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Colt
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I GLANCE AROUND MY room checking it’s clean enough for Emerson. Once I’m satisfied she won’t chew me out for being a pig, I pull open the blinds and lift the window.
I send her a quick text.
Then I rush across the hall to the bathroom for a quick shower to wash Eliza off me while I wait for Em. She isn’t in my room when I return, so I lie on the bed and wait. My fingers tap a rhythm on my legs, but I’m restless. It’s been too long since I played ball or saw Em last. Eliza took up more of my time today than I expected. I roll over and search under my bed.
Where the hell is my ball?
Where’s Emerson?
I need one of them. Now. Pulling on a shirt, I run downstairs to grab a drink.
“Hey, hey, hey, slow down,” Dad warns as I run past him.
“Sorry,” I apologize, still tapping out a beat with my invisible drumsticks.
“What’s wrong?”
“Have you seen my ball?”
“You want to play now?” He raises his eyebrows in surprise and scratches his salt and pepper beard. He’s only in his early forties. But he’s had a tough few years, and it’s taking its toll on him. “I thought you’d be hanging with Emerson.”
“She’s not answering my text and I need my ball.”
He sighs and rubs a hand over his tired face. Even though he will miss me when I leave, I’m sure he’s counting down the minutes until I go so he can have a break. Can’t blame him. I’m hard work. “It’s packed in the car already.”
“Shit.” I pull on the ends of my hair. I need that ball.
“Wanna talk to me?”
“No.” I prefer to play ball.
Where the hell is Em?
“Your um, friend...she seemed...” He trails off, biting his lip.
“Crazy?”
“Pissed, I was going to say.”
Pressing my feet together, I bounce on my toes and nod. “She wanted to stay but...” I shrug.
Dad nods. He understands I need Emerson and no other girl will get in the way of that. He figured out before I did that Emerson has the same effect on me that basketball does. It’s why he never complains about her sleeping over, never questions it. If it keeps me calm and happy, then he’s all for it.
Also, I’m sure he prefers she stays here with us where she’s safe and not next door at the mercy of her father and her alcoholic mother.
“Come watch a game with me,” Dad offers, switching off his movie and turning on a pre-recorded basketball game. I must have watched it a thousand times with him. I’ve memorized it play-by-play and so has he. It sure as fuck drives him crazy to sit through the same few games over and over, but he does it for me because it calms me.
“No, it’s okay.” I don’t want to bore him too much.
“Want me to get the ball from the car and we can play a game?” His brown eyes are weary, dark circles shadow his face, but he makes the effort for me. Everything he does is for me.
I shake my head and shove my hands in my pockets. I appreciate the gesture but I’m not sure it’ll be enough. It isn’t the restlessness and excess energy. It’s the anxiety of leaving. Leaving Dad. Starting college two years later than everyone else my age. It’s not my fault. I repeated a year when I was six, otherwise I could have started college last year, but I couldn’t have survived without Em. Like she couldn’t have survived without me.
We’ve become each other’s crutches. So, I deferred for a year and waited until she was ready, too. We rely on each other too much to be apart for long periods of time. It isn’t healthy but until anyone finds a better way to calm me and keep me grounded, Em is all I have.
I keep her safe, give her shelter, a loving home, and she gives me focus and a way to calm my impulsiveness.
Leaving Dad will be hard. Since mom died, he’s lost his light; the little piece of him which was always cheery and happy has dimmed. He puts on a brave face, but he misses her. He lost a part of himself the day she died, and now I’m leaving, too. But I’m doing it for him. For us. If this works out, if I work my ass off, keep my grades up and play ball to the best of my abilities, I have a real chance at making it pro. Then I’ll take care of Dad, of Emerson, and me. We’ll live long happy lives, together.
“I’m going for a run,” I tell Dad.
“Colton. Stop.” He comes over and places his hands on my shoulders. “You’re spiraling.”
I shove his hands off. I know I’m spiraling. I can’t stay still, can’t focus.
“Let’s get the ball from the car.”
I play basketball because I enjoy the focus it gives me. There is something about having a ball in my hands and an open court. It calms me, brings me peace and silences my mind.
At some point my focus shifted.
To the girl next door.
I’m not sure how or when it happened. All I’m positive of is she calms me and gives me as much focus as basketball. If I don’t have a ball with me, I need Em. For nine years she’s kept me grounded. I fidget less. I’m quieter, less disruptive. Emerson and basketball work better than any medication the doctors have given me over the years.
And I’m spiraling because I don’t have either.
Where the hell is she?
“Hey, you going to make me wait all night?” Emerson’s voice drifts down from the top of the stairs. My knee stops shaking the instant I whip around and take her in. My heart calms down to a less intense beat. The desire to go for a run dissipates with the sound of her soft voice. The need to pour a drink fades. The need to do anything to keep my hands busy is gone. I’m still. A sense of calm washes over me as though someone poured a bucket of warm water over my head.
She’s standing at the top of the stairs in one of my hoodies, one hand on her hip and the other hand on the banister. Her red hair is a mess on top of her head as she chews her bottom lip.
I grin at her and Dad claps me on the back, both of us relieved she’s here. “Good. I can go back to my movie. I’m getting too old to play ball at this hour.” He laughs and goes back to the sofa.
I run up the stairs to grab her hand and pull her into my room. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I thought you had company,” she shoots back, moving toward my bed before pausing and inspecting it. She pokes and prods the sheets as though they’re a dead animal and she’s waiting for them to come alive. “I’m not sitting on your sex sheets, am I?”
My eyes widen and my breath catches in my throat. I cleaned up all the evidence that Eliza was here. “How did you know?”
“That you had sex?”
“Yeah.”
She points to the open box of condoms on the desk and screws up her nose. “So, the sheets?”
I bark out a laugh. “I changed them.”
She kicks off her shoes, an old pair of mine from years ago. “How was it?”
“What?”
Emerson rolls her eyes, making a circle with her fingers on her right hand before poking her left index finger in and out.
“Terrible. Underwhelming. Doesn’t count as sex.”
“What?” Em’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Pretty sure for it to be counted as sex there needs to be actual penetration.”
She pretends to gag at the word penetration while I attempt to hide my amusement. “There wasn’t?”
I shake my head.
“You know where it goes, right?” She gestures toward my crotch.
“Yes. Do you think I’m that stupid?” I argue, folding my arms over my chest. But, she’s not wrong. I’ve never seen a chick naked until tonight, and apart from a general idea where things align, the mechanics of sex is over my head.
Emerson pushes me to the side and chuckles before climbing onto the center of my freshly made bed. “How’s Eliza?”
“Pissed.” I shrug, throwing myself down beside her and reaching for her hand.
“Because you couldn’t get it up?”
“Why do you assume it’s my fault?” I bring her hand to my chest and hold it there. Still on edge, her touch calms me faster than any medication or a game of basketball. “Ever consider it was her who couldn’t get it up?”
“Girls don’t have ‘it’ to get up, Colt. Besides, it’s always your fault.”
I laugh and close my eyes. “Fine, I couldn’t, but she was pissed for other reasons.”
“What did you do?”
“Kicked her out before her body had stopped quaking and she’d pulled her nails from my chest.” I squirm on the bed remembering the sting as Eliza scratched her nails down my chest. I was sure she would tear a nipple off at one point.
Disaster.
“One.” Emerson yanks her hand out of mine, the freckles on her nose crinkling as she screws her face up in disgust and holds up her finger. “Gross. And two, nails in your chest? Really?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“I’m that good?”
She huffs out a breath. “But you didn’t have sex.”
“Apparently riding my thigh is just as good.”
Em tips her head back and laughs. “I don’t believe you.”
Sitting up, I lift my shirt over my head. “See for yourself.”
Emerson’s fingers trace over my chest, circling around my nipple and causing goosebumps to break out over my skin as her green eyes take in every scratch Eliza left.
“How’d she take it?”
“Like a fucking champ.” I pull my shirt back down and bite back a grin.
Her fist comes out of nowhere, punching me in the shoulder. “No. You pig. How’d she take you kicking her out after not having sex?”
“Oh, I thought you meant how’d she take my thigh.” I don’t try and hide my smile this time. It’s impossible. Her reaction is priceless. I catch her fist before she hits me again. “Because she took it like a champ, even if I lay there like a dead fish at half-mast.”
“Fish don’t have masts,” Emerson points out unhelpfully.
“I mean, I wasn’t into it at all. But she seemed to have the time of her life. So...”
“So, what did you do?”
“Recited basketball stats in my head so I didn’t lose focus.”
“Did it help?”
“Half-mast, Em. Did you miss the part where she rode my thigh?”
She laughs and falls on her back. “Was it performance anxiety?”
“Who knows? But the second she called me daddy, I lost all interest.”
Em’s laugh is loud and contagious, and I laugh with her. I can now it’s over. Before had been a nightmare. It took all my self-control not to shove Eliza out the window when she moaned ‘daddy’.
I shudder.
“Daddy? Tell me you’re joking?” She wraps her arms around her stomach and bursts into a fit of giggles.
Snorts.
She snorts, she’s laughing so much.
I glare at her and she shuts up.
“So, it was Eliza then?”
“I guess.” I shrug.
Or hell, maybe not. Perhaps it’s because I’m awkward as fuck around girls. Words don’t come out right. I don’t act the way society thinks I should. I’ve never kissed a girl, unless you count Emerson when I was fourteen, and that was because we watched a romance movie and wanted to try it out. It was a peck on the lips, and we swore we’d never do it again because it was gross. And super weird.
I’m different to everyone my age. How many twenty-year-old guys are virgins and have next to no dating experience? Though I don’t care how people perceive me, I’m still uncomfortable around people.
Em’s the only one who doesn’t judge me, the only one who doesn’t care if I suddenly lose track of what I’m doing or if I lose interest in what she’s saying. She doesn’t care we go out for ice-cream only to end up at the basketball courts burning off my excess energy with no ice-cream. Okay she might care about that, because Em and ice-cream is not something you want to mess with. Those incidents don’t happen as often with her, but she’s as patient as a saint when they do.
“Okay, so back to my first question. How’d she take it?”
“Not great. Told me if she walked out that door then I needn’t bother calling her again.”
Emerson shakes her head. “You let her walk out, didn’t you?”
My lips tip up at the corners flashing my teeth. “I opened the fucking door and waved her out.”
“Colt,” Emerson scolds. “You hurt her feelings. She’s your girlfriend. We’ve talked about this. You need to be nicer and at least pretend to care.”
“She was never my girlfriend.”
Em gives me a hard stare. I swallow and sigh. “Fine. Now she’s my ex and I don’t care. Besides, it’s not my problem. She knew I was leaving and things wouldn’t go any further.”
She wanted bragging rights and the chance to prove to her friends she managed the impossible. To date me for longer than anyone and bang my brains out. Not that I care. I hoped to lose my virginity before college, so if she was happy to take it, it was hers. She tried. She tried hard but failed terribly. So, she’s pissed and I’m still a virgin.
“But—” I hold my hand up and press my fingers to Emerson’s lips.
“Eliza is out of my mind. Forgotten. You should forget her too. We have one more night before we leave; let’s watch a movie.”
Having Emerson beside me is the only way I can sit through an entire movie without getting bored.
“I had a date today,” she blurts. It’s always a strange topic with both of us. Neither of us have any experience. Me, because I can’t give a chick the attention she wants. Em, because she doesn’t trust any fucking asshole. I don’t blame her, after the way her father treats her mom.
“You did?”
“With Jeffrey.” She nods and chews her lips.
“Why? We leave tomorrow.”
“I’m aware, but he’s been asking for months and I felt bad, so I agreed to one date as a way of saying goodbye.”
“And?”
“Well, the most experience I have with a guy is you playing with these.” She cups her breasts and squeezes them together.
I groan and my dick stirs in my shorts. Fucker. Now he wakes up. Where was he an hour ago when I needed him?
“Okay. I’m still not seeing where this is going?”
“I panicked when he tried to kiss me and gave him a bloody nose.”
“You punched him?”
She winces and nods. “More like rammed the heel of my hand into his nose. It crunched really bad.”
I burst out laughing. Jeffrey is a tool, so I’m sure he deserved it, anyway. The dude wears sweater vests and more hair product than an Elvis impersonator. I swear his hair is as hard as a helmet.
“It’s not funny.”
“It is.”
She sighs.
“What?” I ask, shifting on the bed until I’m lying on my pillows pulling Emerson down beside me.
She rolls onto her side to face me. Her green eyes sparkle in the light coming through the window. “I just wanted to lose my lipginity before we go to college.”
“What the fuck is lipginity?”
“You know. Virgin lips. I haven’t kissed anyone.”
“Who cares?” Neither have I and I don’t plan on it.
Some people save their virginity until marriage. In Em’s words, I’m saving my lipginity.
“I do. I will be the only girl in college who hasn’t kissed a guy.”
I shake my head and chuckle. “You worry too much. I’m sure there are plenty of guys who will be happy to take your lipginity.”
“If I don’t punch them in the face when they try.”