Book Boyfriend (Someday #5) (11 page)

He raised himself up on his elbows. God, he looked impossibly handsome.

“Good point,” he conceded, but he didn’t sound happy about it.

Neither was I. But neither one of us would benefit from our grades going to shit, so it had to be done.

I swiped my phone and entered my password. Then I pressed the icon to bring up my text message.

“Oh, fuck,” I groaned.

He laughed, stretching his arms above his head as he lay back on the pillow. “I know you’re saying that because you’re not happy about whatever you see on your phone, but I can’t help it. Seeing you standing there naked and groaning, ‘Oh, fuck,’ is sexy as hell,” he said lightly.

I held the phone up to him. “It’s my parents,” I said flatly.

“Hmm. Distinctly less sexy,” he agreed.

“They’re in town,” I explained. “They came in as a surprise. They want to have dinner.”

“And getting less sexy by the moment.”

“Yeah. Trust me. It’s not gonna be any fun,” I said, pulling my clothes back on.

He stood up from the bed and began to get dressed as well. “Well, I guess we’ll find out,” he said, smiling.

I stopped in my tracks and looked at him. “Do you want to come with me?” I asked, surprised. “Would you do that?

“Hell yes,” he confirmed. “Where you go, I go, babe. Plus, with me along, maybe it will be fun. I’ll be moral support.”

I laughed. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself. You might be magic, but even Harry freakin’ Potter couldn’t make this night fun.” I wrapped my arms around his waist. “But you have no idea how much it means to me that you’re coming with me. Seriously.”

He kissed the top of my head. His voice was full of affection when he spoke. “Like I said, babe. Where you go, I go.”

Michelle

M
y hands shook
as Sebastian and I walked up to the restaurant door. It was amazing how quickly a day could turn on a dime. Only an hour ago, this had been the most magical day of my life. Then, with the snap of a finger—well, the chime of a text message, at any rate—it had all changed. Now, we were headed in to do the thing I dreaded most in life: spend time with Douchebag Dan.

I gave our names to the maître d’, and then Sebastian and I followed him as he wove through the dining room. When I spotted Dan and my mother at a far table, I gave them a tight smile and a wave. My mom’s face lit up when she saw me, and her hand shot in the air to wave.

Warmth spread in my heart. I loved her so much. That’s why it hurt me so much to see how Dan had dimmed her fire.

As if he could read my mind, Dan leveled a disapproving stare at my mom and grabbed her wrist to pull it down. After he’d leaned in toward her and whispered angrily, she cast her eyes to the table and hunched her shoulders like a naughty child accepting a scolding.

Fuck. I really hated him enough to almost
kill
him the majority of the time, and the feeling was only heightened when he pulled dick moves like that one.

Sebastian placed his hand on my hip in support as we continued toward the table. While we were still out of earshot, he bent down to me and whispered, “Holy shit, your stepdad really
is
an asshole, huh?”

I gave him a quick, mirthless smile before whispering back, “I prefer cocksucker, but, yes. Yes, he is.”

Sebastian and I sat at the table, and I flashed a quick smile toward my mom, hoping Dan wouldn’t notice and say something caustic. I was going to do my best not to let him ruin my night, but that would be a lot easier if he would cooperate by not being a total dickhead.

We exchanged introductions, and then Dan unfolded his napkin, snapping it pretentiously, and laid it across his lap.

“I couldn’t help but notice that you weren’t at the hotel where the debate competition was being held when your mother and I dropped in. If I’m not mistaken, attending the competition was the point of this entire trip, wasn’t it? Not to mention a mandatory requirement of the class?”

Well. He certainly blew the whole “not being a total dickhead” thing right out of the gate. I wanted to scream, “I am a grown-ass woman! You do not get to tell me where I have to be anymore!”

But, of course, that would have hurt and upset my mom, so I gritted my teeth and struggled to keep the frustration out of my voice as I answered, “No, we weren’t at the hotel. We stepped out to do some sightseeing.”

My mom smiled. “Oh, that sounds lovely, honey!”

Dan sent her a withering glare, and the smile died on her lips.

He grumbled, “Sightseeing? Glad my money’s going to good use.”

I plastered on a tight smile and replied in an even tighter voice, “My school is paid for with scholarships, grants, and work study. I don’t know if your money goes to good use or not, but it doesn’t go to me, so whether or not I go sightseeing is irrelevant to your personal finances.”

Dan narrowed his eyes at me, but before he could respond, my mom interjected in her smoothly cheerful way, “Sebastian, we’re so happy to meet you. I want to know all about you. Now, how did you two meet?”

Sebastian seemed relieved for he and my mom take over the bulk of the conversational duties, keeping Dan and I from interacting. For my part, I kept my mouth shut as much as possible so as not to bait Dan into snorting derisively or shooting my mom a dirty look. He did those things throughout dinner anyway, but it seemed like the sound of my voice was a real trigger for his condescension. So, with that in mind, I attempted to remove it from the equation as much as possible.

As the dinner went on, sadness grew in my heart. It wasn’t like this tense back-and-forth between the three of us was an unusual occurrence or anything. Nah, this had basically been every night of the week when I was in junior high and high school. This night was nothing special.

The thing that made it different was being there with Sebastian. All night, I kept watching Dan and my mom, and then me and Sebastian. I tried to draw some sort of conclusion. I just couldn’t figure it out. Dan had to have looked at her once the way Sebastian looked at me now, right? Like she’d hung the moon and her eyes were the stars? What had happened? When had he started thinking every clever, fun, creative thing she did or said was stupid? When had she started agreeing with him?

When had she started making herself small so that he could feel bigger?

The acid knot in my belly grew steadily all night until, by the time we said goodbye, I didn’t know if I could even stand—I felt
that
sick to my stomach. As we prepared to part ways on the sidewalk, I wrapped my mom up in my arms and held on extra tight. I didn’t want to let her go.

“I love you,” I whispered as if it were the last time I would ever see her. “You’re the best. Seriously, Mom. You’re the coolest, smartest, funniest mom in the world.”

When I drew back, she had tears in her eyes. She looked taken aback at the praise, and that filled me with guilt. As much as I hated Dan for putting her down, I hadn’t ever done my part to build her up, either. I vowed to change that.

She touched the side of my face, her eyes shimmering. “You’re the best girl,” she said, her voice a tight-throated rasp.

Dan, of course, fucked up the moment by rolling his eyes and clearing his throat loudly as he looked at his watch. That broke the spell, and my mom glanced at him nervously.

“Sorry, honey,” she rushed out even though she hadn’t done anything wrong.

And, with that, they headed off down the street.

I thought I might vomit.

Sebastian wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close as we walked toward the hotel. He kissed the top of my head.

“That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”

Ice filled my veins. When he said that it “wasn’t so bad,” he meant that it hadn’t erupted into a screaming match or anything. However, it scared the shit out of me that he had witnessed Dan’s treatment my mom and could characterize it as “wasn’t so bad.”

All I could do was wonder how long it would be until everything Sebastian thought was so adorable about me right now turned into annoyances he’d try to stamp out. I wondered how long it would be until I let him. Until I was trying to beat him to the punch by smoothing out everything unique or memorable thing about me to make myself bland and palatable.

God, I couldn’t stand the thought of living a life where all I tried to do, day in and day out, was curl myself up into a metaphorical ball. To try to be tiny and unnoticeable. That was
death
. Everything inside me railed against that possibility.

Sebastian must have felt me stiffen, because he stopped walking and put his hands on my upper arms, turning me to face him. “What’s wrong?” he asked, searching my face.

“How long will you like me the way I am?” I blurted out, my voice trembling. “How long until you just want me to be
normal
, like everyone else?”

He glanced away for a moment, his expression thoughtful, and then back to me. He looked unbearably sad, and I couldn’t stand that I had done that to him. But I had to know.

He took my hands in his and spoke solemnly. “Miche, I don’t know what more I can say to convince you of the way I feel. First, it was why do I like you, and now, it’s how long will I like you. And I get it. Believe me. I get how hard it must be for you to trust. And, after tonight, I get it even more than I did before.

“But the truth is, there’s nothing more I can say that will convince you of my heart until you know within yourself that you
are
good enough. All of my words will be nothing but empty promises to your ears unless you already know that deep inside.”

He drew me to him and held me tight. I felt like I would shatter. I recognized the embrace. It was the one I had just given my mother. It was the way you held someone when you were afraid you were seeing them for the last time.

He pulled back and looked into my eyes. “Come on. Let’s get you back to the hotel. I think maybe I should drive back on my own tomorrow. That maybe you need some time to think. Away from me.”

Everything inside me screamed that it wasn’t true, that I needed
him
, not time away from him.

Everything, that was, except for the part of my mind and my heart that recognized the truth in his words.

I nodded, and we continued on the long, wordless walk back to the hotel.

Sebastian

“D
ude, seriously? You
are bumming me the fuck out. Do you plan on, maybe, I don’t know…leaving the room today? I know that’s a radical idea. But just consider it for a moment. Also consider that foods other than Cup O’ Noodle exist in the world. If you just, ya know…leave the room to go get them.”

“Jackson, f’real, shut the fuck up.”

He whistled low and disapprovingly. “God damn, dude. I never thought I’d see the day.”

He was obviously fishing for me to ask him what day he was talking about. And I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but the longer the silence stretched on, the more annoyed I became.

Finally, I rolled my eyes and said, “Fine. Fuck. I’ll bite. What day?”

He grunted. “The day that Sebastian Winters was so pussy-whipped that he stopped living his fucking life because a girl wouldn’t return his texts.”

I sighed. It was true. I had expected to spend the hours on the drive back to Arcata apart from Miche. I had thought we would talk again that night when we got home. That we would iron everything out and things would go back to normal. But nope. It had been almost a week now, and I hadn’t heard from her. Not one word.

I was about to respond to Jackson when he interrupted me with a groan.

“God damn it, stop sighing! I swear to God, it’s like I’m at my junior high school sister’s slumber party and they’re watching fuckin’
Twilight
all the time with the nonstop sighing and melodramatic shit that’s been going on in here! Now—and listen closely, compadre, because this is a one-time offer—if you want to talk, talk. Now. I’ll listen. If you don’t, don’t. That’s fine too. But if you choose ‘don’t,’ then you’ve gotta get your shit together and pull your ass out of this funk on your own. I-fucking-mmediately. I’m pulling the roommate card, man. I’ve let you stew in your own juices for a week. It’s enough.”

I didn’t answer. After a week’s worth of moping around, doing nothing but listening to Seether on my headphones, I knew he was right. I was ready to snap out of it too. I just hadn’t been able to summon up enough momentum to break the inertia of my downward spiral on my own.

“I definitely don’t want to ‘talk about my feelings.’ I’m not that far gone.”

Jackson looked distinctly relieved. “Fine. Well, what are you gonna do, then? If you want my advice, I’ve always found getting shitfaced to be a solid strategy.”

“Nah. Not my style. I think I’m gonna go work out.”

“There ya go. Sweat out those demons.”

“Yeah. Maybe go for a jog, combine the endorphins with the fresh air.”

“That oughta do you good. Shit, before you know it, it’ll be like you never even met this girl.”

“That’s placing a lot of pressure on one run around campus.”

Jackson grinned. “I’m nothing if not an optimist.”

I laced my running shoes up and tried to get myself mentally pumped about the idea of getting my muscles moving, losing myself in the hypnotic rhythm of my feet pounding the pavement in a steady beat. My heart rate rising, sweat breaking out on my skin… But that made images, completely unbidden, of Miche and me, in bed, naked, pop into my mind. Our bodies pressed against each other, her skin so smooth and creamy under my hands, her head thrown back and her eyes closed in pleasure…

“Come on,” Jackson groaned. “What’s with the fucking sighing again?”

Yeah. He was definitely right. It was beyond time for me to get out of my head. I was an athlete, damn it. I had been trained to make my body perform to capacity regardless of what my thoughts or emotions were telling me to do. I was going to employ that training now and push my muscles to the limit, using the exertion to switch up my headspace. One thing was for sure—I had proved that sitting around eating Cup O’ Noodle wasn’t going to get me out of my head. Time to try a different strategy.