Chapter Twenty-Five

Julia

WE GET HOME AND MAKE a beeline for our respective rooms. I lie awake for a while, thinking about how much I enjoyed spending time with Giles. It feels nice to have someone to lean on. To literally lean on. And there's something that much more satisfying when it's someone you find attractive. Like there are layers added to the comfort that wouldn't otherwise be there. 

I guess it wouldn't feel as good to press my face against his chest. Or to feel his arms resting over me. It wouldn't feel so good to have his face inches from mine, if he wasn't as beautiful as he is... 

My next conscious thought is of my eyes flying open to darkness in my bedroom. The sound of a door shutting is almost a distant memory, though I'm sure that's what woke me. I stare at the ceiling through the dim blue glow of my alarm clock. There's shuffling outside of my door, followed by the unmistakable sound of Ava saying, "Shhh..." to someone else.

Another door closes, this one closer. The door to Ava's bedroom. More muffled noises. The baritone of a man speaking, his words undecipherable but the smoothness of his suggestion piques my attention. Ava giggles, a mattress creaks.

Oh my god.

She must've brought home that guy she was all over at the pool party. I forget his name, but I've never seen him around before. It seems like their plans don't include sleep. I cover my face with my hands to stifle a nervous laugh. An awkward energy washes over me. Am I supposed to lie here and listen to this? Should I leave? Images of the nighttime streets outside the house flash through my mind, deserted roads, and storefronts with blinds pulled down and signs turned to 'closed.'

Moaning and more of the smooth baritone drums over me, and I'm embarrassed by how the sounds flood me with warmth. 

This is sick. 

I grab my pillow and pull it over my head, but that does nothing to drown out the noises next door. The unmistakable clashing of bodies dripping with lust. Moans growing steadily out of control, muffled words that I can only imagine are of encouragement. And my mind's eye flickers to images of Ava's thin frame handled by that handsome stranger, cast in shadow as he spins her around to her stomach and...

My phone pings and I shoot up, fumbling around for it quickly, afraid that the sound will alert Ava to my listening. But the rhythmic clapping noises next door remain unaffected. 

On my phone, there's a text message. 

[You're not getting any sleep tonight.]

It's from Giles. I turn off the sound on my phone and before I can respond, another message comes in.

[Those two fuck for hours. Come over here. You can't hear it as much.]

[Come over, where? To your room?]

[Yeah.]

I almost laugh. 

[Nice try.]

[What? It's not like we haven't slept in the same bed before.]

This time I do laugh. Then my sights dart to the wall in front of me, the one separating my room from Ava's and I hear the desperate groaning and moaning, the frantic squeaking of furniture. My stomach ties in uncomfortable knots all over again. It's just awkward, having to listen to this. What are my choices, really? Where can I go at two in the morning? Everything on campus is closed. 

Still, I'm not going to Giles's room. No way. Last night when I was sick was one thing. But getting in bed with him now? The thought of going in to see him brings more knots to my stomach. We're friends now, I remind myself. Yet, the thought of it still seems like walking into a lion's den. 

[No thanks. I'll find something to shove into my ears.]

I lock my phone and set it on the bedside table, facedown.

Irritation surges through me that I'm put in this position in the first place. Though, that's ridiculous. Ava has every right to screw in her room. And the fact that I'm uncomfortable with it is my problem, not hers. I shouldn't be listening. But she really could make an effort to be stealthy. I mean, those noises are not of two people worried about making a scene.

I lie back down, tossing and turning. Pull a pillow over my head, then another. Feeling completely ridiculous over the warm, tingling sensations flooding me, the pooling between my legs as the sounds of pleasure from next-door show no signs of quelling.

Ugh. This is beyond awkward.

After a few long minutes of trying to tune out the noises, I get out of bed with the intention to grab a glass of water. I think there may be headphones in one of the kitchen drawers. It's worth a look. Hesitant, I step out of my room, closing my bedroom door carefully behind me. There's no way I can miss the fact that, down the hall, the door to Giles's room is slightly open, as though in anticipation of my arrival. 

Yeah, nice try.

I try not to draw too much attention to myself, as I look around the kitchen drawers for the headphones or, even better, earplugs. What I find is a pack of gum. Is that what I remember seeing before? Well, this is useless. I chug down the water then head back toward my room, glancing back down the hall as my hand closes over the doorknob. The sounds of screwing are louder out here in the hall and I rush to open my door. Except the doorknob doesn't turn. 

"Fuck," I say under my breath.

My door is locked. I can't believe I locked myself out. 

Caught in a desperate urgency to not be found out in this hallway listening to these sounds, I get the urge to kick the door open by force. 

"Yeah, yeah," Ava's breathless voice croons from the other side of her bedroom door. "Oh, yeah..." Then a man's voice mumbles something I'm glad I can't decipher.

I rub my temples in exasperation, and then turn on my heels and head quickly down the hall. I hesitate as I reach his door and I turn to look back at my own on the opposite end of the hall. Two thoughts occur to me--the noises are almost completely muffled at this end of the hall, and maybe I could take a running start at my door and bust it open like in the movies.

Obviously a ridiculous thought.

A hand wrapping around the edge of Giles's door, I push it open slowly, the room coming into view from the slit between door and frame. The mirrored doors of his closet come into view first, his nightstand, and then his bed. He's sitting up against the headboard, phone in hand. Tiny, cartoonish spurts of noises coming from it like he's playing a game. His eyes connect with mine and his mouth twists into a devilish grin. 

He's shirtless, the bastard. And I wonder if he's naked under the covers draped over his lap. As though reading my thoughts, he pulls his bedcovers back to reveal his dark blue pajama pants. He pats the mattress beside him, eyebrows tilted up in a way that almost casts innocence to his features. Almost. 

I glare at him, just out of habit, as I hold onto the doorframe behind me. Giles sets his phone down on his lap, lifts his hands, and shows me both sides the way a criminal would do when surrounded by the authorities. 

"Come on. I've more than proven I can keep these to myself."

"You better. And don't think you're getting lucky."

"I'm already lucky," he says. "You're here, little leopard."

His words elicit a nervous flutter in the pit of my stomach. But I pretend they don't. Desensitization. If we are going to make this friends thing work, I need to not get so nervous about things like this. His effect on me will wear off. It will wear off the more I expose myself to it. Soon, I'll be immune for real.

I walk over and sit up in bed, beside him. Making sure there's at least a foot of empty mattress separating us, I pull the covers over my lap and smooth out the sheets with my palms, trying not to think about how strangely normal and comfortable it feels to be in his bed. Though I know, I shouldn't feel too comfortable. Then I catch the way his eyes sweep past my face, over my lips, down my collarbone to my tank top. 

Crap. Not again. 

I can tell by the way he eyes me, greedily, that the material of my tank top clings to every detail of my bare breasts underneath.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to point?" he asks.

"Shut up," I say, pulling the covers up over my chest. 

He looks like someone struggling not to burst into laughter. Like he's already won and finds it amusing I'm putting up a front.

I nod to his phone. "What stupid game are you playing, anyway?"

He holds it up to show me.

"You're playing Tetris in the middle of the night?" 

"It's hard for me to sleep, sometimes."

Looking out to the door, I'm reminded of what's going on just down the hall. Two people are humping like rabbits. And now I'm sitting in Giles's bed. The strain of raw sex seems to be creeping in from under his door, because I'm suddenly warm and...

"Give me that." I snatch the phone from his hand. He laughs and I'm glad he's not annoyed that I'm being rude. Rude is a nice barrier between us right now. It's the only thing keeping me from revealing the heat brewing in the pit of my belly. Eyes trained on the screen, I say, "Look at this. Five rows of blocks? How can you suck this bad?" My fingers maneuver over the keyboard as I begin to quickly lay pieces to break down the lines of blocks.

"You're good." 

I tense up at these words because they are right by my ear. His breath tickles my shoulder and, though I keep my eyes on the phone screen, I'm aware of his face right next to my own. I shouldn't look up. I know I shouldn't. But I do. 

He's leaning in, mouth so close to mine I can almost taste it. The impulse to close the gap leaves me weak. I look down at the screen, where I'm suddenly not performing so well on the game, and remind myself why I shouldn't kiss him. 

Even if I could get past the reservation of getting involved with my roommate, he's still a conceited, womanizing manwhore who thinks he can get any girl into bed.

Well, he did get you into bed, didn't he? A voice croons these words from the back of my mind. The voice already sounds small, already resigned to the inevitable. 

This is followed by the urge to jump out of bed and face whatever is out there in the hall, sleep on the couch if I have to. But taking off like that will only show Giles the effect he has on me. The thought of displaying any weakness to him makes fire burn through my veins, the stubbornness that's my blessing and my curse. He will not turn me into another brainless girl quivering over his proximity. I am immune. 

And even if I'm not, I can sure as hell pretend I am.

"I shouldn't have complimented your skills," he teases from beside me. "As soon as I did, you started sucking big time."

I throw the phone onto his lap and say, "Whatever."

"Ouch." He cringes and I realize the phone landed right in the center of his lap. Probably right on his dick. 

I laugh then straighten my face again. "I'm going to sleep. Stay on your side or I'm gone, got it?"

"Yeah, you too," he says, mockingly indignant. "Don't you go trying to touch me. I won't have any of that."

 We both settle into lying positions. On our sides, facing each other, only a couple feet of mattress between us. It should feel strange, but it doesn't.

"Go to sleep," he says, gaze traveling over my face.

"You first."

Smiling, he pulls the sheet over both our heads, until we are immersed in a cocoon of gray cotton and his face is the in forefront of my vision. Crisp and close. 

His long eyelashes, framing those mischievous eyes. Those lips, full and somehow disarming. Annoying and sweet, all at once. 

"What are you doing?" I ask, my voice low.

"It helps me sleep," he says. "Just pretend we're in a fort. You know? Like when you were a kid."

"I never made forts. My mom would kill us if we messed with clean sheets."

"Strict parents, huh?"

"You have no idea."

One, two, three, four seconds pass. How they manage to feel so effortless, I'll never know.

"So...I don't want to alarm you," he says, "but I might get a hard-on."

"What?"

"Don't take it personally. It's been a while since I've gotten any. A soft wind would give me raging wood."

I hate him for making me laugh, so hard and so effortlessly. I'm reminded of how much more experienced he is than I am and how easily I blush around him. The thought causes me to grapple for a foothold. 

"You're a fake, Giles."

"Am I?"

"You act like you're this player, but I haven't seen you bring a single girl into the house the whole time I've lived here."

"Been keeping track, huh?"

"No. I mean, it would be hard not to notice an extra person leaving the house in the mornings."

"You're right. I haven't brought any girls home." His stare is fixed right at me, with so much intensity I look away. "And I bet you want to know why?" 

I don't mean to nod, but I do, because my body reacts to him in ways I don't intend. 

He hesitates. "I'm not sure. For a while there, I was banging everything that looked good enough. But then..."

"Then what?"

He bites his lower lip. "You're going to get mad if I tell you."

"Oh, whatever. Just say it."

"Then I saw you naked."

 I blink.

"What's that have to do with anything?"

"Well...it's kept me..." He laughs, a sly smile brightening his eyes. "Never mind. You don't want to know."

God, is he implying what I think he's implying? 

Are conversations like this normal? I'm way out of my league here and it shows. Luckily, he goes on without prompting. 

"I don't bring random hookups to my bed, anyway. I'm sure Ava wouldn't take kindly to a parade of women here."

"Isn't it hypocritical of Ava? She's in there screwing some stranger. Pretty loudly, I should add."

"Well, that stranger happens to be Damien. Her boyfriend of three years."

"Oh, Damien's her boyfriend? I didn't realize they were serious, they were so flirty, I thought they had just met."

"He's been out of town on an internship most of the summer."

"Well, that explains the...enthusiasm."

"Enthusiasm?"

"All that vigorous...noise." My cheeks heat up.

"Fucking should always be vigorous, Julia." His eyes hold onto mine and I will myself to not glance away.

"I wouldn't know," I blurt out, not thinking.

He pulls the cover off of our heads, the chilled air of the bedroom sweeping across my face. 

"What do you mean you don't know? Please tell me someone's fucked you properly."

Why does he have to talk like that? And why do I like it so much?

God, what conversation have I started?

"I've only done it that one time and...I sort of pretended it felt good even though it didn't. It was awful." 

The words are even enough. Cool enough. Yet, I'm all too aware that we are lying in bed together. All too aware that I came here willingly. And that I promised myself I would never let him get into my pants because...

Wait. 

I had good reasons. I know I did.

"That's a travesty," he says, looking very offended on my behalf. "I'd be willing to offer you my services to right that wrong."

Oh yeah, I remember. He's a cocky, arrogant ass and the only time we get along is when we are trying to be friends. Otherwise, I hate him with the fire of a thousand suns. Except that I don't hate him. Except that I like him, even when he's being a pervert. I'm an idiot who likes things that are bad for her.

I don't want to move away from him. And I don't want to think about how his words turn me on. Or how he's watching me as though wondering if they did. I keep expecting him to reach out and touch me. I don't know what I'd do if he did. 

What I do know is that giving in to my hormones and having sex with him will only be something I will regret. I'd be pathetic to. Him wanting me sexually is not a surprise. We're young. We're attracted to each other. But it doesn't mean anything more to him. And I can't do something that doesn't mean anything. Not again.

"Tell me, little leopard. How is it so many of our conversations always end up being about sex?"

I stutter but fail to respond. He chuckles and pulls the sheet over our heads again.

"That was a rhetorical question. I know the answer," He says. I wait, but he doesn't enlighten me. Instead, he says, "Let's talk about your accent."

"I don't have an accent," I protest.

"Yeah, you do. It's really subtle, but I hear it when you say my name. It's your L's and in your vowels. It's cute." 

I bring my lower lip into my mouth, as my cheeks struggle under the urge to smile. 

This is good--small talk. Unassuming, innocent small talk. It casts such a comfortable aura over our current position. Makes me feel like this is the most natural thing in the world. To talk in low voices under bed sheets with my shirtless roommate. This is what we do. No big deal. 

You hear that, ovaries? 

Quit your throbbing. This is no big freaking deal.

His gaze moves over the top of my hairline, tracing the outline of my face, sweeping over my lips once more before meeting my eyes again. I can feel his sight like a caress.

"You said you'd stop looking at me like that." 

"I never agreed to that," he says. "I just agreed to keep my hands to myself."

His lips tug at the corners. And I know he can't pretend the things we did in the game room didn't happen. There's no forgetting that any time soon. I know, because I can't forget it either.

I lay my arm over my chest, trying to think of a come back. I'm sure he will gloat at my lack of response, but instead, he changes the subject again, dancing the line between a harmless conversation and a suggestive one. 

"Ava said your family is from Texas?" 

"Not really. It's just easier to say I'm from the last place I lived. My dad was in the military so we moved around a lot."

"My dad was military, too," he offers.

"No way...what branch?" I'm unable to keep the enthusiasm out of my voice. Being a military brat is an experience not everyone can relate to. 

"Marines," Giles responds. "He was infantry. Yours?"

"Mine was army. Military police. That's what he does for a living now. He's the chief of police in Newport Beach." I say the words dismissively even when that wasn't my intention.

 "That's cool," Giles says vaguely, probably noticing something in my tone.

I shrug. "Try having him for a father. My dad's extremely judgmental, combative, and suspicious. He never gives people the benefit of the doubt."

"So he's just like you?" 

Dread splits through me in the second that follows before his lips shrug in a half-hearted smile. 

"My dad's worse than me," I say. "Or...I'd like to think he is."

"That was a joke, you're not that bad."

It's well past two in the morning and you'd think after spending all those hours together at the fair we'd be fresh out of things to talk about. But we share stories like they're bursting out of our seams, forgetting that not too long ago, it seems, we were strangers. Now we're discovering pieces of ourselves in each other and it's thrilling in a way that's hard to describe. 

We talk about where our dads have been stationed, the cities we've lived in. His father was originally from San Diego and, for one reason or another, didn't change duty stations as often as mine did. Between Camp Pendleton and other bases in Southern California, Giles and his family were able to settle in the area for most of his father's military career. 

In the course of our stories, though, we figure out one time in our lives where we were in the same place--the very same base at the exact same time--and never knew each other. It's bizarre to imagine that Giles was there with me, somehow, living this life parallel to mine. Though, he's an only child, so his experience was different. Every time his family moved, he didn't have any siblings to lean on, to venture into an intimidating new school with. 

Our eyelids grow heavy as we talk. We cling to the last sights of each other's faces even as a lull falls over us and sleep threatens to overtake us both. But there's something that he hasn't revealed to me in any of his short anecdotes and stories.

"You never told me what happened to your dad," I say.  

His lashes lower, hiding the expression in his eyes from me. The silence that follows is heavy and I feel responsible. But I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say to backpedal.

Giles hesitates for just a second before answering, his voice low. "During his last deployment, the Humvee he was in clipped a roadside bomb. It flipped over and two guys died. That's all I know, really." He's looking down past my neckline, but there's no sexual innuendo to it. He's not really seeing me, he's seeing past me, into his own thoughts. "My dad was hurt pretty badly, but he survived and got to come home. Except he didn't. He was...different. Meaner. He wanted to return to active duty, he wanted to go back to Afghanistan, but couldn't clear medical. So, he just got meaner and meaner. He and my mom fought all the time. It was just hard to be around him sometimes. I fought with him a lot, too. We fought right up until I moved out of the house."

He talks about it all as if he's recalling a far off wound that once hurt, but is now just scar tissue. With the detached candor of someone who has moved past it. I can see through it, though. I can see the layers of hurt straining just behind the mask. I know I'm not supposed to notice, but I can't go on pretending that I don't. His words are squeezing my heart. 

"What happened to him?" I ask, my voice the smallest it's ever been.

"I thought things were getting better, but I guess I just wasn't around to see the worst of it. And my mom, she wasn't talking about it. Until one day, my dad locked himself in the bathroom and shot himself in the head."

My hand flies to my mouth. 

The air hums in the aftermath of his words. A certainty settles low in my gut the way an uncomfortable truth always does, that Giles doesn't talk about this often. Or ever. 

The heaviness of what he's just said makes my stomach sink into a bottomless pit. Somehow, though he doesn't say the words, I know Giles blames himself for his father's suicide. And I wonder if his mother blames herself, too.

"And your mom?" I ask. "Is she doing okay?"

His eyes lock on mine and I can't look away. Not that I want to. His lips remain closed but I can almost hear the thoughts buzzing around in his mind. He gives his head a small shake. It's not a response to my question, it's a gesture that ends the conversation. That's the end of it. I know it just as clearly as if he'd spoken the words. His mom is where he draws the line of his sharing. He's either not willing or not able to go there.

He gives me a small, almost apologetic smile. I try to return it, but I can't. I let out a breath, feeling sad inside. My heart aches for him, sensing the pain and turmoil dancing just behind those seemingly carefree eyes. For the first time, I've glimpsed past the layers of him. And it's leveling me.

His candor doesn't surprise me, exactly. There's something about the sheets being over our heads that makes the space under them safe and secluded, like nothing could reach us here in our grown-up fort.

Giles yawns and I yawn, too. As though the act is contagious, as if staring into his eyes is pulling me under a spell. That's what it feels like as sleep tugs harder on my eyelids. Like I'm floating away somewhere, though my chest's still heavy with a sadness I don't fully understand.