Headstrong

by Meg Maguire

  “What do you want?” he asked, only half-composed. Excellent.

  She stroked him harder. “Lots of things.”

  Reece groaned with shock and pleasure. “Like what?”

  “Actually…” She gripped him tightly, hoping he might do her wildest bidding if she distracted him enough. “I’d like to…do it. With you.”

  His hand paused between her thighs. “Wait, you mean actual intercourse?”

  She laughed. “God, you’re so technical. But yeah. What do you think?”

  “No. Sorry, but no way.” Reece took his hand back and smoothed her skirt down her legs.

  “I can’t see why it’s such a big deal—”

  She was cut off as Reece interrupted to extract himself from her hold. Stark fear oozed into her veins, diluting the thrill that had been there. “Why not?”

  He laid his palm on her side, as if trying to distance their bodies. “I can’t be your…your first time since…”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You know. That would be like…losing your virginity again, wouldn’t it?”

  “It’s not a starfish, Reece. It’s doesn’t grow back.”

  “Well, this should be like your second chance. To make it decent. Shouldn’t it?”

  “And it would be decent,” she said, rubbing his shoulder.

  “It just seems like a big decision.”

  Her temper frayed. “I’m not an innocent or a rape victim. You can stop handling me like I’m going to shatter or something.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “You do it to your brother too, you know. It’s really annoying. I know what I want.” She quickly dialed back how combative she’d become. “And this would be my chance to make it decent. Maybe better than decent.”

  “Didn’t the last time… You were with someone who didn’t really care about you, and it fucked you up?”

  “Yeah, way up. When I was sixteen. Now I’m twenty-eight. And I know you don’t care about me—”

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  “Well, I know you don’t…love me or whatever. So I’m not harboring any illusions about this. There won’t be any rude awakenings.” She faltered. “I mean, maybe we could just try oral or something…?” Even Libby caught the pathetic pleading in her voice.

  Reece shook his head. “No, sorry. That’s just as intimate as sex. Maybe more.”

  She sighed, trying her best to appear cavalier.

  “Libby, I need to talk to you about something. About us. About all this.”

  Her insides clenched with anticipation, with that intuition she was so hopeless at interpreting. “Shoot, lover.”

  “I think this has to be the last time we mess around. I feel too weird about it, with us not being a couple. I think it has to stop.”

  Libby’s stomach lurched and she took a fortifying breath. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, as well.”

  “Good.”

  “About us not being a couple. Is that… Do you want that to change?” she asked cautiously.

  “I want us to change. I can’t do this anymore. With us not caring for each other.”

  “I sort of feel the same way.” Tell him. Tell him now.

  “I like someone, Libby. Someone I’d like to ask out.”

  “Oh.” She frowned, paralyzed with both horror and the tiniest, most sadistic glimmer of hope. A hope she’d promised herself she was completely over before this moment. “This isn’t one of those deals where now you’re going to confess that it’s me, is it?” she asked, realizing how idiotic it sounded as the words came out.

  Reece smiled awkwardly. “No, don’t worry. I’m not going to drop one of those on you. No, I just fancy a girl and I think I want to ask her out. So I have to stop fooling around with you.”

  “Oh.” Libby fought every sensation crashing through her body—the feeling of her heart simultaneously stopping and racing, of the breath being sucked from her lungs, the numbness freezing her fingers and face and toes.

  “Well, that’s great,” she said. “For you. That’s great.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Who is she?” Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  “A woman from my studio. Named Julia.”

  Oh Christ, don’t tell me her fucking name. “That’s really cool. What’s…what’s she like?” God, you fucking masochist.

  “Sweet. She’s really sweet.”

  Like a punch in the gut, that word. Any adjective but that one. The antithesis of everything Libby could ever be.

  “That’s great.” It was like one of those stories about a marathon runner or gymnast performing on a broken bone; the astounding ability to keep functioning in the face of incapacitating pain. “Good luck,” Libby said.

  “Ta.”

  “You know…” She trailed off, lost.

  “This is weird now, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Let’s just…let’s stop.” Libby stood, needing to run from the room but forcing herself to appear casual.

  Reece nodded. “All right. I better grab a shower anyway.”

  “Yes, do that.”

  “Okay. Sorry, Libby. To spoil your fun.”

  “Ha.” It was perhaps the worst imitation of a lighthearted laugh ever uttered. “Don’t flatter yourself, loverboy.”

  Libby closed his bedroom door behind her.

  “Let’s get sandwiches,” Annie said to Colin with finality, a pile of rejected takeout menus spread before her on the bar. “Where’s the number?”

  “I think that menu’s up in the kitchen. Just pick one of these,” Colin said, pushing the fliers toward her. No bloody way he was going upstairs right now.

  “No, I want a chicken sandwich. From the good place, with the good mustard.”

  “Let’s just get Chinese.”

  She poked his arm. “No. Bloody. Chance. You aren’t even working, you lazy piker. Those legs can handle a few stairs. Be a good boy and toddle up those steps and get your favorite sister the number.”

  “Only sister,” Colin corrected as he’d done for the past twenty years. “Just tell me what you want and I’ll go pick it up. It’ll be faster. And cheaper. My treat.”

  “Yeah, in the rain, on your bike? Fat chance, Death Wish. Go get the bloody menu. I’m hungry.”

  Annie reveled in bossing her younger brothers around, but Colin didn’t have the patience for it this evening. “I’ll call the directory.”

  “Colin.” Annie stared at him until he met her eyes. “They’re not going to be rutting on the blooming couch. Stop being such a coward and go up there.”

  He swallowed. “That obvious?”

  “I know you better than anyone,” Annie said, which was probably true. “Although it’s been getting harder to recognize you, lately. What is up with you?”

  “Wish I knew.”

  “It’s been ages since I’ve seen you this torn up.”

  Colin set his elbows on the bar and buried his face in his hands, trying to rub the sense back into his head. He mumbled through his fingers. “I feel like I’m going bloody mad.”

  “Libby’s nice, Col, but she’s just a girl.”

  “Wish I could say I agreed with you.”

  “Ah.” Annie paused to fill a drink order. “That bad, eh? Does she know how you feel?”

  “Oh, she knows.” He remembered with a flinch what had happened after he’d brought her back from karaoke. “She knows I’m infatuated with her, at any rate. I didn’t leave much room for doubt. I’m lucky she’s still talking to me.”

  “Maybe you need to go out and find someone else. Someone who doesn’t belong to your brother, maybe? Or whatever it is they are. There’s probably a queue of scruffy rocker girls in ripped leggings outside, dying for the chance, Col.”

  He laughed, exasperated. “Don’t think I haven’t tried.” He looked around the bar, as if he might find answers in the faces of the drinkers. “You want to hear something utterly pathetic?”

  “I’m your bartender
right now. That’s my job.”

  “Well, last weekend I went out to a show, just to try and get out of my head for a little bit? And do you remember Jessie, that girl I was hanging out with around when Dad was getting really bad, like six months ago? Long black hair? Works at a baker’s?”

  Annie nodded.

  “So, I’m at this show, right, and it’s bloody miserable, not helping at all. So I decide out of the blue that I’m going to ride over to Eastbourne at bloody midnight and see her. And I do, and it’s so psycho. It’s late, and I turn up probably reeking of other people’s smoke and God knows what else and I’m babbling like a mentaller, and she takes me in.”

  “Okay…”

  “So, beautiful, right? She’s up for it, we both know the score, I already know we’re dynamite together in the kip, and I am this close—” Colin paused, fingers pinched together to illustrate his point, waiting as Annie poured a pair of beers.

  “I am this close,” he continued. “And…” He gestured spastically, mouth agape to illustrate his disbelief.

  “And?” Annie prompted.

  “And nothing. I fucking flipped out. Something in my brain broke and it was like, trousers-back-on in a flash, apologizing profusely as I practically ran out the bloody door.”

  “Yikes,” she confirmed.

  “Yeah. Brilliant. So anyhow, I tried, okay?”

  “You’ve got it bad,” Annie said, her stream of bartenderly advice seeming to have run dry.

  “No shit, shopkeep.”

  “Well, I’m still hungry,” she said. “You going to get me that menu or what?”

  He groaned. “Annie—”

  “Just go. Embrace the misery. You don’t get to go back to the way you were, so find your knackers and deal with it.”

  Colin clenched his eyes shut, submitting. He slipped off the stool and strode through the door, determined to make this trip as quick as humanly possible. He clomped up the steps, a warning, on the off-chance there was something he couldn’t handle taking place in the living room.

  As door swung open, Colin felt his anxiety shift twice in quick succession. That Libby was in the living room, alone, was a huge relief. That she was crying was worrisome.

  “Hey, hey, hey.” He hurried to where she was leaning, doubled over, hands braced on the arm of the couch. He took her by the shoulders and straightened her up. “What’s going on? You okay?” He heard the shower shut off in the bathroom.

  “No,” she said, trying to slip from his grasp. “I have to go.”

  He ignored a sharp elbow to his ribs and held her fast. “No way—it’s wretched out there.”

  “It’s wretched here too.” Her quiet rasp said Reece wasn’t meant to overhear her being upset. She glanced around the flat, seeming to relinquish any last shred of dignity she might’ve fought to keep.

  “Then come down to the bar with me,” Colin said. “We’ve got a function room that’s empty. Please? Don’t go running off into the night like Cinderella. Again.” He glanced down at her bare feet.

  She pursed her lips, and he gave her a little shake.

  “Please?” he said. “It’s not a Thursday. I won’t know where to find you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Libby pulled her sneakers on and followed Colin downstairs. She let him deposit her in a large room off the rear of the bar, empty save for a torn-up old pool table, and some wine crates and spare chairs stacked by one wall. Colin had grabbed two pillows from his bed, and he tossed them on the pool table. He flicked on a row of faux-Tiffany ceiling lamps, bathing them in a tacky but somehow comforting light.

  He patted the felt surface of the table to indicate she should have a seat. “You want some wine?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Libby was happy to submit. She had no idea what to do with what she was feeling at this moment, or even what that might be. Disappointed, humiliated, confused…relieved? That couldn’t be right. She toyed with the lone three-ball that been left on the table, rolling it beneath her palm.

  Colin disappeared through the swinging saloon doors. A few moments later music started up in the bar, drowning out the idle chatter and the drone of the television. He returned and slid the lock in place to keep patrons from wandering in.

  Libby took the glass he offered, and he joined her in sitting cross-legged on the table. They rolled the ball back and forth for a few moments, it and her skirt and their matching red and white shoes against the green felt reminding her of Christmas.

  “Did you put the music on?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I put in about twenty dollars’ worth of songs. Should give us a little privacy. Normally I like to go up to the roof when I’m feeling upset, but I didn’t think drowning would improve your evening much.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You want talk about anything? Or shall I just hold you prisoner in silence?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

  “I’m sorry I’m the one who came running after you,” Colin said.

  “Yeah, again.”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged an apology in Reece’s stead.

  “He doesn’t know I’m upset this time, either. And I don’t want him to.”

  “This is none of my business,” Colin said, “but what on earth is going on behind that closed door? And how come every time it’s over you seem to be crying?”

  Libby sputtered out an exasperated breath. “Hell if I know.”

  “My brother’s not being a creep, is he?”

  “I wish.”

  “Ah.” Colin nodded, beginning to understand.

  “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” Libby groaned again, letting her head drop into her hands. She felt Colin pat her hair.

  “Nobody ever knows that. Don’t sweat it.”

  She straightened up and gave him a miserable look. “I’ve been messing around with your brother.”

  He didn’t look at all surprised. “Well done, him.”

  “You don’t understand. It’s weird. It’s a favor.”

  “How can messing around be a favor? And more importantly, how can messing around with you be considered a favor?”

  “He’s the only person I’ve even kissed, like really kissed, in over a decade.”

  Colin’s eyebrows flew up. “Crikey.”

  “I told him he’s the only person I’ve ever met that I feel safe around, that way. Which is true. I sort of talked him into it. But I told him I don’t have feelings for him, romantic ones, and that it was purely scientific.”

  “But you do.”

  “Of course. It’s freaking me out now. I’m worried he might be the only person I’ll ever feel safe around like that, and if it doesn’t turn into anything…I dunno. It took forever for this to happen. What if this is my only chance, you know?” She paused, glancing up at Colin, knowing he felt something for her. It seemed stupid to deny it. “Sorry, this must be kind of weird for you.” She rolled the ball into the side pocket with a clack, feeling hopeless.

  “Nothing’s weird to me.” Colin shifted the pillows and set them at the end of the table, like a bed. He lay down, knees bent, and invited Libby to do the same. They lay side by side for a few moments, staring up at the ceiling tiles, listening to the three ball finding its way to its brethren beneath them, the sounds of the bar and the rain against the windows.

  Libby sighed. “Your sister must think I’m a total drama queen.”

  “You know, it’s normal to feel not safe when you’re first messing about with someone,” Colin said, ignoring her comment. “It’s pretty scary sometimes, if you like them and you aren’t sure how they feel.”

  She decided nervously to let this conversation go forward. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’m not trying to talk you out of fancying my brother or anything. I know that’s a lost cause.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “But fear doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the wrong person,” he went on. “Sometimes it means the
y’re the right person. It’s normal to feel scared, if there’s anything there you might stand to lose. You have to listen to your gut, to know which fear you’re experiencing.”

  “Maybe. I think my intuition’s probably pretty withered and shriveled up by now, though. If it ever worked to begin with.”

  Colin seemed thoughtful for a moment. “So, wait… Forgive my being nosy, but you honestly hadn’t kissed a bloke since you were how old?”

  “Sixteen.”

  He turned his head toward her. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I have had sex exactly once. And your brother was not the lucky fella.”

  “Holy hell.” Colin let this revelation sink in. “How come?”

  “This really shitty thing happened. To me. Because of me too. I wasn’t raped or anything. I was sort of going out with this boy who I really, really liked. I thought I loved him, like you do with you’re sixteen and everything is such a melodrama. Anyway, I had sex with him, even though I didn’t want to yet, because I thought he’d be my boyfriend or whatever. God, this sounds so stupid now.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Go on.”

  “So, long story short, he was never my boyfriend. I don’t think he even liked me all that much. Like, take how weird I can be now and times it by high school. Totally odd. Way too intense about everything. So, anyway. I ended up getting pregnant from this one stupid night of the worst, most ill-advised, crappy, first-time teenage sex ever.”

  “Oh shit. Sorry, Libby.”

  “Yeah. And I don’t know what Reece may have shared of his opinions about my father, or what they may be, but my dad’s a control freak. He’s a hugely powerful university head and he’s obsessed with appearances—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Colin interrupted. “Where are you from? Before Boston?”