-SCARLET-
I WAS HAPPY.
Now there was a word I hadn’t used in the longest time. Even though I knew that Bridger and I would probably still only see each other twice a week, my entire attitude brightened. For the next few days I walked around in a giddy fog.
Which is probably why I didn’t see it coming.
On my way out of the dorm on Monday, someone called to me. “Shannon! Wait!”
My head snapped up at the sound of my old name. I saw Azzan, my father’s security man, leaning against a statue of Abraham Harkness. Running toward him so that he wouldn’t call me “Shannon” again, I was already wondering what I’d say if anyone had heard.
“What do you want?” I snapped.
“Good morning to you, too,” he said. His smile was thin and not the least bit welcoming.
“I have a class now,” I told him.
“You need to set up a time for your interview. Soon.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t have anything to say.”
“That’s for your father’s lawyer to decide,” Azzan said, dropping any pretense of a smile. “You name the afternoon, and we’ll have the whole thing over in two hours.”
“I can’t be involved,” I insisted, hiking my backpack higher onto my shoulder. “I don’t know a thing, and I won’t do the meeting.”
“Shannon, you will do the meeting. If you want to be a rebellious teenager, pick a different way. This is nonnegotiable.”
Unfortunately, I felt the same way. “I have class,” I repeated. It was hard to believe that Azzan had driven more than ninety minutes to talk to me. That meant he wouldn’t be shaken off very easily.
“You have one week to call me to set up a meeting.” At that, he turned and walked away.
I was happy to see him go. But he hadn’t said what would happen if I didn’t call. I had a feeling that I would soon find out.
The encounter darkened my weekend, and then a newspaper article positively blackened it. It was on the front page, above the fold. There were three brand new complaints against my father.
“A year later, they’re still coming out of the woodwork.” I scanned the story, the familiar ache of dread in my heart. Like the others, the new accusers were young men who’d taken part in my father’s charitable foundation for underprivileged boys.
I squinted at the low-resolution photo on the news website. Only one of the victims was pictured. He had a strong face — cut cheekbones, a prominent forehead. Had I seen him before? I didn’t think I had. Or was that just wishful thinking?
For more than a year I’d been doing this — staring at grainy pictures, trying to jog my own memory. There were some days when I could convince myself that all of it was bullshit. I’d never seen my father do anything strange. Also, I’d spent a lot of time in locker rooms. They were big, echoing places where people were constantly walking in and out. How could a semi famous coach in his fifties spend a lot of time with fourteen year olds, and nobody noticed?
And yet…
My gaze was always drawn back to the boys’ photos. This picture showed a young man’s face. He was nineteen now. According to the teachers interviewed for the article, he’d become aggressive and self destructive during his early teen years. Nobody knew why his grade point average slipped from A- to barely getting by.
He told his mother that one of the hockey coaches was scary. But when pressed, he refused to explain.
He stopped eating.
God.
The newspaper accounts made my father look very, very guilty.
Unlike my mother, I could never be satisfied by the idea that the boys invented their stories. Even if there was a potential paycheck involved, my gut said that the cost to a young man for making these accusations was just too great. Even after everything that had happened to me last year, I wasn’t jaded enough to think it was all a conspiracy.
The articles always portrayed my father (accurately) as an egomaniac. There was an endless supply of old photography of him screaming at his players, or alternately grinning with victory.
In real life, Coach Ellison was the most closed-down, silent, prickly person that you’d ever meet. He doled out affection with an eyedropper, always saving his approval for well-played hockey games.
The man had very few character witnesses rushing to his defense.
Today’s article featured a press photograph from the Sterling College hockey program. In the photo, my father wore a designer suit and a smile.
My father never smiled, unless a photographer asked him to. Or unless his players won a tough game.
The Steel Wings charity had gotten off the ground when I was five, right after we’d moved to New Hampshire. A group of NHL players contributed the seed money for ice time and the equipment. Hockey was an expensive sport, and Steel Wings gave boys who would otherwise never own a pair of skates a chance to play.
But now the world knew that the charity’s founder may have had a sinister goal in mind, too.
Last year, not a single person ever asked me the obvious question. Did you know? Nobody asked it out loud, which is too bad, because I would have liked to answer.
No, okay? No. I had no idea.
What I wouldn’t like to admit, though, is that I often found myself puzzling over the inconsistencies. If Coach Ellison did all these things, why did it take ten years before he was caught? This bothered me. And what’s more, I was bothered by the fact that it bothered me. Because it wasn’t out of love that I hoped there could be some mistake. And if my father did all these terrible things, I hoped they’d throw the book at him.
But how could I have missed it? Was I really that stupid? Or selfish? Or unobservant? If he did everything they said he did, what did that make me?
I threw the newspaper face down on the floor.
The last line of the article had said that the jury would be seated in December, and that the trial would begin immediately afterward. My parents had already told me that I was expected to sit there next to them in the courtroom.
The very idea made my stomach go sour.
-BRIDGER-
Tuesdays and Thursdays were the best part of the week. They were my little vacation from reality. I lived for those few hours with Scarlet.
She and I abandoned the pretense of studying together. Our time after class was too valuable for music theory or statistics. We used the time to eat lunch and hang out.
And make out.
On Thursdays — when her roommate Katie had a noon seminar — we often ate a take out lunch in Scarlet’s room. Sometimes, she played her guitar for me. But invariably, we would end up tangled up with one another on her bed.
It was always up to me to make the first move. Scarlet was shy. Her idea of a “come hither” look was to study me out of the corner of her hazel eyes. And then her cheeks would flush, and she’d look away. But when I pulled her into my lap and kissed her neck, she melted like warm butter. And when I laid her back on the bed, she reached for me, kissing me as though she was dying of thirst, and I was the last drink on earth.
And when two o’clock came around, my watch would chime. Then I’d apologize and leave, always with regret.
We never got any other time together. Sometimes she asked leading questions like: “so, what are you up to this weekend?” And I would have to make my usual empty excuses. “My babysitting gig is Friday and Saturday nights.” Then I always changed the subject. She took the hint and left it alone. Scarlet wasn’t a clingy person, thank Christ. I think she understood that I was giving her all I could.
It was a strange arrangement. But it was our strange arrangement.
One cool October day, carrying our lunch back to her room, we got caught in a downpour on Fresh Court. The sky opened up as we walked past the big oak trees, their leaves golden on the stone path. When the first giant drops hit us, we ran. But it quickly built to a deluge, and running became pointless. Soaked to the skin already, we stopped in the center of the courtyard, the heavy drops slapping the slate flagstones underfoot.
Laughing, I caught Scarlet by the hips and kissed her, my mouth hot, the rain cool. The storm had chased everyone else away, leaving just the two of us there, lip locked, on the flagstone pathway. When I pulled her body in tight, she groaned.
“Let’s go inside,” I said, my voice husky.
We ran, holding hands, up to her room. Our soggy bags and take out lunch got dropped to the floor, and we fell, laughing, onto the bed.
Then, in a move that surprised me, Scarlet gathered the fabric of my sodden t-shirt into her hands and peeled it upward. I ducked my head to get it off. And when I could see her again, I got a look at Scarlet’s face. The expression said: Sweet Jesus. And then her hands began to skim over my body eagerly.
My pulse soared. With hands that were actually trembling, I eased her top over her head, too. Kissing her, I unclasped her soggy bra. And then I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her back onto the bed.
“Mmm,” she said as my mouth burned a trail from her jaw down her neck.
“Scarlet,” I whispered. “You have the most beautiful body.” I climbed on top of her, cupping both creamy breasts in my hands. And when my thumbs brushed her nipples, she almost shot off the bed.
“Jeez,” she gasped.
“What?” I had been feeling a little out of control, but in a good way, or so I thought. But now I lifted my head, checking her expression.
Scarlet took a shaky breath. “Jeez, that’s nice,” she eked out.
Okay, then. I bent down, dropping open-mouthed kisses on her neck and down her shoulder. Scarlet was practically panting in my arms. She raised her hands, raking her fingers through my hair. She trailed them down my neck.
Scarlet had velvet skin, the sort I could touch all day long and never get enough. My lips explored the warm geography of her breasts. And when I began to bathe one nipple with my tongue, I heard her suck in a breath. Her body went completely still. This time, I didn’t mistake her responsiveness for disapproval. Smiling up at her, I sucked the peak of her into my mouth. This elicited a breathy little moan that shot straight to my already throbbing dick.
Damn, this girl was going to kill me. And it wasn’t because I hadn’t had sex in a ridiculously long time. It was the way she glanced down at me that was so hot — her expression a blend of surprise, wonder and lust.
Releasing her swollen nipple with a pop, I nosed over to the other breast. As long as she kept making those hot little sounds, I could do this all day long.
-SCARLET-
Holy hell. I had no idea there were so many nerve endings in my chest. What I didn’t know about sex could fill volumes. Bridger’s fingertips skated up my ribcage while he kissed me, his touches light and feathery. And the weight of his body on top of mine was delicious.
Before Bridger, I had never enjoyed fooling around. My previous experience had involved surreptitious make-outs at tenth grade dances. It was all very sloppy and pointless. Hockey had consumed most of my junior year, with away games squelching the opportunity for any serious time with boys. And then? My senior year — while everyone else was pairing up and hooking up, I was a pariah.
The loveliness happening here on my bed was all brand new. I was so inebriated with pleasure that I didn’t hear the door open.
“Well, hellllo,” Katie’s voice rang out. “That’s what bandannas on the door knob are for.”
When the door clicked shut again, Bridger laid his head on my chest and laughed. “Whoops.”
“That was… embarrassing,” I said. My skin began to feel flushed.
“Nah,” he said. “People have been caught out much worse than that, right?”
“Sure,” I said. But that only made me wonder how many girls he’d been caught with over the years.
And then, as it always did, Bridger’s alarm went off.
He took a moment more with me, sliding up my body, kissing me warmly on the mouth. “I have to go,” he whispered after melting my knees one more time.
“I know,” I whispered back. “Listen to me not complaining.”
“And I do appreciate it,” he said, reaching for his t-shirt where it lay on my floor. He handed me my bra. “Cover yourself, or I may not make it out the door.”
“This is me, resisting the urge to fling it out the window instead…”
I saw him studying my nakedness again, before he threw back his head and sighed. “Damn, girl. That’s potent.”
I laughed. “Why?” It was so hard to believe that I had anything he hadn’t seen before. Besides, even though I was no longer an athlete, I had an athlete’s body. Nobody would mistake me for a Playboy bunny.
He shook his head. “You just do it for me, that’s all. You’re a strong kind of sexy, like you could take on Katie in a fight, and win. But also delicious.”
I hooked my bra and swiveled it around my chest, ready to slip my arms back into the straps. But something in his face made me pause.
He knelt in front of me then, leaning in to kiss each breast once more. And his touch practically melted me into a liquid. I wanted to leap at him again, but he stood up.
When I hugged him goodbye, he said, “thank you, Scarlet.”
“For what?” I whispered. “For being your Tuesday and Thursday girl?”
His eyes bored into mine. “For all seven days. Because I think of you on all of them.” He leaned down to give me one more kiss, then turned to go.
“Take a sandwich,” I called. “We never ate lunch.”
Chuckling, he took one out of the box on his way. He closed the bedroom door behind him, but I heard his voice say “afternoon, ladies” before the outside door opened and shut.
I lay on my bed for a while, replaying the encounter in my mind. Taking off my clothes with a guy wasn’t something that I was very comfortable with on paper. But Bridger made my inhibitions fall away. The warm look in his eyes, and the affection in his touch made everything feel okay.
Still, it was half an hour before I dared walk into the common room. Unfortunately, both Katies were out there, waiting for me. But if I had expected ribbing, I didn’t get any. The expression in their eyes was something entirely different from what I’d expected. It was awe.
“So,” Blond Katie said. “That was Bridger McCaulley, right?”
“Um, yeah?” I hovered near the window seat.
“Interesting choice,” Ponytail Katie said. “He is so hot. I heard he used to be a real player. Both on and off the ice. But then this year he disappeared.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. Why would anyone say he disappeared? I saw him all the time.
“They say he used to be a legendary partier, but he doesn’t go out anymore. I heard a bunch of rumors, but they can’t all be true.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “His dad died, or he got some girl pregnant. Someone said he has a kid…”
“That all sounds pretty farfetched,” I said. “But he does take a sick load of classes, and he works a lot.”
“So where does he live?” Blond Katie wanted to know.
She had me there. I knew he was a member of Beaumont House, so I’d always assumed he lived there. But possibly he lived on or off campus. I just shrugged.
Ponytail Katie smirked, but Blond Katie looked thoughtful. “Just be careful, Scarlet. I don’t know why there’s so many rumors about that guy, but where there’s smoke…”
There’s a fire.
“Right…” I’d heard enough, so I stomped back into our bedroom. God, I wanted to shake anyone who used that expression. I’d heard it a thousand times during the months before charges were formally filed against my father. Meanwhile, all that smoke tore my life apart. Reporters camped out on our sidewalk. My teammates disowned me. The boy I’d just started flirting with at school never spoke to me again.
If my life in New Hampshire was meant to burn out, I would have preferred a quick conflagration to the smoldering, choking curtain of smoke which ruined everything.
