by Anne Leigh
They waved at him and he barely spared them a glance.
“You’re such a snob!” I hissed at him.
It was true. My best friend was such a snob sometimes. He said he didn’t waste people's time by pretending to like them. Maybe growing up with 2 older brothers in an upper class family did that to him. He was a nice guy, once you peel all the layers of snobbishness.
I teased him all the time why he wasting his time, hanging out with me. His answer was always, "Cuz you're my best buddy, Ace."
Kieran, as a friend was funny, attentive, and generous. Under the public eye, he took on a different persona. Weekly Magazine called him a "good-looking, aloof, latest Swimming Sensation” in their rising sports stars edition.
Zander was stuck in traffic. Oh, and his teammates were coming with him. He asked me to order 10 orders of chicken wings. What was it with Zander and chicken wings?
I requested a table for 7 with the server. Kieran lifted an eyebrow, “He invited the whole team?”
“I guess.”
Kieran and I were watching the Food Network on TV as we patiently waited for our burgers. Thank god, the sweet potato fries came in first so we had something to munch on. I barely noticed people going in and out of the restaurant as my eyes were glued on the mouth-watering delicacies on the 52” TV screen.
I was lost in the world of fried chocolate ice cream when a muscular arm pulled me to his side.
"Sorry we’re late. The guys really wanted to come with,” Zander kissed the side of my head.
I turned to face him. My face still heated up with PDA’s.
"No worries, we got here maybe 15 minutes ago.” He looked so yummy in his polo shirt, jeans, and freshly showered hair. I stayed in his embrace.
Our table was now filled with a bunch of heavily muscled guys. I felt small compared to the giants sitting at our table. Zander sat to my left and Kieran to my right.
Zander kept the conversation light while he held my hands. The server took their orders; Zander was finishing his third plate of the chicken wings.
I recognized all of the guys with him. I have seen them at his football practices.
Jack, one of the behemoths, asked Kieran, "Dude, aren't you that super-fast swimming dude?!"
I laughed at that. Kieran hated the word ‘dude’; especially, when it was used to address him.
Kieran simply said, "Ahuh" while eating his fries.
Jack was oblivious to Kieran’s disinterest. "No wonder you look familiar. My girlfriend's friend has your poster up on her wall."
I burst into complete laughter. I almost choked on my burger.
Kieran tapped my back, "Ace, you got to stop choking today."
Zander asked, "You choked today?!"
Luckily, his voice was drowned out by the multiple conversations happening in our table.
I shrugged my shoulders, "Early this morning, at the pool, lost my focus, I swam under and had water up my nose. Kieran’s just overreacting."
I redirected the attention to Kieran, "So, Jack, tell me about the poster on your friend's wall."
Kieran’s face was beet red. He whispered, "I’m going to get you for this, Ace."
Jack described the poster as Kieran wearing some sort of ‘flimsy shorts’ (basically, trunks) while he was ready to jump in the water. It was shot for the university’s swim team, featuring their star swimmer, Kieran Stone. I had a copy of picture framed and gave it to Kieran on his birthday. Who knew whatever happened to it? He probably hid it under his bed.
"What it's doing on your friend's wall?" My eyes were looking at Jack, but my question was meant to tease Kieran.
Kieran didn't wait for Jack to answer. He completely ignored me and started a new topic with Jack.
The sauce from the burger I was eating must have dripped out of my mouth, as Zander started wiping the left side of my face with a napkin.
"Babe, stop teasing him," he said with a soft smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
"He deserves it,” I retorted. I liked teasing Kieran. A girl had an actual poster of him on her wall? This was real good. Stories could be written from this.
Zander softly whispered, "You're gorgeous, babe," with his fingers slowly tracing the top side of my left palm.
Goodness, I was in the middle of a bunch of giants, with different conversations going on around me, and I was getting turned on!
"Zander."
"Yes, babe?" he smiled knowingly.
"Stop it."
"Stop what?" he asked innocently.
I removed my hand from his. For the sake of my sanity, it would be so awkward for me to get all hot and bothered in the midst of all these guys.
"Ok, I'll behave," placing my hand back in his.
The rest of the dinner went along smoothly. The guys teased each other just like women did. Only their jokes were raunchier, dirtier. Our table was loud and rambunctious. We were all having a good time. Kieran was enjoying himself. He laughed, joked, and dished it out to the other guys.
I had really wanted to stay over at Zander’s, but his teammates rode with him. By the time, he dropped me off, it would be really late. It was best for me to have Kieran drop me off.
Kieran was parked directly in front of the restaurant; Zander and his teammates walked us to Kieran’s car. I was going to hug Zander to say bye, but he had a different idea. He gave me a long, slow kiss, in front of everyone present, garnering grins and cheers from his teammates. Then, with his smile wide on his face, he stepped away from the car and said, “Call me when you get home, babe.”
Kieran said bye to everyone. One of the guys motioned Kieran for a kiss, imitating Zander. Everyone laughed.
"He’s really good for you, Ace.” His voice was so low, almost as if he was speaking to himself.
"Ahuh,” I said to him, turning the volume of radio a bit louder. I wasn’t being rude; I just really wanted to listen to the song on the radio.
Kieran lowered the volume on the steering wheel control.
"He's not playing games with you, Ace," he said, “The way he looks at you and acts around you – you’re important to him.”
A small smile formed on my lips, “He’s great. I mean, it still throws me off when he does something PDA-like in front of people.”
Kieran went on, his brown eyes bright, “He could choose to hide you, to keep everything just between the two of you. But I think he wants to let people know that you really matter to him.”
He turned on the left turn signal at the stop light, as we neared my place.
"I understand him. I let everyone know you’re my best buddy. He wants to let everyone know that you’re his girlfriend.”
“I know, it just feels different being his girlfriend,” I was rambling.
"Do you want to be?” he asked.
Kieran must have sensed that I was overthinking his question, he followed it up closely with, “Are you happy, Ace? Does he make you happy?”
“Yes.” When I was with Zander, I was happy.
“Everything else will fall into place. Ace, I just want you to truly be happy.” His car was now stopped in front of my building.
I understood what Kieran was trying to tell me. I wanted him to be happy too. He has dated girls but has never been serious about them. I wanted him to find a girl who made him feel the way I felt about Zander. Time could only tell what would happen between Zander and me. But every time I was with him, I felt a part of myself opening up. A part that I didn’t know existed inside of me.
Chapter Twelve
“What the mind wants, the heart, might not. What the heart wants, the mind, will.”
Zander
After football practice, I went straight to her apartment. Tonight was Wednesday. Homework night for Sedona. She had to be up early tomorrow. I still didn’t know how she did it. She was Ms. Brainiac and Ms. Busy Bee.
Nalee was lounging in the living room when I knocked. She had a big smile on her face when she saw the bag of Crabby’s burgers I was
holding. I liked to bring them food. By our second date, I had figured out Sedona didn’t cook. She ate fruits, veggies, pre-packaged salads, and ready-to-heat items. Not that I was a master chef or anything, but I could whip up omelets and simple stuff like meatloaf and pasta. I had spent some time with my mom in the kitchen so I kind of knew my way around it.
My girl, though, was not meant for the kitchen. She looked aghast when I asked her to chop onions. It was quite funny. It was great that I really liked cooking for her and bringing food for her and her friends.
The way to their hearts was definitely through their stomachs.
Nalee was already eating away the fries before I excused myself to see what Sedona was up to.
I paused at the scene that greeted me in her bedroom. She was dressed in some flannel pajamas and a tight tank top. Her long, dark locks were pulled into a ponytail, and she was furiously writing on a very, thick book. Hoping not to break her concentration, I stepped in the room and sat on the bed.
It was not long before I figured something was wrong. Her shoulders were too tense, her spine ramrod straight. Granted, it was hard to break her concentration when she was really focused on something. This time, it was different, odd. She kept writing on the book, erasing and writing, erasing and writing. For 5 minutes, she hasn’t looked up. Normally, she would acknowledge my presence after a minute or two.
I slowly walked towards her and lightly touched her hair upon reaching her. I swiveled the chair she was sitting on so she could face me. Something was definitely going on. She finally noticed my presence and looked at me. Her eyes were turbulent, stormy. Her lips slightly shook. I pulled off the headphones from her head, pried the book slowly from her hands, and carried her to the bed.
She didn’t say anything. She just hugged me tightly.
In a whisper, she said, “I don’t think I’m cut out to be a nurse.”
She was sitting on top of me and hugging me so I could not see her face. I untangled myself from the hug and kept my arms on her lower back.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“I’m just not,” she said sadly, “I think I’m going to change my major. Maybe accounting or something else. Numbers are better.”
I placed her hands on top of mine.
She continued, her eyes flickered with despair, “Numbers don’t go away; numbers don’t make you feel sad.”
“Whatever it is babe, you know you can tell me.” It pained me to see her struggle with whatever she was struggling with. She had always wanted to be a nurse. When we started dating, I saw her eyes got brighter, filled with determination, when she talked about this. This was her goal, her niche. She had always wanted to take care of people, help families, and be like the nurse who helped her when she had a broken ankle at the age of 5. Whatever happened today must have really shaken her to the core.
I lifted her chin and lightly caressed her arms, “Tell me what happened, babe.”
It labored her to take a deep breath, “Today,” she took another breath, “I was holding a little girl’s hand. Her parents died in a trail derailment.”
Shit. The train derailment was all over the news today.
Tears didn’t fall from her face. Her eyes were filled with angst, but she didn’t cry. I held her tightly against me. “Babe, I saw that in the news. That must’ve been so hard. I’m so sorry.” I ran my hands through her hair. Her ponytail loosened up.
She turned her cheek to the right and pressed closer to my chest.
“I stayed with her for a long time. Her name was Ara. I think she was about 5 years old. She was bruised, but only minor bruises. The ER nurses and doctors were busy attending to the injured victims. I saw her standing and crying on the side. A nurse asked me to stay with her after letting me know that the next of kin was already being notified.”
There were moments when silence was in itself, the answer. Or helped you arrive to the answer. I could only imagine how Sedona must’ve felt. How burdened with grief she was for the little girl. Words escaped me.
“When I lost my mom, I remembered my dad holding me,” she heaved, “I remember him telling me that she was going to heaven. I asked him if he could take me there, he said, ‘Not right now, my angel’.”
She continued, “This little girl, when she asked me if her mom and dad were going to be ok, I couldn’t say anything. Then, she looked at me with her brown eyes and said, ‘I wonder if we’re going to the zoo tomorrow.’”
“Zander, I don’t know how I held it together. I just kept hugging her. We played with the doll that she was holding. Her aunt eventually arrived and thanked me for staying with her. You see, I can’t be a nurse. I didn’t know what to say to the little girl. I couldn’t lie to her. I can’t be the person who has to stay with the girls and boys and families who have lost someone they loved.” Tears escaped her eyes.
Her shoulders racked with sobs. I held her, running my hands on her back, hoping to ease the pain.
When the sobs left her, I said, “Babe, this might be difficult for you to hear right now, but I have to say it.”
She pulled from my hug, her eyes searched my face, and her lips were slightly quivering. She was so torn up right now.
I placed her hands against my chest, “This is why you should exactly be what you have been planning for your whole life, a nurse. That little girl? She will probably not remember everything. But she will remember that there was this person, who hugged her and played with her. You were something normal for her when everything around her was falling apart.”
Her eyes glimmered with tears as she listened. “Your strength is amazing, Sedona. All these families, all these boys and girls, all the people you see in the hospitals, they need someone like you. You don’t need to lie. You just need to be there. Someone to remind them what normal is. That there is life after what they’re going through.”
Her hands caressed my face, I clutched at this feeling of intensity, of intimacy between us. This was another facet of her that I have never seen. I’ve seen the sexy, fun, brainy, goal-oriented, focused Sedona. But this, this was another side of her that I was getting to know.
Her body shook lightly, “I don’t know how I’d do this without you right now.”
There it was. The heart of her – needing me, asking me to be there for her.
“I’m here, babe,” I assured her. We stayed in this position for a while. I felt her head loll back on my shoulder. I slowly put her down the bed, stepped out of my clothes, put out the light, and hugged her close to me.
Sedona
First impressions may be just that, first.
Zander was a living contradiction of my first impressions.
Initially, I thought he was one of those good-looking, panty-collecting, jocks.
Contrary to popular gossip, he was not a panty-collector. Don’t get me wrong, he was quite familiar with women’s underwear.
When I asked him exactly how many women he had slept with, he cringed and asked me if I really wanted to know. I looked at him, straight through his wary eyes, and said, “Yes.”
He lifted his left hand, palm up, signifying ‘5’. I arched an eyebrow. He then turned his palm the other way, ‘5’. Five plus five.
“You’ve slept with 10 women?” My voice had that high-pitched quality.
He cringed again and said in a low voice, “Umm, I didn’t really keep count but that sounds about right.”
“Does that number include me?”
“Yeah,” his face was red.
He told me he started having sex when he was 15. He just turned 23. In my calculations, that was an average of 1-2 women/year. Kieran’s numbers were probably higher than his.
I said, “Wow, I have some catching up to do.” Of course, I was just joking.
His eyes were anything but calm; he said, “I don’t think so.”
“No?”
“Definitely, no. They’re in my past, Sedona. I wasn’t promiscuous or anything. I was always safe. I do have way more expe
rience than you,” he breathed in, as if he was trying to collect himself, “I’m sorry, that’s just the way it was. Now with you, everything’s different.”
I sucked in a breath. He didn’t have to apologize. I wasn’t born yesterday. An extremely handsome, popular guy like him, I saw it firsthand how women threw themselves at him.
By his own admission, he’s only had two ex-girlfriends. He mentioned that one was when he was in high school and the other one, in college. Both lasted less than 4 months. I teased him that since 4 months was his relationship threshold; I should really start looking for my replacement. We were hitting the 5-month mark. He gave me this unflinching, steady look and said, “You have to know this by now, I’m keeping you.”