I was surprised when he sat close to me on my bed and took me into his arms.
"Uh, Drew? What are we doing?" I asked. If he wanted sex, I probably wouldn't have objected, but I'd suppressed the desire for him after he told me it wasn't in the cards until the season was over. I wasn't protesting, just asking for information.
"I missed you so much, Sugar," he replied. "I just need to catch up on all the kisses we missed."
Though I knew I'd want more before it was over, I welcomed the kisses he offered, savoring the taste of his lips and tongue. Gradually, he pressed me back on my pillows until we were lying on the bed, his body covering mine urgently. Another few minutes and my body was on fire with the suppressed need to touch him, to have him touch me and complete the act I knew we both wanted.
"Drew," I breathed. It seemed to wake him from a trance, and he sat up with a gasp.
"Oh, God, Janey, I can't. I'm sorry." From what I'd heard, usually the girl called a halt like that. I would've liked to rip off his clothes and insist he make love to me, the way I felt, but I knew it would change our relationship, and not for the better. Furthermore, I knew that when he was gone, I'd be having second thoughts because I still felt the same way about Justin.
"All right," I said in a quiet voice. He took it for disappointment.
"Janey, truly, I'm so sorry. I want you so bad, but I shouldn't have got you worked up like that."
"Are you telling me you weren't worked up?" I demanded, indignant.
"God, yes I was worked up. But, I'm the one with the problem. I'm the one that should keep it cool until I can follow through. I'm sorry," he said again.
"Don't worry about it," I said, now thoroughly irritated. "I can deal."
"Janey, I didn't mean for that to happen. I wanted to ask you something tonight. Are you mad at me?"
I was, but I didn't intend to admit it.
"No."
"Then, can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Would you, like, wear my letter jacket?"
I stared at him, trying to decipher this strange request. "Why?"
He looked down. "I guess you don't know, but that's like me asking you to go steady."
"Go steady?" I repeated.
Frustrated, he had to explain everything. "It's when a guy and a girl promise not to date anyone else, just each other. If you're wearing my letter jacket, other guys know not to ask you out."
"Drew, I don't know," I said. "You're the only guy I've ever dated. Should I be committing not to date anyone else already? What if I like someone else?"
His face fell and for a minute, I almost changed my mind and blurted that of course I'd wear his jacket. However, the question Charity had asked me held me back.
"Hon, I don't have anyone else right now," I said, which was only a white lie. I didn't have Justin; I just wanted him. "I'm not dating anyone else, but I don't think I should promise not to. Would it be okay if we just left it this way for a while? If I decide to go out with someone else, I promise I'll tell you about it, okay?"
Drew's expression said it wasn't, but he answered that, yes, that would be okay, for a while. The light in his eyes and the kiss he took from me said that once he was free of the restrictions he'd imposed on himself, I'd better be ready to make the commitment. For several reasons, including that I genuinely cared about him, I hoped I would be.
Normally, I would have talked it out with Charity or my older sisters, even Ri. But, a phone conversation didn't seem right, and if I revealed that I was conflicted to Ri, she'd rip my heart out and feed it to the seagulls. Especially if I revealed exactly why I had mixed feelings. As far as she knew, I was long over my crush on Justin. I felt terrible hiding it from her, but since it didn't seem likely to go anywhere I figured discretion was the better part of valor.
~~~
The fact remained that I desperately needed to talk to someone. I had questions I couldn't answer, and they were driving me insane. That's why I looked for Alicia at the Student Union all week, as classes began for the spring semester. I finally spotted her on Friday at noon, and carried my tray over to ask if I could sit with her.
"Sure, girlfriend. Hey, long time no see."
"I know, huh? How'd you do in English Lit?" Grades for the previous semester had been posted earlier in the week, and I'd made an A, as expected.
"B. I don't have your knack for analysis. How do you do it?" she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. "My roommate calls it BS 101," I answered, causing Alicia to giggle.
"I'll have to remember that."
"Alicia, thank you for not assuming that my A came for sleeping with Prof. Mackey," I said. It was a little more direct than I had intended, and Alicia blanched.
"I assumed nothing of the kind. I didn't know you had. Or is that what you meant?" Confused, she put her hand over her mouth. "Jeez, now I've stuck my foot in it right up to the ankle," she observed.
"No, I did. I mean, we had a one-night stand and then he ignored me for the next week."
"I remember that! Is that what his problem was?"
"I guess so. I mean, I didn't expect it, but everyone else in class seemed to understand what had happened and what was going on."
"Shit, that stinks! I'm sorry. Are you over it?" she asked.
"Sometimes I think I am, and sometimes I know I'm not," I confessed. "The stinky part is that I still melt into a steaming puddle every time I lay eyes on the bastard."
"Oh, God, that's the worst!" she exclaimed. Her eyes flicked to her left hand and her jaw flexed. Then she put the hand under her leg.
"Tell me about it!" I agreed. She mistook my meaning, which was just a throwaway phrase that meant I knew what she meant. Instead, she took me literally.
"Happened to me in my freshman year, too," she said. I widened my eyes. "Oh, yeah, no one's immune. Remember when we first talked about you being interested in him? And I asked if you were going straight for the A? I didn't know you very well, then."
Actually, she didn't know me very well now, but I wasn't going to interrupt her train of thought to point that out.
"I had a hard math class. Didn't get it at all. The professor wasn't bad, so I thought I'd try for that kind of A, if you know what I mean." I nodded, encouraging her to continue.
"So, I started flirting with him, and one thing led to another. I was stupid, though. I lost sight of what I was doing it for, and fell for him. I was even hoping he'd propose. Then he dumped me and I got a D in the class anyway."
"Ouch!" I said.
"Ouch, indeed. I was so pissed! But, he never promised to change my grade, and I was the one to make the first move, so there was nothing I could do about it but hate him. Unfortunately, my body didn't get the message. Took me six months to stop creaming for him every time I saw him or even thought about him. He wasn't the best-looking guy around, not like Prof. Mackey, but the way he ate pussy would have any woman following him like a puppy."
I shivered, remembering Justin's lips on the center of my desire, and Alicia noticed. "Mackey, too, huh?"
"Yeah," I whispered. "I'd never had that before. I could have died happy."
Alicia's face took on a puckered appearance, a slight frown creasing her forehead. "You never…Kid, were you a virgin? Did the bastard take your virginity and then treat you that way?"
"No," I said, not wanting to explain more. "But, I can't help thinking that it's all my fault. I was raised to think that sex outside of marriage was a terrible sin, and for all the enjoyment I got out of it that night, I'm wondering if that's right. I mean, I can't get over this guilty feeling, and feeling like I'm some kind of evil person for wanting it."
Alicia's face smoothed. "Mormon?"
"Sort of," I said, still not wanting to elaborate.
"Bastards," she observed without malice. "Janey, you're not evil. You're just a human being, a sweet girl who evidently hasn't had enough experience of the world. It's natural to like sex. If you ask me, God made it that way so we'd do
it often enough to keep the world populated." She gave a little chuckle. "My Baptist parents don't agree, of course. Hey, you know why Baptists and cats are alike?"
Bewildered at the change of subject and the silly question, I shook my head.
"You know they have sex, but you can't catch them at it," she explained. Her little joke made me chuckle, and from then on our conversation grew lighter. When we were through with our lunch, I asked Alicia for her number. After this little tete-a-tete, I wanted to get to know her better. Even though she and Ri had told me pretty much the same thing, Alicia had made me feel better about myself. Maybe we could be better friends after all.
Ri was a different story. For all her hard teasing and name-calling, I got that she cared about me. The trouble was, she cared more about Drew. I couldn't talk to her about what was bothering me, and he'd told her that I wouldn't commit to going steady. She gave me the cold shoulder for a week, and then, evidently satisfied that I was still going out with him, went back to her easy, good-natured, crude self.
"So, if you're going out with him and no one else, I don't get it," she observed one morning as I dressed for class. "Why won't you take his jacket?" We'd had a variation of this conversation every day. I sighed heavily.
"No, really! I really don't get it. Explain it to me," she demanded.
"Ri, I've tried. I have nothing else to say but what we've covered already. I have no experience with boys. Zero. Zilch. Drew's the only guy I've ever dated. How do I know he's the one?"
"Same way he knows you're the one. He's crazy about you. You're breaking his heart."
"It isn't the same at all. He probably dated lots of girls in high school, and on campus before I even got here. I mean, look at him. He's gorgeous, and he's got a body to die for," I said. A mental picture of him shirtless formed and I trailed off.
"He didn't."
"Bullshit. No way would the girls have left him alone," I said.
"Well, some of it was my fault," she confessed. I stared at her, and then burst out laughing.
"Don't try that on me. You've both told me you're more like brother and sister and dating each other would be disgusting. So how could it have been your fault?"
You can always tell when a redhead is embarrassed or angry; the trick is in knowing which. Two red spots appeared in the center of her cheeks, and spread to cover her entire face. I poised to run for it. When she spoke, I realized I'd mistaken embarrassment for anger.
"Well, uh, I might have um, beat up a girl that broke up with him. She was cheating on him, and then she dumped him. Broke his heart." Evidently, Drew's heart was rather fragile.
"You might have beaten up a girl? Ri, what does that even mean?"
"I guess it means I punched her in the face and she got a black eye and a bloody nose," Ri said, hunching into herself defensively.
"You're kidding!" Was I going to have to get a new roommate if I broke up with Drew? I'd been considering it. Stringing him along when I couldn't commit because I was still carrying a torch for Justin just seemed like a terrible thing to do. I hated myself for it, and it sometimes made me quiet and pensive on our dates.
I knew that Drew knew something was wrong. He showed me in every way that he wanted to make it right and blamed himself. The truth would devastate him, but the lie was tearing him up inside. I didn't know what to do; only that he was a decent, kind, wonderful boy who deserved better than me. In spite of it all, if he ever initiated sex, I wasn't going to turn him down—far from it. How could I want two such different men so much?
Ri had been silent long enough to make me look up at her from where I'd been staring at the floor while my thoughts drifted. She had an intent look on her face, which hadn't gone back to its normal color yet.
"I was twelve. C'mon, Janey, talk. You're scaring me." All I could do was shake my head. Talking to her would do no good and might do irreparable harm. I plastered a smile on my face.
"I'm just trying to imagine you wading in like that," I said. "What did Drew do?"
"He wouldn't speak to me for a week."
"Serves you right. You should stay out of his business," I said. My light tone belied my devout hope that she would stay out of mine, too.
"I can't, hon." Her uncharacteristic endearment caused me to look at her again with a jerk of my head. "He's emotionally vulnerable. You don't know what he's been through."
"What?"
"Not my story to tell. If he hasn't told you, he doesn't want you to know. But be gentle with his heart, that's all I'll say."
CHAPTER TEN
I had another reason to be depressed when the famous Salt Lake City 'haze', a nasty, brown, cold fog that any other place would have called smog, settled in for a long stay. On the other side of the pass toward Wyoming, skies were blue and sunny, though perishingly cold. Between longing to get some fresh air and missing Gracie, I was looking forward to my long weekend for Martin Luther King Day with the intensity of a prisoner seeing the end of his sentence.
But, it wasn't to be. On the Friday before the holiday, a front swept in and knocked the haze out of the air, but also made the roads going east too treacherous for my trip. Glumly, I spent the holiday weekend alone in the dorm, since Ri went home despite the storm. The only bright spot was the Saturday game, with, as usual at the home games, a nice win for the Utes. Drew was in a good mood when he approached me where I waited for him afterward.
"Wanta catch a movie?" he drawled.
"Sure, sounds good. I'm starved though, could we get a burger first?"
"How many times have I told you not to wait for our after-game snack to eat on game night?" he teased. He knew quite well that I ate first. He just didn't approve of my choices; usually an apple and a Laughing Cow baby cheese. With a burger and the obligatory cheese fries in front of us, Drew asked something that I had never considered before.
"Would you ever go to an away game, Sugar? If Ri came with?"
I thought about it for a minute. "I guess it would depend on where, and whether it was during the week. I don't know, why?"
"Well, I was thinking about Valentine's Day," he said. "Have you looked at the schedule for next month?"
"No, why?" I asked again.
"We've got away games in California on the thirteenth and the fifteenth. We won't be back in between. I wouldn't want to leave my girl alone on Valentine's Day, so I was wondering if you'd go. That way we could be together on Friday."
Maybe it was the prospect of getting out of smog-ridden Salt Lake, or maybe it was because I thought it was so sweet of Drew to be thinking of such a thing so far ahead of time, but the idea appealed to me. Drew looked at me anxiously as I weighed all the factors. That was also the next long weekend, President's Day, when I'd have a chance to go to the ranch and see my daughter. However, what were the odds that the weather would be a factor in going east again? Pretty bad ones, I thought, remembering that February was the snowiest month across I80. Could I wait until Spring Break, another three weeks after Valentine's Day, to see my baby? Three months between trips home…an eternity. I couldn't make this decision on my own.
"Drew, I love the idea, but you know I have family obligations, too, right?" He seemed to deflate before my eyes. "Wait, hon, I'm not saying no. I just need to think about things a little bit. Plus, Ri would have to agree. Can I let you know after she gets back?"
"Sure. I mean, I keep forgetting you have a kid. You don't ever talk about her, and I don't want to pry."
"It's not that I don't want to talk about her, just that I miss her so much. Talking about her makes it worse and I cry. You don't want to see me crying, Drew, it ain't pretty," I teased. "Red, blotchy face, snot running, mascara making a black river down my cheeks."
"Stop! I'll take your word for it. I don't want that picture in my head," he laughed. His good mood restored, we enjoyed our movie, an adaptation of a book we'd both read, and talked about it all the way back to the dorm, where he kissed me outside as usual and wouldn't come in.
"
Too dangerous," he said, his eyes glittering. "Ri's not there and I don't know if I could restrain myself." He swooped in for another long, deep kiss. "See?" he said when we breathlessly broke apart.
"You know," I remarked. "If I didn't respect you so much, I'd insist you go in with me. I want you, Drew. You don't have to restrain yourself."
"That's just the trouble," he muttered. We'd had that discussion too often, though; there was no need to keep beating the dead horse. He was determined to remain celibate during the season, and I wouldn't change his mind.
I called Charity for a heart-to-heart about whether I was a bad mom for wanting to go to California when I could maybe see my daughter instead. The signal was bad and wouldn't sustain a Facetime call. I had to take my cues from her tone of voice, when I really wanted to see her face. She assured me that Gracie was fine. She missed me, but she was getting to be old enough to understand that I'd be home soon, and she didn't pine for me. Probably not even as much as I pined for her. Charity thought I should go to California.
"You don't intend to be a single mom all your life, do you Janey?" she asked.
"I haven't thought about it, but I guess, no, I'd like to find someone and make a family with him. Maybe get a brother or sister for Gracie."
"Well, she has plenty of those," Charity laughed, referring to my sisters' kids. "But I know what you mean."
"How are you feeling? How long do you have, about three or four weeks?" I thought Charity's baby was due in mid-February, but I hadn't had an update as to exact due date in a while.
"If I don't hatch this baby pretty soon, I'm going to tear my hair out," she replied. "But yeah, don't be surprised if you get a call on your hot date that Katy's baby brother is here."
"Oh, Charity, I didn't realize it was the very same weekend! I should come home to help."
"Don't you dare. I'll have Janet here, and Amber, if not the rest of them. You go have some fun, like a normal co-ed. You deserve it, hon."
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