by Roxy Queen
“Last August? Before school started. I was taking out the trash when he drove up,” she says. “I know he stayed for several hours, Ruthie.”
Bile rose in my throat, combined with wine and I jump off the couch and heave into the sink. Tears fill my eyes and I start to sob, the ugly, terrible kind of crying that’s been pent up for too long.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, leaning back against the counter and rest my head in my hands. “I know you’re friends with his parents and the age difference is disgusting. It was just a fling. That’s all. Something fun to forget the disaster of last year.”
Betsy enters the kitchen and wraps her arms around me. “Oh Ruthie, it’s okay. I’m not mad—I just felt like this thing was hanging over us and when I saw him here tonight, it seemed like the right time to say something.”
I lean against her shoulder and continue to cry, partially in relief that someone else knows, but also because I hurt so bad—letting him walk out that door again felt like I’d stabbed myself in the chest. “I haven’t seen him since that night,” I promise, wiping my face and nose. “He showed up unannounced tonight and I’m so sorry if I embarrassed you or the family.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” she assures me. “Jealous maybe, but not embarrassed.”
I laugh but it turns into a sob and I cough. “He’s nineteen. Eighteen then. It wasn’t cool, but it was just for the summer. That’s all.”
“So you guys…”
I take a deep breath and confess, “Yes, we spent a lot of time together last summer, which ended up being a really stupid mistake.”
Betsy pushes my hair back where it’s fallen out of the ponytail. “He’s a little young, sure, but I don’t know. Carter has always been fairly mature and you’re single. It’s a slippery slope, but I don’t think you really did anything wrong.”
She doesn’t know about the things I did with him, to him and allowed him to do back to me. She doesn’t know where we did it and how often and how I broke his heart twice and how I screwed myself up for other men.
“It was stupid,” I say. “The dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because,” I stop and take another deep breath. “Because I fell for him, okay?”
“Oh, honey.”
“I know, right?” I shake my head at myself. “Like that was ever going to work. It can’t work.”
“How does he feel about this?” she asks.
“I wrecked him, too. He’s put me on this pedestal, which sounds nice, but it’s not. He’s a kid and shouldn’t be thinking about someone my age.”
“Why not?”
My eyes snap to hers. “Why not? Because he has his whole life ahead of him and it’s time for me to settle down and get serious. He’s nineteen—he can’t be serious now.”
Betsy shakes her head but then shifts to laughing so hard that she’s bending over at the waist. “Oh man, Ruthie. Stop.”
Annoyed, I snap, “What?”
“Girl, you’re twenty-eight, which no, isn’t nineteen but man, do you know what I’d give to be in my twenties again? To have a kid like that chasing my tail?”
I shake my head.
“Of course you don’t—because you’re still there. You don’t see how time is slipping away from you and you need to take chances while you can. You’ve got a perfect body. Your boobs are amazing. Look at them.”
I glance down.
“They don’t sag and they haven’t been ravaged by children. Your stomach is flat and you have curvy hips and a killer ass. Lord, what I would give for a day in your body.”
I look at her like she’s lost her mind because Betsy is beautiful and has a nice figure. I don’t get it.
“See?” she laughs. “You have no idea, but you will. Forty comes knocking and it’s like your body betrays you. So stop thinking about what’s wrong and think about what’s right—before you’re married and have kids. Do you want to end up like Debbie?”
“Who?”
She slaps her face. “Bikini Mom! Don’t be that desperate mother hitting on a boy young enough to be her son. Willing to ruin her marriage for a piece of ass.”
Betsy’s rambling and I think she may be close to her own nervous breakdown. “What are you talking about?”
“Ruthie,” she takes my hands in hers. “If you love him go for it. If you’re even moderately attracted, go for it. And if he wants to have sex with you, forget your hang-ups because that is what you’ll regret one day. You’ll regret the opportunities lost.”
“So you think I should see him…”
She laughs and raises her wine glass up in a mock toast. “I think you should find him and fuck the ever-loving sense of him. And then do it again. You have plenty of years to be old, but only so much time to be young.”
*
I’m pretty sure Betsy has had a midlife crisis, so I’m wary about her advice. One thing sticks with me though, and that’s the idea of regretting opportunities lost. I already had my opportunity to rock Carter’s world, but I’ve passed up the chance to be his friend, and this is my new mission.
“Hi,” I say to him in line for coffee. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Oh, hey,” his eyes light up just a bit, but they’re guarded. I don’t blame him. I’m going off script. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
“I used to go to that shitty hole-in-the-wall off campus, but last week I saw a rat behind the counter so, I’m strictly corporate coffee now.” Most of this is a fabrication, well the rat part isn’t, but I’ve been stalking Carter for a week trying to gather the courage to approach him. It only took me a couple of days to figure out his routine. He leaves the frat house at eight every day and then heads to the gym for a swim. Gym, coffee, then class.
“No rats here,” he says. “Well, other than the human kind, I guess.”
We pay for our coffee and linger around one another, neither sure what to do. How do you say goodbye to someone you’ve already said goodbye to?
I see his pool bag, the one he carried everyday with him over the summer and ask, “Have you been swimming?”
“Yeah, I try to go in the mornings. After all those years, it’s a habit I can’t shake.”
I think about him in the water, his other home and it makes me smile. “I’m glad. Swimming makes you happy. It’s good to keep happy things in your life, don’t you think?”
He pushes open the door and we both walk out into a beautiful, blue-skied spring day. “Yeah, I do.”
“Bye, Carter,” I say walking in the opposite direction of his next class.
I leave him there, bewildered, with the cutest, most confused grin on his face. It makes me happy.
Chapter 22
“You need somewhere to sit?”
The campus café is packed and I’m standing in the middle of the room holding my tray. I must have passed Carter three times, not even realizing he was there.
“Yes!” He takes my tray and I hang my backpack from the chair. “Thank you. I thought I was going to have to eat on the floor or something.”
“You looked a little lost.”
“And you came to my rescue. Typical,” I laugh, picking up my sandwich.
“What do you mean?”
My face heats and I wrinkle my nose.
“What?” he asks again.
“Remember how Finley and I used to call you Aqua-Man?” I don’t know why I’m so embarrassed about this. “He’s a superhero. And you rescued me.”
“Aqua-Man wears green tights.”
“All superheroes wear tights.”
He makes a face and says, “But his are green.”
“He has to blend in!”
Carter leans back in his seat, arms crossed. I try to keep my eyes off his forearms but it’s impossible. “He’s like the lamest of all the superheroes.”
“Not true.” I argue, but he’s smiling anyway. He loves it.
“So you guys talked about me, huh?”
&
nbsp; I roll my eyes. “Of course. What else did we have to do all day?” He raises an eyebrow and my blush rushes back. “Beside that.”
That’s as close as we get to re-living our past, and together we veer the conversation to more current topics. He tells me that he’s moving out of the frat house next year, it’s just not really his thing. I talk about my schedule and what courses I’ll study in the fall. I breathe a sigh of relief when he tells me he’s still not dating anyone and I look at my hands when I tell him, briefly, about my series of unfortunate first and last dates. I don’t want to see his reaction. I’m not ready for that.
When lunch is over we part like friends. I won’t pretend I don’t want more, but this is enough for now. And he seems to want it also. Because we keep meeting up, and slowly we forge a tentative, yet pleasant friendship.
We hang out the most over morning coffee, when he’s damp and fresh from the pool. The chlorine from the indoor pool is severe and even after a shower I can smell it on his skin. Today, I’m running late and he greets me out front with my favorite coffee.
“Thank you,” I say, taking a sip. “The girls had a big Birthday Day surprise for Betsy and I lost track of time.”
“I bet they’ve grown a lot since I saw them last.”
“Haven’t we all,” I muse.
We sit on a bench outside the shop and the spring sunlight makes his hair glow. He cuts it shorter now than at the end of last summer but it still casts him in a halo’s light.
“I wanted to ask you something,” he says, placing his coffee between his knees.
“Sure.”
“I’ve got this thing at the fraternity in a couple of weeks—a party—and I wanted to know if,” he swallows and rubs his neck, “you’d like to come with me.”
“A fraternity thing?”
“Yeah a spring party. Like a formal thing.”
Oh.
Oh.
Um.
He panics when I say nothing. “It’s not a big deal or anything. You can say no. I just thought it would be cool, you know, to go as friends.”
“Won’t I be like, ages older than anyone else there?”
“I don’t care about that.”
I take a sip of my coffee instead of saying what I think. What I know. “I don’t think I can do that, Carter.”
“Okay.” He says it evenly, like he’s not hurt or upset but I see the slight quiver in his hands and how he won’t quite look me in the eye.
“I’m sorry.”
“Surely you can ask someone else. I imagine there’s a line of girls waiting for you to call.” I swallow thickly over these words. It’s not what I want. Not deep down and I can tell from his expression that it’s not what he wants either. We’re so screwed.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll call Katie or Hayden. Or I met this slutty girl, Brianna last week at a charity thing. She’s been texting me all week. I’m sure I can bang her.”
“Carter.”
“No, you’re right. Why the hell shouldn’t I take someone willing to put out? God knows I’ve taken enough cold showers lately.” He stands up and walks away, crushing his paper cup into a ball and tossing it into the nearest trashcan. The paper swishes easily inside. Of course.
I don’t call after him. I don’t do anything. I just sit and watch him walk away, my stomach twisted into knots. There was no way this would work between us, not casually. That’s not who we are together. We’re sex and heat. Not college and formals. I wait until he rounds the corner and disappears from view. Then I break down.
*
“This was a good idea,” Finley says, taking a sip of her margarita. She rests the blender back on the stand and sits back on the couch. She hands one glass to Betsy, one to me and keeps the third. “I kind of made a mess over there.”
I glance back and wave off the destruction. The counter is covered in juice and tequila. Salt spills across the black laminate.
“Eh, getting sloppy drunk requires making a mess.”
“Totally,” Betsy says. “Plus, Ruthie will clean all this up tonight after we leave, working off some of that sexual frustration.”
“Betsy!” I shout, hitting her with a couch pillow. “Not fair.”
“Perfectly fair.” She looks at Finley. “I never knew she was so happy last summer because she was sleeping with Carter. I just thought it was her natural disposition. I’ve since learned otherwise.”
“Longing-for-Carter Ruthie is no fun,” Finley says. “I’ve experienced it more than once. Of course this time it’s her fault. She’s the one that won’t compromise.”
“Going to a fraternity party isn’t a compromise.”
“No, but there’s only so many times you can reject the boy before he’ll find someone else interested in filling that role.”
I turn to Betsy and ask, “Okay, what would you do? Would you go to a frat party at my age?”
“No, but it sounds like that was his olive branch. He basically asked you on a date, a challenging one that would have forced your hand a little. Making it public,” she said.
“There has to be another way.”
“Too bad you can’t just suck him off like you used to. He was so much more compliant then,” Finley says before taking a gulp of sangria.
“Finley!”
“It’s true.”
“Maybe you guys are right,” I say. “Maybe I need to show him I’m willing to push this a little further.”
“Public sex?” Finley asks. “Seems a little risky.”
I toss a couch pillow in her direction. It lands on the floor, missing the mark. “Shut up.”
“Ruthie, just open up to him a little more. Figure out a way to let him know you’re ready to take the relationship a little further—even if you can’t quite go all the way to a frat party.” Betsy shudders thinking about it.
“Right. Taking the relationship to the next level. I’m ready to do that,” I agree.
Finley rolls her eyes and pushes my glass in my direction. “Drink up sister, you’re gonna need all the courage you can get.”
*
A week later I get my chance. Carter spots a friend while we’re having coffee. He introduces me as his friend, which is okay. Not great but okay. The boys talk while I fiddle on my phone. I perk up when they mention a soccer game the following weekend.
“You have a soccer game?” I ask once his friend leaves.
“I’m in this intramural soccer tournament this weekend.”
“Really?” I’ve always wanted to see him play. I’ve watched him swim competitively, but I never got the chance to see him on the soccer field.
“Yeah, some of my frat brothers are on the team, plus a couple of other guys we picked up.” He shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee.
“Can I come?”
“To the game?” He eyes me warily.
“Sure, it sounds fun. I’d love to see you play.” I reach out and take his hand.
“I’d like that.”
“Good.” I smile. “Can I bring Finley?”
His eyes light up when he sees I’m serious. “Yeah, sure.”
“Great! This will be good. I’ll paint my face and yell in the stands. Plus, you know how I feel about soccer players.”
He frowns. “Actually, I don’t.”
“They’re my second favorite, after swimmers.”
He laughs and grabs me by the neck, in a playful hug. “You’re crazy, did you know that?”
“I think I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
*
“Oh man.”
“I know.”
“Do you see the calves on that one?”
“No, I can’t take my eyes off that guy’s butt.”
“And his chest.”
“Oh shit.”
“What?”
“His back.”
“Where?”
I point across the field to number seventeen.
“Damn, you can even see the muscles through his shirt—I mean, that’s just no
t normal.”
“It’s not.”
“No. It’s not. It’s almost like he’s—“
“Genetically superior,” Finley and I say at the same time.
We’ve come full circle, except this time we’re sitting on the top row of a set of bleachers, fully clothed and ogling a soccer field instead of the swimming pool. It is hot though, and the sun beats down hard enough that we’ve pulled out our trusty sunglasses and I’ve stripped down to a tank top.
“He’s pretty amazing,” I say, watching him run up and down the field. I knew he would be good, he’s good at everything, but watching him dominate is like poetry.
“It’s not fair,” Finley points out. “For one person to be so talented.”
“And hot.”
“And hot, right,” she agrees.
It’s an intense match. The guys are brutal with one another, forcing the ref to stop the game more than once. Carter takes more than one spill. From the stands I can see the blood dripping from his knee. It doesn’t stop him—nothing does. He’s all physical and I realize this is why it’s hard to just be friends with him. His body and mind work together.
It’s hard, but we’ve made it happen.
From his position at forward, I get the chance to see him race down the field, top speed. He scores twice, pumping his fist and checking for me in the stands. I wave to let him know I saw. And a couple of girls around me look in my direction.
I’m not used to the attention of being associated with him, so I just keep my eyes on the field.
The guys are fun and less obnoxious than I thought they’d be. It’s obvious he’s well loved by his teammates, who rush one another in silly, testosterone-fueled hugs when one of them makes a goal.
It ventures to an almost homoerotic place once the game is over and they’ve won.
“Wow,” Finley says, and I sigh in agreement. They’ve all taken off their shirts and it’s quite a sight. Carter uses his jersey to wipe the blood off his knees. I would have thought it impossible but nineteen has been good for him. Good for his body. He’s taller and sleeker, making his muscles more pronounced. When he looks in my direction, I turn away because I don’t think about him like that anymore.
I don’t.
Finley grows quiet and I look over and her eyes are shut.
