It took me a moment to get back into our conversation.
“You’re asking me that?” I asked, and began to laugh.
“No, seriously, how do you do it? I know Tami left yesterday. When I moved here from California, I just curled up in the backseat of our car, crying my eyes out. Seeing them together this summer, it felt like my heart was breaking all over again. I know you’re hurting inside, but to the world, you look like you’re fine.”
“Oh, Baby, come here,” I said, pulling her into my arms. “Let me ask you a question. Do you plan on having him in your life again? Even if he begged to come back to you, would you take him back?”
Pam shook her head after she considered my question.
“Then why give him the power to hurt you any more? He doesn’t matter. He made his choice to move on. Now you need to do it, too,” I told her.
“I can’t help it, I still love him.”
“And I still love Tami. I’ll always love her; that’ll never stop. The thing is, you have to live your life for you. Neither one of them is ever coming back, nor do I think I want Tami anymore. I tried. I put myself out there, and she wanted something else. I can understand that, but I can’t let her ruin my life anymore. I can’t give her that kind of power over me. To be honest, no one will ever have that much control over me ever again. You need to figure it out, Pam. He’s been gone for a year. Are you going to let him keep you from dating your junior year?”
“Are you offering to date me?” she asked.
“If you’d asked me at the end of school last year, the answer would have been ‘yes.’ You’re smart, sexy as hell, and the best part is you’re not afraid to tease me and keep me off-balance. The clincher is I like you as a friend. I think, for right now, it’s best for me to back off on dating and focus on other areas of my life.”
“I thought you liked me,” she teased.
“I like you just fine,” I said, leering at her.
“Now, back to my original question, do you like Zoe just fine also?”
“Don’t know, but I would like to get to know her.”
“You’re so bad,” she teased me.
“I’d bet my last dollar that Zoe isn’t like that. If I were looking for sex, she wouldn’t be on the list.”
“Why?” Zoe asked, scaring the hell out of me.
Pam’s shoulders were shaking. The little shit had set me up. Someone was getting their bottom spanked. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders.
“Zoe, it has nothing to do with how you look. It has to do with me respecting you and your beliefs,” I reasoned.
“So you think because I’m Mennonite, I’m not interested in guys?” she asked, clearly irritated.
I raised my hands in surrender. Mennonites were part of what was called Anabaptists. The Amish were probably the most well-known branch of this Christian movement. While the Amish are readily recognized by their dress and horse-drawn carriages, the Mennonites dressed like the ‘plain people,’ which made them indistinguishable from everyone else. They tended to live in close-knit communities, and our local Mennonites all seemed to live on the farms between the parkland and the river. It kept them isolated from everyone else.
“I may be a ‘stupid boy’ and say dumb things, but I want you to know I’d prefer to get to know you before you talked me into going to bed with you,” I said.
“I’m going to seduce you? Who do you think you are?” she asked, and it seemed she just got madder.
I had dug myself a hole, and there was no getting out of it. I started to get a little irritated. I had tried to be a nice guy, and Zoe had treated me like dirt.
“You know what, you’re right. Who the hell am I?” I said, then turned to Pam. “Let’s get going. It was clearly a mistake to stop here.”
I got up to leave, and Zoe stormed off. Pam shook her head sadly.
“I think you have a new fan,” she told me.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Nope, she likes you.”
Yep, guys are from Mars and women are definitely from another planet. There was no way Zoe was into me.
◊◊◊
When I got home, I called Jim, Wolf, Tim, and Ty and asked them to come over to my house. I told my parents I wanted to talk about visiting campuses for unofficial visits this fall and thought it a good idea to take my core guys with me. Mom reminded me that Alan might want to go also, so I called him, and he agreed to come over.
Mom must have called some other people because Kendal and a guy I’d never met before showed up unexpectedly. He reminded me of someone.
“David, I’d like you to meet your new personal assistant and recruiting coordinator, Brandon Rigby,” Kendal said.
“You related to someone?” I asked because Kendal worked for Rigby, Thompson and Associates, and Don Rigby was one of the managing partners.
“My uncle is Don, so I guess I am,” Brandon said with a smile. “You mind if we sit down for a couple of minutes before this gets started?”
“Let me get my mom and dad, and we can talk,” I said.
“Actually, since I’ll be working for you, I’d prefer it if just the two of us talked first. I would love to meet your parents before I leave, though.”
I agreed, and we went into my parents’ office and shut the door.
“I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with me as your assistant. When I heard about the job, I wasn’t thrilled to be working with a high school kid. Uncle Don told me to straighten up and talk to Tom and Kendal before I made an ass out of myself. I’m glad I did because when I was through talking to them, I was impressed. I hope we can get along and I can help you out. Before we go back out, is there anything you want to know about me?” Brandon asked.
“How are you qualified to be my personal assistant and recruiting coordinator?” I asked, not sure yet if I liked Brandon or not.
“In high school, I was a top 150 recruit; I played cornerback. So I know the recruiting rules. I ended up going to Harvard and bypassed playing football because my dad wanted me to join the family business. He owns a law firm in New York City. In May I took a leave of absence and went to Europe for the summer. I needed to figure out what I wanted to be, not what my dad wanted.
“My dad cut off my credit card a week ago and sent me a plane ticket for home. I wasn’t ready to go back to school, so Uncle Don told me about this job. I can do this and take some general classes at State towards my degree,” Brandon said.
“I have a couple of quick questions. Do you work for me, the firm, or my mom?” I asked.
“I’m paid by Rigby, Thompson & Associates, and you’ll be paying for me out of your company, so technically, I’m employed by them to work for your dad, but I’ll report to you and liaison with Kendal,” Brandon answered.
“That didn’t really answer my question,” I said.
“It was a polite way of saying that I’m obligated to tell your dad if you get out of line, but I hope to never have to,” he said.
Okay, he wasn’t going to be my buddy, which was probably for the best, since he’d called me a ‘kid’ earlier.
◊◊◊
While everyone got situated in the living room, I retrieved my mom’s laptop, plugged an HDMI cable into it, and hooked it up to the 72-inch big-screen TV, my dad’s newest pride and joy. I used the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to bring up the college football schedule for the coming year. I also opened a spreadsheet so we could keep track of the games we wanted to go see.
“What I wanted to get everyone together for was to start getting serious about where we’ll end up going to college. Jim’s a senior, and I want to play ball with him, so we can’t put this off any longer. We’ve been to both Kentucky and Northwestern. My mom still has photos from the Northwestern trip, so the first thing we have to agree upon is that what happens on a recruiting visit, stays on a recruiting visit,” I said to some chuckles in the room.