Slammed #3 (5 page)

You
have a bright future in front of you as a journalist, Evelyn. Keep your
wonderful manners and obvious passion for getting it right, and I think you’ll
have all your subjects eating out of your hand.

I turned it into Lisa, and she looked over it while
I was in the office with her. “This is fantastic, Evelyn!” she said as she
finished it. “You really captured the drama of the game, the complexities of
what was going on—and I like that you put in the different theories the people
in the crowd had for why the team was struggling, alongside the coach’s
explanation.” She scrolled through the pictures I had included, nodding a few
times. “We’ve got a lot to work with. I’m glad Grant signed you on. You’re
working out really well!”

I couldn’t help but beam at the praise—after all, as
the newest member of the
staff,
I had the most to
prove. As long as I could keep Lisa happy, keep the people I was interviewing
happy, and most importantly, keep my grades up, it would be a very good
addition to my resume.

Once the assignment was over, though, I still found
it hard to keep myself focused. Zack didn’t try to call or text me again after
the game and I was almost surprised—though why should I be, when I had ignored
him so obviously. I must have thought that he would try harder to win me back.
But that was ridiculous—stuff out of a bad romantic comedy. Zack had gotten my
message; even if he had gotten a stronger message than I had intended. He was
obviously already moving on.

CHAPTER
FOUR

After a few days, Jess cornered me in the dorm room
while I sat in front of the TV, studying History and half-watching an episode
of
Bones
. “Something is up with you,”
she said, sitting down in a chair nearby without preamble. “Spill it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said,
shrugging and pulling my History textbook closer to me. There were so many
battles to remember—so many
dates
in the Civil
War—that I despaired of ever keeping them all straight in my head for the
final. I highlighted something that was totally irrelevant, shaken slightly by
Jess’ opening.

“Oh come off it already,
Evie
.
Anyone who knows you even a little bit could tell you’re off your feed. What’s
wrong? Did you get a C on something?”

I smiled slightly, pushing my hair away from my face
and setting my textbook aside. It was clear that Jess wasn’t going to leave me
alone until she got an answer to her question.

“No, I haven’t gotten any bad grades,” I said,
looking at the TV rather than at her. “I will hopefully have an A in everything
except Stats, and I’m more than happy to scrounge a B in that infernal class.”

Jess laughed. “Okay, so then what is it? Because
every time I see you you’ve got this gloomy look on your face like someone is
holding your puppy ransom.”

I rolled my eyes. “I just…okay.
Fine.
So here’s the thing.” I took a deep breath. “I haven’t been seeing Zack for a
while.
A couple of weeks.
It’s no big deal or
anything, but it sort of has me… confused, I guess?”

Jess raised an eyebrow.

“So let me get this straight: the cute QB who you
told me is now apparently great in bed, who proclaimed his love for you in
front of half of the student body, just brushed you off?”

I shook my head.

“Not…exactly.” I looked down at my lap and picked at
lint balls on the blanket I’d spread over myself, twisting my lips into a
grimace. “See, I’m…I’m the one who’s not seeing him. Not the other way around.”

“What? Why the hell not? He didn’t like, try and do
something gross, did he?”

I shook my head, my cheeks burning. I sighed,
deciding that I would have to tell Jess the whole story; I owed it to her.

“So after Zack and I had sex…when I got back from
classes, there was this guy hanging out outside of our dorm.” Jess’ eyes
widened. “It was one of Zack’s teammates—one of the tackles, I guess. I don’t
know if he was offense or defense. But he told me I shouldn’t hang out with
Zack anymore, or have anything to do with him.” I rolled my eyes.

“What an asshole! Did he tell you why?”

I shook my head. “No, just said that even though we
didn’t really know each other, he’d consider it a personal favor. I don’t know
what he was thinking.” I scrubbed at my face with my hands. “Anyway, I told him
to get the hell out of the dorm before I called one of the RAs. He left but it
got me to thinking—I was really kind of letting things go too fast with Zack
anyway.”

“Well, I mean, a date and sex twice—that’s not
really that fast.”

“But we have history,” I insisted. “I was already…I
mean, look: I wasn’t like, planning our wedding or anything, but he was already
starting to be a distraction, and I guess I sort of figured that I was a
distraction for him too—otherwise why would one of his teammates hang out like
a creeper at my door to ask me not to have anything to do with him?”

Jess shrugged. “Maybe the guy knows there’s a case
of herpes raging through the locker room and doesn’t want you to get it.”

I rolled my eyes. “It wouldn’t be a favor to him,
then, would it? He’d be doing me a favor.” Jess shrugged and nodded, conceding
the point. “Anyway, I decided to sort of put Zack and me on hold for a bit.”

“Ah, so that’s why he was in here the other day
looking for you. I just sort of figured he was really horny and you weren’t in
any of your usual haunts.”

I rolled my eyes. “I kind of…didn’t tell him,
exactly.” I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment at how poorly I’d handled
the situation. “I answered the first text he sent me saying that I was busy and
couldn’t hang out but after that I just sort of…didn’t answer.”

Jess sucked her teeth, grimacing. “I know you’re not
exactly one for confrontation,
Evie
,” she said, her
voice sounding only slightly disapproving, “But man, that’s not the way to go.
You should have just said ‘Zack, I think we should take a break.’
Or something.”

“But he’d want to know why and I’d be kind of a
bitch to tell him one of his teammates came to try and talk me out of having
anything to do with him, right?”

“Well yeah, but it’s more of a bitchy move to just
ignore the poor guy.” She made a face, thinking for a moment. Her eyes went
wide. “Oh, shit—you had to cover the game and interview the coach! How did
that
go?”

I bit my bottom lip, remembering all too well how it
had gone. “He saw me coming onto the field to do the post-game interview and
came over, asking if I needed a quote from him.” My cheeks burned as I
remembered the way he’d called out that he wouldn’t even make me go on another
date with him for it. “I just sort of…ignored him and went right to the coach.”
I twisted my lips, feeling ashamed of myself. “I’m kind of a bitch, aren’t I?”

Jess laughed. “If you really were a bitch, you
wouldn’t be asking that question like it’s the worst thing you could be.” She
went into the mini fridge that we kept in the common area and took out a bottle
of water for each of us. “Okay, so this dude shows up and tries to convince you
to stop seeing Zack. You tell him to go to hell, but when you think about it
you decide it’s probably a good idea after all.” I nodded. “So when Zack tries
to hook up, you basically put him on ice, because it’s too hard to explain
everything that’s going on.”

“Basically, yeah.
I probably should have asked you for advice first, huh?”

“Yeah.
Live and learn. So Zack gets all worked up and then gives up because, of course
he does…and then at the game he nearly blows it.”

“Oh come on, that can’t be my fault. There were a
whole bunch of mistakes and things that happened, and that other team was just
looking for an opportunity to score on us.”

Jess shrugged. “Well yeah, but where did the
mistakes come from? Like was it the whole team, or was it Zack?”

I thought about what I had seen in the course of the
game. The team itself had been disorganized, confused—Zack wasn’t where he was
supposed to be, he was slow, and he didn’t get the ball where it needed to be
at the right moment.

“It was…okay, so it was mostly Zack.” I sighed. “But
come on, that can’t be my fault. Zack was probably feeling the pressure.”

“You tell me: when he played in high school, was he
the kind of guy to crack under pressure?” I picked at the blanket, not wanting
to admit what was apparently already clear to Jess.

“No,” I said reluctantly. “He lives for pressure. He
thrives on it. At least he did in high school.” Jess smiled slowly.

“I don’t know why you’re so down about it. The
verdict is clear: Zack plays better when you’re in the picture. Without you
he’s all distracted and stupid.”

“He’s pretty stupid, generally,” I said, smiling in
spite of myself.

Jess laughed. “Well yeah, but you saw how he played.
It’s obvious he can’t function properly without you.”

I rolled my eyes even though I was still
smiling,
my cheeks warm at the thought of Zack being unable
to function properly without me. But then my pleasure at the thought came
crashing down.

“If that’s true,” I said slowly, feeling guilt
tugging at my stomach, “then I’ve totally screwed him up.”

Jess shrugged. “Well, so then fix it.
Shouldn’t be hard.”

I groaned, rolling my eyes. “How am I supposed to
fix it? Run up to him and make out with him in the quad?”

Jess laughed. “Well that’s one way. But probably you
should at least explain to him what’s going on, give him a chance to understand
why you acted the way you did.”

“What if he hates me?”

“I mean, if he hates you it’s because of what you
already did—not much you can do about that.” I had to acknowledge that that was
true. “You know you’re going to be miserable until you go back to him and at
least try to explain things.”

I looked at my history textbook. “You’re right. I’ll
do it tomorrow.” Jess giggled, taking her bottle of water with her back into
her room.

CHAPTER
FIVE

The next night, I made the trek across campus to see
Zack. I knew the frat was throwing a party—there were fliers for it all over
campus—but I wasn’t there to get drunk. It was just a question of not having
the opportunity until evening to actually talk; my schedule was too packed. It
was already dark when I left the dorms; Jess had detained me in my room until
she was completely satisfied with how I looked to confront Zack and tell him
what was on my mind.

“You can’t just go over there looking like you just
left the library,” Jess told me when I announced I was going to go find Zack.

“Why not?
I did just leave the library.”

Jess groaned and dragged me to my bedroom, sitting
me down on the bed as she rummaged through my closet.

“You need to look like you’re on point, girl,” Jess
said, picking up and putting back hangers, flipping through the different
dresses, skirts, shirts, and everything else in my closet.

“If Zack doesn’t want to listen to what I have to
say then wearing something different isn’t going to change that.”

“First of all,” Jess said, turning to face me with
her arms crossed over her chest. “You don’t know that for sure. Looking sexy
could very well tip the balance. Second of all, you’re going to be seeing a
bunch of his frat brothers too—you don’t want them to give you the run-around,
do you?”

“They’re not going to treat me any differently based
on how I’m dressed, Jess.”

Jess sighed. “Okay. Say Zack has given up on you and
told his frat brothers he doesn’t want to talk to you. You show up looking like
you’ve been under a pile of books all afternoon, you’re nothing more than a
mousey
freshman
.
Easy to run
interference on.
Roll up looking so hot you might burn them and they
won’t have any blood flowing to their brains to think of lying to you.” I tried
to come up with an argument against that, but I couldn’t.

So Jess picked out a skintight pencil skirt for me
to wear, and as soon as it was on, she inched up the hem a little bit to show
more of my legs. “It’s cold outside!” I protested, trying to tug the fabric
back down. Jess swatted my hand away.

“It’s not that cold and you’re walking there, right?
Besides it’ll be warm enough in the frat house with everyone packed in.” I made
a face but once more gave in. Jess went into her own closet and found a blouse
that would fit me; it was a deep red, with a plunging neckline that showed off
my cleavage, made of a flimsy, soft material. “Wear a jacket over it, but take
the jacket off as soon as you get to the frat house,” she suggested.

Jess then went to work on my hair, pulling it back
in a sexy loose bun with messy little distracting strands falling around my
face.

By the time I was done, my makeup in place and a
pair of low-heeled boots on my feet, I had to admit that I looked incredibly
hot—but that I didn’t look as if I’d spent an hour on getting ready. I thought
to myself that it probably wouldn’t make any difference at all—after all, if
Zack had already moved on to someone else, no matter how hot I looked, he
wouldn’t be interested. But it certainly helped to bolster my confidence as I
walked along the different pathways that led from the dorms across the campus to
frat row.