SADLY, I DO NOT GET served sushi on my boyfriend when I get back to his place later that night.
Instead, I’m greeted with a frazzled Bash. I’m barely up the driveway when his door swings open and he says, “We have a problem.”
“Damn right we do. You’re supposed to be completely naked covered in artfully prepared fish rolls.” I eye his naked chest before putting my palms on his abs. They slide over the ridges and tight muscle as they make their way down to his athletic shorts’ waistline. “These need to come off.”
“Not that kind of problem.” He smiles at me, but it’s defensive. “Dez is here.”
I’m not seeing the connection between company and his weird attitude. Dez is with Bash most of the time.
Dez being here doesn’t really scream problem, ignoring the fact that I’m not his biggest fan. Or a fan of his at all.
“What’s he doing?” I raise a brow. “Streaking in the backyard?”
“Negative. He’s being a drunken mess on my couch.” Bash comes outside, easing the door closed behind him. “How did things go with your parents?”
I narrow my eyes. I can smell a subject change like a bloodhound.
He’s hiding something.
If it’s about Dez that means it’s probably about Brit.
A surge of protectiveness toward my best friend surfaces and I try to move past Bash to storm into the house with fire in my eyes and nails as knives.
Bash catches the murder on my face and grabs me around my waist. He brings our bodies together, my back to his chest, and I squirm in the embrace. Legs leaving the ground and flailing about.
“Oh no,” he tells me. “You’re not going in there until you calm down.”
“I am calm.” My tone is anything but calm and I’m struggling in Bash’s hold even more. Wiggling isn’t getting me anywhere, so I aim my heel for his knee. He barely flinches.
“Calm as an angered bumble bee,” he deadpans.
I’m squirming like a crazed animal and he doesn’t sound like he’s struggling at all. Holding onto me with ease.
The bastard.
“Put me down, Sebastian.” I try a new form of attack, digging my nails into his skin.
Bash hisses in pain the deeper I go, but he still holds on, keeping my feet from touching the ground.
“Not until you’re calm and you tell me how it went with your parents.”
“I refuse to talk to you rationally while you hold me like a monkey.”
“You’re the one flinging your limbs around like one,” he argues, lips brushing the shell of my ear. The kiss contrasts with the strength of his hold.
“Bash,” I say.
“Emery,” he counters.
“If you put me back on my feet, I’ll tell you what happened.”
He does, only to keep his hands on my waist. His grip is tight, anchoring me to the spot.
He’s a good friend for trying to protect Dez, but he’s only delaying what will happen. I’m imagining nails to the eyeballs or suffocation by a pillow over his face.
I need a release after what went down with my parents.
“What happened, Em?” Bash pulls me from my torture plans.
“They weren’t mad,” I whisper, hoping the wind, which is barely at a breeze, catches my words, blowing them away before he hears. But he does and I watch as his face compresses into confusion.
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
I nod, shake my head, and nod again. Confusing not only him, but also myself.
I’ve been confused since I left my house though, so it’s not really saying much.
“I thought that they would be pissed, like they were on Christmas, but they got really quiet instead,” I tell him, remembering the looks on my parents’ faces. It was like masks were being placed over them, covering their real feelings and hiding them behind something fake.
“At least I’m not grounded, right?” I shake my head again, laughing without humor. “Do you want to know what they said to me?” Pressing on without waiting for his reply, I tell him, “That they aren’t surprised. College isn’t for everyone. And it’s not. That’s what I’ve always said, but hearing it from my parents? It hurt.”
The pain is still present in my chest from their words. They didn’t believe in me. At least, that’s what I first thought.
Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I finish telling Bash what happened.
The condensed version, anyway.
“So, yeah.” I stall for a few more seconds. “We talked a little more and decided that I’m going to take this semester off since classes are probably full anyway, if I find that I miss it, I can just go back and start taking online classes in the summer.”
He stares at me for a while after I finish explaining. I shift nervously from one foot to the other, waiting for him to say something.
It’s a little awkward since Bash is still holding me by the waist.
Finally, his face breaks out in a smile.
He pulls me close, burying one of his hands into my hair so he can cradle the back of my head. “That’s great, Em.” His voice matches the excitement of his words. “Now we can get you ready for your comeback.”
Like my mind isn’t in the water twenty-four seven already.
“Yeah.” I nod, but pull away slightly so he’ll see my face for the next part. “On two conditions.” Well, just one condition that applies to two people. “I don’t want you or Dad to help me. Outside of training, that is.”
I want to do this on my own. Achieve this on my own. I want to know if the track I was on when I was younger, before my accident, had anything to do with my dad or not. If I have the talent that I think I do. But there is only one way to tell.
My way.
“Deal, but you do know that once your name is out there it’s going to be associated with your dad and me.”
I do know that and I hate that my success will be seen as a reflection of the men in my life. That my talent will be questioned because of who I go to bed with or who I’m related to. But I also know that if anyone tries to accuse me of skipping dues they had to pay and not working as hard, I can say that they’re wrong.
That I climbed and fought to the top all on my own.
No matter what men I associate with.
“I’d like to see them try.” I push up on my toes, kissing his lips. He kisses me back, opening my mouth against his as he pushes his tongue to mine.
As his hand leaves my waist, moving a little further down, I push away from him so fast I stumble backward.
“What the fuck?” He looks at me, but I quickly turn around and run for the door. One problem taken care of and now it’s on to the main attraction of the night.
“Never let your guard down, suckaaa!” I yell as I go into the house.
“Emery, fucking don’t!” Bash moves to come after me, but I’m already through the door and slamming it closed.
Right in my boyfriend’s face.
Oops.
I hear noises coming from the living room, groans and bottles hitting the floor.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I yell as I walk into the room.
I see the backside of Dez’s body as he leans forward. Hunched shoulders that are folding into his body and his elbows are digging into his sweatpants-clad thighs.
Dez doesn’t react to my words. He doesn’t even acknowledge that I spoke or that I’ve moved further into the room and am now standing in front of him.
He looks miserable and smells like stale beer that’s been left in the sun for too long. And his hazel eyes are tinged with red with dark circles dragging down his cheekbones, making his tanned skin look a shade or two lighter. He mumbles something in Spanish, the word harsh as it leaves his mouth. Probably something about me being here.
I don’t care. I keep my glare firm as Bash comes into the room, looking at me standing over his miserable friend, who is clutching the bottleneck of a beer.
Several empty bottles litter the floor around his feet.
“Em, don’t,” Bash warns as he moves further into the room. No doubt to pull me away from Dez.
Yeah, not happening, Surfer Boy.
“I’m not doing anything,” I defend, looking at him with what I hope are innocent eyes. Hoping that he can’t read minds and see that I was, moments ago, thinking about taking one of the empty beer bottles that decorate the floor and smashing it over Dez’s head.
“Leave him alone.” Bash walks toward me, carefully, like I’m a feral cat he’s trying not to spook. “You don’t know what happened.”
“Yes, I do.” My voice rises, bordering on a shout, and I try to reign in. Try to focus on the calm. Except there is no fucking calm in my body at the moment. “Dez did what he’s always done and he fucked up. He did something to hurt my best friend and now he’s here feeling sorry for himself.”
My words are cold and I don’t care. Because if he’s like this, then Brit is ten times worse. I know my best friend and she feels every single emotion, every fiber of feeling.
Dez has had the power to destroy my best friend since we were growing up and he’s finally done it. Destroyed one of the sweetest people in our town.
But Bash shakes his head at me. “That’s not what—“
“I told her I didn’t want us to stop seeing each other after she goes back to school and she broke things off with me.”
My brain does not compute. I hear his words, I understand what Dez is saying, but I refuse to accept the truth behind them. “Was there even anything to break up, Dez?” My tone isn’t any nicer than it was when I first came in. “You didn’t even want to date her.”
“But we were,” he argues back, his voice soft. Like a blanket in the cold. “We were dating since two days before Christmas. We weren’t telling anyone because we both thought I’d fuck it up. But I didn’t. I didn’t,” he argues louder. “She ruined us. Ruined me.”
“Dez, why would she trust you after only a few weeks?” Bash looks at me strangely. I ignore it. “You’ve played her emotions too many times. You’ve never acted like you wanted anything serious.”
Dez looks up at me. His face flushed from all the alcohol, eyes bloodshot, and hair all a mess. Despite all of that, he’s angry with me. So angry that even the amount of booze he’s consumed cannot disguise how much rage is in him.
Only his body does.
Dez tries to stand up, but he ends up wobbling on his feet and falling ass first back onto the couch. “I’ve been in love with her since we were in middle school!”
It’s a rare time when I get stunned into silence, so much so that there is absolutely nothing running through my head. It’s just empty.
One of those rare occurrences is now.
Until the first word that returns to me flies out of my mouth. “Bullshit.”
Middle school wasn’t that long ago and if he loves her like he says, then he should’ve done something about that in high school. But my memories conjure up a different history, one that shows he barely acknowledged her.
His bloodshot eyes glare at me. “Fuck you and your bullshit, Lawson. You don’t know shit about me and her.”
Oh yeah, drunk guy? “She’s my best friend.”
“And she’s the girl I lost my virginity to.”
Within the span of countable seconds, Dez again steals my words and thoughts.
Oh my God. What did he just say?
Bash is now behind me, bracing his hands on my shoulders like he’s trying to steady me. Am I swaying? Lightheaded? Woozy?
What am I feeling?
Like I got dunked into a bathtub with water from the arctic.
Dez, either too drunk or numb to care, doesn’t address my frozen look. No, now that I got him talking, he’s on a roll. “Her freshman year, my sophomore. It was after a football game, during a party I was having at my parents’. We snuck up to my room, locked my door, and took each other’s virginities.” His head falls into the hands, muffling his next words slightly. “She avoided me for the rest of the season after that. I was going to ask her to homecoming the following week, too. I thought that’s what she wanted. To date me. But after that she acted weird when I came around, I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, so I left her alone.”
He roughly runs his hands up and down his face, pulling skin as he goes on. “I don’t know how to do relationships anymore. I don’t think I ever did, but when I finally got her? I had to ask her, but then she fucking freaks out and tries to throw a shoe at my head.” He glares at me. “You make her mean, Emery. You’re a mean bitch who’s hated me for years, but guess who’s always treated who like shit, hmmm?”
Bash digs his hands deeper into my shoulders. I don’t know if he’s trying to hold me back or himself. “Dude. I know you’re having a shit day, but call Emery a bitch one more time for any fucking reason and your ass will be outside. If I’m feeling nice about it. If not, it’s going to be a hell of a lot worse.”
“Thank you, Bash.” I grin up at him and he glances at me briefly before going back to stare at his friend. I don’t mention that I didn’t get angry when Dez called me a bitch because to him, I’m nothing but mean.
Not saying it’s okay to be called that, because it’s not, but Dez only knows that side of me now.
“I fucked up,” Dez moans as his head flops back into his cradling hands. “No,” he amends. “She fucked up. She’s going back to college tomorrow, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “She’s pushing me away. Why is she pushing me away?”
Dez isn’t my favorite person, not in the slightest, but as I stand in front of him, watching the man break down as he forgets other people are in the room with him, my heart breaks.
Stepping away from Bash, I sit on the couch next to Dez, wrapping the blanket that’s chilling on the couch across his back and around his shoulders. My arm curls across his shoulders as I hold him to my side for a few minutes. It’s awkward, but I don’t pull away.
Not until Dez does and sprawls out on the cushions.
I get up as Bash places some medicine and a bottle of water on the table next to the couch. He grabs my hand and pulls me out of the living room to his room and pushes me down on the bed.
My mind is reeling, going around and around Dez’s words, trying to piece them with my high school memories and they don’t fit.
Brit is my person. I know her. Or…at least I thought I did.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” I whisper to my hands in my lap. I don’t feel betrayed. Just hurt that she thought she had to keep this from me. We were all friends once, but it seems I was the only one left behind by Dez. Brit always had him.
Bash crouches in front of me, his finger goes under my chin, and raises my head to meet his eyes.
“Hey,” he whispers back. “Don’t overthink it. Don’t dwell on it. Just ask her about it later.”
“But—”
“She’s not going to tell you right now, Em. She’s not going to tell you over a text or a phone call. If you go over there right now, she’s not going to open the door.”
Damn him. He’s right. And damn him for knowing my best friend. Brit doesn’t let anyone in when she’s hurting, and if what Dez looks like is any indication, she’s not going to let me in yet.
“I just—I just don’t know how to feel right now. I feel alone,” I admit, hugging my elbows.
“Hey,” he repeats. “You’re not. I’m here. And Brit’s never left you. You’ll work this out, Firecracker. You know better than anyone that people keeping secrets think they’re protecting the people they’re hiding it from.”
Did he have to go and throw that argument at me? Have to get all philosophical and rational when I don’t know what’s happening?
“Fine,” I concede, not having the energy to think. To dwell. There’s another important issue tonight. “You still owe me your body covered in sushi.”
Bash gives me a look. “I think we can arrange that for another night.”