“Hey, Mia, sweetie, focus, please,” Regina said in a staccato burst of words. “Don’t think about some boy when we’ve got a tray of shots in front of us.”
“I honestly don’t know how you do this,” I laughed, looking at my best friend of the last year. “You know, Sam’s turned out to be such a drama queen.”
Regina raised an eyebrow, lifting a shot. “To Sam being a drama queen,” she toasted.
“Ugh, fine,” I said, knocking our shot glasses together and then drinking.
Okay, this was kinda fun.
Regina immediately entered her usual rant about how she felt like Sam was a bit of a bitch to her, how she preferred it a lot more now that Sam was in Florida. I felt like Regina was unloading to me that she missed me, that since she had gotten a lot busier with work, starting her new job just as I had started college, things were becoming different.
Of course, I was also in a state of transition too.
But it was good to bond. We were friends without the baggage of a guy getting in the way, which broke my friendship with Sam.
So without all of that, we could just be a little more free.
By the time Regina was done waving her boobs in front of the bartender that night, having scored us lots of drinks, I was feeling woozy. I had never gotten this drunk, wow.
She called me a cab, and I did everything I could to tiptoe quietly into my room. As a college girl, this felt strange… like an exceedingly childish thing to do. But here in my family’s new house, I realized that I always felt like a kid.
Dad would always look at me with pride. Mom would always worry and stress herself over making sure I had everything I needed. Gene would hover around, saying something sarcastic before slipping into his wise mode, somehow making complex problems seem really trivial and solvable.
I loved being here.
I slumped into bed, still buzzing from thinking about how Regina would flirt with anyone who stopped by the bar while we were there. She was such a funny girl. I knew we were going to have seriously different paths in life, but I hoped she would be in my life forever.
I fell asleep, knowing I managed to enjoy one last night here before my morning flight.
Bryant would just have to deal with me then.
When I woke up, I groaned from how bright everything was. I got a lot of natural light at my room in Bryant’s place too, but those were always shaded and filtered through lots of plants.
Here, my room’s one window faced East, and as soon as morning came, I got sun all over my face.
With my sort of hangover, I was not looking forward to the rest of the day.
This wasn’t a feeling I was used to. I stretched in bed, checking my phone for the time, and realized I did have enough time to get ready for the flight… but not enough time to catch more sleep.
Bryant texted me overnight, telling me he hoped he would see me at the airport.
I wanted to challenge him with some sort of sassy text right back, asking him why he wasn’t just taking the private jet.
But now that I had personally experienced what life was like being the son of Sergio Howard, I felt sorry for him. I hated that I cared so much, even as he pushed me away all because he had some deep-held insecurity he wouldn’t share with me.
It was his life. I understood that. He was scared of letting people in because he was scared I might get hurt too, or something like that. Maybe I was wrong, but if that was it, then I was right to be angry. It was idiotic! I cared about him too, I could give him the sort of comfort and protection he gave me.
Feeling safe wasn’t just something he made me feel. I wanted him to feel that way too.
I had all these feelings for Bryant, and I didn’t know what to do with them now. If he wanted us to just chill out, having been the one who brought us this deep and this far himself… then I would, but he’d lose out on being able to truly be with me.
And that was a big loss. I knew it was.
Mom wanted to drive me to the airport, but I was almost embarrassed by the idea. Nursing a hangover while your family’s just watching TV on a Sunday morning seemed like a joke. I felt almost pathetic.
“I can drive,” Eugene offered.
“No you can’t. Wait until you’re sixteen,” Dad shot back. “We’ll all go. How about that?”
I said it was fine, since Regina had already promised to do that.
Mom and Dad seemed pretty pleased to hear that. “I like her. She’s a little more… rough around the edges than you or Samantha, but I think she’s a fine woman,” Mom said. “You went out with her last night, didn’t you?”
I didn’t want to make my hangover too apparent. “Yeah, we just hung out.”
“Like old times,” Mom beamed.
“Sure did,” I laughed. “Uh, I’m going to get my stuff and then wait for her around the corner, okay? Easier for us to get to the airport there.”
I hated lying to my family, but the thought of having to take a big happy family drive when I was feeling this bad in my head, in multiple ways, no less… that just made me feel like my hangover would transform into a migraine.
So I just packed up and hailed a cab.
I had a little money left, enough to cover all this. If Bryant offered to give me a ride back home, I’d agree. But if I didn’t see him, I wasn’t going to wait around for him.
After all, he didn’t seem like he was willing to wait around for me.
When I got to the airport I didn’t have much to do, so I went straight to the gate. Bryant was already there. He saw me just as I cleared security and walked over towards the bank of seats waiting at the gate.
I took a seat far away from him, and at first he just nodded and accepted that.
This time, I made sure my seat wasn’t upgraded. I booked it on my phone in the cab, with the intention of paying with my card when I got there. It didn’t matter to me that Bryant probably booked two tickets… in business class, again.
No, I had to set clear boundaries now that I was not sure if we could continue doing what we were doing.
Was it just that he wanted sex from me, but somewhere along the way he developed feelings? It was the other way around in my case. I was touched by how much he cared about helping me, and sex was just the next step after all that sharing.
Maybe he really was just like all the other guys, and that he had freaked out when he realized that the fantastic sex we had when hooking up made him feel like he was changing.
Bryant came up to me. “Hey. Can I sit here?”
I shrugged.
“I’m sorry about everything.”
Looking at him, I didn’t see a change from the distant, worried guy I saw last night, the side of him that was revealed to me after he had to fight with his father.
“That’s fine,” I said, not trying to be curt with him, just not interested in having a fight. “What are you going to do today when we land?”
“I guess I’ll have to go straight to Coach Frost,” Bryant said, looking worried. “I’m not stressed about explaining that I came here with you, or because of you. It’s just that I’m kinda going crazy at the thought that my dad was keeping tabs on me like this… talking to Coach Frost and hinting that I wasn’t going to come back. He’s really sabotaging me this way.”
I understood. At least he was still open enough to tell me about his fears involving his dad. “I hope things will get way better,” I told him, starting to soften.
“I’ll leave you alone for now. Sorry I interrupted you. Hey, my car’s still parked at the airport. Can we drive back together?” he asked.
My answer was a slow nod. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too awkward anymore.
We didn’t sit together on the flight, which made me suspect he did get a business class seat after all. I didn’t sleep this time, my hangover still bothering me. My mood was pretty sour, and being on a plane for hours with strangers wedged on both sides of me as I sat in a middle seat just made me feel more unhappy.
Maybe it was a good thing that Bryant wasn’t in love with me. Maybe I could finally get out of his shadow now, and people would stop talking about me behind my back. Maybe I could even reconnect with Sam… but that was something I wasn’t looking forward to either, because she had proven herself to be just as toxic as someone like Bryant’s dad.
When we landed, Bryant waited for me at the arrival area, his car key out in his hand. “Are you hungry?” he tried.
“Nah, not really.” It was the truth. I ate on the plane, this time, but plane food wasn’t all that great… although I wasn’t hungry, anyway.
Some girls ate their feelings. I was not one of them. Me, I was more likely to just sleep all through a weekend, hoping that eventually when my body was no longer tired from all my emotions, I could carry on with all the things I needed to do.
We drove home in silence. I started to realize just how often we did that. Some couples talked a lot during their rides. Others teased each other, maybe even got sexual in the car. But more often than not, when Bryant and I were in a car, someone was in a mood.
This couldn’t be a good sign for our relationship, if we even had one still.
When we got home, the other guys were all gathered around a dining table. There were other guys I didn’t even know, who I assumed had to be from the football team. I just lugged my backpack, said hi in the best way I could without coming off sour and unhappy, and then marched off to my room.
I knew the guys would need to talk to Bryant first, and that meant he wouldn’t be able to come to my room and try to have a conversation with me again.
I didn’t know what I had to say, anyway. I felt like I was trapped, that there was a giant shadow hanging over our relationship that had nothing to do me and him. If that was the case, what was I even doing, giving him all this love?
And I was sure I loved him, too. Saying it aloud the first time just confirmed it. I had to toughen up and freeze those feelings, instead of melting all over him, but the reality was I did care so much for him.
When he finally came to my room, knocking on the door lightly and trying the knob, I remembered that I had locked the door, so I had to jump out of my bed and come meet him there.
I left the door only slightly ajar. Just enough to see him.
There was no invitation in.
I had come to a conclusion as to what I had to do, too.
“Hey,” I said to him.
He nodded silently. “Can we talk?”
“First I have a question for you,” I told him.
“Okay…”
“Do you want me to move out? Would that help you? If I moved out, maybe this could be a reset of sorts. We could try again, this time… maybe without so much drama.” I offered this while fighting tears in my eyes.
He paused just long enough that when he finally said no, I couldn’t take him at his word.
“I don’t want to come in the way of your success. I don’t want to be a distraction to you. I don’t want your coach punishing you for this, and I definitely don’t want to be in a relationship where I have to bring up a Fiona video just for you to tell me you don’t know if you can promise that you want to be my boyfriend,” I told him.
He wanted to say something but he stopped, and I could tell he was getting mad.
“Is it because I couldn’t be honest and say the words you wanted me to say?” he asked softly.
“It’s not.”
He shook his head. “You’re lying. It’s because of that. You want me to say I’m in love with you too. Well… I might be able to, some day. But I’m not ready right now.”
I closed my eyes. Somehow, this felt like the conclusive answer I needed to hear.
He wasn’t ready.
That meant I wasn’t going to wait for him. He had to come to me. “Then tell me when you’re ready. I’m not going to be here, Bryant. It would hurt me too much.”
I pushed the door shut, letting him leave. I looked at all the stuff I had here. This time, I wasn’t going to use professional movers.
This time, I was packing and moving out myself.
22
Bryant
I fucked up with Mia, but she was right to blame me like this. I was the one who got myself into this mess.
Maybe she hated me now… maybe she hated me again.
But she needed space, and I gave her that. This time, I didn’t try to offer my money to help her. The movers were overkill, anyway. She hadn’t really settled here anyway, just like she had barely settled in the other dorm room.
I wasn’t sure, but I heard she had moved back there. That meant being with Sam again.
I felt sorry for her because I knew she didn’t want that.
But I was feeling even more sorry for me — for being stupid, for hurting her by being this fucked up mess of a man.
All I wanted to do was help. I cared a great deal about everyone that mattered to me, and it wasn’t hard for me to help them at all. But sometimes my help caused more damage than assistance.
When that happened, Mia was right to move out.
It was only Wednesday. Three days had passed, which normally would be too short for me to miss someone… but with Mia things were different.
She showed me kindness and compassion even after being a dick to her for years. I knew she probably didn’t even resent me for what I did, because I could tell that she had the empathy to understand the pain going through me.
Either way, I made this bed. Everything here was my own doing.
She wanted too much from me. I couldn’t just outright declare that I was in love with her, not when that came with the risk of hurting her too. If she didn’t see how much I cared for her, how I adored her, how I thought she was gorgeous… then she was blind.
Actually, I started to get mad thinking about that again.
If she didn’t see how I had all those feelings for her, then, to put it simply: fuck her.
I wasn’t going to put my life on hold because she was hell-bent on hearing exactly how I felt.
Plus, she already got a ringside seat to the absolute chaotic drama that was my family life. Even though I was in Florida, my family still mattered to me. I didn’t want Carl to grow up with my dad’s toxic behavior wrecking him up the way he wrecked me up.
I needed to relax. Fuck, I just wanted to let loose a little.
Coach Frost lived up to his name when I went to see him after Mia said she was moving out. He was frosty to me. Said he understood it was a personal matter, with the other teammates backing me. But they needed me in Missouri, and having to switch quarterbacks left the team underprepared for a game we were playing away from home.
“I’m not happy about this, Bryant,” he said in a long drawl. He used my first name, not my last, which meant he was especially unhappy. Normally the coach would just hide behind the formal cliches of being a coach. He’d bark my name, tell me to shape up or he’d kick me off the team… but now I felt like he was talking to me man-to-man.
And I was torn up inside that he looked so disappointed by me.
Now was the wrong time to ask him about whether I would still start the next game against Vanderbilt.
The topic was left unsaid, so I promised that I would make an extra effort in training this week.
“Extra effort?” Liam Frost gave me a cool smile. “You’re supposed to give me 110% every day in training. Extra effort makes me wonder if you’ve been doing even that.”
I nodded. “Sorry. Not what I mean.”
“Get out of here, Howard. And you better show up and shape up.”
The familiar cliches he used to motivate me made me relax. This could have gone a whole lot worse.
I was going to shape up.
But first I needed some kind of way to relax.
I found Marvin and Tyrone playing video games in Marvin’s room.
“Yo. Let’s have a party,” I said.
Those were the magic words for a bunch of guys like us in college. These guys just had to p
ut their controllers down and reach for their phones, and soon everyone who mattered on campus knew they should come to my house tonight.
It was a huge party. Bigger than the party I met Mia at.
I was going to invite her, but that seemed stupid, even for me. What, like she was just going to show up and then have a fun time?
Maybe Sam would come, but if she did, it wouldn’t be on my invitation.
Friends and friends of friends brought lots of drinks over, getting their older friends to buy beers, while others even brought drugs.
There was coke, Ecstasy, weed… hell, everything looked far more intense that weed just seemed like about as tame as drinking a beer.
So when one girl I didn’t know who was trying to have a conversation with me offered me some weed, I just shrugged and said sure.
She rolled for me. I didn’t know her name, but she looked like the kind of daily stoner I knew there were lots of on campus. Florida was famous for stoners.
“You’re gonna like this,” she said. “It’s good weed too. I think Gary got this from Thailand or something.”
I looked around. “Sorry, who the fuck is Gary?”
“He’s just this guy I hang out with,” the girl said, finishing rolling me a joint. “Go on. Have a bit.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the joint in my hands. Sure, it was expertly rolled, and it smelled pretty strong.
I hesitated for a second.
But then I decided I was done caring. I just went for it.
We shared that joint, just me and her, this nameless girl I didn’t know but kept telling me stories about her and Gary, who I also didn’t know and didn’t care about.
Somehow, being stoned just made the absurdity of hearing these stories even more pronounced. I was egging her on, telling her to tell me more, taking puffs on the joint and capturing all the smoke in my mouth so I could get a full blast of the effect.
Marvin sat down next to me. “Uh, Bryant, bro, what are you doing?”
I twirled the joint towards him. He shook his head. “Come on, man. It’s just a joint.”
“Who’s this guy?” the nameless girl asked.
Hating Him Wanting Him : A Contemporary Romance Collection Page 34
