Page 2 of Best Man on Campus

I have a place near SPU and she works close to campus. So I see her.

I want to make something of myself with my music. I want to go places.

I don’t want to end up like Killian.

All I need to do is get over my sex hang-up, according Dr. Dani’s last advice. Hah. Who cares? I like men. They like me. No problem.

Dr. Dani’s, and every other female I know’s idea of a healthy relationship is my idea of a trap. A death wish.

Majik says I’ll find someone good and decent at SPU. She knows a lot of guys there since she cooks for the BMOC House—Big Man on Campus House—a non-frat house full of boys, all athletes. The place sounds like someone’s inside joke but if they have her for a cook then they’re not stupid. And they’re fucking well fed.

I tell her sure, I’ll find someone. Someday. Maybe.

But in real life, I don’t fucking believe in unicorns. That was for Baby Jazzy, the little girl who once had a Grams and a Killian to believe in.

My past is past. And in spite of Dr. Dani’s insistence that I needed to get a grip on it, to deal with it and come to fucking peace with it, I know I need to shove it in a dungeon and leave it there. Grams and Killian are gone.

At night sometimes my heart hurts because I long for his love and wish he were here. He made me feel safe, like he really was my uncle.

But my soul hurts more because seeping through the cracks of my broken heart is the whisper that I’m better off with him gone.

Shortly after I got to SPU, the nightmares started up again, but I don’t tell anyone. I deal with it. How? I make sure I have male company as often as I can. Men I don’t care about, men I can control, men who are fine with getting sucked off and spending the night to give me nothing but body heat and a target for my dreams when they turn dark.

It worked well enough to get me to Junior year. Now, it doesn’t.

Why? Because Majik starts filling my head with stories of an upstanding young man she knows at SPU. Who talks like that? Apparently he’s the kind of guy who saves kittens from trees, helps the elderly across streets and remembers her birthday with a singing video text. He actually drove her to a doctor appointment when she needed it—which pisses me off because I could have driven her. But she would never ask. Which makes me wonder how the hell unicorn boy managed it.

“This guy—what does he look like?” Not that I’m superficial, but I know there’s a catch.

“He’s hot.”

“If he lives at BMOC House he must be a jock. You know I hate jocks.” I don’t, but I say it to get a rise. A foolish ambition that never succeeds.

She smiles because this is the first time I respond to any of her hints or comments about this special guy of hers.

“How old is he? You thinking of a cougar hook-up?” She swats me in the arm. It’s a mild action but she’s big, so it packs some pain. Not the rise I was looking for. I don’t react. We’re a pair, neither of us reacting to things. It’s why I like her. Why I would love her if I had any left in me.

“He’s a senior. This is your last chance for a shot at him Jazzy. Don’t let him go.”

“I don’t know anything about him. You don’t even tell me his name or what sport he plays—how am I supposed to get a shot at him?”

“All you have to do is ask,” she says. I stand in the doorway of her small house where I once lived, ready to take off for my singing gig at Wildbeast Pizza, and I stare at her. She stares back. I sigh dramatically because I hate when she makes up her mind to make a point, to make me ask—for anything.

“Okay. You win. What the fuck is this paragon’s name?”

“Ben.”

“Ben what?”

“Ben Weaver.”

“What sport?”

“Hockey.”

I blow out a whistle. “A nice violent sport, someone I can sink my teeth into.” She swats me again though she has no idea the violent streak I have. The rage I unleash on men. Nothing I can get arrested for, but I play hard and I keep control.

“Be good, Jazzy. Smile for what you have. Don’t cry for what’s gone.” Those are her standard parting words, the ones she’s said to me every night since I’ve known her. But it’s not just the words, it’s the truth, the real emotion behind them, knowing she feels the words, and lives the words. It’s the only time she ever shows emotion, ever gives me advice and it’s always the same, but it’s always powerful, like she’s giving me a shot of some powerful drug to get me through my day. Or through my night.