Quarterback Bait (9 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Landon

July 23
^rd

“Oh no, don't change it!” cried the old guy, drumming his fingers
against the back of my headrest. Zora was fiddling with the radio, and she'd
just breezed by some 90s band I barely recognized from back in the day. I snuck
a look at my lady, in shotgun. She looked testy, at best, to be taking orders
from a stranger in scruffy cords, and chose to ignore the suggestion, finally
landing on my least-favorite trigger tune:
Steal my Sunshine.
I thought
to catch Doll's eye in the rearview mirror, but caught myself in the nick of
time. She probably didn't remember, anyways.

Zora was rolling her eyes and huffing, in want of attention,
but I didn't have the time or patience to work on my girlfriend just then. It
was bad enough that Pop had basically forced me to give Doll a lift to the
church, mandating we make contact—but she'd decided to bring along some old
fogey as a date. The dopey guy in my rearview mirror was all sheepish hipster
grins. They were scrunched up close to one another, because the truck rig only
had two seats in the back and Denny had taken one of them. I watched her
laughing softly, coyly, as he murmured things into her ear. Like a goddamned
sleaze ball. Fucking loser apparently didn’t even have a car of his own.

“Jesus, Landon! Watch the road!” Z cried out, in the nick of
time. I jammed on the brakes, sending us all tumbling forward. The car behind
me honked with fury, but my eyes sought out Doll first. She was patting her
pretty hair down, in the rearview mirror. Tugging up her V-neck t-shirt. I
watched him mouth something to her, his skinny arms rising as if they could
protect her:
Are you okay?

That fucktard.

“I don't know why you're being such a baby,” Z said to me,
putting a smooth elbow on the cup-holders so as to bridge the gap between us.

“He's like a hundred!
She's
the baby.” I fought to
keep my voice low, but in his seat catty-corner, I could see Denny snickering.
I bet he was loving this.

“
She's
a consenting adult. And I was talking about
your Dad, anyways. Jesus.” Z narrowed her heavily lined eyes in my direction,
and for an exhausting second, I thought she was about to pin me. Then I watched
her gaze drift back towards the side-view mirror, and thusly, herself.

I clutched the steering wheel and gritted my teeth. We
weren't ten blocks from the church, but I'd forgotten to take the sneaky back-roads
route because Doll had gotten me so distracted. She smiled in the mirror,
showing her teeth to that stranger. I balled my fist.

I mean, I knew I had no right to be mad. She was entitled to
skip off into the sunset with whatever other hoity-toity person she could find
to enjoy her own insufferable company. She was so proud, so holier-than-thou.
Why this cranky girl kept refusing to vacate my daydreams was anyone's guess. I
caught a whiff of Zora's perfume from the passenger seat. She sure loved a special
occasion, my girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Fuckbuddy. Whatever-we-were. Why, I
wondered to myself, couldn't I have hitched my wagon to someone—easier—this
summer? And not
easier
like the obvious way, but rather some chick like
Yvette: a beautiful, unchallenging woman who knew what she wanted and wouldn't
ask too much of me. Someone with a good head on her shoulders and few demands.
Somehow, I'd managed to pack this truck with women who knew exactly how to
drive me batshit crazy.

At long last, I deposited the five of us in the empty
parking lot outside Pop's church. His twenty or so other regular parishioners
all seemed to have made it out for the big day. I wondered who'd be doing the
honors, considering Pop was the only Pastor at the Holy Congregation of the
Ascension. I supposed he had friends inside, preparing to pop out of the
woodwork and lend their congratulations.
And this must be the son we've
heard so much about,
the congregants might say.
You must be a proud man,
Father!

“You're never allowed to drive my truck again,” said Denny,
as he reached up to pluck the keys from my fist. “Fuck if I care your Saab's in
the shop.”

I nodded dully, sliding the emergency brake up. It took a
swift elbow in the ribs from Zora to get me out of the car, where apparently
Doll needed to change into her wedding clothes. I squeezed my eyes shut tight,
trying my damndest not to imagine her movements. Her tiny body, pressing up
against the familiar terrain of the truck...her big naked breasts, swinging in
the reflection of my rearview mirror... her pale, taut, back flush against the
car seats.

The fogey, playing the gentlemen, hopped out of the car and
came to stand next to me on the sidewalk. Jerk barely reached my shoulders. He
looked shrimpy, like he'd never clocked an hour at the gym. What could she
possibly see in him?

“You're the football guy, right?” Old Man River said, in an
irritatingly chirpy voice. Catching a slice of Zora's expression, I nodded. I
guessed it would be showing my hand to be outright impolite to my stepsister's
wedding date.

“She's talked about you,” he said. Then, he lowered his
voice and leaned toward me. I caught a whiff of some froufy, adult cologne.
“I'm Nate Dempsey. I hope this isn't too weird for you. Ash and I are friends
from the school, and she just kind of invited me last minute. I'm really
grateful to be included.”

“You look a bit old for a high school senior.”

“How's that?” Denny looked up from his corner of the
pavement, where he'd been steadfastly preoccupied kicking rocks. He snorted and
grinned in my direction.

“You look a little older than high school, man. All I'm
saying.” I bit my lip. The truck bed wobbled back and forth, and I heard a cute
little squeal from within. Doll was clearly struggling with some part of her
dress. A part of me wished I could tap on the window and offer my aid. Untangle
that bra strap. Smooth down those hose.

“I'm not too much older than you are, actually. And what can
I say? Your sister's mature.”
My nails were suddenly digging into the flesh of my palms.

“
Step
-sister, bro.”

“Whatever you say.” We stood shifting on the sidewalk for
another few moments, awkward as hell. Then the ancient one opened his trap
again. “She had a really shitty year at that high school. We got to be close. I
totally understand this protective brother vibe, Landon, but you don't have to
worry about me. I'm one of the good guys.”

He even
sounded
like a
creepy teacher. All amiable and calming, like a person trying to talk someone
off a ledge.

“I think Ash is a doll. Honestly.”

I didn't even realize I'd done anything weird until I got a
cue from Zora again. Her eyes had lifted from her cell phone, and now appeared
to be boring their way through my face. Denny had appeared right at my side,
suddenly—though I saw his attention was fixed on the side of his truck, where a
decent-sized dent now lived above the driver's door handle.

“What the
fuck
, Landy?!” he shouted. It was then that
I connected my pulsing fist to the damage. “You fucking Spazmo today, or what?
Why are you punching my truck?”

Before I could come up with even the glimmer of a lie, Doll
emerged from the opposite door of the cab. She wore a silky, purple, sleeveless
dress that clung to her frame. She had a bright white daisy tucked behind one
ear. Her lips were shiny, bearing just a trace of pink. The dress looked made
for her body. As she walked towards our group on the sidewalk, the swampy air
seemed to bend around her. It was like she was gliding through water—silent,
impossible, lovely. The exact vision from my recurring dream.

None of us three guys said a word at first. Then my
girlfriend cleared her throat.

“Come on, goons,” said Zora, in her iciest, she-wolf voice.
“Don't want to miss your Dad's wedding because of some pair of legs, do we?”

Chapter Fourteen

Ash

July 23
^rd

My mother looked surprisingly good in her polka-dotted white
chiffon dress. Carson had deigned to help tailor it, and the fabric magically
seemed to make curves of her nonexistent hips. When she said “I do,” Anya's
face broke open like a raincloud, and I felt for an instant that maybe—just
maybe—all this marriage hullabaloo was for real.

The Pastor, in his rented tux, didn't look half so trucker-y
as usual. His greying hair was slicked back from his face, and without the
shadow of his baseball cap covering his eyes, I was more than a little shocked
to learn that his cheekbones were strong and his jawline pronounced. I couldn't
quite understand what she saw in him, but when I saw his eyes also go liquid at
the sound of the tinny wedding march sounding from the out-of-tune piano, I
felt relief. Perhaps things wouldn't go to shit after all.

Mr. Dempsey—or Nate, as he'd told me in the truck—seemed
more emotionally affected than the whole congregation slapped together. He
fidgeted beside me, and I snuck a peek of a fat tear hovering on the lip of his
eyelid as the newlyweds sashayed down the aisle. I smiled to myself. He was
definitely cute, in a hipster kind of way. He was older, and sort of a teacher,
sure—but he was kind. And I figured I deserved to have someone who was kind to
me.

Carson shot me a strange look from further down our little
bridesmaids’ aisle (for the “church” was too small for us to stand up next to
our mother, like proper attendants). At one point, I caught her trying to mouth
a question in my direction. She had a right. I had basically brought a stranger
along to my family's most intimate moment to date. But my sister's curiosity
was nothing compared to the unrelenting gaze of Landon, who hadn't stopped
staring at me since I climbed out of Denny's truck in my bridesmaid gear. I was
aware of his eyes on the side of my face throughout the whole ceremony, despite
him being clear on the opposite side of the church, flanking his Dad. Beside
him, his haughty, beautiful girlfriend kept her mouth in a rigid line—but he
didn't even glance her way. I didn't know what the intention of his gaze could
be, but I felt the whole, concentrated force of his wet brown eyes on my body
as I bent to pick up a hymnal, as I slid a tendril of hair behind my ear, as I
walked down the aisle to receive communion.

In turn, I tried not to look at him. It was kinda creepy.
There was something almost violent in his intensity—and an irrational part of
me wondered if he would come gunning for me like a charging rhino, were we to
make eyes. I supposed he was cross because I'd brought along a stranger to his
Pop's wedding, but Nate Dempsey had been nothing so far but perfectly polite.
Even though he'd arrived at the church in his band shirt and corduroys,
something in his bearing made him appear more formal than plenty of the other
podunk congregants, who murmured and swayed along to the presiding priest even
when it seemed inappropriate to do so. Nate said 'Amen' when he was supposed
to, he knelt when it was required. At one point, he reached over and took my
sweaty palm in his cool, dry one, and brought my knuckles up through space to his
mouth. He kissed the back of my hand, lightly and without looking at me. I felt
a pleasing little shock twist down my spine at his touch. It felt so familiar,
and so easy. We might have been dating for years.

Landon sighed noisily at some point after the hand-kiss, and
I watched a few people in his row swivel to shoot him angry glances. The priest
was in the middle of a lengthy speech before the vows, and Zora looked none too
pleased to see her date interrupting the preacher man. Her lips, so pretty and full,
were puckered like she'd eaten something sour.

“What's the deal with your step-brother?” Nate murmured into
my hair, just as the Pastor was sliding the wedding band onto Anya's skinny
finger.

“He's just kind of a sourpuss,” I said, rolling my eyes. I held
my chin high and my chest out, just in case the man in question was still
sizing me up from across the room. Let him hear me, I figured. He'd been
nothing but a jerk so far.

“He's into you,” my ex-fake-teacher finished, looking a
little pleased with himself as he spoke. “Guys can always tell. He wants to get
weird with you. He wants to have your bizarre cousin-sister-babies.”

I shot Nate a look, and he quickly crinkled his eyes up so I
could tell he was joking. But I still felt the nape of my neck flush red. When
I closed my eyes tight enough, I could still perfectly recall the feeling of
Landon’s hands, roving my back. Cupping my thighs. Holding my breasts. It was
hard to imagine Nate Dempsey moving across my body with so much strength and
intention. But then again, didn't I like Mr. Dempsey exactly because he wasn't
like Landon? Neither fickle nor bad-tempered, neither cruel nor dismissive? I
smiled tightly, shaking my head to banish the sexy images. And Landon's eyes
were still on me, all the way across the room.

I let my own attention slide back to my mother, who looked
as thrilled as I'd ever seen her. The Pastor was a nut, but when I watched the
tears stream down her face—tears of joy, for once in her life—I felt resolve
stiffen in the pit of my stomach. Even in a perfect world, a world in which the
Longhorn was nice to me, how could we ever be? How could we ever do such a
thing to our parents?

At the end, Mr. Dempsey took a cue and wandered towards the
parking lot, where a tiny crew had gathered to flick rice on Anya and her
newest hubby. The humid little storefront was fast emptying around us, so only
the first few rows of the congregation remained. Carson led the exit charge in
some daring, billowy pantsuit that hugged her waist and seemed to sail around
her gams. She gave me a look I couldn't read as she slid a pair of giant Jackie
O. sunglasses over her face.

Zora was tugging on Landon's arm, but halfheartedly. She
appeared to have given up on her date in some respects. Her gaze was now fixed
on Denny, the thuggish boy with the big head who'd been tittering throughout
the service. Yet another reason we were star-crossed, step brother and I: his
choice in friends spoke very little of his ability to judge character.

“Listen, Z—you go on ahead,” I heard him murmur to her
tanned, smooth back. She released his hand without so much as a backward
glance. I felt the corners of my mouth turning upward. And
suddenly—strangely—we were alone in the church. Him and me.

“Some ceremony, huh?” Landon said. His penetrating eyes had
loosened their grip on my face, I noticed. Now, he spoke to the floor.

“I can't believe it,” I said, breezily.

“She sure looked happy.”

“Him, too.”

Landon shuffled from foot to foot. He was so muscular and balanced,
however, that it looked from where I stood like he was a swaying tree.
Something graceful. Something strong. Even in doubt.

“So I heard you're starting at UT in the fall,” Landon said,
pausing mid-sentence to clear his throat. “Maybe I'll seeya around campus?”

“If you could stand to,” I said neatly. In this bad-ass
dress, I could almost imagine that I was some fast-talking heartbreaker. A
modern Mae West.
He didn't stand a chance. No man did.

“Oh, come on. You're the one who's...”

I put my hands on my hips, daring Landon to finish the
sentence. But at that point, his whole face shifted. His brow un-furrowed, and
his mouth widened. It was just like watching my mother's face break open,
except this time I went weak in the knees. Landon was smiling. He was smiling
that slightly crooked, dopey, baby-faced smile he'd smiled at me on the roof of
a mysterious apartment, one hot summer night.

I told my knees to stay strong. I set my chin.

“I'm sorry,” Landon continued, this time allowing his eyes
to drift back up my frame. They took their time, those eyes. And I tried to
stay graceful and strong like a tree, as I let him slide up my thighs, linger
on my hips, drink in my tapered stomach, widen at my ample chest. I felt great
in this dress as it was, but being looked at that way in this dress—well, I
felt for a second that I could've given Karlie Kloss a run for her money.
Every
girl should be looked at like this,
I told myself. I would store this gaze
for later. That smile would be something I could pull out of a drawer and
spread out like an old photograph someday when I was crinkly and old and alone.

“We're going to have to live together, aren't we Doll?” And
just like that, the smile dried up like a puddle in heat. “We wanna make Ma and
Pa Kettle happy, don't we?” For a second, it looked like Landon was going to
take a step towards me. His aura seemed about to cross some invisible bridge.
It was then that I heard a sinister chord from the untended piano. The sound
made me jump, and I heard my purse land on the ground with a soft thud
.
Both
our heads swiveled simultaneously, just in time to catch a careworn looking
tabby cat leaping off the organ keys. I laughed with quick relief.

“Jesus, that scared me!”

“Aww, that's just Otis. He's the Parish cat.” This time,
Landon really did bend down a bit, like he was whispering conspiratorially in
my ear. “And word to the wise? Don't take
His
name in vain in here.”

Before I could check myself, I'd thrown a little half-assed
punch in his direction—you know, the sisterly kind of punch—but Landon's
athletic reflexes stopped me in my path. His palm opened to catch my fist, and
I felt my fingers crumple limp against his sweaty palm. Then I looked up at
him. I hadn't realized how close we'd gotten.

He was breathing hard. And he seemed about to say something
that pained him. But instead of opening his mouth, I watched his fingers
collapse over the top of my knuckles. His fingers were surprisingly soft. Like
cool, light petals. He pressed his pads lightly on to the top of my hand, then
just as quickly began to peel away. When it was just the tips of our nails
touching, I let myself lean forward, rising up on tiptoe. I let my digits
slide, oh-so-slowly, into the damp crevices his own knuckles made, until we
were intertwined. Then I met his eyes. They were so open to me. I knew, in that
moment, we could have done something very wrong.

“Hey troublemakers!” called a familiar voice from beyond the
makeshift nave. It took a few seconds for me to recognize the voice as my dear
sister's, but there she was. Smoking a Virginia Slim from a tapered holder, one
knee kicked up against the outside door. Beyond her, I could see that the
wedding crowd had begun to disperse. Our new family (and the new family
member's dates) were headed to Pappadeaux's for the reception.

“Lady, your fella is looking for you,” Carson breezed. “And
Landon, Missus Queen of the Damned has been screeching about you on the
sidewalk for the past ten minutes.” I caught a flash of panic in his eyes, and
realized we were both thinking the same thing. Ten minutes? Had we really been
in here, doing and saying so little, for
ten minutes
?

“Oh, Jesus,” Landon said, breaking the spell. He took a step
away from me, and I saw the door had closed again. Whatever freaky, forbidden
thing came out between us when no one else was around could not sustain in the
daylight, that much I could see. Oh well. It was like all the romantic comedies
Anya and I liked to make fun of, or had liked to make fun of on the now
long-gone lady movie nights of my youth: a body couldn't just wait around for
some dude to come to his senses. There were too many things standing in the
way.

Landon had already turned away from me when I remembered my
purse on the ground, and at the same exact moment as I bent to retrieve it, I
watched him turn on his heel and stoop. (Damn those gentlemanly reflexes.) Our
heads almost knocked together on the ground, and laughing, I stood up to let
him fetch my things. For a moment then, he was kneeling on the ground, looking
up at me. The gaze and the smile flickered back across his face like a flame,
as he gobbled up an eyeful of me from an angle where a scalawag could see up a
lady's dress. I let him look, though. I let him linger all over me with his
eyes, and I felt my heart race. I felt my panties grow hot.

“JESUS!” Carson yelled from the foyer. When I turned my
head, she looked like a Cathy cartoon: all flailing arms, her long hair
amplified by the humidity. Landon righted himself. The frown returned. He
handed me my purse, then nodded curtly. I didn't know whether to laugh at the
absurdity of it all, or get mad again. For something to say, I whirled on my
big sister.

“You can't say Jesus in a church,” I huffed.