Keeping Score by Cathryn Fox
Reagan
“You know you do that a lot.”
I lift my head as Rocco strolls into the kitchen like he’s lived here his four years of college. I can see why his nickname is Rock Hard Gianni. Everything about him draws my attention, overwhelms me in the strangest ways as his muscles bunch and shift with each easy movement.
He still hasn’t put a shirt on, but at least he has sweatpants on as he stretches his arms like he’s getting ready for a run. And no, I am not going to think about the way his pants hang low on his hips, showing a dark line of hair that trails downward, drawing my gaze like I’m some dimwitted moth. I force my head up, and that’s when I see the long purplish scar on his chest. I caught a hint of it in the hallway earlier, but now I can’t seem to stop staring at it.
“This?” he says and points at it.
I pull my gaze away, and toy with my ponytail. “Sorry, it was rude of me to stare.”
From my peripheral vision, I catch the way he rubs his scar. “No worries,” he says, and doesn’t explain how or why he got it. Not my business anyway.
“What do I do a lot?” I mumble, my eyes back on my laptop, but my focus now shot.
He steps closer, almost in front of me and rubs his chest with those big, stupid hands of his, and I’m going to kill Miranda. A rock and a hard place. God…
“Huh?”
I take my eyes off the statistical equations I can’t figure out, and lift my head. My God, I hate statistics. Hate it! I have no idea why it’s a requirement for a Bachelor’s of Business degree. “When you walked in here, you said I do something a lot.”
“Oh, yeah, you mumble under your breath when you’re pissed off about something.” He comes even closer and glances at my laptop. My first instinct is to slam it shut. I don’t want to come off as stupid because I suck at statistics, and have been struggling through my courses for the last three years. But I force myself to keep my hands on my lap, not wanting to rouse his suspicions by reacting. “Why are you pissed off?” He does some lunge thing to stretch his legs as he strains to see my screen.
With a little nudge, I ever so slightly slide my computer to the right, and through gritted teeth, say, “Didn’t we just discuss rules about you wearing clothes?”
“I don’t really think it was a discussion.”
Lord, how can he stay in that lunge position so long. I did yoga once and couldn’t move for a week.
“What’s the problem anyway?” he asks as she swipes at his brow. “It’s ridiculously hot in here.”
“It wasn’t hot.”
“Wait, are you saying…” I glance at him to find his lips curl at the corners, and I shake my head.
“I’m not saying anything.” Truthfully it wasn’t hot until he walked into the room. Usually I’m freezing, even in summer, so this insane hot flash means I’m either going into early menopause or…or… Never mind, I don’t want to think about it.
I’m about to tell him to go get dressed when my phone pings. I don’t need to look at it to know who’s calling. My boyfriend has his own special ring. Rocco leans in close, and I smell my grapefruit body wash on him. I should be angry, to think he was in my shower, using my things—it feels far too intimate—but I can’t think about that right now. Not with Cochrane calling, and I’m not even sure I want to talk to him.
“Aren’t you going to get that?”
I blow out a breath, and fist my hands on my lap. “I don’t really want to speak to him right now.”
“Can’t say as I blame you.”
My head jerks up. “Hey, don’t say things like that.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I briefly close my eyes. Look at that, always the good girl, always jumping in to defend family and friends, because it’s been ingrained into me.
“It’s great that you stand up for your people, Reagan. Admirable, really.”
I glare at him. He wants to say more, I can feel it, but instead he crosses his arms, and goes silent. But maybe he should say it. Maybe I do need to hear what a horrible thing my boyfriend just did to me. If his father ever found out…if my father ever found out. They’re best friends, and I can imagine they’d come to blows over this, and Cochrane could possibly get kicked out of college…Rocco too.
“Just…don’t say bad things, okay?”
“You’re right. He’s your boyfriend, and I shouldn’t talk trash about him. That’s not really my style.”
I get what he’s saying. It’s Cochrane’s style, not his. I’ve heard Cochrane mutter a few things about Rocco. I never stood up for Rocco because I didn’t really know him, but that didn’t stop me from being nice, considering he was always nice to me whenever we met in passing.
“Why do you two hate each other so much anyway?” I get up, pour a mug of coffee and his eyes widen in surprise when I turn and ask, “Milk or sugar?”
“Black is good.”
I step up to him, and take in his blue eyes in the overhead light, and wait for him to answer my first question. When he doesn’t, I press, “Why do you hate him?”
“That’s a question you should ask him.” He winks at me. “I did just agree not to talk trash.” He holds three fingers up. “Foster Mom number three always said, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” He gives a humorless laugh. “Of course, she was coaching me before my social worker showed up for her monthly check-in.” He takes a sip of coffee, and turns, a scowl on his face like he said too much. I’m not about to probe, his past is his past and not my business, although it does sound like he had a horrible upbringing. Freshman year, rumors went around that he had actually killed someone. Pair that with him being a beast on the field, and everyone learned pretty quickly he wasn’t a guy to mess with.
He angles his head and says, “Although, come to think of it, I don’t want you to ask him. For the next month, I don’t even want you to see him.”
My mouth drops open, hardly able to believe what he’s suggesting. I sink into my chair. “You can’t do that. That takes us into Thanksgiving, and we usually spend that with my parents.”
“Not this year.”
“Rocco—”
“It’s like this, Reagan.” He sits in the chair across from me, sets his mug down, and shifts so our knees are lightly touching. “He’s the one who should be paying his own debt. Why should you be stuck with me, and he gets off easy, never having to take responsibility for his actions.” I shift closer. “I think not talking to you for one full month is just what he deserves.”
Okay, breathe, Reagan, breathe. He’s just a guy, nothing special, and there’s no reason for you to be breaking out in a sweat just from his proximity. “You do?” I ask, somehow managing to put those two words together and push them from my lips.
“Hell yeah, if you were mine, and I couldn’t talk to you or touch you for a month, I’d probably end up killing someone.”
My heart beats like I’d just downed a triple espresso and before I realize what I’m doing, I reach for his mug of coffee and take a mouthful. The second I set it down, he picks it up and drinks. Here I thought him using my bodywash was intimate…suddenly that’s nothing. Drinking from the same mug sends shivers skittering through me, like his mouth wasn’t on the mug, but instead on my body. What the hell is going on with me?
“You…you would kill someone?”
“In my world, I either fight or fuck, and if I can’t fuck, I’d have no choice but to fight.”
I brace both hands on the table, my brain and body too fired up to respond, and he casually turns my computer his way, and carries on like he hadn’t just been talking about…fucking.
“Stats giving you trouble?”
“What…huh?” I blink, and try to unscramble his words in my brain.
“Stats. You were cursing at your computer when I came in remember?”
I shake my head. “Yeah, I just…it’s not my thing.”
He links his fingers and cracks his knuckles. “Lucky for you, it’s mine.”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I take in his half-naked body.
“Let’s do this first. Then I have to go for a run and you have a phone call to make.”
He grabs the pen and paper in front of me, and jots down the equation. I stare at his big, scarred hands. “Phone call?”
“Sure, you have to break it off with Cochrane for the next month.”
“Break it off? You said you didn’t want me to talk to him, not to break it off.”
Without missing a beat, he starts solving the equation, and says, “Changed my mind. If you’re going to pay off his debt, it means no contact with him, at all, and you have to come to my games to cheer me on, and hang out with me instead.”
“Rocco, you can’t do that. I’m…we’re supposed to get engaged after college, supposed to go to Harvard Law together…supposed to…”
He angles his head, and my heart races. Oh, God, why is he looking at me like that, like he can see right through me?
“You have it all planned out, I see.”
“Well…sort of.” I shift, uncomfortable under his close inspection. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m some sort of big joke.” He might not be looking at me like that and I could be projecting. I’m in business, and I feel like a fraud as I struggle through it, knowing it will take my parents’ pull to get me into law school—the path they expect me to take.
“I don’t think you’re a joke, Reagan. Not at all. It’s great that you have a plan, that you know what you want, and are going for it. It’s not always easy to know what we want at our age, and it’s admirable that you do, and have this whole plan set out.”
“That’s the second time you said you admired something about me.”
“I guess it must be true,” he teases. “I like that you know what you want, that’s all.”
“Don’t you know what you want to do?” I ask, twisting the subject before he delves in a little bit deeper, and I end up spilling secrets that are lurking in my darkest corners. He is not the kind of guy I’d tell my hopes and fears to.
“Yes, I want you to break it off with Cochrane for the next month.”
He’s knows I’m talking about the future—his future—but he’s circling back around, and backing me into a corner.
I blink slowly. Cochrane is going to lose his mind. He should have considered the consequences last night. “Is that what you want?”
“For now.”
I shake my head, my ponytail swishing over my back. “You must really hate Cochrane,” I say, mostly to myself.
“Yeah,” he responds, his gaze dropping to my mouth and another thought hits. Maybe he doesn’t hate Cochrane as much as he likes me. A ridiculous quiver goes through me. I don’t want that and of course he doesn’t like me. He might not hate me, but he doesn’t like me—or want me. We don’t really know each other. Sure, I know things about him. Rumors run crazy on campus, but this…this is all about getting back at Cochrane. Before I even realize what I’m doing, I wet my lips, and meet his eyes, to find him staring at my mouth, like I’m the lamb he’s about to slaughter.
I sit up a bit straighter. “So…statistics.”
“Okay, here’s how to solve this—”
I hold my hand up to stop him. “Talk slowly, like I’m a baby with a cookie.”
He laughs. “I take it Dr. Seth is your prof.”
“How did you know?”
“He’s a brilliant man, but not only is he hard to understand, he talks a million miles an hour. When I had him my freshman year, he told us we all had to go home and spend the weekend musuring.”
“Musuring?”
“Yeah, exactly. It took me forever to realize he was saying measuring. Brain blown.” He puts his hands on his head and pulls them apart, mimicking an explosion. I laugh out loud and whack him, instantly wishing I hadn’t when my hand connects with a wall of hard muscles.
Rock and a hard place.
“You’re making that up,” I blurt out.
He laughs and shakes his head. “True story. Scout’s honor.”
I snort. “Yeah, right, like you were a scout?”
“You don’t know my life,” he teases and I take a breath, a new lightness and ease blossoming between us.
“You’re right, I don’t.” I shrug easily, like it doesn’t matter one way or another, although I’m not entirely sure I really feel that way.
He winks at me. “Like I said, one month together will rectify that.”
I nod, and although I can’t quite figure out what kind of game he’s playing or what he’s out to prove, I have to say one month doesn’t seem quite as bad as I thought it would be.
You have to break up with Cochrane.
Right, there’s that.
He spends the next half hour going over my homework questions, and I sit there in awe of his teaching skills and his intelligence.
“If you don’t make it in football, Rocco, you’d make a great prof.”
“Thanks. I had a great coach in high school, and he told me I should always give back when I could.” He nods, but a frown tugs down the corners of his mouth.
“What?”
“Why did you wait until fourth year to take stats?”
I shrug. “I hate it.” I glance at him, and I have no idea why, but I confess, “I hate business.”
His frown deepens. “Then why are you taking it?”
“I’m…it’s expected.” Oh God, what am I doing? Why would I say that? He goes quiet, too quiet, and I realize I might have crossed a line into the personal and maybe he doesn’t want to hear that.
“I’m sorry, Reagan.”
I shut my computer and blow out a breath. “I have no idea why I just told you that. I shouldn’t have.”
“Your secret is safe with me.” He smiles to reveal that one crooked front tooth. The funny thing is, it makes him who he is, and it doesn’t detract from his looks, it enhances them. Who would have though imperfections could be perfect if they were on the right person?
“It’s not like me to do that.”
“I guess you must trust me.”
“Trust? I don’t know about that. Trust doesn’t come easy to me.” I grew up privileged and I appreciate all I was given, but I never knew who wanted to be my friend because of what I had or because they liked me.
“Me neither. I guess we have that in common, and you probably shouldn’t trust a big scary motherfucker.”
Heat flashes across my cheeks, and I cover my face with my hands. “You heard that.”
“Yeah.” He takes my hands and slowly removes them from my face, and the second my eyes lock on his, catch the warmth in his eyes my breath stalls in my lungs.
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Reagan. Your boyfriend, yes, I want him to shit his pants when he sees me coming, but not you.”
“Okay.” I swallow. “I’m not much into shitting my pants.”
We both laugh, and it quickly dies off. A second passes, and then another, and it’s like the oxygen has been sucked out of the kitchen because I can’t seem to breathe. I finally break the silence and say, “I owe you an apology.”
“We all make judgement calls.” His eyes narrow in on me. “Our first impressions are based on our experiences and upbringings, whether they’re right or wrong.”
As I take in his intensity, I can’t help but think he’s talking about himself, and that he might have been judging me in return. What must the boy who came from nothing, and secured himself a football scholarship, think of the girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth? Maybe that’s none of my business.
“I’m sorry I accused you of cheating.” I toy with the hem of my T-shirt and pluck at a string. “That was wrong of me.”
“It’s okay.”
He’s wrong. It’s not okay. I never should have accused him of cheating. To be fair, none of this is his fault. This is on Cochrane. He’s the one who thrust us together because of his gambling problem, and then what does he do? Warns me not to fall for Rocco. Unbelievable! Never in a million years is that going to happen.
Totally ludicrous, right?