Beautiful Disaster 01 (27 page)

Parker shifted in his seat. He was working up to something. “Abby? There’s a date party in a couple weekends at the House.…”

I inwardly cringed, dreading the discussion we would inevitably have.

“What?” he asked, chuckling nervously.

“I can’t go with you,” I said, letting myself out of the car.

He followed, meeting me at the Morgan entrance. “You have plans?”

I winced. “I have plans…Travis already asked me.”

“Travis asked you what?”

“To the date party,” I explained, a bit frustrated.

Parker’s face flushed, and he shifted his weight. “You’re going to the date party with
Travis
? He doesn’t go to those things. And you’re just friends. It doesn’t make sense for you to go with him.”

“America wouldn’t go with Shep unless I went.”

He relaxed. “Then you can go with me,” he smiled, intertwining his fingers in mine.

I grimaced at his solution. “I can’t cancel with Travis, and then go with you.”

“I don’t see the problem,” he shrugged. “You can be there for America, and Travis will get out of having to go. He is a staunch advocate for doing away with date parties. He thinks it’s a platform for our girlfriends to force us to declare a relationship.”

“It was me that didn’t want to go. He talked me into it.”

“Now you have an excuse,” he shrugged. He was maddeningly confident that I was going to change my mind.

“I didn’t want to go at
all
.”

Parker’s patience had run out. “I just want to be clear; you
don’t
want to go to the date party. Travis
wants
to go, he asked you, and you won’t cancel with him to go with me, even though you didn’t want to go in the first place?”

I had a hard time meeting his glare. “I can’t do that to him, Parker, I’m sorry.”

“Do you understand what a date party is? It’s something you go to with your boyfriend.”

His patronizing tone made any empathy I’d felt for him disappear. “Well, I don’t have a boyfriend, so technically I shouldn’t go at all.”

“I thought we were going to try again. I thought we had something.”

“I
am
trying.”

“What do you expect me to do? Sit at home alone while you’re at my fraternity’s date party with someone else? Should I ask another girl?”

“You can do what you want,” I said, irritated with his threat.

He looked up and shook his head. “I don’t want to ask another girl.”

“I don’t expect you not to go to your own party. I’ll see you there.”

“You
want
me to ask someone else? And you’re going with
Travis
. Do you not see how completely absurd that is?”

I crossed my arms, ready for a fight. “I told him I would go before you and I ever went out, Parker. I can’t cancel on him.”

“You can’t, or you don’t want to?”

“Same difference. I’m sorry that you don’t understand.” I pulled the door open to Morgan, and Parker put his hand on mine.

“All right,” he sighed in resignation. “This is obviously an issue I’m going to have to work through. Travis is one of your best friends, I
do
understand that. I don’t want it to affect our relationship. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, nodding.

He opened the door and gestured me to walk through, kissing my cheek before I walked inside. “See you Wednesday at six?”

“Six,” I smiled, waving as I walked up the stairs.

America was walking out of the shower room when I turned the corner, and her eyes brightened when she recognized me. “Hey, chickie! How’d it go?”

“It went,” I said, deflated.

“Uh oh.”

“Don’t tell Travis, okay?”

She huffed. “I won’t. What happened?”

“Parker asked me to the date party.”

America tightened her towel. “You’re not bailing on Trav, are you?”

“No, and Parker’s not happy about it.”

“Understandable,” she said, nodding. “It’s also too damn bad.”

America pulled the strands of her long, wet hair over one shoulder, and drops of water trickled down her bare skin. She was a walking contradiction. She applied to Eastern so we could move together. She was my self-proclaimed conscience, intent on stepping in when I gave into my imbedded tendencies to fly off track. It went against everything we talked about for me to get involved with Travis, and she had become his overly-enthusiastic cheerleader.

I leaned against the wall. “Would you be mad if I didn’t go at all?”

“No, I would be unbelievably and irrevocably pissed off. That’s grounds for a full blown cat fight, Abby.”

“Then I guess I’m going,” I said, shoving my key in the lock. My cell phone rang, and a picture of Travis making a funny face appeared on the display. “Hello?”

“You home, yet?”

“Yeah, he dropped me off about five minutes ago.”

“I’ll be there in five more.”

“Wait! Travis?” I said after he’d hung up.

America laughed. “You just had a disappointing date with Parker, and you smiled when Travis called. Are you really that dense?”

“I didn’t smile,” I protested. “He’s coming here. Will you meet him outside and tell him I went to bed?”

“You did, too, and no…go tell him yourself.”

“Yes, Mare, me going out there to tell him I’m in bed is
so
gonna work.” She turned her back to me, walking to her room. I threw up my hands, letting them fall to my thighs. “Mare! Please?”

“Have fun, Abby,” she smiled, disappearing into her room.

I walked down the stairs to see Travis on his motorcycle, parked at the front steps. He wore a white t-shirt with black artwork, setting off the tattoos on his arms.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked, tugging my jacket tighter.

“You look nice. Did you have a good time?”

“Uh…yeah, thanks,” I said, distracted. “What are you doing here?”

He pulled back the throttle, and the engine snarled. “I was going to take a ride to clear my head. I want you to come with me.”

“It’s cold, Trav.”

“You want me to go get Shep’s car?”

“We’re going bowling tomorrow. Can’t you wait until then?”

“I went from being with you every second of the day to seeing you for ten minutes if I’m lucky.”

I smiled and shook my head. “It’s only been two days, Trav.”

“I miss you. Get your ass on the seat and let’s go.”

I couldn’t argue. I missed him, too. More than I would ever admit to him. I zipped up my jacket and climbed on behind him, slipping my fingers through the belt loops of his jeans. He pulled my wrists to his chest and then folded them across one another. Once he was satisfied that I was holding him tightly enough, he took off, racing down the road.

I rested my cheek against his back and closed my eyes, breathing in his scent. It reminded me of his apartment, and his sheets, and the way he smelled when he walked around with a towel around his waist. The city blurred past us, and I didn’t care how fast he was driving, or how cold the wind was as it whipped across my skin; I wasn’t even paying attention to where we were. The only thing I could think about was his body against mine. We had no destination or time frame, and we drove the streets long after they had been abandoned by everyone but us.

Travis pulled into a gas station and parked. “You want anything?” he asked.

I shook my head, climbing off the bike to stretch my legs. He watched me rake my fingers through the tangles in my hair, and smiled.

“Quit it. You’re fucking beautiful.”

“Just point me to the nearest eighties rock video,” I said.

He laughed, and then yawned, swatting at the moths that buzzed around him. The nozzle clicked, sounding louder than it should in the quiet night. We seemed to be the only two people on earth.

I pulled out my cell phone to check the time. “Oh my God, Trav. It’s three in the morning.”

“You wanna go back?” he asked, his face shadowed with disappointment.

I pressed my lips together. “We better.”

“We’re still going bowling tonight?”

“I told you I would.”

“And you’re still going to Sig Tau with me in a couple weeks, right?”

“Are you insinuating that I don’t follow through? I find that a little insulting.”

He pulled the nozzle from his tank and hooked it on its base. “I just never know what you’re going to do anymore.”

He sat on his bike and helped me to climb on behind him. I hooked my fingers in his belt loops and then thought better of it, wrapping my arms around him.

He sighed and leaned the bike upright, reluctant to start the engine. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the handle bars. He took a breath, beginning to speak, and then shook his head.

“You’re important to me, you know,” I said, squeezing him.

“I don’t understand you, Pigeon. I thought I knew women, but you’re so fucking confusing I don’t know which way is up.”

“I don’t understand you, either. You’re supposed to be Eastern’s ladies’ man. I’m not getting the full freshmen experience they promised in the brochure,” I teased.

“Well, that’s a first. I’ve never had a girl sleep with me to get me to leave her alone,” he said, keeping his back to me.

“That’s not what it was, Travis,” I lied, ashamed that he had guessed my intentions without realizing how right he was.

He shook his head and started the engine, pulling out onto the street. He drove uncharacteristically slow, stopping at all the yellow lights, taking the long way to campus.

When we pulled in front of the entrance of Morgan Hall, the same sadness I felt the night I left the apartment consumed me. It knew it was ridiculous to be so emotional, but each time I did something to push him away, I was terrified it would work.