Jaided (13 page)

"Umm, I dunno?"

"You never make your bed."

"Soo?"

"Your bed is made."

"What are you getting at?"

"You haven't slept in this bed for a couple days."

"Right. And you can tell that, can you?"

Ethan turned his head and inhaled deeply against her pillow. "Yep, two days."

"If I didn't know you so well, I would say that is disgustingly creepy. Are you training to be a bloodhound or something?”

"Anyways!" Mason looked at Blaize and nodded his head toward the doorway. "Blaize, right? Let's go for a walk."

"Mason." Jaide snapped at him and gave him a furious glare.

"What? I thought we talked about this already. Just a talk. Calm down."

"We never agreed on anything."

Blaize stepped toward the door. "It's ok, Jaide. I don't mind. Just let me grab a shirt."

Jaide came up behind him as he pulled his shirt on and whispered in his ear so no one else could hear. "This is my brother's friend that I was telling you about."

Blaize's positive expression faltered.

Mason took a step toward them. "Something wrong, kid?"

Blaize took a moment and seemed to spend that moment to readjust mentally. "Nope, let's go." He grabbed Jaide's chin and placed a kiss on her lips before walking out the door with Mason following behind.

As they started down the hallway, Blaize did his best not to judge the guy that he didn't know since Jaide had said he was a good guy. "Soo? What did you want to talk about?"

"Look kid, I don't ..."

"Don't call me 'kid'."

"What?"

"I said, don’t call me 'kid'. I'm not a kid."

Mason nodded approvingly. "Ok, Blaize. Jaide tells me you guys are getting into some sort of relationship."

"Yeah, I'm not sure how it's any of your business."

"Jaide
is
my business."

"How's that?"

"Look, whatever Jaide's told you is probably true and you can make of it whatever you want but the truth is, if it wasn't for me, Jaide wouldn't be here. She would still be back at her house, going into anxiety attacks every time a stranger gets within three feet of her. I am here to make sure you are not some creep weirdo trying to take advantage of her."

Blaize kept his composure. "Ok well, I'm not a creep, so ..."

"I can see that. But there is something else."

Blaize waited.

"I don't know how far this relationship of yours has gotten, but Jaide has told me that you guys haven't gotten into bed yet."

"No, we haven’t, not in the way that you're talking about. But I still don't see how this is any of your business."

"Look, as I'm sure you know, Jaide has been ... traumatized, when it comes to that kind of stuff. She has a couple of wires crossed. I just want you to be prepared."

"I don't know what you are trying to say exactly, but I'm not emotionally incompetent. I know how to handle her."

"She seems to like you a lot,” Mason said, “so I'm sure you've been able to deal with her thus far. I just wanted to let you know, for her sake.”

"I don't think I really like what you're saying about her. I don't consider it 'dealing' with her. I like being around her. Her complications make up who she is, and it’s a package deal. But ... I do see what you are trying do, and I can tell it just because you care about her."

Mason nodded. "Good, then we're on the same page."

"Yep. So are we done?"

"There is one other thing."

"Ok."

"Earlier today, when I ran into Jaide the first time, I kissed her. I didn't know she was involved with you or anyone else, and she ended it almost right away and told me about her situation. I just wanted to let you know in case someone else saw it and took it the wrong way. I just hadn't seen in her or kept in contact with her, so I didn't know."

Blaize shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, like I said, we aren't dating but we did imply that we weren't going to get involved with anyone else. Thanks for being up front about it and letting me know. No hard feelings."

"Cool. Hey, do you have a phone?"

Blaize dug his phone out of the pocket of his sweats and handed it over.

Mason punched in his number and returned the phone to Blaize. "However awkward it might seem, feel free to call me if you have any questions about ... whatever."

Blaize nodded and pocketed the phone. "Ok, yeah, thanks." Blaize had an odd feeling that they had just formed some type of weird friendship, or at least a pact.

They had made a full circle back to the room. The door across the hall was open and Ethan and Tremaine were both in Chance's room, playing video games and messing around.

Blaize walked into his own room with Mason following. Jaide had changed out of her practice gear and into a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt.

She looked at them both a little scornfully. "How was your 'man talk'?"

Blaize hesitated before answering. She seemed to be on edge a little. "It was good? Right?" He looked at Mason for backup.

"What? Oh, yeah, non-eventful. Like I said, just a chat."

"Whatever. I'm not happy with either of you."

"Yeah, we can see that but we don't really understand why ..."

"Don't think I don't know what you two were talking about. You were talking about me."

"Yes, we were."

"You can't just go off and talk about me like I'm some emotionally incompetent three-year-old that needs to be taken care of. You can't just go off and talk about having sex with me and expect me not to care."

Blaize took a step toward her. "Jaide, we didn't mean to ..."

"Don't want to hear it, and you can say I'm being immature or overreacting or whatever, but the fact is that I don't really want to hang out with either of you right now."

"You can't be mad at us forever."

"No, but I live with Blaize, so I'm not too worried about missing any valuable time with him."

Mason frowned. "I'm only here for another couple hours."

"Yeah well, so is Ethan, and he makes much better company than you with your overbearing personality. So! I'm going to go see what he's up to, if you'll excuse me."

She brushed past the both of them briskly.

Once she was out of the room Mason and Blaize shared a hopeless look. ”What can ya do?” Blaize said.

Jaide remained short with Mason for the duration of his stay, but gave him a sincere hug goodbye and apologized for being stubborn.

Once the college boys had left, Jaide went back to her room and found Blaize waitimg to see if she was still mad at him.

Jaide sighed. "Is the hot tub open this late?"

"Uh, yeah, but ..."

"Let's go. Get dressed."

The hot tub turned out a lot steamier then she had expected but it ended up being very relaxing and by the end of the evening, everything was back to normal.

Jaide finally got into bed beside Blaize. "How is your back feeling?"

Blaize wrapped his arms around her. "Good, but I wish I could practice tomorrow."

"I know, but you can't, so too damn bad."

"There is one upside to this whole thing," Blaize suggested.

"What's that?"

"Well, the longer I'm injured, the more massages and hot tub sessions we get."

"Who says they have to stop when your back gets better?"

"Uhhh, I dunno. I'd feel bad about it. I owe you already."

She smiled. "We could probably work something out."

"Well now, that is something that is definitely gonna have to wait until my back is better," he said, in what sounded to Jaide, like a very suggestive tone.

Jaide pulled back, surprised. "Blaize!"

"Whaaat?" he asked innocently. "You started it."

She laughed. "Yeah, whatever, it's late. Let’s go to sleep."

"Can do."

Tremaine crossed that sunlit field of wild flowers in a trek that she watched in her mind for hours on end until never did it seem to end. The meadow stretched away to infinity and at the very distant crossing of two paths, she envisioned Blaize bouncing a soccer ball made of woven yellow, cheery sunflowers, woven tighter by unseen forces.

J
aide already had butterflies. They had a game today, their first league game of the season. She had taken some time to do some research. She discovered that this team was very good and very aggressive, causing injuries in almost every game they played and building up a good record of yellow and red cards. She lifted her head from Blaize's chest to look at the clock. It was 6 a.m. She knew she wasn't going to be getting any more sleep with worrying about the upcoming soccer game.

She tried to climb off the bed without disturbing the sleeping boy but she didn't succeed. A hand gripped her wrist just as she thought she had gotten away.

She turned back to look at him. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"Where are you going? What time is it?"

"It's early, go back to sleep. I'm just gonna take a shower."

"Nothing's wrong?"

She shook her head. "No, just not tired. Go back to sleep."

He nodded and released her before rolling over and falling back asleep.

She meant to head straight for the shower but instead, she gazed at the broad expanse of his back. The bruise had faded to a nasty brown and yellow by now and according to him, most of the pain had subsided. Other than the bruise, his back was perfect, all smooth and tan skin, broader at the shoulders and narrow at his hips.

She noticed a few red marks on the back of each shoulder, and then it dawned on her that she had made those marks. Things had gotten heated last night, but Blaize had slammed on the brakes before they got into anything serious.

While it was incredibly frustrating, Jaide knew that Blaize was not Mason. Blaize had issues of his own and she needed to respect that. But Blaize was seriously driving her crazy, getting her all excited only to abruptly cut it off. She wasn't sure how long she was going to be able to keep it up. As with Mason, she had become accustomed early on to having sex as often as she wanted. This experience with Blaize was new for her. She giggled to herself at the irony of the situation. Normally it was the guy that always wanted more sex but here Blaize was, holding her off. He had some crazy strong willpower. She totally respected the fact that he didn't want to rush anything but she had an odd feeling that there was another reason he was putting it off.

She decided to discard it from her mind for now. She didn't mind not having sex with Blaize as long as she got to spend time with him, even if he did drive her crazy. She finally tore her eyes off Blaize and climbed into the shower. She took her time, knowing that he was still going to be asleep when she got out.

At breakfast with the rest of the boys, everything seemed normal. Jaide seemed to be the only one worried about the game they had in a few hours.

Matt seemed to notice she was tense and spoke to her from across the table. "Something wrong, Jaide? You seem tense."

"Just the game and everything. How come you guys aren't worried?"

The boys all looked at her curiously.

Bhrade answered her question. "Maybe because we are going to obliterate them?"

"I thought they were good?” Jaide asked. “They've won all their games so far this season, and they are really aggressive."

All the boys smiled at her as if it was cute of her to worry. Blaize wrapped his arm around her. "That's all true, but the teams they have played so far really sucked. Their team really has no talent, all brawn and no brain. They are all total jerks. We don't feel bad when we kick their ass every year."

"They beat Arlington,” noted Jaide. “Isn’t that pretty good."

Chance shook his head. "They only beat Arlington because Parker didn't play. Parker carries that team.""Why didn't Parker play?" Jaide asked. She noticed everyone had taken an abrupt interest in their breakfasts, spoons and forks busy, heads down.

"Helloooo?" she called out. “Come on guys, we play Arlington in a few weeks.”

Blaize sighed. "He got an MIP."

Jaide shrugged. "That's not so bad, just a little slip up on his part."

"And he almost got in an accident, DUI."

"Oh. But that means he should be off the team for good. That sucks."

"Yeah, that should be the case but not when your dad owns the whole town. He'll be back on the team for our game up there next weekend."

"Well that's good, I guess. He seems like a good guy. Anyone can make those kinds of mistakes."

The boys all shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. He's pretty dumb to drink during soccer season at all. Not to mention driving and getting caught."

The conversation about Parker ended and the boys started to get pumped for the game. They did express some concern about Jaide's safety with the level of aggression that the opposite team was going to play with. Jaide told them not to worry about her, just focus on the game.

Before Jaide knew it, she was sitting in the locker room, dressed in her jersey and listening to Coach along with the rest of the boys.

"Now we know this team is aggressive and can break the rules, but I want all of you to keep your heads out there. We can beat them, that's pretty much a given, but we still need to stay focused. They are going to try to provoke a fight. Keep your composure. You all know my penalty if any of my players receive a yellow or red card. For those newcomers, I will refresh everyone’s memory. A yellow card will earn you five sets of suicides, and a red card gets you ten. Sound harsh? It is, and it's that way for a reason. My players don't get carded. Got it?"