Crush

by Celia Loren

  “Is it okay?” I repeat, louder this time. Chase returns almost instantly.

  “Baby, of course it's okay. You do what you gotta do, I get it. Totally.” Someone else wins an arcade game; someone else celebrates.

  “Thanks, Chase. You're the best.”

  “Oh, now.”

  “Maybe we can still go running on Sunday, if you're not too trashed.”

  “Ha. Maybe. Okay, babe, look—I should let you go.”

  “You mean I should let you go, right? Sounds busy over there.”

  “Just some football guys, you know. But listen—if it's English stuff you're having trouble with, you should holler at my brother. Make him help you.” Ping, zip, bang! “I mean, he used to write all my essays. Err—help with all my essays.”

  “The perks of being a twin, huh?”

  “Whatever. I'll call him up and tell him to be your study buddy. No woman of mine needs to flail in an English class.”

  I don't particularly care for 'woman of mine,' but I'm more preoccupied by the possibility of being locked in a library with Brendan. One on one study time would probably be too much temptation. Well, not temptation, because nothing is going on between us at all—though I can't help but wonder what he'd been thinking of on the steps earlier, while alluding to that 'elephant in the room.' Oh, Christ. Here we go again, Avery.

  Now it's me who's been silent on the line, vision swimming with abs, breath, arms, and a deliberately vague man before me. I can't believe I'm so horny these days. It never goes away.

  “Yes,” I say, trying to make the distracted edge in my voice as pure-sounding as humanly possible. “I'd love a study buddy.” I can be friends with both the brothers, can't I? Of course I can. I'm a grown-ass woman.

  Across the room, Tara laughs into her book. Two full, short, 'HAs.'

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Which of the three did you like best?” Brendan asks me, leaning forward in his little library chair. He's wearing wire-framed reading glasses that I've never seen before, and this little nod to hipster fashion jars with the muscle-man tank-top that's currently showing off his biceps. I tend to watch his arms moving over the books, and less the books themselves.

  “Avery?” His tone is patient, but it shouldn't be. He's given me two hours of his Saturday already. I've wanted to gobble our time together, fill it with anecdotes and memories and things very unrelated to Virginia Woolf. As if some daffy old Victorian woman has any bearing on the here and now.

  “Remember that time when we were fifteen? And you tried to buy a joint off Ethan Coakley just because rumor had it he sold pot?” I picture us by lockers, nervous, shifting from foot to foot as we argued over how much a dimebag was supposed to cost. This would have been just before the great split that drove us into separate friend groups.

  Brendan sets his pencil down, and takes his glasses off his face, pinching them off the curve of his nose at the bridge. He turns to me with an unexpected quickness, then—he pulls a ridiculous face, blowing out his cheeks and crossing his eyes.

  When I laugh, the librarian raises her turtle-like head and frowns at our little corner.

  “Does it ever occur to you that you think about the past too much?”

  “That's supposed to be the point of this class, right?” I say, gesturing half-heartedly at the old books in front of us. I've never gotten books. I would so much rather be reading paintings, pulling stories from lines and colors instead of stuffy words.

  “I mean, about your past. Every third thing you've said to me is about some ancient history.”

  “It's not so ancient,” I retort, hurt. “It's only been a few years.”

  “But you understand that we've changed since then, right?” Brendan hunches forward in his chair, and I spy the triangle of golden fuzz that begins below his throat and presumably darkens further down his chest. With a bizarre pang I remember my crazy, lusty day last week, when I dreamt I was tangled up in that particular skin, snug against that particular flesh. It's necessarily embarrassing to reconcile the real people in front of you with the ones you fantasized about in your own private mind, but in this case, the real Brendan is possibly even sexier than the Brendan of my imagination.

  Though both are so wildly inappropriate, I struggle to remind myself. Yanking my gaze from his arms, I resume the conversation with effort. My body hums, because apparently just being in his presence is enough to make me excited.

  “My brother, me, you—we're all very different people now.”

  “Why are you saying this, Brendan?” I laugh. “I can see that you're different. I mean, you're taller. And the bands you like have even weirder names.” I indicate the little logo in the corner of his black tank: gothic-looking script spells out 'Unknown Mortal Orchestra.'

  Brendan resumes his intense face, his crooning face, and I get the sensation that he is peering into me. I look away. It's too hard. Brendan sighs.

  “I want you to know that you're free to change. Nobody expects you to be the girl you used to be.”

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  Brendan opens his pretty mouth as if to say something, but stays silent. He smiles, scratches his stubble, and lets his eyes swing back towards the open books on our table.

  “I'm serious, Brendan. Why do you get to be so cryptic and strange? Ever since I came back, it's like you're trying to confuse me with everything you say. Like with that song. And that 'elephant in the room' thing. Is it really so weird I want to hold on to the past? At least I understood things back then.” Ooh, I am definitely Angry Avery-ing now. The librarian has actually risen from her little stool, and is striding towards us with a highly unamused expression on her face. I jam my blonde hair behind my ears in two strokes, in a gesture I hope reads as “composed.”

  “I knew you, and your brother, in the past. The Brendan who smoked weed and said funny things and lent me mix tapes and rubbed my back when I cried about my Mom and told me all his weird kid secrets, like how he was afraid that he'd never leave this town, and how he hated his Dad for leaving but still worried about him sometimes... that's the Brendan I know. I just –” even the librarian has stopped in her tracks, as if she's listening to my mini-rant—“I don't know what it is you expect of me. I really don't.”

  I actually have the nerve to be proud of my little speech for a moment. Breathing heavy, my face hot, I have the brief flickering feeling of satisfaction. Because I've finally put all my strange, conflicting feelings into words. And oddly, I feel more like myself in that panting silence than I have at any point so far at SDU. I'm not wearing a costume, I'm not trying to impress a boy, I'm not running from anything—I'm simply saying things that feel true.

  But Brendan Kelly, as usual, won't make it easy on me. He reaches a hand across the table in what at first seems to be a conciliatory gesture, but his fingers stop short just a few inches from my hand. I look at it resting there for a moment. The ridges of his knuckles. The frayed tips of his prints, where he's worn away skin from so much guitar playing. The old Diesel watch on his wrist, which is apparently so well-loved that it's strung together with mostly electrical tape. Looking at this vulnerable piece of him, lying between us, I wish he would touch me. I wish hard.

  “You really don't know? What I want from you?” Brendan asks me, his voice suddenly uncanny—all sweet and gentle. The mollified librarian returns to her little corner. I look up to the other Kelly, and his oceanic eyes are surging. He really thinks I should be able to guess, whatever it is. But it's just that I'm so tired of guys expecting things of me, asking things of me, taking things from me. I almost take pleasure in the word that falls out of my mouth next, its callow ring in the quiet library:

  “No.”

  And it's like a door has closed.

  Brendan takes it in stride, shaking off our dip into serious conversation as if it never quite happened. In fact, he gallantly tries to quiz me on the themes in To the Lighthouse for another fifteen minutes before taking off his glasses ag
ain and standing, so I'm perfectly, embarrassingly, level with his square hips.

  “You know, if we hurry, we could make it to the last stop on the pre-homecoming bar crawl. I bet Chase would love to see you.” When he smiles at me, an urgency has been drained from his face. His smile, in fact, echoes nothing so much as a dead-on impression of his brother. Dopey, demanding nothing. Which, I guess, is what I want right now.

  “I'll just grab my purse, brah,” I say, attempting a joke. “You lead the way.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The last stop on the pre-homecoming bar crawl at SDU isn't really a bar—it's a big old club that looks like it was once an airplane hangar. I sense Brendan's discomfort beside me as we sidle up to the big red velvet rope, bypassing thirty girls in sleeves masquerading as dresses. They shout at us as Brendan bends toward the bouncer, who daps him in recognition. As we're guided past the partition with a wink and a smile, I reach forward, feeling my arm accidentally graze my companion's: “How do you know that dude? Is someone a secret club-rat?”

  Brendan pulls a silly face at me again, and I bite my lip to prevent an un-ladylike guffaw from escaping. I already feel awkward enough, arriving at the club in jeans and a tank top that were definitely not Tara-approved.

  “Baby's Alright played here last year,” Brendan explains, deftly guiding me through the scores of screaming people. He places a light hand on the small of my back, and I try not to shiver. Everyone here is drunk, drunk, drunk. “Not a huge fan of the scene, but the people who work here are super nice.”

  We don't talk much as Brendan leads me through the club—I tell myself this is because the thrumming EDM prevents most conversation. But the truth is, something feels dangerously broken between us. I'm not so sure that we are friends after all, given that strange display in the library. Things feel weird, and I still can't figure out which one of us fucked things up.

  “Wait,” Brendan says, finally coming to a stop. “Bottle service, if I know my brother. Of-fucking-course.” Lifting his shaggy blonde head to the second floor balconies surrounding the dance floor, Brendan begins to scan the little clusters of fancy people in fancy booths. It's hard to see what the “bottle service” people are up to from down here, but I catch occasional glimpses: a tuxedoed wrist. Brilliant white teeth against a pulsing black-light. A woman's tinkly laughter, like chimes sounding across a yard.

  “There,” Brendan points, with a certainty like twin-sense. His index finger indicates the far left corner of the balcony, where even I can see a pile of draped letterman jackets threatening to teeter off a booth's edge. Brendan turns to me, smiling. “Womb vision.”

  I smile at him, tightly. It feels a bit like I'm being banished as he jerks his head in my direction, indicating that I ascend the stairs. And no sooner have I left his side than a tall, lovely brunette with dark skin appears at Brendan's shoulder, placing a long, manicured hand on his naked arm. “Jackie,” I hear the model-woman purr—and just like that, my guide's attentions have shifted.

  Chase, I think, as I work my way towards the stairs. You're here to see Chase. You're dating Chase. You're falling for...

  And lo and behold, there he is—at the top of the stairs. I recognize that white linen shirt and those Topsiders, even though everyone here is wearing something similar. His hair is slightly tousled, as it was on the night we met. I consider racing up behind him, surprising him like he did me the other afternoon on the steps of Hampton. But just when I inhale, about to launch, I see who he's with.

  I recognize her long, skinny arms first: they're tan and lightly freckled, exactly the same as when we were kids. Her hair is different, though. It's not in a ponytail, and she (or her stylist mother) dyed it redder. For a crazy second, it all feels so natural, like the echo of a memory always does—and after all, they're two beautiful people with their mouths fastened together, of course it's natural. I realize I could still turn around, and pretend I haven't seen anything, and carry on as before. But then he opens his eyes.

  The way Chase looks at Melora Handy is a way he's never looked at me. There's this vulnerable quality to his gaze—an unguardedness I've never seen on him, not once in our whole friendship slash relationship slash whatever. The fucking gaze gives it away. In that second before he looks up and sees me, gaping like an idiot in jeans at the club, I realize that whatever this thing was between my oldest friend and my oldest enemy never went away. It's always been there.

  “Hey,” I murmur when he sees me, cool as hell. But my voice comes out strangled. I already feel tears building behind my eyes. Chase’s face tenses, but Melora just arches a brow at me, unrecognizing. No one says anything for another breath.

  “Chase, who is she?”

  “Look, Avery! I can explain!”

  “Don't bother.” I feel like everything will be ruined if either of these two see me cry, so I turn back towards the main floor. He starts to yell my name, but the sound is lost over the pulse of the club. Even though a part of me senses I'm behaving irrationally, suddenly nothing is less important than my escaping this place. I've made a mistake coming here. I've made a mistake coming back to San Diego at all. So, I run. I run away.

  Outside the club, after I nearly hurtle into the kind bouncer, I fly out of my flip-flops—but I see a twist of bobbing blonde hair round the bend, so I leave them behind. Tonight, I'll out-run Mr. Kelly. Let him try to catch me. Let any fucking guy.

  I don't know this part of the city well enough to navigate my way back to campus, but I don't dare to pull out my phone. Tears obscure my vision. All I can see is their kissing faces, moving from the locker room to the club and back. All this time. I'm so stupid.

  “AVERY!” His voice is scratchy and hoarse. I dodge a grizzly old surfer type in Chinos, then a terrified-looking Latina woman pushing a baby stroller. The sidewalk begins to give way to a sandy path, and it's then that I realize how close I am to the beach. My feet are growing raw on the pavement, so without thinking, I hang a left toward the beginning of a decrepit wooden staircase. Guided by a single slice of lingering purple sunset on the horizon, I dance over potential splinters. I hear the staircase give with weight when his body appears behind mine, and so I skip over the last few planks. Finally, in tandem with a jubilant exhale, my feet find sand.

  This beach is utterly empty, in either direction. A picturesque stretch of white sand extends to my left and to my right, as far as I can see. The beaches circling my neck of Georgia, framing the Atlantic, seemed to be always dirty, covered with teenage debris. Condoms. Beer bottles. But San Diego’s waters have, apparently, stayed classy.

  I realize I'm breathless on the beach, so I slow to a jog. My lungs, strained from the sprint, have abandoned their crying jag. I stretch my arms wide, and then turn to the ocean. I close my eyes.

  “Damn, girl,” a voice says, also breathless. He seems to be limping across the beach in my direction. A part of me wants to turn and keep running, but a larger part wants to laugh. Oh, the cosmic dumbness of everything! I lunge forward, putting my head between my thighs in a yogic dive. I watch his long, tan feet materialize beside mine.

  “Come back,” he says, putting a hand on the base of my back. And it's then that I shiver. I stand up slow, and face the man who's been chasing me.

  “Brendan,” I breathe.

  “Avery,” he says. He opens his mouth and furrows his brow, as he did hours before in the library, like he's about to say something serious. And I do feel like there are a million things to say. But there's also soundless feeling, welling in my body like colors, like weather. I arch my back into Brendan's palm and tilt my head just slightly, so I'm flush against his taut frame. His eyes search mine for a second. Then, his face suddenly hungry, he leans forward to kiss me.

  I suppose cold is lapping around us, but I don't feel it. Instead, I just feel a liquid warmth, passing through every cell. Brendan is eager. I can already feel his cock stiffening in his jeans. But for a second, I'm content to just be smashed against him, on this beautiful,
lonesome beach. When I flutter my eyes, it's in part to check that he's here, that this is really happening. His stubble nuzzles my bare skin.

  “Oh my God,” I breathe, millimeters away from his lush lips. They're full and smooth, nowhere near as rugged as they appear in his rock star face, from a stage-distance away. I'd half-expected him to taste like wood and tobacco, the manly things he smells like—but there's some sweet undercurrent to his breath tonight. A sweet mint. His mouth searches mine for long, deliberate stretches. His kisses are fervent, but tentative at the same time.

  “It was you,” he breathes, returning to my mouth with a stronger, more ardent gesture between each phrase: “It's always been you. Duh.”

  “Goddamn musicians.”

  Brendan laughs, and I grab the back of his head, drawing him further into me. Taking my aggression on cue, he plants his rough hands on my bare shoulders, beginning to knead my arms, the muscles of my back. Against my intention, one of my thin spaghetti straps falls down. I feel exposed. I like it.

  “Brendan...” I say into his teeth, drawing us back so he supports most of my head in his palm. He takes a step closer to me, and I can feel his breathing body, muscles contorting between us. I suddenly realize that he's much more ripped than I've been taking him for. There's no softness at all in his chest—he's all ropy sinew and strength.

  “Brendan, I should tell you...” Then, I feel his hips push up against mine. His erection, trapped, strains against the fabric of his jeans, and I'm briefly puzzled by the size and girth I surmise. He's. So. Hard.

  “What?” He pulls away for a second, and I find myself hungry again. The last glimmer of sun peels below the horizon, and the green in Brendan's eyes seems to fade. There are so many shouldn'ts and oughtas. But I can't seem to remember any of them right now.