Chapter 1: The Phone Call
The phone rang and Jose stumbled out of bed to answer it. He picked up the phone, wiped his eyes, and answered it.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Jose. This is Jennifer."
"Oh hi!" he replied. "What's up?"
As he asked that question, he had already considered several reasons for his best friend's girlfriend to be calling him. More than likely, Travis had told her some story and she was calling to verify it. Jose knew he would have to be careful.
"Nothing, just wanted to call you up and say hello," Jennifer said.
Jose laughed. "It must be a very boring day," he said. He stifled a yawn.
"You guys were out pretty late last night?" she asked.
Jose relaxed. If all she wanted to know about was last night, he was on fairly safe ground.
"Yeah, fifty cent beer night at the Draft house, as I'm sure you know. We closed it out, then caught a cab back to the frat house." Jennifer was only nineteen, and the bars on Mill Avenue had already taken all of her fakes, so she stayed home on bar nights.
"I thought you guys hated it when somebody uses the word 'frat' instead of fraternity," Jennifer said.
"We do. It's like using an ethnic slur. If we say it, it's okay. If you say it, it ticks us off," Jose said.
"I called Travis about three in the morning, and he didn't answer his phone."
"We sat on the porch talking for a while, then I went and passed out in my room. I'm not sure what time it was, but you know Travis; even if he was in his room he could have slept through the phone ringing."
"Yeah," she said. There was a space of moments.
"Listen, I want to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest with me."
"Okay," he said, annoyed at the remark about being honest. He never lied to her, even if he did cover for his friend.
"Well, I was wondering if you wanted to sleep with me?" she asked.
Jose was surprised by the question, to say the least. He laughed a little, and then said, "Are you asking because of what Travis told you I said?"
Jose knew where this was coming from. Two weeks before, Jennifer had found a note on Travis's door from a girl named Danielle. The note thanked him for fixing her car, and offered to buy him lunch. Jennifer had gone ballistic, assuming because Travis knew so little about car repair that he must be cheating on her. In her mind, this bitch Danielle must be trying to rub it in her face. A fight ensued as soon as he got back from class, and Travis had been in a tight place. On the positive side, all he'd done was give Danielle's car a jump start in the library parking lot, and even Jennifer could admit there was nothing wrong with that. But against him was the fact he had slept with the girl in question that very night. Floundering about for something to save himself, he had told Jennifer that she had no right to be jealous. She asked him why he thought that, and he replied that his best friend Jose wanted to fuck her, and despite that he wasn't jealous when they hung out.
It was rather an ingenious little ploy on his part, and it worked. The fight calmed down, and he believed that she saw his side of the argument. If Jennifer suddenly had another agenda, she didn't tell anyone.
"Yes, it has to do with that. You told me at the party that you didn't say anything like that, but Travis told me later that you went right to him and yelled at him for telling on you," Jennifer said.
Jose sighed. He was twenty-three, and in no mood for high school he-said/she-said games.
"Travis knows exactly what I said and how I said it," he finally said.
"What exactly did you say, and exactly how did you say it?" she demanded.
Jose took a breath and then explained. "He asked me what I thought of you, because he said that you were worried that I didn't like you. I told him that I thought you were very nice. He asked me if I thought you were hot, and I said, quote: 'Hell, yes. I'd fuck her,' end quote. It was a joking way to say that I thought you were attractive, and in no way was I telling him that I actually wanted him to lend you to me for sex. I mean, think about that? Would I ask my best friend to lend me his girlfriend?"
"Oh," Jennifer said. She thought about it. "I did worry about that, because you always left as soon as I came over. You never hung out."
Jose breathed a little easier, because he was lying a little about the conversation. First of all, the reason Jose left every time she came over was because Travis had given him their private signal to jet. A little wave of the left hand, palm up, was a signal not to cockblock. Secondly, the conversation in question, allegedly about why Jose always left when she came into the room, had never technically occurred. Travis knew very well why Jose left so quickly after Jennifer arrived, because he was the one giving the signal to depart. The actual conversation had been Jose trying to convince Travis not to cheat on his loyal and undeniably attractive girlfriend. Jose had brought up the relative merits of the various girls Travis had slept with while dating Jennifer, and finally to Danielle.
"You trying to make a move on that Pi Phi, Melanie? That I can understand. If you are going to be an asshole, at least I can see why; blonde and blue, five foot two, best chest surgery can buy. That I can see. But this Danielle girl with the bad battery? She weighs as much as I do," he had said, trying to appeal to Travis's ego as much as his reason, because that was the way to convince his friend of anything. "You look bad going with her."
Travis had then asked him if he thought Jennifer was as hot as Melanie, and Jose had uttered the phrase: "Hell yes. I'd fuck her."
"Jennifer or Melanie?" Travis had asked.
"Yes," had been his reply, and they had laughed. What Travis did was his own business, and once some friendly advice was given Jose did not speak of it again.
"But you did say that you'd fuck me? Because either you or Travis is lying about something," Jennifer said, bringing his mind back into the present conversation
Jose was getting a bit angry with a girl for accusing him of being a liar when he'd actually been trying to help her out. He didn't answer.
She waited him out, and finally he said, "I'm sure you can figure everything out for yourself on that part."