Trigger

by Julia Derek

  “O-kay,” she said. “I guess you must be pretty happy to see me then.”

  “Yes, I have to admit I was a little nervous coming here to meet all of Nina’s friends,” I said, a little embarrassed.

  Ricki looked confused. “Why would you be nervous? They’re super cool! And they’ll love you for making sure Nina’s finally seeing a therapist.” She bit her lip. “Okay, maybe that’s taking it a bit far… You probably shouldn’t mention the therapist stuff to anyone. I mean, just in case you were thinking of doing it. Not that you probably were.” She started giggling. “Sorry, I’m rambling. Have had a few too many of these.” Ricki held up a bottle of Heineken. “But you should know that Nixon and I love you for it. Seeing that therapist has really helped her. She needed to get all that guilt off her chest she’s been carrying around for so long about that whole ordeal in high school. She thinks we don’t get it because she’s only told us the bare minimum, but we do. It wasn’t that hard to figure out. So thank you for convincing her to go. She can finally forgive herself for being the only one who survived.”

  I frowned. “The only one who survived? What do you mean?”

  “Those girls killed her friend during the beating. You didn’t know?”

  “Are you talking about when she was bullied in high school?”

  “Yes. The girls that beat up Nina and her friend only managed to kill Hannah. Well, I don’t think they had actually planned on killing them, but that’s what happened with Hannah. They were probably only trying to beat them up. Anyway, Hannah was her friend.”

  “So Nina wasn’t the only one who was bullied in high school then?”

  “Right, she wasn’t the only one. Actually, if it wasn’t for Nina being friends with Hannah, she wouldn’t have been bullied at all. Hannah was the one those girls always picked on. But because of the therapy, Nina has finally gotten it into her head that she shouldn’t feel guilty because only she survived.”

  “Hey, are you done hogging my boyfriend soon or what?” Nina’s voice cut through the din in the room then. Both Ricki and I turned to her. Nina was standing beside Nixon. She gazed at me. “Dylan, may I introduce you to the birthday boy, who also happens to be the best trainer in SoCal?”

  Nina

  When I saw Dylan’s serious face I hoped the fact that I’d called him “my boyfriend” didn’t have anything to do with it. Dylan extended his hand in Nixon’s direction, smiling pleasantly.

  “Happy twenty-fifth, Nixon. I’m Dylan. Good to meet you!”

  “Thanks for coming, Dylan, and good to meet you, too, finally. Nina’s told me so much about you.” The two men shook hands.

  “Only good things, I hope,” Dylan replied, sending a wink my way.

  “Oh, not even Jesus could stand a comparison to the way I’ve described you,” I inserted.

  “Oh, yeah?” Dylan said and stretched out an arm in my direction, reaching for me. As he pulled me close, I knew his serious expression had nothing to do with what I had just called him. If anything, he must have liked that I’d called him that. I tilted my head upward to face him.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yes,” he said and kissed my nose. “Now that you’re here.” He looked in Nixon’s direction again. “So, you’re a trainer?”

  “Yep,” Nixon said.

  “I could use a trainer. Do you have any openings in your schedule?”

  “I always have openings for Nina’s friends. What time were you thinking?”

  “Could we do it on a week-by-week basis? I have a wildly fluctuating schedule, unfortunately.”

  “Sure thing.” Nixon pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and found a business card that he handed Dylan. “Why don’t you give me a call or shoot me an email and we’ll go from there?”

  The two men exchanged a few more words and then Nixon excused himself to greet some of the other guests. I turned back to Dylan when Nixon had disappeared.

  “Were you being serious about that?”

  “About needing a trainer?”

  “Yeah. Do you really need a trainer?”

  “Sure, why not? If he’s as good as you say, I’d love to train with him. I always get a better workout when I use a trainer.”

  “He’s really a great trainer. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. So what was up with that face anyway?”

  A wrinkle appeared between Dylan’s brows. “What face?”

  “You looked like you’d just received really bad news when Nixon and I came over here. Did Ricki upset you in some way?” I looked around. “Where did she go anyway?”

  Dylan looked around, too. “Not sure.” He returned his attention on me. “I don’t know what you’re referring to. We weren’t discussing anything in particular.”

  “Okay.” I took his hand. I must have read too much into the way he’d looked when I came up to him with Nixon earlier. There was nothing going on with him. “Let’s go get something to drink. Then I want to introduce you to a few of my friends I did a movie with once. They’re a blast!”

  Dylan

  When Nina and I left Nixon’s birthday bash a few hours later, driving along the Pacific Highway, I felt almost silly having worried about not getting along with her friends. Them not liking me. Every single one had been awesome and had seemed to truly like me, just like first Nina, then Ricki had assured me. I was looking forward to training with Nixon, who’d turned out to be not only friendly but incredibly funny, in a good-hearted way. I could easily see why Nina and all the other girls at the party adored him; the guy was like a huge Puerto Rican teddy bear. After I was introduced to the birthday boy, Nina and I played beer pong, taking turns with three other couples for an hour and winning almost every game. We danced, I surprising myself by not only agreeing to do the Electric Slide with a bunch of people, but also enjoying it. I even sang a karaoke song together with Nina that got a standing ovation. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had such a good time at a party. I made myself smile while staring at the road before me. Everything was finally going my and Nina’s way. Everything was great.

  So then why was I having this tension in my gut, suggesting that something was wrong? I hadn’t really noticed it until we left the party and entered my car. But now, as we were sitting silently side by side, I couldn’t deny that it was there any longer. Especially since it seemed to grow in strength with every minute that passed. I had finally figured out what was bothering me so much—the fact that Nina hadn’t told me who Hannah was. Well, at least it had something to do with this fact. Nina had made me believe she alone had been bullied, not saying a word about Hannah, who’d apparently been the very reason Nina was bullied in the first place. Why hadn’t Nina told me about it? It seemed to be a very important piece of information, something you didn’t easily forget or omit.

  I supposed it wasn’t that big a deal—maybe she simply hadn’t wanted me to know. Maybe she’d found it too painful to discuss. It was perfectly understandable really since, according to Ricki, she’d been suffering from survivor’s guilt. I nodded to myself. Yes, it definitely is perfectly understandable.

  Nina put a hand on my thigh and squeezed. I removed my gaze from the road and threw her a quick glance accompanied by a smile.

  “Why don’t we go to your place instead of mine?” she said, snuggling up to me in that

  way that made me unable to deny any of her wishes. “Your bed is so much more comfortable than mine… And bigger!” “Okay,” I said, putting a hand over hers on my leg. “Let’s go to my place.” I didn’t mind staying on the road for a little longer, my place being a lot farther away than hers from Malibu. Hopefully, by the time we were in my bed, the ever-expanding feeling of dread in my stomach would have gone away.

  Nina

  “What’s wrong?” I said, sitting down by Dylan. He’d plunked down on his leather couch and turned on the TV almost as soon as we got to his place. At the moment, he was channel surfing, staying no more than a few seconds on each program. I had recon
sidered my dismissal of something having happened to him at the party. The way he’d been acting since we got into his car suggested otherwise.

  “Nothing. Everything’s fine.” He turned to me and swung an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. “I’m just really tired. It’s been a rough few days at work. Is it okay if we just sit here and relax for a while? Watch some TV?”

  “Sure. But it’s hard to watch TV if you’re gonna keep changing the channel every two seconds.”

  “Okay, what do you want to watch? A movie?”

  “Um, yeah, okay.” I really didn’t want to watch anything but had looked forward to making love with Dylan as soon as we got home. But he obviously wasn’t on the same wavelength. I watched him on the sly. Something was definitely bothering him and he didn’t want to tell me. I didn’t feel like pressing the issue, though, sensing that doing so would only make things worse.

  “Okay, great,” Dylan said and got to his feet. “I have tons of movies in my laptop. Why don’t I go get it and we’ll pick one out together?”

  He disappeared into his home office before I got a chance to answer. He seemed as though he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. What the hell? I sat up and stared after him. What could I have said or done that had made him this way? It had to have something to do with me. I thought back to the moment when I’d returned to him with Nixon, pictured his face again. Had Ricki told him something about me that didn’t sit well with him? Ricki had a tendency to get a big mouth when she got drunk. And she’d been pretty drunk tonight… I found my phone in my bag and texted Ricki:

  Dylan’s acting totally weird. Did you tell him something that maybe you shouldn’t have? Plz be honest. I really need to know and I’m not mad either way.

  I doubted I’d get a prompt answer. It was almost one o’clock, which meant Ricki was probably already in bed, sleeping, having left an hour before Dylan and me. Invisible People had some event the following morning, so Ricki’s boss had wanted her to come in to work. Still, I figured it had been worth a try.

  Dylan appeared, carrying his laptop in his hands. He sat next to me and placed the laptop on the coffee table. He swiped the laptop’s touchpad, turning on the computer.

  “Okay, let’s see here,” he said. “What are you in the mood for? Something funny? A thriller? Scary?”

  He didn’t even want to look at me, I noted. Discomfort settled in my stomach. I quickly decided that I wouldn’t let it overtake me, so I pushed it away as best I could.

  “How about a romantic comedy?” I said. Watching something funny and romantic seemed to be the best bet in this situation. I turned his face toward mine and kissed his lips, only to feel him stiffen a touch at my move. I went cold. What was wrong with him? With the utmost effort, I made my voice light. “Or don’t you have any?”

  He cleared his voice. “Sure. I have some old Meg Ryan movies.” He pulled up a file on his computer. “Wanna watch Sleepless in Seattle?”

  I’d seen that movie a hundred times and was pretty tired of it, but at the moment I couldn’t care less. I just wanted to sit back and watch something that wouldn’t force me to focus too much. “Perfect!”

  He attached his laptop to his TV and soon either Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks or both were occupying the screen. I curled up, leaning into Dylan, who put an arm around me. He no longer felt stiff. I let out a silent exhale. Maybe by the end of the movie he would be back to normal.

  Dylan

  I stared at the huge flat screen TV, Sleepless in Seattle still in its opening scenes. I wasn’t a big fan of this old movie. The only reason it was on my computer was because I’d once downloaded it for my sister. She was a huge Meg Ryan fan. Unlike what I had hoped, the weird tension in my gut remained, having even gotten worse since we left my car. I didn’t feel like talking about it. All that would accomplish was putting a damper on the rest of our evening. It had already managed to do so, I could tell. As much as Nina wanted to pretend like she was relaxed, unbothered by my state of mind, it was obvious that she was. Her voice sounded tinny and her movements were jerky. I did my best to act normal, thinking that eventually the tension would leave me and we could go back to how we’d been earlier in the evening, happy, carefree. Though, I was in no mood to have sex right now. No matter how sexy I found the girl beside me, I feared I would never get it up the way I was feeling.

  At least not keep it up, and then I would have even more to worry about. I was well aware how sensitive this issue was to women, them often thinking they weren’t enough of a turn-on for their man. In Nina’s case, nothing could be further from the truth. I kept running my fingers through her silky hair, hoping this action would make her more at ease and also that it would keep me awake. The movie combined with the lateness of the hour had a sleeping-pill like effect on me. As the minutes passed, my eyelids got heavier and heavier, and soon, sleep was too much to fight back.

  When I opened my eyes again, the TV was off and the lamp on the side table I’d turned on when we’d first entered the living room was dark. Nina was no longer curled up beside me. I looked around the big room. The night sky lit by a million little lights in the city of Los Angeles shone through my floor-to-ceiling windows, giving me sufficient visibility of my surroundings. It was almost eerily still. .

  What time is it? And where is Nina? I pushed myself into a sitting position. She must have left when I fell asleep, not wanting to disturb me. Or maybe she had gotten annoyed that I had passed out when I had been the one who wanted to watch TV. I had a feeling I’d fallen asleep pretty much as soon as we started watching the movie. Given how easygoing a girl she was, she had probably just left.

  I got to my feet. There wasn’t much left to do but go to bed and fall asleep again. The nap seemed to have done me good, though, because the annoying tension in my stomach had disappeared and I felt much better. Sleepy, but normal. I wished that Nina was still here, wanting my arms around her. I sighed. I must have scared her off again. Damn, why can’t I act like a regular person around her, better control any strange moods that overtake me? Because that must be what had happened—a temporary onslaught of moodiness. Not that I often got moody, but there was no other explanation. So what that she didn’t tell me every little detail of her life? It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it had. I should have recognized what had happened for what it was—me feeling glum—maybe even have told Nina about it instead of pretending like everything was just fine.

  Well, it was too late now. Tomorrow I’d call her and then I’d apologize for acting so weird the night before.

  I walked toward my bedroom and despite my grogginess felt my cock throb at the thought of Nina naked and her legs spread wide, me sliding inside her, an image that had suddenly appeared in my head. Yeah, I was a total dolt, acting so uptight around her when we got home. I knew very well that she’d wanted us to go directly to bed and make love, not watch some stupid movie. So now I was paying for it.

  I entered my bedroom and my breath caught in my throat when I discovered Nina under my covers, sleeping. She looked so beautiful, calm and trusting with her arms over the covers, hands clasped together. Her long, dark tresses fanned out on the white pillow, making me think of a mermaid. A rush of happiness went through me at the sight. Tiptoeing, I went up to my bed and sat beside her.

  While I would love it if she suddenly woke up and threw the covers aside, asking me to take her, I didn’t want to disturb this picture of perfect rest and comfort. I stood back up, quietly removed my clothes and slid under the covers next to her and closed my eyes.

  Nina

  Dylan was sleeping soundly beside me when I woke up despite that the midmorning sun cast its light into his bedroom like sharp laser beams. Either he didn’t have any shades or he’d forgotten to pull them down before creeping into bed with me last night. I hadn’t heard a thing, which surprised me, given how restless I had felt when I’d slipped under his covers. Somehow, I had managed to completely pass out.
>
  I stretched out over the cushy mattress. Maybe it isn’t so strange. Dylan’s king-sized bed was the most comfortable thing I’d ever slept in. I smiled to myself. Yes, I could definitely get used to sleeping here every night.

  I turned to watch him sleep, utterly relaxed on his back. I was glad I had stayed instead of leaving like I’d first thought would’ve been best considering how weird he’d been acting. He probably wanted me gone when he woke up after falling asleep only fifteen minutes into Sleepless in Seattle. But then I’d not known how I’d get home, being all the way in the Hollywood Hills and having no car. A cab was much too expensive and it would be unfair to try to get one of my friends to come get me at two in the morning. So I’d stayed. If Dylan hadn’t wanted me to come to his place, he should have let me know earlier, not drive me all the way here and give me no way out.

  I dared him to wake up with my gaze, but he seemed too deep asleep for my telepathic attempts to have any affect. I soon gave up and decided to check my phone to see if Ricki had responded to my text. Crawling out of bed, I found my bag that I’d dropped by a chair and fished out my phone. It was almost ten, later than I’d thought. And there was a text waiting for me, having arrived twenty minutes earlier. Eagerly, I clicked on the button that opened it up:

  Not sure. Don’t think I told him anything he didn’t know already. We spoke a bit about the bullying but he knew about that already. I think. Was pretty drunk. What happened? You okay?

  I texted back: Yeah, I’m fine. He was just acting so weird yesterday. But maybe it was nothing. Am at his house and he’s still asleep. Keep you posted about what happens.

  Please DO.

  Feeling like someone was looking at me, I put my smartphone in my bag and turned around. Dylan had woken and was lying sideways, resting his head on his propped-up hand. There was a groggy look on his face and his honey-blond hair was pointing in all directions, making him look a little crazy. He gave me a pleased grin.