by Lisa Suzanne
I could smell the salt in the air as I strolled down the sidewalk on the five minute walk to the beach from Skips. The sidewalks were surprisingly crowded for a Tuesday afternoon in early February, particularly because it was much too cold out to get in the water with the air temperature at a brisk fifty-nine degrees.
I took my shoes and socks off when I got to the sand and rolled my jeans up a bit. I was wearing just a t-shirt with my jeans, and I found it was chilly near the water. A breeze blew by and I felt the cold slice through me.
I found a rock big enough to sit on, and I dropped my shoes in the sand next to me as I took a seat. I felt relaxed and content and really, really glad I had moved to San Diego.
I was excited to start my job the next day, knowing it would allow me to focus on something other than the relationships I managed to keep fucking up in my life.
I thought of Gorgeous first. My nickname for her was certainly fitting, but more than that, she had wanted me as much as I had wanted her. It started out so innocently, but that’s not how it ended up. Just thinking about her, about those sexy dimples in her lower back just above her ass, was enough for TJ to twitch in my pants. I still wanted her, painfully so, but I had to face the truth: She was not a viable option for me.
Next I thought of Tracy. She was a nice girl and we’d had some fun, but I couldn’t form something with her beyond that. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that our hook up had probably been a mistake. It might make for an easy friends with benefits type relationship, but I had to clearly mark the line for us. I couldn’t allow her to fall in deeper than friendship because I just wasn’t in the place for it.
And finally, I thought about Jules. I wondered what she was doing on this Tuesday afternoon. She was probably at work, or maybe not because of her accident. She may have been at home, or maybe at Nick’s place. I still didn’t know why he got to be with her when I didn’t, and I vaguely wondered how much damage I had done to their relationship after my talk with Nick. The look on his face told me that she hadn’t told him what had happened between us, and I suddenly felt bad for being the one to tell him. The way I had treated Jules hadn’t been right. I had acted on impulse rather than on logic, and I knew that was something that I needed to work on. But in the moment of anger, it felt like the right thing to do. That didn’t justify it, and I felt like crap about it, but I couldn’t change it now anyway.
But at the same time, I felt like I was suddenly thriving without her in my life. Loving her had always just been a part of me. It was a piece of who I was. And now that I had cut her out of my life, I realized how toxic the way I had lived my life around her had been. I had never allowed myself to get fully involved with someone else because I had always just assumed that I would end up with Jules. And that was no way to live. Even though it hurt my head and my heart to think about it, cutting her out for the time being was probably the best thing for me. I missed her like crazy, but I had to move on from her, and the only way to do that was to be away from her. I hated it because I needed her friendship as much as I had wanted something more than that, but I had other people in my life who could help me pick up the pieces Jules had left behind.
I was feeling grateful once again for my family as a text buzzed through from my sister. It was a picture text from the someecards.com website. That was kind of her thing. This one said: “My condolences on losing your balls.”
I replied without a picture this time. What the fuck?
Her reply came quick: Heard you took the easy road and left J a message.
It’s not your business.
Her sister is my best friend. Our families are friends. Of course it’s my business. You need to talk to her.
Butt the fuck out of this.
No.
I Google-imaged “some ecards” and scrolled until I found what I was looking for. “You make me wish I had more middle fingers.” I texted it off to her and then dropped my phone in my shoe. I didn’t want to deal with my sister and her nosiness when I had finally felt a breakthrough, however small it was.
I gazed out at the water, content once again, but a troubling feeling emerged in the back of my mind that my sister was right.
Dan liked to cook, so when he got home, he made a salad and a chicken dish for us. We talked about the office and the people I’d meet the next day. I left out the details about Tracy and our hook-up in her pink princess bedroom, knowing that I’d gone on enough about my sex life in the past few days with Dan.
I was actually excited to start my job and meet some new people. Dan had created a pretty good network of friends, and I knew the importance of forming good relationships with colleagues. I didn’t want to be the guy whose dad owned the company, even though it would be hard to ignore that my last name was the title of the company (Miller Designs, Inc.). I wanted to be a guy who worked hard and earned my right to be there, and I was ready to start working my way up.
The next day, I settled in behind my desk in my new office, thinking about what had led me into the career that I loved so much and that was so much a part of who I was.
I never wanted to be an architect. My dad never made me feel like I had to be one, even though he owned a very successful business that remained headquartered in Arizona with additional branches in other states. I loved my dad greatly, but I didn’t want to be him. I wanted to make my own way in the world.
I wanted to be a baseball player. My parents never wanted to ruin my dreams for me, but I finally realized on my own that it was an unrealistic goal. So then I determined that I wanted to do something with sports. Agent, physical therapist, sports columnist, announcer, anything related to sports.
Just to explain the depth of my love for Julianne Becker, it’s because of her that I became an architect.
It was while we were dating, at the very beginning of the summer after we had graduated from high school but before we had broken up.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study in college, but I knew I wanted to attend Arizona State University, mainly because Jules was going there. We were sitting on a bench at the park behind our houses, her long, slender legs thrown over mine, our fingers linked as I drew little circles with my thumb on the back of her hand. We were eighteen and in love and on top of the world.
“Did you decide what you’re majoring in?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Tell me your interests again. Besides sports.”
I sighed in that way only a teenager can sigh. “We’ve been through this a million times.”
“One more. For me?” Her beautiful blues stared up at me, and of course I would do anything she asked me to do.
“I like you.”
She huffed with exaggeration, her impatience adorable. “You can’t major in me.”
I kissed the tip of her nose.
“Alright,” I conceded. “I like drawing.”
“And your sketches are amazing.”
“Thanks. I like being creative.”
“I think you know what you want to do. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself.”
Sometimes she knew me better than I knew myself. And sometimes I needed her to call me out.
“And what is that?” I pressed.
“An architect, Trav. You love buildings, you love design. You look at the structure of a restaurant before you look at the specials. You’re precise and imaginative and smart. You see the little details that no one else notices. You’ve got it in your blood, sweetheart.”
I sighed wearily.
“I don’t know why you’ve got this big complex that you’re going to become your dad.” Her voice was soft, like she understood where I was coming from even if she didn’t agree with it.
“I just want to prove that I can make it on my own. My parents have done everything for me my entire life. I want to go out and become my own man.”
“You’ve always been so deep. So much deeper than our friends. All anyone our age seems to care about is where the next pa
rty is, where they can get alcohol for the weekend, whose bed they can use to have sex. But you’re worried about your future. And I love that about you.”
“I love you, Jules.” It wasn’t the first time I had said it to her. We’d been saying it as friends for twelve years, and a few weeks after we had started dating, I told her that I loved her as more than my friend. She had said it back to me, and I truly believed that we would make it forever.
I was a naïve teenager who really believed that high school sweethearts could last forever.
“I know you do,” she said, brushing her fingers through my hair. “I love you, too. Travis, you become what you want to become. Don’t worry about your dad or your mom or me or what anyone else thinks. You’ll make your way with hard work. Besides, you’d make a super hot architect.”
I chuckled, and that sealed it. If she thought I’d be hot as an architect, then I’d become a damn architect. She was right, of course. It was what I had wanted all along, but it had taken her to make me see that. My father’s success was his own, and I’d find a way to work my way up the chain.
And I did. I studied architecture at ASU and then went on to get my Master’s Degree. I applied at several firms in town, but times were tough, and getting a job was difficult for someone fresh out of school. I applied at my dad’s company, but I wasn’t hired by my dad. In fact, I lied on my application and wrote a different last name. I used “Becker” – Jules’s last name – and applied at one of the smaller branches in Tucson. I was offered the position because my portfolio spoke for itself. I had real talent, according to the branch manager, and they wanted me. And then they had to call my references, and that’s when I had to confess what I’d done to my dad. It hadn’t been an easy conversation, but he’d understood my motivations in wanting to make a name for myself in my own right.
He was proud of me, and he immediately took me from the Tucson branch and moved me into the Phoenix headquarters. I was okay with the transfer because moving to Tucson meant I’d be an hour and a half away from Jules. Despite the fact that we’d been broken up, gotten briefly back together, and had “casually” slept together several times, I still held out hope that we’d eventually end up together, and I didn’t want to move that far away from her.
And here I was, now in San Diego, because another transfer had been approved by my dad.
I was oddly feeling that same gut-wrenching sadness when I thought I’d be moving away from Jules to accept the job in Tucson all those years earlier, but I wasn’t sure what the exact cause of the sadness was. It wasn’t all Jules; at least I didn’t think it was. But I couldn’t put my finger on what, exactly, was making me feel so… off.
I set up my office in the morning, and at lunch, Dan took me around to introduce me to everyone. I met the secretary for the designers on my floor, Heather, and a few of the other designers I’d be working with. Dan spoke highly of Craig, a man’s man who was a hell of a lot of fun to go out with on the weekends, and Spencer, a nice dude who was recently single and ready to hit the town.
The weekend was shaping up to be a lot of fun.
I also met Melissa and Brendon, more designers and colleagues on our floor who Dan appreciated as coworkers but who went home at the end of the day to their spouses, hence making them poor candidates for our Friday nights prowling San Diego for sexy ladies.
The day passed in a flash between organizing my office, meeting everyone, and sorting through my new projects. I set up calendar reminders and figured out when I’d be doing what for the next couple of weeks, and then I headed home. I felt oddly more grown up; maybe it was because I was in a new place at an office where I wasn’t going to run into my father every day, but it suddenly felt like I was an adult. I’d always be a kid at heart, but I felt the responsibility of being on my own for maybe the first time in my life, and I actually liked it. A lot.
Friday came quickly, and I found myself in the shower getting ready for my Friday night on the town. I didn’t bother with shaving since more than one woman had told me how sexy I looked with a bit of stubble on my jaw. I carefully gelled my hair, working hard to achieve the “I don’t really care” look. I grabbed my favorite “going out to the nice bars” charcoal pants and a black button down shirt. I rolled the sleeves up to my elbows and then I met my buddy in the family room for some pre-bar drinks, thinking briefly about the missed call I’d spotted on my phone the day before.
Nick Matthews had called me.
I had missed his call because I’d been in the middle of a conversation with Spencer, and Nick hadn’t left a voicemail. I found it odd that he’d call me, and I couldn’t imagine why other than trying to convince me to forgive Julianne. But that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen. Not anytime soon, anyway. And I just couldn’t summon the strength to call him back. If it was important enough, he’d call back. I just wanted the two of them to leave me alone so I could focus on my new life in San Diego.
“Spencer can’t make it,” Dan said, pulling me out of my thoughts. He grabbed a couple of bottles of beer out of the fridge for us while I settled back into one of Dan’s leather recliners.
“So just you, me, and Craig?” I asked.
“Yeah. Craig’s on his way over.”
“What happened to Spencer?”
“He’s meeting with his ex.” Dan handed me a beer and then settled into the couch.
“Uh oh.”
“He made it sound like it would be a good thing. Like he made a mistake breaking up with her in the first place.”
“Well, best of luck to him, then,” I said, holding my beer up in an imitation of a toast.
“So what are you looking for tonight?”
I shrugged. “Just want to have a good time.”
“With someone blonde or someone brunette?”
“You know, I’ve gotten screwed by both hair colors in recent weeks, but I had a hell of a good time with a redhead in a dark alley.”
He chuckled. “Red it is, then.”
A knock at the door signaled Craig’s arrival, so the three of us drank for awhile and then called a cab to take us to the bars. We were heading to the Gaslamp Quarter, whatever that meant.
I soon found that it meant a sort of downtown area with bars and a fun vibe but also with a ton of tourists. Dan informed me that the ladies visiting San Diego on vacation were his favorite brand of women because they would eventually go home. He was the type of guy who was determined to remain a bachelor for as long as possible, and I suddenly found him to be a great influence on me.
Enough with the beating myself up shit. Enough with the vows. It was time to have some fun.
Craig voted for Hooters, but Dan and I wanted to scout the ladies, so we hit up The Tipsy Crow, Dan’s favorite bar, instead. The bar featured three levels, but the bottom one was where it was at. We stocked up on drinks and found a table with three stools, and then we just chilled as we listened to the live band and started the fun process of getting drunk.
I caught the eye of quite a few ladies, and quite a few ladies caught my eye, too. I had always pegged tall, statuesque blondes as my “type,” but I think that had something to do with Jules. Now that I was trying to move on from her, I found myself more attracted to the brunettes in the crowd. Especially the ones who looked like Gorgeous. Short and thin with nice breasts, sexy curves, and a perfect ass. That was my new “type.”
I watched the people on the dance floor as I sipped my beer, and then one girl whose eye I had caught earlier walked over to me. She looked titillating in a low cut white shirt that accentuated her breasts and jeans tucked into black boots with spiked heels.
“Hey,” she yelled over the music and grinned at me with luscious lips. She had long, silky dark hair, and my mind immediately wondered what it would look like if she was whipping it around while she gyrated on top of me. TJ jerked suddenly to life at the imagery.
“Hey,” I grinned back, knowing Dan and Craig were in my peripherals watching me.
“I’
m Kelly.”
“Travis.”
“Are you from here?” she asked.
I nodded. “Moved here Monday.”
“I’m visiting from Chicago.” Score. This was exactly what Dan had been talking about: tourists.
“How long you here?” I asked.
“This is our last night.”
“Back to the windy city tomorrow?”
She nodded, and then she looked at me nervously. “My friends dared me to come talk to you.”
I thought about that for a moment. She was cute. I’d had an unusually large volume of random hook-ups of late, but, I justified to myself, I had no reason not to add one more to the list. There wasn’t anybody waiting at home for me, so I figured there was no harm in having some fun.
I placed my hand on Kelly’s hip and guided her so that she stood closer to me, between my legs. Then I leaned in close to her, and she smelled good. Sexy, like warm vanilla. “Did they dare you to do anything else?” I asked, my breath close against her ear.
I saw her tremble, and I acknowledged that my words had had their intended effect.
She looked up at me with big, mischievous brown eyes. “Maybe.”
I leaned in again. “Are they watching?”
She nodded, so I lowered my head to hers to give her friends a show. I brushed my lips against hers, and I felt my own heart rate speeding up. Even if I didn’t know anything about this girl, I still always got revved up by the thought of what could happen.
Her hands moved to my neck and she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss. I hadn’t planned on that; really, I had just planned a quick kiss for the benefit of her friends, but the longer we kissed, the more I realized that I liked kissing her. She tasted like rum and coke and it was hot.
I broke away first, aware of the fact that I had two buddies sitting at the table with me. I gave Kelly a long, lazy once-over, and then I threw back the rest of my beer. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet, dragging me to the dance floor.
The band was playing something upbeat. Kelly threw her arms around me, and I pulled her in close as we found a good rhythm together. We intermittently kissed as we danced, and I was suddenly very into this girl.