Thirty minutes later, we were sitting on Delaney’s couch again, except she was sitting two feet away from me, drinking from her water bottle, and I was trying not to go crazy from how she smelled. “I should probably go,” I said, standing up, and she said, “Oh, yeah, of course,” and stood, too.
“You probably didn’t get any sleep, huh?” she said, and I shook my head. “Because you look awful. I have no idea why you go running with me after working all night.”
“Because,” I said. “To keep you safe.” She gave a perfunctory nod of politeness, and it stung. I added, “So then I can be with you.” Her eyes widened.
“You want to be with me?” She sounded startled, surprised, which made no sense. How could she not see it when it was nearly impossible to hide it?
I closed the gap between us and bent my head down, wrapping my arms around her sweaty back. “Very, very much. So much it aches to not be with you. It’s stupid how much I want to be with you.”
“Stupid?” she said into my chest with a laugh, and the reverberations made me go even stupider.
“Yes. It’s stupid that we’re not doing something right now,” I said, and then I kissed her.
Delaney
He was pressing his weight against me as he kissed me, barely allowing me to pull away. Every time I did, he seemed to get even closer, invading my space. When I lifted my arms to put them around his neck, he didn’t give me a chance. He lifted the hem of my t-shirt and pulled it off, and then he pushed me backward again until my knees hit the sofa. We tumbled down together.
When he landed on me, I had to close my eyes and breathe through my nostrils for a second, because it felt like too much. Oliver was too much. His hands were all over me, and he was kissing my lips, then my neck, then on the fabric of my sports bra as his hands fruitlessly worked to get under it. Finally, his head popped up from my chest and he said in irritation, “Take this off,” and he pulled me up.
“Oliver, I—” His head lowered and then he was kissing the white patch of skin across my ribs, the biggest one, the one that Cliff always avoided looking at, the one that made me look diseased. The rough whiskers of his unshaven face grazed across it, making me shiver.
He kissed it until he reached the waistband of my running tights, and then he only said, “God, you’re beautiful,” his eyes still fixed on my stomach.
I took off my sports bra.
He sat up then, staring at me. He didn’t touch me. His eyes wandered over me, and then he pulled off his shirt as impatiently as he’d pulled off mine.
His chest had a flat, dark brown patch in the center which trailed down his stomach. Cliff had been baby smooth and polished, and I’d thought that was sexy, but as I tentatively touched the hair to my thumb, I went a little dizzy from pleasure. Smoothness had nothing on this.
Oliver was just as broad-shouldered as he appeared clothed. He was also lightly freckled, a small constellation dipping into his collarbone. I traced a finger along one shoulder like a dot to dot, and I could feel the sinew of his muscle as he shivered.
And his stomach. His stomach was muscled and solid and taut as it pressed against me, pushing me into the couch cushions, somehow both less and more than I thought it would be. I put my hand over his belly and let my fingers graze and feel the muscle and the hair, and I felt his sigh on top of me, his face pressed into my hair, now loose and messy behind me.
I pressed my hips into his once and then he groaned and pulled away, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear as he smiled. “You’re beautiful, but I should go home,” he said, and then he sat up, put on his t-shirt, and left, not looking at half-naked me once.
Twenty Three
Oliver
“So, what you’re telling me,” Michael said as we drove to a Bed, Bath & Beyond, “is that you’re going to ask Delaney to have a friends-with-benefits situation. And those are bad news.”
“It’s not a friends-with-benefits situation,” I said. “I have unfriendly feelings for her.”
“Oh?”
“But she’s still dealing with her ex-boyfriend. And I’m still dealing with stuff. So I left. I couldn’t just sleep with her without sorting things first.”
“Like Mia?” he asked, and I nodded. “And I didn’t want to—I don’t want Delaney to think I’m madly in love with her. She looks at me with those big eyes like I mean the world to her, and I just can’t crush her like that. I need her to get the right idea.”
“Uh huh.” Michael said flatly. “Which is?”
“Which is that I’m attracted to her and I like her a lot and that I don’t want the hassle of anything more right now.”
“Right,” he said.
“What?”
“Nothing. Does Delaney know Mia’s been texting you?”
I shook my head. “And that’s complicated. Do I tell her?”
“That depends,” he said. “What is it that you want from Delaney? For her to just go along with everything?”
I groaned and thumped my head against the window. “I have no idea.”
“But you’re still in love with Mia?’
“Do you just fall out of love with someone, like you fall out of a window?” I said as we walked in the megastore in search of a yellow bathmat. “I’d love to be out of love with Mia. I’ve been trying for over a year.”
“But you’re not.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“And what about Delaney?”
“What about her?”
“O, seriously? She’s a nice girl. What are you doing with her?”
“Hey.”
“You don’t have relationships, Oliver.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t. You have flings. You don’t fall in love. The only woman you claim to love was, until a few weeks ago, in a committed relationship with your brother. And when she gave you what you wanted, when she confessed her love for you, you left her alone in a hotel room.”
“It wasn’t like that.” I grimaced. It looked like that.
“It doesn’t matter. My point is that you’re not going to stay. You said so. And if you’re not going to stay, maybe you should not mess with Delaney.”
“No one can promise to stay. You can’t promise Ursula forever.”
He twisted his mouth. “Maybe I can’t, but I can try. But you can’t even promise Delaney today.”
“I can.”
“Then do it,” Michael said.
“I know her. She’s my best friend. I know she’ll be okay with this arrangement as long as I tell her everything ahead of time. As long as she knows my feelings.”
“And that’s why you left in a panic right before you were about to get lucky? No. And I’m sorry, but I’m your best friend. You’re being an idiot. Delaney doesn’t want anything from you. She keeps trying to stay away, so stay away.”
“You’re wrong. She does want something from me.” We stopped in front of the bath mats, and standing there was a twenty-something girl with long red hair down the back of her tight t-shirt. “Hi,” she said to me in a way that was much more than hi.
“Hi,” I said back, and then she curled a lock of hair around her hand and moved toward me, angling her hips to bump mine as she told me her name and batted her eyelashes, and okay, it felt nice to be wanted, and it made all the mixed up feelings about Delaney and Mia melt away for a second. We talked. She told me to look her up on Facebook as she sauntered away.
After the redhead left, Michael shook his head. “Maybe Delaney does want something from you, but you don’t have it to give.”
Delaney
Oliver and I ran three times this week, both of us barely uttering a word or looking at each other. I couldn’t talk to him, and I’d planned on avoiding him for the rest of my life after being mortified at him leaving. In the end, I couldn’t stay away when he knocked on my door, averting his eyes as he asked, “We running now?” I’d gone with him every time.
I expressed my confusion to Emily, who had
no insights besides that Oliver was a no good, very bad human being who I should definitely shag and then throw out of my life.
So I tried. I was trying to be aloof and distant and cool. But when he followed me into my apartment the next Saturday and grabbed my waist, kissing me up against the door in a hurry, like he was marking it off of his to-do list, I pushed him away.
“What’s wrong?” he said, slightly breathless.
I wrinkled my forehead. “This. You have to stop doing this.” Because you always stop.
He said, “I’ve been thinking, and I have a plan.” He led me to his apartment, and I fell back into his recliner, which felt like an overweight Muppet giving me a hug.
“A plan,” I said. “A plan that involves kissing?”
“Here’s the thing. Michael thinks I should stay away from you.”
“Ursula thinks that too.”
“Right, so we don’t listen to them,” he said as he sat on the arm of the recliner, tipping it forward, and him backward.
“But they’ll scream.”
“We do what we want, and we don’t tell them.”
“Tell them nothing?”
“Nothing. It’s not their business, is it?”
“I suppose not.”
“So?” he said, smiling hopefully at me.
“But why?” I said. “Why do you want this, when you could have someone like Mia?”
“Mia is complicated,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “This isn’t. It can be as uncomplicated as we want it to be. Plus, it’s convenient that we live across from each other and are awake when no one else in the world is.”
My eyes fell to my lap. “Right. Uncomplicated and convenient. That sounds very sexy,” I said, and then I stood up, headed for the door. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is for me, Oliver. I think you’re going to have to make a trip to the Saturn.”
“Wait,” he said, grabbing my fingers. “It’s not just that it’s uncomplicated and convenient.”
“Then what else?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I want you.” He said it with a twinkle in his eye, the corners of his mouth upturned, and I didn’t know whether to laugh at him or just push him.
I laughed. “You’re not a very good liar.” Then I pushed him, just because, which made him laugh and say, “I’m not lying! I just can’t say it with a straight face. You try.”
“No,” I said, but instead I stood on my tiptoes and kissed the side of his mouth. He kissed me back, lips pressed against lips, and then he kissed me for real, unhurried, his arms slipping around my waist, pressing me to him, and when he pulled away with a lustful, sleepy look, he said, “That’s why.”
“Oh,” I said, and I let him walk me to his bedroom.
Twenty Four
Oliver
Saturday morning, I knocked on Delaney’s door and waited, bouncing on the balls of my feet to burn off some of the tension eating me up. I ran behind her at a safe distance, but then I stared at her butt, her legs, her back, her neck, the way her hair swung in her ponytail, which turned me on. Even the extra hairband she kept on her wrist made me uncomfortable, maybe because it was so very Delaney. So I ran beside her instead.
But then I could smell her, which turned me on.
I ran slightly in front of her, but then I imagined her staring at my back, and that turned me on. When I ended up pressing her into her apartment door, it was a relief, a reprieve, but only a small one.
Because it turned out Delaney was even more beautiful, even kinder, and lots of fun to lie next to and touch. I couldn’t think of anything else besides Delaney. She was making me dizzy and confused.
Weeks went by and it wasn’t enough to see her just sometimes. I camped out in her apartment whenever she was home now, especially in the morning, the rare time when we were both awake. Monday morning while she was avoiding getting dressed, my hand drifted down to her calves. “You have beautiful legs. You shouldn’t wear tights today.”
She gave me a weak smile and then swung her legs out of bed. “I’ll think about it,” she said, which was her overly polite way of saying, “Never.”
I followed her into the bathroom, pushing aside the neck of her t-shirt to kiss a small patch of white there while she brushed her teeth. “I’m not lying. No one is concerned with the way your legs look but you.”
“Okay,” she said, meeting my eyes in the mirror.
I hugged her back to my front and said, “And you’d look great without these bangs.” I swept my fingers under them, pulling them aside so she could see her eyebrows, which were the perfect accent for her gigantic eyes. “There,” I said, kissing her neck again.
When she emerged from the bathroom fully dressed, she was breathtaking. Her legs were bare, her forehead was bare, but she had a watery smile. “I feel naked,” she whispered, but I shook my head. “You’ll be great. You’ll see.”
I walked her out of her apartment and entered mine, and then tried to go back to sleep, but my brain kept a loop of Delaney Delaney Delaney, and all I could do was stare at the ceiling and smile.
Delaney
“Delaney? Delaney? Delaney?” Corey, the newest student assistant snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Are you okay?”
“Sure,” I said as I took my sandwich wrap from her lunch run cart. “I’m just not getting enough sleep.”
Ursula wheeled over from her desk and studied me for a second. “She’s been like this for weeks,” she said to Corey. “Did you know the crazy girl gets up at 5:30 every morning to run?”
“I’m an early riser. It’s not a big deal,” I said to Corey, who was now looking at my legs, and I felt heat spread across my cheeks. I wasn’t wearing anything on my legs. Oliver had asked me to pin back my bangs, too, but I’d dropped the bobby pin the second he wasn’t looking.
“You have really nice legs. You shouldn’t wear tights so often. You look good like this. Different,” Corey said.
“Right,” I said tightly. “Thanks.”
“She’s right,” Ursula said. “Who cares about your patches? I swear you’re the only one who notices.”
“Everyone in LA noticed. Everyone.”
“Have you seen the people in LA?” Ursula said.
“I have. I lived there.”
“They’re not even real people. They’re simulacra of people! They don’t have any flesh or any fat or any emotions.”
“They’re beautiful,” I said. “Like Cliff. Beautiful, perfect human beings. Not meant for mere mortals. I have a complex after being around so many of them.”
“You’ve always had a complex. It’s not LA people. Maybe they’re beautiful,” Ursula said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful.”
“Sure it does. They’re the opposite of me.”
Corey shook her head and said to Ursula, “Girl needs therapy.”
“Or a mirror,” Ursula said.
Later, after I got home from work but before Oliver left, I asked him, “Who do you think is the most beautiful woman in the world?”
He propped up on an elbow next to me on the bed and said, “I feel like this is a trap.”
“It’s not a trap. I won’t be angry. Name anyone. I don’t care.”
He laughed. “This is a trap, and I have to go to work in half an hour. No. I refuse to answer.”
“Okay, then, name a beautiful actress.” He shook his head, so I said, “Cliff always had a thing for Jessica Alba, even if she was a little too old for him.”
His lips thinned. “Can you not mention Cliff? Ever again?”
“Name someone.”
“Delaney. Do you still talk to Cliff?” I fiddled with the pendant on my necklace, the one Cliff had given me for our third anniversary. It was a tiny book with my initials stamped into it. I loved it, even when I found out that Cliff’s assistant had been the one to find it for me. It didn’t make it any less me. Oliver’s eyes narrowed and my fingers dropped. “Laney?”
“Yes,” I mumbled. Then I straightened my s
pine and said, “Yes. So?”
“I don’t understand why you’d want to talk to that scum bucket.”
“He’s not a scum bucket. He’s a confused person, and I’m his friend. I was his best friend for a long time, until he drifted away.”
“He cheated on you.”
“So?”
“So, you’re being a doormat. You’re always too nice. You let people use you and you never listen to what you want.” My hands fluttered back up to my pendant and I thought, that’s not entirely true.
I sighed and said, “Whatever. Tell me about beautiful women.” Oliver’s face was stony as I continued. “Fine, what about Mia? Mia’s beautiful, right?”
“Delaney,” he said sharply, and then threw the covers off himself and turned around, getting dressed.
I sat up and stared at his back for a minute. I collapsed onto the pillows and then he leaned forward, fully dressed, kissed my forehead, and then left.
Oliver
Dinner?
That was the only thing that Mia had written in her last text. I was staring at it from the sofa of the doctors’ lounge, figuring out how to answer it. I hadn’t told Mia about Delaney, but I hadn’t told anyone else about Delaney, either.
I wrote her back, Sure. Tomorrow? My phone almost immediately buzzed with a new text from Mia. I had a plan to see her for the first time since the wedding. She and Brad were officially unofficial. She’d moved all of her stuff out of their barely lived-in house. The wedding gifts had been returned. He wasn’t speaking to her. She was dividing their DVDs. Almost everything was taken care of, except that we hadn’t talked about the night in the hotel room, about what almost happened.
Michael came in a few minutes later, bleary-eyed. “What are you doing here?” he said, getting a terrible coffee from the terrible coffee vending machine. “Shit,” he said, as the terrible coffee spilled boiling hot water on his hand.
“I’m always here.”
“Not lately. You’re nowhere lately.”
“I’m here,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
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