Chapter 9

“You have got to be kidding me!” Hailey said as she fell in step beside him.

“If she is, it’s a pretty fucked-up joke,” Phil replied.

“She’s lucky I ran into you last week or otherwise I would make it my mission to ruin that poor girl’s life,” Hailey said. It appeared that she was angrier about the whole situation than Phil was. She turned to him sharply when he chuckled.

“Hell, Hailey, if I hadn’t given you a ride home last Friday, you wouldn’t even remember my name,” Phil said. “Not to mention that I only met her because I was coming to see you. So if you really think about it ... it’s all your fault.”

He laughed and pushed her gently with his elbow.

“It probably is,” she admitted with a frown.

“Oh, come on,” Phil said. “I was kidding with you.”

“No, not about you running into her,” Hailey told him. “I mean about her deciding to go out with you at all. I think I sort of browbeat her into agreeing. It wasn’t intentional – and she didn’t tell me she had already accepted a date with someone else. I guess I was pretty persuasive.”

“Probably,” Phil replied. “You usually are. Where are you headed?”

“I’m going back to your apartment to kick your ass on the race track,” she said with a laugh. “Loser has to pay the other’s way tonight.”

“I’m not sure I want to go to the party,” Phil said.

“Oh, crap,” Hailey spat. “Give me one good reason not to.”

“I won’t know anybody,” Phil answered.

“You’ll know me and I’ll know most of them,” Hailey informed him. “Besides, I bet you’ll have class with a lot of them. The kid hosting it is a junior who lives at home. His parents are on a cruise or something. It’ll be fun. I figured we would take a taxi or catch the bus, have a good time and either crash there or catch a ride back to campus.”

“I have a car,” Phil pointed out.

Hailey looked over at him with her mouth open.

“You do!” she said with a laugh. “No, I don’t want to risk you getting a DUI or something.”

“I won’t drink tonight,” Phil said.

“I noticed that your parents don’t drink,” she said. “I mean they didn’t at dinner or at the banquet. You told me that they got sloshed on New Year’s Eve, though. Is it ... I don’t know ... what is it about?”

“I’m not sure it’s about anything,” Phil said. “As a general rule my parents don’t drink at business functions. It’s probably what keeps my mom from whipping her knockers out at the bar.”

Hailey elbowed him the ribs and frowned.

“Sorry, couldn’t help it,” Phil said. “It was a lot funnier in my head. I didn’t mean to piss you off.”

“You didn’t and it is funny in a sad sort of way,” Hailey replied. “That explains Saturday but not Friday night. It also doesn’t explain why you don’t drink.”

“I drink,” Phil said. “I mean, I rarely drink a lot but no one in my family is pushing for a return of Prohibition. They didn’t drink Friday because you were there. They don’t know you and neither did I. There was also the chance that they both would be driving. Our evening plans didn’t evolve until well into the evening. If we had known earlier what was going on, they might have. I don’t think so because you were there. But if was just the three of us, Dad would have a beer or maybe Mom would have had a cocktail or something. I won’t know anyone but you tonight so I’ll drink soda. If it looks as though we’re going to be staying for a while I might have a beer or two early in the evening so I’m OK to drive later.”

“So you’re going!” Hailey said with a wide smile.

“Like you said, you’re persuasive,” Phil admitted with a laugh.

Ten minutes into the video game session, it was pretty clear that Hailey had not spent much time in front of a console.

“God, you suck at this!” Phil said as he pushed her off the track for the fourth time.

“I have other skills, thankfully,” Hailey replied. “Let’s play something else. Do you have anything where I can walk around and shoot you? After you keep spinning my ass into the tires, I think I deserve it.”

“Do you remember when you told me last week that you didn’t appreciate my language?” he wondered with a laugh.

“Yeah, fine,” she grumbled. “When I’m comfortable with someone, I have a mouth like a longshoreman.”

“I didn’t want to mention but you sort of smell like one, too,” Phil jibed.

“That’s it,” Hailey said, dropping the controller and springing to her feet.

“Hey, I was just playing,” Phil said as she stalked past him. She stopped a couple of feet away, turned and leapt onto him. It caught him by surprise and she pinned his arms to the couch before he could mount a defense. He looked up into her smiling face.

“You are the only person who picks on me,” she said.

“I can stop if you want,” Phil offered. She was laying half across him and if he tilted his head slightly he was sure he could look down the front of her shirt.

“I like it,” she said. “I wasn’t really mad. I just figured I could pay you back in some other way than assassinating your avatar. Now I’m not so sure. If I let go of your arms you’re going to have the upper hand pretty quickly but if I hold onto them I can’t really do anything. I didn’t plan my strategy out very well.”

“True,” he said. He took his foot and pushed her ankle away from the couch. She had been hunched over him but the move knocked her completely off balance and she landed on top of him. He got an arm free and wrapped it around her waist. He thought about tickling her but he also thought about how nice it felt to have her on top of him. Hailey’s soft breasts were pushed against him and from the bare skin under his hand he could tell that her long T-shirt had ridden up over the top of her Lycra running pants.

“That is so not fair,” Hailey muttered. “Let me up!”

“What’s the magic word,” Phil asked, thankful that she was across his hip and not his middle. Otherwise she would know that her proximity was causing a problem in his lower body.

“Pretty please,” Hailey said. As soon as Phil’s arm loosened she shifted her weight and sat down on top of him. Once again his arms were corralled by hers. The only thing separating their middles was the clothing they wore. There was no way that she couldn’t tell his condition at that point.

“Video games must be an aphrodisiac,” she said with a wink.

“Uh, sorry,” Phil mumbled.

“Don’t be,” Hailey said. “It’s not the first one I’ve felt and I’m flattered. I would have to say that I am extremely flattered.”

She shifted her torso slightly until she could feel more of the bulge beneath her. She was debating whether to give in and kiss him and let things go from there or to release him. She was saved from making a decision by a light knock on the door.

Molly shifted from foot to foot as she waited for the door to open. She heard laughter from inside – then silence and more laughter – before Phil opened the door.

“Hi,” he said. “Come on in.”

Molly had hoped for a few moments alone with Phil but she saw Hailey sitting on the couch.

“Will you still give me a ride home?” she asked.

“Sure,” Phil told her. “Let me grab my shoes. If you ever need a boost for your self-esteem you should race Hailey. She might be the worst go-kart driver on the planet.”

“Up yours, Hotshot!” Hailey groused good-naturedly. She was a little peeved that her indecision had kept her from reacting the way she wanted. It was so unlike her. Then she remembered Beth Warner’s admonition to look at consequences before you act rather than after. Maybe that’s what she’d done. “I should probably go, too. I need to get ready for the party.”

Phil glanced at his watch.

“What time does it start?” he wondered.

“It won’t get rolling until 10 or 11,” Hailey answered, knowing it was barely after two. “I want to grab a nap. Nothing worse than winding down just as things get hopping. I’ll call you later.”

“It’s Friday,” Phil pointed out. “I can probably just drop you off behind your dorm if you want to wait a second. The parking rules don’t apply after noon Friday.”

Molly was waiting for him to just offer to have Hailey take her home so he didn’t have to be alone with her. Instead it was Hailey who demurred.

“Nah, it’s a decent day,” she replied, offering Molly a small smile. “I’ll walk. Talk to you later.”

Molly was still sitting on the couch when Phil got his sneakers on.

“Can we visit for a while?” she wondered.

“Sure,” Phil replied, although he would have preferred to have Molly at home and Hailey back where she had been a few moments earlier.

“I’m really not very sharp sometimes,” Molly told him when he sat down beside her. “You really are just about what every girl says she wants in a guy.”