Issue 3 of “Hopeless Henry”By Alice BennetTaken from the University Gazette“Free drinks for Henry! All night long,” Rush shouted, slinging an arm over my shoulders and fisting his other hand into the air victoriously as a crowd of fellow band players cheered us on.My face heated in bashful delight as I glanced at everyone who’d showed up at the bar to celebrate because of me. Then I glanced down at the fake ID Rush had set me up with. He’d planned for everything.As soon as the director had announced me as the new trumpet section leader, set to take Baxter’s spot, Rush had been a flurry of excitement, making sure tonight was epic.“We’re going to get you so damn drunk and happy,” he told me, shaking my shoulder enthusiastically. “You’ll be hitting on every woman in this place before the night’s over.”“Oh, ho!” I cried, laughing and trying yet failing to picture such an outcome. “I’d like to see that.”“You will, buddy. That’s a promise. Because, check it out, the first rou
Cannon had been right on the money.Shit wasn’t okay.And I didn’t have a damn thing under control.Nicholl was hell-bent on finding Haven, and he wasn’t going to stop looking until he figured out where she was, starting his search with me.He and his goons caught me right before practice.After the night I’d had, I still wasn’t firing on all my cylinders and was running late. Almost everyone else had already cleared out of the locker room and were out on the field warming up by the time I rushed in to put on my gear.So I was alone by the time I tugged on my shoulder pads and plunked myself down on a bench to lace up my shoes. I’d just stood up and was turning toward the exit when the first two assholes grabbed me from behind, locking on to my arms and yanking me back until my spine slammed into a closed locker. The shoulder pads absorbed most of the impact, but still…“Ouch. What the hell?” I struggled to yank myself free. “Let go.”Another two appeared next to the first pair
Okay, so I might’ve relentlessly paced the floor by the door, waiting for Wick to get home that night because the glare Topher had sent me across campus had haunted me all day.When he hadn’t charged after me to talk it out, it made me think… I don’t know. But it felt as if things were worse because he’d let me go, so now… Now I wondered what had happened between him and Wick at practice.I finally sat in a chair in the living room with an open textbook on my lap, pretending to study, but I ended up just staring at the front door and biting my fingernails the entire time until it finally opened at a quarter until seven.As Wick stepped inside, a huge sports duffle slung over his shoulder and his head bowed as if he were deep in thought, I popped to my feet, instantly nervous. Instantly expectant.“Hey, um, hi,” I rushed out the greeting and offered him a tense smile as he looked up in surprise, then paused to eye me warily. I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “You look like you
So, early Friday morning, Wick had me meet him at the student health center for my checkup. It felt wrong that I had to even do this; I’d always taken safe sex seriously. Why had I been stupid enough to think the only boyfriend I’d ever had would feel the same way? Now, here I was, paying for my own naïve gullibility.The wind seemed to think it personally needed to slap me across the face for my idiocy too. It whipped my hair out of place, obstructing my view and clogging my mouth so I was still scrambling to hand-brush it back into place and hold on to my backpack that I had hooked over one shoulder as I pushed through the front door.Disheveled mess that I was, however, I was apparently at least a quiet one. No one heard me enter.One woman sat out in the waiting area, flipping through a magazine. A receptionist sat behind a tall counter. And Wick Webster stood leaning against the same counter at the far end where he chatted with a young nurse who bustled around on the other side
Saturday morning, I crept from my room just after five in a cotton shirt, shorts, and running shoes. I tried not to look at the closed door that led into Haven’s room, but I nearly walked into the wall I was staring at it so hard.The apartment was quiet; she was no doubt asleep in there, which got my mind to spinning. What did she sleep in? Full-on long pants with a matching conservative T-shirt, shorty-shorts with one of those slinky tight tops, a silky nighty, nothing at all?I began to sweat.This was fucking unreal. Haven Gamble was sleeping in my apartment, hell, living in my apartment. I still couldn’t quite wrap my brain around that.Tiptoeing as quietly as I could, I locked the front door behind me, staring at it one last time, wondering if she’d still be here when I returned, and then I forced myself away and started my morning jog. The campus fitness center was about a mile away, which gave me the perfect time to get loosened up with my run to start my workout by the tim
The gentle knock that fell on my door told me it could be no one else but Wick. Beau would’ve pounded, Cress would’ve walked in without even knocking, and no way would Fox come near me after seeing me tear up. Nothing scared him off like crying girls.I sighed because it seemed too rude to tell Wick to fuck off since he hadn’t done anything wrong, even though I just wanted to be left alone.Well played, cousins. Well played.Wiping at my eyes, I mumbled, “It’s open.”The door slowly floated inward, but he didn’t come inside. Leaning against the doorjamb, he crossed his arms over his chest and watched me from worried eyes. “They’re still here, stealing food from our kitchen. You want me to kick them out?”I smiled through my tears and shook my head. The way he said our kitchen brightened something inside me. I hadn’t even lived here a full three days yet, but he was already willing to share the place with me, despite his initial resistance to the idea.“No,” I told him. “They’re f
I woke with Haven on top of me. Again.The night before, we’d watched the rest of the game on my laptop together. Or rather, I watched it. Haven fell asleep, only to miss seeing her boyfriend—sorry, ex-boyfriend—throw two more interceptions.We still won, though, thanks to the kicker, defense, and a running back who scored the only offensive touchdown. I nudged her and said her name to let her know the game was over, but she didn’t wake, so I just shut the laptop and then scooted down in order to lie next to her. And sometime throughout the night, she ended up on top of me.This made two out of the four nights she’d lived here that she’d slept on me. We were beginning to make a habit of it. I hoped it became a regular occurrence.Shit. Wait. No, I wasn’t supposed to want that, was I? She was Nicholl’s girl. Ex-girl. Whatever. I should think of her as used-up leftovers. Except that was frankly impossible. She was way too intriguing for that, and I liked waking up with her on top of
I retreated to the living room, where I paced for about five minutes, listening to her in the kitchen, running the water and clanging pots around, and not because I was obsessively, compulsively worried she would put the pans away in the wrong cabinet.I felt exposed now. She had exposed me. But what the hell had I been thinking to admit to her how responsible I felt for her? That sounded creepy even to my ears.I didn’t want to be creepy. I just… I wanted her to stop questioning my motives and stripping me emotionally bare. I’d worked damn hard these past few years to close myself off and not let any of my thoughts or stupid feelings show. Why did she need to crack me open? And why the hell was I letting her? I didn’t want to be open, anymore. I wanted—Fuck.I didn’t even want to admit what I really wanted.When a knock fell on my apartment door, I stopped flipping out and running my hand through my hair to scowl at it.This time, I wasn’t even expecting it to be for me. I stro