Love on Hold

by Mia Miller

  I shrugged. “It was ages ago. We’re mostly friends now, I think,” I explained how I saw things.

  “Still, I saw him during some classes giving you these intense looks. Like an eagle watching a chicken.” She wiggled her eyebrows and I just giggled, shaking my head and sipping from my beer.

  “You’re imagining things. And I think he’s only friends with me in name because his mom cares for me.”

  Amaya lifted her palm, as if rejecting my explanations.

  “In any case, you’re a saint for not holding grudges, chica. I don’t want to see any of my exes making out with anyone.”

  I shrugged again. “I’m not in love with him. Therefore, not jealous. Besides, I loved him for five minutes and that time has passed,” I explained to her for what felt like the hundredth time. “Let’s go see what’s going on outside.”

  We made our way through the throng of people, only to find almost as many people hanging out in the backyard. Amaya’s steps faltered and the next second had her grinning at me as she shoved her cup into my hand and took off running.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled after her.

  “Trampoline!” she yelled over her shoulder. Ah. I should have known. She joined them, acting like a little kid as I hung back and watched. When my phone vibrated in my pocket, I set her drink down where I could keep an eye on it and checked the text.

  TDL: Interview was a bust.

  It was late, past midnight, and Amaya and Glue were asleep in her bedroom. I was finishing some light reading, which I could barely focus on. Really, I just wanted to pick up my phone and text TDL back. So, that was what I did.

  Me: I’m going to bed and I just thought of your voice. Is that weird?

  His response came quickly.

  TDL: Not weird at all. Chicks are known to get addicted to me pretty fast.

  Me: Cocky much?

  TDL: I think it’s too early for such reveals.

  TDL: But YES.

  Me: Good night, TDL.

  TDL: TDL?

  Me: Tall, dark, and lonely.

  My phone rang. TDL calling.

  “You said you were thinking about my voice. I thought I’d at least please one person for today.” I felt his baritone voice deep in my belly.

  “Hey, you,” was all I gave him.

  “So, are we ready to attach some actual names to these fucked-up nicknames or do you like foreplay so much you aren’t ready to let go?”

  Did I like foreplay? My book and movie experience said yes, my real-life adventures? Not so much.

  “Nah, I think we’re good with nicknames for now,” I answered quietly.

  I heard him sigh, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he was disappointed by my answer or just tired.

  “Going for a sprint again?”

  “No, not tonight. I trained with a punching bag earlier, and I might have overdone it.”

  “A punching bag, huh? That’s hot,” I said and then cringed before adding, “Why are you up so late? Tonight, and the night before. Do you have insomnia or something?”

  “Or something,” he mumbled. “You were up too.”

  “I was reading.”

  “I like reading too,” he promptly said. “What a waste to be reading late at night in different beds …”

  “What a cheap line too. Does coming up with these keep you up at night?” I joked.

  “I think that I’m just discovering a whole new reason to be up at night.” His voice dropped to a husky whisper that had me imagining all sorts of dirty things.

  “What’s that?” I breathed.

  “Making you bare yourself to me.”

  Bare myself. Officially, I’d thought of sex three times in under five minutes. The man had skill.

  I crossed my legs and grinned.

  “What would you like to know?” I asked him.

  “Everything,” he said and sounded sure, as if I were some fascinating mystery he was dying to unravel.

  “I will answer two questions tonight.” He could do what he wanted with that.

  “Hmm, I’ll have to choose wisely.” There was a moment of silence, during which I heard my own heartbeat in my temples, and then he asked, “Do you like ribs?”

  I burst out laughing.

  “That is your choice?”

  “Hey, just because I get two questions tonight doesn’t mean I have to dive into your darkest desires from the get-go. And I kind of want to know where to take you out when the time comes …” he answered, leaving the last part hanging in the air more like a statement than a question.

  “Ha-ha! Good play. I love ribs. Contrary to popular belief, I eat a lot. I could eat you under the table.”

  “We’ll have to see about that.”

  “My turn,” I said before he could launch his second question at me.

  “I never offered to answer any questions,” he said, voice laced with mirth.

  “Does that mean you won’t answer one if I ask?”

  “I don’t know. Ask and I’ll let you know.”

  “Why was your interview a bust?” I asked, pushing it to see where this would go. There was a stretch of silence, and I didn’t think he was going to answer, but then he cleared his throat.

  “My father. He doesn’t approve of my career choice, and he has the means and the malice to see that he crushes any chance I create for myself. So, as far as I can tell, he found out where my interview was, pulled some strings, and made it so they wouldn’t hire me. This isn’t the first time he’s done it, and it probably won’t be the last. As if it weren’t hard enough to get my foot in the door so I can build my portfolio, now I get to deal with him tossing boulders in my path.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tried to console.

  “It’s fine. I’m used to it. One of these days, I’ll beat him to the punch.”

  His answer was followed by a small silence.

  “Portfolio, huh? What was the job interview for?” I tried my hand at my second question.

  “Nope. Wait your turn. Why did you and your last boyfriend break up?”

  “From ribs to something that personal? And you are just going to assume I’m single? Should I be offended?” I said, trying to gain time. For some reason, I wanted him to get a good impression of me, from my answers. Not that I’d done anything wrong, just that my decisions regarding Daniel’s and my relapse hadn’t been the wisest in human history.

  “When people don’t expect a question they’re more likely to be truthful,” he stated matter-of-factly. “And, just to clarify, you being single is wishful thinking on my part.”

  I didn’t know him, but if tones had a look, his would have appeared as a wolfish grin.

  I thought about it, considered lying, and then decided on the truth. “I think we just didn’t make sense together. I don’t remember looking into the future and seeing myself with him. We were together in high school for a short while. Then we were on and off again.” I hesitated before adding, “And again.”

  He laughed.

  “Then something must have been right about him and you together, otherwise you wouldn’t have given him another chance.”

  “More like he was really good at talking himself back into my life. When I finally decided I’d had enough, I ended things, and that was that. No grudges or hard feelings.”

  I held a breath, wondering if he’d accept that. Amaya understood many things, but she couldn’t quite comprehend how I didn’t loathe Daniel. She fell in love twice a month.

  “Fair enough. Life’s too short to hold grudges over that.” His response was quick and refreshing, and I smiled at his easy acceptance. “My interview was for an intern position with … are we still keeping our identities a secret?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay then, in the spirit of that, I had an interview with a huge media agency from the West Coast.”

  “I see. Anything special about them?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, they offered intern positions and the possibility to get assigned
experienced field reporters to grow your portfolio with.”

  “But was it your dream workplace?”

  “Hell no,” he answered, sounding sure. “Ideally, I want to work at a neutral press agency someday.”

  “Is there really such a thing as neutral, unbiased press?”

  “I think there is, with the right cluster of minds behind it,” he answered.

  “If you report all sides of the story, you have better chances of not taking sides,” I countered.

  “True. But if I write only facts, then opinions and sides of stories don’t come into play at all. Would reporting lies help the bigger picture?” he said.

  “No, but isn’t it also important to take cultural differences into consideration? We perceive things so differently between all the parts of the world.”

  “We do, but cultural differences are opinions in and of themselves. Widely accepted societal structures that are based on the opinions of others, but opinions nonetheless. The fact that the sky is blue is a fact no matter where in the world you live.”

  He sounded so passionate that I felt a resonance to his fire that made me like him even more. Hot voice, great sense of humor, and smart. The list just kept getting longer and longer.

  “Touché.” I smiled. “I know you’re upset about not getting the internship, but they say nothing that happens to a writer is in vain. That’s something you’ll probably write about one day,” I said quietly.

  “You read my mind,” was all he answered.

  I wanted to make him feel better about himself and his situation. I breathed with relief when I realized he was trying to make light of the situation right along with me.

  I chewed on my lip and braced before asking, “It sounds like you’re really passionate about this. Why would your father try to keep you from pursuing it?”

  “Because he’s a control freak who refuses to believe I don’t want to follow in his footsteps.”

  This subject felt a little bit bitter. The idea that something like that would break a relationship between a parent and child was foreign to me. What I did know and refused to point out was that at least his father was alive and cared enough about him to be angry over his career choice. Indifference would have been far worse in my opinion.

  “What kind of journalist do you want to be anyway?”

  “Investigative reporter.”

  “That sounds tough.”

  “It’s more research work than most other types of journalism. I like that. I also like that it’s important for democracy. Most of my idols have helped expose corruption, at some point or another. Journalism, if done properly, can hold both individuals and institutions accountable. But, hey, I’m boring you …”

  “Not at all. I think we are so preoccupied with what we want to do that sometimes we get tunnel vision and don’t think of much else.”

  “Yeah, career and pussy for the win!” he exclaimed and made me giggle. Funny, if that crudeness had come from anyone else, I wouldn’t have laughed. Coming from him, though, it sounded like the most natural thing in the world.

  “I really think you’ll get it if you keep at it. Like you said, one of these times will be your success.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, you don’t have anything in your portfolio now?” I asked, the two-question rule long forgotten.

  I heard him take a drink of something, which sounded far more erotic than it probably should have. It just conjured ideas of his neck and what his skin felt like. I wanted to know what his mouth looked like. Were his lips hard lines or plush?

  “I do … but it’s very academic. At my current college job, environmental issues are the most relevant topic I am allowed to tackle, and even then, they are edited in a way that makes them political. The articles aren’t exactly in line with what I want to write about in the future, you know?”

  “I can understand that, but I bet there are a ton of journalists that started out the same way.”

  “You’re probably right. What about you?”

  “Me? I don’t need a portfolio. Just need to keep my grades up to sustain my scholarship and get the diploma, and then I will apply to my dream job … wait for it … with the UN.”

  I waited for the usual confusion and then disdain for something that was beyond our years. Instead, he whistled.

  “United Nations? Whoa! Whoa. My dream suddenly feels small.”

  Admiration. Understanding. Just like that, he had another item on the pros side: supportive.

  “Don’t be silly. There is no such thing as a small dream.”

  “What exactly will you do there?” he asked me back.

  “I want to work in human rights, and maybe, one day, sit on the Human Rights Council. That one is a long shot, though.”

  “That’s a grand plan,” he said in a tone filled with admiration. “Isn’t it tough to get there, though?”

  “Yes. But I have been thinking about it since junior high. We had a career fair where someone talked about UN’s mission and values, and I was hooked. I volunteer at Red Cross every summer since. It’s part of my plan to build a solid background. You should know, tall, dark, and lonely guy, that I follow up on my plans.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I’m a quick learner and always had a knack for languages. I have excellent command of two of their official languages. French and Arabic. I want to start there as an interpreter since those positions are always open and, for some languages, hard to fill. Those hard-to-fill jobs are the ones I’ve been studying for. And then I’ll work my way up.”

  I finished my yapping, realizing I might have taken his invitation too ad litteram.

  “I adore your dream. I want you to make it.”

  Swoon! It was beautiful to share my goals with someone who had the same flame in their voice when talking about their strategies.

  “And, speaking of languages …” I prompted.

  “Yes?”

  “Your phone number says you’re in California.”

  “I am.” He wasn’t going to give me anything else.

  “Well, your accent tells me a totally different story.”

  “Oh, really?” he asked, his voice laced with mirth.

  “Yeah. I am thinking … that you are from Long Island or somewhere close to it, right?”

  “Maybe,” he admitted and barked a laugh. “Yeah, I am a New York transplant to California. Your senses were right. You have quite a musical ear.”

  I laughed. “I mean, not really. I do, but in this case, you have the most recognizable accent in the country. But a musical ear helps in what I plan to do, yes.”

  “How many languages do you speak anyway?”

  Our conversation flowed, and I shared that I could speak a total of five foreign languages, one of which was Hebrew, and he sat through a very long monologue of me gushing about all the reasons for which I liked it. After that, he asked me questions that showed he’d listened. I got excited.

  We talked through both him and me snacking on stuff we’d scrounged up from our fridges. I found out he was living with a roommate. It was obvious from the things we knew of each other so far that we were close in age, but he eventually confirmed. We were both twenty-one.

  We stopped watching the clock, and I wasn’t sleepy anymore. Just hungry for information. Liking his openness, I opened myself up as well. He made things feel so fun. So easy.

  Five

  “You’re My High.”

  In the following weeks, I found myself in a new routine, and so did TDL. I’d still gone to my classes, written my essays, and made dinners with Amaya. I still went to my part-time job and visited the children on Tuesday nights. But something had shifted, and even though the change was subtle and slow, it ended up changing everything.

  It started as no-harm fun. It started like all addictions start—invisibly.

  At first, we established rules.

  Rule number one: If we were to stay unseen friends, we’d refrain from sharing information that mig
ht reveal our identities. Names, locations, social media accounts … stuff like that.

  Rule number two: We’d talk whenever and for however long we wanted to and felt free to switch our phones off without remorse. Funny, but there hadn’t been a day we hadn’t talked, despite that rule. I texted him during classes and while I was at work, and he always texted me before he went to bed, which was how I knew exactly who was texting me.

  TDL: Have you ever played two truths, one lie?

  Me: Once or twice. Does your way of playing involve drinking?

  TDL: You can drink if it makes your lips (pardon, fingers) loose.

  TDL: But no, it’s just a ploy to make you spill more beans about yourself.

  TDL: You tell me three things and only one is the lie. I have to guess the lie.

  Me: Wait. Who wins at this game?

  TDL: Both of us.

  Me: Lame!

  TDL: Does everything need to be a competition?

  Me: Life is a competition, and I like winning.

  TDL: I promise I’ll think of a future game where we compete. Give you the satisfaction.

  Me: I’ll hold you to it. Okay, you go first, show me how it’s done.

  TDL: Let me think.

  While I waited, I changed into my pajamas and crawled into bed.

  TDL: I am crazy about going down on my dates. I like getting blow jobs. I have never had a threesome.

  Me: Hardy-har-har. What a subtle way to dish some dirt about yourself.

  TDL: That isn’t how this works …

  Me: Okay, Mr. Dirty.

  Me: You’re a guy, so you probably love BJs. And just to hazard a guess, but I think you have had a threesome?

  TDL: More than the ONE, but that is a topic for another night. Good pointing out my lie. Your turn.

  Me: I have brown eyes. I am a jockey in my free time. I have a serious addiction to all things sugar.

  TDL: Jockey? Do you like riding stuff? You can’t see me, but I am wiggling my eyebrows.

  Me: Don’t ruin this.

  TDL: I guess the jockey thing is a lie then? Too weird.

  Me: I could qualify for a jockey job. Hint, hint! But you are correct.

  TDL: Tiny, huh? You should know, I am still wiggling my eyebrows.