Page 8 of Possession

“You’re with Baxter Morgan from the football team, right?” Elyse raises a brow and looks at me skeptically. I shake my head vigorously.

“Oh,” I say. “No. Baxter and I grew up together. We’re just friends.”

Elyse rolls her eyes, but I insist. “I’m serious. He’s out picking up girls right now. I just…we went through a lot together growing up, that’s all.”

“I’ve got friends from home like that,” Tia says. “It’s good to have someone who knows your whole back story.”

“Well,” I say. “I was actually hoping I could maybe ask you for your input about something, since you two don’t know anything about my back story.”

Elyse’s face lights up. “Is this about hunky football bodies? Cuz I am here for that.”

That gets a laugh out of me. I explain to the girls that my boss acted sort of weird at the bar, got yelled at by Baxter, and then switched me to another sports team with no notice. They both look puzzled.

“So you’re not doing it with Morgan?”

“I’ve never done it with anyone!” I just blurt it all out then. How Baxter intervened in high school any time a boy showed interest in me. How I haven’t made time to date anyone in college because I need to keep my scholarship. How very desperate I am to find funding for a graduate program.

When I pause to catch a breath, Tia puts her arm around my shoulders. “Whew, girl. That’s a lot,” she says. “Let’s start with work. It’s creepy. That shit with your boss is creepy.”

Elyse nods. “Super creepy.”

I feel a wave of relief hearing them confirm that Justin’s behavior was indeed weird. They agree that nothing has actuallyhappenedyet, but that I should remain on alert. “Are you ever alone with him?” Elyse seems as concerned as Baxter when she asks. “Don’t let yourself be alone with him. Call us if anything else weird happens.”

“It’s weird, right? I’ve been shadowing the football staff the whole time I’ve been at SCU. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m so glad for the opportunity to do some real recovery stuff with the swim team. But it’s sudden, right?”

“So sudden.” Tia hands me a chocolate bar from her desk drawer, and I nibble on the end.

I want to protest, tell them I don’t want to bother them with a phone call and say they should keep their emergency chocolate, but it feels so good to just open up to people. While I eat the chocolate, Elyse tells me about a guy from her class that she’s been lusting after for years.

“The key for me getting in his pants is going to be whiskey,” she says. “I’m bringing whiskey when we study for midterms.”

Tia laughs and points out that Elyse has been wearing tight tanks and leggings when she studies with this guy, no matter how cold it is outside. “She’s not being subtle about anything,” she says.

As they talk about her plans to bag the boys, I get lost in my swirling thoughts again. I keep thinking about Tim the swimmer, how I had my hands all over his body. I could see absolutely everything outlined in his shorts, and yet I had no reaction whatsoever. He was just a person in pain, and all I could focus on was trying to make him feel better.

When I’m rolling Bax out after practice or a game, I’m not nearly that professional. Baxter Morgan is a hulking beast of a human—6 foot, 2 inches. Two hundred pounds of solid muscle. Everything about him is huge, from his size 14 feet to his hands that are bigger than my entire face. When he lies on his back in his mesh shorts, I can see the outline of all his parts, too, and I don’t look away.

No, I objectify my best friend and stare at his junk, longing to touch it. I relate to Elyse when she talks about dropping pencils just so she can brush against her crush’s leg.

I glance at my phone and see that Bax still hasn’t even read my text message, which means he’s out with a random girl.

Tia sees me pouting at my phone and snaps her fingers. “Hey. Spill it. What’s making you upset right now?”

I show her the phone. “Bax hasn’t even read my text, and that usually means he’s banging some jersey chaser. And I don’t care—I’m serious. Don’t look at me that way.” Elyse has one eyebrow raised so high it disappears into her hair. “It’s just… Maybe I want to be someone’s casual fuck, too. I mean, it must feel good or he wouldn’t keep doing it over and over again.”

“Oh, this is good,” Elyse says. “Yes. We can get Olive laid! Tia, who can she bang?”

“Why not one of these athletes she’s always touching?” Tia looks dreamily at her poster of the SCU hockey team. “All those muscles…”

We talk for awhile about what makes for a good first time. Honestly, at this point I think I just need to get it over with. Maybe if I weren’t full of pent up sexual energy, I wouldn’t find myself thinking inappropriate thoughts about my best friend.

It could be so simple. Just wear tight tank tops and drop a pencil, wink at someone in my econ lecture. What if I just need to uncork this sexual dam and I can go back to just being friends with Bax?

Tia tells me she’s got an early class, and I take the hint and head back across the hallway after hugging the girls good night. I regret that I didn’t reach out to them earlier to make friends, but they insist we eat dinner tomorrow in the dining hall, and I’m excited about that.

The feeling doesn’t last long once I’m alone, however.

I turn off my lights and climb up in my bunk, hoping I can get some sleep, but in the dark, all I can think about is Baxter’s breath synching with mine, his face an inch from mine in his bed. All I would have had to do was lean in an inch, and my lifelong fantasy could have been realized.

---