Unspoken (The Woodlands)

by Jen Frederick

  Our sleepover seemed like a distant memory, and I was confused about what was going on between us. I knew he enjoyed spending time with me. We hardly went a day without seeing each other or e-mailing. Bo would even text me, despite his previously mentioned distaste for it.

  When he suggested the museum, the “yes” came out of my mouth so fast that I think it surprised us both.

  On my drive down to the museum, my phone rang, and I answered it. “What’s up?” I’d turned down a ride with Bo, afraid of what I’d do to him if we were alone in his car once again.

  “AnnMarie, are you driving?” my mother said reprovingly. The background noise of the road must have seeped through the phone.

  “You called me,” I pointed out.

  “I’ll make this short because you shouldn’t be driving and talking on your phone. Are you driving with one hand? You know that’s unsafe.”

  “You’re extending my unsafe period by continuing to talk to me,” I teased.

  “Yes, yes, well, I spoke with Ellie’s mother at the supermarket today and she mentioned that Ellie and you are planning a trip over spring break. Is that true?”

  I grimaced. I knew what was coming, and it was the very reason that Ellie and I were planning on doing something this year over spring break, but I wasn’t ready to discuss the issue with my mom.

  “It’s too early to think about spring break,” I lied, ignoring the tug on my conscience.

  “Darling, you know your father wants to see you. He mentioned something about Italy this year, and you know he didn’t get to see you much over the holidays.”

  “Whose fault is that?” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.

  A small pause skipped by as my mother swallowed whatever retort she wanted to make and instead replied gently, “I’m sorry.”

  I immediately regretted my lack of restraint. It wasn’t my mother who deserved my venom. She’d suffered enough, and she didn’t need me to add to it.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I apologized. No one can make you feel lower quicker than your mother. “But I plan to spend spring break with my friends this year.” I could almost hear her biting her lip in dismay. “I’ll come home the weekend before, though. You can tell Roger that.”

  I’d never called him Dad, and he’d never asked me to. My mother took all her cues from him, and for the most part, so did I. Roger’s appearances in my life were infrequent albeit regular, a week after Christmas, around spring break, and a few weekends in the summer. I hated upsetting her, and any harsh word against Roger upset her. She would never say this out loud to me. Instead, she would gently urge me to take what little scraps of affection he threw out, like she did.

  By the time I’d reached the Natural History Museum, my mood was bleak. I sat in my car for a few minutes in the parking lot, leaning my head against the headrest with my eyes closed.

  Mom had stayed with Roger because she loved him, but maybe if she hadn’t had me, she would have discovered the courage to leave him and find a new and better man to love. Saddled with a kid, she stayed, and because of that she’d provided me with a stable home life and a free college education. I had to respect and appreciate that. Of course, telling myself to feel appreciation was one thing. Actually feeling that way was entirely different.

  I loved my mother, but I had a hard time understanding her decisions. We both deserved better, and even if she was content being the “other” woman, I was going to find someone who would love me and only me. I had my doubts that it was Bo. All of the reasons that I shouldn’t be with him flooded in. He was a Central student. A jock. He had a reputation for multiple conquests. Did I really want to be another statistic?

  Having allowed myself a five-minute pity party in the toasty warm car, I killed the engine and stepped out into the cold afternoon. Snow was piled up in small hills against the sides of the parking lot, making it seem like a fortress. The once-pristine white mounds were discolored with engine exhaust, rubber refuse, and dust, making them the color of dirty socks—dingy and gray.

  I was grateful for my rubber-soled and lined boots. They were ugly but serviceable, keeping my feet and calves warm and dry. But my skinny jeans weren’t much proof against the chill wind, and so I scurried inside as quickly as possible, clutching my notebook to my chest.

  I paid the admission fee and asked for directions to the North American plant life and was instructed to go up to the third floor.

  A text message alert chimed, and I pulled my phone out to read it.

  Where are you?

  At the entrance, paying.

  Get your ass upstairs. I NEED YOU.

  The museum wasn’t terribly crowded. There were a number of schoolchildren, but few of them were on the third floor by the plants. No surprise, though. Who wanted to look at plants when there were dinosaur bones and wild animals or even bugs?

  When I got into the North American botany section, I noticed that it was completely empty save for Bo, who was seated with a notepad in his lap, and a museum employee, who stood over him talking animatedly with her hands.

  My entrance wasn’t noisy but something caused Bo to jerk his head around. Even from here, I could see the wild expression in his eyes. I swallowed a laugh and tried to school my face to show no emotion. Clearly Bo felt like the hunted here, with the museum employee playing the role of the predator. My earlier depression flew away, and I felt my pulse kick up as he rose from the bench.

  He called out rather loudly, “Sunshine, I thought you’d never get here.” By the end of his greeting Bo had reached me, his long legs eating up the room one lengthy stride at a time.

  The honey blond museum employee followed behind, almost running to keep up. Bo’s hands pulled me close to him, and I could feel the notebook he still held in his one hand pressing into my shoulder blade.

  “Um, hey,” I smiled weakly to the museum employee whose look of dismay was clearly etched on her face. Apparently she was hoping that Bo might be interested in some private tutoring. I snuck an arm around his waist and leaned my head against the side of his chest. It was firm and broad and lovely. If I were in the shoes of the museum employee, I’d be offering things to Bo, too, all sorts of things. But her attraction to him was a reminder of how many women were at the ready for Bo.

  The young lady bit her lip and glowered.

  “Thanks for all your help, Marissa,” Bo said, offering his hand. “Really appreciate it.”

  Marissa took it and gave him a sloe-eyed glance, one that said clearly that she had more assistance to provide if only he would ask. “Any time,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it with both of hers.

  When she didn’t immediately release Bo’s fingers, I took pity on the both of them and pulled Bo’s captured appendage out of her grasp and said in my best jealous, affronted girlfriend voice, “Let’s go, honey buns.”

  Marissa wisely decided that she should move on and gave us a little finger wave as she walked past us to the exit. I turned to watch her leave and, as if sensing this, Marissa put a little extra swing in her hips. I had to hand it to her; looking sexy in khakis was tough to pull off, but she kind of had it going on.

  Bo, on the other hand, did not watch Marissa’s show but was intent on pulling me toward the exhibit he’d been sitting in front of. We stopped at the bench he’d previously occupied and he gestured for me to sit.

  When I did, he dropped down close beside me and stretched his legs out, throwing his notebook on the floor. His large thigh was only a palm’s width away. I knew the exact measurement because my hand was resting on the bench between us, and if I moved my pinky just slightly, I could be stroking the denim covering his leg. His hands were braced on the back of the stone bench, giving him a lazy, comfortable appearance, as if he was lounging in the grass instead of on a stone bench. “Thanks for saving me.”

  I glanced at the empty doorway through which our resource had disappeared. “Aren’t you supposed to be pumping a worker here for information for our lab proj
ect?”

  Bo rubbed his forehead. “I’m all for doing the least amount of work for the most amount of gain, but I’m not up for selling myself for a good grade.”

  “Was that what was on the table?”

  “I think we were headed there before you got up here. I barely was able to text you my SOS message.”

  “What’s our plan now?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. I spent my time fending off Marissa.”

  “I’ve some ideas.” I opened my own notebook. “Professor Godwin is into disasters. Last year he had people write about weather-related apocalyptic events. This year he started class with a lecture about how we’re all going to die.”

  “So we do some crossbred plant that would be a hardy food source and maybe something that would be a tradable commodity, like a sugary substance.” Bo offered. He smiled approvingly at me. “We do think alike.”

  This time it was my turn to rub my forehead, but I was doing it to hide my surprise. Bo’s attention to this project was serious.

  “You’re surprised, aren’t you? Why?” Bo asked, nudging me.

  Because you’re too good-looking to be a serious student, I thought but didn’t say out loud. Instead I gave him a vague truth. “It doesn’t fit the image I have of you, I guess.”

  “Think about me a lot, do you?”

  I hoped I wasn’t blushing because I had thought a lot about him; I’d fantasized about him. Although my cheeks remained pale, my silence gave me away, and Bo’s response was a wicked grin. He winked and said, “Probably not as much as I’ve thought about you.”

  This response did send blood rushing to my cheeks. I mentally slapped myself. Lots of guys thought about me, I’d learned early on, and none of it was good. Mercifully, Bo did not mock me further but instead reached down and picked up his notebook and flipped it open.

  “So stevia and soybeans are both plants that grow well in the Midwest. Together they’d provide a filling bean that could be ground for its sweetness.” He showed me a sketch in progress of two plants, one leafy and one with bean pods.

  “You draw?” The sketches were in fairly good detail.

  “Again with the shock and awe.” He shook his head at me. “Anyone can draw a leaf, Sunshine.”

  “What’s with the sunshine?” He kept using it like he didn’t know my name.

  “What’s with the honey buns? You couldn’t think up a better nickname than that?” He gave me a sideways grin. “Besides, I thought I was Thor?”

  “Like sunshine? How many girls have you called that?” I scoffed.

  “None.” His expression turned serious.

  “Oh.”

  “There’s an art to nicknames,” Bo began.

  “And you’re going to teach it to me?”

  “Can’t really be taught. It’s just an innate skill. Although yours is so obvious I can’t believe no one else has called you that.”

  I shrugged. “AM is my nickname. Short for AnnMarie.”

  “I know, but the logical extension is sunshine because AM is a good time—” Bo stopped and then corrected himself. “AM is a time designation for the morning.”

  “Were you going to say ‘good time in the morning?’” I shook my head at the brazenness of his explanation.

  Bo gave me a wry smile and replied, “I think you’d hit me if I told you what I was about to say, and you’d probably be justified in doing so.”

  It was a clear warning, yet I thoughtlessly charged ahead anyway. “I thought you were a fighter?”

  My poke was met with a slight widening of Bo’s eyes. His face took on an expression I couldn’t decipher, but I thought might be excitement.

  “Since you put it that way, I’m just making an assumption here because I don’t know you well enough. Are you a good time in the morning? Because that’s one of my favorite times of the day.”

  “By the speed at which you left the other day, it seemed like you weren’t interested in seeing how I looked in the morning.” It was a reckless reference to our sleepover.

  “If I’d stayed, I’d’ve wanted to do something to you that you might not have been ready for.”

  Bo’s response made me squirm on the bench. This was a dangerous game, and I knew I should stop, but the idea of Bo imagining the two of us in bed together doing something more than just sleeping was too much for me. A dozen images flitted through my mind. Bo above me, our sweat-slicked bodies moving in unison. His mouth licking my neck and down the valley of my breasts. I squeezed my thighs in response to the pressure that was building.

  My previous fantasies had been so tame. I might have played out a few scenarios of Bo and me in my head during last semester’s class, but none of them ever included him asking me what times of the day was I best in bed. I’d envisioned Bo would wash a car with his shirt off. Or maybe he’d help me move a sofa and I’d stare at his ass or see a sliver of skin between his jeans and his T-shirt. He’d stand with his arm over my head as he leaned down to press his lips against mine. Realizing I wasn’t equipped to trade sexually-charged banter with Bo, I tried to steer the conversation back into safer territory. “What’s the art of the nickname?”

  Bo gave a deep sigh and shifted restlessly beside me, but he gamely accepted my change in topic.

  “Nicknames need to be descriptive enough to identify a unique trait of the person, but different enough that they’re meaningful to the individuals using them.”

  “Like baby or honey?” I asked, fascinated by this obviously thought-out position on nicknames.

  “Babe, sweetheart, darling aren’t nicknames. Those are throwaways. So my buddy Noah is Jep, short for Jeopardy. He liked to read trivia books while deployed and would likely kick our collective asses in Jeopardy. Another guy we were deployed with had a hard-on for Skittles. He’d take every bag he could get his hands on and make these disgusting sex noises when he ate them so we called him Skittle-tits.”

  “That’s a terrible nickname,” I informed him.

  “So is honey buns.”

  “I was on the spot,” I protested. “What’s your roommates’ nickname for you?”

  “You’ll have to get to know me better before I reveal that.” Bo looked slyly out of the corner of his eyes at me, as if he were was throwing out another lure. I wanted to pick it up, but I was afraid. Flirting with Bo would only make my nighttime dreams a little more feverish and my daytime fantasies intolerable. I couldn’t go around living with an unrelieved ache in my lower body. Assuaging that particular ache would likely lead to a more serious one in my heart. Again, I moved the topic away to something more benign.

  “Tell me your story then, Thor,” I suggested.

  “Thor, by the way, is a far better nickname than honey buns. Let’s go with that from now on.” His grin was knowing and wicked. “What do you want to know?”

  Everything, because you fascinate me. And nothing, because I think you’d burn me up and leave me empty.

  “How about your most embarrassing story?” I blurted out instead.

  “I usually require at least one bottle of tequila before these types of confessionals.” He shook his head in mock sadness.

  “Forget I asked.” I waved my hand. “Let’s just get our project done.”

  “No, no.” Bo grabbed my hand and pulled it to rest between us. The stone bench felt cool, but his hand covering mine was warm and dry, like a shelter. I realized I could get addicted to holding hands with Bo Randolph. Somehow, just that simple touch made me feel better, as if his hand were an IV of personal strength. “I’m in, but you have to agree to share too.”

  “I’ve already told you one.”

  Bo opened his mouth and then closed it. He turned away to look into the display that portrayed long wavy grasses, a fake pond, and a few trees in the background. A stuffed fox peeked through foliage, almost hidden by the leaves and ground cover.

  “Not so eager once you’re the guy being asked to spill secrets,” I mocked.

  Bo shook his head and replied.
“All my embarrassing stories are kind of raunchy, and I’m not sure you’d want to hear those.”

  “Likely excuse.” I shrugged and pulled out my phone. His hesitation gave rise to my fear that he thought I was easy and my refusal to capitulate was confounding him. Perhaps he thought I’d just drop my jeans and ask him to take me here in the museum, a natural, just because he smiled and complimented me. This was good, I told myself. Placing him with all the rest made his attractiveness fade, his shine dulling with exposure to the air like old silver.

  Standing up, I bent over the display and took a photo of the information sign that described the scene in front of me and took another of the display itself. I went around the room, snapping photos of what I could. Later I’d magnify these on my computer and take more notes. At the far end was a tiny dark room with a video screen playing something on a loop. I stepped in and was about to press the button to start the sound when the light from the room that had spilled into the entryway was blocked out completely.

  “I met this one chick at a concert,” Bo said, his nearness startling me. “We both ended up near the fence line making eyes at each other. After the concert was over, we were just standing there, like the whole event was prelude, right?”

  “Right,” I said shortly, surprised he’d followed me into the dark room. His size swallowed up the space, and I felt like we were in junior high, about to make out in the closet. Only instead of kissing me, he was regaling me with a past conquest in graphic, profane detail. I hated this girl already. But then I had asked for this.

  “I can’t even remember her name now,” Bo admitted. “Or quite what she looked like. We went back to her hotel room. She was sharing it with four other girls. I do remember the room. It looked like some mall had thrown up in there. There were clothes everywhere and only two beds. I guess it was two girls to a bed.

  “We fell on that bed and started making out. She stopped me to tell me she’d never had an orgasm. So in my mind this was a challenge. I was going to give her the best damn orgasm ever, but I failed. She’s lying there, bored out of her mind. Maybe she was thinking of the last book she’d read, maybe she was counting sheep. I don’t know.