The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Playing Ball with the New Will Prescott

Previously: "The Party Boy" 

No, you don't kick Will Prescott out of the apartment. You wait for him and Mia to finish. You knock back two more beers—which spreads a pleasant numbness over your buzz—as you wait, and smoke three cigarettes, which is a bit much in such a short period even for Terry.

But thirty minutes later, the door opens. Mia's eyes dart about as she emerges, and guilt pools in her eyes. "So everyone left?" she asks in a pinched voice.

"They went off to the Warehouse." You look past her at Will, who is looking very serene. "You can catch up if you want."

He rubs her between the shoulder blades. "I can drop you off there."

"You're not going?"

"I got a curfew." He frowns down at his phone. "Shit. Maybe I can't drop you off. You heading out there?" he asks you.

"I don't know." You all three exchange glances. Then with a sigh you get off the couch. "I'll take you, Mia."

And yet Will still drapes his arm around her shoulder as he walks her to your car.

* * * * *

Mia is silent until you're on the road—so still and silent that you might have the dark cabin to yourself. Only after the silence has grown very tense does she blurt out, "Nothing happened in there."

"Where? The bedroom, you mean?"

"Yes." You can hardly hear her over the swish of tires rushing over the pavement. "We just, you know, hung out."

"You could'a hung out with everyone else."

"Will wanted someplace quiet. He said the party was making his ears hurt."

"You could've gone off someplace else."

"Look, I'm sorry! I didn't think we were going to do anything, and we didn't."

"Did he—?" You're torn between a prurient curiosity about what your alter ego got up to and a horror of what the answer would be. "What did he think you were going to do?"

"Jesus, ask him! We just talked. Okay? Jesus!"

You grunt.

"I didn't feel like he was trying to, you know," she mutters. Then: "God, why am I trying to explain things to you? You're not my mother!"

"Well, everyone thinks that—"

"Oh, God!" She pulls her knees to her face. "You know, people sneak off at other parties, and no one thinks that—!" She breaks off, snuffling heavily.

One very glib reply floats in the forefront of your brain: Sure they think it. Anytime two people go off together everyone assumes they're looking for a place to fuck. Okay, not everyone thinks that, but enough people think it that Mia should have known better.

But you feel a deeper reaction way down in your gut. It's like a low but powerful rumble that sends a shiver all the way up your spine and a tingle over your scalp: Everyone just assumed that Will Prescott was going to fuck Mia DeWitt in your bedroom.

Incredible! You assumed it too, without even realizing it. You could never have pictured yourself doing that. But apparently everyone—including Terry Colson—could imagine this Will Prescott doing it.

There could be no better proof that this Will Prescott is not the same as the old one.

Now you do burn to know what this one is like.

* * * * *

Saturday morning. You're up at nine—early enough to meet Andrew as he comes stumbling in, red-eyed, from his date—but you wait until eleven to text Will. He texts back to suggest basketball at this old elementary school near his house. That gives you a moment of panic—What if he finds the "clubhouse" in the basement?—before you remember that you've moved out of there permanently. You counter by suggesting a game of tennis, but yield to his preferences when he gives you a hard No in reply.

He's a lot better at basketball than you ever were. He is fast, and even with Terry's long arms he can put the ball around you, then cut past to catch it again and put it through the basket. He also has an unerring eye, and when he's tired of a running game he just stands off and swishes basket after basket after basket. He's brutal, too, and has no compunction about running you over or mugging you to get the ball away. After twenty minutes of hard humiliation, you resign the game. He accepts with a shrug, and informs you that in a real game his antics would have fouled him out in the first five minutes.

"Whatever," you say. "I wanted to talk about last night."

"What about it?"

His blunt reply stops you very short, so that you can only stare at him. He still looks as unimpressive as you always felt. He's lanky, with rabbity eyes that peer out from under bushy bangs. But there's a hardness to his eyes, and his jaw is set. The stare he returns you isn't hostile, but it isn't puzzled, either. He's waiting for me to call him out, you realize. He isn't going to apologize, and he's not even going to explain it. He's just going to listen to me, and shrug, and tell me I can stick it someplace if I don't like it.

So you change tack: "Are you serious about Mia?"

He actually starts a little, and glances away. "I dunno. What's it matter to you?"

"Are you serious about Dorothy?"

"Oh, fuck." He puts his hands on his hips and looks down.

"I'm just curious, man. It doesn't matter. Not to me. Shit, I'm not serious about anyone, and I've had more than a couple of girls in my bed." He looks up sharply at that. "No one expects any better from me," you continue. "So, you know, as long as people know what to expect from you—" You break off.

"I dunno," he grunts His jaw works. "Like— I dunno."

"Well, after last night, maybe everyone will get it and it'll be okay. Dorothy and Emily are pissed at you, though."

"Whatever."

You sigh. "Yeah, whatever. They'll get over it. Like, they get you now."

"Huh."

You ball up your fists. This is one undemonstrative motherfucker.

"Well," you say aloud, "I just wanted to, clear the air a little. See if there was anything I needed to straighten out, see if there was anything you wanted me to, uh, explain to people." Your ears start to burn. What a lame thing to say.

"Huh," Will grunts again. "I guess that's pretty cool." He glances around the old schoolyard, and you tense up, waiting for him to dismiss you.

Instead, his gaze gets hooked inside yours, and for a moment he gives you a penetrating stare. Then he says, "You got any beer left from last night?"

"Some."

"Let's go, then," he says.

You marvel at how casually he has invited himself over to your place—as though it's his, and you're the guest—and at how easily you accept it. He doesn't talk much on the way back to Andrew's apartment, leaving you with plenty of time to wonder if this is you rolling over so easily for him, or if it is Terry.

* * * * *

The bedroom door is shut, but Andrew is a heavy sleeper and it's just you and Will, so you don't bother being quiet. You plonk down next to the stereo with a couple of beers. You find yourself explaining to Will again (as Terry had just a week before) the circumstances of Terry's life: How your father's a drunk and your mother is seriously bipolar, so you've moved out and taken a bed in your brother's apartment. This time, though, Will actually seems to be listening, and you doubt you'll have to tell him again.

He's more evasive when talking about himself—as you expected—and only allows that his dad works for an engineering firm and that he has a little brother. When you ask him about his classes, he only says, "They're fucking classes," puts back some beer, and asks you about the tennis team.

Talk is suspended by lots of silences. Will isn't shy about turning off in the middle of the conversation to study the CD tower or your brother's bookshelf, and pulls out a paperback or two to study while grunting answers to your comments and questions. He doesn't seem bored, though, and even after minutes of silence (during which he stares hard at the ceiling or the wall) he will pick things up right where they had left off, or circle back around to pick up talking about some topic you left off earlier.

After one such silence, though, you pick things up with a topic you (and Terry) have been curious about for awhile. "So last time we were out here—you, me, Sean and Spencer—you were talking about Chelsea Cooper." Will's eyes harden, and his lips whiten at her name. "Where did all that come from? All that stuff you were telling us about her and—" You leave off, and let him infer the rest of the sentence: her pussy.

He holds your eye, then sinks back in his seat and stretches out his legs. He clasps his hands behind his head.

"It's something I used to think about a lot," he says. "I was obsessed with her. You know?"

"Yeah?"

"I'd think about—" His jaw works. "Everything I'd do to her. Love to do to her. How I'd turn her inside out. Make her pant and scream."

"You made it sound like first-hand knowledge."

He gives you another hard look. "Yeah, well, I got a good imagination."

You almost feel sorry for him.

"But fuck it," he says. "I'm over that, I'm over her. I want some pussy I can actually pinch." He holds up his forefinger and thumb.

That's all for now.

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"