Walking Disaster

pressed against the edge of the table.
    “And that won’t happen, so we can be friends.”
    Challenge accepted.
    “So what’s
your
story?” Abby asked. “Have you always been
Travis ‘Mad Dog’ Maddox,
or is that just since you came here?” She used two
fingers on each hand as quotation marks when she said that god-awful fucking nickname.
    I cringed. “No. Adam started that after my first fight.” I hated that name, but it stuck. Everyone else seemed to like it, so Adam kept using it.
    After an awkward silence, Abby finally spoke. “That’s it? You’re not going to tell me anything about yourself?”
    She didn’t seem to mind the nickname, or else she just accepted the backstory. I never knew when she was going to get offended and freak out, or when she would be rational and stay cool.
Holy hell, I couldn’t get enough of it.
    “What do you wanna know?”
    Abby shrugged. “The normal stuff. Where you’re from, what you want to be when you grow up . . . things like that.”
    I was having to work at keeping the tension out of my shoulders. Talking about myself—especially my past—was out of my comfort zone. I gave some vague answers and left it at that,
but then I heard one of the soccer players make a crack. It wouldn’t have bothered me nearly as much if I wasn’t dreading the moment Abby realized what they were laughing about. Okay,
that was a lie. That would have pissed me off whether she was there or not.
    She kept wanting to know about my family and my major, and I was trying not to jump out of my seat and take them all out in a one-man stampede. As my anger came to a boil, focusing on our
conversation became more difficult.
    “What are they laughing about?” she finally asked, gesturing to the rowdy table.
    I shook my head.
    “Tell me,” she insisted.
    My lips pressed together into a thin line. If she walked out, I’d probably never get another chance, and those cheese dicks would have something more to laugh about.
    She watched me expectantly.
    Fuck it. “They’re laughing about me having to take you to dinner, first. It’s not usually . . . my thing.”
    “First?”
    When the meaning sunk in, her face froze. She was mortified to be there with me.
    I winced, waiting for her to storm out.
    Her shoulders fell. “I was afraid they were laughing about you being seen with me dressed like this, and they think I’m going to sleep with you,” she grumbled.
    Wait. What? “Why wouldn’t I be seen with you?”
    Abby’s cheeks flushed pink, and she looked down to the table. “What were we talking about?”
    I sighed. She was worried about me. She thought they were laughing about the way she looked. The Pigeon wasn’t a hard-ass, after all. I decided to ask another question before she could
reconsider.
    “You. What’s your major?”
    “Oh, er, general ed, for now. I’m still undecided, but I’m leaning toward accounting.”
    “You’re not a local, though. You must be a transplant.”
    “Wichita. Same as America.”
    “How did you end up here from Kansas?”
    “We just had to get away.”
    “From what?”
    “My parents.”
    She was running. I had a feeling the cardigan and pearls she wore the night we met were a front. But, to hide what? She got irritated pretty quick with the personal questions, but before I could
change the subject, Kyle from the soccer team shot off his mouth.
    I nodded. “So, why here?”
    Abby snapped something back. I missed whatever it was. The chuckles and asshole comments from the soccer team drowned out her words.
    “Dude, you’re supposed to get a doggie bag, not bag the doggie.”
    I couldn’t hold back anymore. They weren’t just being disrespectful to me, they were disrespecting Abby. I stood up and took a few steps, and they started to shove each other out the
door, tripping and stumbling over a dozen pairs of feet.
    Abby’s eyes penetrated the back of my head, bringing me back to my senses, and I planted myself back in the booth. She raised an eyebrow, and immediately my frustration and anger melted
away.
    “You were going to say why you chose this school,” I said. Pretending that little sideshow didn’t happen was probably the best way to continue.
    “It’s hard to explain,” she said, shrugging. “I guess it just felt right.”
    If there was a phrase to explain the way I felt at that moment, that was it. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing or why, but something about sitting across from her in that booth