Uninvolved

by Carey Heywood

  "What a small world," Robin gushed. "I really am so happy to meet you Becka. My brother is crazy about you, so take good care of him."

  Becka flushed and then jumped as Kyle's arms circled her from behind.

  "There's my girl," Kyle said, nuzzling her neck.

  She rested her arms on top of his and cringed as she saw Nate's eyes harden. Honestly needing a drink, she pulled Kyle with her to the kitchen where his father was playing bartender. Becka jokingly asked for a double, and he obliged. Drink in hand, she hung back as Kyle circulated. Lucy came to stand with Becka, making her feel less awkward.

  It did not help that her eyes were constantly drawn to Nate. What made it worse was how often he met her gaze. Trying to find a distraction, Becka and Lucy raided the buffet and made frequent visits to Mr. Wyrick for refills. Kyle, the prefect boyfriend, did not want to pull her away from her friend as he worked the room. He would catch her eye from time to time and, grinning, blow her a kiss.

  Becka went to stand by him before it was time for cake. Kyle stood proudly with his arm around her waist, in front of his closest friends and family. Becka felt like a fraud. His mom brought out the cake, and they all sang happy birthday. Kyle held her hand as he blew out the candles and then at the calls for "Speech, speech!"

  "Thank you, everyone, for coming out tonight. It means so much to me that you are all here. I especially want to thank my mom and dad for hosting and pouring some pretty strong drinks. Seriously dad, whew. Plus I want to thank Becka. You have made this the best birthday ever. I love you, babe," Kyle said, pulling her into a sweet kiss.

  Her stand-in boyfriend just professed his love to her in front of the guy she really wanted to be with. After their kiss, Becka stood uncomfortably by his side as he cut the cake. She locked eyes with Nate and cringed. This was going to really suck. Nate wouldn’t ever talk to her again. She just knew it. Now, when she tried to make eye contact with him, he would just gaze right through or past her.

  I can't deal with this, she thought to herself. Finding Lucy, Becka asked her if she could give her a ride home. After she had a ride all set, Becka told Kyle she wasn’t feeling well and that Lucy was going to drive her home. Sweet, thoughtful boyfriend that he was, Kyle offered to leave his own birthday party to take care of her. She made him promise to stay and enjoy his evening.

  Kyle offered to come back to her house afterward, but he had been drinking so she told him to just crash at his parents’ house because she was going straight to bed. Kyle agreed and walked out with Becka, Lucy, and Curt to Lucy's car.

  Once they were in the car, Lucy turned around to Becka. "That was insane."

  "It was literally my worst nightmare."

  Curt was driving and clearly confused. "What are you both talking about?"

  Lucy glanced at Becka to get permission to spill. Becka shrugged and looked out the window as Lucy said, "So Becka is kinda in love…"

  Becka's head snapped forward. "I never said I was in love with him."

  "Whatever," Lucy said, waving her off. "Becka is clearly, whether she would like to admit it or not, in love with Nate."

  "Who's Nate?"

  "The guy who came with Kyle's little sister."

  Curt's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror to look at Becka. She looked away.

  "But what about Kyle?"

  "Becka is trying to like Kyle so that Nate doesn't hurt her."

  "How could he hurt her?"

  "By not returning her feelings."

  "Does he know she has feeling?"

  "Yep. They’ve been seeing each other this whole time."

  "What?"

  "I know, but Nate didn’t know about Kyle, and Kyle does not know about Nate."

  "That's a lot to process."

  "Which is way I left," Becka admitted from the back seat.

  Chapter 11

  Once Becka was home, she took a hot bath to soak away her shame. She was just about to add more hot water to the tub when she heard a knock at her door. After getting out of the tub and putting on her robe, she went to the door. Assuming Kyle got dropped off by a friend, she almost didn’t check the peephole but did after hearing her mother's voice in her head say one can never be too safe. Becka gasped when she realized it was Nate, not Kyle, at her door.

  She slowly opened the door, doing her best to look at her feet the whole time. Without saying a word, Nate walked past her into the living room, and she shut the door behind him.

  "What was that Becka?" Nate began.

  "You're joking, right?" Becka fumed. "Did I miss you asking me out on a date or to be your girlfriend? Or am I just supposed to wait around on the off chance you may ever want to?"

  "I just want to know why you didn’t tell me about him," Nate replied.

  "Like you tell me about every girl you take home," Becka retorted.

  "A couple of things. One, a boyfriend is a very different than any random girl, and two, I have not touched any girl other than you since New Year's," Nate replied.

  Becka's mouth dropped open as she sank down onto the sofa.

  "Why didn’t you ever tell me that?" she asked after a moment.

  "I didn’t tell you because I don’t know what I can offer you," Nate said simply, also sitting.

  Becka moved closer to him on the sofa. "Really, just me?"

  He pulled her into his lap and buried his face into her neck as he nodded his head.

  This was so confusing. Yes, she now had a better understanding of Nate's feelings for her, but it wasn’t like anything had changed. Sure, he wasn’t seeing anyone else but that did not change any of his commitment issues. Kyle seemed like the obvious choice, but Becka could not deny the pull Nate had on her.

  "I don’t know what to say," Becka sighed.

  Nate's response was to cover her mouth with his. Becka melted in his arms and reveled in his amorous assault, the intensity of his touch and the fierceness in which Nate tangled his fingers in her hair. Becka shifted in his lap so that she was straddling him. Nate broke their kiss, pulling her hair back hard as he moved his lips to her neck.

  Becka could feel him through his pants and pressed herself closer to him. Nate shifted his hands from her hair to her breasts, pulling open her robe as far as he could. The sleeves of her robe moved down halfway as well and immobilized her arms. Not going to work, Becka thought. With her arms like this, she could not touch him.

  Becka sat up straight and readjusted her robe before sliding her arms out of it. Her robe was half off, pooled around her waist as she leaned back down to him. He ran his hands up and down her back, making her shiver as they kissed. Why couldn’t it feel like this with Kyle?

  Becka unbuttoned his shirt, and he shrugged out of it, never taking his lips from hers. He huffed at their separation when she tugged off his undershirt, craving his skin against her own.

  Becka stood suddenly, grabbing the belt of her robe to keep it up and his shirts in one hand, and one of Nate's hands in her other. She pulled him to her room. After pushing him on to her bed, she pulled her robe off the rest of the way and joined him. Nate kicked off his shoes and covered her with his body. Becka loved to feel the weight of him on her and arched her back as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

  Becka's mind raced with conflicting emotions. She felt terrible for betraying Kyle, knowing full well that what she was doing was wrong. Then her mind would glory in the moment of all that was Nate. Even after all of this time, she still could not quantify what it was about Nate that made her react this way. Was it biological?

  The part of her mind that was loyal to Kyle said, stop this. Kyle is a good guy who loves you. While the much louder (and bit of a bully) side of her brain that was hot for Nate was contemplating tying him up and forcibly having her way with him. Maybe this situation was win-win. Knowing that she had a boyfriend was not stopping Nate from making out with her and, since they had not actually had sex, was it really cheating?

  Becka moved her hands down to tug at Nate's belt. He stilled
at the touch and suddenly sat back, putting his head in his hands.

  "This is so wrong, Becka," he said quietly as he raised his eyes to hers.

  Becka sat up and moved to kiss him, but he turned his head before she could. Her mouth dropped open in surprise.

  "Don’t look at me like that, Becka," he said, caressing her cheek with his thumb. "It is just messed up that I heard that guy tell you he loved you tonight."

  "I don’t love him, Nate."

  "I figured, given what we are doing."

  "What are we doing, Nate?' Becka asked as she reached for her robe.

  "I really have no fucking clue," Nate admitted.

  Wanting to put some space between them to avoid launching herself at him, Becka went to the kitchen to grab a beer. She was still there, leaning against the counter, when Nate walked out to join her. He had not put his shirt back on, which Becka took as a good sign. She offered him a beer, but he just opted to take a pull from hers. Seeing him with her beer in his hand reminded her of the empty beer bottle from the last time he was over that was still up on a shelf in her closet.

  "Do you want me to break up with Kyle?" Becka took her beer back from him.

  Nate picked her up and sat her on the counter and moved to stand between her legs. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his forehead on her shoulder before saying, "I don’t know. Yes. No. I just hate the idea of anyone touching you."

  She set her drink down on the counter and began trailing her fingers up and down his back. God, he had a beautiful back. He turned his face to her neck and placed delicate kisses from the base of her neck up to her ear. He undid the belt of her robe and slid his hands inside and around her back.

  "I want you so bad right now, Becka," he breathed into her ear, nipping it.

  "Then take me," Becka pleaded.

  He didn't, but he did stay longer than ever before.

  Becka slept in the next day and awoke to Kyle sliding into bed with her. Becka panicked only long enough to realize Nate was already gone. He had left sometime in the early morning. Nate eventually confessed that the Kyle thing was weighing too heavily on his conscious. Nate planned to go home and figure out what it was he wanted, and then he would let Becka know.

  Becka had sex that morning with Kyle, telling herself later that it was only because she was groggy and still unsatisfied from the night before. Kyle was fun. His only fault in her eyes was that he loved her. If only Kyle and Nate's feelings towards Becka had been reversed, she mused. As they lay in her bed in post-sex bliss, Becka considered telling him they needed to slow things down.

  She would have said something like, “Kyle, I have to be honest with you. I wasn’t sick last night when I left. What I really did was panic after you said that you loved me in front of everyone. It just feels too soon.” He would probably look wounded and, in her mind, she would have continued saying, “I'm not saying that I don’t care about you because I do. I'm just saying that I think we may be moving faster than I am ready to.”

  She could picture Kyle thinking this over and being okay with it. Then they would go on having great sex without anyone's feelings getting hurt. That would be the mature, honest thing to do, Becka thought as she lay there and said nothing.

  The next day, when Kyle left to go to work, Becka called Lilly to unload everything that had happened the night before.

  "Oh Becka, honey. If you don’t nip this in the bud, someone is going get hurt," Lilly said solemnly.

  "But—" Becka began.

  "Uh uh, honey. There is no pretty way this is all going to work out," Lilly cut her off.

  "You're right. I know it. It’s just that—"

  "You are being selfish, Becka. That is all this is," Lilly cut in again.

  "Ouch!" Becka complained.

  "What are you going to do, Becka?" Lilly asked.

  "Well I don’t know. That’s why I called you. What should I do?"

  "Why don’t you flip a coin?"

  "I'm trying to be serious here," Becka argued.

  "No, hear me out. I'm being for real. I've heard that the second you throw that coin in the air, you know in your heart what side you want it to land on," Lilly explained.

  "That's fucking brilliant!" Becka exclaimed, going to grab a penny from her retirement fund.

  "So who's heads and who's tails?" Lilly asked, laughing.

  "That's not what I plan on flipping for," Becka countered.

  "Huh?"

  "Heads break up with Kyle. Tails don't break up with Kyle."

  "But what about Nate?" Lilly asked confused.

  "I can't not see Nate," Becka admitted.

  "That's your answer, missy. There is no point in flipping that coin. You have got to break up with Kyle."

  "What? Like now, the day after his birthday?"

  "Well, I guess when you put it that way it would be pretty heartless," Lilly conceded.

  Chapter 12

  Kyle's birthday had been over a month ago, and Becka was no closer to ending things with him. She was also seeing more of Nate than she ever had, staying over at his house some nights Kyle was working.

  Nate's way of dealing with it was to ignore the Kyle situation all together. Once, though, after he had more to drink than normal, he asked her if she was still seeing him. When Becka nodded, he looked so sad she almost called Kyle right then to break up with him. Instead, she opened Nate's arms and melted into them, doing anything she could to make him smile. Becka could not erase the image of his face. It made her understand that she was hurting him.

  Becka had never really considered Nate's feelings in the situation. The more she thought about it, the worse she felt. Part of his issue with not wanting a girlfriend was because Nate's last girlfriend had cheated on him. Here Becka was, cheating on Kyle with Nate. That was what Becka finally needed to understand. Becka hadn’t said anything to Nate, but she had decided to end things with Kyle his next night off.

  Saturday morning, she woke to find Kyle had called and texted her multiple times during the night looking for her.

  There was an issue with a delivery that night, so Kyle had been sent home earlier than normal. He followed Dave home to surprise her. Becka cringed as she realized Nate was probably going down on her while her boyfriend was calling. No wonder she didn’t hear it ring, Becka thought.

  Becka texted him that she had met up with Lucy the night before and ended up crashing at her apartment. Becka then texted Lucy to give her a heads up about what she had said. She felt a momentary twinge of guilt at lying but was over it when she heard Nate turn on the shower. Becka was having fun seeing how far she could push Nate before he would just cave and bang her. The shower seemed like a fun place to drive him crazy.

  Much later, as Becka dried off, she wondered which Nate had more of: absurd willpower or crazy blue balls. After getting dressed, Becka glanced at her phone just before she was going to leave. Her first message was from Lucy and said, Bad news, babe. Curt and I fucking ran into Dave and KYLE at the bar last night.

  "Shit, shit, shit, shit!" Becka exclaimed as she opened her next message, which was from Kyle. You and I both know that is not true. Where are you?

  Nate had come over to see what she was freaking out about. She put her head in her hands and handed him her phone. After reading the text messages, he handed her back her phone. Becka looked up at him to gauge his reaction and chewed on her lip.

  Not getting anything from him, she asked, "What should I do?"

  Nate laughed, then said, "Hold on. Are you really asking ME for advice on this?"

  "Maybe."

  "This is something you are going to have to deal with yourself, kid."

  Becka rolled her eyes when he said “kid,” even though she kind of liked it now. Standing, Becka moved in front of him to say goodbye. He wrapped his arms around her thighs and kissed a patch of exposed skin on her side. Becka ruffled his hair in return.

  "This sucks," she groaned when he released her.

  "Let me know wh
at happens," Nate said once they were to her car.

  Her phone started ringing once she pulled out of his driveway. She answered with her Bluetooth.

  "Hello…"

  "Becka?"

  "Oh, thank God, Dave. What's up?"

  "Where the fuck were you last night, Becks? Kyle is over here freaking out."

  "Is he really pissed?"

  "Hell yeah, he's pissed. Where were you?"

  "I don’t want to talk about it."

  "Shit, Becks. Were you with another dude? I thought you liked Kyle."

  "Can he FUCKING hear you?"

  "Chill out. He can't hear me. I'm out back."

  "Okay"

  "Are you going to tell me what is going on?"

  "Promise you won't be pissed and that you won't say anything to Kyle."

  "I hate it when you say that."

  "Just promise, okay?"

  "Fine. I promise I won't be pissed."

  "I've kinda been seeing someone else."

  "WHAT?"

  "Don’t yell at me. You promised. Besides I haven't even slept with him."

  "Becka, Kyle is fucking in love with you."

  "I know. I feel awful. It just happened."

  "Wait. Is it that guy from your work?"

  Becka cringed, not able to respond.

  "It is. It's that fucking guy we played cards with. Wow."

  "What should I do?"

  "You're joking, right? If Kyle has a brain in his gourd, he's going to dump you."

  "You're not going to say anything to him are you?"

  "Hell no. This is your mess."

  "You don’t have to be such a dick about it. People make mistakes."

  "Look, you are like a fucking sister to me, Becks. I just thought you cared about Kyle."

  "I do care about Kyle. Can't you see that's why I couldn’t break up with him?"

  "If you really cared about him, I don’t think you would have strung him along is all I'm saying. Hey, he's looking at me through the door so I'm going to head inside."

  "You're not mad at me?"

  "No, Becks. I'm not mad at you."

  "Thanks, Dave"

  "Anytime."

  Becka called Lilly after she hung up with Dave. Lilly was not surprised and agreed with Dave that she would be amazed if Kyle didn’t dump her.