The Anti-Boyfriend

by Ward, Penelope

  He had a point. From almost the first day I’d hung out with Carys, I’d had to fight my attraction to her.

  “So how do I handle it?”

  “You stop trying to be her friend. I hate to say it, but this is a ‘shit or get off the pot’ situation. If you continue to stick around, you will cross the line again. Someone’s gonna get hurt.”

  Adrian was a straight shooter; he was seldom wrong. And I hated that I knew he was right in this case. It wasn’t fair to toy with Carys’s emotions. I wanted to be there for her if she needed me, but I needed to stop trying to get closer if I couldn’t trust myself.

  * * *

  Despite Adrian’s warning, when I passed Starbucks on the way home, I walked in and picked up a latte for Carys. My plan was to go over to her apartment and see if things seemed different between us. If they did, I’d know I’d fucked everything up beyond the point of no return. If by chance she acted normal, maybe that would mean I hadn’t totally ruined our friendship.

  Once I got to her apartment, I texted her from outside her door in case the baby was napping.

  A few seconds later, she opened. “Hey.” Her face seemed flushed.

  “Hey,” I said.

  And there it was. Immediately. An unspoken energy that was different than what I normally felt.

  I handed her the coffee.

  She took it. “Thanks for this.”

  “You’re welcome.” After I entered, I looked down at my shoes for a moment. “After the other night, I, uh, wanted to come by and…see you…feel you up.” I shut my eyes and corrected, “Fuck. Out! Feel you out.”

  Jesus Christ. Not even a minute here, and I was already acting crazy. It was one thing to tell myself to act normal, but now that she was right in front of me, I was incapable of that. Her scent immediately fucked with my head, brought me back to my face buried in her pussy. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to smell her and not lose my mind again. I was a lost cause and an idiot for thinking things could go back to the way they were before.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said, turning red. She shook her head. “I guess I’m speaking in ambiguous sexual phrases, too.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with us?” I asked.

  When I noticed Sunny kicking her legs in the air on her playmat, I put my coffee down on the table and walked over.

  Kneeling down, I said, “Hey, Sunny Side Up. How ya doin’?”

  I’d never been more grateful for Sunny’s presence, because it was just the buffer I needed right now. She cooed but didn’t cry to be held.

  I turned to Carys. “How’s Bee Gees therapy going?”

  “It’s amazing. I had the album on a little while ago, and it put her in a really good mood. It’s a miracle. You see how she’s not even crying for you to hold her? I guess we weaned her off that habit.”

  “Who knew the answer was some high-pitched disco dudes all along?” I stood up. “Glad to help.”

  About fifteen seconds of silence passed, but I swear it felt like fifteen minutes.

  Then we both started to speak over each other.

  “You first…” I told her.

  Then she said the dreaded words. “About the other night…”

  Here it comes.

  My heart started to pound. “Yeah…”

  “I don’t want things to be weird between us.”

  I let out a long breath, happy she’d articulated what I’d been struggling to. “Neither do, I, Carys.”

  “There’s no reason why they should be, right?” She shrugged. “I mean, we’re both adults.”

  I forced honesty out of myself. “What happened…felt right at the time. In retrospect, I probably took things too far. I care about you and would never want to do anything to ruin our friendship.”

  She blinked several times and whispered, “It’s not ruined.”

  Relief washed over me, though I didn’t exactly believe her. I wanted to believe her. “I’m glad you said that. You have no idea how much.”

  Then my chest felt heavy again, because while the elephant in the room was no longer present, that unspoken tension remained. No matter what we told each other right now, something had changed. Our words weren’t coming as easily, and I could hardly look at her without remembering how she tasted. In fact, I could hardly look at her at all. Meanwhile, her eyes were on my lips. If coming over here was a test to see if things could feel “back to normal,” we’d failed miserably.

  I had to give her credit for trying to convince herself our friendship could pick up where it left off. But it wasn’t working because I could see in her eyes that she felt the change in our dynamic, too.

  Adrian was right. He was damn right, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  I ended up taking the cowardly way out.

  “Alright, well, I have a phone meeting with my supervisor. I just wanted to bring you your coffee and see how you’re doing.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled, but it seemed fake.

  Fuck.

  I walked over to Sunny. “Be good for your mama.” She took the toy she was biting on out of her mouth and flashed me a wide grin. Not sure why, but that smile kind of hurt this time. Maybe because deep down, I knew I’d be seeing it a lot less. That is, if I could stick to doing what I needed to.

  CHAPTER 13

  Carys

  HE WASN’T ALONE

  I couldn’t believe I was thinking this, but I wished Deacon had never gone down on me. I wished I had never heard him groaning against me. I wished he’d never given me the most amazing orgasm of my life. I wished I could erase that night altogether, because nothing had been the same since.

  I wasn’t stupid. I knew he’d been keeping his distance since my birthday. It had been a week now, and it was clearer by the day that we’d ruined a perfectly good friendship. What bothered me the most was the sense of false hope I’d had after that night—that somehow Deacon would decide he wanted to be more than friends. Instead, I hadn’t seen or heard from him in days. Normally he would’ve stopped by with another coffee by now, but he had chosen to distance himself. Not sure I could blame him. The last time he was here, things were awkward. And I hated that. Things had never been that way before—sexually tense, maybe, but never awkward.

  Poor Sunny.

  As I sat ruminating about Deacon, I’d been feeding her mindlessly, causing some of the rice cereal to dribble down her chin.

  “I’m sorry, baby girl. Mommy’s mind is somewhere else today.”

  Thankfully, Sunny simply opened her mouth wider for the next bite. Didn’t take much to please her.

  After Sunny’s early-intervention therapist came for her visit that morning, I decided we needed to get out of the house. I found a “Mommy and Me” class with drop-in availability in the afternoon, so I packed up a diaper bag and took my daughter out for a change of scenery.

  For an hour, I did yoga poses while holding Sunny, and she seemed to love it. I also got to talk to other moms, one of whom was single like me. It felt damn good to get out, and I vowed to do it more often. The only times I usually left the house were to go to the office or for some quick food shopping. That needed to change.

  After the session, I took Sunny to the neighborhood Starbucks. After wiping down the highchair, I fed her bananas while I sipped my latte. It had started to rain, so I was thankful we’d made it close to home before the weather got bad.

  It had been such a relaxing day. But that all ended when Deacon walked into the café. Raindrops covered the front window, so I’d had not even a few seconds’ warning before he entered. My heart beat faster as I watched him. The worst part? He wasn’t alone.

  I recognized the girl with him—Kendra, the redhead he’d taken back to his apartment at least once before.

  Why did this have to happen? Both times I’d come here recently I’d run into him. Maybe a part of me hoped to run into him. But certainly no part of me had hoped to run into him with her.

  When our eyes locked, I swallowed the tensio
n in my throat.

  He had no choice but to come up to us, but I wished we could’ve bypassed this uncomfortable run-in altogether. I wished we were invisible.

  “Hey, Carys,” he said stiffly.

  “Hi.” I could barely look at him. Instead, I looked at her. “Nice to see you again,” I lied. It was pretty sad that looking at her was easier than looking at him.

  “You, too,” she said.

  He placed his hand on Sunny’s head. “Hey, Sunny Side Up.”

  It broke my heart a little to see her face light up. That’s how I used to feel when I saw him, too. Sunny flailed her arms and legs in her highchair.

  “How long have you guys been here?” he asked.

  “Not long.”

  My answer was curt, and I still didn’t look him in the eyes. I couldn’t help it. Seeing him with Kendra hurt, and I wasn’t in the mood for small talk.

  He likely sensed my disdain. “Well, I’ll let you two be,” he said. “Enjoy.”

  “Yep,” I said, still not making eye contact.

  I knew he hadn’t brought her around to hurt me, but it stung. He was spending time with her instead of me.

  I tortured myself by sneaking glances in their direction as they waited in line. When he took out his wallet to pay, my eyes zoned in on his big, strong hands. Hands that had touched me so intimately, hands that had made me feel things I’d never felt before. Hands that would be touching her later.

  The milk turned in my stomach as jealousy burned through me.

  * * *

  That evening, just when I’d thought my day couldn’t get any worse, the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and realized it was Charles—Sunny’s father.

  Why is he calling? “Hello?”

  “Carys…”

  “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to congratulate you on City Ballet winning the donation from Neil Spectra.”

  “Thank you. You didn’t need to do that.”

  “I also wanted to see how you’re doing, in general.”

  Is he serious? “Why? You never normally care.”

  He sighed. “I know things have been rough between us for some time. That’s something I deeply regret.”

  I looked over at Sunny, who was peacefully swinging and oblivious to the fact that her “father” was pulling some shit right now.

  I got a little choked up. “You should regret not acknowledging your daughter, aside from throwing money our way from time to time. That’s what you should regret.”

  “I know. And I do regret that. I really do.”

  “Well, it’s too late. You had your chance.”

  He paused. “I messed up royally.”

  “What’s the real reason for this call, Charles?”

  After a short delay, he finally said, “I want to see her.”

  “Why? Why now?”

  “Because she’s my daughter.”

  “Wait…you’re only now realizing this? I thought you didn’t want anything to do with her. You’re not even on the birth certificate, per your request.”

  “I know. I was scared, Carys. At the time, Violet had threatened to take everything if I acknowledged Sunny. She didn’t want Talia and Xavier to know. Still doesn’t. I handled everything wrong. I shouldn’t have given in to her.”

  “Why are you realizing this now?”

  “Things have been bad at home. It’s become clear to me that I threw away everything with you for nothing. Not only did I make a mistake abandoning Sunny, but you, too. I really did love you, Carys. I don’t know what I was thinking going back to that woman when I had you. I was trying to save my family.”

  The nerve of him. “Oh, I see. You save one family by throwing the other one away. That makes perfect sense.” Is he seriously expecting me to be receptive to this bullshit? He was more than a little too late.

  “Please hear me out, Carys. I—”

  “I’m not sure what you expect me to say, Charles, but—”

  “Say you’ll speak to me.” His voice grew louder in my ear. “Say you won’t shut me out. Say you’ll consider letting me see my daughter.”

  Looking over at her, I felt conflicted. “I don’t know. I still have a lot of negative feelings toward you, and she’s very intuitive. She’ll be able to sense things. I don’t want negative energy around her. And I certainly don’t want you coming into her life only to leave again. I don’t trust you and never will.”

  “I have to accept that as my own fault. But please say you’ll consider talking to me again. Maybe that can eventually lead to my being able to see Sunny—on your terms.”

  “Are you going to tell your children about her? Because you shouldn’t be allowed to see her if you’re not willing to acknowledge her like you acknowledge them.”

  “You know it’s not my choice. Violet doesn’t want them to know. And I can see her point. They’re still very young. When they’re older, I may be able to tell them. I do plan to tell them eventually.”

  That was the only one of his arguments I sort of understood. It would be devastating for them to find out their dad had fathered a child with another woman. Xavier was thirteen and Talia was ten. His daughter, in particular, wasn’t even old enough to understand sex.

  After I didn’t say anything for several seconds, he said, “Talk to me, Carys.”

  “I honestly have nothing to say. I’m confused by what you’re throwing at me. I don’t think you deserve to see her, but at the same time, Sunny deserves to know who her father is, even if you’ve been a disappointment. So I guess I’ll think about the pros and cons of letting you be around her.”

  “That’s a start.” He let out a breath into the phone. “Thank you. That’s all I needed to hear.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Deacon

  CALL ME DICK

  A few days after I’d seen Carys at the coffee shop, Kendra was over again. She bent down to pick up something off the floor.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  It was a pacifier. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Where was that?”

  “Underneath this table. I went to slide my shoes under there and found it.”

  I had a small table where I dropped my keys near the door of my apartment. It was right next to the wall mirror—the one Sunny had loved to look at herself in. I had no idea she’d dropped the binky, which had been clipped to her shirt that day.

  Taking it from Kendra, I looked down at the dusty rubber tip. My chest felt heavy. It hadn’t even been two weeks since I’d vowed to stay away from them, but I missed Sunny. I missed Carys. I missed them.

  “Why do you have a pacifier here?”

  Still gazing down at it, I said, “It belongs to the baby next door—Sunny. I had to watch her in an emergency one day. She must have dropped it.”

  “Oh.” She cocked her head to the side. “What’s their deal anyway?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why is there no father in the picture?”

  The first time Kendra met Carys, I’d mentioned my neighbor was a single mother. Carys’ story really wasn’t any of Kendra’s business. So, I shrugged. “It didn’t work out.”

  “That’s too bad. The baby is so young to not have a father around. Especially given her condition. It’s such a shame.”

  My body stiffened. Then a rush of adrenaline ran through my veins. “Why a shame?”

  “You know…”

  My tone was harsh. “No, I don’t. Why is it a shame?”

  “The fact that the baby has something wrong with her.”

  My blood started to boil. “There’s nothing wrong with her.” I gritted my teeth. “Nothing. Do you understand?”

  “Jesus. I didn’t mean any harm.”

  “She might look a little different, but there’s nothing wrong with Sunny. It’s time people like you started realizing that. She’s just like any other baby. And happier than most people. There’s no reason she can’t grow up to be just like any
other adult. She has an extra chromosome. That’s it.”

  “Okay.” She held out her palms. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”

  “You didn’t. I just felt I should educate you on that.”

  Her voice softened. ‘Understood.”

  Things went quiet for several minutes before Kendra escaped to the bathroom.

  I felt a little bad for snapping at her, but I understood Carys’s frustration now. Down’s didn’t have any impact on who Sunny was, only how people saw her.

  * * *

  Kendra and I watched a movie in silence, and it was early evening by the time we even spoke to each other again.

  After we shut off the TV, she took me by the hand and led me to my bedroom. We hadn’t had sex in a while, and she’d given me every indication earlier today that her expectations were set on getting some. But I didn’t know if I could go through with it. Not only was I not feeling it tonight, but how would I deal with Kendra making noises Carys could hear? No freaking way was I going to put Carys in that position. But if I was serious about moving on, I couldn’t stay celibate forever.

  When Kendra and I started kissing, it felt…off.

  Then the sound of crying next door killed any last shred of hope. Even though my bed was now on the opposite end of the room, away from Carys’s wall, I was still able to hear Sunny pretty clearly.

  After I pushed back, Kendra rolled her eyes. “Well, this is déjà vu.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. I suppose it is.”

  “What…does that baby have a radar that detects whenever we’re about to have sex?”

  “I know. It’s pretty funny,” I said.

  She crossed her arms in a huff. “I don’t think it’s funny at all. Glad you do.”

  Kendra was probably more pissed that I found the timing amusing than the interruption itself.

  “You know what?” She hopped off the bed. “I need to leave.”

  “You’re gonna leave because the baby’s crying?”