by LJ Evans
“What? Do I have seaweed in my teeth?” you asked, suddenly self-conscious.
I put my hand behind your head, pulled out the ponytail that I’d been longing to set free, and drew you as close to me as I could get with the picnic basket between us. I was kissing the hell out of you to keep from blurting out just how crazy I was about you. And you responded, as you always did, with an equal vigor that made me hard in two seconds.
Laughter from the end of the dock brought me back to my sanity. I eased back, but continued to stare into your stunning, color changing eyes that were flashing with desire and emotion.
“So…no seaweed?” you asked with a sexy, sassy smirk.
“No seaweed.”
I handed you the champagne flute, and you took it.
“Are you sure this is okay?” I could hear the concern in your voice. I knew you meant the champagne. But what you didn't realize was that someone else drinking alcohol wasn’t what ever made me need a drink. My fucking life, and my fucking thoughts, and trying to escape them both were what had always made me thirsty.
“Absolutely.” I watched while you took a tentative sip.
“Champagne and I don’t usually get along. One of these and I’ll feel it down to my toes,” you said, making fun of yourself.
“I can take care of your toes.” I heard your breath hitch, and I loved it. That I could make you react that way.
“You aren’t doing a very good job,” you said, breaking our stare and looking out at the ocean.
“Of?”
“Being on your best behavior.”
I laughed and it felt good. I didn’t—don’t—laugh very often, but it felt like something I could get used to. You’d made me laugh a lot that weekend.
You pulled on the sleeves of your Freestorm t-shirt which made me think of Stupid from the gym. My smile faded.
“What’s the deal with the schmuck at the gym?”
“Who? Michael?” You were surprised by the change in conversation.
“Drooler.”
“What?”
“How many times has he asked you out?”
Your mouth dropped open. “Never. He’s not. It’s not…” You faded off. I could see you were thinking about my words and probably just realized what the attention he showered you with meant. But you still shook your head in denial anyway. “Michael isn’t into me that way. I think he even has a girlfriend.”
I shook my head in disagreement.
You punched my shoulder. “Don’t be like that.”
I grabbed your hand, twisting it up so that I could kiss the palm again. “No more Michael.”
“There isn’t any Michael.” You were staring at me with a very serious expression, as if you were hoping I knew that you were telling the truth. And I did know. I swear. I did, but I just couldn’t help the desire to strangle the kid till he knew there was no way he was ever going to be with you.
“Anyway, I don’t usually see him much. Our classes hardly ever overlap. It’s just that we’re all pulling extra shifts for Liv and Justice.”
“Okay.”
You frowned at me. “You don’t have a say in this.”
“Okay.”
“God, you can be so frustrating.” You tried to pull your hand from mine, but I gripped it harder and ran my tongue along the palm. You shivered next to me. It wasn’t cold outside. Man, I ached to make you shiver all over.
“I can’t think when you touch me like that,” you said breathlessly. “I can’t think when you touch me at all. What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing. You’re perfect.”
You stared at me for a long time and then took your hand back so you could eat. We ate in silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable. I didn’t feel the need to fill the empty space with you. I didn’t feel any expectation from you that I normally felt when I was out with other women. They always expected to be entertained. You just seemed to want to be there in the silence and the moonlight. With me.
Your phone rang, and you looked down at it and grimaced. I could see that it said Claire.
“I forgot to let her know I was going to meet you. Sorry.” You hit the speaker button. “Claire?”
“Where are you? Did the Caterpillar break down? Do you need me to come get you?” Claire’s voice was full of worry. I liked so much that you had people looking out for you, except that it also filled me with twinges of jealousy because I wanted to be the only one looking out for you.
“No. Sorry. I forgot to tell you that Seth was picking me up for dinner.”
“Oooookay…” I could hear the amusement in her voice. “You forgot, or you didn’t want to tell me?”
“I forgot.”
Claire teased. “Whatever makes you sleep easier, Butterfly. Hi Seth!”
“Claire.”
Silence. “You just gave me goosebumps. I bet PJ is covered in goosebumps and blushes every time you talk to her.”
I was a little stunned. I’d been around a lot of forward females in my time. My dad’s gang in the Bronx was full of them, but Claire was unexpected. Maybe because your world and that world of the Bronx seemed like polar opposites.
“Behave yourself,” you admonished your friend.
“Okay, but I won’t say the same to you. Be bad. Be really, really bad.”
You tried to hide your discomfort in your curtain of curly hair. I brushed it aside and tipped your chin up so that I could kiss you.
“PJ?” Claire asked, “You there?”
“We were being bad for you,” I teased back, surprising myself by the response.
“Oh, you are so naughty,” she said. “Will you be home? The twins are asking that we finish our discussion from yesterday.”
You sighed. “I’ll be back.”
“Okay. We’ll wait up. But have fun. Love ya.”
“Love you too.”
You hung up and sighed another frustrated sigh. Your brows crunched together as you played with the noodles on your plate.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong per se. I’m just feeling…frustrated. Like I should be moving forward and I’m stuck.” You peeked at me and then away. “I bet you’ve never felt that way.”
“You’d lose that bet.”
“Really? When have you ever felt like the biggest failure since the DeLorean?” You looked at me as if you couldn’t believe I’d ever had a moment of self-doubt. It reminded me that you really didn’t know much about my crappy life.
“More times than I can count. But mostly with my mom,” I found myself saying honestly, even though I never talked about my mom. I’d rarely even discussed her with the shrink. Never at my AA meetings. Marisella and Mac knew the story, but we didn’t discuss it.
You looked abashed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… You’re just so intimidating and focused. It’s like you have this plan for yourself, and you don’t let anyone get in your way.”
“I’m intimidating?” I asked, lips twitching.
“You know you are.” When I looked into your eyes, I saw nothing but good things reflected there. It made me feel like a fraud, but it also made me want to live up to your expectations. Cam used to make me feel that way, like I could be more than I was. But it had been a long time since I’d ever thought it could be a possibility again.
“What’s happened to make you feel this way now?”
You played with your hair, twisting the curls back up. I reached over and pulled out the bun again so that the twirls spilled out around your face and down your shoulder and onto your breast.
“My roommates.”
“The twins?”
“They aren’t really twins. They aren’t even sisters. Haley and Mina are just good friends. But they act so much alike and want the same things, so Claire and I just started calling them the twins. They’re wannabe actresses, and we’d all planned to move to New York together after graduation.”
I froze.
; “You’re not moving.” I know it sounded like a command, but my damn heart almost stopped at the thought of you moving away. That was on our second date. So, you can imagine why I reacted how I did later.
At the time, even though I know you heard the command in my tone, you chose to ignore it. “Not that you’d have a say, but I’m not.”
“Good!”
You smacked me playfully, and I realized you didn’t have a clue how serious I was. How just the thought of you moving made me want to tie you up at my house and never let you go.
“The twins are pissed because all four of us were going to move, but I didn’t get accepted into Pratt, and Claire has decided to accept one of the law schools here in town, and now they’re stuck trying to find a place on the cheap for two instead of four.”
You tried to hide it, but I could tell that not getting accepted into Pratt had hurt you to your core. The rejection. I was torn because, on the one hand, I was full of relief that they’d turned you down, but I also wanted to strangle whoever made the decision that made you feel like you weren’t good enough.
“What were you going to do at Pratt?” I asked.
“Art Management.”
“You don’t need a degree for that,” I told you.
You shrugged.
“Locke would hire you,” I added on. I’d force him to hire you, I thought. I’d tell him I was pulling out of our contract and going to bash him to every artist I knew if he didn’t.
But my words, instead of reassuring you, irked you. “I don’t want Locke to hire me. I want to earn a spot wherever I go to work and have the training and skills to do it right. I don’t want to skate on someone else’s success and reputation.”
Fire in your eyes and in your heart. So determined to take the world by storm on your own. It’s hard for me because it’s what makes you you. It’s part of what I love about you, but it’s also partly why you’re on the other side of this fucking country without me.
“Just apply to another school. But I have to tell you, it better be in the L.A. area,” I said, trying to tease but knowing again that it sounded like a command. Truthfully, the command was what I felt much more than the tease.
You curled your arms around your knees and looked out at the ocean. Deep in thought. A little lost. I wanted to fill you right there and then with every piece of me so that you wouldn’t need to feel lost. So that instead you would feel like you were home.
“Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves,” I said quietly, my eyes only on you.
You turned to stare at me. “Are you quoting Thoreau?”
I didn’t respond. I’d always liked the way poetry made words move together. It was its own kind of art when it worked. As a messed up teen I’d even written a few lines myself. But they weren’t very good. Now, I used lines that struck me to drive my art. To express visually what the words said.
You didn’t seem to mind my lack of response.
“Everyone around me seems to have already found themselves. You. Claire. The Twins. Justice.”
“I was lost for a long time,” I said, but you just squinted your eyes at me as if I’d said something stupid or something you didn’t believe. “And Justice has had several paths, right? He was pre-med before?”
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
“Every word is etched here.” I pointed to my heart. All the little tidbits you’d given me were tucked into my soul.
You seemed taken aback by that, but then you unwrapped yourself and pulled my head toward yours to kiss me. It was a kiss full of frustration and desire and something else, and I met your emotions with my own desire and longing and hope.
I stopped us just before I was ready to tear off your clothes and make love to you on the dock, crowd and all. I already knew that I was never letting you go of my own volition. I didn’t know that you’d end up just feeling more lost with me than you had without. How can that be? I found my home in you, and you found a dark forest.
I wish now that I’d paid more attention to your indecision. Maybe I could have saved you…us… Maybe, if I’d helped guide you to something closer to home, you wouldn’t be thousands of miles away. Maybe… But AA has taught me well. I can’t live with the ifs or the regrets. I have to live in the now. And now, you are there, and I am here, and I’m trying to figure out how to get through each day without getting on a plane or drowning myself in a whiskey bottle. I’ll mail this goddamn letter instead, and hope, that when you read it, you’ll realize how we are still wrapped up in each other even when we are this far apart.
PJ After Letter Five
TILL WE AIN’T STRANGERS
“Sometimes it’s hard to love me.
Sometimes it’s hard to love you too.”
-Bon Jovi, Sambora, & James
It breaks Pj’s heart a little that he thought she’d been even more lost with him than before. It wasn’t that. Instead, it was that being with him showcased just how lost she had already been. And Seth had tried to force a path in front of her, but she didn’t want someone else to find her path. Even if it was someone she loved and who loved her back. No, she needed to discover her own way.
Her reaction to Seth’s desire to mark her had frightened her more than his desire to do so. When she was with Seth, it had seemed to be enough. Him. His arms. His love. It was as if she didn’t need any path.
But she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t let a boy, a man, or her desire to be loved determine how she acted anymore. Because when that person—that love—was gone, what would happen to her? If he was her whole world, there would be nothing left of PJ when he disappeared.
♫ ♫ ♫
Seth had picked her up every day after work that first week. And every night, he’d been a perfect gentleman. Well…maybe not perfect. They had gotten hot and heavy on the wharf and in the car and at her apartment. And…on and on…but they hadn’t had sex again. He’d always stopped them before they got too carried away. He was trying to make up for them jumping headfirst into bed. To show her that he didn’t just want her for sex.
That should have been exactly what she wanted too.
After all, the no sex went better with her abstinence policy of the last four years. It went better with her promise that the next time she did the deed, it would be with someone she loved. But after a week of being with him, but not with him, she somehow felt more unsettled and out of control than when they’d had sex. It didn’t make sense.
On top of that, she was getting more and more freaked out by the strange texts from “No Caller ID.” The texts swung between inspirational to disturbingly stalker-like. Whoever it was seemed to know enough about her life to know that Seth was in it, and they assumed he wasn’t good for her. That he was using her. Which just pissed her off. Because of her past. Because she’d let herself be used—no—rather, she’d purposely used herself and others. She didn’t want this thing with Seth to be more of that, and sometimes she was afraid it was. Not because of Seth, but because of her own messed up emotions.
Regardless, the texts were creeping her out. She called the cell company. They said the only way to stop the texts was to change her settings so she could only receive calls or texts from people in her contact list. Or change her number. But she was still hoping to hear from Pratt. And sometimes she got calls from different numbers because of her blog, so it wasn’t really reasonable to block everything.
All of this, her rejection from Pratt, the twins’ disappointment, her guilt over breaking the promises to herself, the unknown caller making her doubt Seth, left her in a mood by the end of the week that could only be called annoyed and cranky.
Claire and the girls noticed. They claimed she needed a girls’ night to escape all the things making her stress out, half of which they didn’t even understand. When she hesitated, the twins said it would be the only way they could forgive her for not going to New York with them. So she caved. They made a plan to hang out a
t the bar that Claire worked at not far from campus.
When Seth heard, PJ thought he was going to bust a window. He said he’d made plans. Even though the thought of what his plans might be left her skin tingling, she didn’t want him assuming he could make plans without asking her. When she told him that, she thought he was going to argue with her.
When he didn’t, she knew he’d made a huge effort not to, so she broke down and invited him to come with them.
“Fine. I’ll pick you up at your apartment. But pack a bag,” he’d said in that deep, husky voice that sent waves of desire up her spine. Even though she knew it was a demand that she should protest, she didn’t because packing a bag seemed like exactly what she needed. Even more than a girls’ night.
“Just meet us at the bar. It’ll be easier that way.”
“Bella.”
“Seth.”
He sighed. “Fine. You’re torturing me, you know.” He said it so softly and with so much desire that her body responded with a flip of her heart and an ache in her belly.
“Seth?”
“Hmm.”
“I’m glad I’m packing a bag.” She smiled at his rumbled response.
That night, she was wearing jeans and an off-the-shoulder top, and after futzing with her hair forever, decided to wear it half up and half down. That way it was out of her face, but it was down like Seth liked.
Claire whistled at her when she joined the girls in the main room of their apartment. “Girl!”
Claire looked beautiful as always in dark jeans and a black halter top. Haley and Mina looked actress perfect in dresses that barely cleared their butt cheeks. They turned more than a few heads when the four of them walked into the bar. It wasn’t something PJ was always comfortable with, but it was something she was used to hanging around with them.
It was just the four of them when they got to the bar. She’d purposely told Seth to meet them a little later so that they could have some time to themselves before he joined them and changed the entire dynamic of the place like she knew he would.