Love on the Rocks Box Set

I’ll Take the Rain-2

Afterwards, when the party has dispersed and the empty bottles are hidden in the trash, he sits at the study desk on his side of the room we share. He no longer looks at me. We live together off-campus, sharing a place with a girl a few years ahead of us who is in no real danger of graduating any time soon. This is only my second semester, but he’s been here a while now and is so serious sometimes, it hurts.

It hurts us.

He’s my first in every way. First friend, even, if you’ll believe it. We grew up next door to each other, and my mother used to ask him to watch me when she ran out to the store. He’s five years older than me but was held back in the third grade because he was home in bed with mono that year. The age difference is there but he doesn’t seem all that much older than me. He was my first kiss, my first handjob, my first blow, and sooner or later, my first love.

When he went away to college, it damn near broke my heart. I cried myself to sleep each night after we got off the phone. I wanted him, needed him, and didn’t even bother applying to any other school. I had my sights set on his.

On him.

Now, this. The two of us alone, finally, after a long day and an even longer night, but so far, he’s ignoring me. Where I sit on the bed we share, I nurse a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, practically choking it down, glancing over after every bite to see if he’s looking at me yet.

He isn’t.

He isn’t talking, either. He seems so far away, so distant, lost in his own thoughts. Talk to me, I want to say, but he doesn’t. Anything for his words, his touch. Please?

After a long moment, I clear my throat and hold out the sandwich like a peace offering. “Do you want a bite?”

He shakes his head without looking up from the book in front of him. No words. What did I say to bring on this silent treatment? What did I do?

I don’t know. Hell, it doesn’t take much anymore, does it? And he won’t tell me, not until he’s ready. If I’m lucky, he’ll say something when we go to bed, and maybe I won’t have to sleep alone on the couch downstairs. If he tells me why he’s mad, maybe I can apologize and sleep with him tonight. If he gives me the chance.

Minutes stretch like taffy between us. I force down the last bite of my sandwich, holding onto the dim hope he’ll want it instead of me, but he doesn’t. I finish my glass of water and think about brushing my teeth. Peanut butter isn’t all that great a chaser for champagne. My mouth tastes sour and it’s getting late.

As if he realizes the time, he pushes his chair back from his desk and stretches. I watch him openly, waiting for his gaze to turn my way, but it doesn’t. He stands, pushes in the chair, and heads for the door.

I catch his hand before he can make it past the bed. “Wait.”

He shrugs me off. “Was it worth it?” he asks, his deep voice quiet. He always speaks so quietly when it’s just us.

I’m not sure what he means. “Come here,” I say, reaching out to hold him.

He pulls away. “Tonight. The girls.”

There it is. He’s mad at that. “Seriously? You know I’m not interested in them.”

He pulls off his T-shirt and balls it into a fist before tossing it aside. I start to reach for the bare expanse of his back, but I stop myself before my fingers touch him. I know better. I don’t want him to move away from me—I don’t need that rejection, so blatant, so stinging.

“You had to shake up the bottles, didn’t you?” he asks as he unzips his jeans. “Had to get her t**s wet, didn’t you?”

It isn’t just the girls, I know. It’s sneaking the booze on campus in the first place, and taking all the credit for the party, and hobnobbing with the chicks, and rubbing up against them, and…who knows? Maybe I looked at someone a little funny. Maybe he thought I flirted with someone—male, female, it doesn’t matter who. The point is I invited him to come along and in the end didn’t really spend time with him. Instead, I had to be the life of the party.

He kicks off his shoes and shucks down his pants, his back still to me. I feel a tiny, ignoble pout begin to tug at my mouth as I watch him undress. It’s like I’m not even here with him. As if I don’t exist.

It isn’t until he pulls down the covers on his side of the bed that he asks, “You can do miracles?”

I close my eyes against a sudden sting of tears. My chin trembles. “I was only kidding. I didn’t mean it like that—”

“There’s only one person I know of who can do miracles,” he says, twisting the word until it hangs sharp and dangerous between them. “Do you know who I’m talking about?”

“God.”

The word is barely a whisper—it might be an answer, or it might be an epithet. At this point, I’m not sure which. When I swallow, I’m almost afraid I might choke.

He crawls beneath the bed sheets. “So you think you’re God, is that it?”

Same quiet voice. Same soft words. Damn him.

“No,” I admit.

“Remember that.”

I open my eyes and sigh. Sure, okay, I’m not God. I get it. But when I start to crawl onto my side of the bed, he says, “Not tonight.”

I didn’t even get a chance to apologize. On my way out, I whisper, “I’m sorry.”

Does he hear me or not? Does it even matter?

* * * *

Morning finds me asleep on the couch downstairs, lying on my stomach using one of the cushions as a pillow. I wake to warm hands caressing my stomach and damp kisses on the back of my neck. “Wake up, baby,” he purrs in my ear.

I lift my head to find him leaning above me, his eyes as light as the morning sun filtering into the room through the half-closed blinds. With a smile, he kisses the tip of my nose. “What are you doing down here all by yourself?”

It’s a rhetorical question—I know better than to answer it. Instead I let his lips cover mine as his tender kisses and gentle hands erase the previous evening. Don’t make me sleep alone again, I think, but for some reason, I can’t say the words out loud.

Climbing onto my back, he pins me down and straddles my hips. His hands rub over the scruff of my hair, and I can feel his arousal press against the small of my back. “She’s gone to class,” he says, meaning our roommate. “Does a certain sexy someone want to show his boyfriend how much he loves him this morning?”

“I’m not all that sexy,” I murmur, turning beneath him. He pushes himself up on his hands and knees to let me roll over. Then my hands trail up his body, poking at his navel before tracing the slim muscles in his stomach. I pick at the ruddy n*****s, feeling his d**k jerk in response against my belly. In a small, hopefully non-confrontational voice, I ask, “Can I say I’m sorry now?”

“For what?” he asks, though he knows. I know he knows. He just wants to hear me say it.

But I won’t. It’s too early for this. So instead I pout and toy with the waistband of his boxers, opening and closing the top snap, waiting for him to say something, maybe even change the subject.

When I don’t speak, he climbs off in a huff. I grab hold of his boxers and let him drag me into a sitting position as he stands. “No,” I tell him. “No, I’m sorry. Please don’t…”

He slaps my hand away from his crotch.

“Please,” I say again. “Let’s get back to where we were—”

But he’s already in the bathroom, and the door slams between us like an accusation. Tired, I fall back to the sofa and roll against the cushions, pressing my face into them. I always mess things up between us, don’t I? Why do I do that? Why do I constantly manage to drive us apart?

* * * *

Lunchtime we’re in the caff on campus with a group of friends—a guy he knows from the school paper, a nerdy kid with glasses who was in my English 101 class, our roommate. She sits beside me and has a funny way of slightly leaning against me when she talks. Even though I don’t catch him looking, I know he is. I should move away—it’d make things easier, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the pillowy softness of her breasts.

“I hear the party was the bomb,” she says, pressing against me. “Wish I could’ve made it.”

I laugh and promise, “There’s always next weekend. I can hook us up with some more booze, maybe a little weed, see what I can get.”

Her eyelashes flutter as she gives me a coy grin. “Where do you get these things?”

With a wink, I tell her, “I have my ways. I’m like a genie in a bottle. Rub me the right way and I’ll grant your every wish.”

She giggles into her salad. “You’re so bad.”

I’m flirting, I know it, right in front of him, too, but I can’t stop myself. I can’t keep my damn mouth shut. “Most people say that’s the best thing about me.”

Across the table, he looks up at me, just a fleeting glance, but it’s enough to make my smile slip. Why do I always go a step too far? Now I’ll sleep alone again tonight and whose fault is it?

Mine. Damn me.

Later, in the restroom before we head to class, I wait by the sink as he uses the urinal. He hasn’t said anything to me yet, and frankly, I don’t blame him. I watch his back reflected in the mirror and pray for him to look up, acknowledge me, something so I can apologize.

He doesn’t. I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t say s**t to me, either, to be honest.

Finally he zips up and comes over to use the sink beside mine. Quietly, I mutter, “I didn’t mean it.”

For a long moment he doesn’t speak. I’m almost afraid he won’t. I’m afraid he’ll simply ignore me as if I’m not even there. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” he says, washing his hands.

I sigh, relieved. “Good. I—”

“It’s okay,” he continues, his voice soft. “I know you don’t think when you talk.”

That stings, but I guess I deserve it. “I’m sorry,” I say again. Before he can move away, I take his wet hand and raise it to my lips to kiss the damp knuckles. “I love you.”

He frowns at me in the mirror but doesn’t answer.

Damn him. Would it be so hard to say the words back? “Please. I said I was sorry.”

“I know.” But he squeezes my hand, and it’s enough that he’s talking to me again, isn’t it? It’s enough he doesn’t pull away.