Bound to Accept (2 page)

“
Twilight
Sparkle,” I say, forcing myself to tear my eyes
away from his broad, sexy chest. “God, you can't even get the name
right. You're hopeless.”

“
Lost cause,” he
agrees.

“
What can I say?” I shrug
modestly, straightening out the shirt. “I guess I'm a total pony
girl.”

Tristan snorts loudly enough that several of
the Tapioca Barn patrons look over. He hides his grin behind his
fist. “Don't say that.”

“
What, pony
girl?”

He shakes his head slowly. “It doesn't mean
what you think it means.”

“
And what does it mean,
Inigo Montoya?” I nudge him in the shoulder, an excuse to touch
him, to feel the firm muscles in his shoulders, when what I really
want to do is kiss him and run my hands down his chest. His
bare
chest.

Why do I do this to myself? Why?

Tristan doesn't answer me. There's a flush
in his cheeks, though, so I realize that it must mean something
sexual—and it's kinky enough that he doesn't want to say what it
means aloud where anyone around us could hear. I resolve to Google
it as soon as I get home.

He changes the subject, rapping his knuckles
on the table. “What do you want? I dragged you out here, I'm
buying.”

“
Let's see…” I stare at
the board of flavors. “I'll have a taro milk tea with large tapioca
balls and coffee jelly.”

If he's buying, I can let myself pretend
this is a date.

I watch him stand in line,
and chat with the Asian barista. She's cute. I wonder if that's his
type? Small, cute, petite girls?
Not
large, curvy girls like me. Hmm. Ashlee isn't
tiny
, but she's a lot skinnier than
I am.

God, his ass looks good in those jeans.

He's coming over, and I busy myself with my
phone. He sets down my taro milk tea, which is a bright lavender. I
see that he's gotten himself a plain latte. No jelly, no bubbles,
no stars. “That's no fun.”

“
You're such a kid,” he
says, almost affectionately.

“
No. I'm just confident in
my adulthood.” I take a long sip of my boba tea, making sure I get
jelly and tapioca alike in one mouthful. “You're not very
adventurous, are you?”

He stirs his latte, making ribbons of milk
swirl through the coffee. “That depends.”

On what?
I suck a clod of jelly through the straw and chew
it contentedly. Since he isn't going to elaborate, I ask him, “What
did you want to talk to me about?”

Tristan sighs. “I broke things off with
Ashlee.”

He did? “But you two had a date.”

“
It didn't go well,” he
admits. “Things went sour at the end. At first, I was going to let
her go, but now I'm having second thoughts.”

Second thoughts?
Second
thoughts
?
“Why do you say that?” I ask, keeping my voice level.
You fool.
If this were a
movie, I'd kiss him now and make him see reason.

He runs his hands over his face. I want to
do that.

So.

So.

Badly.

“
She understood
me.”
So the sex was good.
“But she didn't want the same things I
did.”
Clingy? Wouldn't let him do her in
the butt?
I don't think I would let a guy
do me in the butt, either. Butt holes are like a one-way street;
they were made that way for a reason.

It's not like he's constantly asking me to
coach him through breakups, though. In spite of the emotional
turmoil he puts me through, and that one time he molested me at a
party, he's not a douchebag. At least, I don't think he is.

Tristan dates a lot of women, but only one
at a time, and I've never seen him treat them badly. They always
seem happy when they're with him (not that I've been stalking him
on Facebook or anything). He asks my opinion only when he wants an
impartial woman's perspective—only, the joke's on him because I am
pretty much the antithesis of impartial in these situations.

Break up with the
skank!
The devil on my shoulder shouts,
waving pompoms that have definitely been dredged up from my blurry
recollections of my high school's cheerleading uniforms.
Make the right choice!

Slut-shaming is
wrong
, says the angel.
You and I both know that Ashlee's not a skank. You had dinner
that one time and you
liked
her.

Well, I liked her until I found out that she
was dating Tristan. Then I stopped liking her so much, and felt
like a bad person because I knew I only hated her because she was
so much prettier than me.

I set down my bubble tea. I've been drinking
it too fast and now I have a bit of a headache. “Why did you break
up with her in the first place if everything was going well?”

Tristan pinches the bridge of his nose. “I
guess it was an ultimatum. I wanted to see if she'd change her mind
if I forced the decision.” He laughs miserably. “That makes me
sound like a total dick, doesn't it?”

“
Yeah, it kind of does.”
There's no sugar-coating that. And speaking of sugar-coating, he's
got a glaze of latte on his full, sinful mouth. “So she didn't
change her mind.”

“
If anything, I think I
proved her point.” He licks his lips unselfconsciously and my
stomach flicks that switch that makes my vagina go all
melty.
Fuck
.

“
Well…” I think hard. I
really want him to be single again, but I also don't want to be
selfish here. That has a tendency to backfire and he
does
have a pretty big
problem on his hands. “You should probably apologize.”

“
That was the first thing
I did.”

“
And what did she
say?”

“
Nothing. She may have
blocked me.”

Good Lord, what did they fight about?
There's no way I can ask without sounding nosy.

There's a bead of condensation on the table
from my drink. I run my finger through it and draw a frowny face on
the table. “It kind of seems like it's over then.”

“
That was pretty much my
impression, too.” He finally takes another sip from his latte and
makes a face. “It's all watery.”

“
That's what you get for
letting it melt.”

“
Now's the time to switch
it up for the hard stuff.” He softens his words with a smile.
“Thanks for listening. I always feel better when I talk to you
about these things.”

“
I'm glad.” The words are
automatic, because I
do
want to please him…but not this way. Not any
longer. Before I realize it, I'm shaking my head. “Actually, I'm
not.”

He was starting to drink from his coffee
again but freezes, lips wrapped around the straw. It looks vaguely
erotic, which makes what I'm about to say more difficult.

“
I don't like it when you
talk to me about your relationships with other girls
because—”
you can do it, Kelly. Be a big
girl
“—I like you. And it puts me in a
really awkward position. I don't
want
to be in the
middle.”

Tristan stares at me like I've gone green
and sprouted antennae. Slowly, he lowers his coffee cup to the
table.

“
You like me,” he repeats.
“How long?”

“
Since, oh, probably since
middle school, although it's hard to tell because we were all
pretty much emotionally stunted in middle school.”

I laugh nervously. He doesn't, and the sound
dies in my throat like it's ashamed to be alive.

“
I didn't want to say
anything, because I was afraid I'd screw things up, and because I
kind of hoped you'd figure it out on your own and make the first
move—

“
But then I started to
think that maybe I was making things worse not saying anything
because I was starting to feel so bitter and resentful all the time
and that's not me. Or at least, it's not who I want to be. So…now
you know.”

Say something.

He doesn't say anything. He just sits there,
blinking at me robotically like a Furby. His eyes bounce all over
me, like he's seeing me for the first time.

What does he see?

Do I want to know?

No, no I don't.

I push back from the table, and catch my
feet in the chair. Luckily, I regain my balance before I can fall
over, even though my messenger bag whacks me in the butt with a
meaty THUNK.

“
Well,” I say. “I'm going
to go now. I'm glad I could…um…help you out with your girl
problems.”

I wait for him to call after me, to stop me.
He doesn't. So I run out of there, before I start giggling
uncontrollably—because at this point, it's either going to be that
or a jag of ugly-crying.

Because I'm pretty sure I haven't just
ruined my chances with him—no, I've also gone and ruined our
friendship.

Chapter Two

In my heart of hearts I know I'm not
unattractive—I may even be better-looking than average—but I still
have a lot of hangups about my looks, especially my weight.

A lot of those inadequacies date back to
middle school. I was the awkward girl on the social fringe. I had
friends, mostly Tristan but a few other nerdy girls, too, but the
more popular kids still made mincemeat of me. Especially the boys.
I remember this one group who used to sing this song about me. It
went, “Kelly Hauser, face like a schnauzer, fat like Mario, scaly
like Bowser.”

Middle school kids are not known for their
compassion.

I developed humor as a
self-defense tactic, because I learned that if people were too busy
laughing at what I said, they'd be too distracted to laugh at the
way I
looked
.

Now I feel like I can't be serious when it
matters. When I get nervous, I crack jokes. I blow things off,
especially important things. I don't take risks.

People are always telling me I'm immature,
and that cuts deep, because it's like they're saying to me, “You
are a child in adult's clothing.” Unless I'm wearing Hot Topic
shirts or something from a convention. Then it's, “You are a
child.”

Even though my parents do their best to
support me, I know they're disappointed by my career and lifestyle.
They always assumed I'd be married out of college and have a nice,
braggable cubicle job. Not fucking off as a writer.

Now, after this business with Tristan, it's
like I've messed up the last intact facet of my life, and
everything is about to come tumbling down like a house of
cards.

What have I done? I've screwed everything
up.

“
Walking on the Sun”
chimes from the depths of my messenger bag. I don't bother rooting
around for it, and the song ends. A few minutes later, it begins
again.

He's being persistent. Maybe he actually
wants to talk.

Yeah, to tell you that it's over.

I wait. If he calls back a third time, I
tell myself that I'll answer it, but he doesn't, and so I feel like
a coward.

It's a twenty-minute walk to my apartment
from Tapioca Barn so I have plenty of time to brood.

My cat comes running up as
soon as he hears the jingle of the key in the door, and I push him
back with my foot. “No, Garfield.
Bad
.”

He swipes at my sneaker, and gets his claws
stuck in the canvas tops of my Converse. When I bend down to free
him, he scratches my hand for my trouble.

I live in a loft above an indie coffee shop.
I only pay about $700/mo. because the owner of the property is a
good friend of my parents. Most of the furniture is from Ikea, and
not very exciting.

I fill Garfield's food and water dishes,
dumping my bag beside my desk. The desk is right beside my bed,
which is sectioned off from the rest of the room by a Japanese
folding screen I picked up at a thrift store. A bra dangling from
the glossy wooden edge ruins the effect.

I yank it off impatiently and sit down at my
computer. My book sales are way down today. Also, I've received two
scathing reviews. One of them calls me “a purveyor of insipid
wet-dreams.” Wonderful.

I fold my arms on the desk and rest my head
on them, feeling very sorry for myself. An army of plastic
figurines stare back at me. “Why does being an adult suck so
hard?”

The plastic figurines have no response.
That's probably a good thing—I'd be worried if they did.

I pick up the white plastic unicorn and
think about how much easier it was to be a kid, when the biggest
concern regarding boys was whether you could catch their cooties.
Life got a whole lot more complicated when boys became sexual
entities.

“
Walking on the Sun” plays
again and with a sigh, I answer it.
Time
to face the music.
“Hello?”

“
Why'd you run off like
that?” he asks. “I tried to follow, but you'd already
gone.”

He followed me? “I'm sure you can figure it
out.”

“
Shit. You must think I'm
a total douche.”

“
Not a total douche,
though it was a little
uncomfortable when
you just sat there and stared at me after I poured my heart out.” I
try to make it sound light-hearted, but it just seems snide and
petty. “You hurt my feelings.”

“
You definitely caught me
off-guard.”