Vérité

by Rachel Blaufeld

  “Hold on to the wall for one sec,” he told me.

  Quickly, he shucked his clothes before slipping in next to me. His arms came around me, holding me directly under the water so it drilled into my cold skin, sluicing down my arms and breasts. Without a word, he leaned in and kissed me, our mouths meeting under the waterfall. A moment later he backed me toward the side of the shower, pressing my spine into the tile wall as his arms caged me and he kissed me harder.

  I tilted my head, loving how he slid his tongue inside my mouth and pressed his naked body against mine. With all my experience and sexual trysts, I’d never stood naked in the warm water, skin to skin, no barriers or boundaries. And now I’d showered twice with Tiberius. This time, his fingers didn’t roam; he kept his hands on either side of my head, containing me. He was probably afraid I was going to bolt.

  When he released my lips, they felt bruised and lonely, helpless without him directing them. Leaning his forehead into mine, he said, “Tingly, look at me.”

  I didn’t realize how hard I was squeezing my eyes shut until he spoke. I pried my lids open, drops of water clinging to my lashes, and saw the man before me. Sometimes he looked like such a boy with his dimples and wide grin, but right now he was all man, protective and dominant.

  “Means something more now,” he rumbled in a low voice. “You’re mine, and he—Pierre—doesn’t get to mess with that. Your dad’s got nerve, but not enough to win against me. Deep down, I’m a kid off the street, Rex, and I’m gonna protect you.”

  I giggled.

  “What’s so funny?” Tiberius asked as he leaned closer, caging me tighter.

  “Every time you say Pierre’s name it comes out sounding like pear, the fruit. It’s funny.” With an apologetic smile, I said, “I’m just wrung out, so I needed a laugh.”

  Saying nothing, he moved one hand off the wall and swept the back of his fingers along my cheek. I couldn’t believe he was still standing there with me, naked and in the shower.

  Dropping my gaze, I stared at the water swirling down the drain, terrified it represented my life. In a low voice, I asked, “Why are you still with me? I mean, you heard my father. I blew his friend—someone his age, the father of a friend—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. My name was passed around the country club locker room like a good tailor or golf pro. I come from this crazy, fucked-up world where money and all that’s shiny and glittery that comes with it means everything. There’s no truth, only skewed perception and lies, and you, Ty, you’re so honest and good. You come from a place that’s filled with so much bad, but you’re not. You’re better, above it all. Not me, I’m lower than low, and yet you’re still here.”

  The water had started to run cool, and Tiberius moved to turn it off without saying a word. He snatched his towel off the rack and threw it around his waist before grabbing another from under the sink. Tenderly, he stroked the towel over my skin to dry me, his gaze on me holding nothing but love. Finally he tucked me snugly inside the worn terrycloth.

  Pulling me into his arms as he leaned against the sink, the cheap mirror behind him still fogged up, he spoke. “Rex, there ain’t anything low about you. You’re not bad, you’re lost, and after meeting your sorry excuse for a dad, now I know why.”

  When I brought my miserable gaze up to meet his, he breathed out, “Fuck!” then squeezed me tighter to his chest. “I always thought I got shit for a father ’cause he wasn’t around and then he was behind bars, but you the one who got shit. No matter what kinda money he got, that man is shit. And I know it’s your dad, but he’s nothing to me.”

  “Me either.” My voice cracked, hoarse from all the yelling and running and crying.

  “And for a mom not to stick up for her kid, Christ. She’s shit too, and I don’t like to talk ’bout women that way.” He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through my wet hair, gently separating the tangles. “Yeah, I know where I come from’s bad, but we learned about respect and loyalty. Which is more than that piece of fruit from France. Aren’t they supposed to be well-mannered and shit? Well, you’re done with all that, Rex, because you’re mine. I lo—”

  A loud banging on the front door interrupted him, and we both turned that way in alarm.

  “Wait here,” Tiberius told me as he threw on his sweats and T-shirt from before. I slipped his sweatshirt still wet from my tears over my body and finger-combed my hair.

  “Bro! She okay?” I heard coming from outside the bathroom. Jamel.

  I stepped out, Ty’s sweatshirt hitting me mid-thigh as I padded in my bare feet into the common area to find Tiberius and Jamel’s heads close together, their expressions serious as they talked quietly.

  “Thanks, Mel,” I said, interrupting them.

  “Hey.” Tiberius moved quickly to stand in front of me. “You can tell Jamel later when we go get something to eat.”

  “What?” I asked from behind Tiberius.

  “Get changed, and let’s go be thankful or some shit like that,” Jamel said from the other side of the room.

  And that’s exactly what we did. I went home and put on clean, dry clothes, then spent my Thanksgiving eating turkey with all the fixings at the diner with Jamel and Tiberius.

  “That dad of yours is something,” Jamel mumbled around a mouthful of turkey and cranberry sauce. “What’s her mom like?” he asked Tiberius with a chin lift.

  The three of us sat in a booth. The guys had put on jeans and collared shirts as a nod to the holiday, although both were in their basketball shoes. Not the ones they wore on the court, I’d learned a while back, but just “kicks,” as they called them. I was wearing a sweater dress with tights and boots.

  It was actually kind of festive, although the ambience was definitely more Christmas than Thanksgiving. The diner sparkled with twinkly Christmas lights, the jukebox was playing holiday music, and the staff wore Santa-themed nametags. Most of the tables were full with university staff who couldn’t go home for whatever reason, and there was one big table of sorority girls.

  “Mel, don’t make me go there,” he answered. “You know I respect the ladies.”

  “Tell me about your ma, T,” Jamel asked me.

  “She’s a bitch. Ty’s being nice, but she’s a stuck-up bitch with her hair all done and her clothes never wrinkled. She comes from big money. Her daddy set my father up in business. That’s why he married her . . . she was ugly.” I broke out in a laugh, and Ty and Jamel joined me with their own hearty chuckles.

  “She was! Her parents bought her a new nose and a better chin before she met my dad. He’d come from some money, but had this plan to expand self-serve gas stations and mini-marts out west, making them into chains and franchising. My mom’s family had been in California since the gold rush. Dad was desperate for them to bankroll him.”

  “Shiiitttt,” Jamel said, drawing out the word into at least two syllables. “Your girl’s loaded.”

  “Anyway, they set him up and then he worried he would owe them something, so he needed a kid to secure his standing. But my mom couldn’t get knocked up. They tried and tried, and she was just shriveled up and barren. No surprise for a frigid bitch. They did all this fertility crap, kept throwing money at it, and eventually something took. She never really wanted me. She knew I was part of my dad’s plan, and then I never turned into what she wanted. I was just an insurance policy for my dad and a nuisance for my mom.”

  I hadn’t noticed Tiberius put his arm around me until he pulled me close and said, “Rex, you can stop.”

  Jamel’s eyes were bugging out of his head. “How do you have this much cash and shit it all up?”

  Tiberius stiffened, but I put a hand on his arm, letting him know I was okay. I’d never been this open with anyone; it felt liberating to speak the truth. My therapist had been telling me all of last year that opening up wasn’t a bad thing. She encouraged me to speak my mind, reminding me true friends wouldn’t judge where I came from or past actions. I hadn’t believed her, but was ready to take a
stab at it now.

  “There’s really not much more,” I said with a shrug. “When my grandparents died, my parents stopped caring about me altogether unless I could bring them another merger—like with Blane Maxwell—but they could see I wasn’t going down that path. And I did everything in my power to show them I wasn’t going to do what they wanted, to let them know I heard their hushed whispers and violent screaming matches at night over me. In the dark hours of the night, the truth would vibrate through the walls. They hated everything about me, especially when my grandmother left me her entire inheritance. It’s in a trust, and I don’t really touch it except for a little of the interest, but it burns my parents up that they didn’t get their hands on that.”

  “That’s the most fucked-up story I ever heard. I come from the ghetto like Ty, and I don’t think we ever saw shit like that. People, especially the moms. Shiiiitt.” Jamel leaned back in the booth and leveled a concerned gaze on me. “We got you now, T.”

  Tiberius squeezed my shoulder and nodded before the waitress interrupted us to ask if we wanted pie. I was relieved; any more declarations of how they had my back would have sent me over the edge. Tears already filled my eyes, and I was doing everything in my power to keep them at bay.

  The guys ordered pumpkin and apple—whole pies—and amazed me by finishing them both. We laughed over funny foreign swear words, which they couldn’t stop asking me about even as we walked home from the diner.

  Then I went back with Tiberius, and he didn’t make love to me, but held me tight all night.

  Somehow, I think his abstaining said more about the depth of his feelings for me than if he’d ravaged my body.

  “On the line for an and-one, Tiberius Jones. He’s been four for four from the line tonight,” the announcer on TV said.

  The team was in Michigan for a nationally broadcast game the day after Christmas, but I’d stayed back in Ohio. The regular dorms closed over break, but not the athletic housing. We were permitted to stay and train as needed.

  Despite that, I was spending a few days in a small bed and breakfast, thanks to my bonus from Lindsay. She’d passed her course and was setting off to Italy after break. She’d shown up at our last session with a handful of cash, jumping up and down and smiling like a goofy girl in lust. I didn’t want to accept, but she called her dad—apparently she’d fessed up to him about the tutoring—and he insisted. He sounded so nice on the phone, his velvety voice like hot cocoa on a cold night, soothing to frayed nerves, and loving when he spoke about his “only girl.” He was proud of her and grateful to me for pulling her through. This was the least he could do, he insisted.

  Five hundred bucks was the least he could do!

  So I found a small B&B with private baths and TVs, and I checked in for the holidays. Although I’d never really celebrated a warm-and-fuzzy type of Christmas, this year I didn’t want to be alone. Of course, Tiberius had asked me to come to Michigan, but I didn’t want to take anything away from the team and him. So I stayed.

  The house was run by a lovely couple who asked me to join them and the other couple staying there for Christmas dinner the night before, and I did––I hadn’t even been reluctant. The innkeepers were retired from farming and bought the B&B to stay busy and meet people. They didn’t have any kids, they explained over cocktails and dinner, so seeing young people happy and in love brought them a lot of pleasure. The other couple, newlyweds in their early twenties, had been married the week before. This was a quick little honeymoon getaway before they took a backpacking trip the coming summer.

  I’d watched my hostess’s eyes twinkle as she looked at her husband over a glass of champagne, and wondered if I would ever look that way. Did I look that way?

  “So, do you have someone special in your life?” they’d asked over the elaborate holiday meal, and I nodded.

  “Oh yeah, you do,” the other young woman teased me. “I see that look in your eyes.”

  I guess that answered my question.

  Now, I sat and watched Tiberius make his foul shot on television after getting fouled while draining a bucket, a million and one nerves sparking and flying around in my body. I jumped up and down in my room as he swished his shot, and was caught in the act by the proprietors of the B&B as I screamed at the home crowd booing on TV. Hafton was gaining a sizable lead on Michigan, and the fans were not happy. I was swearing and pacing as their booing allowed Michigan back in the game, corralling the team’s spirit, but with ten seconds left, Jamel hit a wide-open three-pointer, giving my guys the win. After doing my own victory dance, I went downstairs grinning like a kid on Christmas morning and joined the small crowd for dinner again.

  When I came back up to shower and go to bed, the fireplace had been lit inside my room, the flames flickering off the white walls, casting shadows on the pale blue sateen bedspread. Bundled in a fuzzy robe, I crawled into the sheets and drifted off to sleep, my mind filled with thoughts of Tiberius. His biceps, the way they flexed when he pulled up for a shot. His smile, crazy and big, when he laughed at something silly—like my Chucks. His body and the way he danced with me, our motions becoming one. The way he chewed his pencil when he studied hard. The blue of his eyes—pale, like the bedspread—deepening when we kissed. His mouth covering mine.

  And then he was there. His mouth covered mine, his breath hot on my cheek as he slid into bed next to me. “T?” he asked, his voice breaking through my dream.

  Surprised, I opened one eye. Dawn was beginning to break, the fire still crackled in the corner, and Tiberius had already undressed and was lying next to me in the queen-sized bed.

  “Ty? What?” I looked around the room.

  “The coaches let us take the bus home late last night after the game since we won and we all missed the holidays. Some of the guys tried to connect with their families. I came here, figured one of the owners would be up early making breakfast, and lucky me . . . they were in the kitchen.”

  “Oh,” I said, pressing my face against his chest and breathing him in.

  He tilted my chin up with his pointer finger. “They knew who I was when I walked in, they heard you hooting all last night over the game. Said they peeked their heads in and you were glued to the TV,” he said, his smile broad.

  “I was. It was a great game.”

  I didn’t say anything more; I just kissed Tiberius. We’d grown even closer since Thanksgiving. I’d been sharing bits and pieces of my past with him, what happened with Blane, my futile attempt to get back at my parents by sleeping with older men, and their recent last-ditch attempt to buy my affection away from him. We studied and ate together, and Chey and the guys joined us most of the time.

  But he hadn’t come close to muttering the words he’d started to say in the bathroom that night before Jamel interrupted. I worried it was because of my past transgressions. Perhaps sharing the truth wasn’t that smart? He was here in my room, though, so that counted for something. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  Eager to taste him, I slipped my tongue inside his mouth as I shifted myself on top of him. His one hand came around the back of my head, tugging on my hair, holding me in place while the other found the flaps of my robe. He loosened them and slid the heavy fabric off my shoulders. When he released my mouth, he ran his lips over my shoulder and down my breastbone to my nipple, pulling me close to suck on it while squeezing the other.

  Wetness pooled in the tiny thong I was wearing underneath the robe. When he moved his mouth to my other nipple, his hand crept down and pulled my underwear to the side. He sank a finger deep inside me, and I sucked in a breath.

  “Ty,” I said softly.

  “Pretty wet,” he whispered back.

  I nodded, my forehead touching his. Our mouths met once again while Tiberius moved his hand to stroke himself once or twice before guiding me back over him. He lined my body up with his, and I sank down deep on him. We kissed hard, our only goal to swallow each other’s moans as I rode him. His hand came to my hip for purchase an
d I sat up, quickening the pace. He moved his hips to meet mine, driving himself deeper, then abruptly stilled my movements.

  “Fuck, slow it down, T,” he whispered, always the one not to forget that this meant more, or we thought it did. Sex wasn’t a placeholder for emotion for Tiberius, and he refused to allow it to be one for me.

  He gathered my body close, my pebbled nipples touching his smooth ones as I rode him gently. As he lifted up to meet my thrusts, I clenched my muscles around him, biting my lower lip to avoid moaning in ecstasy. Tiberius ran his finger across my lips, and I smiled while moving my pelvis back and forth, taking every inch of him.

  “Love you, Rex.”

  I loved that he didn’t use my real name. I loved that he said that while we made love, changing my opinion of the whole act, making it symbolize our feelings and commitment. I loved that he always gave the truth to me.

  A lone tear dropped from my eye on his chest and he flipped me over, bracing his weight on one arm as he showed me how much he loved me, slowly moving in and out of me. I felt every stroke of his length until we both came hard, clutching each other as the fire crackled in the background. Like us, it never really fizzled; it always sparked under the surface.

  When I got up to go clean up, I whispered, “I love you, Ty,” then tossed another log on the fire so it continued to burn brightly. My hope was that we would continue to burn brightly as well, and the beauty of the moment wiped away any doubts.

  For now, anyway.

  After checking out, Tiberius and I went back to the townhouse and ordered food with the players who’d stayed on campus. The tiny Christmas tree we’d bought before Tiberius left was still on the table, decorated in green and white tinsel for Hafton. Whether it was a symbol of what was to come or what had been, I wasn’t sure, especially with the guys’ taunting and teasing.