by Roxie Noir
“I’m gonna come,” she says instead, her voice barely a whimper. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, please don’t stop oh my God, Gavin—”
Her whole body tenses and Marisol shouts into the carpet, squeezing me like a fist as she comes, her whole body rocking at once.
I explode. I shout her name and come like fucking Vesuvius blowing apart, thrusting until I can’t anymore, until I’m so spent I’m trembling and I can barely move.
I feel as if I’ve broken to pieces and been glued back together and I’m not quite sure it’s done right, and for a long second, I’m not even certain where I am, except atop Marisol. The nape of her neck is in front of me so I kiss her there, then turn my head toward the mirror.
She’s looking at me, eyes half-closed, and she gives me a slow, lazy smile. I find her arm with my hand and follow it to hers, lace my fingers through hers, and then give up on moving for a bit.
36
Marisol
“So are we going bowling?” I call, flopping back onto a couch. I’m finally dressed again, because we’ve got to eat, but I’m still feeling impossibly lazy, like even standing is more effort than I can put in right now.
“I told you, there’s no bowling in Malibu,” he says, walking out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist.
We got... somewhat sweaty, so we both took showers. Though I don’t know why he’s bothering with the towel.
“Did you actually check?”
“I did,” he confirms, walking around the huge bed, clearly looking for something. “That’s something normal couples do, yeah?”
“I haven’t been bowling since I was ten.”
“Then you’ve clearly had boring boyfriends who don’t know how to show you a proper good time,” he says, still looking. “Do you know where you threw my shirt?”
“Didn’t you bring another one?”
“That’s for tomorrow. I’m looking for the Pixies shirt I was wearing earlier. Nevermind, there it is.”
He grabs that, jeans, and boxers, and walks back into the bathroom. I frown, and a few minutes later, he comes back out.
“Did you really just go get changed in the bathroom?” I tease.
He stops short, then looks sheepish for a moment.
“Force of habit,” he says. “I’ve shared a lot of hotel rooms with other blokes.”
“It would be pretty weird if I saw you naked,” I deadpan.
“Can I do nothing without commentary?” he teases.
“Not that.”
He holds out one hand.
“What about take you to dinner?”
I take it, and he pulls me up effortlessly, the muscles in his arm bunching. Something warm prickles up my back.
“Depends on the dinner,” I tease.
We drive out of Malibu proper and up a canyon road, Gavin’s fancy car growling and purring and hugging the turns as he plays me Bon Jovi and explains why it’s terrible.
I argue that it’s catchy. He tells me why it’s bullshit. I hum Livin’ on a Prayer over him until we’re both giggling like children, headlights glowing on the road in front of us, the canyon deep and dark below us.
I think these moments are my favorite.
When we reach the top there’s a tiny hamlet, just two buildings and a post office, but one of the buildings is an old-fashioned burger joint, and Gavin pulls into the parking lot.
“Come on,” he says, grinning. “We’re having a date.”
Inside there’s kitsch covering every wall, red-checked tablecloths and an actual jukebox in one corner playing at top volume. I’m half expecting the waitresses to be wearing poodle skirts and roller skates, but they’re dressed normally.
We sit in a booth and Gavin looks around, eyebrows raised.
“It looks as if 1950s America vomited and it pooled right here,” Gavin says, though he’s clearly entertained. Sometimes he finds America ridiculous enough to be funny.
“Gross but accurate,” I say, following his gaze.
We order burgers and fries, split a milkshake, and he makes me laugh so hard it nearly comes out my nose. The place fills up slowly, but after a while it’s actually pretty crowded. The jukebox is loud and full of oldies, and even though this place is a little silly I think I really like it.
Or maybe I just like being here with Gavin, sharing milkshakes and listening to Daydream Believer on the jukebox, like he’s just asked me to go steady with him.
Then he catches me rearranging the sugar packets in their holder, because I like it better when each color is grouped together, and he asks if I also arrange my french fries in size order.
I throw a sugar packet at him. He ducks.
If anyone recognizes us, they don’t show it. There’s a few times I think people might be snapping pictures on their phones, but I can’t be bothered to care.
We drive back the way we came, though this time I’m trying to explain the Fast and Furious franchise, and he’s remaining unconvinced of its cinematic genius.
“Let me get this straight,” he says. “You think The Simpsons is too stupid but you like these movies?”
I open my mouth. I close it. I open it again.
“Everyone needs a guilty pleasure,” I finally say. “They’re... good for what they are.”
We come to a stop light on the coastal highway, and Gavin looks over at me, takes my hand in his, and kisses it.
“Have I told you I quite like you?” he asks.
It’s simple, sweet, and makes my heart explode into a big cloud of rainbows and butterflies. I start laughing, pull our hands to my side of the car, and kiss him on the knuckles.
“I think you may have guessed,” he admits.
“I quite like you as well,” I say.
The next morning we walk down to the beach and sit on the sand. I dig my toes in and lean back on my hands, the sun hitting my face, and let my eyes close. We don’t have long, because soon we’ve got to head back into the city so I can take my shift helping my parents look at apartments, but right now, right here, this is nice.
“Maybe I should take up surfing,” Gavin muses next to me, sitting on the towels we borrowed from the hotel.
Borrowed is a strong word. Gavin took them when I wasn’t paying attention, and even though he’s sworn up and down to return them, I know full well they’re not intended as beach towels.
“Can you even swim?” I ask, flicking a stray piece of dried seaweed off the illicitly-gotten towel.
“Course I can swim,” he laughs. “Britain’s an island.”
“It’s not so small an island that you could walk to the coast,” I point out. “I thought Mountford Wye was pretty far inland.”
“Well, there’s lakes and all that. Plus, this innovation known as a swimming pool.”
“Don’t get cheeky,” I laugh. “You’re the one who said you could obviously swim because Britain’s an island.”
“I think I’d quite enjoying surfing,” he says. “And then I’d blend in seamlessly with the local culture.”
“You called Americans colonials the other night,” I point out.
“It would take a bit of practice.”
I just raise my eyebrows, grinning.
“Hang ten, bro,” Gavin says.
He’s got the worst American accent I’ve ever heard. I snort-laugh.
“These gnarly waves are totally radical, dude,” he goes on, elongating his vowels and enunciating his R’s as hard as he can. He sounds like he’s doing a bad impression of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.
I’m laughing so hard I almost can’t breathe.
“Let’s cruise down the strip and check out some awesome babes.”
I try to inhale and snort.
“I don’t know what you’re laughing at,” he says in his normal accent, grinning. “This is what you lot sound like.”
I wipe a tear from my cheek and finally inhale.
“Please say gnarly waves again,” I gasp.
“Let’s hear you
r British accent then.”
I shake my head.
“It’s only fair,” he says. “Come on, look how much fun you’re having.”
He has a point. I catch my breath and clear my throat.
“Wot’s awl thees then?” I start.
We both dissolve into laughter.
“That’s terrible!” Gavin gasps. “Go on.”
I make myself stop giggling and take a breath.
My phone rings.
“That won’t save you,” Gavin says. “We’re coming back to this.”
I stick out my tongue at him and grab it out of my bag. Sandra.
Please, please be calling because you found an apartment, I think, and answer the phone.
“This needs to be fast because I told them I was running to the bathroom,” she says.
“Okay.”
“We found a place, and it’s actually really nice, the landlord seems on the level, it’s only a couple of miles from where they live now so they won’t have to spend forever on the bus to get to work, the neighborhood is fine, there’s a washer and dryer in the apartment...”
She pauses, and my heart sinks like a rock. Gavin’s looking at me, so I stand and start pacing on the sand a couple feet away. I don’t want him to overhear me.
“What’s the catch?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
“They want first month’s rent, last’s month’s rent, and a security deposit.”
Fuck.
In Los Angeles, at least, most places only want the first month’s rent and a security deposit, so that’s what we’d been banking on — but landlords can ask for anything.
“And it’s a little more expensive than we wanted, but it’s really nice, they won’t get shot, they can still get to the bus and to work and god, Marisol, it’s got laundry in the apartment, plus—”
She pauses, her voice dropping dramatically.
“Once that thing you told me about happens, it won’t even matter, right? And between you, me, and them, we can cover an extra one-fifty a month for two more months, until we can buy them a house.”
Tears prick at the back of my eyeballs and I stare up at the cars on the coastal highway, back to Gavin, trying to breathe deep and above all not cry.
“It’s nineteen-fifty a month?” I ask.
I can hear her swallow.
“Yeah,” she says.
Their old place, the place their shitty landlord is dubiously evicting them from, was a thousand a month. Los Angeles has rent control, and they’d been living there for fifteen years.
“So they need, what, basically six thousand dollars?” I ask, my own voice sounding hollow.
“Mom just told me they have about four thousand in savings,” Sandra whispers. “I’ve got maybe four hundred I can pitch in after rent this month.”
I finally have nearly a thousand dollars in my savings account. It was supposed to be my emergency fund, but I swallow the anxious lump in my throat.
“I can give them money too,” I say. “But not enough.”
We’re still four hundred and fifty dollars short. It’s not even that much, not in the grand scheme of things, and I can’t believe that it’s all that’s in the way.
Four-fifty. Fuck.
I’m crying now, furious tears welling up and sliding down my cheeks, because this wasn’t supposed to happen. In a few more months I’ll be out of law school, I’ll have taken the bar, I’ll hopefully have a job making real money.
Why couldn’t this happen then? Why’d this have to happen a few stupid months before I could actually help?
There’s a long, long pause on the other end, and there’s no way Mom and Dad still think she went to the bathroom.
“What if you asked Gavin for an advance?” Sandra finally says.
I knew it was coming, but I still hate it, because as stupid as it sounds, I don’t want to bring money into our relationship. Even though I know I was here for money, I don’t want him to think I’m still here for that. Or, worse, I don’t want him to think that I “made it real” because I thought I could get more money that way.
His life is full of people who want something from him. I’m not one of them. I don’t want to be, and I absolutely hate asking people for things like this.
It was supposed to be me, dammit. Part of the reason I went to law school was so I’d be able to help them someday, and I feel utterly helpless that this is happening before I could get there.
But I’m pretty much out of options. My parents are pretty much out of options. I take a deep breath and clench my toes into the sand.
“Okay,” I say. “Let me call you back.”
I hang up, still facing away, and lift my left hand to my right shoulder, kneading at the tension there for a moment.
Just tell him your parents are in a tight spot and need five hundred dollars, I think. That’s less than your first date cost, probably.
“Marisol?” his voice says behind me, and I jump. “Is everything — what’s happened?”
He lurches forward, awkward in the sand, to put his hands on my shoulders, and I start sobbing.
“Is someone hurt?” he asks, alarm written all over his face. “Your sister? Your parents? Is it—”
I shake my head, cutting him off.
“It’s kind of complicated,” I say.
He waits. I take a deep, shaky breath, because I hate that I’m crying and I really hate what I’m about to do, but I don’t see a way around it.
“My parents are getting evicted from their apartment...” I start.
I tell him everything, standing there on the sand, trying not to cry while he strokes my hair. I tell him about their shady landlord, about rent in the neighborhood where I grew up spiraling out of control, the problems with gentrification, how they can’t move too far away because they don’t have a car and have to be able to get to work. I keep going and going until I’m at the hard part, and then the words slow to a trickle.
“So, we, uh,” I get out, my voice nearly cutting out as I look away from Gavin, down the beach. “We’re four-fifty short—”
“That’s it?” Gavin interrupts.
“I know,” I say miserably. “It’s stupid, and it’s pathetic that four adults can’t come up with another four-fifty...”
“I’ll give it to you,” he says. “Marisol, you can have the whole six grand, Jesus, I wish you’d have told me weeks ago.”
I shake my head again, more tears welling. I’m ashamed at asking for money, and I’m furious that I need to.
“I didn’t want to... crap, I don’t know,” I say. “I didn’t want you to think I was using you, and I didn’t want to bother you with my problems, and I thought I could fix it myself.”
He kisses the top of my head.
“You didn’t want me to think that, when you agreed to date me for money, you were interested in my money?” he asks.
“I know how dumb it sounds.”
“I’m just winding you up,” he says gently. “I know how you are.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, leaning into his chest.
“I do wish you’d told me,” he says. He sounds kind of hurt. “I did tell you my problems.”
“I didn’t mean to keep it a secret,” I say. “It just happened.”
“It’s all right,” he says, and it sounds like he’s trying to mean it. “Let’s take these towels back, yeah?”
I nod.
“Yeah,” I agree.
37
Gavin
I wind up being able to simply give Marisol the money using my mobile, and though she protests that she doesn’t want the whole six grand, I tell her I’m taking it out of her million and also to shut up and take it. She does.
I drive her to Highland Park and drop her off a few blocks from where her parents and sister are — her sister knows but her parents don’t, and it’s not exactly the time to introduce myself.
“Thanks,” she says, just before she gets out of the car, looking down. “And sorry.”
/>
Her eyes have that slightly glassy post-crying look, and yet again an overwhelming, protective urge twists in my gut. I feel as if it’s my job to keep Marisol from crying, and I can’t.
“Tomorrow night?” I ask, as I kiss her goodbye. She smiles.
“Monday night,” she says. “I don’t have class next week because it’s reading period for finals, but I’ve got that job interview at Ramirez & Chabon I told you about on Monday morning.”
Meaning we can spend the night together.
“Good luck,” I say, and she shuts the door.
I grin, watching her walk down the sidewalk away from me. There’s just something about watching an incredibly attractive woman walk and knowing that she’s yours, and I sit there in traffic, blatantly staring at her until someone honks.
But still, as I drive home, I keep turning it over in my mind. I wish she’d told me. I knew she was dating me to buy a house for her parents, but I didn’t know things were so dire. Marisol did assure me that they’d have stayed with her, not been on the street, but I’ve been to her apartment. It’s not big enough for three.
I can’t help but feel lied to, even by omission. Worse, I feel as if I’ve laid my own problems bare, told her the worst about myself, the horrible things I’ve done, and she didn’t trust me enough to let me help her.
Somewhere inside I’ve got the nagging worry that this relationship is lopsided. That I’ve given more of myself over to her than she has me, that I’ve revealed everything and she’s hesitant to tell me something like this.
And yes, I know Liam’s living at my house and I’ve not told her, but that seems different somehow. That’s because I don’t want her to think less of me. I don’t want her to worry that I’ll relapse, don’t want to seem as if I’m walking toward the edge of something bad because I’m not.
Besides, it’s not as if she’s ever asked whether Liam’s staying with me. I just haven’t mentioned it.
That’s a load of shite and you know it, I think.
Fucking hypocrite.
There are photographers outside my gate again, maybe ten of them, and I mutter some choice curses under my breath. They’ve been gone the last several days, but I guess there’s no other news right now so they’re back.