by Rowena
“Kidding,” I say and she shrugs like she doesn’t care.
I realize my light-hearted approach is not working, but I don’t know how to turn this mode off; I’ve never had to seriously address anything personal between us.
I’ve come to her with serious issues before, but they were always outside of her—girl problems, forgotten paper due imminently, conflicts with my exacting, overbearing father—Nina has talked me through all kinds of things.
And now that the problem involves the two of us this time and she’s all tight-lipped, I don’t know how to do this.
I let out a breath, all humor finally leaving me.
“My dear friend, Nina,” I begin, the heaviness of my voice surprising me. I’m unable to hide from her—or myself—how much I mean every word; she is indeed very dear to me. “I missed the hell out of you,” I finish.
Encouraged by the slight softening I detect in her demeanor, I continue, “I don’t know how to make up for what I did, and I’m not going to ask you to tell me how, but I would like to start somewhere in rebuilding our relationship. You mean a lot to me, and I don’t want to lose you again.”
I can feel her softening more, but she remains silent.
When we pull up to her school and I find a parking spot, I turn to her and say, “Agree to have dinner with me tonight—as friends obviously. We have a lot more catching up to do.”
I swear I hear her grumble, “You don’t know the half of it,” as she starts to exit my car.
“Fine,” she says before slamming the door shut. “But remember, I don’t have a clue how to reach you since you cut me off so completely.”
“How about this,” I say, an idea occurring to me. “You obviously need a ride from work—I can pick you up and take you home and perhaps wait for you there as you get ready. Then we can head…”
“That won’t be necessary,” she says.
Her eyes had grown the size of saucers and she’s trying to hide her alarm now, acting like she hadn’t just looked like she’d seen a ghost.
Why the heck did the idea of me going to her place worry her so? Did she think I’d try to seduce her again?
Then another possible reason made its way to the front of my mind.
I feel a familiar resentment start to grow in me as I figure it must be a man she’s worried about. Does she live with someone?
“I just…I have a few other things I need to take care of and I need way more time to get myself together, and I don’t feel comfortable…”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I say, holding up a hand to halt her babbling. “So it’s not an ideal plan for you right now, but I’m not letting us drift apart again, Nina; I must see you again. Very soon.”
“Don’t you have a Stacey or Becka or someone to be more concerned about? How would they feel about you going to dinner with…with…?”
She’s obviously struggling with the words she wants to say. Someone I fucked, is it, dear Nina?
“Nina, I have no such obligation at this time.” Heck, I don’t even remember the last time I was in a serious relationship though my dad’s been pressuring me to find some high-society girl and get married and start making heirs.
Guess who’s not interested in that plan at all?
I can’t imagine willingly entering a marriage like the one between him and Mom—there was more distance between them than the top of Mt. Everest and the ground.
What a nightmare.
I mean, sure—both came from wealthy families, so they both lived the good life I guess, but something about the whole thing looked so empty and unappealing.
I want more than they had—I want it all. I have far more money than I’ll ever need in a lifetime, and I want someone I can share the big and small with. I want a life filled with warmth and laughter, not stiff parties and smiles.
I can’t recall a single time I looked into either of my parents’ eyes and saw true joy.
Well, that’s not completely true, I guess—I recently visited Mom at the house, and there was something different about her. When some dude stopped by supposedly for a repair, I figured it out immediately—she was having an affair with him and clearly enjoying it.
All I could think was, good for her! Because god knows Dad’s in a constant state of affairs.
I don’t know if she really loves that repair guy or not, but she’s finally having fun.
I used to wonder if Dad has her in some kind of contract that prevents her from leaving because it seems she could be so much better off outside of their sham of a marriage. Like, why doesn’t she just leave?
“So. Nine o’clock tonight?” I offer Nina.
It’s Friday; I’m guessing she doesn’t work tomorrow.
“That should give me enough time,” she says. “I can’t stay out too long, though.”
I want to ask why, but I just know some ‘tude will make an appearance.
I’m aware I don’t necessarily have a right to all the corners of her life, but old habits are hard to break—we used to talk about pretty much anything and I still want us to.
But I guess I’ll exercise a bit of patience and do things on her terms for now.
“Great. I’ll pick you up eight,” I say, getting ready to get her address from her.
Since I don’t know where she lives, I don’t know how far she’ll be from the place I have in mind, but I know how women go—in any case, I’ll need at least a fifteen-minute buffer.
“Coming,” she’ll say when I pull up, then go on to tweak her makeup and check her hair and shit for the next ten minutes or so, perhaps even reconsidering the pair of shoes she chose and try on a different pair.
“No,” she says firmly. “I’ll meet you there—at whatever restaurant you choose.”
“That’s just not happening,” I say before I can reconsider my choice of words or soften them.
“Then I guess this meeting or date or whatever the hell you want to call it isn’t happening.”
She stares at me with a challenge in her eyes.
Fuck.
Okay, so she has a bit of leverage right now; after all, I can’t force her to go out with me.
How the hell’s she gonna get there, though? Is she really gonna take a cab?
This is such bullshit.
“Is your boyfriend dropping you off?” I ask. I regret not being able to hide how much I hate the idea.
I really don’t know where this green-eyed monster comes from whenever I’m faced with the possibility of someone being with Nina.
I didn’t have to think about it while I went about my business after graduation, but now that she’s in front of me, I’m feeling possessive again.
“Is that any of your business?” she says with an edge to her voice.
“If you’re going out with me, yes it is.”
“Not when I’m meeting up with you as a friend, Brent.”
So does she have someone or not?
Fine, she wants to play coy, I’ll wait until dinner.
Guess I’ll find out everything about the past few years and what she’s got going on right now tonight.
All of her secrecy is making me unbearably curious—I really want to see where she lives and who, if anyone, she’s got waiting at home for her.
If her car’s any indication, I’m almost terrified to find out for sure.
Maybe that’s it—maybe she’s just ashamed of her neighborhood. Maybe she doesn’t want me to see her heading toward me from some run-down place.
An image of a post-apocalyptic landscape suddenly overrun by escaped convicts pops in my head.
Maybe I’ll follow her home after dinner and see what’s up.
* * *
I never really saw Nina as a chick—that is, until she introduced me to some guy sniffing around her in college, and I suddenly got so possessive of her, I lost my mind.
When I thought about it later, I realized what I dick I was—how unfair it was to Nina that I took her like that without any commitment.
Looking at Nina now, it’s as if the wind has been knocked out of me.
She is coming toward me in a flowing blue dress with her hair all done up and her makeup a bit more pronounced.
Somehow, she’s even more beautiful than I remember— her round face and the soft curves of her body more feminine and appealing than ever.
She has blossomed in adulthood, and I’m having a hard time seeing her as the Nina I’d known before. She has transformed into an alluring woman—a woman that a part of me is suddenly desiring to possess again.
It doesn’t help that her dress, conservative as it is, is emphasizing her generous boobs.
How greedy can I be?
I have all the lady company I could want; I can change it up every day if I wanted to. Well-bred, always impeccably made-up beauties of all heights and shades flock to me, yet all I can think right now is how much I want the one in front of me.
Is this one of those moments where I’m confusing a primal answer to a silent challenge for desire again?
“You look amazing,” I say almost breathlessly as I stand to greet her.
“Careful,” she says, sliding into our private booth. “That tone should not be used on friends.”
Pleasure surges through me at her admonishment.
What’s wrong with me—or rather, what is it that’s so different about her?
She’s not as bubbly and sweet as the girl I hung out with before, and there are obvious reasons for that—beyond me hurting her feelings, we’re deep into our twenties, and adult life is a different ballgame.
Innocence and optimism are chipped away slowly but surely once you finish schooling and hit the real world. Especially for women, I guess.
The change in her is a bit jarring, but mostly just interesting.
I’m intrigued that she’s a bit closed off now, and I guess that’s what’s making her alluring.
She also seems a bit more confident in some way—there’s a firmness to her boundaries.
Before, it seemed I could talk her into anything, but this Nina knows how to tell me no, and even where to shove it. And I like it.
Unfortunately for her, part of me accepts the challenge and wants to break her down to the point where she’s begging me to take her again.
The more I think about it, the more my cock grows in anticipation of sinking into her slick warmth once more.
“You didn’t hear a goddamned word I just said,” she says accusatorially.
Damned right, girl.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “My mind briefly wandered.”
“Yeah, your eyes also got lost between my tits.”
My cock twitches.
She has developed a bit of a dirty mouth, it seems.
Boobs, she used to say. And forget about hearing her talk any dirtier than that.
Where the heck did she pick up this crassness from? I don’t imagine her fellow teachers are going on about tits and cock in the break room.
“Tits?” I repeat, making sure she knows I’m aware of her expanded vocabulary.
She has the decency to look a tiny bit embarrassed.
“I’ve been plowing through erotica these days,” she says with a shrug. “It’s not like I’m getting the real thing.”
My cock twitches again.
Does she have any idea how much we’re past friendship territory here?
She comes here with those boobs looking like that and talking about tits and erotica and getting some, and I’m supposed to hear it like it’s just a fellow bro speaking and not a beautiful, voluptuous woman my cock has had the pleasure of knowing before.
Watch it, my curvy buddy.
Luckily, our orders start to arrive.
She tries to hide how excited she is when the food comes out and fails miserably.
I watch her exercise every bit of control she has and pretend she’s nonchalant about what’s in front of us, but I know how much she enjoys eating out—I took her to a few places I wanted to try out when I was in between girlfriends back in college, and it was a joy to watch her get so excited.
I guess the food—or maybe the alcoholic drink—finally loosens her up a bit because she finally starts filling me in on the past five years.
Outside of her parents dying in a plane crash on the way to their honeymoon trip to Thailand, sounds like life’s been pretty boring for her since college.
Apparently, she worked a couple of shitty jobs before getting a stint as a substitute teacher, then she ended up staying on when the woman who went on maternity leave never came back.
Teachers notoriously don’t get paid well, so I guess I can see how she ended up with that car.
I hope she’s really happy at this job because it doesn’t seem worth it to me to play a game of, Will my car start today?
Maybe that’s how she keeps things exciting since it’s clearly not coming from anywhere else.
For me, excitement never stops, and as exhausting as work can be sometimes, when I take a break, it’s more than worth it to be able to do whatever the fuck I want with pretty much whomever I want.
Oddly enough, I do feel a small gap sometimes—like I’m missing something.
I don’t think I’ll fill it with the life my dad’s shoving me toward, but I have the strongest feeling that whatever hole this is, Nina’s got the key. Whenever I’m with her, I feel like everything’s right. Complete.
Well, except when it seems she’s interested in some other dude who can possibly take her away from me, because I know if she gets involved with someone, we won’t be as close and I don’t want to lose her; she belongs to me.
I know, I know; I’m a hypocrite. And selfish.
Still, I lost her once because I thought I wanted something beyond her, and now that she’s sitting here in front of me, I realize all I want is her, and not just to keep as a friend.
“What about you?” she says lightly, digging into dessert.
“Wait—you skipped the love life part,” I remind her.
I need to hear it; I need it pounded into me what a fool I’ve been. I need to remind myself how many times I’ve come close to losing her to some other guy so I don’t take her for granted again.
“Not much to tell. So what about you?” she says again, her voice flatter.
Okay, Nina. Once again—perhaps the last time—we do things your way.
“Must have been pretty easy for you to slide right into Daddy’s shoes,” she adds.
She said it casually, but I feel sort of insulted.
What’s she trying to say? Everything’s a breeze for me?
I won’t lie—to some degree it has been; being the son of a multimillionaire has its perks. But I busted my ass growing various divisions and our empire is now worth billions. That shit didn’t come to me—I had to go out there and grab it.
“Yeah, I started with one of Dad’s companies at first. Worked my way up. Heading several corporations now, and multiplied our family wealth twenty-fold at least. That answer your question?” I give her an accusatory glare. Then I soften my expression as I reach for her hand. I’m relieved she doesn’t pull it away.
“Listen, I was sort of a careless prick back then and I realize I must’ve come across like some trust fund douche, and that’s not entirely inaccurate—knowing what I had coming to me corrupted me a bit. It wasn’t like when I was a kid and didn’t realize how powerful my dad was. Although, come to think of it, he might have still approved of me getting my ass kicked by bullies. Might as well get it out of the way early and help build character and drive, he probably would have said. In a way, it did—I never wanted to feel powerless again, and as soon as I could, I started working toward that goal—having power and control.”
I don’t mention how powerless I feel when it comes to her sometimes—I become a slave to my emotions
. Like that time she introduced her boyfriend to me and everything inside me went haywire.
I don’t bother bringing up that incident because we’ve been having a decent time so far—why point to that ugly mark on our history now?
She’s done with dessert, and my heart clutches as I feel the night coming to an end.
I really don’t want to scare her away, but she’s reapplying her lipstick now—a bewitching shade of red coloring and moistening her lips, and all I can think about is kissing them.
A battle begins inside me—one side telling me to calm the fuck down and take things slowly. Gain her trust and friendship back. The other side is egging me on to find an opportunity to kiss her and see if she feels anything like she once felt for me.
She told me she loved me once—that didn’t just go away, did it?
“You must let me drive you home, Nina. It’s torture to think of you at the mercy of some stranger.”
“Is that so?” she says dryly.
She regards me for a moment, as if trying to figure out how much bullshit I’m filled with, then she nods her head ever so slightly in agreement.
It’s like a stadium crowd just stood up and cheered inside me.
Progress.
3
Nina
Okay, now this is the worst idea in the world: letting Brent drive me home.
When Brent proposed dinner, and I agreed, I thought that was the worst.
The first thing I thought was, Great, now I have to figure out a last-minute babysitter. On a Friday night! Why the hell did I agree to this?
I could have, at the very least, postponed any sort of one-on-one till maybe Sunday.
Luckily, one of my usual babysitters was available.
I just told her something came up, but when she showed up and saw me all dressed up, she knew what was up.
“Oooh, hot date tonight?” she said with a conspiratorial smile.
I wasn’t in the mood to answer such a question so I shrugged and waited for the taxi to arrive, trying not to think about how much the date was costing me between the babysitter and the cab ride.
I remind myself to arrange a rental soon.
