“Good.” I rolled off, even though the front of my body still hummed from our contact. Oliver’s questions were coming more frequently. Of course my boyfriend had every right to meet my brother and my friends—just…not now.
“Where are my shoes? I have class in twenty minutes and can’t be tardy again.”
Oliver chuckled, lying back on the bed.
“What?”
One long arm was thrown over his eyes, blocking out the overhead light. “If you’re planning on going outside this room, it’s probably not your shoes you should be worried about.” He sat up, head tilted, examining me with admiration in his gray eyes. “But I wish you always looked this way.”
I looked down, realizing I was more or less topless. When he burst into laughter again, I couldn’t help joining in. Not that I’d grown so comfortable in his presence that I constantly strolled around in the buff, but I never felt more like myself than when we were together, never so comfortable in my skin, free from stress and all the crap I didn’t want to think about.
“Oops,” I said. His pull on me was like gravity, and I crawled back onto his lap—my favorite place. He moved my bra strap an inch to kiss my shoulder. “I can’t stay,” I whispered, though my actions were not backing up my words as I pulled his T-shirt over his head.
“Rach, you can always stay with me…” We locked eyes for one intense moment, then tumbled onto the bed in a tangle of limbs.
It didn’t take much for me to justify being late to class, then missing it all together. When Oliver and I were alone, the problems of the world dissolved like he had me under a love spell. It was a bit more complicated when those “problems of the world” included my skipped chemistry lab, and the pop quiz I’d missed the week before, and how Professor Elliott had cornered me after class and informed me that my grade had slipped from an A to a C-plus.
But with Oliver’s hands in my hair, his mouth on me, I couldn’t make myself care; I couldn’t fight his gravitational pull.
Five months into my ten-year plan, I was already five months behind. The control freak side of me hated the girlfriend side. She was weak and reckless. We had to find a balance. If I could just go to the library more. Study more. Maybe if Oliver studied more, too. But when we tried to study together, I always ended up tearing off his shirt.
It wasn’t until the afternoon sun arched to the west that we came up for air. “Should we order pizza?” I asked, buttoning my shirt as I heard one of his roommates come home. I glanced at Oliver sitting on the edge of the bed. His dark hair was messed up and his eyes still held a hint of the familiar intensity that hung on even hours after we were together. It made heat pool in the pit of my stomach…never quite finished.
“Or we could go out,” he suggested.
I stopped buttoning. “Uh, no. Let’s stay in. If we bother to leave, I might as well go to the library.”
“Rachel.” The frustration in his tone gave me pause. That was becoming familiar, too. He raked both hands through his hair then bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. “I know the reason you don’t want to go out, but it’s going to happen sooner or later.”
The thought of Oliver and Roger finally meeting, together in the same room, made that lovely heat in my stomach turn to cold liquid. It couldn’t happen, not until I came up with a solid game plan.
Besides, Roger wouldn’t get it. Just the other day, during our traditional Sunday brunch, he’d mentioned that no one ever saw me around anymore. What was keeping me so occupied? Rog would take one look at my boyfriend and assume I was only infatuated by his looks, when there was so much more to Oliver than his ripped six-pack and perfect face. We talked for hours about nothing, and I loved his sweetness, his carefree, totally content nature, even when it scared me.
We were so in “the zone.”
But why wasn’t he letting the subject go?
“If it’s such a big deal for me to meet your family… Oh. I get it. ” His gaze dropped to the floor. “You don’t think I’m good enough.”
The sadness of his words pierced my heart like an arrow tipped with poison. I’d never meant for him to feel that way. I took full responsibility for being the fraidycat in this relationship.
“You?” The single syllable squeaked out of my throat. I crawled over, placing myself between his knees, and framed his face with my hands while gazing into those silvery eyes. “You’re perfect,” I whispered. “And I love you.”
“Rach.” He touched his forehead to mine. “I love you.”
Even though we’d been saying it for a month, it filled my insides with warmth and peace whenever I spoke it. Before Oliver, they’d just been words. I never knew they could coat my soul, push back the fear, and help me feel like I could let go of some of my control, if only temporarily.
Aside from dodging the subject of Roger, moments like this were as perfect as they came. The only thing that mattered was finding a way to make the perfection last.
“Look,” I said. “Sneaking around sucks, but it’s just for a little while longer.”
“You said that a month ago.”
“Roger has spies. I can’t even trust my very best friends. They know about you, I mean, they suspect I’m dating someone, but they don’t know.”
He ran a hand up my arm, cupping my elbow. “Meghan would like me. So would Gio.”
“It’s not that.” I touched his face, my thumb sliding across his cheek. “You’ll meet everyone soon. I swear.” After a kiss, I reached for my bag and jacket, guilty about having to keep deflecting his questions. I didn’t know when my answers started to feel like lies.
“I think I’ll head to the library. Want to come?”
“Naw.” He flipped on his Xbox and grabbed the hand control. I heard the theme music to Halo. That was becoming more than familiar.
“So, uh, have you declared your major yet?” He shook his head, staring at the TV. “Isn’t the deadline coming up?”
“I think so. I’ll get around to it.”
“Oliver,” I said, watching him from the doorway.
“Yeah?”
A lecturing nag sat on the tip of my tongue. But then I gazed at him, practically seeing the golden aura I sensed surrounding his being. He was the best person I knew. It did needle me that he wasn’t taking his classes seriously. But if I loved him, I should love him exactly the way he was.
“Rach?” He lowered the hand control. “What else is wrong?”
I wanted to tell him. I even started to. “To understand me, you have to understand my family.” I bit my lip and stared out the window toward the brick wall covered with graffiti across the street. “My mom and dad are professors. They travel all over the world as guest lecturers.”
“I know what your parents do for a living.”
But did he know they lost their entire life savings in a matter of days? No one grasped how much that still affected me. It was never about money, it was the stress of watching my parents struggle, Dad’s guilt, Mom’s sadness, all because they hadn’t planned for the future. I would not let that happen to me.
The future wasn’t what Oliver was concerned about. He didn’t even have a major, and that really did scare me, because I was obsessed with the future…which was easy for me to remember when we were a room apart from each other. I didn’t know how to say that to him, though. Most normal freshmen didn’t have a major yet, or if they did, they changed it ten times.
He stood and walked over to me. “This is upsetting you more than I thought.” He hooked his index finger under the strap of my backpack over my shoulder.
“Yes,” I said, my bottom lip trembling. Though I wasn’t sure which “this” he was referring to.
He rested a hand on my cheek, then drew me into a warm hug. I could feel the steady beat of his heart as he whispered my name and assured me that everything was going to be okay. The instant he touched his nose to my cheek, I let out the breath I’d been holding and released my clenched fists. His hands ran c
ircles across my back, breath warm against my skin. Oliver calmed me more effectively than any oil blend.
“If you don’t want me to bring up your brother again, I won’t,” he said. “I know you’ll introduce us when you’re ready.”
I exhaled until my body slumped against his, hugging him back, so tight. The amount of relief that coursed through my heart and mind was startling. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I’d never planned on letting them meet. And Oliver had just let me off the hook.
What did that say about me?
Blinking back tears I wouldn’t be able to explain, I kissed him slowly, trying to convey my feelings, as muddled as they were. “Thank you.” I pressed my forehead to his. “It’ll happen when the time is right.”
I wasn’t sure if I was lying to him or to myself.
Chapter Six
Taking advantage of one of the blue sky Saturdays, Meghan and I put on shorts and headed to the wharf. After loading up on clam chowder and sourdough, we veered toward the marina at Pier 39 to check out the pack of sea lions lounging on floating planks. We found a spot at the railing and just stood and watched. It was like staring at a campfire or a lava lamp—there wasn’t a ton going on, but it sure was hypnotic.
“So, finish telling me about your dream,” Meghan requested, after she’d glared at her cell phone for the hundredth time in an hour. “You had webbed fingers, and…”
“That was it,” I said. “But that’s not the one I want you to analyze.”
The late afternoon was sunny, not much fog or wind for a change, in the mid-sixties, and just a salty hint of San Francisco Bay in the air. Damn near perfect weather.
“Webbed fingers.” Meghan rubbed her chin and leaned against the railing, her strawberry blond spiral curls blowing in the breeze. “There’s something in your life you can’t grab onto. Something you’re dying to scoop up and reclaim, and yet you’re trying to paddle away from it at the same time.”
Megs had always been something of a mystic. I humored her most of the time when she offered to read my palm or the bumps on my head. As for me, I’d always been a dreamer; not in the romantic sense of the word, but the literal sense. My dreams were quite detailed and vivid, and—according to Meghan—they absolutely intertwined with my wakeful self.
“Okay, now let me tell you about the other one. The only thing I clearly remember is this rusty cup lying in the middle of the hiking trail. I didn’t want to touch it, but someone kept whispering for me to pick it up.”
Meghan didn’t reply, but frowned down at her phone, flicked its face, and sighed. “You’re on a journey,” she finally said. “Or you’ll be going on a journey soon. Dunno. Dreams are funny sometimes, there’s no science, you never can tell.”
I stared at her, opened-mouthed. This was not Meg’s typical analysis. But I didn’t call her on it right then or pick a play fight, because I didn’t have the energy. First, the weird dreams waking me up at all hours, then the fact that I’d been at work until almost one a.m. the night before, proofreading ads for cell phone apps. Both Bruce and Claire cut out hours earlier. I’d worked over twelve hours a day for the past week and still felt like everyone looked at me like a flunky. Yep, word about the Vondome and my botched proposal were the hottest water cooler topics. As the days progressed, I felt like I was on the chopping block.
Work sucked, but I was over halfway into my ten-year plan, well on my way to where I wanted to be at the end. A lot rested on my job at NRG Interactive. There, I could finally start adding to my savings account, and I’d just opened a 401(k). But career and finance weren’t the only facets of my life requiring stability. I wanted marriage and a family someday. But I also needed balance between work and relationship—and that was something I’d failed at in the past.
Meghan and I moved to a bench outside a bakery—the glorious, pungent scent of sourdough in the air—with a view of the tour boats headed to Alcatraz. She had a gluten-free green tea ice cream cone in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other. I doubted either was within the limits of her most recent cleanse.
Even after I added a few more details about my dream, it was obvious Megs hadn’t heard a word. “Earth to Meghan,” I said. “Why do you keep checking your cell and snubbing me? I will not be snubbed.”
“He hasn’t called.”
Ah. There was a “he.” Now we were getting somewhere. “Who’s the guy?”
She sighed and finally looked at me. “We met a few weeks ago at Tim’s party—”
“Wait.” I sat up straight. “This is the guy you picked up? You programmed your number into his cell?”
She gazed off like she was remembering something blissful. Confirmation confirmed. “He’s from Iowa, or Indiana. One of those corn-husker states. He works down in SoMa.”
“He’s a techie?” I asked, knowing many of the major dot-commer software companies had offices in the South of Market district.
“I think so. He works in that big building across from the Jewish Museum.”
“Is he cute?”
“Hot,” she tweaked. “And he’s, like, a grown-up.” She set down her soda and ran a hand over her grinning mouth. “I can’t think of the last time I was interested in someone who wasn’t still in school or working at Chuck E. Cheese.”
“What’s his name?”
She grinned. “Rad.”
“Rad?” I echoed, not bothering to hide my mocking. “Like, short for Radcliff? What—is he from a regency novel?” When Megs didn’t catch on to my teasing, I added, “Why am I just now hearing about this guy? How long have you been dating?”
She cut a quick glance at me, her ecstatic expression faltering a hair. “We’ve only been out once—technically. He and Tim live in the same neighborhood now. They knew each other in college, or maybe it was one of the other guys who live up there in North Beach.”
“Ahh, North Beach. So he’s a techie and a beatnik.” I laughed. “That’s quite a mash-up. I do love that neighborhood, all those cool restaurants and Victorian houses. Wait.” I grabbed her arm. “Is that why you wanted to eat at Mama’s the other morning? Does he live by Washington Square Park and do sunrise tai chi with the other Chinese seniors?”
“Rad doing sunrise tai chi.” She bit her lip and grinned. “How smokin’ hot would that be.”
Despite my teasing, I was proud of Meghan. It was like she said: she never dated men, genuine emotionally available men. Perhaps this guy was the one to drag her into an adult relationship.
“What about you?” She nudged my shoulder. “Got your eye on anyone super-sexy-special?”
“Right.” I snorted. Currently, the only males on my mind were my brother, Moron Bruce, and—thanks to that unplanned detour around USF campus—Oliver Wentworth. Le sigh. “If you hadn’t noticed,” I continued, “I’ve been busting my ass trying to not get fired. Please say I don’t normally have such massive bags under my eyes. I’d trade a man for a good nap any day. I think I’ll have that put on business cards.”
Meghan wadded up a napkin in her hand. “You’re too cynical, so afraid of taking chances or getting hurt. You’ll never get a boyfriend with that attitude.” She froze and stared at me, looking startled at what she’d just said. “Oh. Sorry.”
As I stared back at my best friend, each beat of my heart hurt. Meghan looked away. Not only did my heart hurt, but now my head hurt. “That was bitchy,” I said in a flat voice. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“I’m sorry, Rach.” She stared down at the ground. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sure you have your reasons.”
“Reasons for what?”
She lifted a quick smile and jumped to her feet. “Nothing, nothing. Maybe I’m PMS-ing. I mean, I obviously need more chocolate, right? It’s getting late. Let’s hit the bricks, chick.”
I knew when someone was dodging a question. I was queen of that. And Megs was definitely dodging. I followed her to a trash can to dump our wrappers, and we washed our sticky fingers in an open fountain behind the carouse
l. Afterward, she busied herself by digging through her purse, probably trying to blow off the way I was glaring at her profile. Though I was glad she’d cut herself off when she’d started in about how I wouldn’t take risks with my heart. I so didn’t want to go there.
Aside from my new job and moving to San Francisco, Rachel Daughtry not taking risks was the norm. Megs knew my ten-year plan almost as well as I did. Freshman year, she didn’t know Oliver. She thought I’d been sneaking around with some random guy behind Roger’s back, but she didn’t know the truth. In the six years since, I’d never filled her in.
The sun was just starting to set as we walked in silence toward the trolleybus stop. Well, I was silent while Meghan chatted about something I couldn’t be bothered to care about. On the bus, she was playing on her phone while singing the new American Idol song—which gave me time to stare out the window and remember a time when I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt, or hurting someone else the way I’d hurt the one person I’d never meant to hurt, the one person I loved more than anything, trusted explicitly, could stand completely naked before and know he saw nothing in me but perfection and love, and how he would touch my—
“And don’t forget to watch Monday night. Rach?”
I gasped and twitched, returning my attention to Meghan one seat over. “What?” My whole body felt hot and glowy as I flushed at a memory that felt way too recent. I made the motion of scrubbing my cheeks with my hands so Meghan wouldn’t notice my burning face. What would I tell her anyway? That I’d been ignoring her while fantasizing about someone I’d known during a part of my life she knew nothing about?
“They’re replaying it at eleven o’clock,” she added. “Channel sixty-five. I don’t come on until nine minutes in.”
Megs went on to talk about her newest pulled-from-the-pages-of-history movie project, while I exhaled, long and quiet. Off the hook.
Someday Maybe Page 4