If someone sees you do the worst thing you’ve ever done, if they participate in doing that terrible thing, then pretending in front of them is pointless. I am naked to Ian in more ways than one. He is my co-conspirator. He knows now the kind of duplicity I am capable of.
We’re wild for a few minutes, grinding and undulating against each other until slippery. Ian slows.
“I don’t wanna come yet,” he says, trying to catch his breath.
I nod. I don’t want him to either.
He arches his torso so he can kiss my neck and shoulders and lick the perspiration from them. Then he pulls out, slides down and is at my breasts, lightly sucking and touching them, then moving down my sternum to my stomach. Wherever his mouth touches burns with hyperawareness.
When he parts my thighs wider and drapes them over his shoulders, I am panting out loud. He plays with me with his fingers first, and when I look down, he is studying me. The tip of his tongue is just visible between his lips like he can’t wait to taste me.
“It’s Friday,” I say out of nowhere, my brain misfiring so I’m speaking aloud a fleeting, irrelevant thought.
“I know,” Ian says before plunges his face toward me. “Good morning.”
Chapter Eight
I wake up because it’s sweltering. My eyes open to bright, aggressive sunlight and I moan, reaching for the nearest thing I can find to hide my face. It’s a pillow and it smells like Ian. Only then do I remember where I am and sit up in alarm. I look right and left but he isn’t in the room with me. And what’s more, I am still naked.
“Shit,” I mutter, looking among the sheets.
I need to find my jeans, because that’s where I stuffed my underwear when I changed into my swimsuit at the pool party. Or, I need to find my swimsuit, because that’ll have to go under the jeans … if I ever find them. I can’t remember what I did with the lacy cropped tank top. Did I leave it at Patrick and Wayne’s house?
I find the jeans rolled up at the foot of the bed. I remember now, Ian peeling them off me and tossing them aside. My underwear is safely in the back pocket, but I can’t bring myself to put them on. Because … ugh. I do find the swimsuit though, twisted among in the sheets. That’ll have to do.
I can’t imagine getting out of this dorm. Walking down the hallway bathed in shame, leaving Ian Everett’s room at … what time is it?
Now I can’t find my phone.
I have just stepped into the swimsuit and am pulling up the straps when I hear the door.
Then Ian is there, looking at me as I stand in the center of his rug, wearing my blue swimsuit and nothing else. He has his backpack over his shoulder, a coffee tray in his hand with two cups, and what looks like a pastry bag nestled between them. He is wearing tapered sweats and a form-fitting t-shirt and looks well-rested, fresh and calm.
“Hi,” he says. “Everything okay?”
He takes me in from head to toe, making me self-conscious about the “head” part. I put a hand up to my hair and when I feel it, almost roll my eyes. I don’t have to see it. I know it’s matted and bushy and looks like I’ve been in a fight.
“Yeah,” I say, averting my eyes. “Have you seen my phone?”
He shakes his head. “Nah. You can’t find it?” Lowering his backpack to the floor, he puts down the coffee tray and looks around. “Did you bring it back from the house last night?”
I think for a moment. “I don’t know. I didn’t need it, so …”
“I’ll text Patrick. Ask him if anyone found it.” He nods in the direction of the coffee tray and reaches for his own phone in his pocket. “Brought you breakfast. Or … lunch.”
I want to pull my jeans on, but at this point, modesty is pointless. First thing’s first. I take one of the coffee cups and read the side. I take a sip. Perfect. He’s even added cream and sugar.
“There’s a couple croissants, too,” he says absently as he types out a message on his phone.
It doesn’t feel like the first ‘morning-after’ we’ve had. It feels like we have done this dozens of times before.
“What time is it?” I ask, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“One-something.”
“What?” I lean forward, eyes widened in disbelief. “And I’ve been here all this … Why didn’t you wake me?”
Ian looks up from his message momentarily. “Why?” He shrugs. “You were tired, so I let you sleep.”
“And, where were you?”
“Practice. And I had an eight o’ clock.”
“Ian,” I say.
“Yeah?” he looks up again and this time stuffs the phone back in his pocket.
“You had practice and an eight o’clock class? Last night, why didn’t you …?”
“Why didn’t I what?”
“Tell me. I would have … I wouldn’t have taken up your … I would’ve gone home.”
“How ‘bout I didn’t want you to go home.” He saunters over to the coffee and picks up the remaining cup. “How about … I wanted to wake up with you here, let you sleep off last night in my room and be here when I got back, with coffee and pastry.”
“How are you like this?” I ask, my voice just above a whisper. “Why are you like this?”
“Like what?” he whispers back, a smile teasing the corners of his lips.
I shake my head. Then I take a long, slow sip of coffee. It’s perfect. Made just the way I like it.
I tell Ian I don’t need him to walk me back to my dorm. And when he insists, I tell him it’s broad daylight and that he doesn’t need to be such a gentleman all the time, to which he shakes his head and looks at the ceiling as if I’m being tedious.
Then Patrick texts him back and says Wayne found my phone. It was in his bedroom. Only by asking Ian if he can go pick it up for me do I dissuade him from walking me home.
I need to be alone for a minute.
I need to not be with Ian for a minute.
I need to regain some perspective.
Outside Ian’s dorm, I take a deep breath and look up. The sun is white-bright and the sky electric blue. People are barefoot tossing frisbees, sunbathing and sitting in the grass, biding their time until the parties later. These are the last warm weeks of fall semester, so everyone is soaking it in.
At this time of year, I sometimes sit outside my dorm too, mostly alone. Sometimes Kate sits with me because I am quiet and she can study, unlike when she sits with her friends. Other times I sit with Corinne, one of the few people I consider a friend on campus. I’ve known her since freshman year. Corinne is a math major as well, and on the autism spectrum, so she doesn’t care to socialize much, and barely even notices that the earth is populated by other humans.
We can go weeks without speaking, and then when we see each other, she talks my ear off about what I missed, not expecting that I reciprocate with information about my life. She generally has more to tell than I do, because she has a boyfriend, an exchange student whose culturally ingrained reserve is perfectly complements Corinne’s social ineptitude.
As I walk back to my dorm, I wish Corinne was someone I could call to talk through what happened last night. I wish I had a girlfriend like that. Someone I could ring up and go, ‘Girl, you’ll never believe where I went and what I did.’
Or a mother. At times like this I wish I had a mother.
That thought sends me into an immediate funk, like always. When I get to my room, I gather my toiletries, towel and everything else I need to go take a shower but as I’m leaving, I spot Kate’s Nikes poking out from under her bed. They’re psychedelic pink and super-ugly. I was with her when she bought them. We laughed aloud at how ugly they were.
“These are just so hideous I have to take them home with me,” she said.
She was talking about sneakers. Sneakers. And yet I don’t know, it made me feel like she was a sweet person. Like she was the kind of person who didn’t like the idea of anything—and by implication anyone—being rejected and left behind.
She could
have roomed with any one of her friends for junior year. One of those noisy sporty girls she hangs out with. But when I asked her after sophomore year, a little sheepishly, if she still wanted to room together, she smiled, shrugged, and said, “Of course!”
As if she didn’t have any better options. And as if I did.
I sit on the edge of my bed and exhale, telling myself I’m being stupid to want my mother right now. I don’t even know what kind of mother she would have been if she’d lived. I barely remember the kind of mother she was. And this isn’t exactly the kind of thing that calls for a maternal instinct. How would that conversation go?
“You see, Mom, I slept with my roommate’s boyfriend. And I like him. I like him a lot. So, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make myself stop.”
Sighing, I curl on my side on my unmade bed.
I doze off a little so it’s almost an hour before I get up to shower, wash my hair and slather it with product to make it curly again. It’s still wet when I pull a t-shirt over my head step into some shorts and try to decide what to do next. I don’t have any classes, and I can’t call Ian to get my phone because, duh, because he has my phone or should have my phone if he’s been to Wayne and Patrick’s.
I wait around for a little while then decide to head over there myself. I feel untethered without my device, even though there’s a very short list of people who might have called me. I slide my feet into my beat-up old sneakers, put sunglasses on and head out.
It’s so hot that just halfway into the walk my hair starts to dry and gain a little more mass, which is good, since I look like drowned mouse when it’s wet. When I get to the side gate at Patrick and Wayne’s house where Ian first let us in for that afternoon swim a little over a week ago, I hesitate, suddenly feeling like a trespasser. But I do need my phone and it’s been a while since Ian went to fetch it.
I walk around the pool and spot Wayne through the sliding glass door that leads into the back of the house. He’s heading further into the house, toward the living room when he spots me. He looks surprised for a moment, pauses, then comes to open the door.
“Hey!” he says. Then he seems to search for my name.
“Terri,” I supply.
“Yeah. Terri. What’s up?”
“I left my phone?” I say. “I think Ian was coming over to get it but …”
“Oh! Yeah, right. Yeah. C’mon through.”
I follow Wayne into the living room. Ian and Patrick are sitting in front of the television, and there’s a third guy I haven’t met. He’s huge, and I’m guessing he’s an athlete too. Football probably.
Patrick notices me first and smiles. He looks like he just woke up.
Ian looks up and doesn’t seem at all surprised that I’m here.
“You didn’t conk out, huh?” he says.
I shake my head, still reading his face, unsure of whether I overstepped by coming by uninvited.
“Didn’t think you’d make it once you got home,” he explains. “Thought you’d see your bed and pass out on it.”
“I didn’t,” I say.
I’m a little surprised that he would even say as much as he’s saying, because if you’re listening, it doesn’t take a genius to know it means I was with him last night. And don’t his friends know Kate? Emily, Wayne’s girlfriend or whatever she is sure seemed to know about her.
“C’mere,” he says, patting the space next to him. “This movie’s crazy, yo.”
I hesitate then go sit next to him. The big guy who I haven’t met glances my way and tips his chin at me.
“This is Kwan,” Ian says. “Kwan, Terri.”
“Hi,” I say, my voice small.
I am perched awkwardly at the edge of the sofa but don’t realize it until Ian pulls me back so I’m settled in next to him. He lifts an arm and drapes it over the back of the sofa behind me. I discreetly check for reactions from anyone at all. There are none, but guys are like this, I know. They can give the same reaction to their boys’ girlfriend and his side-chick, betraying nothing to either one of them.
Is that what I am now? Ian’s side-chick?
I turn my attention to the movie and am only halfway engaged until a zombie shows up and tries to chomp on the neck of the guy I assume is the main character. Wayne, Ian and Kwan all howl in unison, almost leaping out of their seats and getting horrified glee out of the near miss.
I laugh a little and shake my head and Ian looks at me and grins.
“You ain’t into zombies?” he asks, lowering his voice.
“Zombies are fine,” I say shrugging. “Some of my best friends are …”
He gives me a look and bites into his lower lip, shaking his head in amusement.
Then he does something shocking. Shocking to me anyway. The other guys seem to neither notice nor care. He nuzzles me behind the ear and brushes his lips against my jaw. His arm falls from the back of the sofa to my shoulders and pulls me closer.
“Oh yeah,” Ian says, leaning to one side. He pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to me. It’s my phone and it’s dead.
“Want a charge?” Patrick asks.
I nod, and he holds up a hand for me to toss it to him. I do, and he catches it effortlessly. Then we all settle in to watch the movie.
When all the zombies are dead and the world is saved, Kwan starts another a movie. In this one the impending end of the world is because of a catastrophic climate event that ushers in a new ice age that sends Jake Gyllenhaal trudging through what looks like the tundra but is actually Manhattan. Like the first movie, the guys only become animated when it appears someone is about to die. Near the end, when the inevitable happens—the world is saved—Ian grows restless, shifting around in his seat and glancing outside at the still beautiful afternoon.
“You ready?” he asks, looking at me.
I nod, and he stands, dapping up his friends and telling them “we got places to be.”
I don’t know what places he’s referring to, and don’t care because I’m stuck on the ‘we’ part of his statement. It assumes that wherever he’s going, whatever he’s doing with the rest of his day, I will be doing it with him.
I get my phone and Ian and I walk out into the sun.
There are tons of notifications on my home screen. Two calls from my father, a bunch of news alerts and one text message from Derek the teaching assistant in my Differential Equations class. He’s hosting something tonight and would like me to come. ‘Come hungry,’ his message reads.
Derek does this once a month, invites students from his classes to his house for a meal. Not everyone is invited, so there are snarky whispers about him only inviting over girls or guys he’d like to screw. That isn’t altogether inaccurate, but I happen to know on good authority that Derek is heterosexual.
As we’re walking, I open and read the entire message and Ian watches me scroll to the end.
“What’s that?” he asks. “Message from some guy?”
I look at him and roll my eyes. “No. Not a message from some guy. At least, not really.”
“What’s up with that?”
“What’s up with what? The text message?”
“No. You, and dudes. You don’t meet ‘em, you don’t get messages from ‘em …”
“You want the truth?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Actually, I’m beating them off with a stick,” I say dryly. “Every. Single. Day.”
I see him curl his tongue into the side of his cheek like he’s trying to stop himself from saying something. I wonder if he’s jealous. If he is, I can’t say that bothers me.
While I showered, I thought about how it felt to have him touch me. I was still sore in some places. And when I remembered that all he did to me, he’s also done to Kate, it felt like a white-hot ball of fire was burning in the pit of my stomach.
My phone rings, startling me and I decline the call, but then I see Ian watching me, and noting how hastily I rejected it.
“It’s my dad,”
I say.
He shrugs but says nothing, and I wonder whether he believes me.
I sigh. “Actually, do you mind if I call him back?”
He shakes his head and I hit the button to call my father.
Our conversation is brief. He’s calling because he got a credit card in the mail today to replace one that’s expired. I’m an additional cardholder so he wants to let me know that he’s going to send it by priority mail, and that I shouldn’t try to use the old one because it’ll decline. I thank him, and he asks if everything else is alright. I say it is, tell him I love him, and then we hang up.
Next to me, Ian has relaxed a little. It’s a subtle but unmistakable change in his posture. He was jealous. Knowing that is weird. And apparently, I lied because it does bother me if that’s how he was feeling. Jealousy is uncomfortable, and if I spared him that, I’m glad. Even if he doesn’t deserve being spared.
Even if neither of us deserves being spared any uncomfortable feelings because of what we’re doing to Kate.
“The text message is from a TA in one of my lectures,” I tell him, in a further confessional. “He’s invited me to a thing at his house.”
“Oh,” Ian says.
We keep walking.
“You want to go?” I ask.
It’s dumb, that’s all. I’m being dumb. We’ve got till Monday. There’s no time for games and pretense. I don’t care that he shouldn’t be jealous. We’re way past ‘shouldn’t’ at this point. I want to be with him, for the little time we have. And I want to enjoy that time, not ruin it by questioning his feelings or my feelings, or rating every little emotion we have on some Richter Scale of right and wrong.
“Sure. Let’s go,” he says finally. “You came to my friends’ party, now I’ll come to yours.”
Not That Kind of Girl Page 6