Page 63 of Devious Gambit

“We noticed you. You’re Tristan Fisher’s cousin and date a linebacker in the Hawks.”

“Linebacker? I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

“Jace Luxon. Linebacker in the Hawks. Sophomore.”

“Oh right. We’re not dating…how did you know about him?”

“We’ve seen you two about,” Janey answered. “Like in the library and in University gardens. You look really tight.”

“Oh. He’s just a friend. I mean, sort of more than friends, but not really.” I wasn’t making any sense and I doubted Mr. Ed would appreciate people thinking we’re an item. I’d totally cramp his style.

“Anyway,” Becca digressed, “you’re welcome to join us for study group, when you’re not doing other things.”

“I’d love to,” I answered without thinking. “Chaucer’s words need to be bounced off other people.”

“Totally.”

Becca wrote down her number on a napkin and I slipped it into my apron pocket to enter it into my phone later. I walked away with a newborn spring in my step for three reasons. One. They thought I was dating a Hawk, not that I truly understood how cool that was. Two. I found more members of my own love-of-literature tribe and strangely, they even dressed and behaved dorky, like me. Three. They knew everything about me as if I was someone to admire.

They couldn’t be more wrong. After all, I’m a liar and murderer. Guilty as sin. Bad to the bone. Rotten to the core.

I wondered if the tendency to kill ran in the family, and would my filthy blood taint my children’s, like my father’s infected mine. How much control did I have over this trait?

For my own peace of mind, I needed to speak to the only person who could educate me on this phenomenon, whether my mom liked it or not.

TWENTY FOUR

Rhys

I made macaroni and cheese with bacon bits in my bench top oven, which was the first time I’d used it since I moved in. Normally, I’d grab a burger or fries from work or a sandwich from a café. Due to the bench top oven being small, I could only fit one dish in there and it had only two elements on the top, and only one of them was in working order. I boiled the pasta first, and rested it while I made the sauce, which was out of a packet and just added milk.

By the time, Mr. Ed turned up I was flustered and red-faced, worried that the meal was over or under cooked. For dessert; Grandma Fisher’s chocolate mint slice.

He patted my backside and kissed me on the cheek when he turned up with a six-pack of beer, and probably a pocket stuffed with condoms. This time, I made an effort to dress nicely, whereas he turned up in sweats and that red baseball cap turned backwards, with strands of black hair sticking through the closure hole. I wore dress pants and a white buttoned shirt that promptly received a dollop of pasta sauce.

“Are you aware that people assume you and I are a thing?” I asked him.

He was sitting on my bed, leaning against the headboard with his knees bent, watching me as I dished out a large scoop of cheesy, sticky pasta. “Yep.”

“Really? Has someone said something?”

He adjusted his cap, swiveling it around so it sat the right way on his head. “The boys.”

“What boys?”

“In the team.” He glanced up to the ceiling, the shield from his cap casting a shadow across his face. “What did they say? My ruca is a virgin bookhugger.”

“Ruca?”

“I won’t explain the ‘ruca’ part.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Not really, except it’s incorrect. You’re not a virgin anymore, thanks to me.”

“These girls in my class assumed I was dating a linebacker in the Hawks and I wasn’t sure what they were talking about. They’d seen us together a few times. I felt dumb because I didn’t know what a linebacker did.”

He shot me that naughty grin that I was starting to adore. “Maybe you should come to a game next season.”

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