“The rich fucks who own everything? Yeah, you’ve told us.” Brian snorts.
I chuck an empty beer can at him, but he ducks it. “Essentially, yes. By a completely freak accident of events, I got this letter at my college house. It wasn’t addressed to anyone, but came from my freshman year English teacher from high school. So I opened it—”
“Was this teacher a hot chick? Was it full of nudes?” Evan again, still not making eye contact.
I roll mine. “The teacher was a dude, and this is not that kind of story. Also, who sends nudes in the mail anymore?”
Brian chuckles. “He has a point, Ev.”
Gio jiggles his cell phone in the air. “All the nudes I need are on here.”
“Yeah, your own.” I laugh. “Anyway, I opened it, and it ended up not being mine. It was actually Taya’s, but I didn’t realize it until the end. I read the thing, and she … uh, well, she gushes about me.”
“In the letter?” Brian looks confused. “But how?”
“Well, I guess she’s always had a crush on me, but I didn’t realize that. Then I got that letter—”
“And you invaded her privacy and read it.” That one’s Evan, who still hasn’t looked at me instead of the TV.
My gut clenches. “Yeah, I know I did.”
“Dude, that’s kind of weird.” Gio eyes me, cocking his head to the side. “She was like, obsessed with you?”
“She really manifested that shit, huh?” Brian chimes in.
“It’s like if you were a famous person or something. Some girl had your posters in her bedroom, and now you’re dating her. It’s like … what’s that movie? Single White Female?”
Evan doesn’t understand that in Webton, I kind of am famous. That’s not cocky, it’s just stating a fact.
“No, none of that.” I buzz their words away like they’re annoying gnats. “I mean, I was freaked out about it. But now I’m not. I’m sure we all had embarrassing crushes when we were freshman.”
“Yeah, I was into Demi Lovato. But I’m not currently pursuing her,” Gio hedges.
“I’d just be careful, man.” Evan finally sets his controller down. “With a girl like that, there will be a ton of expectations. She might not be voicing them now, but she’s thought about this for a long time. You’ve been telling us that a commitment is the last thing you want. Actually, you’ve always said that. This girl? She’s a whole-ass commitment.”
My heart stammers in my chest, as if it’s trying to defend what Taya and I have but can’t form the words. They just don’t get it; they don’t know how we’ve passed it, and how much I’ve discovered about her when I really got to know her.
Brian whistles low. “Damn, since when did you go all therapist on us?”
Gio shrugs. “Ev kind of has a point, though. There is always something left to be desired when you think you’re more into the person than they are into you. It gives the whole thing … excitement, I guess. With that letter, you know all of her cards. And when you can’t play the hand she wants dealt, what’s going to happen?”
“So I should want someone who isn’t as into me?” I chuckle, but it has a bitter tone to it.
“Not what I’m saying. Hey, man, you’re the one who brought this up.” Gio backs off, both verbally and physically.
He walks across the room, and part of me wonders why I told them in the first place. Gio’s statement is ignorant. I’ve never wanted a girl who plays games, even if my friends do.
But in the back of my mind, haven’t I thought some of the same things? Spending so much time with her has made me see just how unique and special of a person she is. There is still that pressure, though, the one I feel I need to measure up to to be the guy she wrote about in that letter. And my own insecurities about my hometown and who my family is … that’s not easily quieted.
I’m leaving Talcott University in just over a month. And then we’ll be hours away, for years to come, if we decide to stay together.
The thought of Taya with someone else makes me want to punch one of the nasty walls in this house. But thinking about her comparing me to that fantasy guy when I can’t be here for her?
I’m beginning to think that might be worse.
27
Austin
“Do we really need this many pillows in the bed?”
I pull one out from where it’s wedged under my back. “Jeez, let’s go up to my room and sleep there.”
The woman sleeps with a zillion pillows, so many that there is barely room for the two of us on the mattress.
Taya hugs one to her naked chest. “They make me feel super comfy. Less lonely.”
Beautiful, bare, and makeup free, she straddles my waist and hits me gently in the cheek with a pillow.
I flip her over, and she squeals. My teeth nip over her earlobe, and I whisper, “You don’t ever need to feel lonely in this bed again. I’m here.”
I’m not sure what I’m doing or where this is going. After my talk with my friends yesterday, Gio and I went to the radio station to do our show. I was distracted the entire time, called the wrong score of the tennis match, and flubbed a few other things. I was off my game, and my radio partner seemed judgmental. As if our conversation at his house, and my love life, contributed to it. Which in turn, made me panic, because if I was freaking out while doing my job at my college radio station, what would I be doing in my professional career if Taya and I stay together.
I’m not sure where I’ll be in a month, but I won’t be at Talcott. I swore up and down that during senior year, I wasn’t getting into anything. I don’t want a long-distance relationship, and if New York City works out, I’ll have to focus all of my energy on busting my ass just to live because my family will cut me off.
Everything I’ve ever told myself I don’t want, that’s what Taya is. Younger, from my hometown, will have to stay at college when I leave, knows exactly who my family is, and what my last name means. The letter she wrote in freshman English should have been the biggest turnoff, but it’s like we breezed right past it.
Because … she’s her. There is something that draws me to her subconsciously; I don’t even know I’m leaning in or kissing her or walking to pick her up from whatever building she just had class in until I’m actually doing it.
My friend’s words echo in my head, but I push them away. It’s just another Thursday night, camped out in her room after our first round of sex. I’ll probably wander downstairs for a snack, we’ll fuck some more, and then I’ll fall asleep with her in my arms. It’s been our routine for weeks now, and I wish I could live in this bubble without having to answer any of the hard questions.
“Mmm, and you’re not going anywhere.” She kisses up and down my neck, purring into my ear.
Beneath her, my cock begins to harden, and I grind her down onto it. I’m insatiable when it comes to her, and we can never seem to get enough.
My phone rings, and she groans a complaint. I reach up to kiss her, to not let the call invade our foreplay, but it keeps ringing.