Skin: He wanted full contact

by Johanna Hawke

  “Maybe it’s because you’ve been holding hands and kissing in public,” Kayla said. I glared at her. “What? I hear things.”

  “So, what have you heard about Jesse?” The waitress came over with my piece of cake, which was covered in chocolate ganache that had my mouth watering. I barely waited for her to walk away before taking a bite.

  With an apologetic look in her eyes, Kayla took a deep breath. “He was a player after he got out of prison, Roni. He’s definitely a better guy than he used to be, but I’d be lying if I said he didn’t have a reputation for being a bit of a playboy.”

  “He told me he never stopped missing me,” I sighed.

  “Maybe so,” Kayla said, shrugging. “But he was missing you with his tongue shoved in someone else’s mouth, and his junk shoved in—”

  I motioned for Kayla to stop. “Ok. I get it. I don’t need a visual.” I paused. “Has anyone in our group of friends, you know, hooked up with Jesse?”

  Kayla looked down at her mug and didn’t say a word. That was the only answer I needed. It didn’t matter to me who it was. “I can’t say who,” Kayla said. “But they fooled around when they were drunk at a party.”

  “Great,” I groaned.”

  “What are you going to do? I mean, he still seems to be crazy about you.”

  That was the million-dollar question. Things had been going so well for me and Jesse. I supposed I should’ve seen this coming, something to make this perfect bubble burst. “I don’t know, Kayla,” I said, picking at the crumbs on my plate with my fork.

  I was surprised by all of this new information, but not as surprised as I probably should have been. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been unfaithful to me while we’d been dating this time around, if you could even call it that. All these questions floated around in my head, and I knew I would get nothing but excuses as answers from Jesse.

  It was hard to hear, that was for damn sure. I was falling in love with Jesse. I loved the way his body felt against mine, the way his voice sounded in the morning. I felt hot just thinking about him inside me and longing for his touch. At the same time, however, I wanted more than anything to keep from being burned by Jesse again. Clearly, I hadn’t learned my lesson the first time, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake again.

  Chapter 25

  Jesse

  Five days. I had now gone five days without a single call or text message from Roni. After spending most of our afternoons and nights together for the better part of the past few months, it felt like a lifetime. I sat in the darkness of my bedroom and restarted my phone for the third time today, hoping maybe it was some sort of fluke and that my phone had simply been broken. The fact that Roni had taken a new route home from the middle school that didn’t involve driving by my house, however, told me this was no coincidence.

  I finally decided to put my pride aside and try calling Roni instead of waiting for her to call me. Hesitantly, I clicked her number in my phone and waited. The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. Thoughts swirled in my mind. My main concern was that Roni’s father had somehow convinced her that I wasn’t worth her time. Sure, our conversation hadn’t exactly gone well, but Roni and I had spent the entire next day together, and everything had seemed fine. Could I have missed the obvious?

  Maybe there was another guy. I quickly shook that thought from my head, deciding that playing the field wasn’t really Roni’s style. If she hadn’t wanted to be exclusive, I was sure she would’ve told me that. There were no other reasons I could think of, nothing that could have prompted the silence. I had to know. It was slowly eating away at me, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

  Please talk to me. I want to know what’s going on. I typed the words and sent the text message before giving myself a chance to change my mind. To my surprise, the icon indicating that Roni was typing popped up on the screen. I did my best to remain calm as I waited for an answer, knowing that it would be damn near impossible.

  We’re no good for each other. Go back to those other girls. The words cut like a knife, both at the realization that Roni had probably heard about how I spent my time after getting out of jail, and because that meant Roni really didn’t want to see me anymore. As bad as it sounded, I had hoped that there was something else preoccupying Roni’s time, and it wasn’t so much that she was ignoring me as it was that she was dealing with something in her life. I even could’ve handled her father’s insertion of himself into our relationship, because that was something I could someday change. Roni’s father’s opinion of me was just that: an opinion. My past was my past, and that was the truth.

  I threw my phone down on the bed and buried my head in my pillow. It shouldn’t have been like this. Roni should’ve been lying right next to me in bed, enjoying the evening together. She should’ve been replaying that perfect giggle of hers over and over again. Instead, we were barely speaking, and I hardly understood why. What had people told her? What exactly had she found out? And why did she care about the past when we were working so hard to build a present and future?

  I wanted to be mad at Roni, to tell her she was wrong about who I’d been, but I couldn’t do that. Though I’d become a completely different person, I couldn’t change what I’d done. I couldn’t erase the girls I’d slept with and the girls I’d hoped would fill the void while Roni was gone. It had all been meaningless, and it broke my heart that Roni wouldn’t take the time to try and understand that.

  “I’m not looking for anything serious,” I said as soon as I sat down at the table. Marisa looked just like the picture in her online dating profile, dark brown eyes and hair with a smoking body. “As a matter of fact, I’m not really looking for much at all.”

  “So… you’re just looking for sex then.”

  Instead of saying that I’d just been released from prison days earlier and was looking for some release, I nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Then let’s skip the meal and head right to dessert,” Marisa said. The look in her eyes told me she meant it. Right there on the spot, I walked swiftly into the hotel lobby and booked a room for that night. We hardly waited until the doors to the elevator closed before beginning to undress each other. This was exactly what I needed—casual, no strings attached sex.

  If Roni didn’t want me, nobody would have me. With her skirt around her ankles, Marisa put the key into the hotel room door and pushed it open. I threw her onto the bed and we stripped naked like we were on a timer. The entire time we had sex, we said less than five words to one another. This was purely physical. No need for conversation.

  Marisa was hot. My cellmate in jail would have loved her. I didn’t care about anyone. I couldn’t care about anyone besides Roni. Before slipping out the door, Marisa said, “When do you want to do this again?”

  “I don’t,” I said. That was the last I ever heard from her. There was no use in forming any attachment. I’d thought she understood that.

  I thought I’d known everyone in this dead-end town until the sexy blonde across the bar came in thirty minutes earlier. I’d been eyeing her ever since. I ached for a physical connection, so, out of pure spontaneity and desperation, I sent a drink down her way. Lucky for me, it must have worked, because she ditched the older woman she was talking to and started making her way over to me.

  “Thanks for the drink,” she said. “But I’m not going to sleep with you, so don’t bother wasting either of our time.”

  It was my turn to play it cool. “Gee, thanks for stereotyping me as some pig just because I have long hair and a few tattoos.”

  Her face turned bright red. “I’m so sorry… I just thought…”

  “I’m Jesse,” I said, reaching out my hand to shake hers. One of my buddies had told me all about this maneuver, doing the opposite of what the woman expected you to do. It had worked for me before, and it seemed to be working again. She thought I was going to be a dick, so I had to make her think I was a perfect gentleman.

  “Anastasia. And I think the scragg
ly hair look is pretty sexy, actually.”

  “So, what brings you here, tonight, Anastasia?”

  Instead of simply answering me and returning to the woman she was talking to, Anastasia took a seat at the barstool next to me. I was in. She told me that she was new in town, a school counselor who had just moved here from Florida, and we made small talk for less than twenty minutes before we started making out. She was stunning—large breasted, juicy lipped, everything a guy could want in a girl. So why did I still feel empty when I was with her?

  “Happy anniversary, babe,” Veronica said, massaging my naked back. “Three months! We made it!”

  “Three months, huh?” It occurred to me at that moment that I didn’t even know Veronica’s last name.

  Veronica dug her hands deep into my shoulders, gently moving her thumbs in circular motions. “Isn’t that amazing?!”

  “Yeah, I think three months is going to do it for now,” I found myself saying.

  Veronica jumped up from the bed and walked around it to meet my gaze. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “This is getting old. It’s time to break up.” Watching Veronica burst into tears, I felt guilty for having led her on in the first place. Had she really thought that we were in some serious, long-term relationship? The past three months had consisted of sex, food, and beer. That was about all the commitment I could make right now.

  I gave Veronica twenty dollars for a taxi and fed her the line about me being the problem in the relationship. I tried to make it work, I really had. Or maybe I hadn’t. At least I tried to put myself out there and gotten some mediocre sex out of the deal. It didn’t mean anything.

  It had been eight months since I’d been released from prison and I still hadn’t heard from Roni—the real Roni, not the fake Veronica I tried to replace her with. I’d asked Veronica if I could call her Roni instead, but she told me that was a dumb nickname for a girl and she hated it. I had to admit that was a deciding factor in calling off whatever it was we’d been doing.

  Had Roni, the real Roni, heard I’d been released? Had she been checking the prison records at all? For some reason, I thought she’d care. All of these girls, with huge asses and plump breasts and a never-ending willingness to have sex, still didn’t hold a candle to Roni.

  It took me a minute after waking up to realize that I was at Miguel’s house, in his brother’s old room, and another minute to realize I wasn’t alone in the bed. What the hell had happened last night? I tried to sit up, to survey the room, but the piercing headache that filled my head sent me right back down.

  The last thing I remembered was taking a shot off of Maddie’s chest. Most of the others had long since gone home or gone to sleep. Was it Maddie lying next to me? Or maybe Shawna, who I was fairly certain I made out with earlier in the night. There was also the other girl from the party, the one whose name I didn’t even know, but she’d had blonde hair.

  The silhouette of the girl, with her tangled brown hair was all I could see as she slept-face down. It could have been either Maddie or Shawna. I had to leave. I didn’t want to know who it was, to make things more awkward than they would already be. I sort of like the idea that I would never know who it actually was. I couldn’t say for certainty, and, more than that, I couldn’t remember what we’d done.

  I was stripped down to my boxers, which meant one of two things. Either we hadn’t had sex at all, or, somehow, in my drunken stupor, I’d taken the time to pull my underwear back up. From the look of the girl’s bare shoulders, she was either naked or barely clothed. I had to get out of here. Hopefully Maddie, or Shawna, or whoever it was remembered as little as I did about the night before.

  What about my tattoo? Every girl I slept with since getting it had been a drifter, a girl from out of town, a random. None of them had known the subject of my tattoo. I figured that this girl—and maybe even others—had seen the tattoo, but there was nothing I could do about it. I guessed people would find out about it eventually, anyway.

  I slipped my clothes back on as quietly as I could and grabbed my socks and sneakers in my hand, not wanting to waste any time. The room was across from Miguel’s and two doors over from his parents’. Given that his parents were out of town, I had to assume that all of the rooms were occupied by people I probably didn’t want seeing me like this. I popped my head out of the bedroom door and scanned the hallway. Empty.

  Stopping at the top of the stairs to put my shoes on, I made my way down to the living room, where most of the action had gone down. As I put my jacket on, I heard a voice behind me. “My hero!” It was Jimmy.

  “What?” I asked, playing dumb. God, I hoped he hadn’t seen me in that room with whoever I’d been with. I knew my reputation, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I knew there were some clear boundaries I crossed by flirting and making out with members of our friend group. It was the first time we’d all gotten together since I’d been released from prison, and I didn’t want to be the reason it was the last.

  “That hot blonde you were making out with,” Jimmy said. I breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s Miguel’s new neighbor across the street. Nice score on your part.”

  I chuckled. “Thanks.”

  “She called about twenty minutes ago looking for you.” Jimmy made ridiculous motions like the ones we used back in high school to tease someone about getting laid. “I think she wants to see you again.”

  “I’m not interested,” I said, and I walked out the door. There was no use in trying to forge relationships. I knew what I wanted and hoped that someday I’d be able to make up for letting it go. What if Roni found out about this? Would it jeopardize what little chance I had with her if she ever came back to town? I wanted to become the kind of guy she could be proud of, not the kind of guy who may or may not have slept with her friends.

  Chapter 26

  Roni

  “Just breathe,” I whispered to my reflection in the mirror. This was going to be one hell of an awkward night, and I just had to accept that. Why on earth had I decided that buying tickets to an art lecture weeks before the event was a good idea? More than that, why had I thought it was smart to give Jesse his half of the pair of tickets to hold onto? There was no guarantee that Jesse would show up, but, given that we’d been looking forward to this lecture since the moment the tickets had gone on sale, I knew that he would almost certainly be there. Besides, I was the one avoiding him—not the other way around.

  I had to be the one to arrive first, that way Jesse would be the one who would have to leave or feel uncomfortable. The lecture was scheduled to start at 7:30, but the doors opened at 6:30, so I was parked and fixing up my makeup by 6:45. Uh oh. The car two over from mine in the parking garage was identical to Jesse’s, and I hoped and prayed that it wasn’t his. Damn it. Why hadn’t I ever taken the time to notice his license plate?

  Our seats weren’t good, but we’d decided on balcony seats so we could chat about the lecture without interrupting the people in the front who had paid good money for their seats. Now, walking up the long, carpeted stairwell in a dress that went down to my ankles, I regretted that decision.

  “Row EE, seat 8,” the usher said, reading my ticket information aloud. “You’ll be right down there, next to the gentleman with the long hair.”

  I felt my heart drop as the words left her mouth. There, looking handsome as ever in a navy sport coat, was Jesse, sitting just a few rows below where I stood. I knew that I’d been silly for thinking that he wouldn’t show up, given his interest in the lecture topic and overall stubbornness, but part of me had been holding out hope that he would’ve finally taken the hint.

  I shuffled through the few people in front of me and walked as slowly to the seats as I possibly could. As soon as Jesse saw me, he smiled at me as if nothing was wrong, and I gave him a polite head nod that I immediately regretted. “Hi, Jesse,” I said. I took my seat beside him and slid my pea coat off my shoulders.

  “Roni,” Jesse said, a sharp ton
e shift from the smile he’d just given me. In a matter of thirty seconds, he’d gone from a smitten middle schooler to a cordial business associate. If I’d known he was going to get to our seats before me, I would’ve waited until right before the lecture started to arrive, in order to avoid any awkward conversation. Unfortunately for both of us, it was too late. We were stuck there. Worst of all, I had no clue how Jesse felt. Was he trying to move on? Trying to win me back? Unsure of what he wanted to do?

  Part of me still wanted to impress him, to charm him, just as I’d always aimed to do. I fixed my hair and soaked in the silence. Despite the people talking around us, all I could hear were the empty thoughts that filled my head.

  “You look gorgeous, as usual,” Jesse said, pulling me from my thoughts. I searched his voice for anything—a hint of sarcasm, a note of anger—but found nothing.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled. “You too.”

  Jesse stared at me as if he was waiting for me to say something more, but I sat there and held my ground. Part of me wanted to talk, to engage Jesse in conversation and get a feel for what he was thinking in terms of our breakup, but I also wanted to pretend he wasn’t there so that I could enjoy the night without distraction.

  “I had the strangest client yesterday,” Jesse said. “He came in wanting a tattoo of him and his dog. That’s right. Him and his dog. You know, because it’s not like he already knows what he looks like or anything.”

  Jesse’s voice sounded completely natural. To say I was confused was an understatement. Did Jesse think we were on a date or something? He was talking as if he’d come over to my house to casually hang out and fill me in on his day.