Don't Hate the Player...Hate the Game(14)

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“So when did it happen?”

He was thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t know. It’s been coming on for a while. I guess I just didn’t notice. But for sure like a month ago.”

Then it hit me that I hadn’t asked the most crucial question of all. “So who is the lucky chick?”

“I’m not telling you,” Jake replied.

I shot up off the couch. “What? That’s bullshit man!”

He slowly shook his head. “Nope. Not going to tell you.”

“Why not?”

He tossed the remote control to the side of the couch and then stared at me. “Because I haven’t told her yet. I think she deserves to know first, don’t you?”

I rolled my eyes as I started pacing in front of him. “So you’re in love with a girl, and you haven’t told her?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Do you think she feels the same way?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Do I know her?”

“Maybe,” he admitted reluctantly.

I threw my hands up in exasperation. “Okay fine. Keep her a secret.”

Jake smiled. “Good, because I plan on it.”

Plopping back down on the couch, I grabbed up the remote. “So, let’s say she feels the same way about you—in love and all. What does she think about being a manwhore?”

“I’m a rehabilitated manwhore,” Jake replied.

I arched my eyebrows. “Seriously dude?”

“Yep.”

“And how exactly does one become,” I paused to make air quotes with my fingers, “a ‘rehabilitated manwhore’? Is there some kind of rehab you studs go to?”

Jake snickered. “No, there’s not, you smartass. Basically, it means, I’ve stopped screwing around.”

I gasped and fought the urge to faint off the couch. “Whoa…are shitting me?”

“Nope.”

“Since when?”

Jake raised his eyes to the ceiling while he thought. “Let’s see. It was almost four weeks ago with Presley.”

My jaw fell to the floor in shock. “You haven’t had sex in almost four weeks?”

“I sure haven’t…well, not with a girl anyway,” he replied, with a wink.

I laughed. “Spare me the details, bro.”

“Hey, I gotta do something.”

I shook my head slowly back and forth in disbelief. “Man, I’m impressed.”

Jake grinned. “Thanks man, that means a lot to me.”

“It does?”

“Yeah it sure does,” he replied.

“Then I’m glad.”

“Now, if we could just find your ugly mug somebody!”

“Hey, screw you!”

Then the vision faded, and drowsily, I turned over in bed. There would be no counting backwards like when they give you anesthesia. As I went under the levels of consciousness, Jake’s face was the last thing I saw.

***

Chapter Five

With Mom’s blessing to skip school, Alex, and I went over to Jake’s house to hang out with his brothers and his two cousins from out in the sticks—twins he liked to refer to as “Bubba”. Their names were actually Sean and Ryan, but Jake loved to call them just “Bubba”.

Jonathan brought a cooler out of the apartment above the garage. We popped a few beers and lounged around by the pool. By noon, we were positively shitfaced. It took us all being drunk off our asses before we dared to bring up Jake.

Bubba, aka Ryan and Sean, were with Jake when he died. After his seventh beer, Jonathan grabbed Ryan’s shoulder and slurred, “Dude, can you tell me how the hell it’s possible that my baby brother blew his ass up on a tractor?”

My breath caught in my chest, and I slowly eased the can away from my lips, awaiting Bubba’s response.

Ryan gulped down his swig of beer and shook his head sadly. “We were all just hanging out in the pasture—bored as hell. Sean and Travis (one of their other hillbilly relations) had brought along some rifles, so we started shooting beer cans off the fence.” Ryan glanced around us. “I mean, we tried shooting at them, but we were too f**king wasted to really hit anything.”

Sean nodded. “Jake was pretty quiet. He kept mumbling something about falling off the wagon and ‘she’s gonna be disappointed in me’. About ten, he climbed up on Pawpaw’s tractor to get a better vantage point for the cans, or so he claimed. Travis said, “Hey dumbass, you better get off Papaw’s tractor, or he’ll wear out your hide!” But Jake just shrugged and started firing over and over again. One nicked the barbwire, ricocheted off, and…”

At Sean’s hesitation, Ryan murmured forlornly, “It happened so quick. I mean, boom, and he was gone.”

We sat in stunned silence, staring at the sunlight glimmering on the pool water. Jonathan chugged the rest of his beer. Finally, in a strangled voice, he murmured, “Fuck me.”

The sound of loud voices snapped us out of our daze. It was Mr. and Mrs. Nelson arguing.

“Did you think you could hide it from me?” Mrs. Nelson shrieked.

“Of course not. I just wanted you to get through the funeral first before I told you.”