At the bar, several guys and girls are yelling their orders to bartenders working efficiently, using this or that bottles. They are already sweaty and the night is still young. I don’t know how they can do this.
“Don’t let go of my hand. I don’t want to lose you among these people. I’d get frantic trying to find you,” he yells at me, to be sure I hear him over the loud bumping of the music I can feel beating in my chest.
I nod and tighten my grip for good measure. He nods back, and pushes past two guys to pass his order to the only girl behind the bar. Her well-oiled movements stop and she drinks him in before smiling and giving him his order. Maybe having a hot best friend comes in handy sometimes.
He turns back to me without dropping my hand and gives me a cold bottle of beer. He keeps the other one and takes a sip. “We’ll drink only one beer. No need to get carried away,” he tells me close to my ear, his breath already smelling faintly of beer.
“Don’t worry, I never drink more than a beer,” I reply before tugging at his hand to move away to find a less crowded place. As we pass by the dance floor to look for a free table, I point at a couple dancing closely. Derek and Kate. “I guess we can imagine how that’s going to end.”
He follows the direction I point and shakes his head. “Derek won’t sleep with her. He likes her, but he’s not the type of guy to sleep with a girl after the first date.
I tilt my head and lean against a wall, Duke facing me. I take a sip of my beer and begin to calm down. Here, people are not bumping into me and I don’t feel as claustrophobic. Also, having Duke in front of me instead of all the people crammed in a room too small for my taste is better. And more of a spectacle with his tattoos looking darker under the strobe lights and his eyes often going down my cleavage. Knowing he likes what he sees boosts my ego, which is funny because whenever another guy gives me the same look I hate it and want to just hide somewhere far away. I just feel normal with Duke.
“You’re going to dance with me as soon as you’re finished with your beer.” He tips his bottle up and makes a show to let me know his bottle is empty.
I shake my head and widen my eyes. “No! No, no, no. I’m not going in the middle of ... this!” I exclaim, pointing at the crammed dance floor where strangers are bumping each other and couples are almost dry humping. I don’t know how to dance and I’m not feeling good enough in my own skin to try.
“Trust me.”
“That’s not about trust, Duke!” I tighten my grip on the bottle and like an idiot I finish it in one big sip. Not that I secretly want to dance, but I need a distraction. Duke arches his eyebrows and nods at my bottle. “You know I’ll freak out in the middle of this frenzy.”
He takes my bottle and puts both empty beers on the closest table where a group of guys and girls don’t even realize the intrusion. “Then I’ll be glad to kiss you senseless until you’re so breathless that you can’t think about anything other than having your way with me and not about where we are.”
I gape at him and let him grab my hand. “Do you always say what’s in your head?”
He shrugs and walks to the dance floor, but not in the middle. “It’s straight talk. I tend to be like that when I want something badly,” he answers in my ear and I shiver. He chuckles at my reaction and puts his hands low on my waist, almost over my ass.
I swallow hard and look around us, making a face at a guy mimicking sex moves with a girl I hope is his girlfriend. I bring my hands up on Duke’s broad shoulders and let him move us. We’re not exactly in rhythm. In fact, it’s like we’re moving at our own rhythm, slower, calmer but incredibly sensual. He’s not grinding against me, but slightly brushing his hips against mine while I’ve got both legs between his, my naked skin touching the denim of his black jeans.
At one point, maybe after three songs, he stops us and leans toward my face, his eyes locked on my lips and never looking elsewhere. He’s serious, determined, and the bulge in his pants lets me know he’s on the edge. I tilt my face up and open my mouth as soon as his smooth lips come in contact with mine.
Though our bodies are not moving on the dance floor among the other undulating bodies surrounding us, our tongues and lips are moving in rhythm with the heavy thump-thump of the music. Surprising us both, I’m the one who grinds against him and he groans in my mouth. It’s primal, it’s heady, and I moan back, my hands tugging in his shaggy hair.
“Let’s go,” he says, breaking the kiss suddenly.
I can’t talk but I nod immediately, not thinking twice. In fact, I’m just listening to the message my body is sending and it’s screaming ‘I want to get a little more sweaty with Duke’. I don’t really know what it means or how far I’m about to go, but all I want is to feel him more closely to me and feel him touching me. I want his big hands on my skin, and I don’t want to think about anything else.
Chapter Fifteen
My hands glide over his naked back until I reach the nape of his neck and the wavy strands curling there. I tug on some and nibble on his lower lip. His groan echoes in my mouth and he deepens the kiss, his hands more frantic on my breasts. My breath is coming heavier.
His left hand travels down my bare stomach. I contract my barely there abs and freeze when he begins to play with the hem of my panties. He breaks the kiss, but keeps his hand on my panties while the other one supports most of his weight so as not to crush me.
It’s the farthest we’ve ever been; here in our underwear about to have sex together. However, now I’m not so sure. I can feel his hard desire against my hip; I can hear his staggered breathing and feel his hands shaking slightly. My breathing is already going back to the normal slow motion I’m accustomed to and my hands are falling back against my body.
“I can’t,” I whisper, my eyes pleading with his to not get angry. I mean, I lead the guy on until he’s almost frantic to have sex with me and now I’m just ... saying no.
He sighs and puts some distance between us lying next to me, his shoulder against mine. I can feel it moving in rhythm with his laborious breathing. I look at the ceiling and consider grabbing my clothes and going back to my dorm. I hate this silence, hate to think that he’s probably angry with me.
“It’s okay,” he finally says, his voice still husky despite his desire, which is fast disappearing. I can’t help my eyes going back down there.
“Do you want me to leave?”
He doesn’t answer right away and I bite my tongue. It’s the first time he doesn’t answer this question in a heartbeat. “No. Stay,” he answers after he cleared his throat, but it doesn’t sound like he really wants me to.
I can leave, I could give him some kind of bullshit about having to leave, but I don’t want to go. I feel awful because I really wanted him—and still do—but beside being afraid of what he’s going to think of me afterward, I’m scared to death by what I feel when I’m in his arms. It’s already too powerful for just sex and it will change things. It’s a fact, sex changes things between people and neither one of us wants anything to change in our friendship that is already a little too much co-dependent.
“I’m s—”
“Don’t say a word,” he cuts me before I can apologize. He turns on his side, not facing me but the wall. “Go to sleep.”
* * *
“Where was Duke?” Kate asks me as we left the coffee house where we met up with Derek. “It’s like the third day in a row he didn’t show.” She adjusts her designer bag on her shoulder and waves at a girl who just called out to her. She looks radiant since our night out with the guys. The little looks Derek and her exchange let me know they’re slowly getting closer. Derek is winning her over even if Kate thinks she’s still immune to love or relationships.
I shrug and zip up my leather jacket over the college hoodie I’ve got on; in my size for once. I didn’t buy it, Kate did. “I don’t know,” I lie because I’m pretty sure I know where he is. After all, whenever something’s wrong he’s always over there.
“It’s w
eird. Since Saturday he hasn’t been hanging out that much with us or you.” She grabs my forearm and stops us on the sidewalk, making a guy and a girl curse us. I can’t blame them. “Are you sure you didn’t sleep with him?”
Despite myself, despite the anguish I feel about Duke’s behavior, I laugh. “You think I’d forget such a thing?”
She giggles and releases my forearm. “You’re right. You can’t forget getting all sweaty with such a fine male specimen.”
“Only you could put it like that. Sometimes it’s like you’re talking about a piece of meat. You’re worse than guys.”
She waves me off and rolls her eyes. “It’s not like I’d do anything with him.”
“But with Derek ...” I trail off, glad to have something to talk about to ease my mind.
“He’s different. Do you realize we still haven’t kissed? I mean, we hang out every day, we text, we went out the other night and it was quite hot, but he didn’t kiss me.”
We open the door of our dorm building and take the stairs. “He’s not your usual dumbass, that’s for sure. The guy wants a real relationship with you and I bet he feels that you’re only looking for sex.”
Kate fishes her key from an outside pocket of her huge bag and opens the door. She’s frowning and serious all of a sudden. I shrug off my jacket, put it on my bed and sit, waiting for her to do the same. We’re going from light girl talk to important stuff.
“And what if—maybe—I’m feeling something more?” She grabs a handful of M&Ms waiting for her on her bedside table and begins to chew.
“Then I think you couldn’t find a better guy.”
She shakes her head, her eyes mesmerized by the colorful sweets in her left hand. “I’m not made for relationships.”
I roll my eyes and snatch my pillow to put it on my knees. “You think you’re not, but it’s because you’re afraid. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about,” I say a little bitterly. “Derek wants something more with you, it’s obvious, and he is a serious guy. He won’t lead you on for nothing and will always respect you.”
Munching on her M&Ms, she stands up to turn on the radio. She sways her hips for a couple of seconds and goes back to her bed, facing me with a small smile on her face. “And if he breaks my heart?”
“Then I’ll knee him in his precious package and I’ll give you a shoulder to cry on,” I reply without missing a beat. I’m serious, too. She was there for me when I needed her and I owe her. Also, she’s more than just a friend or a roommate. She’s my best friend and I intend not to lose her.
She laughs and nods at me before fishing her cell from her bag. I know she’s going to text Derek to flirt a little more. I hope she’ll let him into her heart. They both deserve it. My phone rings in my jeans pocket. Grabbing it, I see it’s my mother.
“Hey Mom,” I say without enthusiasm because I know exactly what her next two questions are.
“Hi, honey. How are you today?” she asks me, a smile in her voice despite the tenseness I know is there.
“I’m fine.”
“And Duke?”
I punch my pillow and Kate gives me a funny look. “He’s probably fine, Mom.”
Kate goes back to her phone when it beeps signaling a text. She brings a hand to her mouth, smiling. My mother makes a tsk sound in the phone and I scrunch up my nose.
“You two fought again?”
I stand up and lean against the window, looking outside where the sun is bright but not very hot yet. “Not exactly but he’s ... avoiding me,” I answer, too conscious of Kate’s presence in the room to feel free to talk about Duke. Also, I’m not sure I’ll ever feel at ease talking about Duke and me, whatever it is.
“Honey, you can’t let this guy slip away from you.”
“Uh?” I’m not very talkative all of a sudden, but I’m a little baffled by what my mother is saying. I hear a door closing on her side. Apparently she’s with my father, but she shuts him out. God, if she’s going to give me a boy talk I’m going to have nightmares.
“He is very easy on the eyes,” she says and giggles like a school girl.
I take the phone away from my ear, look at it like it’s going to bite me, and bring it back to my ear. “Mom!” I shake my head. This is too weird.
“Oh, I can make an objective observation, honey,” she says more seriously. I can hear the fridge door open and close. “I know you don’t want to talk about what’s happening between you and this young man, but you shouldn’t let him put this distance between you. Reach out to him.”
Reach out to him? It’s easy to say when you don’t know where he is, but I know where he is and it scares me. It hurts too. “Maybe he doesn’t want me to,” I reply, not caring to acknowledge that there is, indeed, something going on between Duke and me.
My mother sighs a little. She sounds almost happy to know there is something between him and me. She probably thinks that I’m recovering better than she thought if I’m able to have a relationship with a guy, but that’s the thing. I’m not having one even if ... Nothing. Even if nothing at all.
“He reached you when you didn’t want him to.”
And those are the words that make me grab my jacket and shrug it on. “Good-bye, Mom.” I hang up on the sound of her laughing. At least there’s someone who thinks my life is funny.
Kate’s eyebrows shoot up and she waves at me. “You’re going after the hot TA?”
I nod and walk out, determined to see him and talk with him. For once, we’re not on talking terms because I’m a chicken and he’s tormented, but not because we had a fight. That’s progress. Or so I prefer to see it that way.
* * *
He wasn’t in his room. I knew he wouldn’t be there, but I stopped by to make sure of it. And now I’m at the same spot that I was months ago, looking at Duke. He is sitting next to Juliet’s tombstone, his eyes alternating between the marble and the view over Lake Washington.
I’m glad to be able to understand him enough to know where he’s hiding, but it also crushes me to know he’s looking for some comfort here, in the cemetery. He is still running to Juliet, even when she’s not here anymore.
I brush away my wild hair and walk to him, avoiding a little girl jumping and running around while her mother is putting some white flowers on her parents’ grave. I give a tight smile to the little girl and resume my walking.
Duke looks up and frowns when he sees me, but he doesn’t seem annoyed or angry. I stop several feet from him, glance at the tombstone and look away quickly. It’s disturbing to know that someone he deeply loves is underground right here. My eyes focus on the Space Needle, not very big from up here.
“I knew you’d come to find me here at some point,” he says, breaking the silence. His voice does not disclose any of his feelings.
I look down at him and sit. I can’t talk to him in a standing position when he is on the ground. “Did you want me to find you here?”
He takes a deep breath and shrugs. He doesn’t tug at his hair, doesn’t run a hand in his goatee, or grab a cigarette. He’s just sitting there, his eyes now focused on the scripts on the stone.
It’s so hard to talk to him when it’s like there’s someone between us. Her presence is lingering between us, heavily. I clear my throat. “Duke, you shouldn’t avoid us all.”
He brings his eyes to me and I’m frozen by the intense look. He is not going to avoid a confrontation. Not at all what I expected on my way here in Kate’s car. “And you shouldn’t let Sean dictate what you want.”
My breath catches. “Okay, tell me what you want to tell me so much. After all, it’s true, hiding here is the best way to have a talk,” I sneer, annoyed and hurt by his bluntness. Where is the guy that is so patient? Is it really because I refused to have sex the other night?
“You don’t face the depth of your urges when you’re with me,” he replies coldly, his eyes traveling from my trademark purple Converses to my wild hair.
“Like my current urge to knock you out c
old?” I gape at my own words, bringing a hand to my mouth, which is still hanging open.
Duke arches an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on my verbal diarrhea. “You are afraid of your own desire and you can’t move on until you deal with this, but you prefer to hide behind your issues instead.”
I close my mouth loudly, my teeth clashing against each other. My hand falls back on my knee. “And you? You’re running here every time something’s difficult for you. You’ve got the date of her death tattooed over your heart, you still wear her necklace.” I sigh, my anger diminishing fast. “I can’t compete with your dead girlfriend.”
He looks back at the tomb, fingering the necklace shining in the sun. “What are telling me? You want to stop, run away again?”
Patch Up Page 22