The Unlikely Quarterback Ch 12

*Thanks to Alwaysready64 for editing and contributing some snippets of this story, and PASTMASTER for his beta reading and editing.

*All sex described in this story will be between adults, 18 or over.

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Chapter 12 - Candy, Simone and The Brady Bunch

I tried not thinking about Candy, but my thoughts hung around. I was feeling sorry for myself and trying my best to look at the bright side, but I couldn't think of one. I mean sure, other people had it worse than me, I rationalized, but then I'd think if I just had her I could handle anything those other guys had to go through. The internal debate raged on and I wavered between rational and irrational.

I needed an outlet so I threw on some workout clothes and went running. I ran through neighborhoods until I reached the ocean (later found it was about 3.3 miles to the ocean and 15 miles round trip). I still was in turmoil so I ran some more, running along the bike/walk path that bordered the sand beach of Long Beach. I kept running until I got to Shoreline Village and stopped to get some water and a frozen yogurt from Hedi's Frogen Yozurt. I people watched some fisherman who lined the rocky shore of the L.A. river outlet. Some looked like avid novices and others looked more homeless than anything else.

Once I got back home, a lot of my rational thoughts were winning out over my irrational ones and I felt a lot better. As soon as I cleared my doorway, I heard a whistling. I turned and saw Simone gawking at me.

"What? I went for a run..."

"Um, first of all, since when? You're not a runner, I am. You're the weight lifting martial artist!"

"Yeah, well I needed to work off some frustrations."

"Yeah, I heard Candy got engaged. That wouldn't have anything to do with it would it?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you better get some more appropriate running shorts next time..." she said, gazing at my crotch.

I looked down and saw the sweat soaked shorts clung to my package highlighting everything I had to offer. The only good thing was, I wasn't sporting an erection and since I was running the whole time, I doubt anyone had time to take notice.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," I said red faced, "I'm going to take a shower."

My kitchen and master bath were fully remodeled and I was finally all moved in. The girls helped me decorate my room so it wasn't completely masculine but neither was it a pink petalled nightmare either. All the flooring throughout the house was completely replaced with either new carpeting or hardwood flooring and all that was left were little projects. The outside looked great - all our hard work paid off. I did have a few large jobs done by the professional such as the sodding and the carpentry work on the back deck, but most of the other projects we took on ourselves and we were proud of it.

I now had a walk-in shower and a separate tub for bathing. I drew a bath but while the tub filled up, I rinsed off most of my sweat and grime in the shower. Then I eased myself into the tub. I had a sound system installed in my bathroom that would play CDs and the radio through the walls. I just started to relax to some music when I heard a faint noise and ignored it thinking Simone must be doing something out in the hallway.

She must have been a ninja in another life or I was really tired because I didn't realize she was getting in the tub until I felt the water rising suddenly. I looked up to see, a bikini clad Simone slowly easing herself into the hot water.

My tub was extra-large to fit my tall frame, but it was so large in fact that two people could fit in it comfortably. Simone loved to use my tub, but normally when I wasn't in it. I had some bubbles covering my private parts so I had something to cover my erection. She sat down directly across from me, where our backs were on opposite sides of the tub.

Normally I would freak out if someone I wasn't currently sleeping with snuck in my tub like that. Don't get me wrong, Simone is hot and my freaking out wouldn't have lasted more than a few seconds, but I didn't even react. It was like, Oh yeah, sure, why not?

I know what I would normally be thinking, she was trying to have sex with me. But that was farthest from the truth. Yes, I guess if I pushed things, I could have made things happen. We were both still attracted to each other. But we had this unspoken agreement to be friends, because she was afraid to hurt me again and I didn't want to despoil the friendship we had rebuilt by having sex. So, we played a little footsie, splashed each other and played like we were children.

Eventually, she got up, turned around and laid her back into my chest. I wrapped my arms around her hugging her to me and like a comforting stuffed animal I cried into her shoulder. She shushed me, turned her head leaned to the side and kissed my cheek. She knew the pain I was going through. This time she wasn't the cause of it, this time she was there for me.

*

I sat out on my new back deck. It was a beautiful masterpiece, resplendent with redwood flooring, and shade roofing that had 4 X 8 redwood boards spaced out by four inches, not meant to keep the weather out just the sun. There were mini water waterfalls, a koi pond, a firepit and newly planted fruit and shade trees throughout. The landscaping was just finished and I was planning to have a party to show it off. But now I sat on one of my new outdoor wicker seats overlooking my yard, no longer in the partying mood.

Stephanie called me earlier, excited. Her birthday was coming up soon so I assumed she wanted to talk about that. Instead she got the news that Candy was engaged and wasn't I really excited? I tried my best to sound excited, but if Stephanie knew something was wrong, she ignored it for her best friend's sake.

I got all of the wedding news second hand through Stephanie. Candy wasn't wasting any time either, she planned to be married in January, Jack was in the Marines and was going to be deployed at the end of the month.

I stopped talking to Candy every day, she was so busy planning her wedding I don't think she even noticed, then again maybe she just didn't want to deal with me. When we did talk, we didn't have our typical long conversations, we mostly said hi and talked about the weather almost like an obligatory call to a relative.

I offered to use my new backyard to host Stephanie's birthday, and of course all of her friends came and had a great time. I was kept so busy running the new grill and hosting that I didn't have time to think about Candy. When she brought her fiancé, I was cordial to her and tried my best to not be mean or vindictive, but the love and excitement I had for her each time I saw her wasn't there and people noticed. The truth was, that it WAS still there, it was just buried deep. If I brought it out, I would bring out all the vile emotions I was feeling also. So, I said all the right things, and was a gracious host.

The next day, I got a call from Candy.

"What was that all about?" she seethed.

"Hello there, Candy. How are you?" I asked sarcastically.

"Stop!" she yelled; I had never heard her so mad at me before. "Did I do something to you that you had to treat me so bad?"

"And how, pray tell, did I treat you badly? Did I insult you? Were you shunned, shut out, humiliated or embarrassed? Tell me, because I don't remember treating you badly at all."

"You KNOW what you did. You've been cold to me, like you are mad at me..."

"I'm NOT mad at you. If I were, you sure as hell wouldn't have been invited to my home, Stephanie's best friend or not."

"I see that you are saying Stephanie's best friend, but we're WE supposed to be best friends?"

"Yeah, I guess we WERE. But you chose someone over me, didn't you? Despite our feelings for each other, you chose HIM over me..." I said, slowly raising my voice as I did. I calmed myself down and continued, "What did you expect me to do? Sit on the sidelines and cheer you on while you marry someone else?"

"You HAD your chance..."

"I DID? When? When my relationship with Simone fell apart three weeks after she left, a month and a half from when we started dating? As I recall you were already dating someone else!" I said answering my own question. "I'm sorry but I want to know when."

"You had a choice; you could have chosen ME over Simone. You didn't..."

"Ha! As I recall, I WOULD have chosen YOU. That day we made out... I wanted you so bad!" I yelled, then quieted once again. "I realized then that I was more in love with you than Simone. I knew I was in trouble and I didn't know what to do, after all I was the good guy right? I couldn't just dump her for you, at least not right then, not right there. But you dumped ME, remember? You moved on before I could even figure things out!"

I heard her sob and felt bad, but the truth had to get out or I'd go insane. "You know how I feel about you. And how I felt about you back then has only gotten stronger over time. But I can't live my life in constant jealousy and so I am simply backing away. I told you before that I love you, but did you ever realize I meant it?"

There was silence, then the clicking sound of the phone hanging up. After that I did not hear from Candy for a long time. I think the biggest slap in the face was that I didn't get a wedding invitation. Simone got one so they knew my address, and rather than fight it, I simply let it be.

*

Stephanie was starting her first year at Princeton University in New Jersey, so I went on a road trip with her driving an Alamo rental SUV. I planned to leave the rental in New Jersey then fly back the California.

We had a whole week to make the trip, I had to go back to get ready for school myself. We decided to stop off at a lot of places along the way and enjoy ourselves. One day we stopped off at the Grand Canyon and hiked to the bottom and barely made it back before it got dark. We didn't make if far because we decided to spend another day in Vegas and Stephanie ended up winning 243 dollars and I lost about 20, but all in all it was a wash with the cost of food and the hotel room for the night. We continued on our trek looking for different sites along the way on our Thomas Maps and a sites recommendation brochure we got out of a travel agent's office.

We were enjoying our time together; I really hadn't had much time with Stephanie all summer really. I was working on my house; she had her summer job and the first month she of course spent in Europe.

I was glad we were reconnecting, because the next school year was going to be a marathon for me. I planned to take double the full class load this year to finish my degree early. I had to get special permission from the school to do this and one of the qualifications was that I could show that I could maintain straight A's in all my classes taking a maximum load, (which I did the semester before). I would be taking 22 units a semester and the University bent over backwards to get me on a schedule that would work for me.

"Hey, Mike?" she asked me one day while we were driving over a particularly boring highway that seemed to travel through endless corn fields.

"Yeah. What's up?

"What's going on with you and Candy?"

"Nothing," I said.

"Don't give me that, you barely speak to her. What's going on?"

"Nothing," I said and she looked insulted. "I mean just that, 'nothing' is going on."

"You aren't friends anymore?"

"I guess not," I said.

"Why?" she asked, astonished.

"I love her too much. I'm jealous of her relationship with her boyfriend... err fiancé, and it hurts too much pretending, I just can't do it."

"So, You're just going to give up your best friend because you're jealous?"

"No. I want her to be happy because I love her and seeing her drives me into such a deep depression that I have to get angry or hate her to get out of it. I don't want to do either one... It's OK, she made her choice a while ago, and this was the inevitable outcome of it."

"Bullshit!" she exclaimed and I looked at her funny. "I know what it's like to love someone so badly it hurts. To not be able to be with him and only be friends... if I can do it, you can too."

"Yeah, I know all about it."

"Oh really? What do you know, smarty pants?"

"You love me..." and she went white, I guess she didn't expect me to guess. "The thing is, I love you too. But we are brother and sister..."

She started crying, "You knew?"

"Yeah, I knew. If you weren't my sister, I'd make you mine," I said seriously.

I let her cry for a bit, then she said, "I'm glad you know... It's a relief."

"I'm glad YOU know how I feel for you too."

"If you can be friends with me despite how you feel for me... Why can't you do the same for Candy?"

"I don't know, maybe because I HAVE to do it for you, you're blood... Also, I can only handle one, not two... Just imagine if you felt how you feel now for me... but for two people... Could you handle it?"

"I, I dunno."

"Yeah, well I tried for over a year. I guess I'm just not that strong."

She gave me a side hug.

"I hope you find someone that you can love..." I said, quickly kissing her forehead and turning my eyes back to the road.

My sister and I had a great trip and I wished her luck after unloading her stuff in her dorm room and meeting her roommate.

*

Simone was the only friend I had left, or I should say I had time for. I lived like a hermit, burying myself in my books that semester. I commuted to school every day and Simone only had classes on Monday and Wednesdays. Regardless, she often went to school on her days off and we spent an hour a day chatting about various things on our hour-long commute to school. We had to leave at 6am just to avoid the heaviest traffic, so we were often there before classes even started and we often spent our mornings studying at a local coffee shop. I went to school all day and often stayed the night on campus, one of my professors had housing on campus and would let me use his couch. I would meet up with Simone for lunch and let her know whether I was coming home or not and give her my keys if I was staying or we would organize a time for us to meet up to go home.

Simone was a trooper and was really putting her nose to the grindstone that semester. She needed to bring her grades up to maintain her scholarships. Still she often went hungry from lack of planning on my part often time it wasn't from my end, when you are taking eight classes things come up. We started making meals to take with us every night. We both learned the basics of cooking from Home Economics, but we decided to kick it up a notch and we took an optional cooking class that I barely squeezed into my schedule. It was fun learning to cook with 'butter', as our teacher taught us a lot of French cooking techniques.

Other than Simone, I had no social life and barely had time to work out. My fourth room was still in permit hell so I ended up turning it into a fitness room. When I wasn't studying, I was working out. I hated running on a treadmill though, so I took up running with Simone. I started out running five miles a day, and after a couple of months I was up to twenty on Saturdays and was considering running a marathon.

In order to accommodate such a hectic school schedule, I had to give up my programming work for awhile. Not only that but I also gave up my board position at Inotech, although I did get Candy a position in my place. I was surprised she took the position since she wasn't talking to me. But I still trusted her and I was glad she did because I needed someone looking out for our interests in the company. The board was in talks of a buyout and if that happened Candy and I would most likely make a profit from our investment. I sent Candy a note to have her boyfriend sign a prenup. She might take it the wrong way, but she was already not talking to me so it couldn't make things any worse.

Since I was going to be coming on some money soon, I decided to splurge and buy two more cars. My restored mustang was always at risk for being stolen and I didn't want to be driving it every day in my daily commute. I also wanted to get Simone her own car. I knew she wouldn't want me to give it to her directly but if I bought it for myself, she wouldn't have a problem driving it.

We shopped around for a new and practical car, and after humoring myself by checking out some of the 'luxury' cars we both fell in love with the Nissan 300ZX Turbo. I was going to be wealthy but I always spent my money frugally. I could afford a mansion and a fleet of new cars with the kind of money I was going to make off the sale of Inotech. I thought, fuck it, why not? And for the first time in my life I splurged on myself.

I also bought a brand-new Honda Civic for "me" that I made sure that Simone loved. She picked the paint and trim and features for the car, and it was understood that it would be her car. She insisted that she pay me back for it after she finished school and I told her it wasn't necessary. The way I saw it, she earned it with all the work she helped me with on the house, but she saw that as an obligation to me since I was providing her free rent. I saw her logic so was stuck in a quandary of out and out giving it to her as a gift, so I had to agree to let her pay me back for it later.

Simone became like a personal assistant to me. I honestly don't think I could have coped with my final school year without her. She took my messages, cleaned the house, even did my laundry! She told me later that Hannah was the one that gave her the idea of doing my laundry. Hannah would say that "if you do the laundry and fold it, leave it on his bed for him to put away, it will be easier for him to appreciate what you do for him because what you did will be right in his face."

It's funny to describe my relationship with Simone as simply a friendship. It was definitely more than that. We were together daily, we helped each other with our mutual problems, when consoled each other about conflicts with others. We talked all the time, although our conversations were never as long or as involved as they were between Candy and I. Still, Simone became like a pacifier for my need of Candy. The only thing we didn't have that married couples had was physical intimacy. We didn't kiss, hold hands, not to mention sex.

I think she wouldn't be opposed to us taking our relationship to the next level but we were always hesitant to make the same mistakes we once did. We were comfortable where we were and didn't want to mess up what we had. Simone in particular had a lot to lose if we tried to get together and failed so we didn't.

The Fall semester was passing by in a blur and Thanksgiving break came up on me in a flash. I still hadn't talked to Candy in three months, but Jack and Candy were invited to my mom's for Thanksgiving. The previous two Thanksgivings had included Candy and her Mom so I was surprised to find out that Candy didn't show up. Apparently, she decided to visit Jack's parents for Thanksgiving and it was a perfect excuse to avoid having to deal with me too. In some ways I was relieved to tell the truth, I didn't need any more stress.

Candy's Mom did show up however and bluntly asked me at the dinner table, "So, Mike. What happened with you and Candy? I was hoping you two would be married by now?"

Lorry nearly choked on her food as she spit up, what she was chewing on, in her plate.

"Uh, is this appropriate dinner conversation?" Mom reprimanded.

"No, that's OK," I said, "I have nothing to hide..." and Stephanie, Lorry, Mom, Simone and Candy's Mom turned to their heads looking at me curiously. "To answer your question, I love Candy very much - And - I told her as much. It's totally her decision that we're not together... I guess she loves Jack more than she loved me."