Crush

by Celia Loren

  When he finally pauses, mere centimeters from my dark triangle, he tilts his shaggy head up, so his chin rests on my pubis. He blinks, slowly, and I look into his eyes. They're the color of some jewel, some river, so many memories. “Avery,” he says again, his face becoming agitated. He wants something from me.

  But I can't complete the exchange. I can't say his name. I can't say his name because, for the life of me, I'm not sure which brother he is.

  Chapter Ten

  The round tables in the preferred dining hall on campus comfortably seat four people and five trays, which suits me, Tara, Trevor and RA Jeff just fine. I'm pleased to have collected a crew—especially one as ragtag as this one. The guys treat me like I've always been Tara's roommate, assuming I know each and every one of her insane stories.

  “What about that dude from the Ukraine?” Trevor asks, through a mouthful of arugula. His make-up is still not quite all the way washed off from the party a few nights ago. Then again, perhaps this is deliberate.

  “You didn't know? Gay!”

  “No shit!”

  “Yes, totally gay. I could have fixed the two of you up.”

  “No thanks, m'dear. I love you, but I am simply too well-adjusted to go trawling for sloppy seconds.” Trevor swallows with finality, pushing his barely touched plate away. “He was cute though.”

  RA Jeff is a little less bawdy than his lady friend, preferring to divert the conversation with bureaucratic gossip. He informs me that there are a bunch of fun, PG activities also taking place during “Fuhgettaboutit,” and I needn't necessarily go crazy every night with “the skeleton twins here.” I wait for Tara to protest, but she doesn't—she just sips her nasty Splenda Pepper. No one mentions the night before, at the Ruby Room. Tara's so cagey, in fact, that I begin to think that the whole evening was a dream—not just the part I spent alone.

  I'm finally beginning to spar and chat with the others, when my phone buzzes. Eight eyes glance towards my battered iPhone, and three people manage to exchange glances as I dive for the evidence. But it's too late. Everyone's already seen my message.

  “You snoops!” I say, affecting easy laughter as my stomach drops. I begin to chew on my lip, as the text materializes. It's from Chase.

  “Hey, Angry A. Had a blast trying to keep up with you yesterday. Now how's about I take you out on a proper date? :-) ” Smileyface.

  Smileyface. I feel like the dumb emoticon has shaken something lose in me. Chase isn't playing coy games; he's just trying to get to know me. I'm mad at Brendan, I decide in the moment. I'm mad at his presumption, and the way we lost touch. Chase and I could really be something. At least he's being up front with me, and not professing his feelings through vague-ass rock songs.

  When I look up at the faces around me, each one pointed as a question mark, I allow myself to cop the emoji. Tara reads me fast.

  “Got another date with the prom king?” she grins. I nod, quickly. Then I snap my phone shut, evading further questions I don't have answers to.

  I puff nervously on a pilfered American Spirit, shifting from foot to foot in my espadrilles. A warm breeze eddies around my shoulders, lifting the hair from the back of my neck. I check my phone, for something to do:

  8:10pm. He's officially late.

  I've also officially received a dozen messages from Zooey, who can't seem to decide if she's angry or sad about my behavior on the phone the other day. I furrow my brow, but click the screen dark anyways. I can't deal with that mess right now. My mind feels like it's racing and racing around the quad, unsure of where to settle. I name the feeling, with a pang: it's anxiety.

  It occurs to me that the ball of anxiety currently sitting in my stomach like a lump of undigested cheese perfectly echoes the nerves I shook off before that fateful gym class, all those years ago. I feel the way I felt in the moments before I resolved to run and catch up to Chase Kelly on the soccer field. I scrunch my fingers through my damp hair, turn my gaze in the direction of the dark sea. I am woman, I tell myself, making a mantra. Not even my OG crush can bring me to my knees. Hear me roar.

  And, I mean, technically? This is still just our second date.

  I see the glint in his eyes first, flickering from behind some palms a few yards down the quad. Then, some moonlight briefly illuminates a patch of his shirt collar. He’s wearing a white button-down, with the first two buttons undone. The shirt's untucked, drifting over pressed khakis cuffed at the ankle. His hair is lightly gelled, swept away from his face. By the time I'm able to confirm his eyes, he's standing right in front of me. The completed Chase Kelly image is preppy-clean, the living opposite of his rock-star “brother” costume from the other day. Yet I can't help thinking that this look feels just as deliberate on him. Maybe he wears all clothes with this mannequin-like stiffness.

  “You're late!” I blurt. You know, before something cooler comes out.

  “I'll never catch up to you, I guess,” he says, smirking. I pull a face at the dopey line, but Chase Kelly ignores it.

  “You look great,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss me on the cheek. His lips are dry and smooth against my face. I lean into the contact, remembering our moment the other day, by the tree. He smells great. Perfume-y, but great.

  “So where are you taking me, ole buddy ole pal?”

  Chase just smiles, continuing to look me up and down. His appraisal takes so long I debate whether or not to repeat the question.

  “It's a neat little Italian place, in walking distance,” he says, finally. “Best chicken piccatta I've ever had.”

  I'm about to tell him I've been a vegetarian for years, but I bite my tongue. Maybe he'll remember, anyways. In Angry Avery fashion, I declared my PETA-lovin' authority in the seventh grade, and spent many afternoons talking the twins' ears off about animal cruelty.

  We begin to walk, side by side through a jasmine-scented night. The tall windows of the school buildings are mostly dark, sentinels waiting for the influx of students who will flock to this campus in just a few short days. I already feel like I've been at SDU for weeks, but it's only really been a handful of hours—how strange, I muse, that time moves this way. Chase’s eyes dart through the pitch, like he's scanning the area for any would-be predators. Or people who recognize him? No, no, I'm being neurotic.

  “I'm nervous for when school starts,” I say. “Fuhgeddaboutit is starting to feel like Never Never Land.”

  Chase moves a gentlemanly hand to the small of my back, guiding me lightly past an anthill in my path. I feel my face grow hot, and am briefly thankful for the cover of night. Though, to be honest, I might've preferred a lunch meeting. I want all my new classmates to see me on Chase’s strong, safe arm.

  “Oh, it's cool,” Chase smiles, his eyes at my hairline. “I mean, I'm going into intra-football practice pretty soon, and those games are a lot of fun.”

  “I didn't know you were on the football team!”

  “That's because we didn't talk much yesterday,” Chase says, his voice low. He smirks. As we're moving, I brush up against his shoulder and feel a wave of jitters stripe my spine. His rounded, perfect bicep strains through the linen. Smooth and strong like the rest of him.

  “But seriously, Mr. Kelly,” I say, planting my feet and turning to face my date just as we've reached the campus' edge. “Can I just say that it's so nice to see an old friend here? I was sad to have lost touch with you guys. I'm really glad to be home again.” Oh my God. Avery? Are these actual tears welling up in your throat, from nowhere? I swallow, hard, foisting away the unwanted emotion. The girl Chase Kelly deserves, I decide, is no crier. She's a supportive, staunch, team-player. She lets him set the pace, but she can keep up.

  Chase doesn't appear to have caught the weird flicker of feelings I've accidentally let escape (another thanks to the moonlight), but I do see him smile. Genuinely. With all of his teeth. He takes my elbows in his hands and draws me forward, so I find myself level with the smooth patch of chest peeking out from beneath his shirt. I'm folded in
to a warm embrace.

  “I'm glad to see you, too, girlie,” Chase murmurs into my hair. “It's gonna be just like old times.” He holds me for another long beat, and I feel his fingers begin to make circles along the exposed skin of my arms. But I pull away anyways, shaking myself. I am suddenly cold.

  “Still want to go to dinner?” Chase asks, cocking his head. His eyebrows all but wiggle. “Or should we just...?”

  I fake-punch him on the shoulder.

  “Yes, goofy. I'm a lady, remember?”

  Neither of us says anything for a moment, we merely hover in proximity.

  I'm reminded of this one time, way back when—the three of us had been horsing around my Dad's house, involved in a long, elaborate game of hide-n-seek. I'd found myself in a linen closet with Chase, where we were tasked to remain completely silent while Brendan skulked the property, hunting for us. Brendan was a killer at hide-n-seek, and evading his watchful eye was like the Holy Grail of our after-school activities.

  We must have been thirteen, so while the concept of “7 Minutes in Heaven” wasn't foreign, it also couldn’t have been far from our minds. Chase and I had both wound up in the closet by frenzied happenstance, and I remember how close we'd been. How stiff we'd held our bodies. We were quiet enough to register the divergent rates of our breath. I remember the sensation of blood pounding in my ears.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are, goddamnit!” Brendan cried, lurching through the house like a cranky old man. I'd stifled a giggle, and Chase, accomplice, had raised his palm up to my mouth. I still recalled the smell of the inside of his hand—the tang of sweat, the echo of soap, something else strange and sharp and earthy. He'd held his palm against my mouth for whole moments, and he didn't flinch away from me as we listened to Brendan rumble off down the hall, away from our secret nook. We stood there together, vibrating like plucked strings, charged and young and unsure. I told myself after that nothing would have happened, even if I'd wanted it to. We were just friends. Melora was on the scene by then.

  Yet here, now, at SDU, while our feet straddle the campus threshold—I'm forced to re-evaluate. Were we ever 'just friends,' him and me? Could we ever be?

  I open my mouth, though I'm not sure what there is to say. I've had a crush on you for nearly ten years, but I'm not sure what I want to do it about it now...feels wildly inappropriate. Chase’s green eyes are alert and hopeful; his gaze stays fixed on my face. Him and me—we feel like more than dating, more than sex. Him and me, we have a history. And now I'm just standing dramatically in the moonlight, like some tragic subject of a Munch painting...I wish he'd say something.

  Right when I think I've got the beginning of a sentence ready to go, Chase darts towards me—an animal move. His lips connect briefly with the corner of my open mouth. I'm so surprised I laugh—two short 'HAs' right in his face. He cracks a grin containing more light than the fake-ass gas lamp flickering above our heads.

  “I can see you thinking,” Chase says, turning. He takes my palm in his and squeezes my fingers. “Don't think so much.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Chase Kelly eats with his whole body, in a way that makes me think of both a machine and a shark: his muscular shoulders hunch forward, his eyes become focused pinpricks, and his silverware becomes limbs. I can't help feeling a bit surprised by his estimation of the chicken piccatta at “The Cottone Brothers' Fine Italian” as “the best he's ever had,” because he isn't savoring his meal at all. Some sneaky waiter could probably replace his dish with a bowl of dog food, and I'd be hard-pressed to imagine Chase noticing. But I guess that's an athlete's prerogative. His food is just for fuel.

  “I was glad to see you could still keep up with me, the other day,” he says, during one of his few pauses for air. I'm merely picking at the overcooked fettuccine swimming in its own sauce, on my plate. You know, just being judgmental. As I do.

  “Likewise,” I say evenly. Smiling sweetly, Chase sets his knife and fork down. He reaches across the linen tablecloth, lifts the bottle of sauvignon from its cooling basin, and expertly pours me a few more fingers of wine.

  “You're tired of talking about running, huh?”

  “No,” I lie, indicating 'when' with my hand. I smile at Chase. He smiles—again—at me. At precisely the same moment, we each let out a giggle, and just like that, some odd, clinging tension drifts away.

  “You know,” I say, taking a brave third stab of my lukewarm dinner. “I forgot to tell you. I saw Brendan yesterday! I accidentally went to see his band play!”

  Chase leans back in his chair. Over his shoulder, I watch a new couple enter the restaurant, pausing to fidget by the host stand. The Cottone brothers seem to have the monopoly on first date dinners in the outer-rim of San Diego.

  “I know. He told me.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Part of that whole twin thing, you know?” Chase winks, and a sixth grade me melts for a moment. He leans forward, so the open lapels of his shirt stretch wide, revealing more collarbone. The fake candles glowing on our table cast elegant shadows on his blonde locks. From the corner of my eye, I register the woman by the host stand, looking our way.

  I am with the most handsome man in the restaurant, I think. That has never happened before.

  “So what did you think of the band?” Chase asks, his eyes swiveling back to his meal. The salad remains unperturbed on one corner of his plate, and I find myself staring at the halved cherry tomatoes, as if they must contain some clue. The memory comes flooding back anyways.

  I guess I thought that if I preempted Brendan—if I put him in space first—then perhaps I'd be reclaiming some of his strange power over me. It would be so much easier to believe that nothing had passed between us at the Ruby Room. And the farther away from his eyes I got, the easier it seemed to believe the convenient narrative: the one where Brendan hadn't written a song about me. The one where Brendan hadn't looked at me with such plaintive, perfect certainty. But then, about what? What could he be so certain of, after all this time?

  “Personally, I don't go in for all that artsy shit,” Chase says, in a voice that's a few decibels louder than most of our conversation so far. I'm stabbing at my pasta, now. Anger has returned, despite my best efforts. “I love my brother, but it's like he thinks he's the savior of music. People just want something they can dance to.”

  “Oh, I think some people like to...” What, Avery? Think about their music? Experience catharsis in concert venues? Once again, I find myself unsure of how to finish the sentence. But perhaps I'm not giving Chase enough credit. He's a smart, sweet guy. And he told me not to think.

  “I'm not saying their music is bad,” Chase plows on, spearing a last bite of chicken and eyeing his wine glass. “It's cool that he's found his niche, or whatever. Just not my bag. You know?” Finished with his meal, Chase grins at me with an easy satisfaction. His questions are not really questions; I'm savvy enough to see that. I don't think we've ever had an argument during our whole friendship, and I can't imagine him mad at anyone. I return his pleasant gaze, keeping my eyes on his mouth. This invites memories from last night, in my lonesome dorm room. The span of his nakedness, alive in my imagination. We are still those kids, breathless in the closet together. Aren't we?

  “Hey, Brainiac. You wanna get out of here?” Chase cocks his head, impish, uncomplicated. This is actually a question. I am definitely thinking too much, I know that. So instead of forming words, I simply nod.

  Ever the gentlemen, Chase waves away my offer to go Dutch—though he does ask the waiter for a doggy bag for my fettuccine, claiming he'll personally make sure my leftovers don't go to waste. The night has grown cooler in the last hour, and as we walk back towards campus, I find myself wishing for a coat.

  Using only the necessary words, Chase guides me the long way back. In fact, we take a similar route to our running path, from the day before. I'm beginning to connect patches of campus, creating a key for my mental map. A not-so-small part of me is beginning to w
ish that Fuhgettaboutit would never end, and instead of school, I could just keep living my new, fabulous, party girl life.

  We reach a stretch of grassy knoll I recognize—the great big live oak we touched against, only hours before. Chase, for his part, shuffles from foot to foot. Is it possible that he—king of the frat boys—is nervous?

  “I had a lot of fun tonight,” he says. His smile is toothy and wide, a childish grin I can't help returning. Then, motivated by some unknown instinct, I press my cool palm into the center of his forehead. I fan my fingers through the fine, dense corn silk of his hair.

  “Do you want to come up?” he asks. A real question. Gently, he pries my hand from his face, coming to grip me lightly about the wrist. His gaze is light and casual, but I'm aware of his strength. The heaviness of his arm, as he brings my hand to his side. Through the khakis, I discern the rounded knob of his hip bone. The fleshy barricades of muscle on either side.

  We stand in the limbo for a moment. But Chase bridges the gap. He inclines his head like a hungry baby bird; he's expectant and silly in the same gesture. When our lips connect, I wait to feel the furnace of desire begin to churn in my stomach, the way it had only hours before (and days before that, years before that...). His lips are soft and probing. When I reach his tongue, it's firm and thirsty in the same way. His want, like his hunger, is unabashed. Inevitable.

  “I'm not sure,” I hear myself say. I've felt like such an alien to myself all night, and this final surprise is so infuriating that I feel a hotness build behind my eyes again. But I absolutely won't cry, here on this date with my childhood dream beau. I won't do that because I'm not totally insane.

  “Chase, I should tell you,” I plow on, breathing deep. His hands have wound themselves around my middle. We're so close, I'm surrounded by both of our spaghetti breath. Were it lighter out, I could probably discern the blemishes in his face. That is—if he had any. “I had a bad experience at college in Georgia. It's why I left, actually. And I'm not sure I'm ready.” No sooner have the words tumbled out than I concede that they're true. My bones seem to sigh with relief. “And I'm sorry if I'm being weird, or...anyways. I had a really nice time, too, I just need to take this very slow.”