I refuse to focus on the certainty that we will have to spend the summer apart. Baylor and I talked about it a lot over the past few weeks and I think we’ve mollified our insecurities—for the most part. Baylor said we need to concentrate on now. Live for the moment. Just be ourselves. And she’s very good at getting us to stick to that plan.
She joined an intramural soccer team and I go to every game I can. I love to watch her run around in those short soccer outfits while she gets all sweaty.
I can’t wait to have her getting sweaty underneath me. But we’ve taken it slowly, just like I promised, even though we’ve been pretty much inseparable since we became an official couple. Surprisingly, I’m okay with slow. We haven’t even touched each other below the waist. Makes for a lot of cold showers, but I’m in this for the long haul . . . the checkered flag. I’m not going to screw this up.
“Gavin,” I hear behind me. I turn around from where I’m sitting at the desk in my room and I see Karen.
“Hey, Karen. What’s up?”
She smiles sweetly at me and I, once again, think of how well she’s been dealing with my new relationship. When I told her a few weeks ago that Baylor was officially my girlfriend, she didn’t freak out like I expected her to. She didn’t cry, throw a fit or even so much as pout. I guess she’s more mature than I gave her credit for. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s embracing my new status, and she isn’t exactly inviting Baylor to Girls’ Night, but she’s been civil about it, and for that I’m grateful.
“Nothing, really,” she says. “Marcie needed to stop by and return something to Jonesy so I tagged along. I miss you, you know.”
I smile up at her from my desk. “I miss you, too.”
“Then how about you come to our party at the house on Saturday?” she asks. “You can even bring Baylor if you want.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. Then I try to envision Baylor at a sorority party.
“Don’t be such a jerk, Gav,” she says. “I do have a heart, you know.”
I laugh at her. “Yes, somewhere in there, I believe that you do,” I tease. “And someday, you are going to find a great guy to give it to.”
“Yeah . . . someday,” she says, looking sad for a brief second. “Gavin, what’s Chris’s last name?” she asks. “Baylor’s Chris.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “He’s not Baylor’s Chris,” I assert possessively. “It’s Samson, why?”
She smiles. “I have a friend who thinks he’s hot, so she has me doing recon for her,” she says.
“Recon?” I laugh.
“Yeah. Wouldn’t you like to see him dating someone?” she asks. “You know, being that he’s her ex-boyfriend and all.”
Now that I think of it . . . yes. If Asswipe is getting laid, he’s less likely to set his sights on Baylor again. “That’s a brilliant idea, Karen. And thanks for the invite, I’ll see if Baylor wants to go.”
“You get laid yet, Gav?” Dean asks during our Friday morning run.
“None of your fucking business, Dickwad,” I reply.
“And that’s a big fat no!” Tim says, laughing, so I push him off the sidewalk.
“How long have you been dating now?” Jonesy asks. “A couple of weeks, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Three weeks today.”
Dean elbows me. “Dude, you’re counting? Shit, this is worse than I thought.”
I smack him on the back of the head. “Hell yes, I am. And when you find someone as great as Baylor, you’ll do the same thing,” I say. “But then again, you’ll never find someone like her. She’s one of a kind.”
“Holy shit,” Dean says, stopping our run. “Alert the fucking press! Gavin McBride has been certifiably pussy-whipped.” He starts to run again, leaving the three of us behind. “Sorry guys, I can’t run with you douchebags anymore, I don’t want to catch whatever the hell it is that you all have.”
Jonesy, Tim and I all look at each other. Tim says, “Yeah, but when he’s sixty years old and still tugging the weasel, we’ll have the last laugh.” We bump fists then catch up to Dean to finish our run.
“This is the best steak I’ve ever tasted,” Baylor declares, sitting across the booth from me.
Watching Baylor eat is one of my favorite things to do. It always makes me hard. She savors every bite like it could be her last. I love the way she loves food. I guess growing up in a restaurant will do that. I look at the way she selectively decides which piece of steak to eat next, examining the color and juiciness of it as if determining if the piece of food is worthy of her mouth. It’s not. I can tell you nothing is worthy of those lips and that tongue, and it still blows me away every damn day that a girl like this wants to be with a douche like me.
I study her face and see that she’s got a little more color around her eyes and that the green eye shadow really brings out the emerald flecks in her irises. She’s also taken more time with her hair. She has completely straightened her normally wavy hair, and it’s hanging in a perfect sheen of light-brown gloss down the front of her dress. She’s gone all out tonight for our fancy Valentine’s Day date. She looks stunning. But then again, she looks good all the time. I’m painfully drawn to her astounding beauty.
“You look beautiful, Bay,” I tell her.
She smiles. “Thank you. You clean up pretty well yourself.”
I hope she doesn’t think she has to try this hard for me. “Yeah, but you are beautiful all the time, darlin’—not only when you put on a pretty dress.”
She blushes. I love the fact that she still blushes around me even after we’ve been together for a few weeks.
I laugh when the waitress brings over a side of fries. “What? When did you order these?”
“When you were in the bathroom,” she says. She stares at my empty plate of food and then looks up at me playfully.
“Twenty Questions?” I ask. I wink. She smiles. We play.
“Would you like to meet my parents?” she asks.
“Oh, shit. Really?” I know I must look like a deer in headlights.
“Well, not both of them, they can rarely get away from the restaurant at the same time. But my dad might come for a visit in a couple of weeks.”
“Your dad, huh?” I shift around uncomfortably in my seat.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to,” she says, looking slightly deflated.
“No, no, I want to,” I say. “It’s just that I’ve never done this before, Baylor. What if he hates me? What if he sees me kissing you and beats the crap out of me?”
She laughs. “Gavin, my dad is a huge teddy bear,” she explains. “He really wants to meet you and I know he’s going to love you just as much . . . uh . . .” She gets all fidgety.
Just as much as what? I scream in my head. Was she about to say what I think she was?
“Uh, he really w-wants to meet you,” she stumbles over the words.
I grin at her obvious discomfort. “He wants to meet me, huh?” I ask. “So, you’ve told him about me.”
She nods shyly. “All you have to do is be yourself, Gavin. You really underestimate how great you are underneath your rough exterior.”
Her saying that reminds me of what’s in my pocket. Of what’s always in my pocket because I put it there every single morning. I pull the keychain out and place it on the table in front of her.
Her eyes go wide. “I’ve been looking for that! Where did you get it?” She picks it up and runs her finger over the inscription just like I always do.
“I’ve had it since the day we met,” I say. “You ran off before I could give it to you. Then it kind of grew on me. It’s my inspiration. Well, along with this cool chick who’s now my girlfriend.”
Her dimple appears, lighting up her face. “My mom gave this to me on my first day of high school.”
“What’s the significance of the zebra?” I ask.
Her finger traces the outline of it as she explains, “No two zebras are alike. Each pattern of stripes is unique, unlike any other zebra that ever lived. It was my mom’s way of reminding me to just be me. That I don’t have to try and be like everyone else. To stand out.” She laughs. “And apparently zebras can’t be broken. They can’t be domesticated. My mom was always telling me when I was growing up that I was part zebra because she could never tame me.”
She studies the keychain again before handing it back to me. “You keep it.”
“What? No.” I push it back at her. “It obviously means a lot to you. You should keep it.”
Her chameleon eyes grab and hold onto mine. “You mean a lot to me too, Gavin and I want you to have it.”
I take the keychain from her and pull my keys out of my pocket. I remove them from the bottle-opener keychain they are currently on and place them on her inscribed one. I look up at her. “You just tell me when and where and I’d be happy to meet your dad, Bay.”
She smiles brightly and holds the plate of fries up for me to take some.
“You have nineteen more,” I say. “What’s next?”
She says, “I don’t need all nineteen. I only need one.”
“Oh?” I raise my eyebrows.
She looks around the restaurant while biting her lip. I know this look, it’s the same look she had when we were in my truck that night, right before she climbed up onto my lap. She looks back at me, blushing, and asks in a whisper, “Do you want to have sex with me tonight, Gavin?”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I’m stunned silent. I have to put her words on instant replay in my head to make sure I heard them correctly. But if my hardening dick is any indication, I’m pretty sure I did.
There’s only one thing I can think of to say to her. I shake my head and answer, “No.”
She looks surprised and then her eyes lower to the table in sadness. I quickly get up and join her on the other side of the booth. I push her beautiful hair away from her ear and whisper, “I’ve had sex lots of times before and that’s not at all what I want to do with you.” I kiss her on that place just under her earlobe that drives her crazy. “But I will take you home and make love to you, darlin’.”
“Gavin,” she breathes out and I take her shaky hand in mine.
I motion for the check, and then we get up and walk out of the restaurant, leaving the rest of the french fries sitting untouched on the table.