Harder

by Ashcroft, Blue

  She grabs a cup and gets water from the fridge. “Man, if my folks had a home like this, I’d never leave home either. Still, where do you take dates after?”

  “Dates? After?” I play with my olives.

  “Yeah, you know…” She looks around to make sure no one’s listening, even though my parents are deaf and one isn’t home, and then leans in. “For nookie,” she whispers.

  My ears immediately go red and I pull away from her, offended, and a little aroused that she mentioned it. I roll my shoulders and crick my neck back and forth while facing away from her. I don’t want to say what I’m about to say, but I have to say it at some point.

  “I don’t get nookie,” I say carefully, watching her reaction.

  Her dark blonde eyebrows shoot up into her hair, and she bites her lip, paling. She’s already pretty pale so right now she’s approaching ghost status. “No nookie, like ever?”

  I fold my arms and look off to the side. “Ever.” I can’t believe we’re talking about this, but she was going to find out soon enough. My parents are traditional. They raised me that marriage is the only appropriate place for that, and somehow, though the other kids my age are all sleeping together, I’m inclined to agree with them. Maybe I’m more emotional than other guys, but I want it to be special. I want it to be committed.

  “You want some now, then?” She wiggles her eyebrows at me.

  I stumble and nearly knock my plate off the counter. She bends down beside me to whisper in my ear.

  “You’re hot. I’d be into it. We could go to my place,” she murmurs. “Or, I saw you have a Jacuzzi out back…”

  I swallow. I haven’t waited my whole life without sex just to go for a quickie in the backyard with a girl who doesn’t have feelings for me. “No thank you.”

  “Really?” She sits back on her stool, looking disappointed. “Your loss.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Why not?” she asks, after a few moments of silence and the rest of her sandwich disappearing. “Am I not good enough? Is no one good enough?”

  “I don’t believe in sex before marriage.” I mumble it quickly, like someone might admit to having warts, or genital herpes. My views are about that acceptable to most people in California.

  “What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.”

  “No sex before marriage.”

  She leans in, breathing over my ear, sending a shock down my spine. “What? Still couldn’t—”

  I shove away from her and stand up. “I don’t believe in sex before marriage, okay?” I yell it at her, and she starts to laugh.

  “Yeah I heard you. You were just so embarrassed by it I couldn’t help messing with you. Why are you ashamed of it? Your beliefs are your beliefs. You religious or something?”

  We had been, growing up. But we grew away from it. “No.”

  “So why then?” She pulls me to sit down next to her, and I do so cautiously. “I’m not judging you, I’m just curious.”

  “I just…” She’s going to think it’s stupid. I’m going to eliminate myself even further from her mind as an option. Then again maybe she already sees us as too impossibly different.

  “Yeah?”

  “I want it to be special.”

  She laughs quietly and puts her hand to her stomach. “Special screwing. I like that.”

  I frown over at her. “Don’t call it that.”

  “Special? Or screwing?”

  “It’s an ugly word.”

  “Is it ugly when you think of doing it with me? I thought you said you wanted me.” She lifts an eyebrow.

  I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “If we made love, I wouldn’t be screwing you. Screwing is something you do to someone. I want to do those kinds of things with you.”

  “Make love?” she mutters. “What a joke. Like any men want to make love. They just want to stick it—”

  I frown as she stops and shakes her head. She’s just said more about herself than about men in general, and a pain in the vicinity of my chest is starting to throb as I consider her words. “Not all men,” I say.

  “Just most then,” she says, standing and putting her hands behind her head to stretch. “I’m not into that wussy love making stuff anyway. Give me hard and fast any day, none of that stupid emotion.”

  It’s frustrating.

  I know now that we’re headed for some kind of collision, but the more I get to know her, the more I want to be with her, even as I discover more and more the reasons why we shouldn’t ever work together.

  I want it slow and easy, she wants it hard and fast. I want to make love, she wants to screw. I want it special, she wants it in the backyard.

  I don’t know though, maybe it would just be special if it was with her. The first girl I’ve ever been interested in.

  “I was married,” she says, facing out towards the front window, away from me. “So I guess I’ve done the married sex thing. Trust me, it wasn’t special.” Her shoulders are tense and her arms don’t look like they’re resting behind her head any more, instead it looks like she’s clutching her hair.

  I come up beside her, take her hands gently and try to move them down so she’s not hurting herself but she shakes me off. I come forward again and put my arms around her. This time she sighs and rests hr head back against my shoulder. I look down and am shocked to see a tear stream down her cheek.

  “Sorry, I just, I don’t like talking about marriage. Thinking about marriage. I’ll never do that again.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She puts a hand up on one of mine that is wrapping her shoulders, and rests it there. “No, yes I do. I just, I hate when people act like marriage is the shiz. For me it was just a cage.”

  I hold her tighter, like I can hold her together. “I’m sorry.”

  She pushes away, this time for good, and wraps her arms around herself. “Take me home. I’m ready to go home now.” She pushes out the front door and disappears without a thank you for the food or a goodbye. I follow her out, but she’s already pulling away in Big Blue before I can even get halfway down the drive.

  I put my hand up to shield my eyes and wonder what exactly I did wrong.

  ***

  My back hurts. You think you’d get used to standing on tile all day, but that’s not the case. My back hurts, my feet hurt, and even though I usually love work, today I just want to go home and hit the couch.

  I shouldn’t have taken an extra shift, but I need a new math textbook and for some reason someone decided that putting the word ‘text’ in front of a book should make it cost half a month’s rent. Never mind that the target buyer is a starving college student.

  I pace my spot. No kids drowning in the lap pool, so that’s good. Ryan comes in through the senior guard office. Why is he in today?

  He passes my station and sends a shy smile in my direction, and it makes my stomach flip flop. Maybe just because it’s lunchtime and I haven’t eaten yet. I didn’t bring anything.

  Sometimes I just forget food. I also resent it for each time it lowers my bank account. He goes to Knight, who’s running the deck today, and they talk in low voices. I turn back to my water. A couple guys are roughhousing in my area, but I’m not worried about any whirlpools.

  Some of the clients probably don’t even know I’m a girl, and I prefer to keep it that way.

  “Ready to go for lunch?” Ryan’s voice, distinctive and deep, startles me, letting me know he must be behind my station. How he sneaks around like that, I don’t know.

  “My shift doesn’t end for another hour.”

  “Amy agreed to come in an hour early for her shift. Knight and I agreed that you do enough with senior guarding. You don’t need to work extra shifts.”

  “What if I need the money?”

  “Do you?”

  I shake my head. I guess I don’t really. This shift won’t even pay a third of a new book. “It’s not your business.”

  “Anyway, Amy just start
ed rotation, so you should be off in a few minutes. I’ll meet you out back. We’ll take my car this time.”

  I grumble at his back, but we both know I’ll be out to join him in a moment.

  I’d argue about being off, but I’m tired and was wishing I could get off anyway. Ryan’s controlling, but it’s always in a way that seems to understand what I want and help me achieve it, so it’s hard to argue with him.

  When I’m finally rotated off, I drag my tube to the guard room, drop it off and change, and then go to the senior guard office to check the rest of the schedule.

  I need to make sure Ryan hasn’t made any other unexpected changes. Rain looks over from her cubicle.

  “Ally, message for you.”

  “What? Did they leave a name?” No one ever calls me here. I like to keep my people in boxes. My people at school don’t know where I work, the people at work, except for Ryan, don’t know where I do school. No one should be calling me here. A sinking feeling settles over me as I take the blue post-it from Rain. I don’t want to look at it. My heart’s drumming against my stomach and sweat beads on my forehead. Has he found me?

  I take a breath and look down. It’s always better to know than not.

  “You skank! How could you not tell me you were dating Ryan!” At the bottom is Amy’s number.

  I grin. Amy has always tried to be a friend to me. She’s a bit confused on her orientation and I think she likes being around me because I’m an odd mix of both men and women, and she doesn’t know which she likes better.

  But she gets that I’m straight and we get each other. I can let my girly side out around her sometimes, and it’s still safe. How did she find out about Ryan?

  I fold up the note and stick it in one of my cargo pockets, then tell Rain thanks and head over to Amy’s spot.

  “So you wanna know about my date?” I say quietly over Amy’s shoulder.

  She jumps and then laughs. “You’re a skank for not keeping me in the loop in the first place.” She flips out her hair with her hand and walks forward to kneel at the river and tell someone to stop flipping their tube.

  She stands back up and speaks to me while facing away. “I expect all the details later. Right now you’ve got a lunch date.”

  “It’s not a date,” I say. “We aren’t dating. We’re just helping each other. Did he call you in?”

  “Is it going to make you mad at him?” She’s smart. Too smart to tell me too much. Her voice is sing-songy and as ideal for a female voice as Ryan’s is for a male voice. They should both go be voice actors and leave the rest of us alone.

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “Then I’m not saying. But you like him. I can tell.”

  “Oh?” I fold my arms. “How?”

  “I’ve seen the ‘badass’ clothes you got him.”

  “He got them, I just helped.”

  “Right, and he’d totally dress that way on his own.”

  “How well do you know him, anyway?” I ask.

  “Why, jealous?”

  “No.” Yes. “I just didn’t know you two knew each other that well.”

  “We’re friends. We went to the same school, you know. If you have to know, we were both peer mentors for the special needs classroom. I worked with the kids with autism, he worked with the kids who—”

  “The kids who use sign language. I know.”

  “How?”

  “We have a class together.”

  “Interesting. Didn’t know you signed.”

  “It’s an easy class,” I lie. “I didn’t know you worked with autistic kids.”

  “Kids with autism,” she corrects.

  “Anyway…”

  “Yes. Anyway. Ryan is waiting for you, and you are going to go out with him and then call me after.”

  “I’ll see you later, then,” I say, turning away before she can respond. I drop into the senior office and grab one of Knight’s hats off the desk, winking at Rain. Hopefully he doesn’t mind. It’s bright out there and my hair’s a mess. With Knight’s hat firmly in place and my wallet chained to my belt loop, I’m finally ready to face Ryan. I push open the heavy back door and head into the sun.

  Chapter 7

  I brace myself as Ally comes out the back door. She’s wearing one of Knight’s hats again, and I’m tempted to steal all of them from him because she looks so much better in them than he does.

  She’s so relaxed as she walks towards me. Hat smashed to the side, hands in her cargos, wallet chain swinging. She looks around, then sees me and jogs over. I wonder what she’d look like in heels rather than converses. At the same time I never want to see her like that, because it’s not her.

  “So where’s your ride?” She waves at the lot.

  “Over here.” I lead her to my car, wincing and ready for another reaction like the one she had at the house. “This one.” I stop by my silver Mercedes.

  “You drive a Mercedes.” Her voice is flat.

  “Yes…” I get in and pop the lock so she can get in too. She just stares down at the door. I wait while she takes a deep breath, sighs up at the sky, and then yanks open the door and slumps down beside me.

  “Not gonna hold it against me?”

  She sighs and folds her arms, blowing a wisp of hair out of her face. “I guess if you don’t hold it against me for being a poor slob I won’t hold it against you for being a rich prick.”

  “It’s a pretty old car.”

  “It’s a Mercedes. What was it, a sixteenth birthday present?”

  “No. A prom present.”

  “Your parents gave you a new car for prom?”

  “No. They gave me a used car, because no one would go to prom with me and I was home alone that night. They thought it might help me make friends.”

  She’s silent for a moment, then rolls the window part of the way down, then back up. “Nice windows.”

  “Thanks.”

  She turns to me. “Hey Ryan, do you think it could have been the hair? I mean, kids aren’t used to hair.”

  “No. I grew the hair to hide from people. When I got older people started liking it so I kept it.”

  “Why did you have to hide?”

  “Cause I was a freak.” I try to take a turn calmly and the car over-corrects. It’s hard to stay calm thinking about back then. I don’t ever want to go back there.

  “Why were you a freak?”

  I sigh. I guess I was expecting her to say I wasn’t one. But honestly if she’d been at my school, she probably would have been one of the cool kids, one of the kids pointing at the freak in the glasses who couldn’t talk right. “I didn’t talk like the others.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? I only hung around deaf people. I had ASL grammar. I didn’t learn to speak properly until I got to school. And I didn’t like it.”

  “Did you tell your parents?”

  “No. No point.”

  “Couldn’t they send you to a deaf school?”

  “I’m not deaf. I’m sort of culturally deaf I guess. But I’m not ever really going to be a full part of that world. I have one foot in each. It’s why I love college. I get to hang out with hearing people and yet be a part of deaf culture. I feel included. Wanted.”

  “Wow. That’s the most I think I’ve heard out of you yet.” She leans her chair back and puts her feet up on the dash, then takes them down. “Is it still okay to put my feet up in a Mercedes?”

  “Sure.” I laugh.

  “Good, ‘cause it being fancy kind of makes me want to put my feet on it even more.”

  I laugh again. “Okay then.”

  She smiles at me. “I like making you laugh. You have a pretty laugh.”

  “Thanks.” We’re at a light so I can meet her gaze. Her eyes are such a pretty shade of gray. When she blinks her ash blonde eyelashes I find myself totally distracted. For a moment the car is just silent, as we watch each other. I can feel my temperature rise a bit, just connecting with her like this. I want to touch her. I k
eep wanting to touch her more. I want to connect with her on the inside as well as the outside. I bite my lip and turn back to the road as a car behind us honks to let us know the light is green.

  “Sorry. Distracting you.”

  “I know. Calling my laugh pretty. I don’t know if I should be insulted.”

  “Says the boy with Pantene Pro-V hair.”

  “How did you know?” I flip my hair back with one hand. “That’s just what I use.”

  “You do?” Her eyes go wide.

  “No.” I laugh again, noticing for the first time that it really is a deep, pleasant sound. I’d never thought to listen to the sound of my voice and actually analyze how it sounded. Ally’s my first hearing friend that is more interested in helping me into hearing culture than me helping her into deaf culture.

  Sure, all the ASL junkies want to hang out with a CODA and meet my parents and other deaf people, but Ally isn’t about that. She just wants to get to know me. And I just want to get to know her.

  We pull up in front of a nice seafood restaurant that’s one of my favorites. She looks up at the sign and wrinkles her nose. “Fish?”

  “You ever had lobster?”

  “You mean those giant shrimp things?” She wrinkles her face further, till she looks like one of the wrinkly forehead Star Trek aliens.

  “Sort of. Just come try it. You’ve had a long day.”

  She growls and shoves the door open, but follows me in. I grab the door for her and she storms in. “Fine. I’ll try the gross shrimpy things. But if it’s gross I’mma shove it down your throat.”

  “It’s not gross. If it is, I’ll take you for burgers.” But I don’t want to give her burgers. I’ve already figured out that food and nice things are two of her weaknesses. I’m hoping to combine the two right now, and create another unforgettable memory with her.

  We sit and she looks around the restaurant self-consciously. She’s in a hat and shorts and the interior is nice. The owner comes out and says hi to me, and she warms when he extends a hand and tells her it’s a pleasure to meet her.