One True Thing (19 page)

“I told you, you can’t go in there,” he says, blocking a closed door, holding her arm tightly.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I shout, and they both turn to me. I reach them and shove Danny hard against the wall. “Don’t fucking touch my girlfriend!”

He drops Jenna’s arm and puts both hands up. “Okay Branch! Okay. I didn’t know she was your girlfriend.”

I ease up on him a little bit. “Are you all right?” I ask Jenna.

“No thanks to this asshole.” She tries the knob, but it’s locked. “Open the door!” she says to Danny.

Danny glances at me. “I can’t do that.”

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“I saw Courtney disappear upstairs with some guy and she was so drunk she could barely stand up. By the time I got up here I found him guarding this door.”

“Give me the key,” I demand.

“I don’t have one,” Danny shakes his head. “I swear. Austin just took some girl into the bedroom and told me to guard the door.”

Austin. Second-rate shortstop and total dick. This can’t be good. “So you listen to him?”

I try the knob, but it doesn’t move an inch. I put my ear to the door, but I don’t hear anything from inside. “Look out,” I say to
Jenna, pushing her away with one arm. Taking a step back, I lift my foot and kick the door right above the knob. With a loud, splintering sound the door flies open and hits the wall behind it.

“Danny!” Austin jumps off the bed. I’m on him in two steps, grabbing him at the throat and knocking him into a dresser on the opposite wall.

“Jesus!” Jenna says from behind me.

Austin isn’t making a move to get up, so I turn and see Courtney flat on the bed, totally passed out, her shirt pushed up around her neck but otherwise still dressed. “Is she okay?”

Jenna pulls her into a sitting position where Courtney moans and then throws up all over the floor.

“What the fuck, Branch?” Austin says, pulling himself to his feet. “I had something good going here.”

I get right in his face, pressing my chest into his so that he has to lean back on the dresser. “You’ll be lucky to still be on the team this time tomorrow,” I say. I turn to Jenna who’s struggling to get Courtney back into her shirt. “Let’s get her out of here.”

There’s a crowd by the bedroom door as we half walk, half carry Courtney through the hallway and down the stairs. “I’ll get her outside,” I say to Jenna. “You go tell Nina and Mitch that we’re leaving.”


                    
 

“She okay?” I ask when Jenna finally comes out of Courtney’s bedroom.

“She will be,” she says. “But I’m not sure my car’s going to survive.”

I wrinkle my nose, glad that we left the windows down. “I’ll help you clean it up tomorrow.”

Jenna shakes her head. “No way. Courtney’s cleaning every inch of it. She does this all the time—gets so shitfaced at parties that she has no idea what the fuck is going on. This isn’t the first time I’ve carried her home and put her to bed.”

“Do you think she got hurt?” That’s not exactly what I mean, but I can’t think of another way to put it.

Jenna shakes her head. “I don’t think so. But if we’d gotten there a few minutes later…”

I get angry all over again thinking about Danny holding Jenna outside of the bedroom. “I’ll take care of both of them. Don’t worry about it.”

Jenna flops down on the couch next to me and curls up against my chest. I put one arm around her and pull her close to me, feeling her heart beat next to mine. I don’t kiss her, I don’t make any moves, I just sit there, holding Jenna and hoping that it makes everything just a little bit better.

Chapter Eighteen (Jenna)

The lights go on in the lecture hall just as several people around me sit up quickly and wipe the drool from the sides of their mouths. The problem with having art history after lunch is so much of it takes place on a screen in a darkened room that it’s a fight to stay awake most days. Not that I don’t like the class, because it’s one of my favorites. Unlike history or geography, I don’t have any trouble putting paintings together with their artists or the time period. I’ve been thinking about getting a minor in art history to go with my dance major which would make my mom doubly happy because she thinks being here at all is a waste of money. College should be for an English major or a business degree as far as everyone back home is concerned. She’s big talk, being as Mom only went to school for a year before coming home and opening up her hair salon. Having me freshman year might have had something to do with that, another mistake I’m not planning on making.

“What?” Amy says next to me, her eyes wide.

“Class is over,” I say. “Time to wake up.”

“Ha ha. What did I miss?”

“Only the entire renaissance movement,” I say. She looks like she believes me, so I laugh. “I’ll copy my notes for next time.”

“Thanks. You saved my ass again.” There’s the rapid-gunfire sound of people folding up the little desks that are attached to our chairs as we pack up our stuff and file out of the hall. I shove my notebooks into my bag and walk up the aisle, the sun making me blink as we walk out of the building.

Ty waves to me from the steps in front, his face breaking into a wide grin when he sees me. He’s wearing a sleeveless tank and basketball shorts that show off every muscle and I don’t miss how many girls from my class are sneaking looks at him as they walk by.

Amy looks at Ty and then at me. “Is this the boyfriend?”

I nod and wave to him.

“Holy shit-tastic!” Amy says, bumping me. “No wonder you’re tired all the time.”

“Hey! I’m not the one sleeping in class.”

“I would never sleep again if that was next to me.” Amy punches me on the shoulder and takes off down the steps.

I smile and give Ty a kiss when I reach him. She’s right, he is pretty shit-tastic.“Hey! What are you doing here?” Ty’s never done with practice this early.

“Happy Thursday. We’ve got three home games this weekend so Coach took pity on us and let us go early,” he says, walking down the steps with me. “I thought we could hang out.”

I make a face. “I’ve got to go to the bookstore. I have an essay due in English and I haven’t even bought the book.”

“I’ll come with you,” he says, grabbing my hand as we walk toward the student union. There are tons of people walking through campus this afternoon, but it feels like the two of us are in our own little bubble as we get to the bookstore.

Ty walks over to the clothing section of the store and puts a straw cowboy hat with the Garvin Gators logo on his head. “Is this working for me?”

I can’t help but laugh. Some boys fit a cowboy hat like they were born to it. Ty isn’t one of them. “Um…no.”

He flips through a rack of hoodies. “You know, it’s funny, but except for the stuff they give us for baseball, I don’t have any school clothes.” He holds up a red Gator sweatshirt and cocks his head.

“Not bad,” I say. “Red looks good on you.” I walk over to the section with regular clothes and pick out a greenish-blue t-shirt that’s the exact color of his eyes. “Try this.”

Ty holds it up and looks at me for approval. His eyes are amazing no matter what he’s wearing, but against the green, you can’t focus on anything else.

“Perfect,” I say.

Ty looks at the label. “This is only a large. Is there an XL over there?”

“Large is perfect on you,” I say. “Otherwise it’ll be baggy.”

He shakes his head. “I always wear XL.”

“Maybe it’s time for a few things to change,” I say.

In one motion, Ty crosses his arms and takes off the shirt he’s wearing. I’m not the only one in the store who notices his defined muscles and perfect abs and I almost hear a collective sigh when he pulls the green t-shirt over his head, putting everything under wraps again. “See? This is too tight.”

The shirt settles on his body like a second skin, leaving nothing underneath to the imagination. It fits his broad shoulders and skims his narrow waist perfectly so that all you can think of when he’s wearing it is getting it off of him. “It’s exactly right,” I say.

Ty crosses his arms a few times and checks out the full-length mirror by the dressing room. “If you say so.”

“I say so.”

Ty strips it off and changes back into his own shirt so quickly that I don’t get to enjoy it. “What about you? We didn’t come here to buy me new clothes.” He tosses the green shirt over one shoulder.

“Right,” I say turning to the back part of the store that holds all of the books. “I have to read Forster’s
A Passage to India
.”

“That was a great movie,” Ty says. “Not the happiest story in the world, but the cinematography is beautiful.”

Cinematography? I never pictured Ty as thinking about cinematography before. “It was a movie? Now you tell me.”

“My mom’s really into movies—especially ones that came out when she was growing up.”

I don’t miss how he talks about his mother in the present. He’s done that a few times before and it always makes me a little sad. I’ve always pictured her as a gorgeous blond with the same startling green eyes, but Ty still hasn’t shown me any photos.

“I’m sure the book is better,” Ty says, scanning the shelves. “Here it is.” He hands me the paperback and then pulls another one down. “How about we read it together?”

I laugh. Like he hasn’t got a million other things to do. “You mean like a book club?”

“Sure.” He looks serious. “Our own little book club. And then we can watch the movie and bitch about all the ways the director got it wrong.”

“Perfect,” I say, but he’s already moved on. I follow him to the stationary section. “I love this stuff,” I say, pulling out a notebook. “You can keep your jewelry stores—just set me loose in an Office Depot.”

“What’s so great about office supplies?” he asks, clicking a pen.

“I don’t know,” I say, flipping through the pages. “I guess it’s that they’re all full of possibilities. Every page is blank, just waiting for you to write down something important.”

“Hmm,” he says, picking up a hardbound journal. “Do you keep a diary?”

“Maybe,” I say. Truthfully, I’ve been journaling since I was in middle school and needed to work out the angst of my first kiss.

“Am I in it?”

“Maybe,” I say again, knowing that the subject of Ty took up many pages after the first time we got together.

“Terrific,” he says. “Now I’m going to be obsessed with finding it.”

“Don’t you dare!” I say, throwing a Gator’s scarf at him.

“I won’t,” he says, pulling me to him and kissing me quickly. “But I want to.”

“You better not.”

There’s a bowl of stretchy, beaded rings by the checkout counter that catch my eye so I stop and look through them.

“Those are nice,” Ty says, handing me a multicolored one. “I’ll get it for you.”

Without thinking, I slip it on my ring finger and put my hand out to admire it. “But then you’ll have to marry me.” The second the words are out of my mouth, I want to take them back. Too late, I see a shadow pass across Ty’s face and I know I’ve blown it. “Just kidding!” I say, trying to make the moment lighter as I slip it back off and toss it into the bowl.

Ty’s face is still serious as he finds it in the bowl, and hands it back to me. “I meant it. Let me get it for you.” There’s a dullness to his eyes and I can’t read his expression at all.

“Okay,” I say, slipping it onto my right hand this time. “Thanks.”

I’m not sure how to get the mood back as we head for the cashier with our things.


                    
 

“I don’t get this,” I say, getting more exasperated by the minute. “Why are there so many freaking people in this story? I can’t keep anyone straight. First he spends a whole chapter describing the landscape and now this.” I toss the book onto Ty’s coffee table.

Ty looks up from his own reading. “How far did you get?”

I cross my arms and glare at the book. “Page five.”

I see Ty trying not to smile. “Maybe it’ll get easier as you go? You’ll get to know the characters instead of just the names.”

“Ugh,” I say, leaning my head back on the couch. Ty’s at the other end and our legs are tangled together in the middle as we study, but having him so close to me is definitely throwing off my concentration. It’s been nice hanging at his place for a change—his roommate Jessie’s gone for a long weekend and this way we don’t have to worry about Courtney coming home and interrupting whatever it is we might be doing. I wonder what it would be like to live with him for real—to buy groceries together, to eat every meal together, to shower together. I look up at his face as he goes back to his reading, his eyes intent on the page, his beautiful lips pursed in concentration. I could definitely get used to this on a permanent basis.

“Maybe we should just watch the movie instead,” I suggest.