Breathe (Sway Part 2)

by Davis, Jennifer

  I went to a store in the hotel and pretty much took the salesgirl’s first suggestion. A blue and yellow string bikini. I thought it was pretty. When she saw me in it, she said I looked sick. Judging the excitement on her face, looking sick was a good thing.

  19

  Justin

  Ross had called over a couple girls and one of them couldn’t keep her hands off me. When I noticed Annie coming toward us, my first instinct was to tell her to cover up.

  “Hey,” she said, cutting between the girl and me, her fingers brushing my chest as she passed.

  “Hey,” I said back.

  “Whattya think?” She twirled around.

  “Uh-um-uh, it’s... um, it’s pretty,” I stammered.

  “Pretty hot,” Ross mumbled. My head whipped in his direction, shaking back and forth, warning him not to look.

  “Thank you, Ross.” Annie winked at him. What the hell?

  “Hey now!” I complained. Annie laughed. I knew I was only pretending to be her boyfriend, but still.

  “You better not leave her alone for a second, dude,” Ross warned me. I felt like a dirty old man, but I could not take my eyes off her. Neither could every other guy who noticed her.

  “Damn,” Ross complained.

  “What?” I asked blindly.

  “The girls left.”

  I hadn’t noticed.

  I took Ross’s advice and didn’t leave Annie’s side as I watched the other guys horse around and try to pick up girls. It was funny how little game some of them had. Something Annie also noticed.

  “You should show them how it’s done,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I’m sure you noticed thong girl over there,” she said. “Go get her number.”

  “I don’t want her number.”

  “Hey Ross,” Annie called.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “What’s up?” Ross asked carefully.

  “I told Justin to try to get that girl’s number.” She pointed to thong girl. “He won’t do it.”

  Ross silently stared at me, appearing just as confused as I was.

  “I encourage him to flirt.” Annie winked at Ross.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked her.

  She turned and skimmed her fingers down my chest again, making me shiver.

  “I’ll give you fifty bucks if you get her number,” Annie said. Ross laughed. “If you don’t get it, then you have to take me to dinner at L’orange tonight.”

  I was starting to understand. “You think I can’t get her number?” I asked, stunned.

  She smiled slyly. “Sorry, no. I don’t think she’ll give it to you, babe.”

  “Well, you’re on, babe,” I growled and headed for thong girl.

  20

  Annie

  “Do you have a sister?” Ross asked me.

  “No.”

  “I should have known a girl like you would be one of a kind. I hope Justin realizes how lucky he is.” We were only pretending to be together, but apparently, we were doing a good job.

  “Don’t get too excited about me yet. I imagine Justin’s going be pissed when he has to wear a tie to get into the restaurant.”

  “You really don’t think he’ll her number?”

  I smiled, deciding to let Ross in on my secret. “You see the girl standing behind thong girl?” I asked him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, thong girl is with her.”

  “Nuh- uh. No way.”

  “I noticed that she’d already turned away a few guys before I sent Justin over there.” I’d sent him over there because I’d noticed him looking at her and didn’t like it.

  “You set him up,” Ross said.

  “I told him she wouldn’t give him her number before he went over there.”

  “You never know she could go both ways,” Ross offered.

  “She’ll give him a number because he’s going with the honesty approach, telling her he’ll lose a bet to me if he comes back empty handed.”

  “Okay, so he’ll win,” Ross said.

  “I said she would give him a number. It won’t be hers, and trust me, if you pay attention to what’s going on above her waist you’ll see it, too. She only goes one way.”

  “That’s dirty, Annie.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s basic psychology. Guys are competitive; nothing gets them going like a challenge. Even if they lose, it still excites them.”

  “I know less about girls than I thought,” Ross mumbled. “I’m not sure I like you as much anymore.”

  I laughed. “No matter what a girl says, knowing her boyfriend is looking at another girl will make her jealous. Always. No exceptions.”

  Justin came strutting back to us holding his phone out. “Pay up, sucka,” he spouted at me. I sat back in my chair and slid on my sunglasses.

  “Call it,” I requested lightly.

  “What?” His eyes flashed to Ross and then to me.

  “Call the number. If she answers, I’ll pay. If she doesn’t, then you know what you have to do.”

  Justin’s face fell as it dawned on him that the number might be fake. “Fine, I’ll call it,” he said, a twinge of macho in his voice.

  “Just so you know, babe, L’orange has a dress code.”

  “It doesn’t matter ‘cause I got this.” I wanted to laugh, but held it in.

  Justin pressed send and held the phone to his ear. I laughed when he began to talk.

  “Ha! You lose,” I yelped.

  “No, no I’m talking to her.”

  “I can see her Justin, and she’s not on the phone.”

  “Dammit,” he snarled. “Why do I feel like I just got played?”

  “Cause you did, bro—girlfriend’s got a twisted mind.” Ross patted him on the back before leaving us.

  21

  Justin

  I hated that the restaurant had a dress code, but being tricked into taking Annie out might work in my favor. I’d thought Pam was nuts when she told me to pack a suit, just in case. I rolled my eyes at her being right.

  She must have given Annie the same advice because she came out of the bathroom wearing a dress and high heels. Seeing her long, tan legs in those shoes made my skin tingle.

  “You look so nice,” she said.

  “So… um, so do you.” I said, my eyes skimming her body as she walked out the door.

  We ran into Ross in front of the elevators in the hallway. “Dude.” He looked at me “Girlfriend is totally worth the mind games.” He grinned at Annie. “You look hot.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled.

  “I do like you as much as I did before. You just threw me with your vast knowledge of all things relational,” he told Annie, before the elevator dinged. “You two have fun.”

  It was a long, nervous walk to the restaurant. We were both quiet. I felt like we should have been holding hands. I thought about it. It would have been an easy thing to do. We’d held hands plenty of times before, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I didn’t want to freak her out.

  L’orange was completely candle lit, which I found awkward, but Annie seemed to like it. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her during dinner. I’d caught her staring at me a couple times too, and wondered if it meant anything.

  Once we’d finished eating, our waiter told us there was a band playing on the back lawn and offered to pack dessert and a bottle of wine for us. Annie lit up at the words, “caramel cheesecake,” as Mark made dessert suggestions. So I went for it.

  “This isn’t going to be weird is it?” she asked as we walked to the lawn. “We’re dressed up; there were candles, and now wine and dessert… with sauce.”

  I laughed. “It’s fine, Reynolds. I’ve always dreamt of sharing a piece of cheesecake with you while lying on a blanket in the moonlight with jazz music softly playing in the background.” I tried to sound sarcastic, but doing those things with her wouldn’t be terrible. “It was funny watching you get all doe-eyed when Ma
rk said cheesecake, so I couldn’t deny you.”

  “Well, I do love cheesecake,” she said.

  When we reached the back lawn, people were returning their blankets to hotel workers who were loading them into large hamper carts on the back of a flatbed truck.

  “That damn Mark. I hope you gave him a crappy tip,” Annie griped.

  “They automatically tack on twenty percent,” I muttered.

  “So he got twenty percent from the sale of this basket too?”

  “Yep.”

  Annie looked disappointed.

  “Just because there’s no music doesn’t mean we can’t stay,” I said, pulling her toward an abandoned blanket crumpled up on the grass.

  I picked it up and we ran behind some bushes on the other side of the lawn, far away from the dispersing crowd. I spread out the blanket. She smiled at me, then lay down on her back and stared up at the stars while I stared at her.

  22

  Annie

  I took a deep breath and as I released it, I felt a piece of the sadness that had been trapped inside me escape and float away. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so good. Free and happy. My broken insides were healing. Each breath felt like new life was slowly working to replace the old.

  The sky was so clear I felt like I could see every one of the stars twinkling above us. “I love it here,” I breathed. “I think I could stay a whole month and not get tired of this place.” I looked at Justin and smiled again, watching as he uncorked the bottle of wine.

  “Thank you,” I said dreamily.

  He smiled. “For what?”

  “Everything.”

  “You’re welcome.” His smile widened and as I stared at him all I could think was, god you’re beautiful. I figured I needed to change the subject, along with the mood.

  “Hey,” I said loudly, sitting up. “Did you see that cougar trying to pick up everybody at the pool?” I laughed.

  “She grabbed my butt! I turned around, thinking it was an accident, but she winked at me.”

  I cackled.

  “Well, if you want to invite her up, I could sleep in Ross’s room or something,” I joked.

  “Even if I were interested in her, I would never put you out. I wouldn’t want you to do that to me, either. It would drive me crazy knowing you were…” he trailed off, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “Ross snores,” he quickly said, raising his voice.

  “Well, I don’t think you should worry about that. It’s pushing six months since I’ve had a guy in any room.” Justin looked at me again. “That doesn’t mean you won’t meet somebody you like and might want to be with.”

  “While we’re here?” I gasped. “No way! I could never have sex with a stranger.” I looked at him again and softened my voice. “It’s way too personal a thing for me. Besides, I could never allow a strange thingy inside my body.”

  “Ew, Annie. Gross,” he chuckled.

  “Thank you.” I nodded in agreement, although I think he was turned off by the inside my body part, not the stranger part.

  “I don’t know how people do it with someone they don’t know. I would be scared to death that I’d get something.”

  “You wouldn’t ever be able to do it with someone you didn’t know everything about. You go through a bottle of germ-x a week just trying to keep your hands clean.” Justin laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” I whined. “I never get sick and that’s why. As for the other body part, it’s important to keep that thing clean, too.”

  Justin’s eyes widened, “Pam showed me this STD video when I was fifteen that scared the hell out of me.”

  I laughed. “She got it from my parents. She didn’t make me watch it with you because I had already seen it.”

  “That was some pretty nasty stuff.” Justin got the willies just thinking about it.

  “I know. I didn’t think I would ever want to have sex at all after seeing that, which was probably why they made me watch it—to put the fear of syphilis in me.”

  ”I heard that. Ugh.” He shivered.

  “Ryan told me Coach Parker made everyone get tested as part of the sports physical.”

  “He did, and so do the college coaches. They don’t want someone getting herpes from a bat someone who has it has touched.”

  “That can happen?”

  “Yeah, it can happen. They can get sores on visible parts of their bodies and pass it to other people. Didn’t you pay attention in health, Reynolds? Herpes is highly contagious,” Justin announced gleefully.

  “I know that. I just thought you only got it down there.” I cut my eyes toward the ground, with a frown on my mouth, making Justin laugh riotously.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know.

  “Look, this is how Coach told us.” Justin cleared his throat and adjusted his voice to mimic Coach Parker’s. “You men will have mandatory STD testing with your physicals and this is why. He turned on the projector and showed us clips of herpes sores.” He released a gasp of breath that had a hint of laughter behind it. “It was one disgusting photo after another.” Justin’s voice elevated. “This one guy had a herpes sore on his forehead.”

  “On his forehead!” My eyes widened.

  “Yes! I don’t even want to imagine how that happened.”

  “That’s not nice,” I said, laughing, after failing to compose myself. “We shouldn’t be laughing. That poor guy—with herpes on his face.”

  We both shook we were laughing so hard. “What do you do? Put a band-aid over it and hope nobody asks you what happened?” Justin asked, his words broken. He crossed his arms over his waist and leaned back laughing.

  “See,” I exclaimed, pointing at him. “That right there is why I will never have sex with a stranger.”

  I finished the last sip of my wine. Justin sat back up and took my glass to refill it. It took us a while, but we were able to stop laughing. I wanted to ask him something personal, and although I was afraid, I asked anyway.

  “Have you ever done that before?”

  “Done what?” he asked.

  “You know,” I said, glancing up at him.

  “That was a pretty vague question.”

  “But you know what I’m asking you,” I said quietly.

  Justin put his tongue in his cheek and stared at me while he considered it. I was becoming uncomfortable because it seemed like he was deciding how much to tell me, as if he had tons of memories of one night stands to sift through. The longer he stalled, the more my blood boiled.

  I finally decided to skip it since he was so reluctant to answer, and asked a different question. “Did you at least pass your test?” I sneered.

  He looked at me, appalled. “Of course I did.”

  “I just wasn’t sure about Denise.” It aggravated me—imagining he’d had a lot of meaningless sex. I hadn’t expected that from him.

  “What!”

  “Don’t look so surprised, Justin. Denise just looked, um... active,” I said disapprovingly, eyes narrowed.

  “You don’t want to have this conversation again, do you?”

  “It was just an observation.”

  “So you observed that Denise looked like she had a disease?”

  “Not that she had a disease; just that her probability rate was higher than that of other girls you’ve dated.”

  Justin smirked. “Speaking of active—did you ask Ryan for his results?”

  I shot him a dirty look. “Yes, I asked him for them and after I found out about Jacob we both got tested again.”

  “Good. Glad to know you don’t have Chlamydia or anything.” Justin nodded, moving his glass toward me as if toasting to my being disease free.

  “Huh, thanks.” I rolled my eyes, still annoyed. “You too, I’d really hate to find out that I’d been sharing a room with a person who had a terrible case of genital warts.” I tried to sound disgusted, but laughed. Genital warts just sounded funny.

  But Justin didn’t laugh. “I always use condoms,” he announced, as if he was th
e first person to think of doing so.

  “Congratulations,” I spit.

  “What’s with you?”

  I ignored his question. “We always used condoms, too,” I spouted. “And by we, I mean Ryan and me. The only person I’ve been with,” I mumbled angrily, looking away from him, tapping my nails loudly against the side of my wine glass. I had to release my frustration somehow, as annoying as it was for me to hear the sound; it made me feel better.

  “Denise,” Justin said softly. I stopped tapping the glass and looked at him. “It’s the only time I’ve ever done that. I didn’t want to tell you because I know how much you already hate her.”

  “Please, I knew about her.” I rolled my eyes.”I just thought there were more.”

  “Wow, so now I’m a man whore.”

  “Are you?”

  “No, Annie. Damn. I just told you Denise was the only one. And how did you know?”

  “You’d only been seeing her three weeks when you brought her home. There was no way you hadn’t already slept with her. I could tell.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “I just could. Girls like her have a way of making themselves available for that sort of thing,” I said, leading. “I’ve seen enough of them circling Ryan to recognize one.”

  “What sort of thing are you talking about?”

  “First date sex — no date sex — whatever. I bet you didn’t even have to take her out to get some.”

  “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you.” He looked away from me.

  “What? I didn’t even say anything bad about her—this time,” I mumbled.

  “I’m not worried about what you think of her, Annie,” Justin said, sounding uneasy. “I care what you think of me.”

  I pursed my lips. I was beginning to feel like an ass for forcing him to tell me something he didn’t want to, something I already knew, especially after the great day we’d had together, and the truckload of money he’d spent on dinner.

  “I’m sorry.” I shrugged, not looking at him. “I shouldn’t have asked you something so personal. I don’t think badly of you for the Denise situation.” My lip automatically curled up just thinking about it.