Played (10 page)

It was harder than ever to leave Gracie
behind this time, though I knew I'd be back in just a couple of weeks because
of the long Martin Luther King holiday weekend, assuming the weather was
better. Russ had given me strict orders not to drive through another blizzard
for just a three-day weekend, and I agreed with his assessment that it was too
dangerous. Especially since I'd leave after class on Friday to get a head start
on the weekend so the whole trip would be in the dark.

Nevertheless, even anticipating that I'd
get to go, my long break had made me too comfortable in my world at the ranch
to want to go back and face my problems on campus. At least I wouldn't be
seeing Justin three times a week any more. A new class schedule awaited me.

When I got to the dorm, not only Ri was
there, but also Drew. A rush of affection for him overtook me when I saw his
face, and without thinking, I flew into his arms for a kiss and big hug. Ri was
beaming as she looked on. At that moment, it was easy to forget any thoughts of
Justin and just enjoy being with Drew, who, besides being fun to hug and great
to look at, was as sweet as they come.

"Wanta go for pizza with Ri and
me?" he asked, when he finally released me from the bear hug.

"Sure, I'm starved," I agreed. We
walked to The Pie. I couldn't get over how much warmer it was in Salt Lake than
at the ranch. The extra 2300 feet of elevation explained it, but traveling from
one spot to the other, the change was so gradual that I never noticed it. That
didn't mean it was exactly warm in Salt Lake, but I'd take low forties over low
teens any day.

The three of us ran into some of the rest
of the posse at The Pie, so it ended up being a party. When Ri suggested
joining them at a bar, Drew objected to my going with them.

"We've hardly got a chance to be
alone," he said.

"What do you mean, hardly? We haven't
had
any
chance to be alone," I joked.

"So stay with me. I'll walk you home
and we can talk," he insisted.

It was fine with me. Since beginning to
date Drew, I'd been out to party with Ri and the others only once, when it was
an away game and we didn't have anything else to do for the Saturday night. The
truth was that, though I liked to dance, I didn't really care to drink all that
much. Blame it on my strict upbringing, or whatever. I just didn't see the
point.

Drew kept his arm around me as we walked,
since the night had grown colder while we were at the pizza place. When we got
to the dorm, he didn't kiss me outside as usual, but walked in with me and
accompanied me to my room. I didn't think anything of it. Drew was a frequent
guest of ours when Ri was home, and it didn't occur to me to question whether
we should be there alone. I trusted him, and he'd never indicated that he would
make a move I didn't welcome. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I was surprised when he sat close to me on
my bed and took me into his arms.

"Uh, Drew? What are we doing?" I
asked. If he wanted sex, I probably wouldn't have objected, but I'd suppressed
the desire for him after he told me it wasn't in the cards until the season was
over. I wasn't protesting, just asking for information.

"I missed you so much, Sugar," he
replied. "I just need to catch up on all the kisses we missed."

Though I knew I'd want more before it was
over, I welcomed the kisses he offered, savoring the taste of his lips and
tongue. Gradually, he pressed me back on my pillows until we were lying on the
bed, his body covering mine urgently. Another few minutes and my body was on
fire with the suppressed need to touch him, to have him touch me and complete
the act I knew we both wanted.

"Drew," I breathed. It seemed to
wake him from a trance, and he sat up with a gasp.

"Oh, God, Janey, I can't. I'm
sorry." From what I'd heard, usually the girl called a halt like that. I
would've liked to rip off his clothes and insist he make love to me, the way I
felt, but I knew it would change our relationship, and not for the better.
Furthermore, I knew that when he was gone, I'd be having second thoughts
because I still felt the same way about Justin.

"All right," I said in a quiet
voice. He took it for disappointment.

"Janey, truly, I'm so sorry. I want
you so bad, but I shouldn't have got you worked up like that."

"Are you telling me you weren't worked
up?" I demanded, indignant.

"God, yes I was worked up. But, I'm
the one with the problem. I'm the one that should keep it cool until I can
follow through. I'm sorry," he said again.

"Don't worry about it," I said,
now thoroughly irritated. "I can deal."

"Janey, I didn't mean for that to
happen. I wanted to ask you something tonight. Are you mad at me?"

I was, but I didn't intend to admit it.

"No."

"Then, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Would you, like, wear my letter
jacket?"

I stared at him, trying to decipher this
strange request. "Why?"

He looked down. "I guess you don't
know, but that's like me asking you to go steady."

"Go steady?" I repeated.

Frustrated, he had to explain everything.
"It's when a guy and a girl promise not to date anyone else, just each
other. If you're wearing my letter jacket, other guys know not to ask you
out."

"Drew, I don't know," I said.
"You're the only guy I've ever dated. Should I be committing not to date
anyone else already? What if I like someone else?"

His face fell and for a minute, I almost
changed my mind and blurted that of course I'd wear his jacket. However, the
question Charity had asked me held me back.

"Hon, I don't have anyone else right
now," I said, which was only a white lie. I didn't
have
Justin; I
just wanted him. "I'm not dating anyone else, but I don't think I should
promise not to. Would it be okay if we just left it this way for a while? If I
decide to go out with someone else, I promise I'll tell you about it,
okay?"

Drew's expression said it wasn't, but he
answered that, yes, that would be okay, for a while. The light in his eyes and
the kiss he took from me said that once he was free of the restrictions he'd
imposed on himself, I'd better be ready to make the commitment. For several
reasons, including that I genuinely cared about him, I hoped I would be.

Normally, I would have talked it out with Charity
or my older sisters, even Ri. But, a phone conversation didn't seem right, and
if I revealed that I was conflicted to Ri, she'd rip my heart out and feed it
to the seagulls. Especially if I revealed exactly
why
I had mixed
feelings. As far as she knew, I was long over my crush on Justin. I felt
terrible hiding it from her, but since it didn't seem likely to go anywhere I
figured discretion was the better part of valor.

~~~

The fact remained that I desperately needed
to talk to someone. I had questions I couldn't answer, and they were driving me
insane. That's why I looked for Alicia at the Student Union all week, as
classes began for the spring semester. I finally spotted her on Friday at noon,
and carried my tray over to ask if I could sit with her.

"Sure, girlfriend. Hey, long time no
see."

"I know, huh? How'd you do in English
Lit?" Grades for the previous semester had been posted earlier in the
week, and I'd made an A, as expected.

"B. I don't have your knack for
analysis. How do you do it?" she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. "My roommate
calls it BS 101," I answered, causing Alicia to giggle.

"I'll have to remember that."

"Alicia, thank you for not assuming
that my A came for sleeping with Prof. Mackey," I said. It was a little
more direct than I had intended, and Alicia blanched.

"I assumed nothing of the kind. I
didn't know you had. Or is that what you meant?" Confused, she put her
hand over her mouth. "Jeez, now I've stuck my foot in it right up to the
ankle," she observed.

"No, I did. I mean, we had a one-night
stand and then he ignored me for the next week."

"I remember that! Is that what his
problem was?"

"I guess so. I mean, I didn't expect
it, but everyone else in class seemed to understand what had happened and what
was going on."

"Shit, that stinks! I'm sorry. Are you
over it?" she asked.

"Sometimes I think I am, and sometimes
I know I'm not," I confessed. "The stinky part is that I still melt
into a steaming puddle every time I lay eyes on the bastard."

"Oh, God, that's the worst!" she
exclaimed. Her eyes flicked to her left hand and her jaw flexed. Then she put
the hand under her leg.

"Tell me about it!" I agreed. She
mistook my meaning, which was just a throwaway phrase that meant I knew what
she meant. Instead, she took me literally.

"Happened to me in my freshman year,
too," she said. I widened my eyes. "Oh, yeah, no one's immune.
Remember when we first talked about you being interested in him? And I asked if
you were going straight for the A? I didn't know you very well, then."

Actually, she didn't know me very well now,
but I wasn't going to interrupt her train of thought to point that out.

"I had a hard math class. Didn't get
it at all. The professor wasn't bad, so I thought I'd try for that kind of A,
if you know what I mean." I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"So, I started flirting with him, and
one thing led to another. I was stupid, though. I lost sight of what I was
doing it for, and fell for him. I was even hoping he'd propose. Then he dumped
me and I got a D in the class anyway."

"Ouch!" I said.

"Ouch, indeed. I was so pissed! But,
he never promised to change my grade, and I was the one to make the first move,
so there was nothing I could do about it but hate him. Unfortunately, my body
didn't get the message. Took me six months to stop creaming for him every time
I saw him or even thought about him. He wasn't the best-looking guy around, not
like Prof. Mackey, but the way he ate pussy would have any woman following him
like a puppy."

I shivered, remembering Justin's lips on
the center of my desire, and Alicia noticed. "Mackey, too, huh?"

"Yeah," I whispered. "I'd
never had that before. I could have died happy."

Alicia's face took on a puckered
appearance, a slight frown creasing her forehead. "You never…Kid, were you
a virgin? Did the bastard take your virginity and then treat you that
way?"

"No," I said, not wanting to
explain more. "But, I can't help thinking that it's all my fault. I was
raised to think that sex outside of marriage was a terrible sin, and for all
the enjoyment I got out of it that night, I'm wondering if that's right. I
mean, I can't get over this guilty feeling, and feeling like I'm some kind of
evil person for wanting it."

Alicia's face smoothed. "Mormon?"

"Sort of," I said, still not
wanting to elaborate.

"Bastards," she observed without
malice. "Janey, you're not evil. You're just a human being, a sweet girl
who evidently hasn't had enough experience of the world. It's natural to like
sex. If you ask me, God made it that way so we'd do it often enough to keep the
world populated." She gave a little chuckle. "My Baptist parents
don't agree, of course. Hey, you know why Baptists and cats are alike?"

Bewildered at the change of subject and the
silly question, I shook my head.

"You know they have sex, but you can't
catch them at it," she explained. Her little joke made me chuckle, and
from then on our conversation grew lighter. When we were through with our
lunch, I asked Alicia for her number. After this little tete-a-tete, I wanted
to get to know her better. Even though she and Ri had told me pretty much the
same thing, Alicia had made me feel better about myself. Maybe we could be
better friends after all.

Ri was a different story. For all her hard
teasing and name-calling, I got that she cared about me. The trouble was, she
cared more about Drew. I couldn't talk to her about what was bothering me, and
he'd told her that I wouldn't commit to going steady. She gave me the cold
shoulder for a week, and then, evidently satisfied that I was still going out
with him, went back to her easy, good-natured, crude self.

"So, if you're going out with him and
no one else, I don't get it," she observed one morning as I dressed for
class. "Why won't you take his jacket?" We'd had a variation of this
conversation every day. I sighed heavily.

"No, really! I really don't get it.
Explain it to me," she demanded.

"Ri, I've tried. I have nothing else
to say but what we've covered already. I have no experience with boys. Zero.
Zilch. Drew's the only guy I've ever dated. How do I know he's the one?"

"Same way he knows you're the one.
He's crazy about you. You're breaking his heart."

"It isn't the same at all. He probably
dated lots of girls in high school, and on campus before I even got here. I
mean, look at him. He's gorgeous, and he's got a body to die for," I said.
A mental picture of him shirtless formed and I trailed off.