If he hadn't been so drunk he could hardly walk I would have told him to fuck off. As it was he soon lost interest and wandered off.
"Sorry about that," I said to Jess, who was watching the interaction with amusement. "Football players aren't well-socialized."
She laughed and shrugged. "Yeah, I kinda figured that out my first week here."
We kept talking and it was actually strange to be in that situation - alone, with a girl - and not feel like she was going to try and jump on me at any moment. It was Jess herself who brought it up, in a pause in our discussion of football players and football culture at Brooks.
"Just so you know," she said, "I'm not single. I'm not trying to be rude and it doesn't feel like you're hitting on me but if you are, I just wanted to let you know. You know, so you don't waste your night talking to a girl who's just going to turn you down at the end of it."
"Oh that's OK," I said. "I'm not single, either."
It was only a few seconds later that I realized what I'd said and tried, clumsily, to correct myself:
"I mean, I am single, but I'm not looking if you know what I mean? It's a huge relief to be able to talk to a woman and not have to worry about whether or not you're going to stick your tongue down my throat at the first opportunity."
Jess giggled at that. "It's funny, isn't it? You guys are like the alpha males of the place but in a weird way you have to worry about the things women worry about, don't you? Getting hit on all the time, stuff like that. Is it really that bad?"
I shrugged. "Yes. I guess the vast majority of us - the football players - just enjoy it, though. Like, it's not a bad thing if you're into it, you know?"
"Yeah, they've got a buffet of women in front of them and they're determined to sample every dish before we graduate."
I nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."
"So you're not single then? Or you are?" She asked, catching me in my own confusing statements.
"Uh," I said, thinking. "I'm single. Completely single. I guess. It's so weird to be talking about this, I don't tell anyone this - but the truth is I don't think I've gotten over my girlfriend back home. My ex-girlfriend, I should say."
"Ah," Jess nodded knowingly. "I understand. Was she your first?"
"Yes. I mean, no. I mean-"
"Wow, this girl really did a number on you, huh?"
Jess was joking, continuing the conversation in the light-hearted vein it had been started in, but I was starting to get annoyed at myself for being so flustered. What the fuck. I hadn't seen Tasha for well over a year, why was I getting all tongue-tied about her in the middle of a party?
"Nah, it's not that," I said, which was the exact opposite of the truth. "I just wasn't sure what you meant. She was the first girl I loved, yeah, but she wasn't the first girl I was with. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah. I mean, you were the quarterback in high school too, weren't you? I bet your bedpost is probably one big notch."
Part of me wanted to protest that. It made me sound like some sleazy player. But the truth of it was that I was a sleazy player - or I used to be. Before Tasha, anyway. And now I was in college surrounded by young, willing women throwing themselves at me, and none of them raised any interest in me at all.
"What about you?" I asked, eager to change the subject, feeling that I'd already revealed too much, and to a stranger at that. "You said you're with someone?"
Jess gave me a rueful little smile. "Yeah. It's sort of the same thing as you, though. He's back in our hometown, we're trying to make it work."
"And is it?"
"So far. I mean, it's not easy. And it makes me feel like kind of an outcast with all my friends dating around here at Brooks and me always on the sidelines. But it's only four years, right? I fly back to see him every holiday, we Skype almost every day. I miss him and we get into stupid fights a lot but we're doing our best."
I spent most of the night in the kitchen with Jess, just chatting about life. She was easy to talk to - probably because I knew she wasn't going to start ripping on me every time I admitted to having emotions, and she seemed relieved, as well, to have found someone who could maybe understand a little of what she was going through. At the end of the night we exchanged contact details and within a couple of weeks were firm friends.
When I had time we would meet up on campus. We tried it a few times in my dorm - our common area, the ex-ballroom, was perfect for hanging out - but she would just have to endure getting hit on by every single football player that walked into the room and that got old fast.
We learned a lot about each other's relationships - her current, mine former. Jess was full of questions about Tasha, about why we hadn't tried to make it work and all of that. Eventually, under her gentle but persistent questioning, the whole story came out.