by Maisey Yates
“I...”
“Say my name,” he said, his hands on his belt, working it through the buckle as quickly as possible. “Say it.”
He shoved his pants and underwear partway down, freeing himself.
“Please,” she said, her eyes on his body, on the part of him that was so ready for her he ached.
“My name first, Syd. No games. I want you. I want this. And if you want it, you have to prove you’re one hundred percent aware of what you’re doing.”
He thrust forward, pushing his shaft through her slick folds, teasing her entrance but not giving them what they both wanted. “Say it,” he said again, “or I will walk away.”
She was trembling now, her hands roaming over his chest, desperation written on her face. “T-Travis,” she said.
“Say it again,” he said, flexing his hips, bringing the head of his cock across her clit. She let her head fall back, her lush lips shaped into an O. “Say my name again.”
“Travis. Trav. Please. Please.”
He gripped her thigh and hooked it over his hip, thrusting hard into her. “I love you,” he said, looking at her, not letting her look away. “I love you, Syd.”
He buried his face in her neck, luxuriating in the feeling of her nails biting into his shoulder. “Fuck, I love you.”
She clung to him and he drove them both to the edge, pushed them both until they shattered. Until his orgasm roared up like a living beast and grabbed him by the throat, shaking him, shattering him, leaving him feeling like he’d opened a vein and drained himself dry.
Until he could hardly stand anymore.
He braced himself against the wall, holding her leg over his hip still, wanting to stay inside of her body for as long as possible.
“I love you,” he said again, a whisper this time.
Because he wasn’t angry now. He was just broken. Because for some reason he knew that her answer wouldn’t be different. Even now that he’d proved she wanted him, it wouldn’t be enough.
Even now that he’d done all he could to bond her to him, she was still going to say no.
And there would be nothing he could do.
“Sydney,” he said, looking into her eyes, cupping her cheek. “Please.”
“I can’t,” she said, her voice weak, scratchy. “I can’t, Trav.”
“Now? Or ever?”
“When? When would it ever work?”
“After school. After...after we get established.”
“And then what? We’ll never have time for each other. You want a high-powered career. I want one, too. I never, ever want to just be coasting through life on your coattails. On your money.” She put her hands on his chest and pushed gently. “You just reminded me that...that if you and I...it would always feel that way.”
“Why? Because my family helped?”
“Yes. It may not make sense to you, but I need to do this alone.”
“Bull.”
“Why do you get to call everything I say bullshit, huh?”
“Because you’re just scared, Sydney, that’s all. I know you well enough to know that.”
“Do you?” she asked, planting her hands on her hips, obviously not caring now that she was naked.
“Yes. So what’s your excuse? It’s not a good time because we’re twenty-two? What if twenty-two is it? Or what if life goes on another seventy years, but all you have is your career to keep you warm at night? That’s not what I want.”
“Then go find a woman who feels the same way.”
He felt like he’d been punched in the chest. “That’s what you want?”
“Yes.” She looked away from him, her cheeks turning pink. “I don’t love you like this, Travis.”
“Liar.”
“I can’t—” She choked out a sob. “I can’t bleed in front of them, Travis. I can’t risk it.”
“I would never make you bleed.”
“You already are.” She turned away from him. “I think you should go.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be alone.”
“Well, you cured me of that. Congratulations. Get out of my room.”
He zipped up his pants and picked up his shirt. “Fine. Stay here with your crap to sort through and your misery. I’ll just take my love and go. That seems like a very smart trade-off you’re making.”
“The smartness or lack thereof in my decisions is not really for you to judge. It’s for me. I’m the one who has to live my life, not you.”
“But I would live it with you, Syd.” He looked at her one last time and opened the door, and walked out into the hall. And with every step he took away from her, he felt like he was leaving the best pieces of him further and further behind.
* * *
Sydney spent the next two days curled up in a ball in bed. No, it wasn’t healthy. She knew that. She was well aware that spending hours in a fetal position, alone, in the dark, not eating and barely sleeping, wasn’t healthy.
She got up only to go to the bathroom and to get drinks of water. And when she’d looked outside she’d noticed that the snow had been melted into a hideous gray slush by a pouring, unforgiving rain that didn’t seem to want to relent.
Just the rain letting them all know who was boss. That life sucked and that they had no control.
So Sydney stayed in bed.
But in the space of three days, she’d lost both of her best friends.
One to suicide. And one to...
Had she lost him to love?
Maybe that didn’t make any sense. But she didn’t really care. Nothing made sense right now. She was angry at Travis for taking the only stable thing and wrenching it out of her grasp so that he could...love her.
She folded in on herself and let out a plaintive wail. No one was here to hear it. So did it matter if she was utterly pitiful?
No. No, it didn’t. Because she was alone in her pitifulness, and that meant it was hers to wallow in as she saw fit.
Sarah was gone. Travis was gone.
She could go home and talk to her mother. She could even stay here and call her mother. But then what would she say?
Mom, I saw my friend die. It was horrible.
Mom, I slept with Travis and now I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take my clothes off without remembering what it was like when he touched me.
Mom, I think I’m dying of a broken heart. Because he wants to love me and I want to run away.
Yeah, not likely. Her mother would tell her to stand up and use the legs God gave her to support herself. Her mother would say this was what happened when you cared.
She rolled onto her back and threw her arm over her eyes. She wanted Travis to be here. In her bed. Comforting her. With his words. With his touch. She wanted him all the time, and in every way, and that was what scared her.
Because she’d been taught to prize her self-sufficiency. Because she’d been trained to never put her fate in the hands of anyone else. She’d used connections, and she’d accepted help, but she had always, always made sure that it was her own hard work that had kept her in the position she’d been aided to.
And being with Travis—worse still, loving Travis—would put her entirely at his mercy.
Because you’re functioning so well without him at the moment.
That was circumstantial. Because they’d had sex. Because she was grieving. It had nothing to do with him.
The circumstances had pushed them into bed together and fabricated feelings that weren’t real.
Which seemed a strange thought to have, because in so many ways that night with Travis felt like the realest thing she’d ever experienced. Like the truest version of herself, of her feelings for him, had been brought to the surface.
But it hurt so much. And it was so damn frightening.
Then again, maybe that was why he’d always been pushed into the friend zone.
Because as a friend, he was her support. Her rock. Her smile.
But when he was her lover, too, he became everything. A
nd that was a lot of dependence on one human being.
Her father had left, and left her and her mother devastated. And she’d sworn never to give another human being that kind of power in her life again.
But it was quite possibly much too late for that.
She’d been so determined to protect herself. To create a safe life. A powerful life. An ambitious life.
One that would see her successful, fulfilled.
She blinked back tears, failing to stop them from falling. One slid down her cheek and landed on her pillow.
Yes, it was a damn good thing she was protecting herself. A damn good thing she was preserving herself and the life that she’d been aiming for so many years.
“To what end?” she asked, sitting up suddenly.
Yeah, she’d been working, working and working toward this elusive moment of success, where she could say that she’d gotten there alone, and was standing on her own feet. And she had imagined there would be happiness.
But now she saw, as clear as anything, that that was a lie.
There was one thing that would make her happy. And it wouldn’t come without risk. It wouldn’t allow emotional detachment, and it wouldn’t allow the comfort of standing alone at the end.
She would have to trust someone. She would have to put her heart out there.
She would have to risk it being broken. Risk love and loss, like she’d been warned never to do.
She stood up and started hunting for her shoes, desperation clamoring through her. What did safety matter if it didn’t bring happiness?
What did having everything—an education, a career—mean, if there was no one to share it with?
Nothing. That was what it meant.
She grabbed a pair of canvas shoes and slipped them on. She didn’t have time to hunt for her books.
None of this would mean anything if she was alone. If she didn’t have Travis.
So she was going to get him.
* * *
It was a shame getting wasted hadn’t done anything for him. He hadn’t been able to forget. The memory of Sydney’s soft skin beneath his hands was never going away. And he simultaneously wanted to cling to it forever and make it disappear.
Because he wasn’t sure how he would ever go on, with or without it.
Just the idea of being with another woman, of running his hands over someone else’s curves, made him feel nauseous. He wanted Sydney, not a nameless, faceless body on which to expend his sexual frustration.
Hell, he wasn’t even sexually frustrated. It wasn’t sex he wanted. It was Syd.
Maybe he sucked.
Maybe he was an idiot.
Maybe he shouldn’t have asked for love. Maybe he should have asked for friendship, with sex against a wall. Maybe he should have buried his heart and just given her whatever she wanted.
But he didn’t think he could. Not when breathing in her scent created a longing in him so deep it was a physical ache.
He heard a rap on his window and he got out of bed and walked over to it, throwing up the blinds and looking out to see Sydney, standing in the rain, her dark hair a stringy mess hanging down past her shoulders.
She was wearing a Harvard sweatshirt that was a size too big and a pair of yoga pants, paired with a pair of canvas shoes that were soaked through. Her cheeks and nose were pink, her eyes glittering, her face bare of makeup. He’d never seen her look more beautiful.
“Hey, Travis!” she shouted through the glass, a wide smile on her lips, her arms crossed under her breasts as she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, probably trying to keep her blood flowing. “Come out here!”
He bent down and grabbed a pair of jeans and walked out into the common area still zipping them, hoping none of his roommates were around to catch the show. He didn’t bother to hunt for a shirt.
He opened the dorm door, then the front door of the building and stormed outside into the pouring, freezing slush.
Sydney ran through the mud and toward him, and he opened his arms to her, and caught her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on to him, and he clung to her.
“What are you doing here, Syd?” he asked.
“I just came—” she extricated herself from his hold and stepped back “—I just came to tell you that I am an idiot.”
“Okay.”
“I have been...so scared, Trav. And not just the past few days. I’ve been scared for years. There’s a reason I never dated you. There’s a reason I kept you as a friend, and never anything else, even though you were the most important person in my life.”
“And what’s the reason, Sydney?”
“Because. Because you...you are so much to me. You are my rock, my best friend, my happiness, my support. And I was taught that...that love would make you lean on someone too much, and when they took themselves away then you would be left with nothing. Like my mother was. And the thing is...the thing is I always knew that if I let myself love you, and I lost you, I would be...utterly destroyed.”
She took a deep breath and wiped the dripping rain from her face. Or maybe she was wiping away tears. It was impossible to tell.
“But I realized something,” she said.
“What?” he asked, almost afraid to find out what the answer was.
“I’ll tell you. I realized that I was protecting myself at the expense of my happiness. I had all kinds of excuses why you and I wouldn’t work out. You were my friend, and it was too much to risk. We were both too ambitious, we would never have time for each other, but those were lies. The simple fact was, I was scared, because I knew if I let myself love you, I would love you with all of myself. I would love you in that way that would take over my whole soul, but do you know what the stupid thing was?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“I already did,” she said, smiling, a giggle bubbling up on her lips that was almost hysterical. “I have loved you...I think always. And I thought that if I just...didn’t let myself kiss you that...you wouldn’t be able to break me. But you’re under my skin, Travis. You’re a part of me. With you I’m better. That night in the hotel with you? It was the most real I’ve ever been with anyone. I wasn’t ashamed when I was with you. You weren’t just my lover, you were my friend. And it was scary.”
“It is,” he said, his voice rough, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might burst through his chest. “Trust me, I know. Because I feel the same way about you. You’re my everything. My heart, my soul. And if I don’t have you, then nothing else means anything. I know we’re young, and I know that scares you, but trust me, there is nothing in this life that I would be happier experiencing without you by my side. I love you, and I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I think part of me has known that since I was twelve years old. I’ve known you were it since way before I knew I wanted to be a lawyer, and if that ambition, my professional ambition, worries you in any way, then it’s the first thing I’ll give up. Because you were there before that. You’ll always be more important.”
“What? You would give that up for me?”
“Sydney Davis, I would cut off a limb for you. Sacrificing a law career is nothing in comparison.”
“Please, please don’t cut anything off your body for me.”
“Not even a toe?” He was only half joking. At the moment, he felt like he’d give her anything.
“I don’t require any sacrifices. Bodily or—” she took a deep breath “—otherwise. Because I feel like if the most important thing is that we love each other, everything else will fall into place. See, when my mother instilled her paranoia in me, she forgot two things. One, that happiness is important. That success doesn’t feel quite so successful without it. And two, that love, real love, covers a lot. That love matters. I believe that you love me, Travis. I believe that you would give up anything for me. And I want you to know, I would do the same for you. If we love each other like that, then there’s nothing to lose.”
He pu
lled her into his arms again and kissed her, her face cold and wet against his. “Oh, I love you,” he said. “Always. Before, forever and now.”
“Me, too, Trav. Me, too. I’m so sorry I almost effed everything up.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Because if I ever could have had a doubt, this erased it all. I know now whatever life throws at us, no matter how big, no matter how hard, we’ll get through it. Because we love each other. Because if every trial is like this one, then it will just bring out another dimension in my love for you.”
“And in mine for you,” she said.
“So, will you marry me, then?”
She tilted her head back and laughed, letting the drops fall on her face. “Maybe after graduation.”
“I already waited half a lifetime. I’ll just consider myself lucky you aren’t making me wait another one.”
“Oh, no, I’m through with waiting. I’m through with safe. None of that means anything if I don’t have you. If I don’t have your love.”
“You have it. Always.”
“I think we should go inside,” she said, her smile wicked. “I know you have a nice mirror in your room. There’s something I want you to see.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Just watch.”
Epilogue
2014
“Did everyone get off all right?”
Sydney looked up from the morning newspaper and toward Travis, who’d just come back inside from walking the kids to their school, which was very near their home in upstate New York. Sydney had scaled down her ambitions somewhat, as had Travis, to accommodate their family.
But she was still the mayor, and he was the best lawyer in town.
“Yeah,” he said, sitting in the chair next to her. “And now we even have a few moments alone.”
She smiled. “A few. Don’t get any grand, kinky ideas, buddy. I have a meeting with a senator in two hours.”
“I have ways of pleasuring you without ever messing up your hair,” he said, reaching his hand out and cupping her cheek. “I think I’ve proven that in the past.”
She sniffed. “Indeed.” She looked down at the newspaper again and turned the section she’d been browsing over, pausing. “Jason Treffen,” she said, skimming the headline.