by Reid, Penny
He withdrew the keys and unlocked the door; I felt his eyes move over me just before opening the door. “You want to watch a movie?”
I waited until we were inside and I’d slipped my shoes off before answering. “Um, no thanks.” Without turning, I added, “I think I might go to sleep.”
I sensed that this answer seemed to take him aback, as though it had been exactly the opposite of what he’d been expecting. I took advantage of his momentary confusion and turned for the kitchen, my brain telling me to go, go, go!
Even so, my movements were sluggish. The logical path was forward, I knew that. Nothing could ever happen between us, I knew that too. Watching a movie with Abram would undoubtedly lead to not watching the movie while still being with Abram.
But to what end? The way he’d been teasing me all day, the easy banter, how I caught him looking at me in the bookstore and over dinner, how I’d undeniably been looking at him in the same way. I wasn’t stupid. All the variables plugged into an equation that equaled mutual attraction.
This wasn’t a crush, this was requited desire and reciprocated like. Kissing, unscripted touching, gazing, whispers. . . I was near dizzy at the thought. But in this specific case, that also totaled certain disaster.
He’s not a person you want to have feelings for.
And yet, I wanted.
Something is wrong with me.
“You’re tired?” he asked, following me into the kitchen and to the back stairs.
Offering just my profile, I shrugged noncommittally, because I wasn’t tired enough to sleep and I didn’t want to lie to him anymore, not even a white lie. Placing my hand on the banister, a twisting in my stomach made me pause just for a moment as I prepared to launch myself up the first flight.
But before I could climb the first step, he covered my hand, stopping me. A warm, electric current traveled up my arm, weaving itself into my bloodstream and brain. I glanced at his hand on top of mine, and the mutinous whispers returned. Another something terrible had happened: I officially liked it when Abram touched me.
Meanwhile, he hesitated for the span of a breath, and then stepped close. So close, I felt his chest against my back, his thighs against my backside. Abram pulled my hair to the side and the fall of hot breath against my neck caused the most potent and delectable involuntary shiver of my life.
Holy hadron collider.
I was a solution, he was a solute, and total saturation was on my mind.
“Care for company?” he whispered before I’d recovered, his lips just barely against the shell of my ear.
Holy hadron collider, indeed.
The fragrance of him invaded my good sense and for a moment I lost my breath. My breasts swelled, heavy and needy and hot, my nipples tightening into little beads, pressing against the lace bra. I felt the silk of the shirt everywhere it met my skin. He was close, so close, touching, right there and my eyelids fluttered under the weight of such heavenly sensory overload.
And yet, even under attack, my good sense held firm, buffered by a grim sense of certainty: I didn’t believe Gabby, that Abram would be fine with a fling. I didn’t. He liked me. This was as real for him as it was for me. What was happening between us wasn’t something Lisa would be able to just call off when she took my place.
And that meant I would not be able to live with myself if I allowed him to believe anything between us was a possibility. That would be the same as leading him on, as using him.
My foolish heart, however, thought his idea was great. In fact, it had decided to hatch an escape plan and was currently attempting to beat itself out of my chest. Oh please oh please oh please say yes!
I cleared my throat, concentrating on the grim resolve. “Company?” The question was just above a whisper, because I couldn’t manage much else. Gravity had seemed to reverse, or become centripetal in nature, pulling me in all directions at once.
“I could read you a bedtime story, from your new book.” Knuckles brushed softly against the skin of my neck, the silk of my shirt, and then down my bare arm, raising goose bumps in their path. “Or I could sing you a song.”
Oh no. Do not want! If Gabby was to be believed, I wouldn’t be able to withstand an Abram talent-assault in addition to the rest of what I knew about him. Usually, musicians held no allure for me. But Abram was breaking the mold on all my usuallys.
Grasping that grim resolve, I slid my hand from beneath his on the banister, folded my arms over my chest (to conceal that situation), and turned to face him.
Swallowing the rocks in my throat, I asked, “Are you flirting with me?”
Two dimples, an unhidden smile given freely, gorgeous brown eyes caressing my face.
This is hard. So hard.
“You have to ask?” he said. Flirtatiously.
Despite the disobedient—and therefore destructive—thrill his nonadmission elicited, I cleared my throat and forced myself to say, “Do you think that’s appropriate?”
He blinked, his grin faltering, but only a little. “Appropriate?”
“Yes.” Crowbarring indignation into my voice I didn’t feel, I narrowed my eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be the adult here? Ensuring I don’t get into trouble or harm myself? For all intents and purposes, you’re in charge of me, reporting back to my parents about my behavior. They trust you with my well-being. Leo trusts you. Therefore, let me ask you again: do you think flirting with someone you’re in charge of is appropriate?”
Abram flinched back, taking two shuffling steps away as I spoke. At first, his eyebrows lifted, but then they lowered into a severe line over his darkening eyes.
“Are you . . . are you kidding?”
I glared at him, saying nothing, because I didn’t trust myself to speak. This is so hard.
He shook his head, just slightly, as though to clear it, his eyes searching. “Or are you serious?”
“Serious,” I parroted immediately, grasping at the word. Then I swallowed. Because I had to. This is the hardest.
Abram flinched, his lips parting, giving me the impression that a very loud objection was on the tip of his tongue. But then he snapped his mouth shut, staring at me for several seconds, perhaps expecting me to say just kidding! When I continued glaring in silence, he glanced at the ceiling. He then glanced at the wall to his left. His hands came to his hips. He exhaled a light laugh, shaking his head and covering his mouth.
He’d gone back to hiding his smiles, even the bitter ones.
I waited, watching him, feeling . . . horrible. And enormously uneasy. Also, immensely remorseful, wishing I could take the words back, but knowing it was for the best.
By the time his eyes had traveled around the kitchen and returned to mine, they were shuttered, dim, remote, and hit me with a force that felt physical.
“Yes. Absolutely. You’re right.” His tone matched his expression, and the combination made me wonder if my heart had just sustained a serious injury somehow. It would’ve explained why it was suddenly so hard to breathe.
I think it’s hard to breathe because this is hard.
“I, uh, that’s okay.” My voice wavered along with my resolve and I took a step toward him. Apparently, at some point over the last several days, I’d become magnetized to Abram.
Or maybe it’s gravity, he is quite big.
Or maybe it’s one of the four fundamental forces, working on an atomic level: weak, strong, electromagnetic, gravitational.
Or maybe—
But he held up his hand, staying me. “No. It’s not okay. Please accept my apology. I . . .” A flicker of something ignited behind his eyes, a vulnerability that crippled my brain, there and hidden in an instant. He dropped his gaze to the floor, and gave his head another shake before adding quietly, “No excuses. It won’t happen again.”
15
Problem-Solving Strategies
The potency of my self-doubt and regret was a new experience.
When Abram left me at the bottom of the stairs with a polite departing h
ead nod after my duplicitous speech about the appropriateness of his actions, I felt a large part of myself go with him. It felt like a physical separation, being split into two distinctly different versions of myself—one followed the logical path, and one followed him—and that was nonsensical.
The one that followed him wanted to tackle him to the ground and spill my guts. I almost did.
The rest of me retrieved my dirty cup from earlier in the day and made a new cup of tea, blinking away tears. I was the worst kind of hypocrite, acting like I had all this moral authority. Meanwhile, I was a lying liar of lies, sitting on a throne of lies, eating lie soup and liar cake.
Try as I might to be rational, I couldn’t shake the sense that something was very, very wrong with me. This sense was only heightened by the near constant ache in my stomach and heart, both of which felt like an overreaction.
I never overreacted. Underreaction was where I lived my life.
You cannot deny he was behaving inappropriately, given what he knows to be true of the situation, a shrill little voice reminded me, one that sounded suspiciously like Dr. Steward.
Unable to navigate this strange labyrinth of emotional upheaval, I spotted the bag from the bookstore on the counter, grabbed my new book, left my new cup of tea in the sink, and went upstairs to play the violin. Unpacking it, I tried to play. I couldn’t play. My fingers weren’t working right. Setting the instrument on the desk, I picked up my new book. I set the book down. I didn’t want to read.
Making a split decision, I changed into the bikini from the other day. I then marched down to the back door, intent on the pool—my hairdo and Gabby and George-the-stylist be damned.
But before I opened the back door, I spotted movement. It was now dark outside, but the pool light illuminated the water. Abram was swimming laps. I didn’t press my face against the glass, but I did watch him without meaning to, tracking him, unable to look away, admiring how he paired gracefulness and power. He wasn’t a perfect swimmer, his technique could use some help, but he was strong and fast and clearly determined to swim forever.
I must’ve watched him for a half hour, probably longer. My feet grew tired of standing in the same place, necessitating that I shift my weight and flex my calves. Still, he swam. It wasn’t until he stopped and straightened, breathing hard and wiping away excess water with his hands, his eyes seeming to move directly to the window where I stood, that I tore my gaze away and stepped back.
Spooked—because clearly I was still overreacting—I sprinted to the back stairs. But then, a thought occurred to me. Pivoting, I jogged to the pantry, grabbed my backpack, and hastily climbed to the second floor, running into Lisa’s room after a short moment of hesitation, closing and locking the door.
Eureka!
I had my laptop and research notes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes!
Why I’d neglected to retrieve my backpack prior to now, I couldn’t fathom. I’d had opportunity and means—plenty of both—and yet I’d left everything there, hidden in the pantry, out of sight and out of mind. There is something wrong with me. Why did I wait so long? This behavior isn’t normal.
Powering up my laptop, I took a deep breath, some of the earlier ache dissipating as I entered my password and navigated to connect to the Wi-Fi. That’s when another disaster struck.
“What? What’s this?” I asked the little yellow exclamation point next to our Wi-Fi network.
It’s not working.
The Wi-Fi was down. I plugged my phone in and unlocked it to double-check. Sure enough, my phone couldn’t connect either.
“Shoooooot!” I made a fist and shook it at the sky. And then I sighed, letting my hand drop.
Using the cellular hotspot, I could connect my laptop to the internet. Sadly, it wasn’t fast enough for me to run my analyses, or access my data in any meaningful way. But I could check my email and browse the internet.
So I called Lisa’s lawyer, left another voice message noting that she’d never called me back, and connected my laptop to the substandard hotspot.
I searched for any news of Lisa’s arrest. I came up empty on arrest, but I did find recent links pairing her name with Tyler’s. Bracing myself against the sliminess, I clicked on a story from TMZ, timestamp three hours ago.
Front man from Pirate Orgy spotted getting cozy with an unnamed female who was definitely not his longtime ladylove, Lisa DaVinci, DJ Tang and Exotica’s wild-child youngest daughter. The pair were making out at a . . . and then blah blah blah.
I clicked through a few gossip sites, all telling the same story: Tyler had been photographed and filmed at a club with someone who was not Lisa, though there was no word from Lisa and no sightings of her. Neither my sister or Tyler were considered big names or newsmakers. She and I seemed to exist on the outer rim of celebrity culture—me because I actively rejected it, her because (I hypothesized) she tried too hard to be a part of it.
After I tired of searching for news on Lisa, I clicked through several of my bookmarks, checking to see if the latest editions of my favorite peer-reviewed publications had been published. They had not. So I busied myself by reading random news stories until doing so made me want to stab someone. I closed my laptop.
And then, debating and dismissing all my non-Abram-related options, I realized I was officially bored.
* * *
It was 6:03 AM and I was awake.
Despite falling asleep after midnight—after spending the remainder of the evening wandering around a silent house, in a boredom funk, eventually watching slowly loading, low res YouTube videos on how to do makeup and hair—I could not go back to sleep.
As dawn gave way to day, I lay in bed, wondering what the last Hawaiian tree snail was up to these days as well as how I could arrange things such that Abram was told the truth about me, about Lisa, without everything going to Venus (hell).
By 7:00 AM I accepted the fact that I had just as much insight into the thoughts of the last Hawaiian tree snail as I had into fixing my present predicament. Therefore, best not to think about either.
The next hour was spent taking a meticulous shower. I—gasp!—washed my hair. And then I tried to give myself a blowout. I did okay, but more practice was needed, and more understanding of what product to use, how much, and at what stage. I added this knowledge deficiency to my list of videos to watch for the day.
Once the hair was done-ish, I (quietly and clandestinely) followed the tutorial I’d saved to my phone for how to do “day eyeliner.” Apparently, there was a difference between day and night eyeliner, as well as occasion eyeliner and non-occasion eyeliner (aka everyday eyeliner). Basically, there was an eyeliner strategy for all possible situations.
Are you meeting your boyfriend’s parents? There’s an eyeliner for that.
Are you going to an office party, during the holidays, but not a Christmas event? There’s an eyeliner for that.
Are you flying to Hawaii to view the last Hawaiian tree snail? . . . there was no eyeliner for that. But, should I survive the remainder of this week, I was tempted to record a tutorial for it.
A full hour and a half later, I was dressed and 100 percent ready to do absolutely nothing productive all day. Giving my laptop’s new hiding place one last longing look and mentally cursing the lack of high-speed internet, I meandered downstairs. I hadn’t appreciated how much I would miss having meaningful tasks to occupy my mind until they were no longer an option.
Striding into the kitchen, I didn’t even sniff the air. Honestly, I was sorta kinda hoping to run into Abram. I hadn’t seen him since spying on him from the window yesterday. The house had been quiet, like I was completely alone, its sole occupant. I’d been tempted to venture into the basement last night, where the recording studio was housed, or to the third floor, where he was occupying a guest bedroom. I didn’t.
This morning, however, the temptation felt more like an incessantly prodding urge and I used food to justify it, arguing with no one about the fact that I was hungry. I’d noticed he’d
cleared away the chocolate cake donuts at some point, so I couldn’t even eat those. There’d been no decent food in the fridge for days, so of course I must find him and force him to go out with me for food. And if, incidentally, we had to share a meal and talk to each other . . .
But then I opened the fridge, as though to prove what I already knew to be true, and discovered it was now stocked with essentials: eggs, butter, cheese, a variety of vegetables, hummus and several kinds of healthy-ish dips, both raw and cooked chicken breasts. I could easily make a healthy and hearty breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No problem.
Stupid food.
I made myself eggs and toast. I ate them. They were delicious. My stomach was happy with the best breakfast I’d had since arriving in Chicago, but my heart still felt sick and my brain still felt bored.
The discombobulation persisted throughout the day as I wandered the empty main and second floors, checking the clock, wondering when Gabby would arrive. Eventually, I watched a few more tutorials on hair product usage. One of my bookmarked peer-reviewed journals uploaded their monthly publication; I read it from start to finish, jotting down a few thoughts in the composition book that held my current research notes.
I made a big salad for lunch and used all the cooked chicken. I also made four cups of peppermint tea which necessitated four trips to the bathroom. After my late lunch, I managed to read a few chapters of Moby Dick. If ever there was a time to remind myself of life’s disappointments, now was that time.
All the while brain-bored and heart-sick. Or maybe I’m heart-bored and brain-sick?
Afternoon finally, finally crept into evening with no sign of Gabby. Okay. Yes. I was actually looking forward to her visit, and not just because I’d be grilling her for answers about Lisa’s arrest. I . . . liked talking to her. I know! It was like I didn’t even know myself anymore!