Discipline (18 page)

“So, you know what this means right?”
Adriana asked, her fingers curled excitedly into fists right in
front of her mouth.

I laughed nervously. “What?”

“You have to take him to Labor Day
weekend.”

“Oh.” My mouth dropped. I’d completely
forgotten about the restaurant’s summer tradition. The owners of
Todos Santos were two young brothers who owned three restaurants in
the city, Todos being by far the most casual one. To cap off every
summer, they closed all three of their restaurants and rented
several massive mansions in East Hampton, inviting the waitstaff,
bar staff and kitchen of all three spots to stay for about three
nights. “Those things always get… pretty wild. I don’t know if he’d
be into that.”

“Come on!” Adriana pleaded, laughing at my
face of nervous excitement. “Linh’s invited and if she has a
plus-one, she can invite Mike! Please. You’ll be surrounded by a
bunch of drunk crazies, but at least they’ll be drunk crazies who
don’t care who Daniel is. They’ll just know he’s some dude you’re
seeing. And you’ll get your first real vacation in God knows how
long. It’s perfect. He’ll be away from Woodhill, you’ll be far away
from Ben.” She flashed me a look. “Plus, Daniel’s a much better
person to bring than say,
Kelsey
.”

True. The one year I’d gone, I’d taken her
and she’d gotten blackout, vomit-while-sleeping drunk on the very
first night. She spent the next two nights completely sober, which
would’ve been fine had she not also complained about feeling
“bored” and “out of place.”

“Well. Just think about it, okay?” Adriana
pouted at me. “You’re seeing him again tonight, right?”

I nodded. “I was thinking of cooking dinner
for him here. I haven’t made my broccoli cream pesto in awhile and
I actually want to for Daniel,” I laughed.

“Oh God, slay that heart of his, girl.
Watching you cook is gonna make him want to get these clean sheets
dirty again… which is good, because I’ve never seen your skin look
this
good. I swear your face is still glowing,” Adriana
giggled, giving my cheek a little poke with her pointer before
suddenly gasping. “Holy shit. I just realized that that was
probably the first orgasm a penis had given you in like, a
year!”

I grimaced. “Try three.”

“
What?
You never even got one out of
him?”

“Only when I, um, gave him a hand.”

“
Jesus
, Ben. Selfish or inept?”

“Both.”

“You poor thing. And he wasn’t ever ashamed
about going the entire relationship without hearing his girlfriend
reach orgasm?” Adriana asked, propping herself up on her elbows to
look at me with utter disbelief.

“No. I faked it for awhile but then I
realized that he didn’t care one way or the other.”

“You never asked him to finish you off?”

“He never would, but he said I could do it
myself. Though one time he asked me to cook dinner right afterwards
because he’d worked up an appetite, so I didn’t even have the
time.”

“Oh, what the
hell
?” Adriana raised
my pillow over her head and threw it against the wall with real
force. “What grade-A fuckin’
ass
hole! That is so offensive
my face is literally red right now.” I looked at her and laughed
because it actually was. “Thank God you finally got to jump in bed
with a guy who knows what the hell he’s doing and isn’t a selfish
loser. And the fact that he was your teacher crush makes it even —
”

Click
. Adriana’s mouth snapped shut
at the sound of my front door closing. Eyes wide, we both popped up
in my bed, craning our necks to look out the doorframe.

“Kelsey?” I called, my heart pounding. I
hadn’t expected her to be back till evening. Adriana and I stared
at each other as we waited for a response.

“Hey,” came her voice. Eyes darting from
side to side, I tried to detect anything different about her tone,
if she’d possibly heard Adriana speaking. “Hey, Adriana. Oh wow, I
really like your top.”

“Oh. Thanks, girl.” Adriana cocked her head,
looking down at her plain, tan-colored T-shirt. “Um. Sorry if I was
being loud,” she said, no doubt to gauge whether she’d been
audible.

“Oh, don’t be, I didn’t even notice.”

Our shoulders relaxed. “How was home?” I
asked, wary for a couple reasons. One, she still looked a little
sullen and two, I feared that she had come bearing some message
from my mother. She hadn’t called me since the night I’d told her
about Ben and I could only imagine it was because she wanted me to
show my love by calling first or because she was plotting some way
to get me back with Ben.

“A huge blast, as usual.” Kelsey dripped
with sarcasm. “Probably more fun than whatever you were doing
here.”

I blinked at her from my bed, unsure of how
to respond.

“Anyway,” Kelsey grumbled before pushing her
body off of my doorframe and heading wordlessly to her room.
Adriana stared at me, lowering her voice to well below a
whisper.

“She still super upset or what?”

“I think. But I’m not sure I really know why
she was upset in the first place.”

Adriana wound her flaxen blonde hair around
her hand. “This is just a theory, but I think you living here again
reminds her of how she isn’t satisfied with her social life. Or
love life. Or herself. Remember when you first lived here how she
used to get into moods? Where she was normal to everyone but all
cranky and quiet around you?”

“Yeah.”

“It was probably because she was
self-conscious about always being home while you were out. You’d
come in at night or the morning and she’d be there. You brought
friends over and she never did. She probably convinced herself that
you secretly judged her. You know?”

“I figured she was sick of me talking about
Ben. The moods started right after I met him and there were a few
weeks where I gushed about him a lot. Because apparently at some
point, I liked him,” I snorted.

“Did Kelsey ever hang out with him?”

“Mostly at family functions. She liked him a
lot, like everyone else.”

Adriana stuck her tongue out. “Well, I hate
using this word to describe other girls, but I think she might be a
bit jealous. Of you. So it’s a good thing you can’t talk to her
about you-know-who ‘cause she’d probably lose her shit and have a
jealousy-induced brain aneurysm.”

“God, Ade.”

“Kidding. But I hope she starts feeling
better because you know how they say to watch out for the quiet
ones? Well, you also gotta be careful of the angry, bitter
virgins.”

~

“What?”

A nervous smile twitched on my lips as
Daniel watched me. Eyes narrowed at him, I took a swig of my
beer.

Hunched over the bar, his shoulders looked
bigger, broader and even more delicious than usual. And I hadn’t
leaned back in my stool to look yet, but I could imagine how good
the view of his V-shaped back was in that position, especially
since the girls in the booth behind us could hardly stop themselves
from gawking. Not that they were the only ones. In the corner, a
trio of women in their mid-forties had been whispering
not-so-quietly about him since the moment we’d come in.

I couldn’t blame any of them. The lights in
the bar highlighted the way his thin, grey T-shirt dipped into the
crevices of his muscles. He looked so effortlessly sexy that it was
almost ridiculous. The fact that he was looking at me with that
gorgeous, crooked grin made it all the better.

“I didn’t think there was anything I loved
more than seeing you in those dresses,” he said with a little
chuckle, eyeing me under the reddish lights of the bar. “But this
outfit might actually trump the rest.”

I looked down at my ensemble. Since Kelsey
was home, I’d nixed my plans to cook for Daniel in the apartment,
which was a bit of a bummer since I’d gone out to buy all the
ingredients and even imagined myself throwing them together for him
while wearing a gauzy new summer dress. But I didn’t dwell on the
disappointment, especially since I realized that I’d accidentally
thrown that dress into the wash along with the bed sheets, so half
the date idea was a bust anyway. And since laundry day had left me
with nothing else to wear, I pulled on what I had left — slightly
ripped jeans and my old Mets shirt that was faded to the point of
being a plain white tee at this point.

Despite the discoloration, it reminded me
that the Mets were playing the Yankees tonight. Recalling the
pinstriped memorabilia that used to decorate his classroom around
playoffs time, I proposed to Daniel that we watch tonight’s game
together at Trudy’s in Prospect Heights, my favorite sports bar. It
was a little known hole in the wall where the “non-annoying fans”
went, according to Em when she spoke about the place to others.
Being my fellow Mets loyalist, she and I had discovered the place
together years ago and practically lived there one season.

Though I hadn’t been inside since dating
Ben, Trudy had gasped upon my entrance, practically climbing over
the bar to give me a hug before sliding a Hennepin in my direction.
After that, she turned to Daniel, giving him and his adorably
charmed expression the once over before sliding over a Yuengling, a
choice that he wholeheartedly approved of.

“Well, since you like my laundry day outfit
so much,” I teased him, “I guess I can ditch those tight little
numbers and wear sweats the next time we go out.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t stop you. At this
point, I know that you just look drop dead gorgeous in anything.” I
blushed, watching him glance at the game and then back at me. “I
think
this
is my fantasy right here,” he laughed, shaking
his head. “Having a beer while watching the game with you in your
laundry day outfit. I haven’t felt this good in awhile.”

“Trust me, me neither. All I need is for my
Mets to beat your Yanks in the most heartbreakingly painful way
possible tonight and I’m all set.”

Daniel cocked an eyebrow at me, amused. “I
hate to be the one to tell you this but ‘heartbreaking’ and
‘painful’ are words that you Mets fans own.”

“Aw, ouch, but not this season.” I shook my
head. “We’re the new look Mets and you guys are gettin’ old,
falling back into the whole
sign-the-aging-star-who-peaked-five-years-ago mode. I can see it.
And I can see us winning tonight. By one run. A true heartbreaker.”
The smirk touching my lips broke into a big ol’ grin as Daniel
feigned shock and umbrage while further rolling up the sleeves on
his long-sleeve T-shirt. Along with my own, I could feel several
other pairs of eyes flying to his irresistible forearms.

“That’s interesting, but I had us winning by
a run.”

I pouted with mock pity. “That’s cute.”

“Wow, alright,” Daniel laughed. “Well, how
about we make a bet on it?”

I flinched, surprising myself. But I quickly
recovered. “Sure. What do you want to bet?”

Daniel didn’t answer. He studied me for a
moment, my eyes, my lips in a way that made me feel as if I’d just
been stripped bare. “What was that?” he finally asked with a little
smile.

“Hm?”

“I said the word ‘bet’ and you
flinched.”

“Oh. I, um.” I made a silly face, tucking a
lock of hair behind my ear as I tried to play it off. “It’s…
ex-related. He was obsessed with betting. One-upping. He ruined
baseball and a lot of other things for me because it started to
feel like the only reason he ever cared about anything was because
it might get him money or prestige.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows, the faint smile
slowly sliding off his lips. “That sounds all too familiar.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cara was similar.”

“How so?”

He winced as he rubbed his stubble. “She
acted differently once people in town found out that we were
together. They were for some reason fascinated with us and she was
for some reason possessed by the need to be who they thought we
were. A perfect couple from some romantic movie. It took less than
a year for the person I fell for to turn into someone completely
artificial. Premeditated. Her main priority was keeping people
interested in her life, like she was the star of some reality show.
Suddenly, she was blowing paychecks on bags and shoes that she
couldn’t afford and had never been interested in before. She had no
passion for her job anymore — she just wanted to be ‘taken care of’
like the new friends who brought her out to their big lunches or
events. When she ran into people, she’d put on a voice and tell
them stories about these extravagant dates of ours that never
happened.” There was a slight curl on his lip as his eyes clouded
over. “Once we were alone, she wilted like she’d spent all her
energy on impressing other people. There was no chemistry between
us anymore. And definitely nothing physical. If she got
affectionate, I’d hear her on the phone later, telling someone all
about it. I remember just being in disbelief when she spent an
entire dinner feeding me lines to tell other people if I ran into
them, to keep up with the new stories she’d made up. I could hardly
stand to be around her anymore.” He glanced up at me. “But then she
got pregnant.”

I felt myself nearly choke on the small sip
of beer that I’d taken.

“She… she’s pregnant?”

His expression grew dark in a way that made
my stomach immediately turn, as if I were about to hear something
tragic. “She brought up marriage because she had every intention of
keeping it. I didn’t say no right away. I wanted to take more time
to think about it. It was supposedly the right thing to do but it
felt wrong to me that without the baby, I’d never think of making
her my wife. Not anymore, at least. But within a week, Woodhill
found out that we were ‘engaged’ and Cara’s friends were already
planning to throw her some big party to celebrate. But there wasn’t
an engagement.” His jaw clenched tight. “And there wasn’t a baby.
She lied about the pregnancy to get a proposal. So that was the
last straw.”