I went back into the room and got back under the covers. Livvy stirred a little and pressed into me, burying her face in my chest. I ran a hand up her naked back and pulled her close.
“Where did you go?” she murmured, running her fingers along my chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me you lived with a guy?” I asked her. She raised her head to look at me.
“I told you I had a roommate.”
“You could have been a little more specific.”
“Why are you mad? James and I work together; he has a girlfriend.”
“Sugar, you know he’ll forget that whenever it’s convenient for him.”
Her face hardened.
“Don’t paint him with your brush, Lex. Some guys wouldn’t come onto a woman they know is seeing someone else.”
Again. How many times was she going to try and tell me that that was my fault?
“This isn’t about me, Liv.”
“Yes, it is. You don’t think I can live under the same roof as this guy and not feel attracted to him.”
“I’m not worried about you wanting him. I don’t want him coming after you. If you needed somewhere to live why didn’t you come live with me?”
“Live with you? Lex, I’m not homeless. You don’t have to take me in like a stray.”
“I’m not a stranger, and I won’t make you pay rent.”
“James isn’t a stranger. I want to live here.”
“You’d rather live with him than me?”
“You’re not in competition with him, Lex. We didn’t pick up and start again from five years ago; we’re starting over. I’m not going to move in with you. You can’t ask me to do that. Not yet.”
“I don’t want you living with another man,” I said.
“Why don’t you trust me?” she said. She was all the way awake now. And pissed.
“It’s him I don’t trust.”
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“No. It’s me. You’re scared you don’t have me back. You’re scared I don’t love you like I did. Doing shit like this is a great way to make that little fear come true, Lex.” She threw the covers off and got out of the bed. She grabbed a thin gown and tied it over her naked body.
“I think you should leave,” she said quietly.
“Are you kicking me out?” I asked, incredulously.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Lex. I won’t. That’s the last thing I want to do with you after so long. We can have this conversation later when you decide to believe me.” She started for the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Please hurry and get dressed. I have school tomorrow.”
Ouch. That stung. She was kicking me out.
“Will I see you on Thursday?” I asked. She licked her lips and sighed.
“I’ll call you.”
She opened the door and walked out.
17
Alexander
She had picked the phone up yesterday while she was at work. What were the chances that she would do it again? She had talked like she was expecting a phone call. Not from me, but just in general. I didn’t want to get her in trouble at work for taking personal calls.
She didn’t have to take my call if she didn’t want to. I just hoped she would. We were trying again. She had said she would call me, but I wasn’t patient enough for that. I needed to know how bad I had fucked up.
Did I overreact about her living with a man?
I want to say yes because that is what she thought, but no. No.
What would she do if I was living with a woman?
I had to apologize. She had to get it, though. She and I were together. Sort of. I didn’t want another guy who wasn’t her brother or father in the place where she slept. This was becoming one too many near misses for my liking.
The phone rang a couple of times before she picked up.
“I’m at work, Alex. Keep it short,” she said. Maybe she didn’t know who I was the last time, and that was why she did her cute little speech, but she clearly wasn’t ready to be as accommodating today.
“Livvy. I want to apologize for what I did yesterday,” I said to her.
“Which part?” She asked.
“I shouldn’t have acted like that when I found out you lived with a guy.”
“Uh-huh. Keep going.”
I sighed.
“And I’m sorry for ruining our night.”
“Keep going.”
She was going to make me say it. I didn’t want to because I felt like a piece of shit for thinking it.
“I’m sorry for not trusting you,” I sighed. “I don’t know the guy, but even if I did, you can’t think that I would just smile and shake his hand when we were introduced. Roommate or not, I wasn’t gonna make this dude my gym buddy.”
“It isn’t about what you think of him. It’s about trusting me. If he were going to have sex with me, I would have to want it.”
I bit my tongue because I only had more bad things to say about the lacrosse player. I didn’t know him, but I was a guy. It wasn’t just sex I was afraid of him trying to have with her. It was anything. Even a stare that lingered too long. I hated it.
“And I want you,” she said catching my attention.
“Do you forgive me?”
“Depends on how pathetically you’re willing to beg,” she said. I heard the smirk in her voice. I was off the hook. For now.
“You do the begging in this relationship, babe, not me,” I shot back. She giggled.
“I have to get back to work,” she said.
“Go to the bathroom, slide your hand down your panties and let me tell you the ways I’m going to make you beg,” I told her.
“It’s nearly time for the kids to wake up,” she said breathily.
“Then meet me later, and I’ll make you beg then. With my tongue, and hands, and-”
“Lex, please,” she said hastily. Ha, got her already.
“When do you get off work?”
“Do you want me to come over?”
It was Wednesday. Wednesday nights back five years ago were school nights. We would be home, completing college applications and studying for the SATs or something—if we had decided to study independently.
If we hadn’t, we would be rutting like horny hound dogs on her or my bed. That was only after we had gotten our work done. Livvy had dreams. Goals to accomplish that had depended on her doing well enough to get into college. She did.
I did too, but all I needed to excel at really was throwing and kicking, taking hits and being tackled. Meathead like me, what was I good for if not that?
Liv and I had been friends because we were always in the same place. We had gone to the same middle school together and were the same age. When we found ourselves in the same high school class, and I needed a tutor for everything that wasn’t football, I had gone to her.
My GPA went up, and two years into high school we stopped being just friends. She had always been smart, and sassy and cute. I had been the jackass. Still was. It started when an older pal of mine wanted to take her to his senior prom. Her going meant she couldn’t spend the evening with me and my Calculus homework.
He made sure he let me know in fine detail what he wanted to do with the cute little sophomore that night after prom. I wanted to think I had warned her because we were friends, and I was just looking out for her, but no.
No. I was just jealous.
She didn’t end up going with him. We started dating soon after. I was whipped. She wasn’t even giving me any pussy, but I was whipped. She was everything I wasn’t. She was nice to people, just to be nice. Even when they weren’t nice to her. She would explain limits to me in Calculus as many times as it took to get through my thick skull. She’d volunteer and build her college application. I wanted some of it to rub off on me—whatever made me like her so much.
“No. I want to go out,” I told her.
We saw a lot of movies when we were together in high school.
Okay, we went to the theater a lot. We didn’t really watch the movies that close when we’d go. I calmed down a lot when we were together, but when you’re that old, the only thing you want is places you can hook up without your parents knowing.
It didn’t matter when her house or my house didn’t work. I was great at finding make out bluffs. We went camping a lot out in El Dorado Hills and Folsom Lake, but she had school tomorrow. I wanted to go to old Fair Oaks. There was a spot when you got to the bike bridge where you could climb the hill and see all of Rancho Cordova. I’d been before, but not with her. Not alone either. I was a bad kid. I got around. We’d be able to get back before nightfall if that was something she worried about.
“Where do you want to go?” she asked.
“I want it to be a surprise. If you meet me at the house, we can drive there. Wear something comfortable.”
I told her she’d find me in the garage. I’d quenched the steel way too early the last time she had shown up. It was going to be a task getting it to cooperate since it had hardened now. She showed up in jeans and a sweater, and we left. I drove. In school, gym class was just one of those things she did because you had to. She wasn’t a cheerleader. She was not athletic. We weren’t hiking the Pacific Coast Trail; we just needed to get up a hill. The traffic wasn’t that bad getting there, and pretty much completely ended once we were off Fair Oaks Boulevard.
She got up the hill with little to no complaining. You could see the river, and the sun was setting. It was beautiful. The view hadn’t been the thing that had gotten me to go initially, but it was nice. I looked over at Liv. Her shoulders were slumped, and her eyes were glassy. Shit. Was this a bad or a good cry? I reached for her hand. She held it and sighed.
“Lex. Why are you doing all this?” she asked.
“What do you mean? We always did stuff like this.”
“Yeah, when we were kids. We don’t have to go where we used to go or do what we used to do. Have you even been here since we were in high school? Done anything like this?”
Great. Just great. She didn’t like it. Why didn’t she like it? What didn’t I do? I wanted to be mad, but I wasn’t. I was just confused. She had a point. I hadn’t been camping in years. I was a grown man who lived alone. I didn’t have to sneak girls into the house because I was scared my mom would see them.
“I feel like I have to do all this with you again. I’m in love with you, and I want you to fall in love with me again too,” I told her.
“Lex, it doesn’t matter that we might be different people now. We would have been different people, regardless.”
Yeah, but how different is too different? Wasn’t this why people got divorced? Irreconcilable differences. She touched my face, making me look at her. Her blue eyes were sad as she looked up at me.
“I didn’t fall for you the last time because of what you did. I did because of who you are,” she said.
“You’ve known me for years, babe. You know I’m a piece of shit.”
“And I’m still here. Keep talking like that, and maybe I’ll leave again. This time by myself.”
I smiled at her. She kissed me, just a little. Soft and gentle.
“What do you want to do now?” I asked her. I could think of a few things, but this was for her. We ended up staying out there till the sun went down. We rode back to my house. At least I knew what not to do now. She was a different person, but not different enough that she didn’t like me anymore. She was cross-legged in the front seat. She apparently just never played anything in her car.
“What do you want to do?” she asked me suddenly.
“What do you mean?
“With your life. What do you want to do?”
Five years ago, the answer to that would have been playing professional ball. Today, the answer was not be late for the next meeting I had with my mom. It was finishing the chandeliers for that awful couple. It was getting her back. I shrugged instead of telling her.
“Not a lot. Things didn’t really pan out the way I’d planned. Just taking it as it comes, I guess.”
“Are you staying in Sactown now?” she asked.
“I have no reason to leave.” I had a new reason to stay. “Why? Are you leaving?”
“No,” she said. “I always imagined living and dying here. It’s big and small enough. You know what I mean? Affordable. Safe. Family-friendly…”
I shot her a look.
“Family-friendly? You thinking about having kids?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“If I did, this would be a good place to have them. Do you? Want to have kids, I mean?”
Why did it sound like an offer when she said it? The answer was no. I did not want to be a parent. I had Cassie breathing down my neck about my alleged firstborn, but no. Just no. I was sure I would like a kid that was mine, but no.
“I can’t say they were ever on the agenda,” I said, looking over at her and trying to measure her response. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, but I didn’t want to lie to her. She hadn’t really said that she wanted kids, she had just said she didn’t not want them.
“Colin has to do the heavy lifting for both of you then, huh?” she joked. Colin wanted seven kids. I hoped Roberta knew. Maybe she did too; that was why they were together. You didn’t need kids for your relationship to work out. They didn’t keep failing couples together. I knew that first hand.
“He hasn’t complained yet.”
“If you hadn’t… if you could still play football, would you have ever come back?” she asked.
I thought about it.
No. I wouldn’t have.
18
Olivia
Dylan didn’t know that he could just call me Olivia when we were out of school. He still called me Ms. Sanger, or the version of my name he could pronounce because he couldn’t say his ‘r’ or ‘s’ sounds very well yet.
Robbi was picking up both of the kids from school today, and because I wanted to talk, they got to have frozen yogurt. We met at Menchie’s and helped the kids load up their cups with yogurt and toppings. The toppings are the only part that matter, really.
Watching kids eat is hilarious. Spoons are too big for their hands and their mouths. It looks like such a task. I watched Dylan try for about forty seconds to balance as many toppings as possible on his spoon, failing each time.
“How’s the new roommate been?” Robbi asked, wiping Finn’s mouth as he gobbled his yogurt.
“He’s been great. I like him,” I said, smiling as Dylan fed himself, dribbling yogurt down his chin.
“Colin told me he saw his brother at the school the other day.”
“Yeah… Alex.”
“He wasn’t there to see his nephew,” she said matter-of-factly.
He had been there to harass me.
“What are you doing, Olivia?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, eating a cold spoonful of frozen gummy bears.
“You and Alex?”
I sighed and waited for her to tell me how wrong I was.
“We’re-”
“Just friends?”
“No. We’re reconnecting. We’re giving it another shot.”
“Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“It isn’t like I wanted to break up with him in the past. It just ended up happening that way. If we hadn’t, who’s to say we wouldn’t be together now, anyway?”
“Who’s to say you would?
I needed some single friends. I couldn’t keep going to these married mothers to tell me what to do with my love life. Iris… we weren’t speaking anymore, and Robbi had a husband and two kids. Even James had a girlfriend. Robbi didn’t want me to have what she had? Maybe I would if progress with her brother-in-law hadn’t been halted so abruptly.
I shrugged.
“I care about him, Robbi. I was crazy about him in the past, and he makes me feel the same way now.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“We’re just trying to fi
nd our groove again. Trying to cope with the changes that have taken place. Things like that. What have you and Colin been doing?” I asked, meaning to talk about something other than me.
“I want to talk to him… I think I’m ready for another baby,” she said, smiling. I gasped.
“Really? Are you pregnant now?” I asked excitedly.
“No. Not now. But I want a little girl,” she said looking at her two boys.
“Mommy, can I have more?” Dylan asked.
“He can finish mine off. Is that okay?” I asked her. She instructed her son to thank me as I pushed my still mostly full cup over. Usually, I could get through one of those easy. I wasn’t really hungry then—hadn’t been all day.
“You don’t like what you got?” she asked.
“No, just not hungry. Felt a little weird—bloated—since yesterday. Think I might be ovulating or something.” Robbi’s kids weren’t even listening to us. It was great. Even if they were, they didn’t care. They were the only men I felt comfortable discussing my uterus around.
“Maybe. Or you might be, you know,” she said tilting her head over to Finn and Dylan. I might be what? I knew she wasn’t calling me pregnant because that was basically calling me fat.
“Not a chance,” I said confidently.
“Are you sure?”
I had never been pregnant before, so I didn’t know what it felt like. I could time my periods to the day, and I was expecting one in exactly a week. I had been on the pill since I was a teenager, for the purpose of period management, forever, basically. There was no way I was pregnant. The pill was effective, except when it wasn’t. A way to stop it from being effective was to skip a day, and I hadn’t done that.
I thought I hadn’t done that.
I took the pill at the same time every night—eight o’clock. I had an alert on my phone. There was no way I had skipped a day unless I hadn’t been home one night.
The realization came, and I hoped Robbi didn’t see it on my face. I had skipped a night—the one when I had gone to Alex’s house after the fight with Iris.
Alex (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 3) Page 13
