Crush

by Celia Loren

  “You look so beautiful, dressed up like that.” Chase rises behind me, and I see more of his college boy bod, and what a mockery it makes of his “Brendan” costume. His tall stance seems at odds with the Daniel Johnston t-shirt. His muscular legs appear strained in the skinny jeans. My gaze drifts downward, without my consent. Even in the moonlight, I can see how the denim contours his package. On thinking this, I have to turn away again.

  “You've changed a lot since high-school. I can tell.” He walks towards me, his gait somehow familiar and strange all at once. “You're more confident. I dig it.”

  I keep my gaze focused on the activity outside Delta Nu, the coeds moving around on the lawn below. It’s surreal, to be standing here in this room, dressed as a princess, pursued by a prince. Suddenly his hands find my hips...

  “There's no chance you'd wanna—go somewhere and really catch up, right?” The pads of Chase’s fingers find my hip-bones, and at first they tread lightly. If anyone were to walk in right now, we might still look innocent, standing there in the window's profile. But slowly, like molasses, Chase pours more movement into his fingertips. He massages me slightly, and I feel myself open at the joints; my knees begin to part, involuntarily.

  “Not tonight,” I say quickly, as blood rises up from my chest and into my face. I duck my head, so Chase can't see me looking totally fifteen and goofy. When we’d locked eyes—in the glass of the windowpane, before I leapt away from him and towards the door—I did feel something. Sure, he had the unabashed look of a more-than-buzzed guy at a frat party, but I swear a stronger sensation moved between us. It’s still lingering.

  “Totally understand,” Chase says, after a heartbeat. “But take my number. Just in case.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I'd like to take you out.” And there was that famous Kelly smirk again, in all its glory. The face that had brought me to my knees ten years prior. I fish in my cleavage, beet-red, before procuring my iPhone. I wait patiently for him to plug his digits in, and then I turn, the picture of almost-cool, and follow my two new amigos to a diner.

  Chapter Four

  “Tell me again why you didn't go home with the ripped reincarnation of Kurt Cobain back there?” Trevor asks, his lipstick smearing across the sesame bun of his black bean burger. We're at the least popular of the three diners closest to campus, and the 'we' I refer to is the strike-out-crew—Trevor, Tara and me.

  “I'm trying this new thing where I don't jump into the sack with randos.” Above my head, Trev and Tara exchange arch looks, and in the interest of not being a judgmental ass, I backpedal. “Not that casual sex is bad.” All the time, I don't add.

  “But it's not like you just met him. Haven't you known this guy for years?”

  “I'd do him.” Tara sprinkles some table salt into her palm, for no discernible reason. “In an airplane. In a phone booth. On a roof...”

  “Who are you, Dirty Dr. Seuss?”

  My roommate sips some of her Diet Dr. Pepper, smiling tautly. She didn't order any food.

  “It's also a little weird, right? That he dressed up as his twin for Halloween? And pranked me about it?”

  “What are you talking about? It's fucking hilarious,” Tara says, without laughing.

  “I was only looking at his arms, TBH,” Trevor sighs. He sets his burger down, and cocks his head so the Glinda wig slides sideways.

  Trevor catches the Glinda wig before it goes sailing into the ketchup, ripping the sparkly thing off his head with no small irritation. Underneath, I'm surprised to see that my new friend is bald.

  “Your phone is blowing up, lady,” Tara says, as she extracts a single french fry from the tangle on Trevor's plate. My heart does a backflip. I've got three new messages, but my fingers are too sweaty to scroll.

  The first two are from Zooey, demanding to know how my first night went. But I skip past those in favor of the newest addition to my paltry list of contacts: Mr. Perfect. Like, he actually named himself Mr. Perfect in my phone.

  Asshole, I think—though I smile to myself as I read:

  “Still think you can run laps around me, Angry A?”

  “Yes,” I manage, deciding not to comment on his drunk “speech.” That probably wouldn't be cute.

  “Good. Tomorrow morning. Let's go for a run. Meet me at the old oak tree by the science building, 1130am. Sound good?”

  I knew it. I knew it was worth it, to wait.

  “Yes,” I type again. For a second, I worry that my speediness screams 'eager beaver'—but then, Mr. Perfect sends an emoji of a sleeping cat.

  I have a date.

  On my first day at school.

  With the first boy I ever loved.

  Who said San Diego was so bad?

  Chapter Five

  I wake up at eight, feeling fresh-faced and thrilled despite the four hours of sleep. Across the room, Tara snores deeply, a satin eye-mask covering most of her face. Cuddled up beside her on the narrow twin bed is Trevor, who apparently crashed at ours last night. His Glinda make-up is smudged something fierce.

  Careful not to wake new-roomie and surrogate-roomie, I press my feet to the cold tile and make for my many unpacked bags, which have been abandoned in a heap by the front door. I need to (stealthily) find my running gear, and not just any running gear—the sexy, Lycra stuff. Back in Savannah, I preferred to go for morning runs in the uniform of a harried Dad: grey sweatpants and a billowy white t-shirt were par for my course. Last year, though, Zooey had given me a gift certificate to LuluLemon—which was her idea of an inside joke, given all those hours we spent playing Camel Toe Hunt like assholes. I'd splurged on some high-quality gear—booty shorts and sports bras—and naturally, never found a need to shake up my style. But this run is like the ball. If Brendan Kelly got an eyeful of the Cinderell-ized version of his old pal last night, I want to show him that the genuine article can be just as foxy without the pearls and lipstick.

  But wait—not Brendan. Chase, dressed as Brendan. I shake my head at the mental mistake, sliding one leg first into the snug pants. God damn, these are tight. But I keep my eye on the prize: Chase, Chase, Chase....

  Visions from last night bob to the top of my memory: Chase’s sexy-ass lip-ring (though, of course, that had been a joke), Chase’s brooding demeanor (though, of course, that had been a costume), Chase’s body, carved like a Rodin figure (sigh...the real thing). My stomach flips again with anticipation. I shake the urge to text him, just to make sure everything really happened last night—but something tells me to do so would be super needy. Instead, I turn my focus to the impossible-seeming task of unpacking. I ease my duffel bag open, and find myself faced with a horror story: it's the floral, baby-doll dress I was wearing on that horrible night in Savannah. Why, oh why, did I keep this thing?

  My heart starts pounding against my rib-cage, and I feel angry tears begin to swim below my eyelids. Yes, angry—and maybe I will always be Angry Avery, in my way. I hastily look over to Tara and Trevor, just to make sure they're still asleep, the way I did so many mornings in Georgia when I didn't want Zooey to catch me crying. That monster. It makes me so furious that the memory of him can still scare me, even when he's thousands of miles away.

  It's then that my phone buzzes with a welcome distraction: “I know it's early, but I couldn't sleep. Any chance ur awake? Got a protein shake with your name on it if so.”

  I brush the rumblings of my tears away, and feel my heart ping-pong back towards glee. I'm going out with a good guy today. Everything is going to be different in this city. I stand, I stretch, I type back:

  “Meetcha at the tree in ten?”

  “I can't believe you don't remember the treehouse!”

  “I remember a fort. We didn't build anything in a tree.”

  “But we definitely called it a Tree House. Because it was inspired by those doofy books your brother used to be obsessed with. Remember?”

  “The Magic Treehouse.”

  “Yes!”

  “Ever the egg-he
ad, that Brendan.”

  “Remember when your mother said we could practice tie-dye with her wedding dress? That was what we used as a curtain! I'm actually shocked at how well I'm able to remember some of this stuff.” I bend low for a stretch, pausing to squint up at Chase from the ground. He's still leaning against the oak tree, clutching the protein shake. In his Top Gun aviators and Letterman jacket, he doesn't exactly look ready for a good sprint around campus. I remain unsure as to whether or not we're really going to get any running done this morning.

  “Right. Right. That was so fucked up.” Chase appears lost in thought for a moment, but then his eyes fall back to me. The grin he shoots me sends a shiver up my spine—it's the exact same one I remember from our mile-running days.

  “This is nice,” I say, pulling myself out of a lunge. “It feels like old times, doesn't it?” At last, Chase takes off his jacket, as if to disprove this remark with the contents below: his biceps ripple out from beneath a ribbed wife beater, so rounded and taut that my eyes bulge. He's so jacked he stands just shy of early Sylvester Stallone territory—even the tendons in his neck stand out. Chase’s skin appears golden in the early morning sun, and I can see the highlights in his hair in a way I didn't notice at the party last night. Yeah, Avery, it's just like old times. Except your Spongebob-loving ex-BFF is a body-builder now. And I'm pretty sure those sun-streaks are dyed in.

  Instead of responding, Chase just smiles—and the impish way he does so makes it clear that he's caught my awed expression. Pushing the glasses up to perch on his head, he extends a huge foot toward the base of the oak tree, lazily stretching a hamstring. When he bends down, a tendril of his blonde hair falls out from behind the aviators, and he attempts to blow this away.

  “Wanna hold my feet while I do some sit-ups?” Chase says, flopping suddenly to the ground. I'm gazing at his Herculean figure so hard that I almost forget to nod. Crouching before him, I press my palms into the tops of his feet. His crotch is right there in front of me, splayed and ready—oh, my God. I have to look up at the sky instead.

  Chase starts to grunt as he pulls himself forward with each sit-up. As I watch all the musculature in his arms and legs flex with effort, I feel like I'm watching ballet. He really is a beautiful boy. The fine hair along his legs is like dust—it's more golden than he is, nearly opaque. His movements are so fluid it's clear that there's a six-pack lurking underneath that wife-beater. I want to rest my head against it. I want to hear his muscles thrum and churn.

  I hear girl-voices across the quad, and yank my eyes from the perfect body in front of me just in time to catch three leggy brunettes scurrying away like they've been caught.

  “Did you know them?” I ask Chase. “Oh—err, thirty-two...”

  “Probably just the fan-club,” Chase wheezes. “Thirty-three.” Sweat begins to rise in a line along his forehead, darkening his blonde hair.

  “You're kidding.”

  Chase collapses against the dust, dramatically. He peers up at me, between rigorous exhales, and pulls an adorable shrug face.

  “Oh come on, Kelly! I'm sure the ladies of SDU don't just flock to see you work out. You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you.”

  Chase arches an eyebrow. “What song?”

  “You know, the song. Carly Simon?”

  “Does she go here, or something?” Chase pulls himself up to sitting, indicating I can finally release my grip on his big feet. I bite my lip, trying not to be the asshole. I guess it's not that weird. Plenty of people don't know who Carly Simon is. She's pretty old-school.

  “You feel like running yet, Angry Avery?”

  “Oh, I've been ready. I was born ready.” Chase smiles at me, in a way that shows his teeth. I watch an impulse cross his face, and before I know it, he's fallen back to the ground again and grabbed hold of my hands. He kicks off his sneakers, then draws me forward, up the length of his torso, so my own stomach comes to rest on the soles of his feet. I let out an involuntarily terror-giggle.

  “Just relax. And think about extending from every limb.”

  “Ahhh—Chase, your feet are dirty! And cold!”

  He doesn't say anything, but gazes into my eyes as he begins to extend his legs, slowly at first. His thighs and arms quiver with the effort of supporting me. I try not to laugh again, even though I'm not thrilled about being yanked into some weird new couples' stretch without being asked first.

  “Look up!” Chase urges, gesturing with his chin. I let myself abandon his wide, green eyes and scan the horizon. For a second, it is like levitation. That is, until I stop to consider Chase’s view from below—the low-hanging cleavage and all.

  “Brendan! Brendan, I'm flying!” I giggle. At this, Chase frowns a little, then slowly lowers his knees until I can find footing on the ground again. “It's Chase, remember.”

  But before I can explain my ostensibly obvious Titanic joke, Chase has shaken off his minor irritation. I see in him something like Tara's single-mindedness, that ability to switch gears rapidly and remain intense. Maybe they're birds of a feather. Or maybe everyone in San Diego is just like that.

  Hopping to his feet, the golden Kelly starts to bounce on his toes. “Now let's see if you can still lap me, girl,” he smiles. He wiggles his eyebrows at me, and I feel his irises scan my frame. I blush hard when he lingers on my curves, and turn my gaze to the quad. Before Chase can count us off or set a course, I start to run.

  Chapter Six

  Tara pours a third Splenda into her Diet Dr. Pepper (don't ask me), and peers at me over the tops of her dark, ridiculous, Lady Gaga-esque sunglasses. The dorm room is pretty much exactly as I left it.

  “I can't believe you already went on a date, bitch. You literally haven't even unpacked yet. And it's like noon on a Sunday.”

  “It's like, four,” I say, slowly squeezing more of the moisture out of my hair. “And I'm not even sure that was a date. It was more like a high-school reunion.” Tara snorts, and I let my eyes close for a second. Okay, okay, it was a date. I know it was a date because “high-school reunions” don't typically end with one person asking the other to take a shower with them.

  We'd been sweaty and exhausted. As determined as ever to prove my mettle to Chase, I'd elected to push myself way past any exercise limits established in recent training. We'd looped the whole campus twice, pausing to chug Gatorade outside the old Science building, the Student Union, and finally, Dresher Hall. “If you squint from this point, you can see the ocean,” Chase had said. “Highest ground on campus.” Then he'd pointed, and I'd followed his finger to the wide, shimmering Pacific. “This also happens to be my dorm room,” my running buddy finished. And just then, I'd gotten the feeling that I'd been brought here with an agenda.

  “I thought you lived with the Delta Nu guys.”

  “Those clowns? Nah. I have a single on the third floor. It's very quiet. Big windows. At the end of the hall.” I'd been aware of Chase’s damp body coming closer to mine, the approach of his sharp, sweet smell. He'd put an experimental palm on my waist, squeezed me for a moment around the abdomen. We weren't moving, but his breath was beginning to come faster.

  “You look really hot in this. Did I tell you that before?”

  “What, my running gear? You liar.”

  “And you looked really, really hot in that dress last night.” The intensity of his gaze had demanded eye contact, so I forgot about the ocean moving distantly below us. Chase came even closer, so our hip bones were touching. The hand he'd wrapped around my middle squeezed me gently.

  “I borrowed that dress from Tara,” I managed to choke out, suave as ever. Chase smiled. For the first time, I saw a dimple appear in his face—just one, on the left side of his mouth. Unthinkingly, I moved a finger up to his strong chin. I pressed into the small cleft.

  “You have gotten very handsome,” I whispered, shocked at my own confidence. This was the attitude of some sexier woman, no one I recognized. Someone like Tara could tell a man he was handsome, but
not me.

  “And you are fucking sexy,” Chase growled, biting his lip. I hadn't even realized our closing proximity, but we were so close by then that I was aware then of his racing heartbeat. I let myself sink a little farther into his arms. We were both sticky and sweaty. What did it matter?

  “I want to scrub you down,” Chase murmured, bending low so he could speak into my ear. “How does that sound, Angry A? I want to put you in a shower and watch the water run off those beautiful breasts.” His lips connected with my ear, lightly at first, before I felt the gentle pressure of his teeth on my cartilage. I leaned into him.

  “I'm not really the kind of girl who suds up with a man on a first date,” I murmured back, surprising myself again. Chase’s hand had grown more urgent around my waist. His fingers flexed and pressed against my sore muscles.

  “It's not really our first date, though. I'd say we've been seeing one another at regular intervals for a good ten years.” His lips moved down to my neck, where they lingered, expelling air for a moment in a cool stream. “High time.”

  It would have been easy.

  I could have let his strong, serious hands continue their journey across my flesh, finding my crevices, exploring my tender patches. We were in broad daylight, but it hadn't seemed to matter. There was no Kelly Fan Club around, to infringe on our privacy. There was only the distant sound of the ocean, and the closer-by sound of birds chirping in the live oaks. In another life, I would have let him back me up against a tree and kiss me, the way I'd always wanted him to kiss me. He would have tilted my head back gently, his eyes pausing to scan my face. He'd acknowledge our past together in a look—an expression fraught with all our mutual pain and panic, all those conversations on the playground discussing our parents, our futures. We'd been lonely together, but he'd kiss me, and in that one moment of connection it'd be clear that we'd never be lonely again. We'd be one body.