“Tell Ryan that I love him and I can’t wait until I get home so we can—” Justin covered my mouth before I could finish my sentence.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about. I can’t hear both of you talking at the same time,” he complained.
Justin uncovered my mouth. “I love you, Ryan,” I hollered. He put his hand back over my mouth again.
“I was watching her.” He sounded annoyed. His voice rose. “She’s grown! I can’t tell her what to do. She knows better—She’ll be fine. I’ll take care of her and I’ll make sure she calls you in the morning.” Justin ended the call and grabbed my hand, quickly walking us back to his building.
“Bye everybody!” I giggled as he dragged me away.
27
I woke the next morning with a terrible pain in my head and a swimming feeling in my rumbling guts. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I had no idea where I was. I panicked, jerking myself straight up in the bed. The quick movement made me woozy once it caught up with my brain.
After a look around, I realized I was in Justin’s roommate’s bed. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there or much else for that matter. I was wearing one of Justin’s shirts, but didn’t see any of my own clothes.
I pulled out the drawers of his roommate’s dresser, hoping to find a pair of shorts to slide on, but they were all empty. I guess the guy really had moved out. My head hurt so badly and I needed to get something on my stomach. I went to get Justin.
I slowly turned the doorknob and crept inside his room. I wasn’t sure if he was sleeping or not, so I tiptoed next to his bed and stared at him lying there. One of his eyes cracked open.
“What are you doing, Reynolds?”
“Where are my clothes?” I whispered.
He snickered.
“What’s funny?” I asked warily.
Justin slung his blanket back and sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing his hands over his face. He was wearing boxer briefs, and nothing else.
I noticed a change in his body. It was toned, defined and a little muscular. He had always been tall and thin, not skinny; just not very muscular—until now. It looked like he had recently begun lifting weights. I decided not to say anything.
“It’s just that I’ve never had to fight so hard with a girl to convince her to keep her clothes on before.” My posture slumped.
“You were pretty popular last night.” I exhaled hard. “I guess—if I was so willing to strip...”
“No, that part happened with just you and me.” I felt the blood draining from my head, scared to death. “What did I do?”
“Nothing much. You just kept saying that you were hot. I had to put your shirt back on you twice. Then you decided you couldn’t wear your own anymore, and had to have one of mine. You dug through a dozen before finding just the right one.”
“Great,” I moaned.
Justin got up and handed me my clothes, sly smile on his lips. “You know, I always thought you wore a padded bra.”
My face reddened. “Are you serious right now?” I was so embarrassed.
“You threw it at me after you took it off,” he laughed. “I did everything I could to get you to keep it on.”
“So you saw?” I couldn’t look at him as I nervously awaited the answer. “No, I had fair warning it was coming off.” He was smiling and for a second I was startled by how attractive it made him. “You counted to three,” he smiled.
“This is so embarrassing,” I whined and then I wondered. “Is there more?” I winced.
“A little.”
“I don’t think I want to hear the rest.” I couldn’t look at him. “What did I drink?”
“Tequila.”
I covered my face with my hands and groaned. “I really don’t want to hear the rest. I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to turn you into a babysitter last night.”
“It’s okay. It was actually kind of funny seeing you so um…uninhibited.”
I groaned. He smiled again, seeming like he had been truly entertained by whatever else I’d done. “Get dressed and I’ll take you to breakfast.”
We went to a place that looked as dumpy as I felt.
“Do you remember calling Ryan last night?” Justin asked.
“Nooooooh,” I moaned. “Please tell me I didn’t.”
“He was pretty pissed at me—thought I wasn’t keeping a good eye on you. I told him you would call him today.”
“What did I say to him?”
“It was really a garbled mess of things. You said you loved him a lot.”
“Maybe he’ll remember that and forget everything else.”
“Maybe,” he agreed, but I could tell he didn’t think so.
We didn’t do much the rest of the day. I felt too bad to do anything other than lay around and watch movies. It was nice though, just being with him like that. Alone.
That night we went out again. This time we just set up lawn chairs in the grass downstairs and hung out with some of Justin’s friends, eating pizza. I steered clear of any alcohol.
Sunday morning, I wasn’t ready to leave him, but at the same time, I wanted to be with Ryan again. It seemed I would need to smooth things over because of how I’d behaved Friday night. When I called him Saturday he didn’t have much to say, just that he would see me on Sunday.
***
The front door was unlocked, as usual. I let myself in, expecting Ryan to come kiss me and tell me how much he missed me, but I found him sitting at the kitchen table with his hands folded together, fingers interlocked, looking down at them.
“Ryan,” I said softly. His head gradually lifted, he glared angrily at me.
“Come sit down,” he said, his tone harsh.
My heart raced at the sight of his fiery expression. I walked cautiously toward him and lightly slid into the chair across from him. He took a deep breath and released it rigidly.
“Did you enjoy yourself with Justin this weekend?”
My posture fell. I was confused. “Yeah, we had fun. I’m sorry about Friday night. I just got a little carried away, I guess,” I said, trying to soothe him.
“Why did you tell me Eve would be at Justin’s this weekend?” His eyes shifted from his hands to me. They were worried and dull, which frightened me. I thought he was mad that I’d gotten drunk and acted stupid. What did Eve have to do with that? I shook my head. “Because I thought she would be. Justin didn’t tell me they’d broken up until I asked where she was.”
He smirked. “Convenient.”
“What does that mean?” I didn’t want to upset him further, but he was beginning to piss me off.
“Why didn’t he tell you before you arrived?”
“I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have mattered if I knew before I went or not.”
“Really?” Ryan pushed his bottom lip out, bending his mouth into a frown, slowly nodding his head as if he couldn’t believe my answer.
“Yeah, really, I would have gone anyway. I didn’t go to see her.”
“Oh, I know that,” he said coldly.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I saw her last night.”
“Eve?”
“Yes, Eve.”
“Okay, so?”
“So, she said she and Justin broke up because of you.”
“Because of me?” I gasped. I hadn’t caused their breakup. “Justin said she wanted to get married and he didn’t. That definitely didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“She seemed pretty pissed that you were with him.”
“She always seemed pissed when I was around, and I can’t help how she feels.”
Ryan glanced at me and then looked away as if considering something. “I heard you tell him he had pretty eyes.”
“What?”
“Friday night—Saturday morning—when I was talking to him on the phone. You told Justin that he had pretty eyes.”
Ryan looked so hurt. I didn’t remember saying it, but I knew better than to go that route. He migh
t wonder what else I’d done and didn’t remember. “It was a harmless comment. I’m sorry.”
“Did anything happen?” he asked grudgingly.
It took me a second to catch on to what he was after. “Are you seriously asking me that question?”
“Yeah, I’m asking.” He looked down, like he didn’t want to have to see the disappointment in my face.
“No,” I answered sharply. “Nothing happened. Nothing has ever happened. Ever. And I’m really pissed at you right now for thinking that I went there to cheat on you.”
His voice was quiet. “I know. I’m sorry. She just told me some things…” he trailed off, putting his hands on his face and exhaling roughly.
“What’d she say to you?” I demanded angrily.
He moved his hands so he could look at me. “Well first, she told me Justin’s roommate moved out and all I could think about was the two of you alone, with you in the condition you were in—” “Justin would never take advantage of me or any other girl in that way,” I interrupted. “I slept in his roommate’s room—both nights—alone.”
“She also said she caught the two of you in bed together the morning after graduation.”
I growled, feeling my blood rushing to boil. “We were in bed together, but she didn’t catch us doing anything except sleeping which is all we had been doing. She woke us up. Did she tell you that? That we were sleeping and nothing else?”
“She said you were in your underwear.”
“I was also wearing a t-shirt.”
“She said it was his.”
I put my face in my hands, exasperated, thinking of how much I would love to get my hands around her pale neck for about two seconds.
“There is nothing going on between me and Justin,” I repeated, through gritted teeth.
“She said he had his hands all over you.” I stood up and went to Ryan. I put my hands on his cheeks and looked desperately into his eyes. “She’s upset. She just got dumped.”
Ryan stared at me and the look on his face scared me. Tears formed in my eyes, I backed away from him. “You don’t really think I’ve been sleeping with Justin, do you?”
“No,” he said, his voice hoarse. “She just seemed so convinced that there was something going on, something that I was completely overlooking. She made it sound like…like it was true.”
“I bet she did,” I whimpered.
“She told me that she’d asked Justin to stop seeing you and he refused.”
“That’s ridiculous! She’s just mad that he didn’t want to marry her and frankly, right now, I don’t blame him. She obviously wasn’t right for him.”
“Shouldn’t he be the one to decide that?”
“He did decide that,” I spit. “And I agree with him. I don’t know why she’s blaming me for everything because I haven’t even seen her in two months, or Justin until this weekend. I haven’t spoken to her in longer than that. I mean, I’ve hardly talked to Justin at all since graduation. I’ve been spending all of my time with you since that night. So it makes no sense for her to demand that he stop seeing me, when practically, he already had.”
“She was sure it had to do with Katie.”
I had to laugh then; I think to keep from exploding. “So she thinks that I waited five months to get revenge for you sleeping with Katie?”
“No, she thought you and Justin slept together the night you found out about Katie. Graduation night.”
“Okay, well if that’s how it goes, then I guess I need to ask where you were last night. Did you rush out after talking to Eve to get revenge for my supposed affair with Justin?”
“No. The only thing I did while you were gone, that you didn’t know about, was pick up the cleats I ordered from Ronnie’s. That’s where I ran into Eve.”
“At Ronnie’s?” She was at a sporting goods store? Highly unlikely, I thought. She didn’t have an athletic bone in her flimsy little body.
“Yeah, sort of. She was sitting on the bench outside the store when I came out. I was surprised to see her because I thought she was with you and Justin, so naturally I asked what she was doing home.” I bet he didn’t ask her what she was doing at Ronnie’s. “She was upset, said she came home because she didn’t want to be around the two of you, which grabbed my attention, so I invited her to get some dinner with me.”
“You took her to dinner?” I asked disgusted.
“It wasn’t like that, Annie and you know it.”
“Just like you know what she told you was crap, right?”
“If the situation were reversed, wouldn’t you have wondered if something happened graduation night? You were upset. You’d just found out I’d done something horrible. You told me that you and Justin never slept in the same bed when you stayed over. I had to ask you.”
“Normally we don’t sleep in the same bed—actually never before that night, but nothing happened. Nothing has ever happened between Justin and me. I’ve told you before that he and I don’t feel that way about each other. I was upset about Katie, but it didn’t change how I felt about you. I still loved you and you know that I’m not the kind of person to just jump into bed with some guy.”
“He’s not some guy though, Annie,” Ryan said softly.
“I know, but still—” I paused, taking time to frame the rest of my response. “That night, I went to Pam’s because I didn’t want to be alone. She and Larry weren’t back yet and I figured Justin would be out all night so I got in his bed. I knew that being there would make me feel better. His home is like my home and you know that.” I glanced at Ryan. He wouldn’t look at me and I knew why.
“But Justin did come home and he got in bed with me. And before you ask, yes he knew I was in it and no, I had no idea he was there until the next morning when Eve woke us. I love you Ryan. I would never…” I trailed off.
“I know. I know,” he mumbled as he drew me closer to hold me. “I’m sorry. She seemed so sure. The thought of you with him…”
“I know,” I sniffled.
“I just love you so much, having to spend all this time apart is harder on me than I realized. I trust you, I do.”
***
I called Justin the next day to tell him what Eve had done. I expected him to be angry with her, but he just kept apologizing to me, which I thought was odd.
“I’m sorry she did that. I’ll talk to Ryan if you need me to.”
“Everything’s good with us. But she better think twice about running her mouth again because I just might have to kick her bony little butt.”
“Um. I wish you wouldn’t say anything if you see her.”
“Why not? She tried to ruin my relationship. She flat out lied about some things and twisted others to her advantage. I mean, I know toward the end she didn’t like me much, and I understand why, but that still doesn’t give her the right to cause problems for Ryan and me, or you and me for that matter.”
“I know, but we were together a long time. She was really hurt when I ended it. I know that’s not an excuse, but please, for me, don’t attack her if you see her.”
I snickered at the word attack. “I won’t,” I whined. I was mad, but still didn’t think I would actually be able to hit her. “She’s lucky I care so much about you.” I agreed to leave it alone, because in the end she hadn’t caused any real damage to either relationship.
“Thank you,” Justin said. “I’ll talk to her.”
28
I was completely dreading having to be in the same room with Ryan’s mother for Thanksgiving dinner, but I couldn’t allow her to think I was afraid of her by not showing up. I did make sure that my wardrobe was in season this time.
Ryan’s house was full of people. As he introduced me to everyone, I noticed that none of them were related to Valerie. They were all John’s family. Ryan explained that his mother had a sister and two brothers that they saw only at Christmas. One of her brothers and his wife had a vacation home in Colorado where they met for four days every year.
�
�So that means you’re not going to be here for Christmas,” I asked, deflating.
“No, I’ll be back the day after. I was going to tell you later. My dad told me she booked the flights yesterday. I’d bail, but I don’t want to stick him with my mom and her family on his own at Christmas.”
“I understand.”
“I thought that maybe you and I could have Christmas early, before I go, if that’s okay.”
“That would be nice.” I smiled at the smile on his face.
“Hey, yo, Ryan. What’s up?” I heard. Ryan turned and slapped hands with this preppy looking tween kid.
“Same old,” Ryan said. “Ben, this is my girl, Annie. Annie, this is my cousin Ben.”
He gave me a slight nod. “S’up?” he asked rhetorically.
“What’s up with some Xbox?” he asked Ryan, rubbing his hands together.
“I don’t know, man.”
“Aww man, you scared?”
Ryan chuckled. “Never scared.”
“You gettin’ soft, bro? Lazy or what?” Ben taunted. I wanted to laugh at this kid calling Ryan out like that.
“She makin’ you that way?” He threw his head in my direction. My eyes widened.
“Aww,” Ryan chuckled. “No. You know what it is though?” he asked Ben.
“What is it?”
“It’s on. That’s what it is,” Ryan stated. They slapped hands again.
“Alright. There he is,” Ben chanted.
Ryan grabbed my hand and told me to come on.
“Hold up,” Ben protested, shaking his head no.
“You go ahead. I’ll be fine,” I said quietly to Ryan.
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“Boo, no girls, dude. No way,” Ben protested, waving his arms in the air.
“She’s not your average girl,” Ryan defended.
Ben raised his eyebrow and smirked at me. “Do you have a uterus?” he asked. I chortled, “Yeah, I…uh…do.”
Ben looked at Ryan. “Then she is your average girl. She stays behind, dude.”
Ryan looked at me. “Uterus, huh?” he chuckled.
“How old is he?” I asked.
“Eleven.” We both laughed.
SWAY (Part 1) Page 18
