by P. Dangelico
“Yes?”
What in God’s green Earth possessed me to speak I will never know, but now that I have I wait for him to either call me out or laugh, and neither would surprise me.
“Am I dreaming?” he says, his expression one of genuine befuddlement. Good grief, he even makes confusion look good.
“Yes,” slides out before I even realize I’m moving my lips. No hesitation or stutter.
Dallas’s gaze moves over my face. First, my lips. Then my cheeks. His eyes briefly lock with mine before descending once more to my mouth. Then pain flashes across his face. It’s acute and profound and for a minute I get the feeling he’s on the brink of tears. The real kind, not like the ones painted on his cheeks. But as fast as the pain appeared, it’s gone. His head tips back an inch, his chin comes up, and he pushes it all down and out of sight.
“Why d’you do it?”
My budding excitement takes a sudden downturn. Or is it upturn? Point is, he’s mistaken me for someone else. Not a stranger in a slutty cat costume but an actual other person! And going by the emotion on his face that someone means something to him. Whoever this girl is, she definitely left her mark. The longing in his voice is unmistakable. Also, it occurs to me that he’s high and hallucinating, and here I am feeding the delusion. I’m going to hell for this.
I can’t answer. A silent, tension-filled moment grows between us and I let it. Silence is the one thing I’m great at. Meanwhile, he continues to stare at my lips like he’s one drug-addled, bad decision away from devouring them.
“Kiss me,” he murmurs quietly while his gaze lifts to mine, silently begging me to do it.
I could blame the costume.
I could blame a spell of temporary insanity. I legit could.
I could even blame pure and simple sexual frustration. God knows I feel plenty of that.
But the truth is I have no idea where I get the audacity, where the courage I never knew I possessed comes from. All I know is that I’m at a crossroads in my life. This is my one chance to ever touch him, my one chance to ever feel what it’s like to kiss him, and if I let this one chance slip away, I know I will regret it for the rest of my life. All I can hope for is that he’s a terrible kisser and the spell will be broken, releasing me from this inconvenient crush. Fingers crossed.
Closing my eyes, I tip my head forward and place my mouth on his. And as soon as we touch, Dallas sighs. He actually sighs against my mouth as we gently kiss. And for a moment, while my heart attempts to ram its way out of my chest, I am positive that this kiss is going to kill me.
But it doesn’t.
In fact, I’m the opposite of dead. I’ve never felt more alive, fearless, desirable. More so when he leans into it, takes my face in his hands, and nudges my lips apart with his.
It’s even better than my daydreams. I expected it to be lewd, I guess. For Dallas to take over, to wage an all-out assault on my mouth. Instead, I get sweet seduction. I get tenderness. A kiss I’ll be daydreaming about for a lifetime. Because by tomorrow, he won’t remember a thing…and I will never forget.
Chapter Two
Dallas
“You’re fifteen seconds off, Van Zant,” Coach Becker bellows from the other side of the pool. Sprints. He’s bitching about sprints.
The echo bounces off the walls of the Malibu U aquatics center and nails me between the eyes. My head’s throbbing, my muscles sore. I even slept through classes yesterday, trying to recover, and that did jack shit. I’ve got nothing left in the tank. I stop swimming and bob in the water to catch my breath while the rest of the team blows past me.
“Even Peterman beat you.” Becker shakes his head at me with a look of pure revulsion on his face. “Disgraceful,” I watch him mouth.
Wearing a goofy smirk, Brock swims circles in a lazy backstroke. “Guess there’s a first time for everything, huh?”
The big guy is a defensive player and not exactly known for his speed. I, on the other hand, am––when I’m not hungover, that is.
Water polo is considered the hardest sport to play with good reason. It’s four grueling quarters lasting up to twelve minutes a piece during which there is no touching bottom. It’ll kick your ass six ways from Sunday if you’re not rested and in shape.
Maybe that’s what I like most about it. That it requires all my attention. Complete concentration. Which leaves little opportunity for my mind to drift elsewhere. Like to Beth.
All I can remember about Monday night is walking into the Theta Halloween party at UCLA with Warner, getting into it with Holloway––a douchebag on the Bruins polo team––and one of the football guys breaking it up. Then getting stoned and kissing a girl in a cat costume like the one Beth wore on our first Halloween together.
Slow crawling over to the side, I hang on to the edge of the pool, too tired to even hoist myself out of the water. Warner swims by and I low-key bark, “Bro,” making sure Coach doesn’t hear me.
He stops and a question mark appears on his face.
“Do you remember a chick in a cat costume?”
He shakes his head and the increasingly uncomfortable feeling that I imagined her gets stronger.
“Where’d you get that shit we smoked? I was seeing things. You sure it wasn’t juiced?”
“Nah, man,” Warner replies with a half cocked grin and a shake of his head. “That’s just you being you.”
I flip him off and the bastard swims away smiling.
“Can’t handle the sauce, love?”
Quinn Smith. Goalie. Serious chip on his shoulder. The evil glee on his face makes my balls itch. I’d throw a punch, but I’m too damn tired.
He loves nothing more than to give me shit. Mostly, I’ve surmised, it’s because he resents that I grew up with money while he grew up in public housing somewhere in the UK routinely getting the shit knocked out of him for being gay. Fucked if I know how that’s my fault, but he seems to think so.
I’m about to jump out when a pair of big, hairy feet stuffed into Arena pool slides enter my line of sight. I glance up and find Becker with his hands on his hips, his face hard, and his lips thin. His skin is florid under his deep leathery tan. He’s got the look of an old dude with high blood pressure.
Terry Becker has won more NCAA men’s water polo championships as a coach than anyone else due in large part to his take-no-prisoners style training. Ask him and he’ll tell you, to be the best requires complete commitment. Problem is, I’ve never been good at commitment and probably never will be. What can I say––it’s in the genes.
“Too busy dreaming about unicorns and butterflies to get your beauty rest, Van Zant?”
Taking a weary as fuck deep breath, I say, “No butterflies, Coach. Just pussies.”
That kicks off a chorus of snorts and chuckles from my teammates, none of which have the testicular fortitude to go up against Becker. As much as they say they hate when I make trouble, they love it when I do their dirty work.
It’s not like I wake up every morning designing new ways to piss him off because the dude is formidable. I don’t mean to goad Coach, but he makes it so easy. Especially since it’s an open secret that he doesn’t like me very much, if at all.
Our relationship has been contentious from jump. He didn’t take it well when I beat out his two top prospects for first string driver my freshman year. And since then, he’s had a hard-on to get me kicked off this team.
“You’re getting dangerously close to getting benched, son.” With a last glare directed at me, he blows the whistle and announces practice done.
Rea shoots me a WTF look and I shrug. Reynolds is my BFF, the two-meter specialist on the Sharks, and the co-captain of this team. He’s also the de facto captain of the no-fun police. The dude is strung tight lately, and I feel for him. He’s got a heavy burden of expectations resting on his shoulders, but he needs to learn how to say no.
So here’s my TED talk on water polo for you newbies. I’m the driver. My position is the backbone of the offense. Whic
h means I need to get possession of the ball and make a fast break for the opposing team’s goal and either set up a scoring shot for one of my boys, usually Rea––he isn’t ranked one of the top two-meter specialists in the NCAA for nothing––or score.
“Are you trying to get benched?” my BFF mutters.
Strangely, I’ve got no answer for that.
When I don’t argue he scowls at me. “Dude, we’re playing Stanford next weekend––we need you.”
We’re aiming to win another title and there are plenty of guys happy and willing to take my place. Unfortunately for them, I’m by far the best driver on the team and it’s a gift that comes naturally. Maybe that’s what pisses Becker off––that he can’t easily replace me, and that I don’t need to work that hard at being the best. That I never work hard at anything. Even water polo.
Unlike my boys, I got into it by accident. Brenda shipped me off to my first water polo summer camp at eight because she wanted to travel with her new boyfriend. I refused to once again stay with the nanny and made my feelings clear by setting her closet on fire. By then, the sperm donor also know as my father was busy with his new family and didn’t want me around any more than she did.
The endless hours of training never bothered me because it meant I was out of an empty house. It also helped burn off a lot of the anger and energy I constantly carried around, so in a way polo saved my ass. Plus, I was good at it and who doesn’t love winning. But unlike my boys who play for passion, it was never so much about the love of the sport for me. The best part has been the brotherhood, the camaraderie.
When I graduate this year, my water polo days will be behind me for good and I’m gonna miss the shit out of it because that summer, the one I spent at camp, was the first time in my life I felt like I belonged somewhere. That I was wanted. That I was part of something worthwhile.
Dragging my tired ass out of the water, I grab a towel off the bleachers by the pool and dry off.
“Where are you?” Brock says, walking over to the bleachers. The big guy isn’t just my captain, he’s also the self-anointed unofficial team “parent.” I love him like a brother, but the preaching is a drag.
“What do you mean?” I say feigning stupidity and shoot him a blank stare. “I’m right here, Mother.”
Scowling, Brock drops his towel and shoves his legs into his track pants.
“Your head’s not here. You’ve been swimming like shit lately. You’ve been practicing mediocre at best…” He pulls his Malibu Sharks Get Wet t-shirt over his head and plants his cinderblock-sized hands on his hips. “So I ask again––where you at?”
He doesn’t know about Beth. Nobody does and I’d like to keep it that way. There are some things a guy holds close to his chest and she’s one of them.
“Nah, really, don’t spare my feelings.”
“All I’m saying is––talk to me. Maybe I can help.”
“Dude, chill. I’m fine. Just tired from partying too much. Rea’s the one with female trouble. Why don’t you lend your consulting services to your co-captain. He needs it more than I do.”
Inside my backpack, I can hear my phone buzzing and pull it out. Brenda’s text appears over the screensaver of pro-surfer Sebastian Steudtner surfing a 115 ft. wave at Nazaré. Dude’s my hero.
Mommy Dearest: Hi Darling! I got the name of a reaaallly great therapist for you. I told her all about you already.
Fuck. Brenda is…how do I explain my mother?
When I was nine I asked her not to go away for Christmas with her then current boyfriend. She’s got as many as she’s got shoes––in other words, too many to count. I point blank told her that I got lonely when she went away. Her answer to this was to double up on my therapy appointments. There you have it––my mother in a nutshell.
Mommy Dearest: She’s got every celebrity clamoring for an appointment but I got you one!!! Isn’t that awesome!! Call me!!! Three black heart emojis.
Sensing Brock’s attention on me, I glance over to find his face set in stone. That means more unwanted advice is coming my way soon.
“Everything okay?”
Nothing’s okay, dude.
But I don’t say that. I shrug and grin. Because that’s what I do. “Fanfuckingtastic.”
Dora
I. Am. Ruined.
Ruined by a bad man and a great kiss. A kiss I can’t stop thinking about. All because of a freaking costume. Have I been guilty of indulging in indecent thoughts of Dallas in the past? Sure. But it was only a fantasy before, a product of my very fertile imagination. Actually knowing what it feels like to kiss him is so much worse. I can see my grave stone already.
Here rests Dora Ramos, beloved daughter of Jay and Evan Ramos, dead by freaking unrequited longing for a guy who doesn’t know she exists outside of his drug-addled hallucinations. Fin.
“I hate it when we fight, Sugar Bear.” Dallas’s voice rises above the chatter in the quad that overlooks Santa Monica Bay.
My gaze slides away from my laptop to low-key creep on him. Three tables down from where I’m seated, he’s having lunch with some of his teammates.
“Let’s kiss and make up.” Dallas attempts to throw his arms around Brock Peterman and the latter pushes him off. Dallas laughs at something one of the other guys said and his head falls forward. The wild tangle of blond hair, still wet from practice, falls over his electric blue eyes.
Let’s do it again…
The last words he said to me on Monday night. Then his gaze sharpened, the fog of lust I was drifting in lifted, and all the groovy feelings were swiftly replaced by a deep-seated fear that told me he was seconds from pulling off my mask and revealing me as the dirty imposter that I was. Needless to say, I bolted out of that bathroom faster than I dive on a doughnut on my cheat day and I didn’t stop running until I reached the corner convenience store to await my Uber ride back to my Malibu University dorm.
Little did I know what life had in store for me when I walked into the novelty shop on Melrose Avenue with Sasha. Like I said, I rarely go to parties. We’ve already established that I have a hard time talking to people, and being focused on academics most of my life is not conducive to having many friends. But she happened to call the day after I had finally screwed up the courage to email my birthmother. Twenty-four hours later and still no response, I was worked me up into a pretty good lather so I uncharacteristically agreed. Basically you could call it an intersectionality of terrible events.
“You got a boyfriend, sweetie?” said the RuPaul lookalike who worked there.
“N-no, of c-course not,” was my automatic reply as I hid behind the changing room curtain trying and failing to cram my ass in the Winnie the Pooh suit.
“Do you want one?” she continued, sounding genuinely interested.
Did I want a boyfriend? That was like asking me if I wanted a Twinkie the month I decided to try the Paleo Diet. Yes. Yes, a thousand times yes.
I glanced over at my cousin and found her busy taking inappropriate selfies with a sex toy of sorts. Did I say a novelty shop? Yeah, I meant novelty slash sex shop. Sasha’s idea.
“Umm, yes,” I muttered under embarrassed breath, and a frown appeared on RuPaul’s flawlessly made-up face. A moment later, a lazy smile replaced it.
“Try this,” she purred, handing me a hanger with a scrap of shiny dark material attached. “This should do it.”
Let me be clear––I hadn’t put on a bathing suit since the seventh grade so the suspicion ran deep as I stared at the scrap of material she suggested was going to change my relationship status. That was asking a lot of a Halloween costume but whatever, I went along with it because what did I have to lose. My mind, it turns out.
“You know what they say, honey. Bone is for dog and meat is for man.”
I had serious doubts about this wisdom. I’d lived in Southern California all my life and I was almost one-hundred-percent certain that this breed of man preferred bone because in all my soon-to-be twenty-one years I had yet to
find a single one who loved my meat. Despite all this (in addition to the voice screaming in my head to make a run for it) I put the suit and mask on, and promptly lost my freaking mind.
For the first time since I could remember, I looked in the mirror and I didn’t see someone who had a monologue of toxic garbage running on repeat in her head. I wasn’t the girl always reminding herself she wasn’t good enough, or thin enough, or interesting enough, or whatever––fill in the blank. I wasn’t someone who stuttered. And I definitely wasn’t someone who was still a virgin.
Sasha stopped taking pictures with ball gags long enough to look me up and down and announce that I looked “fucking hawt” and that was that. I whipped out my credit card and the rest you know.
Watching Dallas now, a pit of longing cracks opens my chest. Not that I would ever admit it to my friends. That’s not happening. Like––ever. Not even if I somehow end up starring in a Saw movie and am about to get dunked in a vat of acid. If you knew my friends, you’d understand.
“Hey, loser,” a familiar voice calls out.
See what I mean? Zoe’s voice yanks me out of my daydreaming as effectively as a cold shower.
I’ve managed to become friends with three of the girls that share my dorm suite through no effort of my own. They’ve kinda just refused to let me hide in my room.
“We made a coffee run,” Blake says, holding up a cup in each hand, her gold medical bracelet jangling. “Want one?”
Say no to an iced latte? Never.
The two of them approach my table dressed like they stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. Zoe’s wearing platform wedge sandals with the wedge in rainbow stripes. A micro denim skirt and a blousy cotton top. Blake is in ripped white skinny jeans with a cherry red silk top and silver Jimmy Choo slides. The only reason I know all this is because of Zoe, freaking encyclopedia-of-fashion, Mayfield.