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“I DON’T THINK SHE’S my girlfriend anymore,” he said.
I had stared at him for a moment, trying to determine if I’d heard him correctly, and when I asked him to repeat it, he did. But he looked like he was just realizing what he said as he said it. Like it had come from a deep place inside him and surprised even himself.
Then he nodded, seemingly accepting it.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think that’s it. I think... I think I’m breaking up with her.”
“What?” I asked, my heart thumping in my chest. A weird sense of panic was running through me, and I wasn’t entirely sure why.
“I just... I was so enamored with her when we met, right? She was so pretty and so ... weird. I just was blown away by her. And I interpreted that as being head over heels for her.”
“That’s not the first time I’ve heard her described like that,” I said. “But none of them got to her like you did.”
“But that was because of you,” he said. “She is so self-centered, so concerned with whatever it is that makes her happy right that moment that she doesn’t think about anybody for more than five minutes. She only thought about me because I was around you all the time and I was unavoidable. That’s how we planned it, remember?”
I nodded. He was right. We’d essentially run a modified Pavlov experiment on her by having Gavin with me all the time, until she associated him with being comfortable, and then let him hit on her. And at first, I had been all for it. So had he.
“I do,” I said.
“But it was stupid,” he said. “Because it wasn’t real. None of it was real. The second she was no longer in her routine of seeing me, I became invisible. The damn second.”
He was getting upset, and I didn’t know if I should try to calm him or let him let it out. Part of me thought letting him get angry like this might just make his current situation worse. And as his friend, I wanted him to be comfortable and calm while he tried to rest through all the injuries. But another part of me, a not-so-secret part of me anymore, wanted to hear what he had to say. It wanted to hear that he wasn’t enamored with Star anymore. That the spell was broken.
That there was a chance.
Then again, there was part of me that wanted to defend my friend. Star had been my friend since we met. She had been sweet and nice to me when she didn’t have to be, and while everything he said was true, and was part of the difficulties of being Star’s friend, it wasn’t like Star ever pretended to be anything she wasn’t. She was upfront about herself, as much as she could be without actually doing any introspection. She was a walking, talking ‘beware’ sign, and if you ignored it, that was on you.
I vacillated between the various mixed emotions like a furiously played tennis match. She was my friend. He was my friend. Yet, if he was single and I was single...
I had to get that off my mind. I had to let it go completely. He was just angry with her, and with good reason, because she was far away and not seeming terribly interested in anything other than what she was up to. Once she was back in physical touch again, once he could see her deep, fetching eyes and touch her tiny, tight body, he was going to forgive her.
Everyone forgave her.
Including me.
I needed to let go of any idea that Gavin was going to be single. He wasn’t. He was going to be angry, maybe even do something stupid and rash while at the beach, and then go home and forget it ever happened and get back with Star. And they would be happy together, both knowing the other was probably up to no good and neither one caring because that’s what beautiful people did.
I just had to keep my name out of it. I needed to keep far enough away that I wasn’t going to be the one who got used to get back at her. And I needed to keep my heart in a locked box, so it didn’t get hurt by lifting it up and then letting it go crashing down when this week was over.
“I’m sorry,” Gavin said. “I don’t mean to blow up around you. I’m just very angry. And confused. I have a lot to think about, not the least of which is what I’m going to tell Coach in the morning.”
“Yeesh, yeah,” I said, happy to move on to a different subject. Something with less potential to end with me telling him that if he wanted to get over Star, that I was currently fighting the effort to not remove all my clothes and tell him to take it out on me, and all I needed was literally one word from him.
Just one word.
“I know I’m not the first guy on the team to get into a bar fight before a game,” he said casually. “I remember my first year on the team... Jason? I think his name was Jason. He was the first baseman. Anyway, he got into it with one of the guys on another team during a tournament week, and they beat the shit out of each other. Both of them ended up playing against each other the next day and were fine. Coach just let them go.”
“Wow,” I said. “You would think the school would step in.”
“Not for us,” he said. “Our school makes so much money off sports that they just kind of let the coaches handle things internally without interference. Especially if it’s football, but apparently with baseball too. But this year, he’s been... distracted a bit. I’m worried he might want to make an example of me to kind of get control of the locker room again.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding. What he was saying was interesting. It’s just that I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. Not when the words he said about Star were still ringing in my ears. The potential for what it meant was still heavy on my chest, crushing down on me like an elephant.
“Anyway, I can’t worry myself too much about it now,” he said. “I need to just focus on getting some rest tonight and getting down there early tomorrow. Do you know what time you need to be down on the fields?”
“Hmm?” I asked, then the words caught up in my mind, and I shook my head and smiled. “Eleven. We don’t start practice until eleven tomorrow.”
“Late start. Interesting. Are you okay?”
I wanted to tell him so badly. I wanted to tell him how I wanted him. How I felt like I needed him. How that feeling had just grown and grown over the last few days, and after dancing at the club, I was pushed beyond my limit to control it. The way his body had molded into mine, how I could feel his hardened cock against my thigh when we danced. The way our eyes met and I was absolutely sure we were going to kiss before Kevin barreled into us.
It was all there, right on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to tell him that when I was throwing those rocks, I wasn’t just joining in the fray. I was trying to specifically get them off him. I wanted to protect him, even at the cost of my own well-being. How that wasn’t just lust. How that wasn’t just jealousy. How that was something deep inside me that had been brewing since we met each other. Since he tutored me. Since we started hanging out at my apartment, theoretically to get Star to pay attention to him, but really, I just wanted him there to watch TV with and eat pizza with.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let those words out of my mouth because then I couldn’t put them back. They would have been said, and there would be a clear delineation in the relationship between Gavin and me—before and after. Like BC and AD, it would be entirely different ways of telling time. And who knew what was waiting for me on the other side.
There was a risk. A risk that the other side carried that I wasn’t willing to bare yet. A risk so great that it made me sick to my stomach thinking about it.
That he would just say goodbye. That he would leave and I would never speak to him again. That he would think it was all too much work, too much stress, and that dealing with me pining for him ruined his ability to spend any time with him at all.
I couldn’t tell him that. Nor could I tell him that the very idea of spending the rest of my life never speaking to him felt like telling me I would never breathe again. I was as wrapped up as a person could be without actually dating someone. I needed him in my life. To be there, to listen to, to be listened to by, to stare at, and to laugh with. I needed Gavin’s presence like I needed water to drink.
So I swallowed it. All of it. I swallowed it and tried to smile.
“Yeah,” I lied. “I’m fine.”
Go big or go home. Lie like you mean it, Lila.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Lie like a snake. Lie so hard that it becomes true.
“Yeah. Just upset for you is all,” I said.
He nodded slowly, and I wondered if he believed it. I wondered if he could see into my eyes and know the truth. Or if he took me at my word. My lying, good-for-nothing word.
I also didn’t know which one I would prefer.
“I think, if it’s all right with you, that I’d like to watch that show with you again.”
“Sure,” I said, turning away and pretending to fiddle with the bag my sandwich had come in. What I was really doing was brushing away the tears that had formed in the corner of my eye, threatening to spill down and wet me. Threatening to give away the whole game.
I crossed the room and tossed the bag into the trash can by the lamp in the corner. Then I ducked my head out past the curtain to take a look again outside. The guys were indeed gone. Or at least out of sight from here. But I wasn’t worried about them crashing our room in the middle of the night. For as scared as Emma had been and cautious as Kevin had seemed, I believed Gavin.
They had no reason to come again. They thought the damage was done, that Gavin had no choice but to pay up. He was already pushed against the wall with a broken wing, knowing worse was ahead of him if he didn’t follow their instructions.
I could breathe tonight.
I looked back up to Gavin, who had scooted himself onto one side of the bed, his hurt arm on the far side. He looked at me expectantly, motioning over to the other side of the bed. I felt my entire body seize up and my core warm like an oven. Gavin was asking me to get into bed with him.
“Aren’t you uncomfortable in slacks?” I asked, a part of my mind dying to see if he would ask me to help him change out of them.
“Now that you mention it, yeah,” he said. “Why don’t you get comfortable and I’ll go get ready for bed. You don’t mind if I’m only in boxers, do you? I don’t think Kevin’s making it back down with any of my stuff.”
“No, that’s... that’s just fine,” I stuttered, hoping he didn’t notice.
I crawled into the bed and glanced down, looking for any traces of blood or anything we might want to clean up first, but there was none. He had been careful not to bleed on anything. It was just another example of how surprisingly thoughtful he was. He had just taken a beating and was oozing plasma everywhere, but he had gone to extra lengths to not get any of it on my bed.
As he changed in the bathroom, I tossed off my shoes and debated changing into pajamas too. Finally, I hopped out of the bed, opened the drawer with the shorts, and quickly put a pair on. Yanking off my shirt, I reached for a T-shirt and heard the door of the bathroom opening.
Oh no.
I couldn’t be caught in just my bra.
I spun around and pulled the shirt up over my head, realizing at the last moment that it wasn’t a T-shirt at all. It was a tight tank top. It fell down over my head, and I yanked it over my chest as I heard him sit on the bed. How much had he seen? How much did he want to see?
I turned to him and somewhat disappointedly noticed he was looking at his phone. Maybe he hadn’t noticed me at all.
He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed and tossed his socks down onto his shoes before spinning and lying back. I crossed the room to him and crawled in as well, both of us under the covers. Before I let myself get comfortable, I grabbed a pillow and put it between us, wrapping my arms around it and propping my head up by folding the other pillow in half.
“It was this one, right?” he asked, showing me his phone. He had it queued up to the episode that I last remembered watching before we fell asleep.
“Yup,” I said.
“Awesome,” he said, propping the phone on another pillow sitting on his bare stomach. I let my eyes languish on his chest and stomach for just a moment before forcing them onto the tiny screen.
We watched the show as he slowly relaxed. Eventually, the adrenaline and the insanity of the night wore off, and I heard him doze off, a light, adorable snore coming from his nose. I reached over and clicked the button to stop the show and picked up the phone, reaching over him to put it on the nightstand beside him.
It was there, with my arm stretched over him, that I realized I could just let gravity pull me down. I could let my arm stay over him, curled up beside him, listen to his heartbeat, and sleep myself. I knew already how comfortable it was to curl up with him and sleep. It would be glorious.
And then the morning would come.
Reluctantly, I pulled my arm back and, using the momentum, rolled right out of the bed. Gavin didn’t move where he was. I pulled the blanket up over his chest and then went to the couch. Making a bed with the spare blanket there and dragging my pillow over, I curled up and tried not to cry as I exhaustedly fell asleep.
