The entire time we were sitting with Jade, I had to use every ounce of my patient virtue that I knew was inside me somewhere to resist bringing it up myself. Now that Jade had departed, I pounced.
“You’re really desperate to know, aren’t you?” Becca asked.
“Of course I am!” I said, trying to lift my marg to enunciate my point but failing under the weight.
“Well,” Becca said, sitting back. “What if I told you I wasn’t ready?”
“Then I would have to respect that,” I said. While she put distance between us, I moved closer. “But Becca, there’s a reason you brought it up to me and I hope it’s because you want to talk about it. That you’re not ashamed or so worried that you need to keep it covered or disguised or…”
“I’m not trying to hide anything.” She had to bend over her drink to take a sip, giving me a closer look at her expression. Pensive, tense, but not closing off. Good. “I’ve been trying to explain, and not very well I know, what’s going on to myself, never mind other people. This—” Becca pointed at herself “—this is not something I’ve ever done before. I’ve never been attracted to another female, wouldn’t think of ever making out with one or doing more…” she trailed off, looking to me, maybe to see if she was saying too much. But with me she could never be TMI. I was her friend, through everything, and I wanted her to know that.
“Can you tell me her name?” I asked carefully.
Becca rubbed her lips together. At first I thought she would even keep that much under lock and key, but then she said, “Sophia.”
“Beautiful.”
“Yes, and not only in name,” Becca said. “I’ve been using this private time to figure out what it is that I want. Am I pursuing a relationship with her? Like a bonafide match-up where we hold hands in public and call each other girlfriend? I haven’t had that since high school. Being taken, that’s not my thing. Or is it solely attraction? Are we just going to meet up and night and have amazing sex and have that be it?”
“What does she want?” I asked. I noticed our drinks (somehow) were dangerously close to the end, and I signaled for another round. There was no way the night could end now.
“She wants me,” Becca said. “Soph isn’t confused or scared. All she wants is for us to be happy together.”
“Has she had a relationship with a girl before?”
Becca nodded. “And guys, too.”
“Hmm.” I chewed on my straw. “And you’ve had six months to sort of see how it goes.”
“Exactly. She’s getting impatient.”
“And she might not stick around for much longer. Is that what you’re afraid of?”
Becca’s answer came out as a sigh. “Yes.”
“Honey.” I covered her hand on the table with my own. “There’s your answer.”
Becca stared at our hands, her brows drawing low. “Oh my God. I think you’re right.”
“You don’t want to lose her. Which means…” I inclined my head. “You want to be with her.”
“I do.” Becca’s mouth cracked open in a smile. “Holy shit, I fucking do.”
“Cheers!” I cried, and with perfect timing, the server set down our fresh cocktails. “To new relationships.”
“Here, here,” Becca said.
When we both clinked our five-pound sugar bombs together and slush poured down the sides, we laughed.
“One day, I hope to meet her,” I said, and I genuinely meant it.
“One day,” Becca repeated cryptically, and with the way she said it, I followed up with, “Oh my, you’re thinking of dirty things right now, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” Becca admitted, glancing sideways.
“I’m not taking you home tonight!” I realized.
Becca pulled out her phone with her tongue nestled in one corner of her lips. “Potentially not.”
I fell back in the chair, my marg coming with me. “Do tell, Becs.”
Becca paused in her texting. “Seriously?”
“This stuff is completely foreign to me! I’m genuinely interested.”
“About the sex?” Becca pointed to my drink precariously balanced in my hand. “Is that doing something to you?”
“Shit, yes,” I said, laughing. “But take advantage. Tell me everything. You’ve been dying to, admit it.”
“Well…” Becca said her phone down. “It has been hell keeping this from you, considering I’ve gotten to hear all about your Trev-capades and now your Spence-capades…”
And so she did. We talked for an hour more, Becca laying everything out, from the moment she met Sophia to the last time she’d seen her, and I sat through it all, riveted, shocked at times, but most of all, truly ecstatic that Becca had found someone who made her this chatty and flushed in the span of twenty minutes. Eventually, our colossal drinks beat us we and decided to go home. Becca said good-bye at the entrance to the bar, deciding on a apartment of a different sort tonight. I told her to be safe, good luck, and I’d maybe see her in the morning.
When I got home, it was a quiet type of night where I set my iPad on my thighs while laying in bed, attempting research but scrolling through Instagram instead. After landing on a celebrity model’s fabulous beach photos, I figured it was a sign to go to sleep.
My nerves didn’t grow wings until lunchtime the next day, when my phone reminded me of my meeting with Spence. He texted me his address and I locked my phone before Jade could peer over and see as we sat in the communal cafeteria.
It was the last session he and I had before my make-up midterm, and the nerve-wings grew more feathers as I realized tonight was the last excuse I had to hang out with him. After my midterm, if all went well, I wouldn’t need his services anymore. I’d have to become someone who actively pursued him, like catch him after class and say hello to him in the mornings, figure out excuses to ask him out for coffee, or dear god, a date…all the things I had never, ever done before.
Not to mention, there was also the one major possibility I had to consider: Spence may not be interested.
Five o’clock came up too fast, and there I was, in front of my closet again and tossing clothes on my bed. This time there was no Becca or Jade to catch the wayward fabric. For entirely different reasons, I searched for the perfect outfit. There was a red silk tank with long straps that led to the curve of cleavage, but would that be…
My face scrunched up in the full-length mirror as I held the shirt up. Did I have seduction on the brain? Is that where this was going?
“I hate being so dumb at this!” I said and tossed the shirt on top of the rest of the clothing I’d dismissed.
“What’d you say?” Jade asked through a mouthful of popcorn as she passed by my doorway.
“Nothing,” I muttered. “Merely getting dressed, a thing I’ve done since my toddler years, and somehow I’ve remained just as fashionably questionable.”
“The day you bust out a unicorn headband and green sequins, I’ll worry about you.” Jade balanced the popcorn bowl on my vanity before coming to stand beside me and peruse. “If anything,” she said, flicking through my hangers, “you’re too monochrome. Black, gray, red, oh—white, here we go.”
She pulled out a thin white cardigan. “Try this over that red number you just tossed over there.”
I fingered the fabric. “You think?”
“A little bit sexy, a little bit studious. He won’t be able to resist.” She winked.
I breathed out a laugh. “I’m that transparent.”
“You have the worst poker face I’ve ever witnessed,” she said solemnly. “Come on, get dressed, put on some lipstick, and maybe you can catch the beginning of Becca’s zombie marathon on Netflix.” Jace traced a circle around her face. “See my excitement.”
“I hate missing it,” I said while stripping off my top. “She gets so excited for these nights.”
“Believe me, there’ll be many more. Maybe one time you can bring the tantalizing tutor.”
I stepped into my jeans.
“When that happens, pinch me.”
“I won’t need to.” She patted my arm before swinging by the vanity, swiping her popcorn, and heading to the door. “Don’t get sucked into the worry. The chase makes us all sick.”
Jade left, and I finished getting dressed, giving one last glance to my mirror. This is fine, I thought. It’s going to be fine. I’m only going to his house to learn.
I slipped on my leather jacket and wound an oversized scarf around my neck a few times, yelled my good-bye to Becca and Jade as I sprinted past them so I wouldn’t be pulled into Zombie Night, and was halfway out the door before I remembered a crucial step: Perfume. I did a U-turn and flew past them again, but neither were looking at me at this point, and instead learning how eating human brains could have one inheriting a corpse’s memories. As much as Jade pretended to be exhausted with Becca’s obsession, she was sucked in like the rest of us were as soon as we looked at the screen.
I circled into my room and knocked through the containers on my vanity, searching past my foundation and hairspray and serums.
“Hey, guys?” I called.
“Uh?” one of them responded, their mouth full of snacks.
“Did one of you use my perfume?”
“Nope,” they said in unison.
“Then where is it?” I asked under my breath, still searching. It was a hard to miss the vial, bright purple and unique in its design, and yet it was nowhere. Considering I never carried it around the apartment with me, it was hard to comprehend its absence. My roommates weren’t ones to steal (except for pillows). But borrow and forget? Sure.
It still didn’t make sense. We each had our own scents, and neither had expressed interest to copy my signature perfume before.
“Still can’t find it?” Becca called.
My banging around glass bottles might’ve caused some annoyance on their end.
“It’s so strange,” I said.
“Go into my room, I have a bunch of testers from my ill-advised trip to Sephora the other day,” Becca said.
I came out of my room. The two of them were perched on the couch, each with one hand in the bowl between them as I walked by.
Becca’s free samples were strewn on her bed, a tipped over shopping bag beside them. I sifted through, sniffed and cringed at a couple, but eventually found some lavender thing that was passable. After dabbing behind my ears as well as the requisite pulse points, I was ready.
“Bye for real, guys,” I said as I passed them.
“Good luck!” Becca said.
“Don’t forget your book bag,” Jade said, and crap. I almost walked out empty-handed. Wouldn’t that’ve been fun, me arriving for a lesson smelling divine but without any books.
Finally, I was out the door and outside, textbooks and pens remembered, fragrant, rushed, and windblown.
I allowed myself one moment of hesitation—one second of a belly flip—then leveled my shoulders and strode down the sidewalk.
The Lower East Side was one of my favorite sections of New York City. The roads were smaller, there were chipped cobblestones in side streets, and the buildings had a hodgepodge construction to them. From the restaurants on Delancey to the live music on Stanton, I could still walk this area and see the beauty of the historical synagogues, yet also be floored by the luxury, glass-plated condominiums that blotted out the sky. It was how this city evolved, ever-changing, and if I stopped paying attention for even a day, New York City would continue stacking her bricks, morphing neighborhoods into trends.
The late February, early March weather was brisk but tolerable—too warm to be considered winter but too chilly to don a light jacket and skip into spring. I tucked my chin deeper into my flannel scarf, but it was more to cover up the sour garbage smell as a dump truck trundled by than to protect my face from the cold.
In the middle of Norfolk, just off the corner of Stanton, I found Spence’s apartment. It was nestled between that one bar I went to in first year and came out a lot less beautiful than going in, and that other bar, the one known for its beer that also did funny, drunk things to my vision and my appearance. The LES was the place where I learned what craft beer was, the consequences of poor decision making when it came to mixing liquors, and how to say “fuck off” to college boys instead of being nice and smiling and waiting for them to politely go away.
Spence was in a low-rise apartment building with a crooked buzzer to the left of the main entrance. I leaned on the button marked “3” and waited for the crackling acknowledgement.
“Come on up.”
After Spence’s voice came a grating merrrrrrrrrrr, which marked the minuscule amount of time I had to heave the main door open before it locked up on me again. I was so attuned to this sound that I reared forward and grappled with the doorknob, instant panic in my fingers. Iron doors weighed a thousand pounds and locks liked to be ancient and stick. Residents never gave enough time to open these damned things.
When the tune ended, I got the door open—just under the buzzer. I cocked it wider with my hip and slid in, the door slamming shut behind me on its weight alone.
“Hey,” Spence said as I reached the top of the third flight of stairs. He’d been waiting against his doorframe, holding the door open with one hand.
“Hi,” I replied, pausing on the steps. I pretended it was because I needed to re-situate my book bag on my shoulder and not because I needed a moment to take him in.
Spence was in a basic black sweater and jeans, but it was his cock-eyed smile, the sandy strands of hair falling into his eyes, and the unhurried lean on the doorframe that did me in. His shoulders broad, his forearms sculpted with tendons as he hooked a thumb into his pocket. It was all Spence’s pieces coming together to form a casual allure.
“You itching to study in the stairwell?” he asked, angled grin still in place.
I tried to laugh off my awkwardness. “Only if it comes with food delivery service.”
“You’re in luck. I have chips and salsa.” He made room for me to slip past. “Or at least the parts of it that my roommate hasn’t scavenged.”
My stomach agreed with the invitation before my mouth even opened. Becca and Jade had been making noises about ordering in, but by the time they decided on the benefits of pad thai over pizza, I’d been well on my way. Dinner was the last thing on my mind ten minutes ago, but now it seemed like my one true love.
“That’d be great,” I said, a little too eagerly. My shoulder rubbed up against his pec when I stepped in. I had his shirt and my leather jacket to get through before skin could touch skin, but the thought of it…
Was blown to pieces by the shirtless man on the leather couch. But if it was because of the bumps and peaks along his biceps and chest or the bowl of tortilla chips on his lap, I couldn’t be sure.
“Hey, I’m Emme,” I said, whilst staring at the food.
He stood, setting aside the bowl and brushing his hands together before reaching over to shake my hand. It gave me a chance to assess him with that brief up-and-down all those give when faced with a particularly good-looking specimen. He was beautiful, his skin a few shades darker than mine, his body all clean lines and muscle. He was a couple of inches taller than Spence and therefore I barely cleared his collarbone, but as my gaze traveled and landed on his face, I couldn’t help but be beguiled by his gorgeous, clear blue eyes. “Knox, pleasure’s all mine.”
There was a spark in those blues as he glanced at Spence, then back to me. “I’m just about to hit the gym, so the space is all yours.”
“Thanks, bud,” Spence said. He leaned over the arm of the couch to pick up the half-empty bowl. “Guess I’ll just refill our study snacks.”
I couldn’t help it. I snagged a handful as Spence passed by.
Knox sauntered down the one hallway in the apartment, his butt cheeks like two perfect melons underneath his thin boxing shorts. I paused in my crunching.
“Eyes over here, partner,” Spence said behind me.
I flushed, mout
h full of crumbs, and swallowed.
“Figured we could study here,” he said. “Take a seat. You want a drink?”
“Sure,” I said, and set my book bag on the counter beside his computer as I slid onto a stool.
He opened the fridge and pulled out two beer bottles. As he popped them open with an metal opener installed on the wall, he said, “Might as well have a little fun as we go over the basics of Hell.”
Spence also refilled the bowl of chips and set it in the center of us. I housed at least three chips smothered in salsa before he took a seat beside me, two beers in hand.
“You want to order in some food, too?” he said, laughing.
“Sorry,” I said, wiping my mouth delicately—I hoped. “I had no idea how hungry I was.”
“Those roommates of yours feeding you?” Spence pulled his laptop closer and opened a webpage filled with takeout options. “What do you feel like?”
“Pizza,” I said, not requiring much thought.
He cut a glance my way. “That’s my kinda girl.”
The corners of my lips pulled up. “Alas, the true test to being my kinda boy is one thing.”
“Oh yeah?” Spence said, pushing away from the computer.
“You must like ham and pineapple on said pizza.”
The room crashed into silence as he stared. “You’re kidding.”
“Never,” I said solemnly. “It is a rare but beautiful thing when I discover someone who enjoys it as much as I do.”
Chimes could’ve followed his laughter, it was so genuine and clear. “You’re in luck. Hawaiian happens to be my favorite pie ever.”
“Seriously?”
In no universe did I think he would actually agree with me. No one agreed with me on this matter.
“Yes,” he said, still laughing. “I’ll order right now.”
“You’re being an ass,” I said.
“I swear I’m not. You might have to risk your fingers by grabbing a slice before I eat the whole thing.”
My eyes narrowed. “You’re still being an ass.”
“Nope,” he chuckled, and continued typing. “And requiring proof might lose you a thumb.”
From This Day Forward Page 7