No Easy Choices (A New Adult Romance)

by Cade, Trista

  I was wrong. Kennedy snatched me up off the couch, pulled the rubber band out of my hair, and fluffed out my curls while another sister held out a silk robe. Before I knew it, I was wearing something that look a lot like a negligée, complete with feathers around the collar, and a swipe of peach lipstick on my face. I was unceremoniously shoved out the side door to the TV room, mortified to find myself face-to-face with about twenty guys.

  “Andie McMichaels,” Quinn began in a severe voice, “it is my sincere pleasure to introduce you to Jackson Burrage.” She held out her hand and indicated the guy. Yup, that guy. The puker. And truth be told, he was kind of good-looking when there weren’t chunks stuck to the side of his face. Quinn kept on with the serious voice while she gave me what sound a whole lot like a sales pitch, only the product she was selling was puke boy.

  “Jackson is a member of Epsilon Chi fraternity, the student government, and our own football team, where he rushed for six hundred years so far this season. He would like permission to escort you to dinner tomorrow night, and the sisterhood has already accepted on your behalf. We’ll leave you two alone. Gentlemen!” She barked that last word and actually clapped her hands once, which would have been hilarious if it hadn’t actually worked. The guys turned around and left their brother on the stoop next to me.

  “Hi,” Jackson began. “You know, you actually look familiar.”

  “Yes,” I replied, “I drove you home from the mixer last weekend. You threw up on me.” Why not start things off with honesty? Honesty is important in a relationship.

  “Wow. I’m really sorry about that. I don’t usually drink because of sports and all, but they had just named me as the starting offensive lineman, and I got a little carried away with my celebrating. Am I forgiven?” And I admit it, he actually did look sorry. What the hell. It wasn’t like my prospects could get worse. I’d already kind of hit rock bottom on my own, so why not let those who care and know best point me in the right direction?

  “So,” he continued, “dinner tomorrow? I thought we’d go to Effina’s, and then maybe to a movie?”

  “That sounds like fun. Thanks!” I said with what I hoped was an eager smile. Jackson leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, sparking a chorus of gleeful screams from inside the house. I should have known they’d be watching.

  Jackson told me goodnight and walked back up the hill to fraternity row, leaving me to go inside and face the interrogation. I turned the knob and braced myself.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to ask you what your major is,” Jackson said with a smile after we were shown to our table at the restaurant and had placed our order with the waitress.

  “Art,” I said, prepared to defend myself but pleasantly surprised by the excited look on his face.

  “Really? I almost went into art,” he said, “but my dad said it wasn’t right for me.” He snapped a breadstick in two a little more forcefully than necessary before crunching it into pieces with his clenched jaw.

  “Oh,” I said, kind of at a loss for words. “My dad thinks it’s perfect for me.”

  “It is, I can tell. You’ve got that free-spirit look about you. And of course, you’re a girl.”

  “What?” I laughed. “All the great artists were historically men.”

  “Right, but nowadays, how’s a guy who majors in art supposed to earn money? Selling his paintings on the street corner? Auctioning them off on eBay?” His response sounded so rehearsed that I couldn’t even get mad. Someone had shoved that crap down his throat one too many times.

  “Well, there’s graphic art, digital art, stuff like that. Those things pay big bucks, too, since it’s not something that just anybody can do. And you have to be really smart.” I looked at him hopefully as the light flickered in his eyes, only to be extinguished just as quickly.

  “Well, yeah, but it’s nothing like the income potential of accounting. And my dad should know. I intern at his firm in the summers, well, until practices start.”

  “I don’t know. I just couldn’t sit behind a desk all day doing stuff I don’t love.” The idea made me want to physically convulse.

  “Oh, you don’t have to sit behind a desk all day. There are lots of conferences and tax law trainings and stuff to go to.”

  “You just described hell to me,” I said, cringing and hoping I hadn’t hurt his feeling. I reached for a breadstick to stuff in my mouth to keep me from saying something else that was stupid or hurtful.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he answered, only he wasn’t laughing this time. I prayed for the waitress to hurry up and bring our food so I couldn’t keep this conversation going.

  On paper, he was perfection. He was dutiful to his parents, even if it was taking things too far by ignoring what he wanted to do and becoming an accountant. He was outgoing and athletic, but had the good sense to apologize for throwing up on me. This was someone my parents would be thrilled to see me walk through the door with at Christmas break.

  So why didn’t I feel anything?

  This was a first date, and it was with someone who probably wouldn’t have had three words to say to me if we’d gone to high school together. I’d officially come into my own, me, Andie McMichaels. I was in college studying something I loved, I was a member of a really active campus sorority, and I was on a first date with a genuine specimen of a guy. I should have felt something. Anything. Instead, I nibbled a breadstick and tried not to hurt his feelings any more than I already had.

  After we finished eating and had watched a fun, non-offensive, non-overly-sex-filled movie, we headed back to my house, thankfully without any more talk of ruining our lives by becoming drones who worked for a corporate overlord or by being “free spirits” who got to sit around and draw all day. We talked a little bit about sports—I’m not a moron, I went to public school, I know what football is—and how the college was supposed to do this year around the region. Mindless, fun, no-hurt-feelings stuff like that.

  “I think I’m supposed to say something about how I had a really great time tonight, and how I’d like to do this again, and how I’ll call you if that’s okay,” Jackson said, a hint of his former smile coloring his face.

  “And I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to thank you for a lovely evening and agree that we should definitely do it again,” I said, relieved that he didn’t seem to hurt by my lack of enthusiasm for his dad’s career path for him. He stepped closer to me and kissed me very gently on the lips, lingering there for only a second, kissing me a second time, and then a third. He smiled and stepped back, then gave me a small wave and walked away up the street, much like he had the night of my pity party.

  And I had felt nothing. Zilch. Not so much as a lingering temperature change on my face to show that someone else had been there in the last few seconds.

  I felt exactly what I expected to feel after kissing a soon-to-be tax accountant. Nothing. If it was possible, I might have actually felt less than nothing, since the lack of any kind of romantic feeling had been replaced by a supreme feeling of guilt for not feeling anything. This is me, overthinking it again. Maybe this is what Mom had meant when she said that love had to be planted from a tiny seed and nurtured carefully. That kiss could have been only the tiniest of seeds, and I could try really hard to make it become something more. I could give Jackson a fair chance and see if love isn’t something like the movies made it out to be, that it’s really a long-term, ongoing project.

  Did I seriously just compare love to a home improvement project? Or a long-haul stock portfolio? Was it happening already? One kiss from a would-be accountant, and I was infected with sensible thoughts of building a respectful relationship based on nurturing one’s feelings until they grew into something more?

  I was going to have to do better than that. More effort, Andie, more enthusiasm for a nice, normal guy. You can do this.

  And maybe I could have, if I hadn’t walked up the steps to find Javier sitting in one of the chairs. My heart dropped
like I was on a roller coaster, only to come back up in my chest and catch fire just from seeing the way the light overhead created shadows on his face, shadows which gave way when his gorgeous smile illuminated his features. That, I thought to myself, is what love felt like.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Good evening,” Javier said in a neutral tone of voice.

  “Hi,” I answered, watching him to see if he was angry. There was no way he hadn’t seen Jackson leaving just now, and no way he couldn’t put two and two together to figure out why Jackson was walking away.

  “You have date with football boy?” he asked seriously, but there was something playful in his tone. He stared up at me with a questioning look, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing with his own eyes.

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly my choice. My sisters set me up, after you...”

  “Yes? What did I do?” he asked, not unkindly.

  “After they found out about your family.”

  “No!” he answered sharply. “Not my family. Only my father, my father who is now dead from his actions.” Javier’s face suddenly clouded, a darkened expression masking his usually brilliant face. “My father made choices that we continue to pay the price for, a price that has cost me many people in my life. My father, my brothers, all taken from us by rival cartel, all killed while my mother watched. But also my childhood and my innocence taken from me when I learn what it is where my family makes money. I will not suffer ever again because of someone else decisions.”

  I had nothing to say. Every word that he said made sense on some level, and I wanted nothing more than to throw myself at him and kiss away all the hurt on his face. Instead, I stood there like an idiot, not knowing how to make it better, not even knowing if it was possible to make it better after I’d turned my back on him without letting him explain.

  “Javier, I’m really sorry I judged you. I listened to someone else instead of talking to you. Will you forgive me?” I asked, not even caring if he thought of me romantically anymore, but truly devastated that I had treated Javier exactly the same way that I accused the Thetas of treating people.

  He stood up and stepped close to me, staring into my eyes for a long time before leaning down to kiss me. That was the kind of kiss I’d been waiting for, the kind that set my mouth on fire and made me want to shred Javier’s shirt with my bare fingers. I reached my arms up around his neck to pull him closer to me, luxuriating in the warm feeling of his tongue sliding across mine. Somewhere behind us a curtain moved behind the window and a face disappeared from view.

  “I must go now,” Javier said. “I will call for you tomorrow, yes?”

  “Yes,” I answered, smiling broadly for the first time in two days. “I would like for you to call me.”

  He kissed me one last time and held me in a tight hug, then bounded down the steps and up the sidewalk, walking backwards so he could wave at me again. I returned the wave and went inside, where the sisters were ready and waiting.

  Hands clutched at me and pulled me into the sitting room as more sisters poured down the staircase, all wanting the dirt on my date with Jackson. Um, who? Jackson who? I couldn’t even remember what he looked like, not with Javier’s kiss still scorching my lips.

  “All right, Andie, spill it! We saw the whole thing, including the not-safe-for-sorority-house-porch kiss he planted on you in the doorway!” Connor boasted excitedly.

  “Where did you guys eat?”

  “Did he hold your hand during the movie?”

  “Does he care that you’re an art major?”

  That last question kind of silenced the crowd, even if it was just for a second or two, as all eyes turned toward Kennedy, wondering how she could ask such a thing.

  “Well, I’m just saying, that’s the kind of thing that some guys get irritated about, like they’re afraid she’s going to turn out to be some feminist free-thinker who doesn’t shave her underarms, or something.” Kennedy crossed her arms and stared back at us with an unapologetic look on her face.

  “No one thinks like that anymore, Kennedy,” Collins shot back. “Besides, the only way to be an art teacher is to take art, so surely he knows she’s going to be an elementary school art teacher.”

  “I’m what?” I asked in an alarmed voice.

  “And besides,” Brooks reminded us, “Jackson’s entering the draft next year. Andie wouldn’t work anyway, not with all the obligations she would have. Besides, she wouldn’t have time to finish school, so she wouldn’t be a teacher.”

  “Jackson’s going into the draft?” Lindley piped up in a worried voice. “I thought the government quit doing that.”

  “Not the military draft, silly, the NFL draft,” Brooks said very slowly for the sake of someone so dumb, rolling her eyes at the dim-witted remark. “As a team wife, Andie wouldn’t have time to clean her own house, let alone work full-time. Oooo! She could volunteer at an underprivileged school teaching art to the little disadvantaged children, though!” That got a general hum of approval as nodding heads bobbed around the room.

  “Annnnnd...STOP!” I held up my hands for quiet. “WHAT. Are. You. Talking. About?”

  “We’re just making some contingency plans for you,” Collins said. “You have to be prepared for a lot of outcomes, including following Jackson’s career.”

  My eyes started to glaze over and I began to hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. I thought I might need to sit down until I figured out I was already sitting. Maybe I needed to lie down. In the dark. Without the Bridal Bunch hovering over me.

  “Guys, I’ve got some awkward news for you. That wasn’t exactly Jackson on the porch.” I waited for the few minutes it took for that to circulate around the room and to sink in. “That was Javier. He came over to explain our little...misunderstanding.”

  “What misunderstanding?” Harper demanded. “That boy is off limits. He’s no good for your reputation, or ours.”

  “That was the misunderstanding,” I said patiently. “Javier’s family are not drug dealers. In fact, his father’s dead. Years ago, even.” I looked at their faces, some concerned, others entirely confused. A few of the sisters had already dissolved away to their bedrooms once they figured out there was no wedding to help plan.

  “But Andie, you can’t be serious. You’ve got Jackson! Why on earth would you choose someone like Javier when you could have Jackson?” Kennedy was genuinely in a state of upheaval over my inability to make what was, in her mind, the clear and better choice. “I mean, he’s...Jackson! Star of the football team Jackson! Son of one of the founding partners of the largest accounting firms in the state JACKSON! The governor was his godfather JACKSON!”

  I laughed. “Why does everyone keep giving me this guy’s resume and family tree? If he’s so awesome, why doesn’t one of you date him?” Only, no one laughed. They looked around awkwardly, like someone had just farted during a sistership pledge.

  And there was a perfectly good reason no one answered. Because Quinn had been standing behind me the entire time. Standing with her arms crossed and one foot tapping.

  “You had one responsibility, and that was to represent this sorority like a true lady, and you couldn’t even do that right.” Her face began to turn red as she hissed. “I handed you one of the most amazing guys on this entire campus, and you’re going to throw him away for a dirty, drug-dealing, foreigner? Well, you two completely deserve each other. I don’t think you’re worthy of following Jackson down a sidewalk, let alone getting to actually date him.” She turned on her heel and left the room, a small posse of sisters tagging along after her.

  “Wow. Guess there’s gonna be another emergency vote tonight, huh?” I began, only no one laughed along. Even Kennedy looked a little uncomfortable, clenching her arms to her chest tightly and looking down at the floor. “Well, thanks for a lovely evening, all of you. I’m going to bed.”

  I made it all the way to my room before the tears fell.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “And
ie?” Javier asked, smiling through his confusion at finding me standing on the metal landing outside his door, doing my best to stay dry under the doorway’s tiny awning. “You are all right? What is wrong?” He pulled me inside, taking my bag and placing it on the floor before reaching for a throw blanket off the back of his sofa and wrapping it around my shoulders. Seriously? He’s a guy AND he’s got throw blankets! Why does everyone think there’s something wrong with this guy? I think he’s perfect!

  “I’m so sorry to show up like this, I just wasn’t really sure what else to do,” I stammered, realizing for the very first time that showing up in the middle of the night on someone’s doorstep is not a “romantic damsel in distress” move, but more like a “crazy stalker who doesn’t know what boundaries are” move.

  “It is no problem, but what is wrong? Now I am worried for you.”

  “Well, the sisters had a secret meeting and before they could do something stupid like vote about me, I just quit. I’ve called my parents and they’re going to come down and help me find a new place to live, but for tonight...” I cringed, “...could I maybe sleep on your couch?”

  “Absolutely not,” Javier said firmly.

  “Oh. I’m sorry. You’re right, it was rude of me to assume you wouldn’t mind. I’ll go to a hotel or something.” I began to reach for my bag but he stopped me.

  “No, Andie, I am saying that I will be the person to sleep on the couch, you will sleep in the bedroom. A guest cannot sleep here,” he said, sneering at his sofa like it was a lice-infested germ sponge instead of a gorgeous leather dream pillow. “You go to the shower and I will make the bed for you. And then you will sleep very well.” He planted a quick kiss on my lips and pointed me in the direction of his bathroom, reaching for clean sheets from a small hallway closet on the way past. Seriously? He’s a guy AND he owns spare sheets for his bed? I can’t take this, he’s too perfect!