handing out the final projects. This is for all the marbles, kids.”
At that, everyone got quiet.
“At the end of my course, I always hold a contest. The details change from year to year, but the rules remain the same.” He began to tick them off on one hand. “In teams, you will compete to redesign and redevelop half of a New York City block. The winning team will come up with the best concepts both economically and spatially. Without building a giant eyesore, you will maximize the square footage of your construction for the benefit of both the tenants and the neighborhood. But paying for your development is also part of the assignment. And twenty-five percent of the square footage must be set aside for affordable housing.”