Staying On Top (Whitman University) (16 page)

“I don’t want to die either, Sam, Christ. The Danube is at one of its deepest points in Belgrade, where it joins with the Sava.” She paused, closing her eyes for the briefest of seconds. “And I know it’s safe. There are pictures of my mom cliff jumping from this spot, before they built the house here. She was a daredevil.”

I wished we had more time so I could ask her a follow-up, get her to talk more about her mom and how her life might have been different, but the sirens had given way to ominous silence. A thud sounded from inside the house. 

The idea of losing all that money still made me sick to my stomach. The thought that I could play all of these years, put all that stress on my body, and come out of it with hardly anything to show destroyed the last of my resolve and I nodded. And I wasn’t ready to leave. “Okay. I trust you, Blair. Let’s go.”

“Together.”

Her hand slipped into mine and it felt good. Like this five-foot-eight, wiry, damaged girl would keep me safe. Or maybe that I would be okay as long as she was with me.

Either way, her touch calmed the adrenaline slamming my heart into my rib cage. The two of us climbed over the railing, balancing on the lip on the outside. Her fingers tightened around mine.

“One. Two.” Pause. “Three.” 

We jumped together without discussing it, leaping as far away from the shore as we could. The balcony hung over the water by a good eight to ten feet, and we managed to push out another five on our own. In the instant before my stomach flew up into my throat, I thought,
We’re going to be okay.

The water smacked my feet hard, as though someone had whacked the bottom of them with one of Quinn’s fraternity paddles. It was cold. Painful even through the soles of my shoes. The water closed over my head and I lost Blair’s hand in the swirl of freezing liquid. Bubbles—little ones, big ones, popped from my lips and tickled my skin as my arms swirled, trying to tell up from down and propel me the right way.

Sunlight signaled the surface and I kicked upward, a little surprised that stinging feet seemed to be the worst of my injuries. I broke the surface and gulped bitter air. I whipped around, water droplets spraying from my hair as I searched for Blair. The relief at the sight of her dark hair bobbing a few feet away almost made me throw up and I took three big strokes to her side to pull her against me.

She threw her body against mine and wrapped her strong legs around my waist. My body responded even before her lips found mine. Her tongue slid along my upper lip then toyed with mine until my blood heated. We were frozen from head to toe but our mouths were hot, pressed together and searching for a way to be closer. We kissed for longer than we should have, but I didn’t want to stop.

Good sense returned with the knowledge that as badly as I wanted this girl, now was not the time. 

At the moment, I
was
regretting my lie about not having a condom last night, though.

“We need to move,” I murmured into her lips. “This can be continued once my balls aren’t shrunk up against my body for warmth.”

She tightened her legs around me, disproving my remark.

“Fine. Once the police can’t look over the balcony and wonder about people swimming in a freezing cold river, then.”

“Okay.” 

Blair gave me a smile and started making her way over to the far bank. There was something different in her smile, in the easy way she moved, and like her burst of passion last night, it befuddled me.

My body knew what it wanted—had known since last spring. It wasn’t hard to figure out. But Blair was a different story. She had been pretty damn adamant about what she
didn’t
want since last spring, and even when she’d shown up and offered to help me in Melbourne, her attitude about getting involved with me hadn’t changed.

I was having trouble putting my finger on when exactly it had, and the fact that it felt . . . sudden somehow, or as though she was giving in against her better judgment, bothered me. At least, it had last night. That kiss just now, the languid pleasure on her face, had felt genuine. Filled with desire, not guilt.

If she had been that way last night, I would have grabbed the condom and gone for it.

The mud and loose debris on the bank slipped underneath my soaking wet tennis shoes, which were ruined. I didn’t want to think about what it said about me that I cared. There were boxes and boxes of similar or identical product manufactured especially for me, but I couldn’t get new ones until I was back in Australia and off the road.

I looked at Blair, her chestnut hair soaked and stuck to her cheeks and forehead, panting with the effort of the swim and the remnants of adrenaline. 

She caught me looking and grinned. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

“What? It was your idea! Remember the whole ‘we’re going to be fine’ speech you gave me up there?” I jerked my chin upward, unable to stop myself from smiling back at her.

Happy Blair was a powerful thing to resist.

“I know, and I was telling the truth, it’s just . . .” Her smiled slipped. “It feels awesome to do something my mom did, even if we jumped off a house and not a cliff.”

I put an arm around her, a shiver transferring from her to me. The space between us warmed up after a few minutes, spreading outward from where we were pressed together. 

She looked up at me, her cheeks pink, eyes bright. “We need to do a better job with our cover story, especially now that the cops are involved. I don’t think they’re going to bust their brains trying to figure out where we went, but they will if my dad asks. If he cooperates and hands over the video feed from the house they’ll know what we look like, and even though you’re scruffy and not dressed very nice, your face is still pretty damn recognizable.”

“What do you want me to do about my face?”

“Personally? Not a damn thing.” She winked, starting a painful, thawing ache between my legs. “But glasses, maybe? A hat?”

“You want to dress me like a hipster.”

“Sure. And we should do a better job playing a couple. If anyone asked the other passengers on that bus, they wouldn’t say we were together.”

“They would if they saw us dry humping on the seat after we almost died.”

Her cheeks bloomed red. “We didn’t almost die, and we were just kissing. You’re such a drama queen.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks.” I stood up before her red cheeks, soft looks, and bright eyes undid me further, then held down a hand and hauled her to her feet beside me. “Fine. I’ll get some glasses.”

“Also, we’ve got a couple of problems. First, I’m guessing both of our phones are ruined.”

My heart sank, then stuttered as I remembered something awesome. “No! At least, I don’t think mine is—I got a free sample of that new spray shit that’s supposed to make anything waterproof. Check it out.”

I dug my phone out of my pocket and pressed the home button. It flickered on as though it hadn’t been submerged in river water, which was crazy. I’d seen one of the first demos on the
Today Show
. They threw a bunch of ketchup and mustard on Matt Lauer. 

“That is fucking crazy,” she breathed, taking it from me. “Do you mind?”

She started scrolling through my contacts before I could respond, finding Mari’s cell phone number and hitting dial. “What are you—?”

“Marija? Hi, it’s Blair. Listen, I know I promised you that there wouldn’t be any trouble for you or your family if you helped us, but Sammy and I have run into a little snag.” She paused. “What? Oh. I don’t know why I just called him Sammy. My lips are numb.” Her cheeks reddened again, probably from the realization that Mari would think her lips were numb from an entirely different activity. “Anyway, you need to call the police and report your parents’ Mercedes stolen. Say you just noticed and you don’t know how long it’s been gone, since your parents are out of town and you’ve been using a driver—they’ll believe you. We’re going to catch a taxi back to your place, grab our things, and get out.” 

I motioned for the phone, which Blair handed over. “Hey, Mari. I’m really sorry about this, and I’m sorry to ask you for something else, but I saw an old Volkswagen in the garage, does it run? Can we take it? I promise to get it back to you.” 

“Sam, I don’t care about that shitty car. My dad only keeps it because it’s the car he taught me to drive with and he’s a sentimental sap. Are you okay?” 

The concern in her voice touched me. I looked down at my body, soaked and a little worse for the wear, then glanced at Blair, who resembled a drowned cat. The expression on her face reflected longing and resignation, and it cut me straight through the chest.

We were both a mess, but someone cared enough about me to ask if I was okay. Had anyone ever asked Blair the same thing and truly wanted to hear the answer? Her friends at Whitman seemed nice enough, they seemed as though they liked her—especially her roommate, Audra—but what did I know? I’d spent a brief few days with them, and we hadn’t been sober the majority of the time.

“I’m fine,” I told Mari after a pause. “We’ll be by in the next thirty minutes. Thank you, and I promise to explain every last detail of what’s going on when I see you in Australia next month.”

“You’d better. Take care of yourself, please. And for God’s sake, don’t trust every single person who looks up at you with big doe eyes and says you can.”

Mari hung up before I could reply, which was fine since figuring out a response that wouldn’t raise Blair’s hackles would have been difficult. I put the phone in my pocket and reached out, tugging her into my chest before she could protest.

Her body went rigid against mine, her arms tucked in, forearms against my chest. But the longer I held her, my chin resting on the top of her head, the more Blair relaxed. Finally, her arms went around my back and her chest sank into mine.

“Are you okay?” I asked, my breath steaming in the cold morning.

She nodded. When we pulled apart, I saw the tears in her eyes but chose to ignore them. This girl wouldn’t hate anything more than me seeing her cry, except maybe me making a big deal out of it. Maybe she wouldn’t let me give her much, but that I could do.

*

We made it back to Mari’s, changed clothes, grabbed our packs, and took the Volkswagen without any trouble. Two police cars passed us on the way out of her neighborhood, but the fact that we avoided that situation made me feel better about involving my friend. 

It also made me feel better that Blair cared enough about not getting Mari into trouble to make that call at the first opportunity. The way she’d treated her had bothered me more than a little—having an attitude with me for no apparent reason was one thing, but doing it to a friend was something else altogether. 

I would never compare growing up in the tennis world to anything more stressful, such as growing up an orphan or a foster kid, but our community was bonded in a similar way. We didn’t always get along, and there were some who were better friends than others, but we were family.

“Okay, so where next?” I asked, ready to type a destination into my phone since Blair’s was toast from the dip in the Danube.

“Well, I’m thinking we’ll try Santorini next.”

“Greece. Excellent. Huge improvement, in my opinion.”

“You’re a beach guy as opposed to a mountains guy, I take it?”

“I’m a warm weather guy, honestly, and Greece has beaches
and
mountains. What’s not to like?”

“An unstable economy? Impossible travel? Mistreated donkeys?”

“Wait, you’re telling me you don’t like Greece?” I asked as she navigated toward an interstate based on the road signs, though I had no idea how since they were in Serbian. “How are you reading those signs? Are you an alien? A pod person?”

She shrugged. “I’ve traveled a lot, Sam, probably about as much as you. But I’m guessing I’ve done quite a bit more driving abroad—or at least more paying attention. Interstate signs all look the same, and obviously I can read the numbers.”

“Okay, but how do you know which way to go once you find it?”

“I have a good sense of direction. Born that way.”

The highway loomed up ahead, and Blair navigated us south. The map on my phone said Greece was about 552 miles from here, almost directly to the south. “Let’s get back to you not liking Greece.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just not my favorite place that I’ve visited, that’s all.”

“What
is
your favorite place you’ve visited?” It was the first time in a long time that I’d asked a girl such a throwaway question and been dying to hear the answer. It occurred to me that the girls I’d been spending time with since forever hadn’t been that hard to figure out. 

I was enjoying the challenge.

“Probably Romania. Brasov. I really love Ephesus, too, though.”

“Those are super-random places. I’ve never been to either one.”

“That’s one reason I like them—despite Brasov being close to Dracula’s castle, it’s not a huge tourist destination. And Turkey’s instability keeps people away, even though the coastal areas are fairly safe.”

“When do you have time to travel to such remote locations? What about school?”

 I watched a veil slip over her animated features at the question. Questions about likes and dislikes, fine. Ones that might reveal anything about her life, not okay. Noted.

“I’m doing fine in school, and the teachers at Whitman are progressive. High school was the same way.”

Another question, one about her father and whether he had dragged her all of those places to steal money from weak-minded people such as me, dried up when she steered us off the highway. A small cluster of restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and other side-of-the-highway staples clustered at the bottom. “Where are we going?”

“The car needs gas, and you need a disguise. Plus, I’m hungry.” She pointed. “There.”

A McDonald’s nestled next to a cheap drugstore across the street. She parked at the store, then unbuckled and dragged me inside and over to the racks of glasses.

“You pick some out, I’m going to find you a hat. And some razors for me.”

She wandered off before I could contemplate the reason for her sudden concern about grooming. Instead I spun the racks, looking for the most unlike-me pair of glasses they had available, finally settling on an oversized, horn-rimmed pair that made me look like a hipster liberal-arts professor at some hippie school.