Chapter 7 Grayce

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” I wailed, plopping down on the couch. Alex came out of the bathroom with a wand of mascara in one hand and her toothbrush in the other.
“Tell you what?”
“That you had Jaxon Tate walk my dumbass home last night,” I said. Alex squinted at me as if trying to remember, and then it dawned on her.
“Oh, yeah, that.” She shrugged and stuck the toothbrush in her mouth so she could pull her hair up. “He asked if he could help, so I took him up on it,” she mumbled.
“It’s so humiliating. I probably acted like such an idiot.” I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes, wishing I could crawl into a hole and hide away forever.
“I thought you didn’t care what he thought,” Alex mused. She removed the toothbrush and stared at me, those brown eyes narrowing into something that I could only assume resembled a wild cat stalking its prey. I almost cowered.
“I don’t care,” I said but looked away, unable to face her intense analysis. God, she was good at that. Instead, I looked down at my fingers, pretending to be interested in picking at a cuticle. “But I still wish I could remember all that happened. Like, what I might have said.”
“Do you, though? Do you really wish you could remember what happened?” Alex asked. Thankfully, she didn’t stare me down until I gave her an answer, but she smirked as she went back to the bathroom to finish getting ready.
“You did it on purpose,” I yelled at her. “Out of every person to ask for help, it had to be him.”
“Freak coincidence,” Alex yelled back. I sighed and crossed my arms, trying not to think too deeply about whatever stupid thing I might have said to him last night. Stupid things were frequent in my life, and that wasn’t on anybody else, either. I was awkward, antisocial, and for the life of me, had never been able to correctly apply makeup, match outfits, or style my hair. You’d think I’d get off lucky and be super personable and charming since I couldn’t dress well, but no such luck. Stupid was an everyday occurrence in every aspect of my life. And now, because of my careless mistake, I’d lost my temper and screwed up the interview. Gavin was going to be pissed if I didn’t fix this, and soon.
“What should I do?” I asked, getting up to bombard Alex in the bathroom. She was applying her makeup meticulously, looking bored with the conversation at hand. Nothing rattled Alex. She wasn’t a stress eater (like me), and she didn’t nearly break down in tears if some random girl gave her the stink eye for no good reason (also me). I envied her calm because I was the farthest thing from it.
“About what?” Alex asked. For a moment, I wanted to kick her in the shin, but the urge soon passed as I remembered the time she’d pinned me to the ground with my arms behind my back for throwing a clothes hanger at her. Granted, it had been a wire hanger, but I wasn’t even aiming for her. Regardless, Alex fought dirty, and I had no desire to end up on the floor again as she held me down.
“I stormed out during the interview and didn’t get anything,” I said instead.
“So, try again,” she said with a shrug. “Get your shit together and write the article Gavin wants from you.”
“Just like that?” I said.
“Just like that.” Alex turned to look at me, grinning. “He’s just a boy. He probably still picks his nose and jacks off to raunchy romance comedies.”
“Thanks for that image,” I said, screwing up my face in disgust. Alex always knew what to say when it came to menfolk, even if it was all negative. She’d never wanted any part of it.
“Boys are gross. It’s a fact.”
While she had a point, and it was probably true that females generally were cleaner and a bit more sophisticated, I knew I was straight. Sadly, the smell of a man’s cologne and the way they could put their strong arms around you and hold you forever still got me all giddy inside, even though they probably still picked their noses. Women just didn’t do for me what they did for Alex.
“Fine,” I said. I sighed heavily to clarify that it wasn’t something I wanted to do. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Jaxon sat down across from me in the empty office, tossing that stupid football from hand to hand as though his life depended on it.
“Let’s try this again, shall we?” I was trying my best to be pleasant with him, but my jaw clenched uncomfortably with my fake smile. There was a ninety-nine percent chance he wouldn’t notice, though, because guys like Jaxon Tate couldn’t see past the mirror.
“We can try this as many times as you want to, but my answer to that question isn’t changing,” he said.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
I sighed and bent to the side, popping the tension from my neck. The urge to punch him in the face was overwhelming and mighty appealing. Still, I knew if I could control my distaste for Jaxon Tate long enough to write this stupid article, I could convince Gavin to turn the assignment over to someone else. Hopefully, in time, I’d be free and clear of any more interaction with him.
“Nice sweatshirt,” Jaxon said as I rifled through papers. I paused, glancing down at the Coexist symbol on my chest.
“You like the hoodie, or you like my boobs?” I asked and then slapped one hand over my mouth in horror. “I’m so sorry,” I said before Jaxon could respond. “I was only thinking it. I didn’t mean to say it.” Sweat was accumulating in all the worst places on my body, and I was positive my face was as red as the tacky wall paint behind us.
“Honesty is the best policy, right?” Jaxon said.
“I have no filter,” I told him. I was beyond flustered, on the verge of losing it, and feared what would happen next. It was like driving a car, seeing a brick wall in the distance, and realizing the brakes had failed.
“Okay,” Jaxon said. He nodded like everything was chill, like being stuck in a cramped office with a crazy reporter chick was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Well, I mean, I do have a filter, but it doesn’t work,” I continued. Why I chose to keep my mouth open and let the words flow was beyond me. I couldn’t stop myself. “Alex says my filter broke off and got left behind years ago, right along with my confidence and fashion sense.” I paused to take a breath. “She was kidding, of course, but it’s true.”
“Okay.”
“Evidently, you know it’s true since you pointed out my hoodie. No one in their right mind would compliment it without being sarcastic, and I only know this because three years ago, I snagged it on a barbed wire fence—don’t ask—and the tear in the sleeve keeps expanding. Since it’s my favorite piece of clothing, I can’t throw it away, even though Alex tried to donate it to a homeless shelter once. They wouldn’t take it.” I ran out of breath. I ran out of breath and had to stop talking to inhale before I passed out. Jaxon stared intently at me as though he were actually listening, which made it worse.
“Oh, my God.” I pulled my pad and pen from my backpack and started the voice recorder on my phone. Something was seriously wrong with me, even more than it usually was. Jaxon stared, expressionless as if he was waiting for me to crack like an eggshell. Maybe he was debating whether to bolt? Not that I could blame him if he did.
“Tell me about high school,” I said. My voice cracked slightly, but I found if I didn’t look directly at him, I could speak a little easier. “Did you play ball all throughout school?”
“You know I did,” Jaxon said. I finally gathered the courage to look at him, surprised that he even remembered my existence in high school. At that moment, I wondered if he recalled the bubble gum incident and the incessant teasing I endured from him and his posse.
“You’re right; I do know that,” I said. I cleared my throat, straightened up in my chair, and crossed my legs, resting my hands on my lap. My tone was even; the insecurities vanished. Flashes of Jaxon and his buddies laughing at me in the school hallway flooded my memory, but when I looked at him now, suddenly, Jaxon wasn’t as intimidating as he had seemed only moments ago.
“I do know that,” I repeated. “But Denver is a big city, and there’s a chance that the rest of the population doesn’t know that. And for some reason, they might just care. So just answer the question. Please.”
I don’t know if it was my sudden change in demeanor or if it was something he didn’t even notice, but he finally answered.
“I’ve played ball for as long as I can remember,” Jaxon said. “It’s my life.”
“You’re on a full-ride football scholarship, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s your undergraduate?”
“Undecided,” Jaxon said. I narrowed my eyes.
“Do you really want to come across as the uneducated jock you are?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means my readers want to know more about you than your stupid football games. So, if you want me to put “undecided” in the article, I can, but I would suggest throwing the dogs a bone.”
Jaxon leaned forward then, taking me by surprise, resting his elbows on his knees. “Anyone who wants to know more about me should just ask.” His voice was quiet. “I’m an open book.”
We stared at each other for a moment, and his vivid, caramel color eyes read my face like an open book. Silence fell over the room, a silence so loud and fragile that even the smallest of movements could break it. I suddenly had a vision of throwing myself across the small space between us and kissing Jaxon, hard and hot, until both of us were trembling with anticipation, ready for more …
“How many hours a week are you in football practice and games?” I asked, breaking the tension in the air. I had the urge to pester him further about his major, but I didn’t. I knew he wanted me to, but I smiled and shrugged just to spite him.
“Too many,” he said and cracked a brief smile.
“But you enjoy it.”
“Most of the time.”
“So, sometimes you don’t?” I asked.
“Um—”
“Do you even like who you are?”
The question caught him off guard, I could tell. Even I was slightly surprised that it had come out of my mouth. Not that I had successfully held anything back so far; why start now?
“Is that one of your interview questions?” he said after a moment of silence. I looked down at my notepad because I couldn’t continue to look at him.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’ll move on.”
“No,” Jaxon said. “I don’t think we’ll move on yet.” He stared at me, eyes searching my face for an explanation, one I wasn’t sure I had. I cleared my throat and sat back in the chair, biting my lip.
“Fine. You don’t want to move on yet? Okay. Answer the question: do you even like who you are?”
“How is that relevant to football?”
“Maybe it is, and maybe it’s not, but I’m the one asking the questions here, not you, and you wanted to talk about it. So talk.”
Jaxon’s expression didn’t change. He continued to look at me, wheels turning in his head, the muscles in his jaw tensing and releasing.
“I like who I am when I’m playing football,” he said. “The game gives me something to do, someone to be. Without it, I’m—”
“Nothing,” I said, and the bluntness in my tone was unmistakable. “Without it, you’re nothing.”
Jaxon dropped his eyes to the floor. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. We both knew what he was thinking.
“This interview is over, I think.” He got to his feet and looked hard at me. “And if you print that, you’ll never get another interview from me.”
“Are you telling me how to do my job now?”
“No,” Jaxon said. “I’m telling you what not to do.”
“Afraid you’re going to lose your football groupies?”
I expected him to erupt in anger, to yell, or even storm out, but he merely chuckled, shaking his head.
“I wouldn’t want you to worry about that, Grayce, my groupies are still around and as strong as ever.”
“Charming.” I stood up as well and offered my hand, digging for what little bit of professionalism I had left. “I guess we’re done here.”
Jaxon took it awkwardly, hesitantly, as though still anticipating I would kick him in the junk or something. There was an unexpected warmth to his touch, and I felt the rough calluses from football etched in the lines of his hand. I pulled away abruptly as a tingle of anticipation traveled through me.