Just Watch the Fireworks

by Monica Alexander

  Ryan’s schedule was equally crazy, so I only got to speak to him a few nights and each time it for just a few minutes. Each time we talked he seemed more exhausted, and I was starting to wonder how much of a toll his job was taking on him. I hoped he would be able to get some rest while he was in town for the Fourth of July weekend. He sounded like he needed it.

  After Beckett left my house on Monday morning, I didn’t see him again until Thursday night when we went to a movie together, but he still called me every night before he went to sleep. We’d both lay in bed, talk about our days and discuss everything from the latest crazy thing Gryffin had done to how we never seemed to see Summer and Patrick anymore because they were holed up at Patrick’s playing house. We never once talked about the fact that he’d spent the night. It seemed like a taboo subject that neither of us wanted to broach, so we stuck to light, non-threatening topics instead.

  “I miss you, dude,” he said to me on Sunday. He was working on a big paper and had taken a break to call me.

  “Well, if you didn’t have such a rockin’ social life, then we could hang out more,” I said, taking a scoop of peanut butter from the jar and licking it off the spoon. “How’s next week looking for you?”

  “Eh,” he said. “It’s debatable. I have another paper to write as soon as I’m done with this one, and I still have to do some research. That one will be about twenty pages, so it’ll take me a little bit longer. We’ll see.”

  “So will you have time for one of your oldest friends or will Julie be occupying your nights all week?” I asked, adding a sultry tone to my voice.

  “No, she won’t be,” he said, sighing, and I could tell there was something going on.

  “What happened, Beck?”

  I could hear him stretching out. “We broke up yesterday,” he said.

  “Aww man, I’m sorry,” I said, hoping he was okay. “What happened? Are you alright?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. She just wasn’t the one, and I didn’t feel right about stringing her along when I knew she wanted more.”

  I reached into the jar for another scoop of peanut butter. “Well that was honorable of you,” I said, taking a lick off the spoon.

  “Yeah, I’m a saint,” he said sarcastically.

  “You’re a great guy, Beck,” I said, knowing he was being unfairly hard on himself.

  He mumbled something then, and I thought he said ‘two years too late’, but I couldn’t be sure. I was too afraid to ask him to clarify for fear that was what he’d actually said.

  “So do you want some company while you write?” I asked. “I can bring over snacks.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, and I could hear his mood brightening. “That would be great. I’m almost done for the night. I can feel my brain starting to shut off, so we can hang out after I’m done.”

  “Cool,” I said, licking the last of the peanut butter off of the spoon before I screwed the lid back on the jar. “Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll be over. I’m going to bring my computer, though, if that’s okay. I have to write a blog entry for my site. I haven’t written one since last Wednesday, so I’m due.”

  “That’s cool. I won’t feel so bad about finishing this paper then.”

  I could hear him shuffling papers as we said goodbye and hung up.

  Just as I was gathering up my laptop and the sketches I wanted to scan into the blog, Summer came home for the first time all weekend. She stopped in my doorway.

  “Where are you heading?” she asked, as she walked in and settled on the edge of my bed. “It’s like seven o’clock.”

  “Beckett’s,” I said, as I looked around to make sure I had everything I needed.

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time with him lately. Is there anything you need to tell me?” she asked, leaning forward slightly.

  I shot her a look. “No, Sum, we’re just friends,” I said. “He just broke up with Julie yesterday, so I’m going to keep him company.”

  “Really,” Summer said, her eyebrows raising. “That sucks. I thought they really liked each other.”

  I shook my head. “I guess she wasn’t ‘the one’, so he let her go. I never thought they were all that great together, so I’m not that surprised.”

  “Well, you would know best,” she said, as she held up her left hand to look at her engagement ring. She did that a lot.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, shoving some clothes aside, so I could sit in the chair in the corner of my room.

  “You were the one,” she said.

  I shook my head at her. “No I wasn’t. It didn’t work out with us. I obviously wasn’t the right girl for him or he wouldn’t have left.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said, as she got up and left my room. In the doorway she paused and turned around. “Just think about it.”

  I shot a glare at her as she passed out of view. Beckett and I were just friends. Sure, we flirted and were playful and touchy with each other, but we’d always been like that, even when we’d been friends before. It’s just how we were together.

  Fifteen minutes later I was sitting on Beckett’s couch as he thumbed through a large book on the Revolutionary War, his laptop perched on his outstretched legs. He had a pencil stuck in his teeth and a serious look on his face.

  “Glasses?” I asked, staring at him.

  It was the first time I’d ever seen him wearing glasses, and I was having trouble not thinking inappropriate thoughts. He looked beyond sexy in a studious kind of way.

  “I wear them when I read,” he said, not looking up from his work.

  He was very focused – too focused for my attention span that night. I was tucked into the corner of his couch, my laptop powering up, my legs stretched out in front of me. I tickled his thigh with my toes. He looked up at me. I grinned.

  “Stop,” he said, giving me a playful warning look.

  I raised my eyebrows, poked his thigh again and smirked. He grabbed my foot with his hand and squeezed.

  “Ow!” I yelped, recoiling slightly as I pulled my foot out of his grasp.

  “Get to work,” he said, smirking back at me.

  “Fine,” I said, as I pulled up my blog.

  I read over the comments and questions from the post I put up on Wednesday about finding the perfect wedding dress. I had included some of Summer’s sketches along with some website listings for other dress shops in Boston and Western Massachusetts. I took a few minutes to read the questions people had asked and included responses in the advice section of the blog. Then I continued reading the comments from brides about which places they had gotten their dresses that I hadn’t included on my list. Many posted information for me since they knew I was engaged. I thought that was incredibly sweet, even if I wasn’t going to use that information anytime soon.

  Every few days, there would be a comment that read something to the effect of ‘Hey Courtney, check out this link – great florist in Dedham’ or ‘A great bridesmaids dress you might like – comes in navy blue’. I had been open with my followers about myself over the years with who I was and what I liked, so some of them felt like they knew me. I found it slightly endearing. When I got to the last comment, though, I gasped out loud.

  “What?” Beckett asked, looking up from his laptop where he’d been furiously typing a few seconds earlier.

  My eyes went wide as I silently re-read what someone had written.

  ‘What a beautiful dress for a traitor like yourself. You should wear this when you walk down the aisle. If you even make it to the aisle.

  It was from someone named WomanInWhite34. I had no idea who she was, but she was apparently upset with me. I didn’t understand her angle. Where did she get off calling me a traitor? I racked my brain trying to figure out who I might have wronged as of late, but I couldn’t think of anyone. The year before I’d written a blast post about a photographer who had screwed me over when I worked for Bliss Weddings, but too much time had passed for anyone to be upset about that.

  T
his was seriously hate mail, and it was directed right at me.

  “Someone hates me,” I said turning the laptop to Beckett so he could read the comment.

  “Ouch,” he said. “Who’d you piss off?”

  “No clue,” I said. “I’m a little concerned that I’m being called a traitor, but since I haven’t done anything, I can’t really take it seriously.”

  I re-read the comment several more times, trying to figure out what it meant.

  “She’s probably just some wacko with too much time on her hands.” He pointed to her screen name. “See, she’s probably thirty-four, and I would bet she’s single. I would guess that she’s jealous that you are gorgeous and getting married, and she’s not.” He pointed to the picture of me in the top right corner of the page.

  “I guess,” I said, but I had a hard time letting it go as I clicked to a blank page to type a new entry.

  I had an idea about honeymoons, but suddenly my heart wasn’t in it. Instead I did a follow-up to the piece about wedding dresses with bridesmaids dresses that Summer had sketched. I’d already scanned them in and saved them to my hard drive, so it didn’t take me long to pull them up and add them to the post. It also didn’t require much thought.

  As I posted the entry to the page, I found myself wondering what WomanInWhite34 would have to say about that, if she would say anything at all. I didn’t remember her screen name, so she must have been a new follower. I clicked over to the page that listed all of my followers and their pictures if they chose to add one.

  WomanInWhite34 had added her information a month earlier, but there was no picture and no background information. There was just an email address that was the same as her screen name and linked to a Yahoo! account. My followers weren’t required to include any personal information aside from an email address, but sometimes they did.

  Next to me, Beckett closed his laptop. “Done!” he said, raising his arms in the air like a referee indicating a touchdown.

  “Me too,” I said, closing my own laptop and pushing WomanInWhite34 out of my head.

  Beckett leaned over and high-fived me. “It’s only eight o’clock, and I’ve been holed up in here all day,” he said, as he took off his glasses, set them on top of his laptop and rubbed his eyes. “Let’s go get a beer.”

  “Sure,” I said, standing up and stretching my back. As I raised my arms above my head, my shirt crept up, exposing my stomach. Beckett reached out and smacked my stomach, causing me to bend forward. I covered my stomach and turned away from him, afraid he would come back for another attack. He didn’t. He just laughed and headed toward the door.

  ***

  “Okay,” I said, setting our pitcher of Sam Adams on the table next to us. “I’ll rack, you break.”

  We at the Beacon Hill Pub again and were two pitchers in when Beckett had challenged me to a game of pool. Even though I wasn’t very good, I was armed with liquid courage and wasn’t about to back down. I arranged the balls inside the triangle, as he rubbed chalk on the end of his cue stick. He was slow and deliberate, and I had to admit, it turned me on just a little bit. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me that night. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t had sex in three weeks, but suddenly it was all I could think about. Thank God Ryan was coming home that weekend.

  I stood on the opposite end of the table from Beckett as he leaned over, took aim and shot the cue ball across the table, scattering the rest of the balls. They bounced around for a while, but none fell into the pockets.

  I stepped up to take my turn. “So what happened with Julie?” I asked, as I tried to figure out which ball would be easiest to sink.

  “She wanted to get serious,” he said, as he poured himself a beer. “I didn’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked, as I leaned over to tap the cue ball into a neighboring solid. It rolled softly into the corner pocket and fell into the hole. “Yes!”

  “Nice shot,” Beckett said, as I looked around the table for what I could hit next. “I don’t know. She was sort of clingy. I just wasn’t feeling it.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him before I bent down to take my next shot. I was aiming for the three ball, but when I hit it with the cue ball, it just ricocheted off the wall near the pocket and bounced away. I stood back up and watched as Beckett appraised the table.

  “Besides, she didn’t always get my humor. I need someone who can keep up. You know?”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I have to be careful with what I say around Ryan. He never really gets the raunchy things I like. Like that movie we watched the other night. He hated it.”

  “Really?” Beckett asked, looking up from the table at me.

  I nodded.

  Beckett leaned over and took aim for his shot, so meticulous in his calculated approach. I walked over to pour myself a beer. As I turned around, taking a long drink, Beckett shot the cue ball across the table with force, knocking the thirteen ball into the side pocket. His face was all business as he straightened up and took a look around to see what shot he could make next. I sidled up to him, my cue stick in one hand and my beer in the other. I paused, leaning on the stick, and stared at him while taking another drink.

  “What’ll it be?” I asked, in my phone sex operator voice. “This shot?”

  I leaned over the pool table sticking my ass out as I did. I looked back at him. He was watching me, a slightly amused look on his face.

  “Or maybe this one,” I said, walking seductively around the table before leaning over and letting him take a glimpse down my shirt, as I pointed to a ball across the table.

  He laughed out loud. “What are you doing? Are you trying to psych me out?”

  “Maybe,” I said seductively, as I straightened up. I leaned on my pool stick again, taking a big gulp of my beer, emptying the glass as I did.

  Beckett just shook his head as he walked over to my side of the table and bent over to take his next shot. I walked right up to him and leaned down next to his ear.

  He looked over at me. “I’m trying to make a shot here,” he said, fighting to be serious, but I could tell he was cracking.

  As soon as he pulled his stick back to start his shot, I whispered the very inappropriate words to a Britney Spears song in his ear. It was usually his game to add song lyrics to our conversations, but I could play that game too.

  It worked. Beckett flubbed his shot, missing over the top of the cue ball. I laughed out loud and did a little dance, as I took my position to make my next shot.

  “Yeah, that’s hilarious,” he said. “You’re funny.”

  I needed to be quick, because he was no doubt figuring out how to get me back. Unfortunately, he was quicker than me. As soon as I leaned over to take my shot, his hand landed on the small of my back and he slowly started to draw circles with his fingers on my exposed skin. Now I know all he was doing was trying to rattle me, but Good Lord, did he achieve something else entirely. I tried to center all my concentration on knocking the seven ball into the side pocket, but it was a little hard when my insides were turning to mush. With a focus I pulled out of thin air I sunk the ball into the pocket.

  “Yes!” I said, standing up straight and knocking Beckett’s hand off of my back. I turned around to face him. “You’re not as good as you think you are.”

  “I guess I’m not,” he said, before taking a seat at the bar stool at the table our beer was on, as I proceeded to make my next two shots.

  After missing my fourth shot, I sauntered over to him. His knees were open, so I walked right up and stood in between , as I picked up the new beer he’d filled for me and took a long drink.

  “That’s an interesting place for you to be standing,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  He nodded. “How much have you had to drink?”

  “Enough. You know, Ryan hates it when I get this drunk. He thinks it’s immature. You don’t think that, do you?” I asked him, leaning forward slightly.

  “I think you’re adorable when you’re this dr
unk,” he said, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath.

  “I am adorable,” I said, putting my hands on his knees and leaning forward. “Why can’t Ryan see me like you do?”

  Beckett took a drink of his beer, but his gaze never left mine. “Because he’s an idiot.”

  I pulled my hands off of his knees and stepped back, contemplating what he’d just said. “He’s not, though,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s really smart.”

  Beckett just stood there watching me.

  “It’s your shot,” I said, and he got up without a word, went to the table and sunk the next two balls in.

  “He’s not the guy for you,” Beckett said, after he missed his third shot.

  “Huh?” I asked, thrown by what he’d just said.

  He walked right up to where I was sitting on the bar stool he’d vacated and stood in front of me.

  “Ryan. He’s not the right guy for you,” he said again.

  “How much have you had to drink?” I asked then, hopping up from the bar stool to take my next shot.

  “Not enough,” he mumbled.

  As I stood appraising the pool table, Beckett came up behind me and threaded his arms around my waist. He leaned down, so his head was resting on my shoulder.

  “I don’t want this to end,” he said.

  I turned around, but stayed in his arms. “What do you mean?” I asked, looking up at him.

  “He’s away now so we can hang out and be us, but he’s going to come back and you’ll spend all of your time with him, and I’ll never see you. I’m just not looking forward to that day.”

  My stomach flipped over as I realized how much I wasn’t looking forward to that day either. As much as I wanted Ryan back in Boston permanently, I didn’t want to lose what I had with Beckett. We had too much fun together. I loved that I could just be myself with him.

  “I’ll still see you all the time,” I said, more to reassure myself than him.