The Unlikely Quarterback Ch. 02

"Let's take people smarts for example. You are a genius at talking to people. Your negotiation tactics are amazing, why the other day I was on the phone trying to convince the phone company representative that they made a mistake on our bill and I just pissed them off. You got on the phone and worked your magic with them and got them to not only reverse our bill, but they actually apologized to you... You're amazing. Don't get me started on art..." I started to say, but I was interrupted by a sudden kiss.

I wasn't the most experienced at it, so I tried mimicking what she was doing. Our lips pressed together, slightly parted, a slight feel of tongue brushing the upper lip. Then as suddenly as it started it ended.

"Good start, but you need some work... maybe we'll practice later. I gotta go, the bell rung, bye," she beamed, winking.

I stood dazed for a minute, not sure what to make of it. Delilah was like a sister to me. I have had feelings for her off and on for years ranging from a serious crush to loathing. So, our brother/sister type relationship that we had, now seemed to be getting muddled.

What was Stephanie going to think of all of this? My own sister is hotter than Delilah, and I would be lying if I said I never thought of her as something more than a sister. Regardless, she was my sister first and I could never go there with her, and my lust was never more than a flash of a thought and quickly disregarded. However, Stephanie often threw mixed signals about me. She would get overprotective when any girl insulted me and often acted jealous if I gave any girl attention when she was around. I didn't know what to make of it. How was she going to react to Delilah and me?

I found out soon enough. We three normally walked home together from school, but when I approached Stephanie and Delilah, they were arguing. I couldn't hear what they were arguing about, but they were using hushed tones so that any of the other kids milling about in front of the school wouldn't overhear. I guessed they must have been arguing over me because they kept looking up at me and making different faces.

"How's my favorite girls?" I asked trying to break the sudden silence that enveloped the two since I got in range.

Stephanie gave me this look of anger which melted as soon as I draped my arm over her shoulders and pulled her to my side. Delilah not to be outdone hooked her arm through mine and leaned into me.

"Come on, Steph. You can tell me how wrong I am on the way home."

Surprising to me, neither girl left my side, nor had anything to say for most of the walk back. It used to annoy me having to walk with them, especially the first couple of weeks of school. I used to ride my bike to school but now that they went to my school, mom insisted I walk them to school. I didn't mind though, I felt more protective of them and would have done it anyway. I just wished they didn't walk so slow.

The year before, I used to either ride my bike, take the bus or walk everywhere. It was hard to ever see me without my nose in a book. The only time I wasn't reading while I was out and about was when I was riding my bike and half the time I walked just so I could read.

I had a drivers license but I was still a minor at the time and couldn't buy a car by myself and my mom wouldn't let me buy my own car. But now that I was eighteen I was looking to change that.

Back then, downtown Long Beach was a dump. But I loved it. They had pawn shops, thrift stores and used book stores everywhere. I used to come home with stacks of used books every time I traveled downtown. I had five bookshelves full of used books at home and eventually I would bring into the stores with me to trade, not really for the money as I needed to make space for more books. Downtown had these eclectic things that made it wonderful. There was a free tram that would do a loop every few minutes and take you from their crappy mall all the way down to Shoreline Village. Shoreline Village was this fake shopping village right next to their private boat harbor. From there you could look across the bay at the Queen Mary and the Spruce Goose.

I walked so much that I got used to walking fast. I could walk a mile in ten minutes - faster than a lot of people can jog. So, walking with the girls was a real change of pace because I had to force myself to slow down.

"Oh, before I forget. Here, I made you these," I said as I reached into my backpack.

I handed Delilah a cassette tape that I labeled with her name on it. Then I handed one to Stephanie with her name on it.

"Ahh, that's sweet," Delilah said sarcastically, "You know, we don't have a cassette player at home."

Stephanie didn't say anything, she just smiled and kissed me on my cheek.

"Well, that's why I got you these," I said, nonchalantly handing them each a Walkman.

"No way!" Delilah cried, "You're the best boyfriend ever."

Stephanie looked bothered by that for a split second, but she became too overwhelmed and jumped on me and gave me a full-frontal hug, and kissed me all over my face. She did that kind of thing a lot, especially when she got excited. She started it after seeing a Minnie Mouse cartoon where Minnie kisses Mickey all over his face leaving Micky looking dazed. Lucky for me, she didn't leave lipstick marks all over my face, like in the cartoon.

"You're the best brother I could ever ask for. You knew I have been wanting one of these... Wait. How can you afford this? They are like a hundred dollars each or something."

"Look, I missed your birthday last month while you went away to cheer camp, and Di's birthday is coming up this week, so consider it your birthday presents."

"OK, Mikey. But, how can you afford it?" Delilah reiterated.

"I did some tutoring during my time off," I lied.

The truth was I was making a lot of money and I could easily afford it.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" they both exclaimed excitedly.

I knew how important music was in the social scenes at school and we, being poor, didn't have money for frivolous things such as Walkmans. We were relegated to listening to the radio like most everyone else. Now they had the tools to "be in the know" when a musicophile tested them on their knowledge of pop culture.

"You didn't think that was it, did you?" I asked, handing them each an envelope.

"What's this? Mike, you already did enough..." Stephanie said, but Delilah just tore into her envelope.

Inside was a birthday card, and inside the card I wrote each of them a note summarizing why they were important to me. Delilah ignored the inside, only seeing the gift certificate for Tower Records inside.

"Wow, no way!" she exclaimed, holding up the paper certificate for 100 dollars.

She started jumping around hugging me, then jumping around even more.

"Well you'll need some music to go with it. By the way, these newer models have built in AM/FM radios too and you can record the radio or voice onto a blank cassette."

I looked over at Stephanie and she was crying as she read my note. Delilah looked at her guiltily and as an afterthought started reading what I wrote to her too.

I never had any homework as I had only a few classes left, and I usually did any homework in my free periods, so my backpack only had my Gi and the presents. I took the time to show them how to work a Walkman, then I told them to hide them in their backpacks to guard against thieves.

"I know this isn't the best place to give these to you, but I got to get to my class and I figured you could listen to them on the way home."

Most of the dojos had later classes but this one only had one right after school, so I only walked them halfway home. They didn't seem to mind, and each gave me one last hug and kiss goodbye and I was walking on air all the way to class.

I got home late that night. Sensei decided to punish the class for two knuckleheads' disrespect and we ended up being grilled for an hour more than usual. I guess the thinking there was that if you show disrespect and everyone gets punished then everyone will punish you later. The only problem with that, sensei did it ALL the time, so it was pointless to get mad at anyone for his temper. I'd quit the dojo altogether if I wasn't getting anything out of it. My other dojos had better mentors, so I treated it like a test of patience.

I heard the girls in the den watching their favorite shows as I snuck into the kitchen. I was famished so I was looking for any leftovers.

"So, the prodigal son returns," mom stated sarcastically.

"Shit! - Err - sorry Mom, you scared the crap out of me!"

"Language!"

"I know Mom. Where the he... heck did you come from?" I asked, she must have been sitting at the table in the dark.

"I've just been sitting here thinking."

Something was bothering her it seemed like it had something to do with me.

"What's wrong mom?"

"Why? It's not like you care or anything, wasting your money on frivolous things!"

"Come on mom! They were birthday gifts. All birthday gifts are frivolous by design. Besides, it's not a waste if they use it."

"That was hundreds of dollars Mike, we could have used that to fix the car or..."

"Or?"

She looked to the side ashamed, and responded, "Nothing, I shouldn't have said anything."

"I'm eighteen years old, Mom! I think you forget that sometimes. Why are you punishing me? I spent money I earned on things I wanted..."

"I know it's just..."

"Just what? Come on Mom, spit it out. Good or bad just say it so you aren't festering over it anymore."

"I know, I'm just stressed out. We are barely paying our bills as it is, and I have no right to ask you to help. But when I see that other people have money that we could have used for other things it - it just gets to me is all," she said with tears streaming down her face.

I had been secretly paying off overdue bills for the past year now, knowing my Mom would be too proud to accept my help.

"You know I haven't bought myself any new clothes in almost two years?" she sobbed.

I pulled her into a hug and said, "Listen Mom, I get that you are stressed over the bills. But you know you have a genius in the family, right?" I said, humorously to which she smirked. "Why don't you let me handle the bills from now on? I can put us on a budget, and I bet at the end of the day we will even have enough money to fix the car - Annndd get you some new clothes," I stated, to which she suddenly looked relieved.

"I can't ask you to do that..."

"Nonsense! Show me the bills."

She took me to the pile of bills on her desk.

"OK, tomorrow I'm going to need you to add me to your checking account and authorize me to access all of your bills... OK?" I asked, looking at her, to which she nodded. "I'll give you a list of numbers and account numbers for you to call tomorrow."

She grabbed me around the waist and pulled me in for a tight hug.

"I'm just so useless," she moaned, "I'm just glad I have such a wonderful son like you!"

I stepped out of Mom's room and ran into Delilah and she kind of gave me an embarrassed look. I guessed that they overheard everything because Stephanie was following right behind her.

Stephanie mumbled, "Best brother ever..." just loud enough for me to hear.

*

True to my word I did tackle the books so to speak. Mom took me to the bank and put me on her account as a joint user and called all the utilities and put me on as an authorized customer for the household.

It turned out that my mom had been balancing the books with her credit cards and owed over 5 thousand dollars. I set up a budget for the household and got all the bills caught up. I told mom some lies about getting a good deal on getting her car fixed and their accepting payments with no interest. The truth was I just paid to get her car fixed. I rented her a car and told her it was a loaner from the mechanics, she ate up my lies like they were candy.

I had enough money to pay her credit card bills, but I figured that she would just start accruing more debt if she could still use her cards, so I got her to seek debt consolidation. They normally let you pay off the bills at pennies to the dollar but since she owned a house, most of her debtors wouldn't go for it. I did negotiate it down to 80% threatening bankruptcy, they caved in, but they also closed all her accounts and no credit card company would give her credit for years to come.

We had a card cutting party and I assured her that without the interest on the cards we would have enough money to make the payments. The truth was, she wasn't making enough money to pay her cards off and her bills, so I paid her cards off and just let her believe that I performed some sort of magic juggling act with her books to balance them.

I didn't want her to know that I was her white knight. I wanted to take her stress away without letting my family know I was making money on the side. It was totally worth seeing her face as I said that I put in a 200 dollar a month spending allowance that she could use for whatever she wanted, clothes, makeup, perfume or anything 'frivolous'. I made sure to call it her frivolous budget, which made her happy.

After I took care of the family finances, the stress level in the house went WAY down and for a couple of months everyone was happy. Like everything in life though, you get used to the status quo and soon enough other petty things invaded our tranquility.

*

Delilah kept pushing the boundaries on our affection. We started out as 'fake' boyfriend/girlfriend as we planned and only put on a show at school. I must admit that Delilah was affecting me. I started to have a secret crush on her. Then she started kissing me at home and asking me to do things for her more and more and the pretense of our 'fake' relationship became muddled.

I tried talking to Stephanie about it one day. She bluntly told me that she was using me. My feelings for Delilah were blinding me and I couldn't accept the truth emotionally but rationally what she said made sense. I needed a way to force Delilah to expose herself to get past my emotional blocks.

We kissed, held hands and sat cuddled together watching rented Blockbuster movies on the VCR. Sometimes Stephanie would bear through her disgust and sit across from us in the love seat. It's funny because it used to be Stephanie that would cuddle with me. Granted her, being my sister, didn't allow for the kissing and petting under the covers that we were doing. But, I still missed her, because her love for me was genuine but teenage hormones usually ruled those moments.

We were walking to school one day and Delilah blurted, "Mikey, why don't you try out for the football team? You're a big guy, your strong and athletic, I bet you'd be great at it."

The level of control Delilah had over me, looking back, was scary. "I don't know. I guess I never considered myself much of a jock."

"But, you're in better shape than half the football team. I bet you'd make varsity..." she looked at me and recognized that I wasn't convinced. "Look, if you got on the football team it would be great for our rep. We'd get into more parties."

"Do I look like a party animal?" I asked flabbergasted. "Why would I want to get into ANY parties, much less MORE parties?"

"Come on, Mikey, it's not always about you. Besides you could use some socializing," she guilted. "Annnnd, Stephanie is trying out for a spot on the cheer squad, if you got on the team I bet you'd be able to get her a spot."

"Oh no! Leave me out of it, I'll get the cheer spot on my own merit," Stephanie blurted. "Besides, don't you have to go to football camp or something? And, tryouts are next week! Most of the spots are already taken after football camp."

I looked at Delilah as if to say "See?"

"Come on, Miiiiikeeey. Please, please, please," she begged. Then she used the magical manipulative words that girlfriends have been using since there were words, "Do it for me."

*

"Sorry, son, but you don't do football camp you don't tryout. Maybe next year," coach Ryan (the head football coach) said.

"Come on coach. Give me a chance. This is my last year here, there won't be a next year."

"I wish I could, son, but rules are rules," he brushed me off and continued to where he was going.

I don't know why I did it. I had the perfect out. I was told I couldn't try out. All I had to do was go back to Delilah and let her know. But, I never liked it when people threw up bureaucratic roadblocks. No one told me rules are rules. If you did that I'd get the rulebook and read it every time. So, that's what I did.

Besides, if I could get on the team it would look good on my transcript. Since I had very little experience playing football, I wanted to try out for something easier like track or something, but track didn't start for a couple of months so I had no excuses.

After I got what I needed from the administration office and reviewed the school rules specifically dealing with football tryouts I brought my findings to the coach.

The coach didn't look too impressed and was trying to find a way around what I found.

"You see, I didn't attend ANY school last year. As a matter of fact, I had to reapply to get in this year. That means I am a new student and new students (usually freshman or transfer students) are waived from the football camp rule."

"Look, son, I appreciate your dedication but what do you know of football?"

"Not much," I said, and his look turned to triumph. "But, I have studied the rules, I've watched a few games and I'm in shape... and I was the MVP in the summer league at the park. Tryouts aren't until next week and I have two free periods. Maybe you can run me through some drills then..." he liked my answer, but I needed to seal the deal. "Give me a chance coach. I'll put in the work. I promise you there won't be anyone that will work harder than me and I'll make up for not going to camp. If you're not happy with my work ethic at any point just let me know and I'll drop it."

He looked deep in thought and I thought he'd say no, but he surprised me and said, "Fine, we don't have much time to get you caught up, if you're serious about this you better get your ass in gear. Clear your schedule, because you start today!" he looked at me expectantly. "I also want you practicing with the team after school."

"I have martial arts class after school... But, I'll move things around, football will be my number one priority."

"If you are as dedicated as you say then work it out. Now scram, I got work to do."

I had to move around a lot of things, to work football practice into my schedule. Homework wasn't an issue, I usually only needed twenty minutes to get it all done. The biggest issue was my martial arts training and my programming jobs. I was able to double up a few days and cut down on my training temporarily so that I was only going one day a week instead of two. Most of my work I did over the weekend. But, even with all this freed up time I was swamped. I no longer was able to walk with the girls to and from school. I needed to ride my bike just to save some time. Every day, I came home exhausted, if I wasn't coming home from back to back dojo sessions, I was busting my ass running drills with the football team after school.

The funny thing was that Delilah was acting more distant from me despite my doing my best to get on the team under her prompting. But, I was too busy and tired to really investigate.