One & Only (Canton)

by Daniels, Viv

  “That’s secret admirers for you,” she said. “Like I said, there’s a reason they’re secret. Either you don’t want to be with them or they can’t be with you. What’s up? He have a girlfriend?”

  “No.” Not anymore.

  “Religious differences?”

  “No.” I didn’t even know if Dylan had religion.

  She eyed me warily. “He didn’t—did he just want to get you into bed?”

  I groaned. “I didn’t sleep with him, Mom.” Not this time, anyway.

  Back at Cornell, what Dylan and I had was pure and perfect. We’d met, we’d fallen in love, we’d had sex. There were no rules, no restrictions. No Swifts or secrets hanging over me. We’d both been free and clear and we’d chosen each other. Now, I feared that was all tainted. Tainted by our deception, by my lies, by the rules I lived by and the ones we’d made in the past week. No wonder once he looked at the whole picture, he didn’t want me anymore. Maybe I was that girl—the one who only worked if it was all a lie.

  “Well, that’s good!” Her expression had lost none of its concern. “Oh, honey, I don’t know what to say. If he doesn’t realize what an amazing person you are, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

  It was the right thing to say. It was the patented mother script. It made perfect sense. But Mom hadn’t followed it herself. Dad didn’t love her enough to leave his wife, and she let him have her anyway.

  “Mom,” I asked now, in a voice so soft I wasn’t even sure it was audible. “If it hadn’t been for me, do you think you and Dad would still be together?”

  Her eyes widened. “Don’t even think about getting pregnant to tie a guy down, Tess. I’ll wring your neck.”

  That wasn’t what I’d meant, but it was all the answer I needed. Even now, she was defining it as losing Dad, rather than choosing Dad.

  “And don’t measure yourself by the choices Dad and I have made.”

  How could I avoid it, when history kept repeating itself?

  NINETEEN

  “And then what happened?” Annabel asked. It was late Friday morning, and we were seated at a big-top table at Verde, rolling silverware in cloth napkins. The powers that be at the restaurant had decided to change from green napkins to black for a “sleeker” look, but that meant doing a buttload of rollups before our shift today.

  I was giving the Warren girls the rundown on the latest Dylan developments. Annabel was staring with her mouth open as if I was relating the end of an action movie. Sylvia had stayed very, very silent.

  “Then…nothing,” I said. “I haven’t heard from him since. I even skipped class on Thursday so I didn’t need to see him.”

  “You?” Sylvia gasped. “Skipped class?” She pressed a hand to her heart in mock shock. “Jesus. Annabel, check to see if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are on the reservation list for tonight.”

  “Ha-ha,” I said and grabbed a few more forks.

  “But seriously,” said Annabel. “What’s the next step?”

  I shrugged as that squeezing feeling started in my chest again. “I don’t know. I think…I think maybe we’re doomed.” My fingers went to the T hanging around my neck. I don’t know why I’d put it on again today. Funny how in four short days it had become such a part of me.

  Sylvia snorted. “Doomed? Come on, Tess, I’m supposed to be the dramatic one around here. You’re the practical, scientific member of the group.”

  “Fine,” I replied. “The hypothesis doesn’t fit the data set and is therefore invalidated. Satisfied?” I rolled up a napkin full of silverware and slammed it a little too hard onto my finished pile.

  “The data set being what, exactly?” Annabel said. “That he didn’t want to jump into bed with you the second he dumped his girlfriend?”

  “No…”

  “Do you blame her for being suspicious?” Sylvia cut in. “He didn’t seem to have a problem jumping into bed with her when he had one.”

  Annabel pursed her lips. “What kind of man do you want him to be, Tess? The kind who cheats on his girlfriend with you or the kind who actually cares about a person he dates enough to not want to go running into some other woman’s arms before his ex has even had time to process the situation?”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Sylvia said. “Dylan’s both.”

  “Dylan’s neither,” I said. “He didn’t cheat—”

  “That’s debatable,” Sylvia mumbled.

  “—and not wanting to be with me the other night…that had nothing to do with Hannah. She never would have known what Dylan was up to.”

  “She didn’t have to know what he was up to if he just sneaked around with you, either,” Annabel pointed out. “Lots of people cheat on their significant others without their significant others knowing anything about it.”

  She was telling me this? Honestly, sometimes hearing the comments people made about Cheaters and Other Women and Sugar Daddies and Mistresses and whatever else made me want to, first, laugh out loud and, second, give everyone a lesson in reality. We weren’t exactly living in a penthouse suite, and my mom’s boobs were one hundred percent real.

  “But you’re not wrong,” she continued. “I think the other night had nothing to do with Hannah. It had to do with Dylan. Him wanting some time to himself was just as much about his own sense of morality as you not wanting to be with him until he’d broken up with Hannah was about yours.”

  I blinked at her.

  “It doesn’t matter what she knows and does not know,” Annabel explained. “You didn’t want to be the other woman, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And he didn’t want to be the guy who bed-hopped.” Annabel looked at me triumphantly. “See?”

  I remembered what Dylan had said to me, back at the lab. I’m mad at me. “But if that were the case, wouldn’t he say, ‘Okay, let’s wait a week and then we can be together’? After all, I gave him rules.” Rules like no sex, no kissing, no phone sex until he’d broken up with Hannah.

  “Rules?” Sylvia repeated, incredulous. “What rules?”

  I lost my voice. Fortunately, Annabel filled in for me.

  “She said she wouldn’t be with him until he was single. Which I think was the right move. You respected yourself, you respected Hannah, and now he’s trying to show the same respect.” She shrugged. “He just…maybe wasn’t quite as explicit about what he needed as you were when you asked him?”

  “Yeah,” said Sylvia, grinning. “Tell me more about these rules of yours, Tess. Because in my head, they look that that contract Christian gave Anastasia in Fifty Shades of Grey.”

  I blushed furiously and stared down at my silverware. Fucking rules. Chalk that up as another thing normal people don’t have in relationships.

  “I like the idea of rules,” Annabel said. “Written down or not. Spells out your relationship. No one is left confused, or hurt, or…” She lifted her shoulders and went back to rolling.

  Or alone and pregnant without a clue of what she might expect from the father of her child, as Annabel had been. Yeah, rules could come in handy. At least by following the rules, my mother knew she could count on her lover to take care of her and their baby.

  The trouble was, I was already in the middle of a game with Dylan, and I had no idea what we were playing.

  ***

  Sometime during my shift that evening, I felt a text buzz through to my phone. I pulled it out of my pocket to look at the display.

  Can I see you tonight?

  I showed Sylvia, who was passing with a tray. She shook her head, skepticism painted all over her features. “Last-minute enough for you? Might as well say, ‘Can I see you tonight for a booty call?’”

  No. At work, I typed back.

  I checked on a few tables, then looked at my phone again.

  After work is fine. I can come to Verde.

  Sylvia snatched the phone from my hand. When she handed it back, I saw she’d typed:

  After work is time for my beauty rest. You think thi
s happens all by itself?

  I shrugged and pressed send.

  “Good girl,” said Sylvia. “Make him sweat.”

  Except I was the one sweating. If he wanted to see me tonight, did that mean he was ready to be together, or did it mean he wanted to tell me it would never happen?

  Either way, Sylvia probably had it right. I should play it cool. Don’t let him know how much I needed him. My fingers went to my throat again, where I’d put on Dylan’s silver T, though I’d hidden the necklace beneath the neckline of my shirt. Only I knew it was there. Only I knew how much this would break me.

  A few minutes later, another buzz in my pocket.

  Then tell me when.

  Oh, now it’s my turn to say when? I typed back furiously. I went to press Send, then thought better of it. Instead, I deleted the message. I put the phone away. Make him sweat, Sylvia had said. Fine. It was his turn, anyway.

  But my fingers itched to pull my phone out of my pocket, to tell him to come now now now. I’d had enough of lying, enough of playing games. All I wanted was Dylan. If he was ready for me, I was here.

  I forced myself through the next fifteen minutes without pulling my phone out of my pocket. Finally, in a lull at work, I gave in to temptation.

  No new messages.

  Shit. Shit shit shit. I really hated Sylvia. And Dylan. And me, for ever trying to play some stupid game instead of just telling him the truth. Because hadn’t that always been Dylan’s M.O.? Telling me exactly how he felt? No games, no pretenses, no lies unless it was absolutely necessary to help Hannah for one of the most miserable weeks of her life?

  And worst of all was that sad, sick voice in the back of my head, that drumbeat of see? You are that girl. He wants you now, there’s nothing keeping you apart, and you can resist him. You are that girl who only wants the boys you shouldn’t have.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up into Sylvia’s concerned face.

  “Girlfriend, you look like crap. Finish your tables and go home.”

  Just what I needed. More time alone with my thoughts. I shook my head resolutely.

  “I’m not suggesting. I’m telling.” She slipped my phone out of my pocket. “You can have this back tomorrow. Go home. Get some sleep.”

  I stared at the phone. “You realize this doesn’t stop me from just going over to his place.”

  “I give you more credit than that. Go home, Tess.”

  I went home. I found half a bottle of white wine in the fridge, poured myself a glass, drew a bath, and had a nice, long soak while I sipped wine and read a magazine.

  That lasted for about fifteen minutes. Then I got too tired to hold the pages of the magazine high and dry above the bubbles and pitched it over the side to land on the bathmat. I sank further into the suds, bringing the stem of the wine glass with me. I tilted the wine into my mouth so the bowl and my chin all got bearded in white foam as I drank, the sweet wine mixing with the scent of lavender and rosewater from the bath. I remembered the way Dylan had tasted when we’d kissed, like the retsina we’d been drinking. Wine and wood and warm.

  I lifted my hips in the tub, bubbles popping against my more sensitive parts as they crested, then sank, then crested again. And it was nice, really, this tease, relaxing and comforting, like the way the water sloshed and echoed around the outdated, dark tiles of our tub. But not enough.

  My chest was half-covered with bubbles, the silver of Dylan’s chain tracing a sudsy V from my neck to the hollow between my breasts, the double-helix T like an exclamation point at the bottom. Bubbles clung to the metal, melting and sliding in a trail down from my breasts to my navel.

  I closed my eyes, lay my head back against the rim of the tub, and let my hand follow the trail, longing for release, longing for relief, really. I’d been on edge for a week now, ever since the party, the closet, the phone…

  The silver cooled against my skin, and I shifted in the bubbles, trying to find the purchase and pressure to get me where I needed, to no avail. I could always handle things myself, but that did nothing to slake the need Dylan had planted in me.

  The problem, of course, was that it wasn’t sexual. Not wholly, anyway. Yes, I wanted to tear Dylan’s clothes off, but more than that, I wanted him with me, the way he’d been all semester, talking to me about algae and laughing with me about typos in his notes and lighting up when I served him meals at Verde. I missed that, too. Maybe, in time, I could have been happy with that. Just that.

  No. Abruptly, I stood and pulled the plug. As the suds drained down, I turned on the shower and stood beneath the spray until the bubbles were gone and sanity had returned. We couldn’t go back. The next time Dylan called, I’d answer.

  But it wasn’t until I was washed, dried and in bed, safely covered up in a nice pair of silk pajamas that I remembered Sylvia had swiped my phone.

  ***

  The next morning, I woke up, exorcised. I made tea, I made toast, I read the paper. It was easily 9:00 a.m. by the time I sat down in front of my computer to check my email.

  Among the new messages was one from Sylvia.

  Subject: Returning Your Phone

  Okay, in retrospect, it was a bad idea to take it last night. I totally can’t remember your mom’s home number. We’ll be lucky if I got the address right. I hope you get this in time.

  And forgive me.

  -S

  I furrowed my brows at the screen. Sylvia talking in code again? I wasn’t angry at her for taking the phone. She’d been right—I’d have driven myself crazy with it last night. And what was that crap about my address? I sincerely hoped she hadn’t mailed it to me when we’d be seeing each other at work in two hours.

  Our doorbell rang.

  “This is early,” Mom called from the kitchen. And unexpected. Maybe a neighbor looking to borrow a scoop of coffee? I pushed away from the desk, but by the time I’d left my room, she was already at the door.

  “Hi,” said a voice I recognized. “You must be Mrs. McMann. I brought donuts.”

  And now I could see him standing on the threshold, in jeans, a hooded Canton sweatshirt, and those damn, damning glasses. His hair was almost as floppy as when I’d first met him, but the scruff on his jaw told an entirely different story. It was years since high school; it was days since we’d last spoken.

  He saw me, too, and blindly handed off the pastries to my mom. “Tess.” Two steps, and he was in the room, and his hands were sliding up to cup my jaw, his fingers weaving into my sleep-mussed waves. “I can’t wait anymore,” he whispered, and then our lips touched, a soft, sweet press of mouth on mouth. A greeting. A promise.

  “Well,” said my mom. “I’d ask who you are, but I think I can guess. Necklace Guy.”

  He turned to her and stuck out his hand. “Sorry, where are my manners? I’m Dylan Kingsley.”

  “The lab partner?” My mom narrowed her eyes. “My daughter’s been holding out on me.”

  “That’s fair,” Dylan replied. “Turns out, I’ve been holding out on her.”

  ***

  “Don’t say things like that to my mom,” I said. We were out on the street, breathing in cool, crisp November air, the box of donuts forgotten on my kitchen counter as we walked and talked and figured ourselves out.

  “Things like what?”

  “That you’ve been holding out on me.”

  “But it’s true,” Dylan replied. “And it was also funny.”

  I gave a little shake of my head and looked away. “Your two favorite things.”

  “You’re my favorite thing.”

  I bit my lip. When he said things like this, I wanted to believe they were true. But Wednesday night…

  “Don’t worry about your mom,” he said now. “I’m really good with parents.”

  I could believe that. I’m sure he’d charmed the pants off Dad, right before breaking his other daughter’s heart.

  “So Sylvia gave you my address?”

  “And your phone.” He pulled it out and handed it ov
er. Our fingers brushed, and I nearly fumbled.

  “You think you’re good with parents?” I asked to cover my nerves. “Sylvia’s the toughest nut to crack of all. I can’t believe she told you where I lived.”

  “I swore I’d cause a scene if she didn’t. Since you seemed determined to avoid me at school and at home.” He shrugged. “And even on text.”

  “Sylvia took my phone,” I pointed out.

  “I meant your replies.”

  I walked on, quickly, so he had to jog to catch up. “So now what?” I asked. “You’re ready to come scoop me up? I’m not a library book you put on hold.”

  “No. Tess…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “If I hadn’t seen you on Wednesday—if I’d called in sick to the lab that night and taken a day or two, all by myself, and then come to you and told you it was over with Hannah, would we be standing here right now?”

  If, if, if. If I had never left him after Cornell, if Hannah hadn’t been sick last week, if Marie Swift hadn’t gotten pregnant with Hannah at the beginning of my parents’ affair … What was the point in thinking about ifs? We were here now.

  “Probably not,” I admitted. “Maybe it’s not always a good idea to tell the truth.”

  “I will never believe that. But yeah, timing might be an important factor.” Dylan reached for me, and I let him curl his fingers around mine.

  We walked that way for a while, hand in hand, not saying anything.

  “I want to be with you, Tess,” he said softly, squeezing my hand. “Tell me how to make that happen.”

  “It’s happening. It’s already happened.”

  He stopped, so abruptly I swung around on the sidewalk until I faced him. His expression was filled with wonder, his blue eyes with wild relief. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  My free hand flew to my throat, to the silver T hanging there. “What do I need to tell you, Dylan? I’m here, you’re here. There’s nothing to keep us apart anymore. Am I happy about what happened at the lab last week? No. Were you happy when I stopped calling you two years ago? Of course not. But that didn’t stop you when I came back, and I’m not going to let one stupid night stop us now.”