Her eyes narrowed and she held on to the fold that held the towel together, trying to secure it. “Why what?”
“You knew he wanted you,” I said. “He’s been clear about that.”
“You two have talked about me?”
“Well, yeah,” I said, shrugging, and I dropped even the pretense of lording that over her. “We talked about everything. If you wanted him all along, why did you make him wait?”
Geraldine pulled the towel closer to her body. Her nudity was bothering her, and for some reason that was really interesting to me. The beat that was keeping me here, asking stupid questions, only intensified.
“Are you serious?” she asked. “You really want to know?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Don’t you want to tell me anyway?”
She glared at me, her mind no doubt processing all the scenarios as fast as she possibly could. I had a feeling she wanted to tell me why. It was just the two of us, it was private, and it looked like she had already won.
“He wasn’t ready then,” Geraldine said.
“Ready for what?”
“For everything.”
I let myself look confused. No sense in putting up a front for her anymore. “I don’t get it. What exactly are you carrying around that he couldn’t have handled then? Did you not like him?”
“I do. I did.” She frowned. “But he wasn’t ready to be the man I needed him to be.”
“Which is what?”
“A serious man, for God’s sake,” Geraldine spit out. “When I met Damon I had just broken up with someone I thought I was going to marry. That guy cheated on me two different times. On me. The first time Damon offered to hook up and I said no, what does he do? Fucks someone else. The second time I say no? He fucks someone else again. Every time.”
I could see her point though.
The love story I came up here to fight for sounded extremely sketchy when seen through Geraldine’s eyes. Because she did it right, she thought. Only a jerk would pursue her, then turn around and sleep with the bridesmaid.
But Damon wasn’t offering her what she thought he was. I understood that too. I never asked to be considered an old-fashioned kind of girl, yet I was being judged by those standards. So I understood why Damon would think he was being strung along…
Shit this was making my head hurt.
“Because you wanted him to wait for you?” I asked.
“Because I wanted to see if his interest in me was right. If he deserved me. And he kept failing, every time.”
I arched an eyebrow. “He didn’t know he was being tested.”
“He knows that if he can’t keep himself faithful then he doesn’t deserve me.”
“Keep himself faithful to someone who has already rejected him. Continues to reject him,” I mused. Damon thought this was a game, not a test. But Geraldine was right—she was right to expect fidelity from someone claiming to want a relationship with her.
Did Damon ever claim that?
It took a certain kind of confidence to accept that someone might only want to look at you, have sex with you, be seen with you...and be okay with it. I’d always been told that was wrong, unacceptable, and that I was the one who had low self-esteem.
When it came down to it I wanted people to be honest, rather than pretend to want it all but leave when they got what they came for.
“But you’re here.” Hated to point out the obvious, but between the two of us she was the naked one in the man’s apartment. Not exactly the poster girl for sexual purity. “Which means you’ve given up your fidelity requirement, or whatever it is you want. What changed? So you’re okay with all of it now?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“I really don’t.”
“You played the game too, Andrea. Don’t play dumb on me now.”
Without the shoes she wasn’t as tall. Without the clothes she wasn’t as intimidating. Without the act, she was more...human.
It was me. I didn’t need to say it. It was in the withering look she gave me, the way she shifted uncomfortably again. It was classic playground tactics; she wanted him more when she thought I might take him away forever.
Little old me.
“Do you even want him?” It was a stupid question, when Damon looked the way he did, had that kind of career, that kind of money. He was the guy someone would consider husband material, if one were the type to maintain a checklist of qualities.
“He wanted me,” she said. “But he didn’t deserve me yet.”
Oh, darling, maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.
“But you’re here,” I had to say again. Did she want him all along then? Did she love him the same way I did? Did she make her move and finally secure her place in his heart?
Why did I even think about love though? Back up, heart. Did she actually sleep with him?
Maybe it was that I had spent so much time in this room, on this bed, that I saw it as my place somehow. Maybe it was the adrenaline again, the way I didn’t back down from confrontation, and the way I’d imagined confronting her about this very thing. I didn’t feel out of place. I didn’t feel that I no longer belonged.
“I don’t regret it,” I said. “I know you think I’m just another girl he had sex with, but I like him. I like being with him. I don’t think you’ll understand this. You can think you’re better because you held out for two years and I gave it up the first night, but that won’t change anything.”
My eyes tracked around the room. The clock, the bed, the condom drawer. The way she looked at me, the general distrust.
“You haven’t slept with him,” I realized.
She paused and then laughed bitterly. “You’d like to think that. After all this time we spent together recently.”
“You haven’t.” Call it the delusions of someone in love but to me it was clear as day all of a sudden. “I can tell. And yet here you are. Look at you. Did you ask to use his shower? Are you planning to surprise him by stepping out naked? Is this the seduction plan?”
It was a lame one. The lamest in the book. But the fact that Geraldine was reduced to this lame, old, cliche of a trick...maybe I overestimated her.
Or I underestimated him.
***
He was downstairs, at the lobby, sitting by the table shaped like a bean.
Damon was eating on it. His food was spread out and he pretty much needed the whole bean shape to carry the little buffet. Discarded wrappers that looked like they held onion rings and fries were still on top. There was a big box that held an untouched burger. And he was peeling the paper lining off a siopao as big as my head.
I stood across him, on the other side of the food.
“Nice dress,” he said.
“So,” I said, giving him a half smile. “I was up at your place.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Did you know there’s a naked lady in your shower?”
He nodded. “She said she’d use it. Makes sense for her to take her clothes off.”
“And you’re here, downstairs, with dinner for a small family.”
“I am.”
“I thought you were going back to your bad habit.”
He was shaking his head as his fingers tore the siopao in two, exposing the meat filling inside. “I didn’t say which habit.”
“Damon.”
“Andrea, I’m only human. You know I was attracted to her, and it’s not going away that quickly. I can of course be better than the average walking dick but if she’s going to be naked in my apartment I’ll need reinforcements.”
“You think a siopao is going to help with that?”
“You know what this is about. All this food buys me three hours.”
At least. He was less horny when he was full. I knew that about him, the same way I knew what Geraldine didn’t, up there in his room.
I knew him.
“I know you’re not going to forget want
ing her right away,” I said. “But I think there was a good reason why you never really clicked with her even though you tried.”
He gave me a sly grin. “You think?”
“She’s got issues. I don’t think any relationship is going to be right for her, right now.”
“How about your bad habit?” Damon asked.
I’d need to catch him up eventually on Thad’s marriage troubles, but this wasn’t the time to do it. “Oh I made a decision on that too. I’ll need to quit that,” I said.
“Really.”
“Yeah. Cold turkey for a while. It’s healthier.”
“Good to hear we’re both quitting,” he said. “The bad habits.”
“Did you say that? I didn’t hear you say it.”
“I’m done with Geraldine.”
So quickly. But I believed him this time. “I’m done with Thad.”
Damon accepted that, like he believed me too. The calm in his face was better than anything and I had prepared for a dozen different reactions to my arrival tonight. It made me feel warm, and loved, and he hadn’t even touched me yet.
“Andrea,” Damon said. “I can’t decide things for you. You can’t decide things for me. Even when you think you know me you have to trust that I know myself too, and that I’m working to do what I think is the right thing. I’ll trust you the same way.”
“Why is it so easy for you?” I sighed. “I haven’t done love right. At all. You shouldn’t trust me.”
“You shouldn’t be here at all, if you didn’t want this.”
“You keep inviting me out. Wedding hookups shouldn’t last this long. You don’t know what a one-night stand means, obviously.”
He grinned at me. “You don’t, either. Come on. You don’t mind doing things you’ve never done before. Maybe this is just one of those. So. You had dinner?”
“No.”
“Want a burger?”
“Sure. What about the naked lady up in your apartment?”
“I’ll tell her to lock up. Can I stay over at your house tonight?”
“Yes,” I said. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
Chapter 21
This is our new world.
The one Damon and I created.
The one where the hottest sex I'm having is with the same person I'm splitting a huge steak with.
Where I can be in the same room with him and my parents and I'm not freaking out.
Where I accept that he is a focused guy and can fixate on a goal for so long that he forgets why he wanted it in the first place. Where he accepts that the man I used to love remains someone I have to care about.
But neither of those people have to be in our lives every day.
It needed getting used to. This new world was safe, and ours. With our people, our trips, our restaurants, our insert-new-crazy-thing-here.
Like Saturday football.
Apparently the neighborhood league was mixed gender all along, but Moira didn’t mention that because she didn’t “do sports.” But with a little coaxing, and finally having me (another female) willing to kick a ball around, we got her to try it.
Her own boyfriend sent her back literally to the benches after five minutes.
During the break, I headed over to her to grab some water.
“You’re good at this,” she told me.
“I tried it a few times before. So much running.”
“See? Sitting here is so much more relaxing. But I’m glad you’re here more often.”
I understood that. It was great that Damon was so much to me, but he wasn’t everything. I needed my people. People who said things I liked to hear, did things I’d want to know more about. Moira, Ethan, Gio the blue-eyed guy...they were cool. And they didn’t hang out with either Geraldine or Thad, so they folded into our new world quite nicely.
“Thanks,” I told her. “We’ve made it official.”
“Geraldine’s done?”
“Yes.”
“Are you moving in?”
I shook my head. “Not yet, football star.”
Moira laughed, and we toasted mineral water bottles. “Fine, take it slow. If you’re around and want company, you can buzz us at our place. Ethan isn’t into hanging out with the neighbors, but we don’t have to hang out with him all the time. What are the boys talking about?”
Before I walked over to her, I did overhear them talking about something. “They were talking about 9M?”
Her eyes popped. “Oh my god. Yeah. She’s beautiful. I really want to befriend her but I don’t want to scare her away.”
“Does she have a name?”
“Sorry. Of course she does. Gio lives closest to her, because he’s in 9J now and that’s the same floor, and he’s actually met her, but he hasn’t introduced us yet.”
Wow, she was taking the whole neighborly thing very seriously. “We should invite her to Saturday football then.”
“She’s never said yes to these things. I really want to meet her. I just don’t want to scare her and make her move out, you know.”
“Is she a celebrity or something?” I noticed a few of those living in Damon’s tower and the others. Maybe they preferred the privacy and air-conditioning, and not having Moira of 10J inviting them to stand in the heat on a Saturday afternoon.
“Kind of. You’ll understand when you see her.”
“Well, if Gio starts dating her, maybe we actually will meet her.”
“Oh my God.” And I could swear I saw the thrill shoot up Moira’s back. “That would be so interesting.”
When football was done, and the NV Park residents won that day, we celebrated at the kebab restaurant across the street.
And then I cleaned up in Damon’s shower.
Then he joined me.
There was a spot in that shower space that we learned to lean into, so we could make out all we wanted without getting a mouthful of water with each kiss. His tiles were conveniently slip-resistant and within a few tries we managed to last in there with no one cramping, slipping, breaking our necks.
Then we stepped outside again into the busy NV Park complex, to have ice cream, because this was our world now, and I was beginning to enjoy it.
“You okay?” I asked him. I meant: Did they get his order right? Was he still hungry?
Sometimes he would answer that question as if I had asked about the state of his soul.
Never better.
I feel like a hero right now.
“Yeah,” he said this time. “You?”
Over time, it wouldn’t matter how a couple got together. Had I decided that day to “try it again” with Thad, we could have been two best friends who found each other again, against all odds. Or the story could have been of the snake mistress and the bad husband.
Though I knew it wouldn’t matter eventually, I didn’t want it.
I was in this new world now, one where this dashing friend-of-the-groom felt up the bridesmaid in a gazebo, and it was sleazy yes, but also true, and also mine.
Even if other people forgot about it, I wouldn’t. No regrets, regardless.
I thought about it. “I am too. One day at a time, right?”
Damon nodded. “Good. We can make one day last a long time.”
Yes, we could.
THE END
Andrea and Damon’s story began in Wedding Night Stand.
Author’s Note
Andrea and Damon first appeared in a short story I wrote for the steamy-romance class I ran, called #buqosteamyreads. It’s called Wedding Night Stand and you can check it out on Amazon and buqo. I decided not to include it in the ebook edition so it wouldn’t mess with the book length and page count. If you read What You Wanted first and want a copy of the short story prequel, send me an email at [email protected] and I’ll give you a free copy.
Thank you, Kristel, Ines, and Layla, for the thoughts and feelings. Thank you, Mike.
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About the Author
Mina V. Esguerra writes contemporary romance, young adult, and new adult novellas. Visit her website minavesguerra.com for more about her books, talks, and events.
When not writing romance, she is president of communications firm Bronze Age Media, development communication consultant, indie publisher, professional editor, wife, and mother. She created the workshop series “Author at Once” for writers and publishers, and #romanceclass for aspiring romance writers. Her young adult/fantasy trilogy Interim Goddess of Love is a college love story featuring gods from Philippine mythology. Her contemporary romance novellas won the Filipino Readers’ Choice awards for Chick Lit in 2012 (Fairy Tale Fail) and 2013 (That Kind of Guy).
She has a bachelor's degree in Communication and a master's degree in Development Communication.
Addison Hill series
Falling Hard | Fallen Again | Learning to Fall
Breathe Rockstar Romance series
Playing Autumn | Tempting Victoria
Chic Manila series
My Imaginary Ex | Fairy Tale Fail | No Strings Attached | Love Your Frenemies | That Kind of Guy | Welcome to Envy Park | Wedding Night Stand (short story) | What You Wanted
Scambitious series
Young and Scambitious | Properly Scandalous | Shiny and Shameless | Greedy and Gullible
Interim Goddess of Love series
Interim Goddess of Love | Queen of the Clueless | Icon of the Indecisive | Gifted Little Creatures (short story) | Freshman Girl and Junior Guy (short story)
Anthology contributions
Say That Things Change (New Adult Quick Reads 1) | Kids These Days: Stories from Luna East Arts Academy Volume 1 | Sola Musica: Love Notes from a Festival
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What You Wanted Page 12
