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  “I have to think about this,” said Faith. “Why don’t we meet at my dorm room tomorrow and we’ll talk? Okay?”

  “That sounds good,” I agreed.

  I kissed her again lightly. She got up, holding my hand until she walked far enough away for it to drop. I watched her fantastic ass until it disappeared into the shadows of the campus trees. Then I sat down at the park bench and tried to relax.

  I still had a massive boner.

  After a few minutes, everything calmed down and I could finally stand up and walk. I was pretty confident that Faith would take the money, but what if she didn’t? What the hell would I do then? She’d leave and end up working at a gas station off campus or something. I wouldn’t even be able to see her!

  As I walked across the campus trying to work things out in my head, I spotted Gregory loading up his truck. Damn, it was late for him to be out!

  “Hey Gregory,” I greeted.

  “Mason!”

  “Logan, actually,” I corrected.

  “Logan? Oh, yeah,” he recognized. “Sorry, it’s dark in this parking lot.”

  “What are you doing out so late? I thought the maintenance crew went home hours ago,” I inquired.

  “Oh, someone drove into a bunch of parked cars and pushed them into a sapling. The college doesn’t want anyone to see the damage, so the cars got towed away and I got called in to get rid of the tree before anyone noticed,” he explained.

  I looked in the back of his truck. There was a stump with roots and a trunk that had been split in half. I wasn’t sure where the top of the tree was.

  “Jeez, you had to dig that whole stump out by yourself?” I said, mildly impressed.

  “Ah, it’s not that hard once you cut the main root. Just takes a while is all,” he explained. “How about you? You partying up on campus tonight?”

  “Well, I was at this party with a girl, but--- Ah, it’s a long story. I’ll let you get home,” I said.

  “My night is shot anyway,” he dismissed. “Got some good overtime though. I got time to listen if you want to tell me while I have a smoke.”

  Gregory lit up and I told my story. We leaned against the back of his truck. I told him about Mason, Faith and the big switch at the party. I told him about Kyle and the confrontation. Then I told him about the phone call and that I had offered to buy her family’s house.

  “Hmmm,” said Gregory thoughtfully, his brown eyes distant. “You don’t realize the power of money, my friend.”

  “I was just trying to help,” I said. “Did I do anything wrong?”

  “Nah, but you have to understand,” he explained. “Working folks like us, we have pride. You can’t just throw you money around. It feels like you’re buying her affection, ya know?”

  “No, but I’m really into her, Gregory,” I insisted. “I mean, I really thinking I’m falling hard for this girl.”

  “Wait, did you say you were Mason or Logan?” he asked.

  “Logan.”

  “And is this the same girl?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Oh, Lord,” he said shaking his head and then taking another drag. “You boys got yourself a world of trouble here. I told your brother, you have to ask this girl who she wants. The woman gets to choose, not the man.”

  “But so far, she says she likes both of us,” I said.

  “I don’t see how that’s going to work,” said Gregory. “She religious?”

  “Catholic,” I explain.

  “Oh, no-no-no, she can’t date you both,” Gregory laughed. “Them Catholic girls can be strict. Their parents are going to want to know your business. Man and if you buy their house--- Damn, Logan, you got a complex life, my friend.”

  “I know,” I admitted. “I don’t know how it happened. Just a few days ago, all I had to worry about was football practice.”

  “This is a love triangle with money and brothers and everything,” said Gregory. “You boys could be a movie-of-the-week. The most important thing and I told you brother--- You two are family. Family is forever. Don’t forget that much.”

  ‘Yeah, I know,” I said.

  “Well, I guess wait to see if she takes the money,” speculated Gregory. “If she takes it, her parents could hardly object to you two. Then again, if she don’t take it, she’ll probably have to quit college. Then you make your move, but in secret. At least until that girl makes up her mind.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said, thoughtfully rubbing my chin.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful,” said Gregory. “But damn, that’s a tough call. You boys get into some crazy shit. And hey, you got football games to win. Don’t forget about that.”

  “Yeah, I know. Thanks anyway,” I said, bumping fists with him. “See you around campus.”

  Gregory nodded, flicked away the rest of his cigarette and got into his truck. I watched him drive away. I could see from the parking lot the long winding road leading away from campus. He was headed back to town to be with his friends and family. Someday I would leave this campus for the last time to do the same.

  Chapter 10

  Mason

  “Hey? Hey, bro. You awake?”

  This was not the way I usually like to start my mornings. I squinted my eyes open and looked up at Logan. He was standing over me in his towel, fresh from the shower.

  “Dude, I was asleep,” I said, rolling over and covering my face with a pillow.

  “I know, that’s why I woke you up,” he explained, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “We have to talk.”

  “Whatever is, it can wait,” I muttered through my pillow.

  “It’s about Faith.”

  I threw the pillow aside.

  “What happened? What did you do?” I demanded, sitting up and staring at him.

  “Nothing. Well, some things happened, but she’s in trouble,” he insisted. “You gotta back me up with dad on the phone.”

  “Wait-wait-wait, hold up,” I said, finally processing. “What happened on the date last night?”

  “You don’t really want to know, do you?”

  Logan moved around our shared room, gathering his clothes to get dressed.

  “I never wanted to know something more in my life,” I insisted. “What happened?!”

  “Okay, promise you won’t get mad?”

  “No! I absolutely do not promise. What is going on with Faith? What happened?”

  “Things got a little hot and heavy,” he admitted.

  “You had sex with her?! You weren’t supposed to have sex with her!” I snapped.

  “First off, I asked her out first. Second off, I think I really like this chick. Why can’t we both date her?”

  “What? She’s a religious Catholic for one! And she was into me, first! What did you do! Tell me what you did!”

  “Okay, just calm down.”

  He sat on his bed and pulled boxers on underneath his towel.

  “No! Tell me now, Logan!”

  “Okay, so we went to the party and Kyle got insulting. At first, I was thinking about sabotaging you, but I stopped myself. Then I nearly beat up Kyle and we got kicked out. We made out at the party.”

  “That, I expected.”

  “Well, what did you think was going to happen?! We’re identical twins, Mason! And she’s attracted to this look!” he gestured to his whole body. “Plus, I was pretending to be you at your request!”

  “Fine!” I waved a hand at him. “I take my responsibility for this fiasco. Finish your story.”

  “Okay, so we’re on the quad and we kiss and it’s kind of intense. We end up on the park bench making out. Oh and by this time, she realized who I was. Or I told her. Doesn’t matter.”

  “It’s totally does matter! You weren’t supposed to tell her! Oh, God!”

  I rolled back down onto my bed, annoyed. Logan always did exactly what he wanted, never what I asked him to do.

  “Will you just listen?!” insisted Logan. “God! Okay, first off, she admitted she’s attr
acted to both of us, okay? So, process that for a minute. Second, her family is losing their house, so I offered to buy it.”

  “Oh, my God,” I muttered, pulling my pillow onto my chest.

  Yes, it was true, I was the shy brother. But I was also the brother with common sense enough not to just randomly promise people I barely knew huge amounts of money. Especially if those people happen to be a girl I’m crushing on. Talk about complicating the issue!

  “Have you lost your mind?!” I snapped. “Why would you offer to do that?! People have pride, Logan! That’s totally weird.”

  “Yeah,” admitted Logan, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “Gregory agrees with you.”

  “He knows? God! Who else did you tell?”

  He ignored me and continued pulling on his socks.

  “The point is, I need to convince dad to give us the money,” he explained. “It’s not like I’m asking for money for myself, right? This is almost like a charity or something.”

  “This is exactly like charity,” I countered. “But you’re on thin ice with dad as it is. He’s been threatening to take away your credit card. How much does Faith’s family need?”

  “Couple hundred K,” he said routinely.

  “A couple hundred?! Dad is pissed over the few thousand you wasted! He’s absolutely going to lose his mind!”

  “Yeah, but you, the good son, can help explain it. Right? Not for me, but for Faith. Then we’re like in with her without question!”

  “Yeah, but she’ll owe us all this money. It’ll be weird.”

  “We just don’t mention it,” he dismissed and then pulled on his t shirt. “It’ll never come up.”

  Despite this rather weird turn of events, my brother had a point. It would be a huge favor and it would cement the bond between us and Faith at least for a time. Hopefully, she wouldn’t grow to resent us.

  “And it won’t even matter if we end up marrying her or something,” added Logan, avoiding my gaze and casually pulling on his jeans.

  “Marrying her?!”

  “Oh, and I told Kyle we were engaged, so…”

  “Jesus! You did this all on one date?!”

  “It was a big night,” concluded my brother. “Look, are you going to help me win over dad or not?”

  “Sure, dial him up,” I said, sitting up again.

  “Let’s call from your phone,” he suggested. “You’re the responsible one.”

  “Okay,” I said, grabbing my smart phone.

  I went through my contacts and dialed dad. I had no idea what to say.

  “Hey, dad,” said Logan over my speaker phone. “It’s Logan and Mason here. How are you?”

  “Hey, guys,” he greeted. “I’m in between meetings, but I have a couple of minutes. What’s up?”

  “Dad, Logan and I have a friend who is in real trouble,” I explained. “Her family is losing their house.”

  “Yeah, and we want to buy it for her,” added Logan.

  I punched Logan. That was too fast, too soon. I gestured for him to slow his roll.

  “Dad?” said Logan.

  “Yeah, uh-huh,” he said cautiously. “You said this is a she, right? Who is this girl? Is she pregnant, Logan?”

  “No!” Logan said defensively.

  I tried my best to cut him off. Logan was just immensely bad at these things.

  “It’s nothing like that dad,” I explained. “She’s a really good friend of ours and her family is in trouble.”

  “It’s only a couple hundred grand,” Logan added.

  Again, I punched him and gestured for him to shut the hell up. He looked back at me, eyes questioning, wondering what he did wrong. God, he was like a bull in a China shop, verbally speaking.

  “Uh, boys, that’s a lot of money,” laughed dad. “How long have you known this girl?”

  I put my hand over Logan’s mouth. I didn’t want to lie to dad, but the truth would not sit well with him.

  “For quite a bit,” I explained. “We actually are sorta dating.”

  “Oh, Mason, look at you, buddy!” said dad happily.

  For a minute, I thought I had him. But Logan was just deaf, dumb and blind when it came to reading dad. He was too anxious to get what he wanted.

  “Yeah, I already promised her money last night, so can we get a check soon?” asked Logan.

  My mouth dropped open and I looked at him. He honestly didn’t realize that what he was doing was completely counter to our goals. I mouthed the words, “You fucking idiot.”

  “Wait. Now, who is dating her?” asked dad.

  There was some noise in the background. Dad was being called away.

  “Well…” I started but dad cut me off.

  “Boys, your expenses at college are already through the roof,” he chastised. “I don’t know where you think I’m getting this money.”

  “You have tons of money, dad,” assured Logan. “We’re rich as---“

  I put my hand over his mouth and I was determined to make sure he didn’t say another word.

  “Dad, listen. This is really important.” I begged.

  “Logan’s already spent thousands on clothes, a car and all sorts of gadgets for your room. Your credit card bill was over $12,000 and it’s not even the end of the first semester, young man,” said dad. “You can’t just keep coming back to the well, son.”

  Logan pulled my hand away.

  “But I already promised her, dad! C’mon! You have the money! Don’t be like that!”

  “What? Responsible?”

  “You give hundreds of thousands of dollars to those turds in Washington and you can’t do us this one favor? What the fuck?!”

  “Jesus Christ, Logan!” my dad and I simultaneously said.

  “You’d think twice about this if it was your money!” my father snapped. “I’m not your ATM, son!”

  “Well, you don’t come to our games! At least an ATM is there for people!” Logan snapped back.

  “Oh, really? Fine.” Dad’s voice was cold. “You are cut off! Both of you! When you’re ready to apologize, you call me back! And it better be a good apology, boy!”

  “Yeah, don’t hold your breath, old man!” screamed my brother.

  Logan hung up my phone and tossed it at the wall. It hit the wall with a crunch and slid down.

  “God! Do you believe him?!” said Logan.

  “Him?! What about you?! What the fuck was that?!” I demanded, getting up and walking over to retrieve my phone.

  “I was trying to be reasonable, but he just didn’t want to listen,” Logan insisted.

  “Reasonable?! You called him an ATM! How is getting insulted by your son, reasonable?!” I snapped.

  “He’s never come to one of our games, Mason!”

  “I know that! I complained to you about it!” I shouted. “How the Hell did you expect him to give us the money when you’re yelling at him?!”

  “Sorry,” he said calming down. “Guess I just got caught up in the moment. Should we call him again?”

  “Oh, sure! I’m sure he’ll be really receptive now!” I said sarcastically. I grabbed my phone and looked at it. Nothing broken.

  Logan looked like he wasn’t sure whether or not I was kidding.

  “Nooooo!” I finally said to him as he reached for the phone. “You fucking bonehead! How are we supposed to get the money for Faith now?!”

  “Wait, I’ll log onto our bank account,” suggested Logan getting out his laptop. “Maybe I can withdraw the money before he cuts us off.”

  I closed the lid of the laptop, nearly trapping his fingers.

  “There’s only like five grand in that account and you made it overdrawn!” I reminded him.

  “Oh, right,” he remembered. “Still, can’t we have a negative balance? Dad would just have to fill it in, right?”

  “That’s not how banks work! Do you have any idea how banks work?!” I snapped and then rolled my eyes.

  “Well, I don’t hear you coming up with any ideas! At least I’m tr
ying!” shouted Logan. “This isn’t all my fault!”

  “It’s totally your fault, dumbass! You promised Faith and you pissed off dad!”

  We sat in total silence for a few minutes, trying to think of a way out of this mess.

  “Do banks check to see if you have the money before you cash a check?”

  “Yes!”

  A few more minutes went by. We could sell our cars. That would bring in some cash. Might delay the inevitable for a few months. Then, maybe in time, we could go back to dad and ask for the rest. I was just about to suggest it when Logan came up with a really bad idea.

  “I got it!” he said. “I’ll place another bet with Kyle!”

  “Are you out of your mind?!” I said incredulous. “You already owe Kyle thousands of dollars and you can’t pay him!”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t know that we’ve been cut off,” Logan assured me. “Besides, you haven’t placed any bets. He would totally take a bet from you.”

  “I don’t know anything about betting!” I snapped. “This is the worst plan of all time!”

  “I would just pretend to be you again and place the bet,” said Logan. “I know all the teams and the point spreads.”

  “Yeah, which means Kyle would immediately know the bet was actually coming from you,” I concluded. “No way. This is a stupid idea.”

  “Wait! What if you bet our team?! That would totally make sense and we have an awesome team!”

  “We’re not allowed to bet on our own team!” I insisted. “We’re not allowed to gamble, period! If we’re caught, we’ll be kicked off the team and we’ll never go pro!” I snapped, falling back onto my bed and covering my eyes with my arm. “This is a bad plan!”

  “You didn’t care when I was betting with Kyle,” said Logan, a little hurt.

  “I absolutely did care and said you shouldn’t do it!” I lifted my arm and glared at him.

  “Look, Kyle is a scumbag, but he’s a Highwater College scumbag. The bet is just between us and him. He’s not a real bookie. He doesn’t keep records. He’s just a rich douche that likes to gamble,” explained Logan. “If he turned us in, he’d be the biggest douchebag on campus! Every sports fan in ten miles would want to kill him. He’ll never turn us in!”