You Should Smile

by Lee, Renee

  I didn’t move.

  “I swear, I’ll break it down if I have to…..Open up the door NOW!” He roared out that last part. I had a vision of what my neighbors must’ve thought about the crazy girl in Apartment C3 and the people she hung out with. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but I didn’t have the energy.

  I screamed from the couch. “Go away!”

  “NO!” More pounding. “Open the fucking door! I’m not leaving until you talk to me.” More pounding.

  I jumped off the couch and grabbed the door, opening it in a rage. “What the fuck, Thad? You can’t just cause a huge scene in the hallway!” I screamed, before realizing I was doing just that.

  He stood in the open doorway, panting. “Let me in, Shay, or I’ll cause another one.” I glanced up at him and saw he was wearing khaki pants and a button-down shirt, rolled up, which only accentuated his arms. He looked disheveled and tired. His five o’clock shadow from yesterday was more like an eleven-o’clock shadow now. He looked like a deranged L.L. Bean model. Casting aside those thoughts, I finally stepped aside to let him in.

  He stomped into the living room and turned around. “Why’d you leave? I told you I wanted to talk to you!”

  I held my chin up. “I didn’t want to talk anymore. I’ve already heard what you had to say. Besides, why don’t you go talk to Dani?”

  He shifted his stance and bellowed. “I don’t want to talk to Dani. I want to talk to YOU!”

  I was so tired of his crap. And his rage just pissed me off. “What could you possibly have to say to me that I need to hear, Thad?”

  He shut his eyes, grimacing. “Can I fucking sit down, at least?”

  I stepped aside, letting him move past me to sit down on the couch. I remained standing a few feet away, arms crossed.

  He looked up at me, his voice still raised, tense. “You scared the ever living shit out of me last night, Shay….” He hesitated, his voice softer. “You could’ve really gotten hurt……You have no idea…..”

  I looked down, ashamed. “I uh….I don’t really remember what happened…..I was pretty drunk….”

  His look was incredulous. “Pretty drunk? He was trying to grope you and you couldn’t even stand up to fight him off…..Fuck, Shay….” I saw the pain in his eyes.

  “What happened?” I whispered. I wanted to know.

  He shook his head, frowning. “Chris told me that you were there. I’d wanted to leave, but they wouldn’t let me. So I was just sitting there, in a shitty fucking mood, listening to the band, when I saw you walk in with that guy. I could tell how wasted you were. I couldn’t look away…..” He paused, setting his jaw. “I watched as he grabbed your ass first and you slapped him away….I stood up…..Then he tried to kiss you….I saw you shake your head ‘no’ and stumble…..That was all it took…..”

  I shifted my balance, arms still crossed. He looked like he wasn’t going to continue, so I said, “And….”

  He sighed and looked over to the window. “I…uh….I was so fucking angry. I pushed through a crowd of people with Chris and Lance following behind, yelling at me to stop.” He laughed a hollow laugh. “They know me too well. I grabbed that dude from behind and turned him around….and then punched him. I think I broke his nose. Chris and Lance were right there, holding me back. I probably would’ve fucking killed him…...”

  Tears were streaming down my face. Treacherous, treacherous emotions give me away. I couldn’t be strong anymore. My voice was barely above a whisper. “Why?”

  He looked up at me, just as fatigued and weak, it seemed. “Don’t you know why?”

  I continued to let the tears fall, silently and stoically. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

  He continued to search my eyes, the pain evident on his chiseled, handsome face. “The cops found a date rape drug on that guy, Shay. I’d hauled you out of there before the cops came, but that guy insisted he was gonna press charges, so Chris stuck around to talk to the cops as my lawyer. He had a hunch and asked them to search that dude for drugs. He called about 4 a.m. and said that the cops weren’t gonna press charges against me because they arrested that guy for possession of GHB….I’d already taken you to my place, so the cops told Chris that by the time we got you anywhere to get tested, the drugs would be gone from your system….so there’s no way to really know….” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed forcefully, clearly choking back his emotions. “I wish I had killed him…..”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I tried to think back. Had I been drugged? I’d drunk so much already that it was hard to tell. I didn’t know whether my lack of memory was from the alcohol or a drug. I hugged my arms around my chest tighter, tears still flowing down my face. I felt so stupid. So vulnerable. So violated.

  With his elbows resting on his knees, he put his head into his hands, looking down at the carpet. “I was so fucking scared, Shay. I just sat in the chair and watched you sleep all night. I had to go into the office this morning for a little bit, but Chris said even if you’d been drugged, you’d be okay by then….I was hoping to be back before you woke up so we could talk about what happened….” He took a deep, rasping breath.

  “I’d never seen you like that.” His chest rose and fell. “I thought I was doing the right thing by pushing you away, but all I did was fuck up everything. You could’ve really gotten hurt….You could’ve been raped or worse….Oh god….How could I have lived with myself?” His chest started heaving and I suddenly realized that he was crying. He was always an oak tree to me, maybe even hickory – a wood capable of extreme strength that could withstand anything, even years and years of wear and tear.

  But he wasn’t an oak tree or a hickory tree. He was human.

  “I knew what I was getting into with you, Thad. I wanted it. I don’t regret it…..” I started crying heavily, too, the words coming out in choked sobs. “Please don’t bear that burden. You couldn’t have known….”

  He looked up finally, eyes rimmed with tears. “This last month has been a nightmare. I can’t eat; I can’t sleep; I can barely breathe….”

  I knew then that he’d been just as despondent and bereft as I’d been the entire time. He was hurting, too. I didn’t want to be angry at him anymore. “Don’t push me away anymore, Pickup Grinner. Please? We can face whatever happens together….” I pleaded.

  With his face still in his hands, he nodded.

  I walked over to him and got down on my knees before him, lifting his hands away from his face. I began to kiss the path of his tears. When I pulled back, he reached out with his rough thumb and wiped my own tears before leaning in to kiss me tenderly. I just wanted to hold him, to be near him, to wrap myself inside him. I didn’t want to think about anything else.

  I got up off my knees and lightly pushed him back against the back of the couch. As he watched me with tentative eyes, I unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them down, along with my underwear. His eyes clouded over with a look of dark lust, but still he sat, just watching. I pulled my top over my head and slowly reached back to unclasp my bra and drop it to the floor. I moved over to him and reached down, unbuttoning his jeans. His eyes still fixated on me, he lifted his hips to let me pull his jeans and boxers down. He pulled his feet out of his flip flops and then from his jeans and boxers. I tossed them all aside. I stepped in between his legs and reached my hands toward his stomach, just above the head of his hard dick and he flexed his stomach muscles automatically in response to my touch. I scraped my nails along his abs with one hand as my other hand raised his t-shirt. His blue, passionate eyes were still locked with mine as he lifted his arms to assist me in taking it off. No words were spoken. Words were unnecessary.

  I moved to straddle him on the couch. Hovering over him, I lowered my hips to reach the head of his dick. I grasped his hardness softly, guiding it to meet my opening. Moving my hips back and forth slowly, I rubbed my wetness across his head. He responded with a loud, feral groan, still fixated on my eyes. Then, I hesitated,
remembering that we needed a condom. I moved to get off the couch and he grabbed my arm, shaking his head.

  “Don’t. I want to feel you…..I trust you.”

  That’s when I really knew how he felt. I knew it deep within my soul, as sure as he’d actually said the words out loud.

  I repositioned myself over his dick and could feel the head slip inside. I readjusted my weight forward, pushing down until his entire length filled me. He made a soft moaning sound as he searched my eyes. It felt so good to have him inside me with no barrier between us. I began to move up and down, riding him slowly. Our eyes were saying things we dared not say aloud, allowing the silence to permeate instead. As I rode him, he grabbed my ass and thrust his hips upward in time with my movements. I rolled my hips softly at each thrust, letting him feel my tightness from all angles. Sexy guttural sounds echoed from his throat as he pushed and pulled me harder onto him.

  As our pace increased, my breasts began bouncing up and down with the rhythm. He leaned up and alternated between each nipple, pulling it into his teeth as we slammed into each other. It was as if all the heartbreak and frustration of our storms were being soothed by our bodies’ embrace.

  I could feel the orgasm as it loomed, so I reached down between us and circled my clit softly as I continued to ride. His eyes never left my face the entire time – not even to look at our union below. He was searching the depths of my soul and, as I circled my clit and looked into those bluest of eyes, I came hard. My inner walls began to contract around him, drawing a moan from deep within his chest as he held my gaze, never wavering. He finally pushed hard into me once, twice, and I felt the warmth of his come inside me as he screamed my name with a passion undone.

  As our bodies came to rest, he let out a long breath, his eyes still locked with my own. His hand came up to caress my cheek.

  “I love you, Smiles,” he said softly.

  I didn’t hesitate. “I love you, too, Pickup Grinner.”

  Those three little words, so common, yet so powerful. You wait to say them, you wait to hear them, you hold onto them, you cherish them, and then you give them away when the time feels right. It’s amazing, really. Humans invent thousands of languages full of millions of words, yet our relationships always come down to those three simple ones.

  With his dick still inside me, he gave me one of his best grins – eye-wrinkling, mouth-crinkling, panty-dropping. I smiled in return, while squeezing him with my inner walls. He groaned loudly.

  As I finally lifted off of him, his come trickled down my leg and he stared at the trail it left in a trance-like state. My heart reeled for a split-second. I feared he was regretting not using a condom. I was on birth control, but still I knew how much that betrayal had once gutted him. Instead, he reached out and tenderly collected his semen on his fingers. He then ran his calloused hand slowly up my inner thigh, rubbing my skin with his come. He was branding me with his seed.

  His eyes met mine. “It felt so good inside you without a condom. So different…..” He halted, looking back at his hand on my branded, wet thigh. “I like the thought of my come inside you.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly what those words meant and I was afraid to ask, so I just smiled. “I like it, too.”

  His face got hard again, his words serious. “Shay, no more drinking like that. It’s not healthy…..Agreed?

  “Agreed,” I nodded. He was right. I would never drink that much again.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Just like one of those “get-to-know-you” scenes from a movie, we stayed up that night talking about everything we could think of. It was like we were making up for lost time and running out of time to do so. We had to catch up on knowing everything about each other…..favorites, fears, fantasies, histories, tragedies, whatever we could think of to get inside the other’s head and heart…..

  ***************

  “I have a confession to make, Pickup Grinner.”

  “What is it?”

  “Drunken, stupid Shay followed Dani into the bathroom and overheard part of her cell phone conversation with someone. That’s why I got so drunk……I still can’t get it out of my head.”

  He pulled my face up to meet his. “What is it?”

  “Well, she said that she usually stayed at your place when she was in town and that you were ignoring her this time, so she probably wouldn’t be having sex this trip…..or something like that.”

  He frowned. “I hate that you heard that, Shay. Listen, I told you to ask me anything and I meant it. Are you sure you want to talk about this stuff, though?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I think we need to….Yeah.”

  “Okay. I met Dani my Junior year in college. She was our coach’s daughter and the trainer for our team. She’s two years younger than me. We dated for those two years until I graduated. She’s a great girl, really. I think you’d actually like her….but there was never that spark or that connection I feel with you…”

  He sighed and I nodded, encouraging him on.

  “I was graduating and heading across the country to grad school. I told her I needed some ‘time off’ to do that, which in guy terms means I don’t really want to date you because I’d like to see what else is out there, but maybe I’ll come back after I look around for a while. It’s a shitty thing to do, but I’m not the first to use that line, either. So, I go to grad school and we keep in touch – emails, visits, yeah even hook-ups now and then. I dated one girl in grad school pretty long-term, so I obviously quit all that with Dani during that time. But when Cam and I broke up, it was familiar to go back to Dani.”

  I held up my hand and stopped him. “Okay. You finish your story and then we talk about this ‘Cam’, too. Random references get explained. Okay?”

  He smirked a bit and nodded, before expelling a heavy breath.

  “I thought Dani and I were always on the same page. When we weren’t dating other people, we’d get together. When we were, we wouldn’t…” He trailed off. “It sounds worse than it is…I mean, I’d never considered a committed future with her or anything….” His jaw was getting tense, so I knew he was getting uncomfortable explaining.

  I sighed. “I get what you’re saying, but she probably cares more than you think she does. Most girls do in those situations. She wants you any way she can have you, even if it’s just for a while….”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah, maybe. That sounds pretty fucking callous on my part, doesn’t it?”

  I shook my head. “Not if you’ve always let her know where she stands, I guess.”

  “I’ve always tried to, Shay.” He winced. “She was here about a year ago and all I could think about was you, even then. I knew at that point that whatever she and I’d been doing was over…..and I had no intention of seeing her when she came into town this time. I didn’t know the guys had invited her to go out with us. She’s their friend, too….”

  “I get that.”

  “Anyway, if there was ever any question in her mind about me, I think last night answered it.” Laughing, he added, “I mean, I punched some dude in the face over you and then had you caveman-style over my shoulder. I don’t know how much clearer I could’ve made it that my interests were elsewhere….” I smiled at that vision, as he continued. “After I got you home, I texted her to make sure she made it home safely. She texted back that she had. Then she told me that she hoped you and I could find happiness together and wished us the best.”

  “That was nice. Why can’t all of your exes be like her?” I teased, referencing Crazy Gina.

  He huffed. “Tell me about it.”

  I paused, thinking back to what he’d said about Dani visiting a year ago. I also remembered that night on his birthday when he’d implied that his libido had been surviving on Skype memories. “So how long did you go without sex until me, Pickup Grinner?” Then, I immediately regretted asking. “Wait, no….don’t answer that…..”

  He grinned down at me. “Almost a year…….” I raised my eyebrows. He nodded. “Y
eah….The guys gave me the hardest time about it. I couldn’t even look at other girls. You ruined me. You were the only person I could even think about fucking and yet I couldn’t fuck you. I was stuck with my own angry libido…..He’s a real dick.”

  I laughed out loud.

  Then, I continued the conversation from earlier. “Okay, so tell me about this Cam girl….and any other long-term relationships. Let’s just get this over with.”

  He nodded. “Okay. I’ll start from the beginning, I guess.”

  “Wait, how many people are we talking about?” I teased.

  He shrugged. “Shay, I’m not gonna lie to you. I’ve had my fair share of sex over the years, but I’m a long-term relationship-type of guy. When I’m in a relationship, I’m usually in it for a long time….and I don’t cheat….so the list of people I’d consider ‘long-term’ isn’t very extensive.”

  That did make me feel better, I guess. I didn’t want to hear about the meaningless sex ones anyway. They didn’t matter in the end – unless they had an STD. Then, they mattered in the end. ‘The gift that keeps on giving,’ I thought to myself and snickered.

  He ignored my random though processes for once. “So I dated this girl named Pamela Fuller throughout high school.….Ummm…How much detail am I supposed to go into here?” he asked.

  “As much as you’d like to know if it were me telling it,” I answered honestly.

  “Alright, well then, uh….she was my first time. It wasn’t that great. I look back now and think, ‘Eh, that was that.’ Anyway, she broke up with me not long after we had sex. She wanted to try it out with others. My ego took a bit of a beating, but I recovered with a little practice.” He grinned. Obviously he’d not been too broken up over the news.

  “She sounds like a moron. What’s she doing now?”

  “Saw her at our ten-year reunion. She’d gotten pregnant in high school and married the football player who got her pregnant. He ended up cheating on her and leaving her with the kid. She was divorced at the reunion and hitting on me something fierce. Telling me she wanted to try again. I blew her off as nicely as I could. No thank you. Ugh.” He rolled his eyes and grinned. I immediately felt better about his first high school girlfriend.