“Don’t worry about it,” I assured her. “Let’s get down there before they do suspect something. Now that they know we’re up here.”
I looked around my room one last time before heading downstairs. Once again, the table was set with an assortment of pies and desserts. Tomorrow, I was going for a run. The amount of sugar on the table was making me feel fat. Like a dutiful grandson, I took my slice of pecan pie and sat down next to Lily once again.
“So Thomas, are you seeing anyone?” my grandmother asked.
I almost choked on the pie. “No,” I answered.
“Oh, you’re such a handsome young man,” she said. “I can’t believe you don’t have the young ladies lining up at the door.”
“Because he doesn’t meet any of the ladies,” Tamlyn chimed in. “He’s always at home or work.”
“Is there anyone at work you like?” Grandma asked.
“No,” I said. “Besides, I’m the owner and that kind of thing gets a man in trouble these days.”
“Tamlyn is always trying to set him up,” Mom chimed in. “I think Tamlyn is doing her best to get the pressure off her.”
“Yeah, why don’t we ask Tamlyn who she’s seeing?” I said and deftly deflected the attention onto my twin.
“No, no,” Tamlyn said with a sweet smile. “You’re far more interesting.”
“All I know is I’m not getting any younger,” my mom said. “I expect grandchildren very soon. Thomas, you’re a bit more settled than your sister. I’m counting on you. I know you can find a nice, solid girl who wants to settle down with you.”
I cleared my throat. This was one of the most awkward conversations ever. Lily had gone very quiet. She was taking bites of her pie and refusing to look at me.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for that,” I said.
“Oh come now,” my grandma said. “You’ve always been the quiet one. You don’t need to date a bunch of women. You are the kind of man that is destined to have a big family. You like to have roots. We all know Tamlyn doesn’t like the idea of settling down.”
“Thanks, Grandma,” Tamlyn said. “I’m not going to take offense to that. I’m not getting married until I’m thirty.”
The older adults at the table all laughed. Clearly they thought that was funny. “What about you, Thomas?” my aunt asked. “Do you think you’ll be married before then?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I want grandbabies,” Mom added. “Lots of pudgy babies that will call me Nana. Thomas has always been the one that said he wanted a family. I bet you he’ll be coming home with his wife for Thanksgiving next year.”
I felt Lily jerk beside me. I felt horrible for her. She did not need to hear this. We were still trying to figure how many nights a week we could share a bed before it was considered living together as a couple rather than roommates. We had never discussed long term. We were supposed to be in beta still.
35
Lily
“I got it,” I said and took my suitcase out of the trunk of his car.
I was capable of carrying my own suitcase. I was capable of a lot of things. I loved my independence. I wanted the freedom of being my own woman. I was too young to think about settling down and having kids. I hadn’t even graduated school yet!
“Is everything okay?” Thomas asked as we crossed the lobby and headed for the elevators in the building.
“Fine,” I answered.
“You barely said two words to me all the way home.”
“I’m fine,” I repeated. “I’m tired. I have a lot of studying to do.”
We walked into the apartment, and I made a beeline for my room. I closed the door behind me and hoped he would get the hint. I needed some alone time. I had spent the last few days surrounded by people all the time. I wasn’t used to so many people in my space. I turned on some music and put in my air pods.
I didn’t bother unpacking. I could do it later. Instead I chose to stretch out on the bed and pretend to be studying. I couldn’t concentrate on anything I was reading. I kept going back to that conversation about Thomas needing to settle down. He had apparently made it clear he wanted the family thing. His family was convinced he would be married by this time next year. It was a lot to take in.
I saw my bedroom door open out of the corner of my eye. I put the music on pause and looked up at Thomas. “What’s up?”
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
“Nothing is going on. I’m studying.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked at the book in my hand. “Is there going to be a test on the index?”
I glanced down and realized at some point the pages had flipped. Busted. It wasn’t Thomas’s fault he had hopes and dreams for the future. It was probably better we cleared the air now before things got too serious.
“We should talk,” I said.
He shook his head and looked like he’d been kicked. “I knew it.”
I put away the pods and closed the book. I didn’t want to talk in my bedroom. That would only lead to sex. There was one thing that was undeniable between the two of us. We were very good at having sex together. It tended to dominate most of our conversations these days. I felt like I was addicted to him. I needed to go cold turkey, or I was never going to be able to think straight.
“Let’s open a bottle of wine,” I suggested.
“You don’t have to get me drunk,” he snapped.
“Okay, I would like a glass.”
“Fine.”
He opened the bottle and poured me a glass without getting one for himself. I sat on the couch and waited for him to join me. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” I started.
“About us,” he said with a nod.
“Yes. Your family knows you pretty well. I’m sure they know you better than I do. They have hopes and dreams for you, like they should. This thing we have, I’m not sure it’s what they want for you.”
“First of all, they don’t know what I want,” he said. “Secondly, they don’t get to decide what I want.”
“But they are right,” I said. “You’ve always been the one we all knew would be settled down at an early age. You are the kind of guy that lays down roots and blooms. You’re supposed to have the wife and kids with a little golden retriever running around. You’re supposed to marry the nice girl.”
“I’m not supposed to do anything,” he retorted.
“I don’t know what we’re doing here,” I said with frustration. “We’re having fun. We have sex, but what does that mean? That’s not getting you any closer to your destiny. Neither of us has talked about what any of this is. We’re having fun. I don’t think that’s a terrible thing for people our age. We don’t need to be pressured into doing anything.”
“Lily, that’s just my family,” he said. “They’ve been talking like that since I was sixteen. My mom wants grandkids. She isn’t really asking me to go out and procreate tomorrow.”
“No, but it’s definitely on the top of her list,” I said with a laugh. “I think I heard about her hopes for her grandkids at least ten times. It’s not a bad thing. I think it’s awesome she’s so excited. I know if my mom was alive she’d probably be giving me the same lecture. Your mom wants the world for you. She wants you to be happy. That’s a good thing.”
“Lily, my family is always going to want something for me,” he said calmly. “I respect their wishes, but they don’t make my decisions. You can’t take anything they said this weekend with more than a grain of salt. I don’t understand what has you so upset.”
“They want you to be with a nice girl,” I said. “A girl that has a good family and can give you all those things you want.”
“Yes, and?”
“I don’t want to get in the way of you finding that girl,” I said. “You should have that. You should go find her. You are on a different path than I am.”
He was staring at me in a way that hurt my heart.
“Are you telling me that you don’t want to be with me anymore because my mom said she wanted grandkids?”
“No, I’m saying we are—” I paused. I didn’t know what we were. We had never had the talk. “We are roommates with some great benefits but I’m not the nice girl you and your family want for your future.”
He laughed. That wasn’t exactly the response I expected. “Okay,” he said sarcastically. “You’re the actual girl next door. How are you not nice?”
“Your family is different than mine,” I said. “You guys have this large extended family that loves one another. You do holidays and birthdays. It’s only natural they would want you to find a girl that has something like that.”
“That’s ridiculous. Why are we even having this conversation? No one is talking marriage. We’re doing our thing. You’re jumping way ahead. Let’s just enjoy what we have.”
“Thomas, it isn’t going anywhere,” I said. “I don’t want you to waste time with me. I’m not going to be that person you marry and have kids with.”
“Why can’t you be?” he asked. “Not that I’m suggesting that’s what is in our future, but help me understand why you are suddenly throwing us away. What changed?”
“I guess I just saw you with your family and realized you and I are on different paths,” I said. “You’re halfway to settled already. I don’t feel like I’ve even started living. I can’t get to where you are until I finish school. That’s another year and a half away. Like your family said, they expect you to have a wife at Thanksgiving dinner next year.”
He scoffed. “It was a joke.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t change what they want for you,” I said. “I moved here to go to school. I’m not trying to find a husband.”
“Shit, Lily, I’m not sure what the hell you heard at the table that night, but I think we were sitting in two very different conversations. This isn’t the eighteenth century. My parents aren’t picking my bride and they aren’t really pressuring me to get married right away. It was just a conversation. We had this same conversation when I was fifteen. Do you think they actually meant for me to be married at sixteen?”
This was coming out all wrong. I didn’t want to hurt him, and I didn’t want to ruin our friendship, but something needed to be said. “I get that it was a joke, but there was a hint of seriousness, and you can’t deny that.”
“So what are you saying?” he asked and ran his hands through his hair.
“I’m saying I care about you,” I said gently. “We have so much fun together. I love our Tuesday traditions. I think it’s best if we go back to the way things were. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to mix things up.”
“Because my mom said she wanted grandkids,” he growled and got up from the couch. I watched him pace and felt horrible. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I was doing this for myself as well.
“It’s not just that,” I said. “I got distracted. I came here to get this degree. I need to focus on school. It’s only going to get harder.”
“I distract you,” he said.
“Yes, to be blunt, you do. I think about you when I should be focusing on school. I spend time doing things with you when I should be studying. I told Tamlyn I didn’t want a boyfriend because I didn’t want to get distracted. It isn’t just you. It’s in general. I had so much fun with you, but it’s better for both of us if we cool things down a little.”
“You mean stop having sex,” he clarified.
“I think sex confuses things,” I said. “Sex is good, there’s no doubt about it, but it leads to confusion.”
“I’m not confused.”
“Please, can we be friends?” I asked. “I don’t want to lose what we had.”
“Yep. Friends. I’m going to the gym.”
He left the living room and slammed his bedroom door shut. I didn’t move from the couch. I felt empty inside. That was not what I expected. That was part of the problem. I didn’t know what to expect. He never said what he wanted. I didn’t know what I wanted. We were having a lot of sex and that was it. We slept together because it was convenient. I had a feeling if we didn’t live together and the convenience wasn’t there, things would be very different.
He walked out of his room in his workout clothes and grabbed a water. He left without saying another word. I went back to my room and quietly closed the door. I was sad. I didn’t want to mess things up, but I was certain I had done just that. I ruined a perfectly good friendship because I let myself fall for the man.
His family was right. Thomas and I were alike in a lot of ways, but we were also different. We had different goals and hopes for our futures. He didn’t deny the fact he wanted a family. I still felt like a kid myself. I had no business trying to start a family. I wanted to live before I settled into the married with kids thing. Thomas was already settled. I guessed that was yet another benefit to skipping out on the long education and getting right down to living life.
36
Thomas
It had been a week since she dumped me. And I did consider it being dumped even if we had never officially declared we were a real thing. We had said we were in a relationship. Technically, we still were in a relationship, but it was very different.
I skipped our last Tuesday dinner. I claimed to be stuck at work. I heard the relief in her voice. She didn’t want to do it any more than I did. Being home was awkward. She tended to stay to her room if I was there. We had barely talked since she said her piece. We had gone from hot and heavy to cold and distant in the span of a single weekend. I was doing my best to avoid thinking about it and throwing myself into work. I worked late and came in early. Anything to avoid going home and dealing with the tension.
“I got it!” Chris said as he barreled into my office. “Check it out!”
I had no idea what he was talking about until he dropped a file on my desk. “The pictures from the photoshoot?” I asked and opened it.
“Yep. We’ve got some real winners. This is a great plan. You wouldn’t believe how many people were eager to make five-hundred bucks to pose for a few pictures.”
I flipped through the eight-by-ten glossy photos of couples who did a great job pretending to be in love. I pulled a few from the pile that I didn’t think really sold the idea of happily ever after. “These are great,” I said with no enthusiasm.
“Gee, don’t be too excited.”
“I’m not interested in seeing people look at each other with googly eyes,” I said. “How do you think they managed to fake that? I feel like we are selling a lie.”
Chris sighed and flopped into the chair across from my desk. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” he asked. “You’ve been walking around here for a week looking like someone kicked your puppy and slashed your tires. What the hell is going on? And I swear if you say nothing, I’m going to slap you. I’ve got a hormonal wife at home that has got me on my last nerve. I can’t handle your hormones. Just say it. Let’s fix it and let’s move the hell on.”
“She dumped me.”
“Who dumped you?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Who do you think? It’s not like I have a long list of girlfriends.”
“Lily the roommate dumped you?”
“Yes.”
“Did she move out?” he asked.
“No, which is why I don’t want to go home.”
“Why’d she dump you?” he questioned. He looked excited to hear a juicy story. “Did you cheat on her?”
“No! I took her home for the holidays and my mom started carrying on about having grandkids.”
He winced. “Oh, you scared her away.”
“I didn’t. My mom did.”
“That sounds like a pretty easy fix,” he reasoned.
“No, it isn’t. I tried. She kept saying she didn’t want to stand in my way of me finding the nice girl my mom wanted for me. We never officially declared our relationship or some shit like that. This is why I don’t have relationships. It’s like p
laying a game of chance. I have no control over what happens. I don’t know what they are thinking. It seems like I’m trying to navigate a minefield. I just stepped on a mine, but I didn’t technically step on it. My mom did. But she didn’t really because she’s just being like every other mom out there. She wants me to get married and have kids. Does Lily think no mom is going to want that? Does she plan on cutting and running anytime someone mentions babies?”
He was looking at me with amusement. “Damn, you’ve got it bad.”
“I’ve got a fucking mess,” I muttered.
“Okay, let’s go back and try to unpack this a little. You didn’t declare your relationship. Does that mean you never told her you cared about her?”
I shrugged. “No, but she knows I liked her.”
He slapped a hand to his forehead. “You’re not in fourth grade. She doesn’t want you to check a box and tell her you like her or really like her. She wants to know how you feel. Women are all about the feelings.”
“I thought that was pretty clear,” I said.
He laughed. “Unless you have it embroidered on a pillow and hire a sky writer, it isn’t clear. They need to hear the words. She needs it spelled out for her.”
“We agreed we were in beta testing with the relationship,” I argued.
His mouth dropped open. “Oh shit. Oh shit. How are you this dumb?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You told her she was in beta testing?” he groaned. “You may as well have told her she was auditioning for the part of your girlfriend. Were you giving her weekly evaluations? Did you give her a grade?”
“I didn’t want her to get freaked out about things moving too fast,” I said. “She thought it was funny. We were both okay with it.”
He slowly shook his head. “Yeah, you fucked up there. You only get to be in beta for a week or two. Maybe three. If you never told her how you felt or let her know things were developing between you, what’s she supposed to think? She’s going to assume she’s in beta still because she has flaws that you’re trying to figure out whether to fix or dump the program altogether.”
Match Me Up Page 22