by P. Dangelico
“Maybe.” I squirm.
He continues to stare at me like I’m the last clue in the Sunday crossword puzzle––unsolvable and annoying. Then I recall Zoe’s advice and plant a hand on his chest, push him back. “We have to go. The girls are waiting for us.”
Ten minutes later, standing by Zoe’s G-wagon, the lack of space becomes evident. Without waiting for direction, Reagan gets into the passenger side and pats his lap for me to get on. Whatever is going on in his head is well hidden behind a blank expression.
With my heart in my throat, I climb on. And as soon as I do, I’m immediately overwhelmed by every detail of him. Not a single one escapes me. His scent, his heat, his erection under my ass––the absolute sweet torture of it. There’s nowhere for me to put my arm so I’m forced to drape it around his neck.
“Is this okay?” I murmur.
“Fine.” He exhales and I feel the puffs of breath hit the sensitive skin on my throat. Then he arranges my legs and curls his hand around my thigh, leaving it there for the full ten-minute ride back to his house.
Being held by him, like this, feels so good, comfortable, familiar. He feels like he’s mine. Except he’s not. Zoe studies us out of the corner of her eye, stealing furtive glances, but doesn’t say a word. No one does. We ride the entire way in silence.
Chapter 16
Alice
“How’s your submission coming along?” Simon asks as Marshall’s class lets out.
“Really well. I told you I’m filming the men’s water polo team for a recruiting video, right?”
I’m filming today. Which means I’ll be spending time with Reagan. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that what Zoe said the other day didn’t affect me. It did. Mostly because I agree with her. I’ve seen the evidence with my own eyes. The girls hanging out on the bleachers during practice. The ones on campus constantly vying for his attention. I can’t even blame them. I’m attracted to him too.
I’ve been gently ignoring his invitations to hang. Instead of switching stuff around to accommodate our time together, I’ve been declining. And even that’s been hard. Twice I caved when I got the disappointed pout. It’s an Alice slayer––that disappointed pout.
“Yeah. Great gig. How’d you land that?”
I don’t think I like the flash in his wily dark eyes. Nor the inflection in his voice. It feels like condescension and sounds like he’s insinuating something creepy. I really hope I’m reading too much into it.
The submission sample is coming along better than I had anticipated. It doesn’t hurt that the content is dynamic, the subject matter exciting. All that grace and raw beauty makes for an extremely powerful visual presentation.
We file out of the stadium seating and slowly move down the steps toward the exit.
“A friend helped me get it.” I go with the truth, which is nothing to be ashamed about. I know Simon has seen me with Reagan––getting dropped off and picked up at study group, eating lunch in the quad.
Simon runs his hand over his dark, curly hair, the action pulling his gray henley tight against his sinuous torso. My eyes run over his chest, his biceps, study the leather bracelets accenting his wrists, inspect the skinny black jeans. His lean thighs. It’s an automatic, unintentional reaction.
He really is hot. He’s got that tortured artist, too-cool-for-school look down pat. One that I am personally a big fan of.
For a half second Reagan’s voice whispers in my ear and it makes me wonder if he uses rock crystal deodorant (which doesn’t work) or writes lyrics in his spare time. Not my proudest moment. And the fact remains that Simon is definitely more my specie than Reagan. Even if he was interested in me––which he isn’t. I mean, Thoroughbred horses don’t mate with zebras. I need to stick with the other zebras.
“Alice?” Simon says, his expression quizzical, his slanted eyebrows pulled together in one of those moody made-for-TV expressions. It dawns on me that we’ve already made it outside the film and television building and are standing near the curb.
“Yeah?”
He stuffs his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, for once looking unsure of himself. “I asked you if you maybe wanted to go out sometime…there’s a Scorsese retrospective at the Nuart Theater.”
Reagan
I park the Jeep at the curb in front of the film and television building and stand in my seat. I’m watching Alice smile up at the shady guy as if he’s something special. Christ, she’s making heart eyes at the guy.
A fling, she said. She’s looking for a fling. My insides roil at the idea. And the ride home last night––what lasted maybe ten minutes––felt like a damn eternity with her ass pressed up against my hard-on. Thing is, despite the worst case of blue balls ever, it felt good to hold her, to have her there. It felt right.
Shady smiles back and a feeling of possessiveness so powerful comes over me, I’m ready to blow like a goddamn geyser in Yellowstone. Wtf?
Unless I’m playing sports I’m pretty easygoing. And I’m definitely not proprietary. Which is why I’m surprised at my own response.
Jumping out of the Jeep, I’m bearing down on the two of them before I’ve decided what to say, or why I’m saying it. Somewhere in the back of my mind I know this is bad, that it won’t end well because control feels like an abstract concept right now and that never bodes well.
“Hey, Reagan. Have you…” Alice’s voice fades when she gets a good look at my face, her big eyes narrowing on me.
I adopt an air of indifference, give her a lazy smile. She can’t know that it bothers me. That it makes me anxious and sick to my stomach. Because that would make me a hypocrite seeing as I’m the one that insisted on us being friends.
“The hell is this?” is my opening shot.
My forced smile isn’t fooling anyone. Shady scowls at me. However tempted I am to knock it off his face, I manage to curb the impulse. Except I just can’t seem to get a handle on this feeling that there’s a fox in the hen house and it’s my job to rip out the throat of the fox.
Alice eyeballs me warily. “Umm, what do you mean?”
She’s going to pretend nothing’s going on here, really? The fake smile drops and a scowl replaces it.
“I have practice. You’re filming today. But apparently we’re both going to be late because you’re too busy flirting.” I hook a thumb at the guy. Aside from that, I pretend he’s not still standing there and dump all my irritation on Alice.
Her eyes go wide. She blinks. Then she turns to him. “Simon, I have to go but I do want to see the Scorsese retrospective.”
Simon/Sean, whatever the fuck his name is, loses the attitude and smiles back at Alice like he just caught himself a nice fat chicken…my chicken. I don’t like the look or sound of this––at all.
“Can we go? Or would you rather stay here and continue to make eyes at each other.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone turn a flaming shade of red so fast. Alice looks like a burn victim.
“Hey, dude.” Shady decides now is the time to get really stupid. “Maybe you should––”
“Maybe you should run along, Simon,” I cut in, taking care to pronounce his name extra carefully.
Alice walks away, heading for the Jeep, and I follow. She gets in, buckles up. I do the same.
“Alice––”
“Don’t.” Her throat works. She refuses to look at me. Not a word is spoken on our way to the aquatics building, and a sinking feeling tells me the fallout is just beginning.
Alice
Big Deal: i’m hungry. wanna grab something to eat with me?
I read the text that comes in with a scowl puckering my face. The lack of capitals is especially nauseating tonight. I even tried it on my phone and now know for a fact that he has to actively make an effort to not capitalize. Which licks at my raw nerves even more.
The truth is I’m still furious at him for the scene he caused yesterday. Humiliating me like that in front of Simon was total BS and I need to see s
ome serious remorse before we’re back to normal.
Me: No.
A good sixty seconds pass before the text alert rings again.
Big Deal: i’m traveling to palo alto for a game tomorrow. i guess i’ll see you when i get back.
I don’t bother answering. If he thinks he’s going to pretend everything is hunky dory after his tantrum, he’s got another thing coming.
Reagan
“I screwed up again,” I walk onto the patio scratching my head and muttering.
For someone who never used to screw up, I’m really making up for lost time.
I fall into the chair next to Dallas and glance at my phone. Alice hasn’t returned any of my texts since I dropped her off at her dorm after practice yesterday. She even refused fish tacos. It’s official––she’s mad at me.
“You’re in the right place. We specialize in screwups here.” He reaches into the cooler next to his chair, pulls out a can of Hazy IPA, and hands it over. Staring out at the Technicolor horizon, I crack open my beer and drink.
Two surfers bob on the water waiting to catch a wave. With the Santa Monica Bay as still as a hockey rink, they’ll be waiting a while.
“Where were you this morning?” I looked for him before heading off to class and found him gone and D isn’t a natural early riser unless he’s catching waves.
“Beverly Hills.”
That puts a confused frown on my face. “Why?”
“New shrink.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. He’s been in danger of going off the rails lately––more so than usual––and the fact that he’s willing to talk to someone about it makes me feel immensely better. “You like this one?”
He shrugs, sips his beer. “We’ll see.”
I check out the wet suit pulled down to his waist. “You went surfing without me.”
“Had to clear my head.”
I stretch out my legs, heels kicked up on the brick wall that separates the patio from the beach.
He side-eyes me briefly. “So…what happened?”
“I got in a fight with Alice.” I’m still in shock over my reaction, the feelings that slammed into me when I saw her making heart eyes at the shady guy.
Ownership, that’s what it was. Raw and primal.
The image of her beaming up at the guy flashes in my mind and I shift in my seat. My skin feels shrink-wrapped. My mood wilts. It’s taking a lot to keep it up lately. Unless I’m with Bailey.
How could she really be into that guy? Maybe I misinterpreted. Maybe I didn’t. “She was talking to some dude and I lost my shit on her.”
Dallas chuckles. “Been there.” Pushing off the wall, he tips his chair back and lets it drop. “You know what possessiveness is?”
My feelers go up. This sounds like a trap. I glance sideways, to get a better read on the exact level of bullshit I’m dealing with and find nothing noteworthy. “Toxic?”
“Nah, man. It’s the soul’s recognition that the object of your affection is so precious and singular you know you’ll never find another.”
Despite D’s uncanny ability to read people, I wouldn’t call him particularly deep. His words do strike a chord, though.
Alice is singular. I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s smart and fun to be around, talented and passionate. And she gets me. I can’t even articulate all the ways she gets me. She’s the most precious thing in my life by far. “Are you fucking with me, or do you really believe that?”
Dallas’s gaze cuts sideways, his expression contemplative. “Yeah. I’m dead serious. Read it in an Insta meme a while back and it stuck with me.”
I knew the bullshit was waiting to make an appearance. “That’s just great,” I say, head shaking. “I should’ve known.”
“Who cares where I got it. Don’t throw out the message with the messenger.”
Maybe he’s right. “What would you do in my place?”
“Apologize and get on with the make-up sex. Best kind there is, bro.”
“We’ve never had sex. We’re only friends.”
He finally turns to get a good look at me, confusion all over his face. “You’re serious? I thought you were just trying to keep it low-key. Why not?”
“Because we’re friends,” I annunciate clearly, my frustration with the entire situation coming to the surface again.
“So you’re saying you don’t get a boner for her.”
All I get is boners for her. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is. We agreed to be friends and only friends. That was the plan. Until one night I’m grabbing my dick and her flashing dark eyes appeared, next it was her heart-shaped ass, then her lips. And it didn’t stop there. It never stops.
Even worse, I feel less than zero motivation to stick my dick elsewhere. The dick wants what it wants. You can’t reason or argue with it. But I also know you’re also not supposed to want to bury it inside your friend.
“Man, c’mon,” I say. It makes me irritable as hell to hear him speak that way about her.
“C’mon, what? Since when are we not allowed to mention boners?”
“Not about Alice.” I crush the empty can and chuck it into the trash bin, rub my face. “Yeah, boners aren’t the problem. Or maybe they are the problem. I dunno…”
“What is the problem, then?”
“I can’t deal with any more responsibility, or expectations. I can’t be in a relationship…I’d fuck it up anyway.”
Problem is, I don’t want her seeing anyone else. The mere thought of her dating whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is makes my heart jackhammer and my palms sweat. Thus, the possessiveness. I feel helpless and it’s not a feeling I’m a fan of. I get enough of that dealing with Brian already.
We watch the sun take its last breath before it sinks into the Pacific. I check my phone to see if Alice has texted me back. Nothing.
“Bro––” D chuckles. “You spend all your free time with her. You never go more than two sentences without bringing up her name. And you won’t let any of us near her. You already are in a relationship. The only thing you’re not getting is the convenient sex.”
Dallas stands, slaps my shoulder, walks back inside.
Chapter 17
Reagan
I text Alice for the fifth time in two days.
Me: on the bus and cole is entertaining everyone with stories of his sexual escapades. save me.
Half an hour later and still no response. We’ve been driving for an hour and it already feels like forever. Being trapped in this tin can, helpless to do anything other than wait Alice out, is making me antsy. I’m no expert on women, but I’m pretty sure that waiting is not the winning strategy here. Time is not on my side. The longer she has to be mad at me the worse this is going to get. And with each minute that passes without a text from her, fear that I may have permanently sunk this friendship gains traction.
Me: what are you up to tonight? plans?
When that one goes ignored I start to sweat. I still owe her an apology and I didn’t want to do it over the phone. I was going to take her out to dinner, do it properly, but she shot that plan down like it was target practice at the O.K. Corral.
Before I check my phone again, I glance sideways to make sure I’ve got privacy. My co-captain is sound asleep in the seat next to mine. Brock’s head is tipped back on the headrest, noise-canceling headphones on.
“Rea––where you at? We need one more for the card game,” Shane says loud enough to get everyone’s attention.
“Nah, man. Not in the mood.”
“Lady problems,” Dallas mutters from the seat across the aisle.
My head snaps up from the phone to find all eyes trained on me. I shoot Dallas a knock it off glare, and make a mental note to beat the life out of him later.
“Yeah? Let’s hear it,” Cole adds.
“How about you gossip girls mind your own business,” I throw out casually. If Cole gets wind that I’m genuinely twisted up over a girl he’ll never stop. He’s the most anti-relation
ship guy I know and I really don’t need him projecting his shit onto me. I got my own bag to deal with.
“That wouldn’t be any fun now, would it,” Cole tosses back with a cocky grin. “We have an eight-hour bus ride, and plenty of wisdom amongst us to dispense.”
“Circle of trust, bro.” Shane gestures with his index finger.
“Hard pass.” I gesture with my middle finger.
“Phone-tree girl is messing with your head,” Cole taunts. “Let us help you out of the darkness and into the light.”
My irritation peaks. I don’t have the fortitude to fend him off tonight. “Suck my dick, Cole.”
“I’ll suck your dick,” Quinn shouts from three rows up and all the guys react at once, laughing, commenting, generally pissing me off.
“Jesus, Smith.”
“Awww, c’mon.”
“Bwahahaha.”
“That’s your captain, dude. A little respect.”
“Love is love, you cunts!” Quinn shouts back, laughing like a madman.
It’s on me to settle the troops, or none of us are going to get any sleep on this bus ride from hell. “Enough! Not a single one of you has a girlfriend with the exception of Rhodes and Finley, and fuck if I’ll take advice from a couple of freshmen––no offense, guys.”
“None taken, Cap,” comes from the head of the bus where those two are probably FaceTiming their GFs.
Cole chuckles. “I’ve had relationships.”
“Those are called hookups. I take naps that last longer,” I’m quick to correct, drawing snickers from the audience.
“Your loss, bro. Just make sure the sorry-ass moping doesn’t interfere with the game tomorrow.”
A moment later, thankfully everyone goes back to doing whatever they were doing before the spotlight fell on me.