J. Fynn - The Long Game

Spencer rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Who would go to all this trouble just for dinner?”

Who indeed? The girl fidgeted, considering this.

“Didn’t Chase say they were thinking about booking this place for their fundraiser dinner? For their charity…what’s it called?” I asked Spencer. It seemed like a safe bet. All those guys raised money for one charity or another.

“Yeah, Utley’s All-Star Animals. Jenn was just tweeting about it.”

“Jardin would be a perfect place for a fundraiser,” the hostess said and slid two tall leather folios from inside the podium. “I mean, I’m sure you’ll tell them that, won’t you?” She flashed a beatific smile as she stepped from behind her station.

“We will if the food’s any good,” Spencer said.

I mashed my lips into a tight line. If I laughed, I might blow the whole thing, but Spencer’s indignation was almost too much to take given that the whole thing was a complete fabrication. She was a natural clip artist, a trait she must’ve inherited from her father without even knowing it.

The hostess faltered for a second but regained her composure quickly. “If you’ll both follow me.” She led us to the table set for two in the back corner and stood aside while I pulled the chair out for Spencer. Then I took my own seat. She opened the menus and placed them in front of us. “Bon appétit,” she said with a smile so bright it almost looked painful. “Please let me or your server know if there’s anything you need. Anything at all.”

“Thank you.” Spencer gave her a saccharine smile. “We will.”

When the hostess had made her way back across the restaurant, Spencer looked at me, her wide-eyed expression having returned. “I can’t believe you did that!”

“We did that, sweetheart.” I grinned at her. “And you were damn good at it, too. I’m pretty sure you could’ve gotten a table on your own.”

She giggled. “Well, I definitely would’ve chosen a name from that list a little more carefully.”

“All right.” I nodded. “That was probably not the best name. But I didn’t have a ton of time to consider my choices.”

“So is this what you do with all the girls? Steal reservations from major sports figures?”

“Nah,” I said. “Usually I go with political figures. Mayors, state reps—that sort of thing.”

“Well, it’s certainly the most unconventional date I’ve ever been on. But I have to admit that was kind of fun once I got past the terrified part.”

I reached for her hand across the table and laced my fingers through hers. “I’m glad.”

She smiled at our linked hands for a long moment. “So how did you know they wouldn’t be here?”

“Who?” I frowned.

“Chase and Jennifer Utley. How could you tell they weren’t coming?”

One corner of my mouth lifted in amusement. “I had no idea. I just picked the name.”

“Okay,” Spencer said, her eyebrows creeping together. “So what happens when they show up for their reservation?”

“We invite them over? I mean, we’re neighbors and all.”

Spencer blinked at me, completely nonplussed, and the laughter I’d managed to hold back during her earlier performance finally broke free.

A FEW DAYS later, Spencer and I once again found ourselves in the courtyard outside the Carroll Center. Afternoon classes were in session, and the quad was entirely deserted. I sat with my back against the oak where I’d first seen her, and she sat next to me, her head on my chest.

“So what should we do with our afternoon of freedom?” I asked, nuzzling my face in her hair.

“How should I know? I’ve never skipped class before, remember?”

“We could go see a movie,” I suggested. “Or just sit here all day. I’d be good with that, too.” It wasn’t a lie. The day was warm but not uncomfortably so, and I was starting to get used to the way she felt in my arms.

“We have to do something exciting,” she said against my chest. “You can’t play hooky and then not have an adventure.”

I laughed. “I think you’ve seen too many movies.”

Spencer lifted her head to grin at me.

“Actually, I can think of something else we could do to pass the time.” I bent my neck to kiss her. She inched up so our faces were closer, returning the kiss with an enthusiasm that made me smile against her mouth. I tangled my fingers in her copper hair.

“Oh!” She pulled back so quickly I almost fell forward. “I have an idea.”

“I thought we’d settled on my idea,” I said, grinning wickedly. I wrapped my hands around her waist.

Spencer smiled and gently peeled my fingers away so she could stand up. “There’s something I’ve wanted to do since the first time I toured campus,” she said. “Wait here, and I’ll be right back.”

Confused and resigned to the fact we weren’t going to be pursuing my suggestion after all, I shrugged and leaned back against the tree trunk. “I’ll be here.”

Spencer took off toward the Carroll Center and disappeared inside. The sound of splashing water from the fountain mingled with the voice in my mind that told me I was a little too disappointed she was gone. I knew how close I was to getting into Tommy’s house, and I was glad I’d played the game so well to this point. But as anxious as I was to see my family again—and to see the look on Judd Sheedy’s face when he found out I’d pulled this off—that nagging voice kept whispering about how much I’d miss Spencer’s face when it was all over. The thought had even occurred to me that I might be able to see her again, but of course that was impossible. She was a means to an end, and I had to keep it that way if this was going to work.

Sunlight flashed in the corner of my eye, and I looked over to see Spencer emerging from a glass door with a plastic bag from the student store in one hand and a mischievous grin on her face. I got to my feet and crossed the cobblestone to meet her.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

By way of answer, Spencer reached into the plastic bag and produced a bottle of bright green dish soap. She giggled at my confused expression. “What do you get when you put dish soap in a sink with running water?” Her eyes drifted from my face to the splashing fountain beside us.

I followed her gaze. I was supposed to be the troublemaker, and here she was proposing vandalism. I’d created a monster—or, at the very least, I’d pulled back a few layers of her good-girl exterior with that little stunt at the restaurant the other night. “You’re joking.”

She popped open the soap bottle with her thumb. “Not even a little.”

We were both full of nervous laughter as we stepped to the edge of the fountain. I glanced around and nodded, and Spencer turned the bottle over and squeezed out a stream of the green liquid. It hit the water and started to break into smaller globs, but no bubbles appeared.

“Hold on.” I reached out to tip the bottle back up, then stepped out of my flip-flops. I climbed over the side and into the calf-height water. I turned back to Spencer and held my hand out to her. “We have to dump it in there.” I pointed to the base of the center finial where the water churned most as it spilled from the basins stacked above and was pulled back into the pump from below.

Spencer kicked off her own sandals and climbed in with me. We sloshed to the center of the fountain. She unscrewed the bottle cap and dumped what was left of the dish soap into the water at our feet. It began to froth right away, and before long, the bubbles had reached the hem of my cargo shorts. I looked up, squinting at the water that rained down from the top of the fountain, and grinned at the bubbles starting to bloom from there as well.

“This is going to get very messy very quick,” I said, taking the empty bottle from Spencer.

“Or very clean, as it were.” She laughed.

“Either way, we should probably get out of here.”

“What? We have to at least enjoy this a little.” White clouds of bubbles drifted down from the topmost basin.

“Spence, classes will be out soon, and someone is going to see this—” I swiped at one of the bubble clouds. “—and call campus security. Do you want a repeat of the other night?”

“I don’t know. Running through the kitchen to escape that she-devil hostess was pretty exciting.”

It was pretty fun. When the second baseman and his wife had shown up looking for their table, dodging dumbfounded cooks and bus boys on our way to the back service entrance had been our only option. But it had also been an adrenaline rush. We hadn’t stopped running until we’d torn down the hall and through the lobby of the adjacent Radisson out onto the street where we were lucky enough to find a cab waiting at the curb. Even then, I’m not sure my heart slowed to a manageable pace until the bemused cabbie dropped us at the Suburban Station to catch our train back to Balanova.

“What’s the matter, Mr. I-Get-Into-Fights-and-Steal-Dinner-Reservations-All-the-Time?” she jibbed. “Scared of getting caught?”

“It’s not fear. It’s self-preservation. What happened to the girl who never skips class or puts a toe out of line?”

“She fell in love with you.” Spencer picked up a handful of bubbles and smeared them in my hair. A line of soapy water dripped down my nose, but I barely noticed. I knew I had to respond. Telling her I felt the same way would almost guarantee she’d be ready to introduce me to dear old dad.

But I couldn’t say it. Not now.

I caught her around her waist and swung her off her feet. She squealed and pulled her legs up, and we both fell sideways into the bubbles. I shifted to provide a cushion between her and the floor of the fountain, and luckily for my tailbone, the thick layer of bubbles and water did the same for me. I sat up, bringing Spencer with me so she was in my lap, facing me. I wiped the bubbles from my eyes. Water streamed from her hair and her gray shirt clung to her torso, but her face was barely visible through the mask of white bubbles covering it. She swiped them away and flicked them at me. I rolled, dunking her in the fountain again. We both got to our knees, sputtering with laughter and mouths full of bubbles. I wiped my own face again, then brushed my thumbs over her eyes. I cleared the bubbles from her face. She kissed me, and suddenly I didn’t care about the bitter taste of dish soap in my mouth.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

We both looked and found a middle-aged man in khakis and a starched white shirt walking toward us. A plastic name badge hung from his neck on a red cord, and though he didn’t appear to be campus security, he certainly was someone with authority.

“Fun’s over,” I said, dragging Spencer to her feet. We stumbled through the bubbles that had already overflowed and were creeping across the courtyard and clambered over the side of the fountain.

“My shoes,” Spencer said, half-turning back.

“I’ll buy you another pair,” I said, pulling her along with me.

“Stop!” Name Badge yelled, but his order only made us run faster.

“Wait.” Spencer tugged on my hand. “Let’s go this way. The OIA house is just across campus.”

“We need to take a different route.” I was pretty sure he wasn’t chasing us, but I wasn’t going to give Name Badge a way to connect Spencer to the bubbles currently filling the quad. Rather than running straight south, I headed west toward Carr Hall. If he were still watching, he’d likely think we were aiming for the train station. When the courtyard was out of view, we cut through the Grotto and hit Lancaster Avenue, circling around the campus chapel. I slowed enough to make sure there was no oncoming traffic, then sprinted across the four-lane road without bothering to find a crosswalk. Once we were safely on the other side, Spencer took the lead.

“This way,” she said and cut down a gravel drive. We ran past a row of garages and took a sharp left down a grassy path that lead past the backyards of several large sorority houses. Spencer screeched to a halt at the door of a wooden gate and threw it open, then dragged me inside. We cut through the backyard of the OIA house, past the spot where we’d had our first kiss and straight up the back steps to the glass French doors. Once we were inside, I thought she’d finally stop, but she held tight to my hand as we passed through the dining room, the living room, and eventually into the entry hall. When she rounded the banister and headed up the steps, I froze.

“Come on,” she said, looking down at me with a smile that made my already labored breath catch in my throat.

It took less than a second for my feet to start moving again, and I followed her, taking the stairs two at a time. We turned left at the top of the staircase and walked to the far end of the hall. The girls had hung a mirror at the end of the corridor, and I caught our reflection in it before reaching Spencer’s door. We were both still soaked, and her fiery hair glinted in the track lighting above us, still slick with soap bubbles. Spencer pushed her door open and pulled me inside, then closed it behind us. I thought I heard the click of the button lock on the doorknob but assumed I’d imagined it until Spencer was standing in front of me.