Chapter5
Catalina went home the day that they got back from Springfield and the first thing she did was go to sleep. Partly because she was exhausted from the trip, and partly because she didn’t want to be awake in a world where she wouldn’t be able to be with Connor James.
She woke up the next morning and knew that she had to get to class. She feigned her way through most of the morning as she tried to get herself back into her regular routine, though she had no real interest in it. She had texted Reggie when she’d woken up that morning and he had pleaded with her to meet him in their spot, so during her midday break, she went to the bench beneath the old oak, and she waited for him to show up.
He was a little late, as per his usual, and she smiled and stood up to hug him and greet him when she saw him. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and held her close to him, resting his cheek against her and breathing her in. She knew he was breathing her in; he always did it, and when she had asked him why once, he said that he loved the way she smelled. He left it at that, so she left it at that, and neither of them talked about it again.
He finally let her go and they sat down together and faced one another. She gave him a warm smile and tilted her head, looking at him with genuine care.
“How’ve you been the last few days?” she asked him curiously.
He let out a big breath of air that he had apparently been holding in. “I’ve been… uh… well, I’ll tell you the truth, I’ve been miserable. I hated it that you were gone. I missed you like crazy.” He reached for her hand and she let him hold it, though she wasn’t thrilled about the way that he held it so firmly and so close to him, like he wasn’t going to let her go ever again.
He smiled at her broadly and shook his head. “God, it’s good to see you. I was going crazy without you! I couldn’t stand you being gone. So… tell me all about your trip. How did it go? How was the photography?” he asked with interest, his eyes set on hers.
A rush of thoughts roared through her mind, like a crashing river coursing through canyons and boulders, making its way swiftly to a destination unknown. There was so much to share with him that she felt overwhelmed.
She laughed a little and reached her hand up to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. “I’m not sure that I know where to begin.”
He shrugged. “Just begin from where you left and go from there.” He smiled, gazing into her eyes and rubbing his fingers over her hand affectionately.
She glanced at her hand and chose to look away. “Well, let’s see. Start from when I left. Well, Connor and I-“
Reggie frowned darkly and cut her off. “Didn’t we talk about this? Do you know how inappropriate it is for you to call him by his first name? Call him Professor James like the rest of the world, please, and show some respect. You aren’t that close with him. First names are reserved for people who he is close to.” Reggie looked at her pointedly and she bit her lip, wondering for a moment just how much she was going to tell him about the trip that she had shared with Connor. She decided she would have to just tell him and see how he reacted.
“Well, okay then, Professor James and I,” she felt her insides cringe at referring to him so formally; it reminded her that they could not be close on campus and that she would have to treat him as a distant professor, and with some deference, not as a lover and friend, she continued to speak about him, “we left here early in the morning and he drove us through a terrible snow storm.”
Reggie nodded and frowned. “I know, I saw that storm on the news. We didn’t get much snow here, but I watched where the storm went and it basically followed you all the way to Springfield. I was so worried about you! Why didn’t you answer my texts while you were there?”
She shrugged. “I had next to no service while I was there, so no one really heard from me while I was gone.”
He shook his head in disapproval.
“Anyway, we finally got there, but it took forever because Con… uh… because he was driving so carefully and slowly on the roads. When we got to the hotel there were tons of people there, not only for the political event, but also because the roads got closed behind us, so the hotel had to do this consolidation thing, where they try to get as many people into the hotel as possible.
“Even though he and I had separate rooms to begin with, we wound up having to share a room because the hotel put us together to save space for other people.” She thought back on it and realized that she and Connor might not have made love like they had if it weren’t for them having to have shared a room.
Reggie’s brow furrowed and his dark look grew even darker. “You shared a room with him?” he asked as if it was the biggest sin that could have happened.
Catalina sighed. “Let me finish, please?”
He looked away for a moment and then nodded at her. “Okay, go.” She hoped that he let her finished telling him all of it without interrupting her again.
“Well, so anyway, we wound up having to share a room. So we settled in and then we went to the first day of the event. It was crazy! There were so many people there! Tons more than I ever expected. So I started photographing everything, and there were four politicians up on the stage participating in the debate. They started talking about gun control right away and a bunch of people in the audience got really opinionated about how they felt, and before we knew it, some of them got up to fight and Connor had to pull me away from it so I didn’t get hurt! He saved me just in time,” she told him with a shake of her head.
He sighed and shook his head. “Professor… James…” he repeated slowly as if that might get the idea stuck into her head.
Catalina looked at him sharply, her eyes bright as she spoke. “You know what, you’re going to have to let that go. I call him Connor. That was his idea a long time ago. He is Connor to me, and that’s what I’m going to call him. It’s not disrespectful, and it’s not going to change, so you’re just going to have to let that go, okay?” she asked without really making it a question.
He frowned a little again and sighed, then nodded his acquiescence. “Fine. Go ahead.”
She could see that he didn’t like it, but she went on anyway. “So there was a small fight and he saved me because he pulled me out of the way just in time. I felt so lucky, but that was just the first day.
“Then, the second day, we went back again and there were tons more people and security guards, and when they started the debates, they warned the entire crowd to keep their cool, but then they started talking about women’s rights, women’s bodies, and abortion, and the crowd got really angry again, arguing over it all, and a bunch of them got really ugly.
“In fact, one huge guy was going to punch another guy, but the other guy ducked out of the way and the huge guy almost hit me!”
Reggie’s eyes grew wide and she saw anger growing in him.
“Hey, that’s just the nature of photojournalism. That’s how it goes sometimes,” she told him earnestly.
He didn’t look like he wanted her anywhere near it in the future, if that was how it was going to be.
“I take it you didn’t get hit?” he asked coolly, looking her over for signs of damage.
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t get hit, but Connor did get hit. He jumped right in between me and the huge guy and he saved me again, taking the punch that would have flattened my face, and it messed him up enough that the paramedics had to stitch him up and give him pain pills and bandage his eye.”
Reggie raised both brows and nodded slightly in approval. “That’s good. He was looking out for you. Looking after my girl,” he said, rubbing his fingers over the back of her hand again. She frowned slightly, but decided that she was going to tell him the entire story.
“So we went back to the hotel and I told him he ought to get into the hot tub so he could feel better and he said yes, so we went out there together and while we were sitting in it, I was trying to help him with an ice pack on his forehead where he was cut, but then I guess I got too close to him and wanted to kiss him, so I did.” She paused and looked at Reggie’s face, trying to gauge how he would react to that news before she told him anything else.
Reggie’s jaw clenched and he stared hard at her. “You kissed him.”
She nodded solemnly. “I kissed him,” she admitted.
Reggie shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe you did that. What in the hell were you thinking?”
She sighed and looked down at her hand in his for a moment and then she looked back up at him. “I wasn’t thinking. I was feeling.”
“What did he do?” Reggie asked, looking like he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to know.
She bit her lip and smiled as the wonderful heated memories came rushing back to her. “He kissed me back. A lot. Reggie, it was SO good… we made out in the hot tub and it was unbelievable. I wanted him so much, but then he kind of stopped all of a sudden; he just pushed me away from him and told me that we had to stay teacher and student and that we couldn’t have anything like that happening between us.”
Reggie looked thoroughly disgusted. He looked away and shook his head again. “Well at least he stopped you. You can’t do that! You’re going to get hurt one of these days doing things like that, and you can’t get hurt, Catalina, there are other people who care about you! I care about you, and I couldn’t stand to see you get hurt! You have no business doing something like that!”
She ignored him and continued, thinking back to how it all began with them. “Well, so then we agreed to keep it teacher – student, and we went back to bed.” She was interrupted again.
“What do you mean, you went back to bed?” he asked incredulously. “You two had your own beds in this room you shared, didn’t you?” he leaned toward her with serious staring eyes.
She shook her head. “No. Originally we had our own rooms, like I said, but then we wound up having to share his room, and since it was just going to be him in there in the first place, there was just one bed,” she answered nervously.
He grew irate, but she could see that he was holding it in. “You shared a bed with your college professor? Do you have any idea how many rules and laws you are breaking? I can’t believe that you did that!” he snapped angrily, and she felt herself flare up defensively.
“Well, Reggie, we had no choice! The hotel made us take one room and that was the only option. Trust me, Connor called the front desk the moment that he saw that we were going to be there with one bed and he argued with them and asked them to change it, but they just couldn’t, so we made do with what we had!
“Don’t you get all high and mighty with me like we had a choice and just decided to have it like that. Besides, we were just fine. You’ll hear all about it, now just listen, please! There’s so much to tell you!” Her voice softened and she tilted her head, her blue gray eyes pleading with him for his patience as she told him everything.
He sighed and looked down at his feet and then nodded. “Alright. I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
She gave him a smile and moved to pull her hand from his, but he held on to it tighter, and she left her hand there. “So then it was the last day and we went to the event and there was more security than I have ever seen anywhere, but we finally had a day when nothing happened, just the debates, and it was good.
“It was easier getting photos that day because I could move around without worrying about people going nuts, but my best photos came from the first two days, showing people who were all up in arms about everything. I got some great shots of the chaos around that place.”
She shook her head, thinking of it. “Well, the last day they let everyone go early and we all left in the afternoon. It was snowing badly when we left; I couldn’t believe we had gotten hit with a second storm. The first one wasn’t anything compared to the second one. We went back to the hotel and we got ready for the banquet that we were invited to, so we got dressed in our formal wear…. Reggie, he was in a tux. I swear he looked like James Bond; he was so handsome!”
Catalina grinned thinking about it and Reggie turned his face away from her, narrowing his eyes and looking downward. He said nothing and she sighed with a blissful smile thinking about it, and then went on.
“So we ate the most incredible meal I’ve ever had in my life. It was so good! We drank champagne, and then we danced; there was a live orchestra there. The politicians all spoke, but they didn’t take up too much time and we were kind of wrapped up in the fun side of the banquet, so I didn’t pay too much attention to what they said.
“Anyway, while we were on the dance floor, he kissed my cheek; it was sort of dark in there, and it was romantic, and I kissed him back, and then we stopped kissing and went back to the room. He was trying to hold to the professor and student relationship that we have, but the chemistry was just too hot between us and we wound up kissing again, and then we made love; Reggie, it was the single greatest night of my life. I never knew it could be like that with anyone. I was so amazed by him!” She was grinning happily, thinking back on it and she didn’t see Reggie turn sharply and gape at her, horror flooding his face.
“We made love all night, and the next day we got lucky and we were snowed in, so we made love all day long, and then all night again… we were like newlyweds who never came up for air! It was the best time of my life!” She sighed in bliss with a faraway look on her face. She heard a strangled noise beside her and it suddenly brought her back to the present and she turned to see Reggie vault up off the bench and glare down at her angrily.
“You slept with him? You had sex with your professor?!” he was almost shouting at her and she glanced around them, startled, hoping that no one had heard him. Heat flooded to her cheeks and adrenaline pounded through her heart as she looked up at her best friend and saw a furious man standing there.
“Reggie, what on earth are you so angry about? God! We’re both single adults! I’m graduating this year. I can sleep with anyone I want to, and if I want to sleep with him then I will! There’s nothing wrong with that! I can’t believe you’re so angry about this!” She lowered her brow and stood up to face him defensively.
He shook his head and pointed his finger in her face, gritting his teeth as he spoke to her in a deep tone. “You had no business doing that! None! He’s in a position of authority over you! It’s morally wrong! You are wrecking your life! I can’t believe you did something so cheap! He’s a college professor, Catalina, he probably screws his students all of the time; especially that one! I know who he is; I’ve seen him around campus.
“There are women chasing him all the time because of how he looks, and you were stupid enough to sleep with him?! You’re worth more than that, Cat! So much more than that! What the hell did you do that for? Damn it!” He turned his head away from her in disgust and fury and she felt the fires of outrage ignite and grow strong inside of her.
“How dare you tell me what I can and can’t do, and how dare you insinuate that he sleeps around! I’ve known that man for four years now, and I’ll tell you this, he hasn’t ever slept with a student before! I’m not wrecking my life! I made a decision to make love with a man that I have feelings for! That doesn’t make me cheap, and it doesn’t make me wrong! I know what I’m worth! Now I’m wondering if you do!” she snapped back at him in indignation.
Reggie turned his head back toward her and reached for her shoulders, grasping them firmly and pulling her so close to him that she was almost up against him. He looked down at her with a sea of emotion in his eyes as he struggled to find the words to say to her.
“Catalina Marshall, damn it… I know exactly what you’re worth! I’m your best friend! No one knows you better than I do! I want more for you than that piece of crap teacher who is willing to go after his own students like that!” His anger was powerful, but it did not reach his hands that were holding her tightly to him.
She shook her head at him fiercely. “He didn’t come after me, Reg. In fact every time we got close he tried to stop it! I was the one who kept going after him! I was the one who wanted him, and that’s not wrong!” she insisted as she glared hotly up at him.
Reggie shook his head. “No! It’s wrong! You deserve better! You shouldn’t be with him!” he cried out in exasperation.
She narrowed her eyes at him and planted her hands on her hips. “Oh no? Who should I be with then, mister high and mighty, just who do you think I should be with, if not him?”
Reggie hesitated a moment and shook his head, and then gushed honesty forth. “Me! Damn it, you should be with me! I want you! I’ve always wanted you. I care about you so much; Cat, I love you! Much more than just as a friend, but every time I try to show you, you just don’t see it!”
She stared at him, wide eyed as everything in her slammed to a halt. Reggie liked her. Reggie loved her. She heard his words echo in her head… he had always wanted her…. and she could not process them. All she could think was how, and why, and she could not get past either of those questions, all she could do was stare at him and blink, trying to make some kind of sense of what he had just confessed to her.
She didn’t have time to make too much sense of it. Reggie, in desperation to show her his affections, moved his hands up to her cheeks from her shoulders, and holding her face in his large palms, he tilted it up toward him and bent his head to kiss her mouth. His kiss was firm and possessive, demanding and insistent.
Catalina was in no way prepared for the experience of being held fast in her best friend’s arms as he kissed her with all of the emotion that he felt for her. She was too shocked to move at first, but as his kiss grew more ardent, everything in her began to move again and with each second that passed, fury began to burn through her whole body, igniting in her heart and burning along every vein in her.
She planted both of her hands on his chest and shoved him away from her in absolute aggravation, her breath coming fast and her eyes ablaze with outrage. “Reggie Brown, how dare you kiss me! How dare you think you can do anything like that to me at all! Ever! We’re friends! We’re best friends! You can’t just do something like that to me!”
He gasped, his eyes glazed with the heat of his first kiss with her, as he wavered unsteadily from the unexpected push she gave him. He panted and stood there, looking unsure what to do for a long moment.
She shook her head. “How could you do that to me? How could you do that to us? Reggie, damn it, I don’t want you like that! I’ve never wanted you like that!” Her words were like a slap in the face for him and they seemed to wake him from his stunned trance.
“You just haven’t given us a chance!” he insisted. “I’m so much better for you than he is! You and me, we’re best friends! We’re perfect for each other! How can you not see that? How can you be so blind?” he pleaded with her, reaching his hand out to her, his desperate eyes locked on her.
She shook her head and backed away from him a few steps. “No, Reggie, we are not perfect for each other because I don’t want you like that! I have never wanted you like that and now you’re ruining our friendship! You’re betraying me, and you’re betraying us! How could you be so selfish? How could you do that to me and to us?!” She shook her head angrily at him as tears stung her eyes. She felt as though she had just lost her best friend.
Reggie took a couple of steps toward her, reaching for her, and she backed away from him. “Cat, I love you!” he declared boldly. “Can’t you see that? Can’t you understand how we should be together? I’ve always been there for you and I always will be! It’s you and me!
“It should be you and me! That useless professor of yours doesn’t love you, and he isn’t going to be there for you like I will be! He’s just using you for sex! You don’t mean anything to him, and you mean everything in the world to me! Why can’t you see that!” he demanded.
She shook her head, her eyes of fire locked on him. “You know nothing at all about him, and you don’t know half as much about me as you like to think that you do, or you never would have said or done any of this! I can’t believe you betrayed us like this!” she cried out as the realization of the betrayal of her best friend set in and she felt her heart beginning to break.
He pursed his lips and gave his head a shake. “You’re choosing him over me. I can’t believe that,” he told her as he backed away a few steps at a time. “You’re choosing that creep over me.”
He turned around then and took off at a jog over the campus grounds, leaving her standing beside their bench under the great oak tree, as unbidden tears spilled over her eyelashes and streamed down her cheeks. She knew he was not gone completely from her, but their bond had suffered a hard blow, and it was tearing her up.