Just a little.
26
Aidan
I drop off Aster, grab a sandwich for lunch, then make my way to the library for the afternoon shift. The library might not seem like the most natural environment for a guy like me, but I like it. It’s quiet, and we’re allowed to work on our homework during any lulls.
It’s a slow day and I get a bunch of course reading done, and by the time I clock out at eight o’clock, I’m yawning non-stop. I’d tossed and turned all night in anxious anticipation of spending the morning with Aster, and now it’s catching up with me.
I wasn’t lying when I told her I never really dated. That also means I’m not good at dealing with women who are angry at me, and I’m definitely not good at making things right. My hopes for reconciliation had dwindled the longer we’d driven and the more she’d ignored me, but Lindo’s embarrassing stories seem to have made her a little more forgiving. I could have done without the humiliation, but his strategy got Aster talking, and that’s what I wanted. I hadn’t expected her to tell me she’d spent time in prison—and I’m still trying to reconcile the idea of Aster in prison orange with the Aster I thought I knew and the Aster I’m trying to know—but it was kind of a relief, in its own way. Maybe if she’s got her own scars she won’t be afraid of the parts of me I’m always trying to keep hidden.
I return the rented car to the lot on campus, and walk the rest of the way home. The day’s sunshine was great, but it means that without the clouds to trap in the heat, the night is freezing. I jog back, my breath puffing in the air, and I’m breathing hard when I step through the front door. Hard enough that I’ve removed my coat and shoes and poured half a glass of water before I hear it.
Laughter.
Coming from Jerry’s room.
I stop pouring and listen carefully.
There it is again.
A pretty, feminine laugh.
I ease into the living room and peer down the hallway, but his door is closed.
Jerry has a new girl.
At least, I assume she’s new. What if Aster forgave him?
I listen for more laughter but none comes, and without acting like a creep and pressing my ear to his door, I can’t make out anything beyond muffled voices.
It’s not Aster, I tell myself as I rinse my glass and head down the hall to my room. It couldn’t be. She’d only take him back to get revenge on me, and today we’d made some progress mending fences, so...it’s not her.
Our bedrooms share a wall and the voices are slightly louder in here, making it impossible to concentrate on the essay I’m supposed to be writing. All I’m really doing is glaring at the laptop screen like that will help me hear better, and it’s not working.
I try to listen to music, but I can’t concentrate when I do, and I’m too tired to sleep, so I just lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling, picturing Aster and Jerry in there, going at it. Again.
I get up and retreat to the living room, turning on the television and increasing the volume until I can’t hear anything over the corny jokes. Just when I think I’m safe, a female squeal pierces the air, immediately followed by Jerry’s loud moan. I cover my face with a throw pillow as the rhythmic squeak of mattress springs starts a steadily intensifying march toward orgasm.
I’m not a voyeur. I’d much rather be the one participating than eavesdropping. But all these sex noises are reminding me that I haven’t been with anyone in forever, and my body hates me for it. So does karma, because my shallow little plan to bang Aster has backfired in spectacular fashion: traditionally I’ve had sex without many feelings. Now I have tons of complicated feelings and no sex.
Life sucks.
“Jerry!”
Grunt.
Okay, now it really sucks.
“Jerry!”
Louder grunt.
“Yes!”
Squeak.
“Yes!”
Grunt.
“Yes!”
Squeak.
“Yes!”
There’s no way Jerry’s that good, is he?
“You’re killing me!” she shouts.
Is he?
An impassioned female cry answers that question, joined by Jerry’s deeper moan, then the slow creaking of the mattress springs as they finally settle down.
I exhale and take the pillow off my face. I’m jealous. I’m horny. And I don’t know what to do about anything. Before I can dwell on it, I hear soft footsteps pad across the hall, then the click of the bathroom fan turning on. Moments later the fan clicks off, but instead of retreating to the bedroom, the footsteps grow louder.
She’s coming down the hall.
Distracted humming joins the giggling of the studio audience and I sit up abruptly when a blonde in a rumpled white shirt stumbles into the kitchen, failing to notice me on the couch. Her hair is tangled on one side, her long legs bare and gleaming as they disappear behind the counter. She opens the fridge door, silhouetted by the interior light, like a sex goddess out of a movie.
I barely manage to pick my jaw off the ground before she turns and spots me, pitcher of water in hand.
“Oh!” she exclaims, fingers flying up to cover her mouth, cheeks flushing pink. “Aidan. My goodness. I didn’t realize you were here.” After a second those fingers fall, her sex-soft lips curving as her eyes rake me over. “How nice to see you again.”
I hold the pillow in my lap like a shield, trying to hide my horror.
My roommate’s new girl...is Missy.
27
Aster
A knock at my door at ten o’clock at night is nothing out of the ordinary. Students requesting emergency condoms, students reporting someone throwing up in the bathroom—and all over the bathroom—and students asking for more condoms because they “lost” the last ones are pretty standard fare.
What’s not so standard is seeing Aidan Shaw framed in my doorway when I yank it open after the sixth urgent knock.
For a second I just stare at him. He hasn’t been back since our fight, and this time I’m not dressed to kill in a borrowed dress and heels. This time I’m wearing hot pink sweatpants and a clashing orange Holsom T-shirt, my hair still wet from the shower.
“Did you know Jerry is banging Missy?” he blurts out, then barges into my room without waiting for an invitation. “Missy from Frisbee baseball?” he adds. “The blonde who plays second base?”
I take my time closing the door, keeping my back to him.
I may know a little something about this.
I may have...introduced them.
“Maybe?” I offer.
I turn just in time to see him gape at me. “Maybe?” he repeats. “You maybe know about this?”
“Just a little.”
“What did you do? And why did you do it? And how? And why?”
“What’s the big deal? Jerry and I broke up. He’s allowed to move on. He can never truly be happy again, but he can try.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking.”
“Fifty-fifty.”
Aidan scrubs his hands over his face, genuinely pained. I expect him to continue ranting about Missy, but then he surprises me. “I thought it was you,” he mutters through his fingers.
“What was me?”
“Tonight,” he says. “I got home and I could hear them through the wall, going at it.”
I wince. I may have introduced them, but I don’t want to think about it.
“I thought maybe you’d taken him back or something.”
“Never,” I say firmly.
Aidan looks a bit sheepish, and I try not to notice how hot he is. His jeans and combat boots are fine, but when Aidan gets dressed for work, the contrast of the crisp white shirt and dress pants with his tattoos and hair...
It’s not fair.
I tip my head, like I can pour out the dirty thoughts. “Why are you here?”
“I had to get away,” he says. “And I didn’t know where else to go.”
I raise a doubtful brow
. I know he has friends because I met them at the wedding. And I saw T.J. and Wes and Brix at the PPP meeting, so I know they’re still alive.
“Fine,” he mumbles. “I just wanted to come here.”
He pulls out the chair from my desk and straddles it, resting his arms on the back and his chin on his hands like a petulant kid in detention.
“You seem pretty upset,” I comment, sitting on the edge of my bed. I close my laptop—I’d been playing games instead of studying, anyway—and use the heel of my foot to push some dirty laundry out of sight.
“I’m not upset,” he says. “I’m...confused.”
“About your feelings for Jerry?”
He lifts his head enough to glower at me.
“About Missy?” My heart does a tiny, alarmed flip in my chest. Of course I’d seen Missy’s aggressive brand of flirtation during the Frisbee baseball games, but I’d never once seen Aidan reciprocate. I figured she was exactly the type of project-seeking girl he wanted to avoid. But now that I know her, I also know she’s beautiful and smart and funny and down-to-earth.
I didn’t think this through.
In my defense, it’s not like I planned it. We were walking across campus a couple of weeks ago when she spotted a hot guy and dragged me over to “bump into” him. Bump into...Jerry. It could have been awkward—and it was—but I was still angry at Aidan, so what better way to punish him than to invite more Missy into his life? I knew if Missy and Jerry went out that Jerry would immediately confess his sins, so once we were alone I’d confessed for him, telling Missy how he’d cheated on me, the first and only time in his life he’d ever done such a thing, and he felt so bad that he’d absolutely never do it again to anyone else. His cheating was actually kind of...a good thing.
I used to make a living selling lies.
And apparently, Missy bought them.
“I’m very clear on my feelings for Missy,” Aidan says. Then he clarifies: “She terrifies me.”
I hide a smile.
“And she’s super loud during sex.”
I cringe. “Don’t tell me this stuff.”
“Why not? Misery loves company.”
“You’re miserable knowing that Missy is having orgasms?”
“No, I’m miserable because I’m not.”
The words hang between us for an incredibly long time.
“Are you?” he asks softly. “Having...?”
I should tell him that it’s none of his business and never will be, but I can’t seem to blink and he’s watching me so, so closely.
I move my head slightly from side to side, a reluctantly admitted no.
“Why not?” I ask after a moment.
“Why not what?”
“Why aren’t you...with someone?”
He rubs a hand over his jaw, palm rasping against the stubble. “Well...” he says cautiously. “I was waiting for you.”
My heart squeezes. “You were waiting for something that doesn’t exist.”
“You exist,” he says, holding my stare. “Not in the way I thought you did. But in this way. A real way.”
I was fourteen when we fled from my dad, and I’d never had a boyfriend before then. When I was stealing and lying and figuring my life was fucked so why not, I’d hooked up with a few guys. Sometimes it was a bed for a night or sometimes it was a meal, and sometimes it was just someone to tell me I was pretty and be nice to me for a while, even if it wasn’t true. It didn’t matter. It’s not like I told them the truth about my life. Never showed them the real me. Then I went to prison, and never had to.
My first year at Holsom was self-imposed isolation. A couple of guys asked me out, but I felt like such a freak I turned them down. I stayed on campus during the summer and worked at one of the language schools, and it was the combination of extreme loneliness and seeing those students come to a new country, learn a new language, and make new friends, that inspired me to do the same. I’d learn the language of college students and figure out this new world, go through the motions like I belonged, and pray that I eventually convinced myself it was home.
Then I met Jerry and he made the illusion feel real. Like, if he bought it, so could everybody else. And maybe I could, too.
Until Aidan.
Unlike before, I don’t feel a flash of rage when I remember what he did. I’m never going to be grateful for it, but maybe Aidan’s involvement was just a catalyst, a way to speed up the end of a relationship that had always had an expiry date.
Aidan’s the only guy in my life to see all of me. The person I was and the person I want to be and the person I am now. And for whatever reason, he’s still looking.
It’s terrifying.
As though he can read all this on my face, he stands, stretching his arms over his head, revealing a tan strip of skin above the waistband of his pants. I’d seen way more skin than this that day at the pool, but I’d been thinking about drowning him then, not dreaming up ways to see more.
Now my long-dead forgiveness reflex is rushing back in and dragging my hormones with it, and they’re all saying, Let’s do this thang.
“I should go,” he says quietly.
His eyes are darker, like he’s fighting some inner battle, saying the words not because he means them, but because he has to.
“Yes,” I agree, because I have to, not because I mean it.
28
Aidan
“I’m open!” Wes calls. I pass the basketball across the court. He snags it with one hand and makes his shot.
“That’s game!” I shout, high-fiving my teammate.
Brix grabs the ball, circles the net, and dunks it. He’s been racing around the outdoor basketball court the whole game. At first I thought it was a new strategy he and T.J. were trying out, attempting to make me and Wes dizzy, but now I think it’s something else. It’s like he’s a tiger that’s been let out of his cage, doing his best to burn off all the excess energy he stored while locked up.
We grab water bottles from our bags at the edge of the court and watch Brix practice his lay-ups. “He knows the game’s over, right?” T.J. mutters, joining us.
“Hey!” I snatch up Brix’s water and toss it to him when he turns. “Take a break!”
He catches the water and tosses it through the net, grabbing it before it hits the ground. Then he bounces the ball back to Wes and takes a seat in the middle of the court.
“What’s going on?” T.J. asks. “You on something?”
Brix flops onto his back and contemplates the sky. “High on life, man.”
We exchange dubious glances and join him on the concrete.
“How’s the wife?” Wes inquires. “We haven’t seen you too much since you got married.”
“Just busy,” Brix replies. “Gotta paint the house, repaint the house, pick out a couch, find the right coffee table, visit nine dozen galleries hunting for the right piece of art to hang over the fireplace...”
“You have a fireplace?” T.J. exclaims.
“You have art?” I add.
“Now I do.”
“You like it?” Wes asks.
“The fireplace is okay. The art’s horrible.”
“How about being married? Is that okay?”
He props himself up on one elbow and wipes his face with the hem of his sweaty T-shirt. “It’s awesome,” he says eventually. “I know everyone says we’re too young...”
“You are,” T.J. interrupts.
Brix ignores him. “...but when it’s right, it’s right. And it feels right. Stupid art gecko and all.”
Wes scratches his ear. “Do you mean art deco?”
“Nope. The artwork is a three-foot bead sculpture of a gecko.”
“Why?”
“No idea, man.”
We ponder this for a moment.
“What about you?” Brix asks, kicking my foot. “You brought a date to my wedding. What’s the story there?”
I concentrate on trying to spin the ball on one finger. “No story. We’re fr
iends.”
“She’s too hot to be your friend,” Wes points out. “She might think of you as a friend, but that can’t be all you want. What was it you said at the wedding? Not yet?”
I hesitate. It’s one thing to discuss a one-night stand that meant nothing; it’s quite another to discuss someone who means a whole lot. Fortunately, Brix jumps in and saves me.
“It’s better when you’re friends first,” he says. “There’s more on the line when you cross it, but if it works out, it’s awesome. You get a friend and you get sex.”
T.J. snorts. “I’ve got friends. I’m just looking for sex.”
They crack up and I tune them out as I think about what Brix said, about crossing the line. I’ve been friends with Aster for nearly three months. We’ve kissed, traveled together, conquered fears, played sports, eaten ice cream, had a big fight, made up... We’ve basically had an entire relationship, minus the hooking up. It’s more than I’ve ever had with anyone, but I still want more.
I like Aster.
I care about her.
And I want her.
I need a new plan.
29
Aster
I can count on one hand the number of pieces of paper mail I’ve received this year, so as I walk past the row of mailboxes on my way to the elevator, I do an exaggerated double-take when I spot the edge of a white envelope peeking through the glass on my box.
I dig out my keys from my pocket and retrieve the envelope, staring at the handwritten address in confusion. It’s made out to Aster Lindsey at Holsom College, then the town name and state. No zip code. No building name or room number. But there’s a stamp, and it couldn’t have gotten into the mailbox without following the official channels.
I don’t know why I feel nervous, but as I unseal the flap during the ride up in the elevator, my heart starts to pound. Who would write me a letter? I don’t have any prison penpals. I don’t have anybody.
Once in my room, I lock the door and sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the opened envelope. Then, with trembling fingers, I pull out the single sheet of lined paper waiting inside.
Aster, I read. It’s me.
My Roommate's Girl Page 12