Auctioned to Him_The Contract

by Charlotte Byrd

  “You have no reason to be self-conscious. You’re beautiful.”

  Simon says that in such a quiet, unassuming way that I believe him. I know that’s exactly how he feels.

  “Thank you.” I smile. “But that’s still a no.”

  He puts his sketchpad away and inches his way close to me. I’m sitting with my legs crossed on the other side of the bed and he puts his hands on my knees and pulls himself closer.

  “C’mon, I’m very respectful,” he whispers and kisses my hand. “This isn’t going to be like Titanic or anything, if you’re worried. You don’t have to take your clothes off.”

  “Well, thank you for that.” I roll my eyes. I wasn’t even thinking that it would be, but now I am. Titanic’s my favorite movie. I’ve watched it a million times. My sisters don’t get it because it came out before my time, but I love old movies!

  Simon smiles at me and refuses to break eye contact. The mention of Titanic has intrigued me. But there’s no way that I’m posing naked. Kate Winslet has way more guts than I do.

  “Okay, fine. Suit yourself.” Simon pulls away from me. He gives me a quick peck on the cheek to show that they are no hard feelings and goes back to his sketchpad. I open my notebook and try to concentrate on my notes on Catcher in the Rye. Unfortunately, I can barely read my own handwriting or make out anything that I wrote down. Nothing I read makes any sense and after five minutes of struggling, my eyes start to drift.

  27

  “Wait, a second! What are you doing?” I ask when I catch a glimpse of Simon’s work and see an outline of my face.

  “Nothing.” He smiles and covers his work. I grab it out of his hand and run to the other side of the room.

  “Hey! That’s private!” he yells, half joking.

  “Yes! Exactly!” I yell back and laugh. “This is my face! That’s private, too!”

  Simon gets off the bed and starts chasing me around the room. We make two circles around the room before he catches up to me, grabs his sketchpad from my hand and knocks me down on the bed. We burst out in laughter, which quickly morphs into kissing.

  Simon’s tongue slides down my neck and pauses at my breasts. He then continues further down. He pulls up my shirt and kisses my belly button. Suddenly, everything becomes a blur. My shirt comes off. I unbutton his pants. He struggles in pulling off my jeans. He takes off my bra. I pull off his shirt. He caresses my breasts with his tongue. I run my tongue toward his belly button and tug at his boxer briefs.

  “Hey, have you seen my…” Tristan barges into my room.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I scream. He freezes in the doorway. I grab something off the floor and try to cover myself up. It’s futile. It’s my bra and I’m not in the right frame of mind to put it on properly. None of the clasps make any sense. I grab a shirt instead and wrap it around my torso.

  When I look up, Tristan’s still there.

  “Tristan! What the hell?” I say. “Get the hell out!”

  But Tristan just stands there like a frozen statue. I see Simon smile wryly. The expression on his face makes him look proud. And if not proud then definitely unfazed.

  “Tristan! Tristan!” I try again.

  This time, he seems to snap out of it. Simon looks at me and then at Tristan. Back to me.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers and leaves.

  I enter some sort of state of shock. My ears buzz and my hands get cold. I can’t feel the ends of my fingertips at all.

  “He wants you back,” Simon says and starts to kiss my shoulder. His lips feel cold and foreign. I push him away.

  “What?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

  Simon shrugs.

  “Your ex…he wants you back,” he says.

  The words that come out of his mouth don’t make any sense to me. I shake my head, no. And then look at Simon more closely. He isn’t jealous or worried. Instead, he’s oozing confidence and nonchalance. Is it all an act? I wonder. Doesn’t seem like it.

  Simon leans closer to me. I’m still grasping my shirt around my breasts in a failed effort to cover up. He touches my arm and tries to pull it away. I stop him. Without a word, he starts to kiss me again. Up my neck. Then my lips. I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to recapture our moment. Trying to bring us back to what we were doing before the interruption. But I can’t think straight. I can’t focus. I can’t let myself fall back into that world. The interruption is all I can think about.

  “Wait, wait.” I pull away. “Stop. I can’t.”

  “Oh c’mon. Don’t let him ruin this for us,” he whispers. His voice is intoxicating. His lips are so sexy. For a brief moment, I lose myself. But then pull away again.

  “No, I can’t.” I shake my head. “You have to go.”

  “What?” Simon can’t believe what I’m saying.

  “I’m sorry,” I say and start getting dressed. “I have to study. And we shouldn’t be doing that anyway.”

  “I can stay and study with you,” he says. I think about that for a moment. Perhaps we can just pretend that none of this happened. But then my thoughts drift to Tristan again. No, I can’t study right now. I need air. I need to get out of this room.

  “No, I’m sorry.” I shake my head and usher Simon out of the room.

  “I’ll call you later,” I say by the elevator. I lean up for a kiss, but Simon’s mad. He’s not saying anything, but I can tell. He turns his head away from me.

  “Can I call you later?” I ask. A pang of fear rushes through me. What if he doesn’t want to see me again? What then?

  “Whatever,” Simon shrugs and gets on the elevator.

  * * *

  “What the hell are you thinking?” I barge into Tristan’s room without knocking.

  I hope to catch him doing something embarrassing and humiliating too, but he’s just sitting on his bed with a textbook open across his legs. He looks up at me as if I’m lost, as if he had completely forgotten what had just happened! Agh, he makes me so mad!

  “What?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. “What’s going on?”

  “What? What’s going on?” I catch myself repeating his words. “YOU. Barging in on ME.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry about that okay.” Tristan shrugs. “I was just looking for my jacket. I thought that I’d left it in your room.”

  I shake my head. “This is unbelievable.”

  I walk out of his room and slam the door on my way out. I start pacing around the living room thinking of something to say. Looking for words that I can use to convey my anger at him. But nothing comes. I want to slam something. Break something. Hit something. Hit him. Tristan!

  “Okay, listen.” Tristan comes out into the living room. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” I yell. I hate how my voice breaks a bit at the top.

  “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to interrupt. It was really an accident.” Tristan shrugs.

  All I can do is stare at him.

  “Is he still here?” he whispers after I don’t respond.

  “No, of course not! Why?” I ask.

  Tristan shrugs again. Our eyes lock. He looks away. I hate how sexy he looks when he’s wrong. He has this tendency to look down at his feet and shift his weight a bit from side to side. I wait for him to drop his shoulders and let out a few sighs. He does. Why do I have to know all these things about him? I curse myself. I should find him and all of his perfect imperfections annoying and vomit-inducing, but I don’t. Instead, they make me want to...

  I shake my head. No, I won’t go there. Not even in my thoughts. This is over.

  “Can I ask you something?” Tristan asks after a few moments of silence. I shrug and look at the floor.

  “Why did you get so mad? I mean, I know I surprised you. But…why did you get so mad, Alice?”

  “I didn’t get mad,” I say too quickly. “You just wouldn’t leave the room. Why did you just stand there like a statue? I had to yell at you a couple of times before you left.”

/>   Tristan takes a step closer to me. He tilts his head forward and his hair falls into his face. We’re so close that I can see the pores on his face. Mysteriously, none of them are black.

  “I was in shock,” he whispers.

  “Why?” I whisper. We’re so close that I can feel his breath on my lips.

  “Because you’d moved on,” he says after a moment and looks away. He turns around and walks to the kitchen.

  “What?” I ask in my normal voice. The words seem to echo around the room. Tristan stops in his tracks.

  “What?” he asks.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. I feel like we’re dancing in circles and getting nowhere.

  “I was in shock because you’d moved on,” he whispers. “That’s why I just stood there. I didn’t mean to interrupt, really. And when I saw you two, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.”

  I can’t understand what he’s saying. My ears are buzzing again.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. “We broke up, Tristan. A long time ago.”

  He shrugs.

  “You broke up with me, remember? And now you’re sleeping with my peer review partner. Tea. Remember? So you’re surprised when you catch me in bed with Simon? Are you insane?”

  He looks at me confused. “Wait, what? Sleeping with Tea? Who said anything about sleeping with Tea?”

  “You two haven’t slept together?” I ask.

  “No.” He shakes his head. “Not that’s not any of your business.”

  “Wait, I don’t understand,” I say. “You’ve been dating for awhile now.”

  He shrugs. “The timing hasn’t been right. We’re taking it slow. But it doesn’t matter now. Everything’s different now, right?”

  I want to run up to him and pound him on his chest. What the hell do you mean? It doesn’t matter now. What doesn’t matter? Why doesn’t it matter. What’s different? But something’s holding me back. This isn’t my old Tristan. This person’s different. And our relationship’s different. Fragile, new, to say the least.

  “I guess,” I finally say. It’s all I can say. He looks away disappointed. If you want things to be different then tell me. Tell me what you want. Tell me something, anything, of value, I want to scream at the top of my lungs. But I don’t.

  “I just want to tell you,” Tristan says. I look up at him with hope. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the moment when he really tells me how he feels about me.

  “I just want to tell you that it won’t happen again.” He finishes the sentences and breaks my heart.

  28

  Tristan and Tea aren’t having sex. At least, they weren’t until today. I can’t believe I didn’t know that. I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to Adele. I’m convinced that listening to too much Adele may be dangerous for my mental health, but I can’t help myself. She’s a drug. It took me months to get over her last album, but now she has a new album out.

  Tristan and Tea weren’t having sex. But now that he had seen me with Simon, they will be. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, I decide after a while. I mean, so what? I thought they were having sex and now they’re going to. So why am I so afraid?

  I take a deep breath. I have so much work to do. I have a paper due in English and a project due in Anthropology. I’ve started neither. Today was supposed to be my study day, but now it’s all gone to shit. Might as well just eat some junk food and watch TV.

  I go out into the living room. When I see Tristan there, I give him a nod and place a packet of popcorn into the microwave. Dylan and Juliet aren’t here, but that’s not going to stop me from hanging out in the living room. Tristan and I are over. We’re dating other people. We’re adults. We’re capable of being friends. Starting with right now.

  Tristan’s watching some sports analysis show on ESPN. Football, I think.

  “How’s it going?” I ask.

  “Worried about USC this weekend,” he says. Tristan grew up being a USC fan. And now that we’re 3,000 miles away from Los Angeles and he’s going to a completely different school, he’s still a USC fan. I like that about him. Loyalty.

  I ask him who they’re playing. He goes into a long spiel about the new coach and the quarterback this season. I’m only half listening, but I’m enjoying our time anyway. It has only been a few hours since the Simon incident, but everything seems to be somewhat back to normal. Friends. Okay, I can do this, I say to myself.

  “Hey, are you listening?” he asks.

  “Yeah, sure,” I lie. That’s enough confirmation for him to start talking again. We watch ESPN together for a couple of hours. I spend most of my time on my phone reading and wasting time on Facebook, but our time together is still nice.

  “So I think I’m going to go to bed now,” I say when I realize that it’s almost 11.

  “Wish I could do that same thing,” Tristan says with a sigh and flips through the channels.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Oh, you see that sock on our door? That means that Dylan’s in there with a girl. They’ve been there almost the whole night.”

  I look at the sock. It’s bright red and so old that it looks like it’s been washed a million times (probably by Dylan’s housekeeper).

  “I thought that was just a cliché. You actually do the sock thing?” I laugh.

  “How else do we know not to barge in on each other?” he asks. “You know, come to think of it, you and Juliet should develop some sort of system like that too. Otherwise, you know, anyone can just come in.”

  We both burst out laughing.

  “I’ll think about it,” I finally say, rolling my eyes.

  “So who’s he got in there?” I ask.

  He shrugs.

  “I bet it’s Peyton,” I say.

  “No, I don’t think so.” He shakes his head.

  “How do you know?”

  “When he brought Peyton around before, we always hung out together first. He wasn’t hiding it. But this girl. I don’t know, it’s different. I stepped out for a few minutes and, suddenly, there’s a sock on the door. No, this girl’s different.”

  We laugh again. It’s nice to laugh with Tristan. Relaxing and peaceful. We wait for ten more minutes and then decide to take bets.

  “I bet you $10 that it’s Peyton,” I say.

  “No, no. I don’t want to bet with money.”

  “Why?” I recoil in shock.

  “Because it’s boring. Let’s do chores or something fun.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, if you win then I have to do something for you. Make your bed, do your laundry, take you somewhere?”

  I think about that for a second. That does sound more interesting than money!

  “Okay, so if it’s Peyton, you have to do my laundry for two weeks,” I say.

  “Deal,” he says. He looks me up and down as if he’s sizing me up for something. “And if I win, if it’s not Peyton, but some other girl, then you have to go to Phi Kappa Beta’s Masquerade Ball with me.”

  “What?” I ask. That was the last thing I was expecting.

  “I’m thinking of rushing next semester. And they’re having this masquerade ball in a few weeks. And if I want to come, I have to bring a date.”

  That’s sort of an explanation, but it doesn’t really explain anything.

  “But what about Tea?”

  He shrugs.

  “I don’t know, okay? Tea and I are complicated. We’re in a weird place. And I just want to bring a hot friend. Someone uncomplicated.”

  I nod and then laugh. I can’t help myself.

  “What? Why are you laughing?” he asks.

  I shrug. “You and Tea must be in a really complicated place if you want to bring your ex-girlfriend. I mean, we’re not in that uncomplicated of a place, you know.”

  He comes close to me. “The thing is that you’re really special to me, Alice. What you and I have…it’s different. And now that we’re friends, I just know that things wil
l work out.”

  I smile. I hope he’s right.

  Tristan and I wait for Dylan and his mystery date until midnight. I fall asleep a number of times and, finally, give up a little past midnight.

  “I can’t wait any longer. I have to get some sleep,” I say.

  “I’ll be out here,” he says as I climb into bed. I decide not to close my door. I want to see who Dylan spent the whole night with. I’m pretty sure I’ll hear them if my door is open, I decide, as I drift off to sleep.

  29

  “Alice? Alice? Wake up,” I hear someone leaning over my bed and whispering. For some reason, I’m crammed and pushed all the way to the cold wall. I also don’t have any of my blankets. It’s as if they’re trapped under something big.

  “Alice?” I hear the voice again.

  “Hey, what the fuck, man?” I’m startled by the voice coming from my bed.

  Suddenly, I realize who it is. Tristan. Tristan’s in my bed. Why? How?

  “I can’t believe you, Alice,” Simon says and storms out of my room.

  I push Tristan out of my bed onto the tile floor.

  The bright lights in the living room hurt my eyes. I catch Simon by the elevator.

  “Simon, Simon! I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why he was there.”

  “Oh please.” Simon shakes his head. “I come back here to make things right and I find your ex in your bed.”

  “Simon, nothing happened. Please. I went to bed alone. I have no idea why he’s there.”

  My mind is racing. Why the hell is he there?

  “No, I know. I know why. He can’t sleep in his room because Dylan’s got a girl there.”

  “So he just had to sleep with you? Even though there’s a couch and Juliet’s bed that are both empty?”

  I have no response. I’m going to kill Tristan! Simon climbs into the elevator and presses the button. I helplessly watch as the doors close.

  “I’m sorry,” I say when our eyes meet one last time. But he looks away.