Page 25 of Best Man on Campus

When Majiski looks up and I meet her eyes, I’m unable to stop my defiance from showing. But her eyes are clear, untroubled, so I know Ben hasn’t talked to her yet and I release a grateful breath, letting go of the defensive anger. She eyes my still-bandaged hand without comment. Typical.

“Have a seat, Jazzy. I’ll get you some breakfast and you can tell me what’s on your mind.” It’s wordy for Majiski, but also her way of taking control, letting me know she’s ready to listen to whatever trouble I have to dish out. I don’t bother arguing with her though it’s my first instinct. I wonder if there’ll ever be a day when it’s not my gut reaction to people, even the ones I love. Correction—the one, singular person on this planet I can claim to love. Majiski. No one else is left. Grams is gone. Killian…

She scrapes a chair back, startling me out of my dark thoughts. I wonder if she reads my mind and I decide it’s more likely than not. I take the seat and she clatters a dish and fork onto the table in front of me.

“You shouldn’t be waiting on me,” I say. It’s not like I’m one of her paying customers like the spoiled arrogant student athletes that live here, maybe with the exception of Jack Hunter. I heard he was poor, but he more than made up for it with a super-sized dose of arrogance.

And then there’s her precious Ben fucking Weaver the unicorn.

I watch her take the cover off a pan and bring it over to the table. She scrapes a pile of scrambled eggs and bacon into my dish as if I’m a growing boy, as if she was keeping the food warm for me.

“Whoa there.” I put a hand up and stop her before she empties the whole pan onto my plate.

“When did you last eat?” She says, but she stops and I shrug. She returns the pan still half full to the stove. She doesn’t sit with me, instead resumes filling cupcake liners with the heavenly batter. It smells like she has a batch already in the oven, soon to be hatched and ready for eating.

“Talk.” Her enormous strong back is to me, her short ponytail half gray, half dark, poking over the collar of her stiff white cook’s jacket, but I know she’s listening.

“I should have called last night.” I’m thinking out loud, stalling. It’s not like me and she knows it. She turns to face me. And she stands there waiting, her stoic expression set in stone, knowing it’s something bad. I didn’t call last night because I needed to work up the courage. And because I needed to sleep. Unfortunately sleep was a nightmare, different than the usual, featuring Ben now.

“I slept with Ben. Saturday night.” I stop, but I don’t know why I bother because she shows no reaction, not even a twinkle in her eye, no grunt of admonishment, nothing. What was I expecting? I should know better. She waits me out and I huff a breath.

“I spent the day with him yesterday. Cooked him spaghetti and meatballs with marinara sauce.”

“Did you use fresh basil?”

I laugh. “That’s what you ask? How about, how was the sex, Jazzy? Very good, thank you. He gave me fucking multiple orgasms and it was the most painfully spectacular night of my life.”

That gets her. She puts down her ladle, her face going as white as her apron, and she pulls out a chair at the table.

“I’m sorry I—”

“You… okay?” She doesn’t touch me, not with her hands, but I feel the touch of her kindness and her concern.

I nod. It’s a lie and I don’t know why I’m bothering except out of habit. Never admit to being vulnerable, not even to myself if I can help it. It’s my first rule of survival.

“Tell me about it.” She waits, face implacable, her calm coolness restored.

“Nothing much else to tell except he’s as advertised. Too good for me. Only he doesn’t know it. Not yet.”

She blinks at that, but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t purse her lips in disapproval or dismay, doesn’t call me out on my attitude. Doesn’t tell me of course you’re good enough for him, sweetheart. No nonsense. That’s Majiski. But the thing is, I feel like she’s telling me, communicating soul to soul, that I’m good enough for anyone. She’s the one who pointed me at him, isn’t she?

Majiski always listens in that enigmatic, nonjudgmental way she has. But I want a reaction, I want to see something below the surface acceptance, I want to jolt her like I’ve reverted to that fifteen-year-old girl I was when she took me in. Fuck.

“Don’t worry,” I say, “I won’t hurt your precious unicorn.”

“I’m not worried,” she says. “He’s no unicorn, Jasmine. He has a bruised soul same as you and me and the rest of humanity.”

“Well you’re a bummer. I thought I was supposed to be the fucking Debbie Downer of the two of us.”

She laughs, a rare and satisfying sound, like a hug to my soul, wrapping around it, sending warmth through me. Like the way I felt in bed with Ben. Only I know Majiski is solid. So far. She hasn’t abandoned me. Her skin is thick and strong as fucking chainmail armor against whatever I hurl at her.

“That’s it? No words of wisdom? No warnings about unprotected sex? Don’t worry about that either, because I didn’t let him inside me.”

“TMI.” Her face remains blank and without any telltale blushing, not that I expect it from the stalwart woman.

“Well, fuck, Majiski. I thought I could talk to you about anything? Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be between us?”

She stares at me in silence for a few beats and I see the subtle softening around her eyes, the regret, but no disappointment, no censure. Thank fuck. Then she sighs, which she never does.