by Tracey Ward
“You have no idea what a find this is for me!”
“I don’t, no, but I also know I can’t be a drug mule.”
“I’ll pretend I don’t know you.”
“I bought your ticket!”
“Never leave a paper trail, Jax,” I scold him lightly, tucking the magic sleeve of pure awesome into my purse. “It’s Drug Smuggling 101.”
“Actually I think Drug Smuggling 101 is tying your balloon tight enough that the cocaine doesn’t burst out into your asshole.”
“Well, you’d know better than me.”
“Why would I know better than you about drug smuggling?” he asks indignantly.
“I don’t know what you do, Jax. I don’t ask questions.”
“Maybe you should start.”
“All right, here’s a question.” I look pitifully into his eyes, going full puppy dog. “Will you go back in there and buy me more drugs?”
“No.”
“Will you buy me an ice cream?”
He smiles, turning me toward the shops down the street. “Yes. I will do that.”
“Will you sit by the river where it’s cooler and eat it with me?”
“Yes, Wren.”
“Jax?”
“Yeah?”
I smile up at him. “You’re my favorite.”
He drops his mouth down onto the top of my head, laughing into my hair. “You’re my favorite too.”
Sometimes in life you find a guy who will do anything for you—anything you ask at any time, no matter what the consequences to either of you. He’s reckless for you. Mad to make you happy. Then there are times when you find a man who will sit by the water with you and eat ice cream until your head stops hurting. One that doesn’t try to make you talk or fill the empty spaces that drift between you, that doesn’t try to make you feel better when you’re not ready yet. One that can just sit and simply be with you when you need them.
When you need nothing more than a hand to hold and a heart to beat beside.
Those times—those men—are the best.
Chapter Fourteen
I’m leaving in a week. Just one week. Seven days. Some stupidly small number of hours. Too few minutes. Not enough seconds.
I’ve finished my finals and my grades are being posted. Mel and I wait anxiously to see them, sipping coffee we don’t need and jittering off our asses in the common area of the dorms. My laptop sits open in front of us and we keep refreshing the screen to check and see if they’re available yet. So far no dice. At least we’re not alone. The place is packed with other students doing the same thing, waiting for the same news. No one really wants to be in their rooms right now because we’re almost finished with our time here. Classes are done and it’s all about packing up and heading out now. Some people are leaving tomorrow. I saw one person pack out this afternoon. It’s sad, it’s like leaving family, and I’m avoiding facing it at all costs because to acknowledge that I’m leaving this school means I’m leaving Germany and I’m leaving Jax, and that last thought is enough to flay me wide open.
I haven’t seen him in two weeks. The night he got me home from Ireland he contacted Mel for me and she hurried over to my room to take care of me. Jax would have stayed the night but my roommate was there and she wouldn’t have liked having a stranger in our room while she slept, so he did the next best thing by bringing me Mel. After a good night’s sleep, a hard dose of my Irish Surprises, and I was good as new the next morning. I called him to let him know and to apologize for ruining our day, but he wouldn’t listen. He was just happy I was okay and the fact that he worried all night about me kills me even now. Everything about him is killing me.
“Try now,” Mel tells me. Her leg is twitching up and down at an alarming rate and her hands are clasped too tightly around her coffee cup. I’m eyeing it warily, worried she’s going to crush it and douse us both in hot brew.
I hit refresh, the screen goes to white, then comes back. Nothing new.
“Agh!” she shouts into the air. “I hate this!”
A murmur of agreement rises through the room from other students.
Mel kicks her leg out and hits me with her foot. “Distract me. Tell me a story.”
“What kind of story?” I laugh.
“Tell me another fairy tale about you and your soldier.”
“I don’t have any fairy tales.”
“Please. You’re living a fairy tale. He took you to an enchanted castle.”
“Cursed is more like it. They murdered that prince for building it.”
“He whisked you away to London.”
I nod. “That was bad ass.”
“He took you to motherfuckin’ Paris! You took a day to trip to Dublin.”
I smile at her. “Baller, right?”
“Please. He is like boss-level courting you.”
“Courting me? When did we get to the Victorian Era?”
“You know what I mean,” she snaps, kicking at me again. “He’s working his ass off to get you. So why aren’t you giving it up?”
“He’s not doing all of this to get laid. There are easier ways.”
“But you get what I’m asking, right?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do, but I’ll spell it out for you. Why are you acting like you’re not falling in love with this guy?”
I tense, unwilling yet totally able to answer that question.
Simple truth is this: I’m scared. I’m leaving soon, he’s staying, and as incredible a guy as he is and as much as his heart feels like home to me, I can’t take that last step. I can’t make the leap. I want to, I really do, but I don’t see how it can ever pan out in a way where I’m not absolutely devastated, and I have to take care of me. Being young and impulsive feels great in the moment but I know what it looks like on the other side when it’s over and nothing is as it should be. Mel does, too, and I wish she’d remember the way she feels every time she looks at Ben before she goes telling me to break my own heart.
Somewhere in the room someone shouts in excitement. “They’re up!”
Mel dives at my computer and I let her log in first. I sit back and sip my coffee, feeling suddenly calm and a little numb.
And more than a little sad.
***
“How’d you do?” Dad asks.
I smile into the phone. “A’s and a B plus. I nailed it.”
“Way to go!”
“Thanks.”
“Guess it was worth it to cross an ocean for that education, huh?”
My smile falters and I’m glad he can’t see it. Mom and I had to sweet-talk him into being okay with this semester abroad, and I’ve been careful never to show anything but enthusiasm and joy over being here. It wasn’t wrong. I’m glad I did it. I just didn’t expect what was coming after to be so hard. I hadn’t expected Jax.
“It was the best idea ever,” I tell him brightly. “Glad Mom and I thought of it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, your mom is glad you’ll be home in time for Christmas. We miss you around here, kiddo.”
“I miss you guys too.”
“How many more days you got there?”
“Uh, I—six, I think.”
He laughs. “You better figure that out. Don’t miss your plane.”
“I won’t.”
“Your mom has the information for your flight?”
“I e-mailed it to her last night.”
“Good. We’ll see you then, Wren. Good work.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He hangs up without saying goodbye and I smile slightly at the gruffness of it.
I spin the phone in my hands as I debate what I want to do. I could call Jax, he’d be off work, but is it a good idea? Should I just cut my losses and say goodbye? He knows when I’m leaving but we haven’t made any plans for seeing each other before then. He’s busy with work lately. Some exercise going on that makes him stay on base as though it’s locked down. It’ll be over the day before I go, but then what? What would we do
? Get drunk? Cry and kiss each other goodbye? I don’t want to do any of that. I want to press my body against his, wrap myself up in his embrace, and disappear forever.
I toss the phone down and head for the hallway, unable to be in my room a minute longer. There’s a party going on at the bar down the street and I’m going to join it. I’m going to say the goodbyes that I can and think about the rest later. Or never, if I can manage it.
***
At almost two in the morning I hear a soft knock on my door.
I groan. It’s gotta be Kim. I lost track of her at the bar and someone said she went home with a guy from Greece who I’d never heard of. Maybe she’s finally come to her senses and come home.
I stumble through the dark room, tripping over my own shoe and cursing it under my breath. When I crack open the door, I squint into the low light of the hallway.
I don’t understand what I see.
A handsome face smiles back at me, holding up a six-pack of beer. “I came to say goodbye. I even brought your favorite, even though it tastes like rotten tar.”
“No, Ben,” I groan. “It’s late. I was sleeping.”
“Pathetic. You should be grateful I’m here to save you.”
“I’m not. Go away,” I snap grumpily.
His grin fades, replaced by annoyance. “Are you shitting me? We have one chance to hang out before this is all over and you’re sending me away? Nice knowing ya, have a great life—that’s really happening?”
“I’ll take the beer, but yeah, that’s what’s happening.”
He pulls the beer to his chest. “Like hell you will. Get it together, Rally Queen!”
I stand up straight, feeling insulted. “Low blow, dude.”
“Wren,” he says impatiently.
“No.”
“Come on! We never get to hang out anymore,” he whines pathetically. He jingles the bottles of alcohol enticingly in front of me and I realize he’s really buzzed. “After tonight we’ll never see each other again. That’s fucking tragic. Friends don’t let friends go quietly into that good night. We are still friends, right?”
I nod reluctantly, opening the door for him. “Yeah, you’re right. We’re still friends.”
He’s quick to follow me inside, kicking the door closed behind him and removing his jacket. He immediately pops the top off a beer, hands it to me, and collapses into a seat across the room.
“So what’s new with you?” he asks, taking a sip of his beer.
I sit down on Kim’s bed, crossing my legs slowly. “Nothing much. Dealing with Mel and her heartbreak over some douchebag. That’s got me pretty busy.”
“Men, am I right?” he asks with a theatrical sneer. “Assholes.”
I raise my beer. “Cheers to that.”
He grins slyly and I remind myself to make sure this is my only beer.
“What about you?” I ask, sitting back against the wall and getting comfortable. “Time is almost up. Did you fuck all of the women you set out to fuck?”
“You make it sound so crass.”
“You are crass.”
“Not always. I can sweet if I need to be.”
“You mean if you’re trying to get in someone’s pants.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
“Well?”
He burps into his hand, raising his eyebrows. “Well, what?”
“Did you put your flag in every mountain?”
“Almost.”
“Ah, tough luck, buddy,” I lament. “You’ll get ’em next time.”
“It’s not over.”
“Getting there.”
“I work well under pressure.” He stands suddenly, wandering the room and looking at pictures. I watch him move, noticing how he tries to ignore the pictures I’ve put up of Jax and me. “You went to the Louvre, huh?”
“Yep. It was cool.”
“I bet.”
“Did you travel at all while you were here?”
“I went to Amsterdam with some guys,” he says absently, squinting at a picture of Mel and I at the ruins in Trier. “It was a good time.”
“Did you get high?”
“And laid, but you knew I would.”
I shake my head, tipping my beer to my lips. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”
He looks down at me, his face surprisingly soft. “You think pretty poorly of me, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. I kind of think you want everyone to think poorly of you.”
“Why?”
“Because then you don’t have to bother trying. If you’re a dick, no one expects much of you.”
“You might be right,” he mumbles. He sits down on the edge of my bed, his knees jutting out until they’re only inches from where I’m sitting. He leans forward, his eyes large and earnest. It’s an odd look for him, one I’ve never really seen. I don’t entirely trust it. “I wish you, of all people, thought better of me.”
“Why?” I ask carefully.
“Because I like you, Wren. I’ve always liked you. You’re smart, you’re tough, you’re loyal. You didn’t completely bail on me when things went bad with Mel. I appreciate that. You don’t ask me to be anything but what I am.”
“A man-whore?” I joke.
He flinches, sitting back a bit. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, dropping my feet to the floor and sitting forward, reaching my hand out to touch my fingers to his lightly.
He brings his eyes back to mine.
“I really am sorry. You’re not a man-whore. It was a joke.”
“But it’s what everyone thinks.”
“It’s how you act. If you don’t like it, change it.”
“I want to,” he says eagerly, leaning forward again. “I really do. It’s getting old, you know? Different girls all the time. Everyone hating you. I can’t keep friends. Just look what happened with Mel. I miss her, I really do. She’s fun, but I screwed it up and I can’t fix it. She’ll always hate me.”
“Probably.”
His eyes search mine. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you hate me?”
“You know I don’t. I wouldn’t be here talking to you now if I did.”
He grins, faint and fleeting. “That’s good. Thanks. At least I still have one friend.”
“You have plenty of friends. I see you with that group of guys all the time. You must have friends back home.”
“They’re swimming in my wake,” he mumbles, rubbing his hand over his eyes, looking tired. “They want the scraps of what I score. It’s sick. They don’t give a shit about me.”
“Do you give a shit about them?”
“Not really.” He looks up at me hesitantly. “The only person I really give a shit about lately is you, Wren.”
Not gonna lie, part of me is flattered. Part of me is looking into the soulful eyes of a deeply handsome man who is telling me that I’m special to him and I’m blushing. I’m taken in.
But another part of me is put on high alert. The part of me that senses bullshit. The part that doesn’t like romance or grand gestures or sweet phrases. The part of me that doesn’t trust The Act. That part of me sits back straight, eyeing him skeptically.
He sees my reaction and his face falls. He stands up suddenly, looking around like he’s lost, and puts his beer down on the nightstand. “I’m sorry. Shit, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Forget it. I have to go.”
He heads for the door and I know I should let him go. I shouldn’t stop him because this is getting weird and awkward and where it’s going is not somewhere I want to be. I don’t owe anything to Jax, we haven’t said anything about being exclusive, but I want us to be. I want to think he’s not out there hooking up with other girls, and if that’s what I want, then that’s what I need to give. And it’s easy because I don’t want to be with anyone but him. I definitely don’t want to be with Ben.
But he’s my friend and what if it’s not an act? What if it’s r
eal and he’s hurt and I let him go?
“Wait,” I tell him, standing and taking two of the three steps that separate us. “Hold on, Ben, you can talk to me ab—”
He turns and takes the third step, slamming into me and pressing his mouth over mine possessively. His hands immediately go to my sides and race upward toward my chest.
I yell against his lips, pushing on his chest and finally managing to shove him away just as his tongue breaches my mouth.
“What the fuck, Ben?!” I cry, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
He stares back at me with hooded eyes, wild and wanting. “You said to wait. You said—”
“I said we could talk, not make out. Jesus, that was all an act, wasn’t it?” I snap, glaring at him.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I meant everything I said. I care about you, Wren.”
I shake my head in annoyance. “You care about the conquest, and I’m the mountain, aren’t I? I’m the last one you haven’t planted a flag in and that just kills you.”
“That’s not true,” he pleads, stepping toward me.
“Ben,” I say firmly, moving myself out of his reach. “No.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously!”
“Why? Because of soldier boy?” he asks, his pleading voice gone entirely. Now he’s irritated and he’s letting it show.
“The rapper?”
“What?”
“Soulja Boy,” I say, feeling as confused as he now looks. “He had a song forever ago. What was it? Crank That?”
“No, not the—dammit, are you saying no because of that military guy you’re hung up on?”
“Partially, yeah, it’s because of him, but mostly it’s because I absolutely do not want you to put your dick in me.”
He takes a step back. “Wow. You don’t have to say it like that. I would have been a gentleman about it.”
“You’re not a gentleman about anything. You’re a slap-happy monkey running all over town pointing his penis at people and hoping they fall on it.”
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“It’s close enough.” I toss his coat at him, edging him toward the door. “Look, you’re a great guy and blah blah blah, but I’m not interested. Thank you for your inquiry and good luck to you in your future endeavors.”
