Five Days Until You

by Monica Murphy

  We’ve become closer. We went out for Thirsty Thursday that first week Chelsea was gone but after that, no partying. No bars. And for Wade, no girls, which is like a miracle. He’s too damn tired at night to hook up so he collapses into bed like I do. All the exercise and training is exhausting.

  This upcoming weekend though, I plan on seeing Chelsea. Nothing is going to stop me. I deserve the weekend off. I want to see my girl. But does she want to see me? The distance between us makes me nervous sometimes. It feels like we’re growing apart.

  Seeing her, holding her close, will make me feel closer to her. And I fucking need that more than anything else right now.

  I’m just parking my car in front of my house when my phone buzzes and I check it. A text from Chelsea.

  Sorry I didn’t answer sooner. Been busy. What’s up? ☺

  I smile and hit a few buttons, deciding I should call her so I can hear her voice.

  “Owen.” She sounds breathless. My heart squeezes. I miss her so damn much. “We keep missing each other.”

  “That’s why I called.” I clear my throat, weirded out by the emotion that seems to be clogging it. “I’ve missed you, Chels.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” she admits, her voice low. “Where are you?”

  “Just got home from the gym. Still in my car.”

  I swear I can hear her smile. “Are you with Wade?”

  “Nah, we met there and then he took off to his mom’s. She needed his help with something.” He invited me over for dinner and I’m gonna head over later in the afternoon. Wade’s mom took care of me a lot when I was younger. I feel like they’re both a part of my family.

  “Oh. So you were at the gym again. I feel like you live there. Have you completely transformed yourself or what?”

  “I’m no ‘roid head, but I’ve put on more muscle.” I lift my arm and flex my bicep, impressed with the size of it. Damn, guess all those weights I’ve been lifting do make a difference. “I don’t think you’re going to complain when you see me.” Hell, I hope not.

  She sighs wistfully. “You’re all ripped and I’m getting fatter by the minute.”

  “I doubt that.” She’s the farthest thing from fat. Chelsea’s no beanpole but she’s curvy where it counts. And I love all of those soft curves of hers. “What have you been up to?”

  “Work. I’ve put in so much overtime, my next check is going to be huge. I’m making way more money than I thought I would.”

  “That’s great baby.” I leave the engine running so the air conditioning is blasting on me. It’s hot as hell outside. It’s right at the end of June and the temperature has been hitting close to one hundred degrees by the midafternoon these last few days. “You’ve put in a ton of hours toward this project.”

  “And it’s coming together perfectly. We’ve been working so hard, a bunch of us went out last night to celebrate.” She grows quiet and I wonder exactly who she went out with.

  She’s told me a few stories about going to parties and talking with other guys. Harmless stuff though I think I know what’s up. She swears to me she tells them immediately that she’s got a boyfriend and I know that’s half the damn appeal. She’s taken. Off limits.

  Forbidden fruit.

  I trust my girl though. Despite my secret worry that she could find someone who she has more in common with, I know she loves me. She’d never cheat on me. We might not be talking as much and there’s this vast physical distance between us, but we’re in this together. Even though we’re apart.

  “Who’d you go out with?” I ask.

  “All of the interns, you know, like Talby.”

  The girl with the weird name who’s always going out and trying her best to convince Chelsea to come with her. I want my girl to have fun. She deserves it. I feel like with the life she’s had, she grew up too fast. She never got to have any fun and just…be a kid. And then what does she do?

  She gets together with me and we fall in love. Almost twenty years old and she’s in a serious relationship with a twenty-one-year-old kid. I worry she’ll resent me later for never getting the chance to just be her own person.

  That’s why I don’t complain. Why I don’t let her know I’m jealous and worried and scared she’ll realize she’s having more fun without me.

  “Have a good time?”

  “Yeah we went to a party.” Her voice grows smaller. Like maybe she doesn’t want to admit where she went, what she did. Like she doesn’t want to fess up that she had fun without me.

  “Where at?”

  “Those two guys I told you about? The ones who are cousins I met the first week I was here? The party was at their house. They have a pool and we all went swimming.”

  Jealousy shows up and waves a vivid green flag right in front of my face. I try my best to fight it down. I don’t want to act like a dick. But if she wore that little black bikini that made me want to hide her away so no man could see her in it…shit. “Sounds great,” I say tightly.

  “It was no big deal, Owen. I hung out with the girls the entire night.” She sighs. “I hope you don’t think I’m off flirting with a bunch of guys and throwing myself at them since you’re not around. I would never do that.”

  She sensed my jealousy and is reacting to it. This could be the beginning of an argument I know I have zero chance of winning. “I know you wouldn’t baby. I want you to have fun. I just wish I was with you when you were having all that fun.” And strutting your stuff in a bikini, looking sexy as fuck. Making all the guys drool as you pass by them.

  Yeah. I need to not focus on that.

  “I wish you were with me too.” She doesn’t sound defensive anymore and I’m relieved. I don’t want to fight with her. That’s the last thing we need. It’s been tense enough, the last few phone conversations we’ve had. “It’s the Fourth of July this weekend. They have a big fireworks show here on the beach. I hear it’s awesome.”

  “Oh yeah?” I keep it nonchalant. “Don’t tell me you have to work this weekend. It’s a national holiday, you know.”

  She laughs. “I have a three day weekend. I’m off Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

  Perfect. “That sounds ideal, considering I planned on coming to see you this weekend.”

  Dead silence on her end for a few seconds, before the words burst forth and blast my ear. “Are you serious? You’re coming this weekend?”

  “If you want me to,” I say softly, starting to smile when she squeals.

  “Do I want you to? Of course, I want you to! Oh my God, Owen. This is perfect. I can’t wait to see you.”

  “You really think I’d let you spend the Fourth without me? No way. We’ll go watch the fireworks together on the beach.” Having my girl snuggled up close to me while we watch the brilliant bursts of color light up the night sky sounds fucking perfect.

  “I was invited to a barbecue too. You can come with me. What day are you coming? If you left in the early afternoon on Thursday you could be here by the time I get off work,” she suggests.

  “I can do that.” That would give me the full Friday, Saturday and Sunday with her. Then I could leave early Monday morning. Forget that leaving her all alone on a Sunday night thing again. That sucked balls. I want to sleep with my girl as many nights as possible before I have to head back home.

  “Instead of five days until I see you, it’ll only be four.” She squeals again and I hold the phone away from my ear because hell, she’s loud when she’s excited. “I can’t wait, Owen.”

  “I can’t wait either, baby. I have all sorts of plans for this weekend.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well.” My skin warms just thinking about those plans. “Let’s just say it involves you and me, no clothes and your bed. Or any available surface, as long as I have you naked and sprawled across it.”

  She’s quiet for a moment. “Like the door?”

  I get the feeling Chelsea really liked it when I fucked her against her dorm room door. I liked it too. A lot. “Exactly.”


  “I’d be game for a repeat performance.”

  “I’m sure you would. So would I.” I breathe deep and close my eyes. I’m sitting here in my car in the middle of the morning fantasizing about getting my hands on a naked Chelsea. “I miss you so damn much.”

  “I miss you too. But I’m going to see you this weekend. Nothing’s going to stop us.”

  “Nope. Nothing,” I agree.

  “You promise?” she asks.

  “I swear.”

  “You act like you’re going to bounce out of your seat,” Talby says with a shake of her head.

  “Maybe that’s because I feel like I’m about to bounce out of my seat.” I’m so anxious, so keyed up that the anticipation is killing me. It’s Thursday afternoon and I know Owen’s close. He texted me thirty minutes ago letting me know he’d pick me up from work. Considering we’re approximately twenty minutes from the clock striking five—and we’re leaving right on time today, no one wants to linger or work overtime before a three-day weekend—I know he’s in the near vicinity.

  It’s like I can practically feel his energy drawing closer. My skin tingles. My face feels flushed and my heart is beating a little faster than normal. My stomach is fluttery and full of a thousand hypothetical butterflies that are all trying to escape.

  It’s the most awesome feeling in the world. I can hardly sit still, I’m so excited to see him.

  “You two haven’t seen each other since you got here, huh?” Talby asks.

  “An entire month.” We threw that only five days until we see each other plan out the window. I know why he needed to stay home those first two weekends. He was in intense training and then his sister came to see him. She’s an important part of his life, I would never resent him or Fable for wanting to spend time together.

  The third weekend we weren’t together was my fault. I’ve been working like crazy and my paychecks show it. Earning all of this money that I’m able to put away and save for later is giving me such a sense of accomplishment, I can’t describe it. I went from being the rich girl, to the poor little not-so-rich girl in the blink of an eye. I had to support myself and worked hard to do so practically the entire time I was in college.

  The scholarship I received was only for tuition and books. I needed money to live, for the day-to-day expenses. Mom couldn’t help me. And then when she offered up money my father stole, I refused to take it. No way would I allow myself to be dependent on them ever again.

  Once Owen and I got together and I eventually moved in with him and Wade, I was filled with a sense of security. No more living paycheck to paycheck. We could share the burden together, though really I had no burden. Owen took care of everything.

  But that meant I was dependent on his money. He was taking care of me. And while I love him and appreciate that he would do something so selflessly, it made me feel weak. I didn’t like that. Working and living on my own this past month has helped me reclaim my independence and I love it. It’s liberating.

  Doesn’t mean I miss my boyfriend any less though.

  “You think he’s found someone else?” Talby asks pointedly, knocking me from my thoughts.

  “No! I can’t believe you’d say that.” Actually, I can but I’m trying to be nice. Talby is fun. I enjoy working with her. Hanging out with her. Do I trust her one hundred percent? Not quite. She’s bitter towards guys. I can’t blame her because a lot of them have done her wrong, at least according to Talby. I sometimes wonder though, if that’s because she puts herself in these hopeless situations. She seems to allow them to take advantage of her.

  But that’s not for me to judge so I keep my mouth shut.

  “Hey, I’ve seen pictures. He’s gorgeous.” Talby shrugs. “And seemingly unattached this summer. You don’t think girls aren’t checking him out, especially since you’re not around? Because they so are.”

  “He’s had no time to pay attention to other girls. He’s either training out on the field or working out at the gym.” My voice drifts at the you-gotta-be-kidding look Talby gives me. Sometimes, she makes me feel stupid.

  I don’t like it.

  “Girls work out, dummy. Half the reason they go to the gym is so they can show off in their tight workout clothes and check out guys. And I bet they’re drooling over sexy Owen Maguire and all of his manly muscles. Pumping iron and working up a sweat with his shirt off or something ridiculously awesome like that…” Talby mock shivers. “I know I’d hang out at the gym all the time to check him out if I lived there.”

  Her words are putting unwanted images in my head. Of pretty girls with perfect bodies wearing sports bras, showing off their flat stomachs, eyes wide as they drink in the perfect male specimen that is my boyfriend. Ugh. “You’re just trying to mess with my head,” I mutter, leaning down to throw open the desk drawer so I can pull out my purse. I’m done. I’ll clock out a few minutes early and wait outside. I know Professor Michaels won’t mind.

  “I’m just trying to be realistic. I don’t want to see you get hurt, Chelsea. College relationships rarely work out, you know. And you’re young. You’re not even twenty! You can date whoever you want and trust me, there are so many cute guys out there. Plenty of them are interested in you, I know that for a fact. You don’t have to tie yourself down to one guy yet,” Talby says.

  “Who’s supposedly interested in me?” I stand and she does too, her expression full of grim determination. Like she knows I want to run away from this conversation and she’s fully prepared to force me to stay. Or follow after me.

  “Tristan. Shep. Oh, they act like they just want to be your friend but really, they’re trying to figure out exactly how they can get in your panties,” Talby says, her eyes narrowing. She’s standing directly in front of me, her arms crossed. “Funny, how they’re the guys I tell you I like and they’re also the ones who are sooo interested in you. I wonder why?” She tilts her head, the seemingly innocent expression on her face telling me she thinks I lead them on.

  “I don’t like them. Not like that,” I say, the words rushing out of me when I see her lips part, like she’s ready to protest. I lower my voice, trying for stern. I am, after all, in charge of her. “And we really shouldn’t be having this conversation here at work.”

  I walk around her and start to leave the room, not giving her a chance to explain or defend or hmm, I don’t know, say something else accusatory, like I’m trying to steal Tristan and Shep, lure them into my web of lies or whatever. So frustrating that she would even imply I’m flirting with them when I have a boyfriend.

  “Have a great weekend,” Professor Michaels calls from where he’s sitting behind his desk. We’re all crammed into this temporary office we’ve been given for the summer. Four desks are shoved together so we can all face each other, and a couple of dented steel gray file cabinets line the back wall. The windows are hard to open with their old crank handles that stick and the air conditioning unit is old, which means most of the time it’s horribly stuffy in this office.

  With Talby trailing after me, shooting me accusatory looks, it’s become downright stifling.

  I wave at everyone who remains in the office and bolt out of there, Talby hot on my heels. The moment we’re outside in front of the building, I turn to face her.

  “What exactly is your problem?” I ask. I’m trembling, mad that my earlier rush of excitement has been replaced by agitation. Irritation.

  Anger.

  “I thought you were my friend,” Talby says, her voice soft but edged with accusation. Hurt fills her eyes and for the briefest moment, I’m thrown. She’s good at this playing victim thing. Annoyingly good. “Instead, I find out you’re talking to the guys I like. The only two guys I’m interested in.”

  “First of all, they’re my friends,” I tell her. “I have zero interest in them and they know it. I’m not available. They know that too. It isn’t my fault they’re not interested in you.”

  She visibly recoils and some small, bitter little part of me thinks:
Good. I struck a nerve.

  But I don’t like that part of me. I don’t enjoy hurting people’s feelings. I’m always so careful of how I treat someone. Heaven forbid I offend. I’m a good girl. I’m always the good girl.

  I’m starting to learn that a good girl needs to stand up for herself on occasion. Like now.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” I continue, though I’m pretty sure I know exactly what she’s trying to imply. I’m just giving her the benefit of the doubt. “But maybe it would be best if we don’t hang out anymore outside of work.”

  Talby says nothing. Just stares at me with that wounded look in her eyes, her mouth drawn into a thin line. She looks upset, which doesn’t bother me because I am upset.

  Like, mega upset. Want-to-punch-a-wall upset. I haven’t felt this worked up since I got into that big fight with Mom.

  Without another word I walk away from Talby, leaving her standing there steaming on the steps of the building. I head down the sidewalk toward the parking lot, my sandals slapping against the hot concrete sounding loud in the odd stillness of the warm summer afternoon. A breeze washes over my heated skin, bringing with it the tangy scent of the ocean and I lift my head up, my eyes sliding closed as I try to will away all the tumultuous anger swirling around inside of me.

  “What the hell are you doing, Chels? Communing as one with nature or what?”

  The sound of Owen’s voice drifts on the breeze and for a quick moment I wonder if I’m imagining it. My eyes pop open and I turn around so quick, I almost make myself dizzy. Or maybe I’m dizzy because it really is my boyfriend standing in front of me, a giant smile on his face, a bouquet of summer flowers clutched in his right hand.

  Without warning I launch myself at him and he drops the flowers to the ground with a grunt, his arms coming around me as I wrap my arms around his neck, my legs sliding around his hips. He grips my butt with his big hands, holding me close, his mouth at my neck as he kisses me there, whispering sweet words of greeting.