“Nothin’. I told you before. You just never know.”
“Oh really. Like I’m going to get carried away and hook up with Josh right in front of you,” I tell him quietly. Like I want my friends to hear this ridiculous conversation.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He flashes me the grin that makes my heart melt. “But what’s up with Josh? What happened with Erica?”
“She dumped him.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to go out with a guy her age. Josh can’t go out to all the places she can.”
“That sucks. Like she didn’t know that would happen when they hooked up.”
“Maybe she didn’t think it would last this long. Or maybe she didn’t think she’d get tired of him. Who knows? But he’s pretty sad.”
“Hmm…” is all he says.
“I hope you don’t follow in her footsteps. You’re not getting sick of me yet, are you?”
He takes my hand. “Never.” There goes that grin again.
“Awww. Are you sure? I’m not holding you back?”
“Hell no. Look at you, all cute and sexy tonight. I don’t need anything else.” He squeezes my hand.
“That’s what you say now, but wait till the next time we start kissing and stuff, and we have to stop.”
“I’ll be okay. I can just do what I’ve done since I was about eleven.” A big belly laugh bursts between us.
I can’t stop laughing, “Ewww. Omigod. T.M.I.”
“Ha ha, at least you don’t have to worry.”
“Whatever works I guess.”
“Dang, it got pretty crowded already,” Alex says, looking around. I scan the backyard and he’s right. A lot of people from school have arrived and the music has started. I wonder if Josh’s parents are gone yet. I still can’t believe they trust Josh enough to have all these people over. But they do. So let’s party.
“You guys ready for a drink yet?” Jon asks.
“Sure, I’m not driving,” Alex responds. Dom is the designated driver tonight.
“Yeah, get me something too, please,” I tell him.
Jon leaves and comes back with several cans of beer. We each take one, except for Dominic and Steph.
“Hey hey hey,” Josh yells over the music. “I got something special for my crew.” He slams a bottle of tequila on the table. I’m pretty sure he’s had a few shots of his own already.
“Josh, you need to slow down, dude,” Alex tells him. “This is your house. If you get too sloshed, it’s gonna get trashed.”
“He’s right, Josh, take it easy,” I agree.
Jon stands up. “Don’t worry. I got this.” Jon takes one of Josh’s drinks away and takes him for a walk. He tries to get it back, but Jon swipes his hand away.
Steph gets up, “Wanna dance anyone?”
I look to Alex, who nods. We both get up and follow Keesh to the dance floor, or should I say patio.
“Wait, you guys want a shot first,” I say, stopping in my tracks.
“Nah, wait till break time,” Keesh responds, and continues on her way.
The beats aren’t that loud. No DJ tonight afterall, just someone’s speakers and an iPod. But it works. We can dance and it’s not booming so loud the cops will stop by.
Moving in sync with Alex is like the telling of a story. A story of a thirst that needs to be quenched but instead it’s just filled with even more angst. Feeling every muscle of his body dig into me as our bodies pulse together with the music creates a tension I’ve never felt before. Each time we are alone and this close—his dorm room, my house last night, and now—I feel like I’m going to explode.
But we aren’t alone, I’m reminded when I hear the heckling.
“Dang, get a room, Meg.” Guess who? Of course, who else would it be? Travis. Omigod. Can he just shut his mouth for once?
Jon takes a quick peek at Alex and notices the same look in his eyes that I do. A look of frustration. So Jon starts dancing all crazy trying to take the attention off of Travis’s comment. It works for a minute. Steph moves in front of Travis, taking his hands and moving them all around so he’ll dance with her. Dominic hangs to the side of her swaying to the beat. Keesh and Jon are now doing what looks like a choreographed dance to this song. How goofy. They’ve been dancing together at home and are working a little routine. It’s kind of cute. Alex and I go on about our business, but with less…ummm…sex.
“Hey, Trav, I made it,” I hear a familiar voice, but don’t see a face. Then I see a pair of hands wrap around the front of his waist. I’d know those perfectly manicured hands anywhere. Travis whips around to see what appears to be his new girlfriend by the way he goes in for a kiss likes it’s second nature. When he surfaces for air, he turns to all of us and says, “Hey you guys, I want you to meet Amy.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yell, and people start to stare.
Amy snickers. “Gosh, Meggie, when have I heard that before?” WTF.
“Uh…let me see…when I found out your were screwing my boyfriend behind my back,” I shout. My blood is boiling. Why would he think it’s okay to bring her here? To Josh’s house. It’s not like this is some random party.
“What. Wait. You guys know each other?” I love how Travis is acting like he doesn’t know our history.
Josh steps in between us. He’s usually the one who defends Travis when he says or does something stupid. “Dude, have you been living under a rock or what? How could you not know? This is not cool.”
“Josh, she needs to go. I don’t wanna see her skanky ass at school, I sure as hell don’t want to see her on vacation either,” I blurt.
“Meggie, chill okay,” Steph tells me.
Alex takes my hand. “Yeah babe, don’t worry about it. Let’s just dance.”
“What’d I do?” Travis throws up his hands. And then he gets crazy. “You jealous again, Meg? Even with your college boyfriend here.” Oh no he didn’t.
Alex takes a step toward Travis. “Look you little punk.” But before he can say anything else, Dominic jumps in front of him.
And Josh says, “Sorry man, but you gotta go, Trav.”
“Seriously?” Travis says.
Josh looks him in the eye. “Yeah, dude, and take your trash with you.” Yes. I love Josh. The shock on Amy’s face and the chuckles coming from the people who hear are worth her showing up and killing my buzz.
But that’s not enough. Keesh just can’t let her go without saying something. “And don’t pull this shit again, Amy. You know you’re not welcome at any of our parties, so quit tryin’.”
Travis’s jaw is pulsing. I can almost hear him grinding his teeth. He’s pissed. “Let’s go.”
And poof. They’re gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Once the trash was taken out, the rest of the party was fun. We danced, played a few drinking games, and just kicked back and talked. I wasn’t the only one who was shocked by Travis’s date. But we didn’t say too much. I could tell Alex was a bit uncomfortable. Travis is such a brat. I’m sure Alex is still thinking about what he said. I swear I’m going to kill him on Monday.
“Some night last night, huh,” Alex tells me. I was waiting for this. I knew there was no way we could go out for ice cream and just chat about whatever came up. This conversation we’re about to have has been inevitable.
“Yup,” I say, and take a bite of my chocolate feast.
“So we gonna talk about this or what?”
“What do you wanna talk about?”
“I don’t know where to start,” he says, with a long sigh. Uh oh, this doesn’t sound good. It sounds like he wants to talk about more than just last night.
“Start by telling me what’s bothering you. I know there’s more than just the party.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, you’ve been different for awhile. Very jealous, which is a little weird.” Or a lot weird, I think.
Alex finishes his ice cream, turns down the radio, and wipes
his mouth with a napkin. So we’re going have it out, right here, in the car, in this parking lot. Here we go.
“Do you like Travis?”
Seriously. “Alex, c’mon. You know I don’t.”
“No, I don’t know. That’s why I asked. I know he likes you. And by the way you reacted last night, it kinda looks like you’re into him too.”
“Well, I’m not. He brought Amy to the party. Didn’t that make you the slightest bit angry? Did you want to see her?” Last night was not about Travis, or any feelings I have for him, or don’t.
“Heck no. Why would I want to see Amy? But I’m not going to get all pissed off about it. You know she did it on purpose. She knew you guys would get pissed.”
I think about it for a second. “You have a point.”
“She’s not really interested in Travis. She’ll do anything to get attention.”
“Ugh. I can’t believe you liked her. She was your girlfriend,” I rant, shuddering in disgust.
He puts his hand on mine. “She was your best friend for longer.”
“You got me there.”
Alex flashes a half smile.
“So now that we’ve established I don’t like Travis,” I begin, putting my hand on top of his now and squeezing. “You need to be honest with me. What’s your problem lately?”
“I have a problem?” He says it like he’s asking a question.
“C’mon, Alex, you’ve been nuts. You act like I’m gonna cheat on you. You have me paranoid about talking to Josh or Jonathan, or any of my other guy friends. I feel like I’m being watched by you from hundreds of miles away. So what’s the deal?”
“That’s the thing. I am hundreds of miles away, and you have these guys around you that like you, and…and…I don’t know.”
“It goes both ways. You’re just as far away from me, as I am from you. You could be screwing all your dorm girls for all I know.” Alex looks away suddenly, and peers out his window. “That’s it.” I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. Words are trying to escape my mouth, but it’s like they’re trapped. I try anyway, to speak through my tears. “You’ve been cheating on me?”
Omigod. Biting his lip, teary eyes, he doesn’t even need to say anything. He cheated. Holy shit. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. My boyfriend cheated on me. I unleash his hand like he has the plague. I can’t remember a time in the last year I didn’t want to touch Alex, but right now all I want is to be far far away from him.
“What? Are you a freaking mute now? You can’t talk. The least you can do is tell me the fucking truth.” Tears are pouring down my cheeks. Never in a million years would I have thought my perfect guy would cheat. Never. I don’t get it. What the hell was he thinking? Sure, I have checked out other guys. I’ve even had a few odd feelings when I’ve talked to Travis. But I know I don’t really like him. I know I just feel needy, and I would never ever act on those feelings.
But apparently Alex did.
“Speak dammit.” Yelling at him doesn’t seem to be working, but I can’t help it. Now tears are streaming down both our faces. “Why you crying Alex? I doubt you were crying when you were with some other girl.”
“Alright, give me a sec.” He wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands and sits up in his seat. Omigod. I don’t know if I’m ready for this. I don’t know if I can handle the gory details. “First, I didn’t have sex with anyone.” You’d think this would make me feel better, but no relief here. “Oh babe, I didn’t mean for anything to happen. I really didn’t. It just…”
“Let me guess. You got drunk and things got out of hand before you remembered you have a GIRLFRIEND.”
“C’mon babe. I’m trying to talk to you.” Well you should have talked way the hell before now, I think.
“So what’d you do then, if you didn’t screw someone? Not that it makes it any better.”
He turns in his seat the best he can to face me. His eyes are dry now, but his face has red splotches all over it. “I kinda hooked up with some girl at school.”
“There’s no kinda. You either did or you didn’t,” I snap. How I have somehow conjured ovaries of steel I will never know, but he doesn’t deserve my kindness right now. Or maybe ever again.
“Okay. I did.”
“When?” I ask. “Before my visit or after?”
“Before.” Oh geez. He’s killing me. Here I thought we had such a great time, and he was already cheating on me.
“I didn’t meet her, did I?” I ask, almost throwing up in my mouth. “Or them?” The thought suddenly occurs to me that there could be more than one girl.
“No, babe, you didn’t meet her.”
“Stop calling me babe. I’m not your babe.”
“Meggie, I’m so sorry.” Blah blah blah. He may as well be speaking Japanese, nothing he says is going to make a difference.
“When I went to visit you, things got pretty physical between us. I even thought we might…um…have sex. I know I wouldn’t have stopped you if you tried. But you kept stopping. This is why, huh?”
“Oh shit…I was so excited to see you. I mean…I really needed to see you. And I thought I would be able to tell you what happened, but then you were there and I couldn’t. And then everything was perfect. Omigod, I wanted to make love to you right there in my room, but I couldn’t. I had to stop because I wasn’t being honest with you.”
“Thank you for that, I guess.” My mind is spinning. So many questions to ask and I don’t know where to begin. “Okay, so what happened? I want to know everything. And don’t you even fucking lie to me.” My vocabulary is that of a truck driver, but I’m so freaking angry I don’t even care.
“Alright, I’ll tell you everything. I went to a party with my roommates. I hadn’t gone out in awhile. I pretty much just went to class and came back to my room. I missed home, and I missed you. Our phone calls and texts just didn’t seem to be enough. I was going crazy.” Does he think telling me this bull is going to make me forgive him? “So the guys kept bugging me to go to this party with them, telling me it’d take my mind off things. I thought, what the hell, so I went.”
“And?”
“I started playing beer pong, and I didn’t play very well. I didn’t eat that night and I got wasted pretty fast. I kept thinking about you when they’d play a song you liked, and I had to dance. I just danced by myself like an idiot, but I felt like I was dancing with you, and I was drunk so I didn’t care how stupid I looked.”
“You really expect me to believe this load of shit?” Like his sappy freaking story is believable. If my boyfriend isn’t lying to me right now, then he’s freaking gay.
“Yes, I do,” he says. “You wanted the truth, and I’m not gonna leave anything out.”
“Just continue.”
“So a Pitbull song comes on, and I can just picture you dancing. It’s like you’re right in front of me. Your hands on my hips, pulling me closer, rubbing your body up on me. I couldn’t help myself. So I kissed you, and it felt good, right. I’d needed one of your kisses for so long. So I kept kissing you, and before I knew it, we were in someone’s room going at it. But…but…” He looks up at me with tears in his eyes, and I cry without making a sound. “But…it wasn’t you.”
My heart is broken. I don’t care how he explains what it was like to kiss another girl. What crap. He was thinking of me. How effing stupid is that? Do girls really fall for this stuff?
“No, Alex, it wasn’t me. But that didn’t stop you. So what did you do besides kiss? Did you feel her tits? Did she blow you? What happened? I need to know what it takes to keep you satisfied, because what we’re doing isn’t working apparently.”
“Oh fuck, Meg, no she didn’t blow me. Why you gotta be like that?”
“Are you kidding me? You cheated. I can be however the hell I want. So tell me already.”
“We just kissed, that’s it,” he says quickly, like trying to rip off a Band-Aid. But it still stings. It really stings. I’m gonna be sick.
“So much for t
aking care of yourself, huh.” My eyes are dry now. I’m just disgusted. Images of him with his tongue down some girl’s throat make me want to hurl. “Take me home, Alex.”
“What? Not yet. We need to finish talking. I need you to know I’m sorry. That nothing like this has happened since, that I haven’t had another drink at school. You have to know I love you.”
“Is there something wrong with me? Do I just attract cheaters? First Eric, now you.” Omigod, I was so stupid to think Alex was different from other guys.
“No, Meg, you’re perfect. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”
But there is something wrong with me. At least from their points of view. “No, I guess I’m not easy enough to keep my guys happy. From now on, maybe I should just start dishing out the blow jobs, and wearing skirts without panties for easy access.”
“C’mon, Meg. Be serious. You can’t do that. And what do you mean? From now on?”
“Remember last year when you were against Ben and I getting together. You said we couldn’t because Ben didn’t deserve me. Well you were wrong. You don’t deserve me Alex. You don’t. Now turn on the car, and take me the hell home.” I take a deep breath to try to calm myself. It’s not working so I close my eyes and try to tune him out.
Alex starts the car and we drive in silence till we come to a stop outside my house. The car is stopped but I can’t seem to move. I know what’s going to happen when I get out of the car. Tears fill my eyes once again as I realize Alex and I are no more.
“Look, Meg,” Alex says softly, breaking the silence and reaching out to me. I jerk my body away from him. “I know you’re hurt and I know there’s nothing I can say to make you feel better. But I’m not gonna let you break up with me. You can say it’s over, but I’m not hearing it. I’m still gonna call you. I’m still gonna text you. I still wanna be with you. When I come home for Christmas, I’m still gonna come home to you. I love you, Megan, and that’s not gonna change, ever.”
The words I need to use aren’t coming to me. So I don’t say anything. I wipe my eyes, grab my bag, open the door and get out of Alex’s car. And I don’t look back.
Double Threat My Bleep (Double Threat Series) Page 9