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Anyways, I'd had to go crawling to just about every UT Professor I'd ever had and get them to vouch for my personal problems so I could get an extension on all my mid-terms while I shuffled Pop to and from therapy. That was no picnic. Fortunately, our school was sports-crazed enough that the whole Biology Department was willing to go to bat for a quarterback. Lucky break.
But the sessions were slow-going. Pop, styling himself as a man of the cloth, wasn't exactly sweet on the idea of psychotherapy. But when I'd finally found him, that fateful morning after—curled up in a miserable ball, clutching a bottle of Joh
Third straw on the camel's back was then, of course, the fact that I had a new lady friend. Specifically, a lady friend who I couldn't go blabbing about to friends or meeting in public, for the following (very good) reasons: 1) Coach was in the mood to roll heads if he found out anyone was spending what he deemed to be “excessive time” with a member of the opposite sex. (“You can fall in love when football season ends, boys,” he liked to say. “For these last few weeks, consider your nuts in a vice.”) 2) The lady friend's mother and my father were still technically married, and dealing with a shit-ton of personal problems. Didn't seem like a good idea to add “By the way, I'm dating my sister!” to the long list of topics Pop and I had yet to explore in therapy.
As a result of all this BS, Doll and I had elected to kick it on the DL. This actually had its perks. Being with Ashleigh was nothing at all like being with Zora. The former never flinched away from my touch. She was proud of her body, and would walk around naked in my room like it was no big thing. And best of all—she actually seemed interested when I would go on at length about whatever geeky science thing was jazzing me that week from Earth Science class (the only one I dug), or the latest mini-gossip on the team. I was fascinated just to hear her talk about her classes. I truly believed, for the first time, that despite the age difference my girl was way smarter than me.
The first day we got together, Ash and I didn't get out of bed. We'd fuck, then fall asleep, then fuck, then order takeout, then watch some dumb movie on my laptop. De
“Hey, Landon!” shouted a familiar voice. I snapped out of my reverie to see De
Curious, I moseyed over. De
“Hey, man,” he repeated, shuffling in his cleats. I just crossed my arms. Let the sonofabitch work for it. Around us, most of the team dwindled back towards the locker rooms. On the opposite end of the field, the coaches bent their heads low in a dire-looking conference.
“I'm sorry,” my old pal blurted out finally, his whole pasty face flushing red. “About Zora, and everything. I feel like a shit. I've liked her for years, and I didn't think—I was just...” I raised my eyebrows, to gesture him forward—but that seemed to be about all the apology my bro could muster.
“I honestly didn't mean to hurt you, man. Never.” His tone had shifted. He sounded more plaintive, more sincere, than I'd ever known this fucking jokester to be. In a breath of clarity, I saw a vision of Doll in my mind's eye. Right about now, she'd be shuffling to her Intro to Classics class, probably in a hurry, probably straining to handle an armload of books. She'd be wearing those cute-ass little booty shorts, and she'd be asking her professor direct questions, brow all furrowed in that maddening way I'd come to recognize. It was like a fog was lifting. I snapped back to the field, to De
“Dude, we're tight,” I said slowly, cracking a grin. De
“You're aces, man. And hey—don't listen to what all these shit-stains say. We're go
“Yeah, whatever,” I said brightly. I mean, I knew how slim the odds were that I'd make first pick of my favorite team as a freshman in the NFL. And more and more, I didn't care. I could get to Colorado without football. I could do tons of things without football, and live a perfectly dandy life.
“Though I will say, your head does seem to be screwed on not-quite-tight, my brother.” De
“Hey, man, I don't need to tell you what a man will put up with for a good time.” No sooner had I said this then I felt a wave of shame. Something had changed, somehow—talking about Ashleigh the way I used to talk about all the football groupie girls felt distinctly wrong. De
“Oh, do I. Zora's got these tight little...” I shot him a steel-melting look of caution, and De
We began to walk back towards the locker room in a tentative silence—a new color for our friendship, but a hopeful one. I decided we could continue if De
“Okay, man. There is a girl. And—don't laugh, but it's Ashleigh. Err—Ashleigh Be
“My...well, you know. There's actually been a lot of weird shit going down with her—our—parents, and they're going to be spending some time apart. And Ash and I have this really weird co