Victoria’s bare back was facing me once again, her golden blonde hair splayed out across the pillow. It could have been Aly lying there, too. To the eye they were so similar in body type, but to the touch Victoria was way softer. She didn’t workout like Aly. I missed Aly’s firmness. I missed her clean, sweet smell. I missed Aly’s everything. It’d been months since I’d obsessed about her. In fact, meeting Victoria was exciting. We connected instantly and it was fun for a while, she took my mind off of Aly, almost completely. Now here I was again, in that place I wanted so bad to vacate, my own Hotel California ~ you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave ~ The Eagles. I should tattoo those lyrics on me somewhere. What the fuck was wrong with me?
I wanted to get back to New York. To get back into the studio and to the girl I’d been seeing there, Sophia. That would help right? I really liked Sophia. She was nothing like Aly at all. We’d only gone on a few dates before I had to leave. We exchanged a few emails, all playful and never serious. That’s what I needed. Nothing serious and Victoria mentioned one night she wanted to move to New York to try something new. Ugh. Really? I guess that’s what those trust fund Euro’s do. They just float where the wind took them. I was no longer gonna fill her sails.
“Now you know you could have someone else doing that for you.”
Victoria’s smooth raspy voice startled me and I tripped over her red stilettoes. I knew those things could kill someone. Her accent reminded me of Notting. That’s right, another reminder of home, I needed to return his call.
“Hey. Yeah well, considering I can’t stand looking at all this shit anymore.”
“I’ll call someone right over…”
“No,” I interrupted, “No, really, please, Victoria. Thank you. It’s fine. I have a washer and dryer right down the hall. Um, it would help if you could gather your stuff up too.”
I wondered how that last part came across but I wanted her to leave, even though she looked beyond sexy lying there with her perfect breasts peaking out through her hair. She stretched out her arm and rubbed the empty space in the bed.
“Come back to bed. You must not be feeling well. I could change that you know.”
I felt a pang in my groin.
“Yeah?” Who was I to deny myself one last romp with a willing participant? Dropping the basket I made my way around the mess. The closer I got I could smell the staleness left over from last night. Then an idea popped in my head.
“Let’s take a shower.”
“Look at you, something new.” She hummed.
She slid out of bed and tossed her blonde mane behind her. Her lilywhite skin was flawless and her pale pink nipples stood erect. I couldn’t deny my physical attraction for her. “After you.” I said smiling and held out my arm directing the way. “Start the shower. I’ll be there in a sec, the shampoo’s out.”
I knew exactly what I was doing but I just had to get rid of the decay that agonized my senses. I wanted a clean, refreshing scent. I wanted something from home. I rummaged through a duffle bag and grabbed out an old bottle of Suave Strawberry Citrus Rush, Aly’s signature scent.
I stepped into the shower placing the bottle on the tan tiled bench. I took Victoria in my arms and kissed her, shifting around so the water’s warmth would wrap around me. She released me and I watched her as she squeezed the pink tinged gel into the palm of her hand.
She giggled. “Where did you find this?”
“It’s just something I picked up along the way.”
“Ah, mhmm.” She smiled knowingly, as if she knew.
I paused, not sure how to react to that. She lathered her hair into a thick bubbly helmet. Thank God she wouldn’t smell like an ashtray anymore, and whatever else she thought smelled good. She moved me out of the way rinsing her hair and I picked up the bottle and held it under my nose closing my eyes. The most vibrant happy memories of Aly flashed in front of me. That was so long ago. Then I thought of how I left her, crying and broken.
“Darling, no.” Victoria said softly, rousing me from my time warp. “Let me wash your hair.”
She gently took the bottle from my hands. I watched as she drizzled more gel into her palm, then she began running her shampoo caked fingers through my hair. “Tip your head down more, here, sit down on the bench.”
Victoria was only a couple of years older than me, twenty, but she was way more secure with her sexual being than any American girl I’d been with. I’d heard that European woman were way more sexually forward thinking and now I believed it to be true, like it was wired in them since birth not to be self-conscious or something. Our first few nights together she’d taken control. Until then I’d never gone down on a girl long enough for her to have an orgasm or at least I didn’t think I did. There was nothing more arousing with anyone else other than being with Aly, and even then Aly and I only stayed on the surface. Victoria was sensual, knowing and slow moving. She was tantalizing. She talked me through everything and explained exactly how she liked it. From then on, it only took me a few minutes to please her that way. That sexual act was the only one that I’d felt inept. That was no more.
I sat with my eyes closed as she gently massaged my scalp. I opened them to her belly button only a few inches away from my lips. Of course I couldn’t help but glance down. She didn’t have one hair on her, smooth from a Brazilian wax job. That turned me on. I reach up wrapping my hands around her tiny waist and kissed her stomach. A soft moan escaped her. My hands roamed over her slippery, wet body to her breasts and between her legs. I kept my eyes closed as my tongue played with her nipple. The strawberry scent was overpowering and I fought to focus on Victoria, but Aly kept popping in my head.
“Jake, rinse your hair.” Her breathy voice prompted.
I stood with a hard on and backed into the water rinsing the suds from my hair. I felt her hand gently wrap around me and her lips pressed eagerly against mine. As much as it felt good, it was wrong. It was wrong in so many ways. Not only because I was going to ask her to leave, but I was turned on because I was fantasizing about Aly. I felt the guilt drape over me. Taking Victoria in my arms I held her. I knew I shouldn’t go any further. She kissed and sucked at my neck as her hands roamed my backside.
“Are you ok?” she whispered.
“No, actually I’m not. I feel sick, like I’m gonna puke.” Those same words, why do I always default to those words? Like I’d done with Rachel all those months ago?
She released me looking up and taking my face in her hands. I was sick that she wasn’t Aly staring back at me. I’d filled the air with her scent and pretended for a second it was her. What an asshole. Victoria was beautiful and willing and she deserved more. I felt like history was repeating itself. The whole Aly thing came out of nowhere. I didn’t realize I’d be taken by the familiar smell. What an idiot. I wasn’t over her like I’d thought I was. I’d convinced myself that thinking of her from time to time was just a normal thing, as I’d thought of all my other friends I’d been missing. Victoria didn’t know about Aly, and it wouldn’t make a difference now anyway.
I sat on the edge of the bed watching Victoria gather her things, folding and gently placing them in their designated bags. Royal blue Rag and Bone skinny jeans and a black and silver muted Iro blazer remained out. I was schooled on her fashion choices and their meaning as I shopped with her day after day. She hadn’t wanted to go home since we’d met. She lived in the country, an hour outside of London. I wondered why she never wanted to invite me to her place.
“Victoria, I’m curious. Why haven’t you invited me to your house?”
“Oh, I don’t know…it’s just been a thrill…to be in the moment, you know…I,” She trailed off. There was something that flashed across her face. She wasn’t telling me everything.
We looked at each other for a long moment and she giggled, nervously. She walked past me to her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes. “You know how it goes, Jake, reality is just…reality. My family is a little difficult.”
She pulled a long slim cigarette out of its pastel green casing and played with it between her fingers. I never noticed she had her nails painted a pale green color.
“Please don’t smoke.” I said decisively.
“You never minded before.” An edge sprung to her voice to match my tone.
“I did, I just didn’t say anything. The smell isn’t something I can tolerate. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
She sighed deeply. “What else is there?”
I was surprised her question came with a smile and glint in her eye, like she was daring me to continue.
“There’s nothing other than that.” I shrugged.
“So it’s a deal breaker?” She lit her cigarette and walked to the balcony with the white toxic cloud drifting out behind her. I watched it as it hovered there and it made me mad.
I thought about it. It actually was. “Was there a deal?” I asked smugly. It was the first time I’d spoken to her like that. I’d never acted like a dick toward her but I was no longer playful nor in the mood to be challenged by her. I wasn’t gonna be some toy of hers.
She turned to face me and a shift of sadness filled her normally bright eyes. “I suppose not.”
***
I sat in front of my computer staring at the tiny pale yellow folders that stacked on top of each other in the saved area of my email. Legal, Images, Rufcuts, Mastered, Drafts – my eyes bounced from folder to folder, on and on, avoiding the one that read Personal. I don’t even know how many months it’d been since Aly sent me her last and final email. I deleted all of the others except that one. I’d never had the heart to open it and read it. I guess now was as good of a time as any. I looked around my room as if someone would be looking over my shoulder or something, catching me doing something wrong. There was no sign of Victoria. It’s like she’d never been there at all, with the exception of the faint smell of cigarette smoke. I wondered how long it would take before it disappeared completely. Would I be packed and gone before then? Would I take it back to New York as a reminder that I wasn’t able to let go of Aly even with nearly a year apart and six thousand miles between us?
Tap.
My heart raced as I read the subject line. The reason I’d never opened it to begin with.
_____________________
Aly Montgomery
To: Jake Masters
I HATE YOU, YOU COWARD.
I gulped.
Tap.
______________________
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: I HATE YOU, YOU COWARD
I hope you never come home. I never want to lay eyes on you ever again. You’re a chicken shit coward, Jake. I never would have thought in a million years you’d blow me off in such an unfeeling and callous way. Have a nice life.
I’m glad I never said it back,
Alyssa
________________________
Then nothing else. Are you fucking kidding me? My heart raced even faster. She never did say it back. No matter how much I professed my love, “I love you, Aly”. My voice echoed in my head and so did her always response, “You’re my everything.” I’d finally gotten the balls to ask her why she’d refused to tell me she loved me. “Don’t you love me too? I mean if you don’t then maybe this is all wrong.” She gave the most honest answer she could have given. “There’s so much against us. I don’t want to say it and have it squished into the ground. You’re my everything, ever since the beginning. Always.”
What was I supposed to do? She was right, everything was stacked against us and it all came tumbling down.
The last time I talked to Aly’s brother, Kyle, he said Aly was hanging with that Matt whatever his face, Skateboard Boy. Of course she was. He was safe. I bet Mr. Montgomery was so fucking stoked. My stomach balled up. I looked at the clock. It was 8pm, noontime in California. I had rehearsal in a couple more hours. I needed to get going if I wanted to finish my laundry. I stared at the screen. Should I reply, after all this time? Was she completely over me? I owed it to myself to find out, right? Especially after what happened with Victoria. Maybe Aly telling me to leave her alone, after all this time is just what I needed, the final nail in the coffin.
______________________
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: I HATE YOU, YOU COWARD
You’re right. I am a coward. I don’t even know where to start or if you even want to read this. I guess I’ll leave it simple. Do you still hate me? Do you still never want to lay eyes on me again?
I’m still gonna say it. I love you, Alycat. I hope you’ve been great. I hope you’re dominating volleyball. I hope one day that you’ll be able to stand in the same room as me. Know that I left because I had to, not because I wanted to. For the both of us.
- Jake
________________________
I hit send and stared at screen as if she’d instantly reply like an IM. I laughed at myself. What an idiot. Regret seeped in. Ugh! I rose so quickly from my seat that the chair toppled over behind me. I was so frustrated I picked it up and chucked it on the bed as hard as I could, watching it crash into the bedside table. Wine glasses shattered and the linen colored lampshade tore wide open when it hit the floor. Would it ever be over? Would she ever not be every breath I take? Every Breath You Take – I shouted out, every move you make…I’ll be watching you. - The Police. Fuck, there’s another song. I sat on the sofa and pulled my guitar close to me. I placed my cheek against its cool surface. Should I do a cover? Should I do a remake of that song? Put my own twist on it? I began strumming, singing the entire song.
I played another tune and then got up and grabbed my notepad…
Best Years
We had the best years
Of our lives
But you and I will never be the same
September took me by surprise
And I was left
To watch the seasons change
It’s been so quiet since you’ve gone
Everyday seems more like a year
Some times I wish I could move on
But memories would all just disappear
So many things I shoulda said when I had the chance
So many times we took it all for granted
I never thought this could ever end
Never thought I’d lose my best friend
Everything is different now
Can’t we stop the world from turning
Looking back on better days
But we were young
We thought we knew so much
And now it seems so far away
I’m wondering if I was good enough
So many things I shoulda said when I had the chance
So many times we took it all for granted
I never thought we would ever end
I never thought I’d lose my best friend
Everything is different now
Can’t we stop the world from turning
I never thought I’d have to let you go
Never thought I’d feel this low
Gone are all the days
When we swore we’d never break
Now I’m left here alone
Never thought this would ever end…
I finished the song in two hours. I’m exhausted and chide myself for actually crying. What a pussy. I think of Notting and my mom. This song was for him too. He deserved more from someone else. My mom would always be stuck in the past, just like me, her and I were both cowards. Afraid of letting go as if the memories would disappear or by some miracle would bring everything back to a happier time. I thought of my dad, I barely knew him. I thought of Notting who was everything a dad should be. He would never have his own children because he’d waited for my mother, who never gave him any. Was she really that selfish? I didn’t know what to think about anyone anymore.
Staring at my glowing computer screen I saw that Aly replied
and my heart came out my ear. Why was I shocked? My hands went numb and my feet felt like they were cemented into the ground. I couldn’t move.
Tap.
______________________
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: I HATE YOU, YOU COWARD
Jake – Is this real or a dream? I guess I’ll begin with I love you, too. I’ve loved you since the first time you touched me. I should have told you. I should have been real with you, and not listened to everyone else. I should have said it a million times and maybe things would have been different. I think about you every day, too many times to count and I hope you can forgive me for being so selfish not realize the gravity of everything going down. I don’t think you’re a coward. I think you’re so much stronger than me. I do want to lay my eyes on you again and so much more. I hope you can forgive me for all my harsh words.
I love you.
Aly
________________________
I didn’t know how to react. Elation ran through me along with fear and a slew of other feelings that I couldn’t comprehend. My phone rang and I dashed over to it. Was it Aly? No. It was the guys, wondering where I was. I could never tell them that Aly professed love for me, finally. They hadn’t heard her name in months. They had no idea the hold she still had on me. I sighed with relief, finally the void was filled and the rough edges smoothed. I felt new. I had to call her. I had to hear her voice.
My hands trembled as I dialed her number. Really? It had to be the adrenaline. When I heard her voice, everything disappeared. Now, it seemed, the only thing standing between us was time and distance.
I never did make it to band practice.
First Kiss (Heavy Influence) Page 39