Tell Me Not to Go

by Victoria De La O

  “Somewhere, a nerd just died.”

  Lizzie sits on the bed, her expression turning serious. “Sorry if we were insensitive.”

  “It’s all good. I don’t care about the door humping. I’m glad he’s keeping you satisfied. Although, let’s face it, if you can’t get the big O from that tall drink of water, your vag is probably broken.”

  “Eeewww,” Lizzie laughs, as she throws herself down on the bed. Her cheeks are turning pink.

  “Seriously? Now you’re embarrassed? You probably have splinters in your ass from him putting it to you against the door.”

  “Stop,” she says, covering her face. “But to lay this to rest, yes, he is fantastic. Every single day.”

  I groan. “Seriously? C’mon.” I hug a pillow to my chest.

  “Not my fault you’re living like a nun. Why are you torturing yourself? I know you’re busy, but get out there and get back on the horse.”

  She wouldn’t be saying that if she knew it was Jeff I wanted to ride.

  “Any more texts from Luke?” she asks.

  “No. I stopped responding. I’m glad that whole café drama happened, though. Because I got it out of the way. It’s all in the past now.”

  “Would have been nice if he’d manned up and apologized for real.” She twists a lock of hair around one finger and tugs on it.

  “Know what’s even better? I don’t care about an apology anymore. I don’t need anything from him. He’s a total wimp. I had forgotten about that.” Unlike some men, who say exactly what they’re thinking.

  “Totally. So get out there and find someone who floats your boat.” Lizzie leans up on her elbow. “What better send-off for med school than a fling?”

  Chapter 6: Jeff

  “Thanks again for this.”

  I grab the key to the studio from Eva Romero, my new landlord. Her tall frame fills up the doorway of her stucco house, which has a good-sized unit in the back that will be all mine soon. Eva is my savior; if I have to live with Sam much longer, I’m going to either jump off a bridge or jump her.

  Yes, I agreed Sam and I shouldn’t see each other. Yes, I said we could just be friends. I’m not sure I meant a damn word of it.

  “You’re doing me a favor,” Eva says. “You saved me from having to relist this place and interview people.”

  I like Eva. The first time we met, I pegged her as a straight shooter and that’s held true.

  Footsteps run up behind her and a head peeks out next to her hip. A boy with a smudge on his left cheek stares at me without smiling.

  “Jeff, this is Diego, my son.”

  “I’m five,” Diego says, blinking like an owl.

  Diego wasn’t here when I first looked at the studio, and for some reason, his presence makes the back of my neck tingle. He’s got unnerving brown eyes that stare right through me and a Bob the Builder Band-Aid on his knee.

  “Hi there,” I say, my throat tight.

  I know why he unnerves me. I lost a son four years ago, and he would have been almost this age now. But he never got to be born. Still, it’s long behind me, and I’m good at pushing thoughts of it away. Maybe it’s Diego’s tiny baseball cap, or the way his chin juts out at me, that makes my chest feel hollow.

  “Jeff’s moving into the studio,” Eva explains.

  Diego nods, deep in thought. “You going to help us garden?”

  Eva laughs, but my eyes are still on Diego: the cartoon bugs on his shirt, his small hands. Does he play catch with his dad and ride on his shoulders? Do they go to ball games together? It’s like I’m looking into another life, an alternate universe that never played out.

  I try to shake the thought. It’s not as if I haven’t been around kids in the last four years. But not often, though, and not usually up close.

  “Jeff won’t be gardening. We can share whatever we pick, though.”

  “Thanks.” I shove the key in my pocket and mumble out my good-byes, slightly less eager to move in than I was a half hour ago.

  Everything I own in Utah is on its way here. Except Bruce, my best friend back home.

  “You owe me, like, a thousand beers for overseeing this move,” he says when I call him to thank him.

  “Like hell. I almost broke my back carrying your couch last time you moved.”

  “Not my fault you’re a lightweight.” Bruce used to play football in college and he wears about two hundred and thirty pounds of muscle.

  “Better than being a gorilla.” I adjust my phone against my ear as I let myself into the suite. Just one more day here. Which means twenty-four more hours with Sam.

  I have the place to myself, so I sprawl on the couch.

  “So how are things? I haven’t heard much from you,” Bruce says.

  “Work is kicking my ass. You should see how competitive they all are.”

  “Well, then kick their asses right back.” Bruce’s voice is as big as his body—low and booming. And when he gets drunk, there isn’t a person in a two-mile radius that doesn’t hear what he has to say.

  “Plan to. How are things with you?”

  “Same old, same old. How are the women? As good as all the songs say?”

  Sam walks in the front door, and drops her bag on the floor. What does she carry in that thing? A small country could fit inside.

  “Damn straight.”

  Sam sees I’m on the phone, so she ignores me. This means I can observe her without her noticing. She walks into the kitchen and grabs an apple, and I savor watching the big, awkward bites she takes, which is weird.

  “Any one in particular?” Bruce asks, and I know he’s wearing that shit-eating grin he usually does.

  “Maybe. I’d like there to be.”

  “Already? I thought you were steering clear.”

  Sam catches my eye, so I smile at her. Our eyes stay locked as she eats and I talk.

  “Sometimes it’s worth making an exception.”

  Bruce’s chuckle is all-knowing. “Alright, man. Good luck.”

  I wrap up my call, never taking my eyes off of Sam. I haven’t been able to stop fixating on her since we decided to be just friends, and I’m starting to feel a little desperate. Sam’s a good friend for putting Lizzie’s feelings first, I’ll give her that. And I try to be a good brother. But this is also my life, and I moved here for independence. Right now, my ties to Lizzie are chafing.

  I’m also not convinced that Sam isn’t just running scared. After all, I see how she stares at me. She’s doing it right now. Looking at me like she’s got all day. Hip cocked, body relaxed. Eyelashes curling down as she blinks.

  Before I know it, I’m moving closer. When I get to her, I lean down and take a bite of the apple she’s holding at her mouth. She doesn’t laugh. Good, because I’m not feeling playful.

  “You have plans tonight?” I ask, voice low, excitement high.

  She shrugs. “Lizzie asked if we want to come over to Jude’s house for dinner.”

  “Say no.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s my last night here. Let’s spend it together.”

  She leans back against the counter. I’m hoping it’s because she needs the support. “Not a good idea.”

  “Not a terrible idea.” Since when have I ever pressed an issue with a woman? Since Sam, I guess.

  She raises an eyebrow, which makes her look devious. “What will we do?”

  “Food, movie, popcorn. Hang out.”

  “As friends.”

  I put my hands up, like an innocent man being wrongly accused. “Of course. What do you take me for?”

  “Um hmm.” She pauses to consider, so I ease up. Finally, her lips arch up in a smile. “I’ll start dinner, you figure out the movie.”

  We eat in front of the TV, sprawled out on opposite ends of the couch. Her legs are shorter than mine, but somehow she takes up most of the space.

  “Comfortable?” I ask, as she shoves me over again.

  “Perfectly.”

  She’s so smug.
<
br />   We watch one of Sam’s favorites—an old Barbra Streisand comedy that I’ve never seen. It’s dopey and wacky, but I don’t care because my right leg is rubbing against hers. My fingers are inches from her arm. And I get to watch her laugh unconsciously—without tension. She has been nervous with me from the start, and I want to change that. When she’s unguarded, Sam’s energy is so strong I could grab it with both hands. It’s torture. It’s intoxicating.

  “You done with dinner?” she asks, catching me staring.

  It seems I’ve gone stupid, but I finally manage a nod, and she pauses the movie to clear the plates. I get up to help, and we work side by side in the kitchen doing dishes.

  “Did you help out a lot at home?” I ask as we dry our hands and head back to the couch.

  “Yes and no. I was a little spoiled, if you couldn’t tell.”

  I’m surprised by her assessment of herself. “How so? You work damn hard. It’s one of the things I admire about you.”

  She smiles. “Thanks. You don’t strike me as a slacker either.”

  “Wasn’t allowed in our house.”

  “Yeah, but I got my way a lot. Mom and Dad didn’t know any better. It was more like a democracy than a dictatorship.” Her fondness for her parents is in her voice. “I remember for prom, they felt like they should give me a curfew, but they didn’t know what time to make it. So I decided.”

  “They got lucky you were so responsible. My brother David would have raised hell if he’d been brought up that way. My dad had to have a firm hand with him.”

  She nudges my leg with her foot. “And what about you? Did you need them to be so strict with you?”

  I shrug. For some reason, I think about the time I lost my brother Michael in a store. Mom told me to keep an eye on him. But the minute I looked away, he took off like a bat out of hell toward the candy aisle, and I lost track of him. One minute he was there, the next he was gone.

  I walked around the store, frantic—my hands shaking with adrenaline. If something happened to him, how would I live with myself? How could I ever go back home? It was the longest twenty minutes of my eleven-year-old life. Mom and I finally found him hiding under a rack of jackets, laughing at the trick he had played. I remember the relief hitting me so hard that I almost passed out.

  That night, Dad told me I needed to do better—that I was going to be a man soon, and they needed to be able to count on me. I didn’t argue; anything I said would have been viewed as an excuse. It was clear that what I felt—the fear, the guilt—counted for nothing. And I would have to deal with them on my own.

  “They could have eased up a little,” I say.

  Maybe she can tell my thoughts are gloomy. Maybe she’s bored by the movie. But for whatever reason, Sam mutes the TV and looks at me, a naughty gleam in her eye.

  “Wanna play truth or dare?”

  “What are we, twelve?”

  “Scared?” she taunts.

  I cross my arms. “Fine. You first. Truth or dare?”

  She doesn’t hesitate even a nanosecond. “Dare.”

  “Of course.”

  And how annoying that I can’t think of anything all that daring. I pluck the first idea that floats across my tiny brain.

  “Flash your bra.” It’s official: I have turned into a pervert. “I’m kidding . . .”

  But it’s too late. Her T-shirt is up and my mind is flooded with white lace, brown skin, and a whole lot of hormones. And then it’s gone and I’m left with an unpleasant ache.

  On the TV screen, Barbra Streisand is hanging off the ledge of a hotel in a towel, while Ryan O’Neal is trying to put out a small fire in his room. I can relate, buddy.

  “Rookie mistake,” Sam says. “The dare is supposed to be more painful for me than you.”

  “I see that now.”

  She laughs until she has to hold her stomach. “Your face.” She dabs at her eye, which has a tear in it. “Okay, your turn. Truth or dare?”

  “Truth.”

  “Scale of one to ten, how good are you in bed?”

  I’m either going to leap over this couch and kiss this girl, or I’m going to throttle her. “Why do you want to know? I thought we were just friends?”

  “You ask all your friends to show you their tits?”

  My face is getting warm, and that pisses me off. “Solid eight.”

  Her eyes widen. “Explain.”

  “Nope. One question per turn. Truth or dare?”

  “Truth.” Her voice is lower, throatier.

  My turn to get a leg up in this battle. “How long has it been since you’ve had great sex? The kind where you sweat and beg and cry?”

  She pulls her knees up to her chest. “More than two years.”

  So not since the asshole that broke her heart, I’m guessing.

  “That would explain why there haven’t been any guys coming around since I’ve been living here.”

  “I keep them all stashed away in a posh apartment,” she shoots back, her voice defensive. “Like a harem.”

  The fun evaporates from our game and that’s disappointing. But I learned something about Sam. The night we met, she implied that the guy who cheated on her was her first love. Which means that even though she’s been with other guys since then, she hasn’t fallen for any of them. She and I are a lot more alike than I thought: We hang on to our emotions with a death grip.

  “Now you,” she says. “Truth or dare?”

  “Truth.”

  “Never dare?”

  “Not with you.” One, because who knows what she’ll have me do, and two, because I already know I’d do it. She has that way about her.

  “You keep saying you want passion. So why haven’t you let yourself fall for someone? And don’t tell me it’s because of all these girls pressuring you for a commitment. You choose to be in boring relationships.”

  My stomach revs like an engine. “You’re right. I do.”

  “Why?” She reaches toward me with one hand, like she wants to touch me. I share that impulse; in fact, it never leaves me when she’s near. Like a piece of twine that goes slack and taut between us, but never breaks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, you do. You just haven’t thought about it long enough.”

  Sam’s right. I love my family. My friends. I cried when my first dog died. I’m not a robot. So why do I date these women?

  “I’ve always known who I am. Maybe I’m just scared to let go—to lose myself.”

  That must strike a chord with her because her eyebrows raise. “I just said the same thing to your sister.”

  I nod. No wonder it was hard for her to recover from being cheated on. Sam’s got a healthy dose of self-worth. Must have been hard for her to have that foundation shaken.

  “She claims that it doesn’t have to be that way,” Sam says. “That you can find a balance. Make yourself more, not less.”

  That’s so like Lizzie—a little naïve, a lot optimistic.

  “You believe her?”

  She stares me down. “Do you?”

  We are at a stalemate.

  Still playing silently on the screen, Barbra has saved herself from the ledge, but Ryan’s hotel room has gone up in flames.

  Chapter 7: Sam

  I stare at the small mound of boxes sitting in the driveway of Jeff’s new place. I’m quaking in my Chucks about being here after our little game of truth or dare. Note to self: Stop poking at beehives with sticks.

  Guilt is very motivating, though, and Lizzie used it repeatedly to rope me into helping. I have no idea who has already arrived, but I figure I better get inside and face the music. After all, Jeff and I agreed to be friends. And friends help friends move. Unless they can possibly get out of it.

  I grab a box and lug it to his front door, which is wide open. He’s standing inside in a formfitting T-shirt and basketball shorts, arranging books on a shelf. His mussed hair and rumpled clothes make him even hotter—a little less Ken doll-ish.

  “W
hat in the sweet hell do you have in these?” I adjust the box in my arms as I step over the threshold.

  “Who knows? All this stuff blends together at this point,” he says. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.” He takes the box from me as though it weighs nothing.

  “Glad to help. Obviously.”

  He grins. “Uh-huh. I bet. And by the way, Lizzie left a half hour ago.”

  “Seriously?” Someone else better be here, or I’m going to kill that girl. Because being alone with Jeff makes it almost impossible to keep things platonic. And I meant what I said; I don’t want anyone getting hurt for one night of sex—no matter how great Mister “I’m an eight out of ten” would be.

  Jeff is like a bag full of trick-or-treat candy. Some pieces are tastier than others, but they’re all sweet. He told me to flash my boobs but then blushed, claimed that he was good in the sack but then wouldn’t brag about why. And then, when the sexual tension was so high I could have choked on it, he did an about-face and bared his soul.

  “She and Jude came over early, but then she had to get to work.” Jeff heads outside and comes back carrying two large boxes, his muscles flexing and straining.

  “Traitors.” I shift from side to side, unsure what to do with myself. “You want me to leave you alone? I don’t want to be in your business.”

  He sets one of the boxes down near his entertainment center. “Stay and keep me company. I could use some help organizing and eating the pizza I ordered.”

  A head covered in dark moppy hair appears in Jeff’s open door, and then a boy comes tumbling into the room. He’s small—maybe not even in school yet—and he’s wearing the cutest little jeans with a dinosaur-print shirt.

  “Hi, Jeff.” He grabs at a box on the ground, like he’s going to dive in and open it.

  “Diego, why are you in here?”

  I’m surprised by Jeff’s strict tone, even more so when I turn and see his frown. I may not be great with kids, but I would have thought Jeff would have more experience.

  I lean down toward Diego. “Hey, buddy. Who are you?”

  “He’s my landlady’s son.”

  “I live here.” Diego pushes a lock of hair out of his big brown eyes.