by L. Philips
“I said, what are you wearing?”
“I have school in five hours.”
“You’re not answering my question.” There’s some crunching on the other end of the line, like maybe he’s eating Doritos or something. Then he kind of chuckles. “Want to know what I’m wearing?”
I sigh. Despite the fact that it’s too late-slash-early and my head’s kind of still in the land of Nod, yeah. I really do want to know what he’s wearing.
But that’s beside the point. “So you called me in the middle of the night to have phone sex?”
“That’s safe, isn’t it? Or does that go against your rules too?”
“I don’t have rules, that’s not . . .” I stop myself. I’m wasting my breath trying to explain the difference to him. Then it hits me. He called. “You called me.”
“Yeah. So?”
I grin. “Thought you didn’t wait by the phone and all that?”
“Who says I was waiting?” I hear the clink of glass. I wonder, exactly, how many bottles of beer he’s had, and how much that was a factor in him calling me versus my pure, natural charm. “So . . . what are you wearing?”
I wriggle down underneath my covers and whisper into the phone, “Just boxers.”
Travis makes a noise that makes me want to laugh—a ragged, gurgling whimper. Then he says, “It’s your stomach, you know?”
“My stomach?” I ask, puzzled. I’m a little rusty at this, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t the way phone sex is supposed to go.
Travis murmurs something in agreement. “Yeah, man. I mean, it is, like, this great injustice or something that you’re seventeen and have those abs. Y’know? Seventeen. It’s just not fair.”
“Yeah, I, um . . . I do sit-ups. When I’m writing sometimes. Like, when I get stuck and can’t think of what to write next. And sometimes before bed.”
“Mnnnn, you must get stuck a lot.” Travis breathes deep into the phone and I want to laugh again. He sounds blissed out. And I don’t mind at all that part of that bliss might be coming from him picturing me naked. “I’m not usually into guys, you know?”
“I thought guys were one of your things?”
“Yeah but . . .” He grunts or something. Not sure if it’s because he’s frustrated trying to explain himself or if he’s moving. I can only imagine he’s lying in his own bed, maybe on top of his gray comforter, almost mirroring the position I’m in right now. The thought is, truthfully, sexy as hell. “Not like this. You’re just . . .”
“Your type. The geeky writer guy with the quasi ’fro and the decent six-pack.”
“Yeah. It’s so damn sexy.” He pauses. It’s quiet on the other end, so I can only assume he’s thinking. Or that he passed out. Then, “So when can I talk you into bed?”
I do laugh then, taking care to cover my mouth so that I won’t wake my parents. “You can give it a shot anytime.”
“Tomorrow?”
“By tomorrow do you mean later today or, you know, like, the actual tomorrow?”
Travis snorts. It’s kind of drunken sounding, and I laugh again. “Like, later today. Tuesday.”
“It’s Wednesday now.”
“Whatever, man. Wednesday. Gotta be so picky . . .”
“Wednesday’s good. I’ll be at the Donkey around three fifteen. Try to talk me into it then.”
“Okay, writer boy with the abs.” He chuckles to himself. “So . . . boxers, huh? Nothing else?”
“Nothing else.”
“Damn.”
Even at three a.m., in the darkness and privacy of my own room, I blush. He’s thinking about me. Me. I almost can’t handle it. I tell him, “I should go.”
“Yeah, yeah. School night,” Travis jokes, and laughs at it. “Donkey. Tomorrow. Writer boy with the abs,” he repeats like he’s trying to memorize the facts.
“See you then,” I tell him, and end the call. I turn my phone off too, just in case. Hot as he is, another phone call at this hour is just too much. I bury myself under my covers and try in vain to sleep.
It’s kind of weird, going through school that day, knowing that as soon as the final bell rings I’ll be meeting up with Travis. Even though I spend lunchtime with Jamie, and we meet before school by his locker and after school at mine, and he holds my hand like he just can’t let go. It’s strange, and maybe a little unsettling, and I can’t say that I feel great about it. But there are a lot of factors that go into my thinking on this, a lot of things whirring around in my head, and even though it feels wrong, there’s something that feels right about it too. Because really, no one is forcing me to make a decision here. There’s not even an actual decision to be made. I might as well count my blessings, ride both options out, and see what comes of it. And of course, there’s this nagging, persistent feeling in the back of my head that maybe Meg was right. Not about Jamie being perfect for me, but about the Goddess giving me choices. Belief in a goddess notwithstanding, having options isn’t something I’m accustomed to, and it’s not something I’m willing to give up. Yet.
Landon and Meg come with me to the Donkey. I didn’t exactly tell them that I was going to meet Travis there, but they’ll find out soon enough. We’ve just sat down at the bar when Travis comes in, looking like he’s just rolled out of bed, which means he’s almost sexier than normal.
“Writer boy,” he says to me before snaking one arm around my waist and pulling me close to him. Since I’m on the bar stool, he’s a lot taller than me, and I have to look up at him.
“Rocker boy,” I return, and then he just dives in, kissing me hot and wet and on the shorter side, so that I’m left wanting more.
“Coffee to go. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
I cock an eyebrow at him. “In a rush?”
“No, but it’s a whole lot easier to talk you into bed when you’re already, um, in it.” He grins at me, a smooth, sly kind of grin, and that’s when I know he’s kidding. Maybe.
“Stay here with me. Talk to me. Then we’ll see about leaving,” I say to him.
He narrows his eyes, gives me a once-over, and says, “All right. For a bit. But I should at least get to see you without a shirt later. You know, for the effort.”
I laugh at that and can’t resist kissing him again, this time making it last, before he plops himself down on the bar stool next to me. Meg’s elbow lands swiftly in my ribs and I wince, turning to glare at her. She and Landon have twin expressions on their faces. Both are wide-eyed, jaws dropped, and jerking their heads in Travis’s direction. I shrug like I have no idea what they’re confused about and turn back to Travis.
“So . . .” Travis begins, not at all sure how to start a conversation. “How was your day?”
I smirk at him. “Good. I managed to talk my teacher out of a pop quiz in psychology and there aren’t any rumors going around about me, which is more than I can say for most days. How was your day?”
“Just got up.” He grins lazily, proving his statement, then signals to Ted. “You want chai?”
“Yes, please.”
Travis orders for me. Meg’s elbow lands in my ribs again and I stifle a yelp by biting down on my hand. “Travis, you remember Meg and Landon?”
Travis leans back on his stool to see around me and nods once at Meg, then his gaze sharpens on Landon and he nods again, this time a lot more curtly. He begins to drum on the counter with his fingertips, then twists them together, looks around the room, and finally sits on his hands.
“Ask me about my writing.”
“What?” Travis says, looking perplexed.
“You want something to talk about, ask me about my writing,” I suggest.
“Oh! No, man. It’s not that I don’t know what to talk about. I’ve just . . .” He reaches up and scratches at the roots of his long bangs. “I’ve got a lot on my mind today. Not that I don’t want to know a
bout your writing or anything. I’d like to hear about your writing. If, you know . . . if we’re just gonna sit here forever.”
I have to laugh at that. His bluntness is refreshing on some level. I know exactly what he wants from me. “What’s on your mind?”
He looks around himself again, itchy, and I get the feeling he definitely doesn’t want to be overheard. I lean closer to him and turn my back fully toward my friends. “I’d rather show you,” he whispers, grinning.
“Travis, I already said—”
“No, no. It’s not what you think. There’s just something I want you to see. In my apartment.”
I cross my arms over my chest and hope I’m giving him the best I-don’t-buy-it stare I can. “And this thing, in your apartment, has nothing to do with getting me naked?”
“Well,” he says, and sticks his tongue out, clicking that metal ball against his teeth, “I wouldn’t say it has nothing to do with it. It’ll help, yeah, but you won’t believe me if you don’t see it. Oh, shit, there’s Vanessa. I didn’t even know she was here. Be right back.”
Travis kisses my lips and then slides off the bar stool, heading toward a table in the back corner, where a girl with bright fuchsia hair is chatting with friends. How he missed that hair is beyond me, but now that I’m alone, Landon and Meg pounce.
“What are you doing?” Meg hisses at me, hitting me on the shoulder as she does so. Even with her cutesy hair, she looks a little scary, and for once I think the horned hoodie might not be so far off.
“It’s nothing. Just seeing him. Just flirting. It’s nothing,” I say, but Meg only rolls her eyes.
“Just flirting? So all this talk of you going back to his apartment was—”
“God, can you not, like, eavesdrop?”
Meg grinds her teeth, then hisses through them. “What’s going on, Sam? You’ve been with Jamie a lot at school, and you bought him a cross that was made on Friday the thirteenth—which is a sign, by the way—and I know you call him every night.”
“So?” I ask. And yeah, I know the answer to my own question, but that’s not the point.
“What do you mean, ‘So?’” she says, and turns to Landon for help. As per usual, Landon is the calm one.
He offers her a sheepish smile, then says, “Would you give me and Sam a minute alone?”
“Are you kidding me?” she asks, and because Landon’s expression is dead serious, she huffs out a sigh. “Right. One of those Penises Only conversations.”
Landon shakes his head. “One of those Ex-Boyfriends Only conversations, actually. Please?”
“Oh. Well, in that case . . .”
Landon waits until Meg has wandered over to the corner, taking a particular interest in the flyers advertising student housing, before speaking.
“So, you’ve decided.”
“Not yet,” I admit. “I know what’s holding me back, I just don’t understand yet what’s pulling me toward it.”
Landon nods, processing that. “Travis is magnetic.”
“Just a bit.” I glance over my shoulder, making sure Travis is still distracted. “But I don’t think that’s it. As sexy as he is, I don’t think just plain wanting him is the whole reason why I’m considering it.”
“Then what is?”
I knit my fingers together and stare down at them. “You know how we were? When you and I had sex, it was so . . .”
“Good?”
I chuckle. “Good, yes. But I was going to say intense. Know what I mean?”
“Of course.”
I continue, voice low. “Everything got so intense, we couldn’t handle it, Landon. It tore us apart. You remember. We started fighting all the time, and got jealous of the stupidest things. I mean, you thought I was sneaking around on you with Chad Anderson. Remember? And we both know, for a fact, that Chad Anderson is one hundred percent straight, but there we were, screaming at each other anyway.”
Landon’s scrunches his face. “We kind of lost it there at the end.”
“There’s no ‘kind of’ about it. We acted insane. We were too immature.” I sigh. “I guess I want to know it doesn’t have to be that way. Or, at least, that I can be a grown-up about it, you know? That I won’t morph into a clingy, obsessive, lovesick idiot. That I can be chill.”
Landon stares at me blankly, and I wonder where I’ve lost him. I open my mouth, ready to start over with my case, when he leans forward, his voice a whisper.
“So you think sex was the reason why we acted so crazy?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t you?”
Landon sits back on the stool. “No, Sam. I don’t.”
Well, color me surprised. I thought we’d both figured this out. I thought we were on the same page. Hearing Landon disagree with me is just about the last thing I expected, and for a moment I scramble, like I’ve lost my footing and can’t get it back, because the ground is moving underneath me and doesn’t show any signs of stopping.
“Then what was it?”
Landon smiles in a way that makes me angry for a second. A Poor Idiot Sam Hasn’t Figured It Out Yet smile. “I think we couldn’t handle us, Sam. You’re right. We were immature, but how we handled sex is only one part of it. Our whole relationship was too much. I don’t think anyone is prepared to fall in love. Ever. But we did at fourteen. It was way too much pressure. I panicked at every thought of losing you. And I know I acted like I had lost my mind most of the time, but . . . I kind of had, in a way.”
This information settles on me, heavy and incomprehensible, and I try in vain to catch up to what Landon’s saying. “So when you were paranoid that I was cheating? Or got jealous of how much time I spent on my writing, or how much time I spent on the school paper? That was because you were so in love with me you didn’t know how to handle it?”
He nods. “Yes. We were way too young to understand love like that.”
“So it was love we didn’t know how to handle, not sex.”
“Exactly,” Landon says. He squints at me. “I kind of thought you’d figured that out.”
“I hadn’t,” I admit, and my mind keeps turning Landon’s words over and over again. I can’t really understand it, but I say, “I guess it makes sense,” anyway, because I don’t want to look like an idiot again.
Landon puts his hand over mine. He continues to study me. “So does that change anything? What about Travis?”
“Yeah, what about Travis?” Two arms wrap around me, and I lean back into the embrace. Travis’s mouth moves against my ear. “Made a decision yet?”
I flush hotly. “You heard that, huh?”
“Yup.”
He lets go of me and I turn around on the bar stool, giving him my best flirty smile. “Come on. Show me this secret thing in your apartment. And then we can talk. And maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll take off my shirt.”
Travis squints at me. “You’re getting a little cocky.”
“Hey, Travis Blake wants me to come back to his apartment with him, you bet I’m a little cocky.”
“You’re such a geek.” Travis shakes his head at me, like I’m hopeless.
“And I know how that gets you going.”
Travis shoots a look to me that would have knocked me dead if, in fact, looks could kill. “I told you that in confidence, asshole. Now let’s get out of here.”
He pulls me off the stool like he’s Tarzan and I’m Jane, and I have just enough time to shoot my friends a look of apology before we’re out the door.
Travis’s apartment is no cleaner than the last time I was here, not that that’s a surprise. The first thing he does is dig into his fridge, pulling out a beer. He offers one to me but I shake my head no and he shrugs, twisting off the cap on his own.
He doesn’t say a word, but he opens up a manila envelope and pulls out some important, official-looking documents, written in tiny fo
nt, with a fancy letterhead.
It takes me a minute but after deciphering some legal jargon I realize what I’m holding: a recording contract. I look up at him, surprised.
Travis waves his hand, saying, “Turn the page.”
I flip to the next sheet of paper, and this time it’s the same official-looking wording, but a different letterhead.
“Three offers,” Travis explains, and takes the papers from me, laying them out on the counter in piles. “Two are indies. Small-time record companies that are a little more . . .”
“Organic?” I offer, but that’s not quite the word that Travis wants.
“Flexible, was what I was going to say. They, uh, let you run the show. But there’s not much money. I mean, like, not much as far as what we’d make, and not much to produce and market us. But this one . . .” Travis points to a document with a recognizable letterhead, a name that looks intimidating, even to me. “They’ve got the money. So we’d have the marketing, but you know, we’d hafta do what the suits want.”
I stare at him, absolutely blown away. “Three offers?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs and takes another swig of beer, but his lips are turning up at the corners and, yeah, he’s proud of himself. “I’m gonna be rich and famous. So . . . wanna sleep with me now?”
I laugh. “Travis, you got three offers from record companies. That’s amazing. No wonder you wanted to show me this stuff.”
“Well, it’s kind of your fault.”
“My fault?” I ask.
Travis grunts. “Yeah. Uh, the reps were there last Friday, when you came to the show. I played better than usual that night, so this is kinda your fault.”
“Trying to impress me, huh?” I tease.
“Cocky bastard.”
“Well, you did. And apparently the reps too.” I look down at the documents, my eyes skimming over the terms. “Does that mean I’m entitled to a cut, as your lucky charm and all?”
