Mr. Right (15 page)

“Sure sounds like you are,” I said and started to slow my swing down as well. “That’s really good,” I continued. “I like people who question life.”

“Thanks, pops,” she said and then looked at me. “Oops, that’s kind of awkward.”

“Only if you want it to be awkward,” I said with a small smile. If only she knew that I was a lot closer in age to her than she thought.

“I don’t want it be awkward.” She groaned. “I think you’re the one who made it awkward by being Pierce’s dad.”

“You can always call me big daddy if you want.”

“Evan, that’s gross.”

“Oh, just daddy.” I laughed. “You could scream out ‘go, daddy, go’.”

“You’re sick, you know that, right?” Her voice sounded shocked. “That’s not even funny.”

“Not even a little bit?” I laughed, knowing that she probably thought I was some sort of pervert with all the daddy jokes; especially because she thought I was actually the daddy. I was definitely going to go to hell and there was going to be no return ticket back.

“Not even a little bit.”

“Fuck me harder, daddy. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah,” I said loudly, and she screamed. “You’re such a pervert, Evan. That is absolutely disgusting.”

“Aww, man, are you calling me a pervert?” I put on a sad voice.

“What do you think? I think your comments are highly inappropriate.” Jess didn’t sound pleased.

“I was joking,” I said and even though I wanted to make another daddy joke, I kept it inside, knowing she really wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Uh huh,” she said.

“I mean, you can call me whatever you want in the bedroom. I won’t judge you.”

“Evan,” She groaned.

“That’s my name and you can’t wear it out.”

“You’re so immature. Sometimes I find it really hard to believe that you’re a dad.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said softly.
That’s because I’m not
, I thought in my head, wishing I could tell her. Wishing she would just figure it out. Wishing we could joke about it, like some sort of prolonged really bad April Fool joke.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “But I guess I’m the idiot for not figuring it out.”

“You’re not an idiot,” I said softly and looked back at the sky, wondering how we were ever going to get out of this situation.

“What are you thinking about?” Jess asked me quietly after a few minutes of silence.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?” I responded to her, not wanting to tell her that I was thinking about her.

“Don’t deflect,” she said. “You do that a lot, or try and make a joke out of a situation or try and tease me.”

“You don’t like me teasing you?” I asked. “Would you prefer that I tickle you instead?”

“Evan,” she sighed.

“Jess,” I sighed, mimicking her.

“Evan, come on.”

“Jess, come on.”

“Evan!”

“Jess!”

“Stop it.”

“Stop it,” I responded and laughed.

“You’re such a child.” She huffed.

“You’re such a child.” I huffed back and watched as she jumped off of her swing. “Where are you going?” I jumped off of my swing and followed behind her.

“I’m going home. If you’re not going to have a proper conversation with me, then why should I bother sitting here, playing these games?”

“What games?”

“Evan, I thought the whole point of us getting together tonight was to discuss what was going on and see where this could go?” Her voice trailed off. “Well, not where this could go, but exactly what we have between us. Not that we have anything, but you know what I mean.”

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked her seriously, standing in front of her, my heart beating quickly. I didn’t want to hurt her. I really didn’t want to hurt her. That’s all I knew. Even if that meant hurting myself. Even if it meant hurting her a little bit. I didn’t want to break her heart. I didn’t want her to fall for me more than she already had. I didn’t want to cause heartache. I needed to remember that. I needed to remember that as much as I wanted her. And needed her. And wanted to see where this could go, I needed to think of her first. I’d already played her too much. I didn’t want to be the reason for heartache and tears. I couldn’t be. I didn’t want to be. It wasn’t fair. My heart wouldn’t allow that. Not when she was standing here, big wide brown eyes in front of me, looking deep into my soul, wanting answers to questions she was too afraid to ask. Her lips were quivering slightly, waiting to be kissed. Her fingers were trembling, waiting to be held. She was looking up at me with hope in her eyes, and I could feel my heart dropping into my stomach. I didn’t know what to do. I just didn’t know what to do. I was already in too deep. We were both in too deep. There was going to be no way we could extricate ourselves from this moment without any pain. It was already too late for that.

“
W
e can’t go back
to Pierce’s,” Jess said breathlessly as we walked along the empty streets, hand-in-hand.

“Why not?” I said. “He’s out of town.”

“It just doesn’t seem right.”

“Well, we can talk there. I thought you wanted to talk. Unless you want to go back to your place.”

“No, we shouldn’t go back to my place,” she said quickly. “Alyssa is home.”

“And she doesn’t like me, huh?” I sighed.

“No, she doesn’t…well, I don’t know that she doesn’t like you, per se,” she said quickly.

“She doesn’t like me.” I laughed and shook my head. “I can’t blame her.”

“Fine, we can go back to Pierce’s. It just feels weird.” She made a face, and I squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. I do think you should break things off with Pierce, though.”

“I mean, as far as I was concerned it was already over,” she said. “Not that I felt we really had much. Gosh, you must think I’m a horrible person.”

“I think I’m not really the person who could think that, right?” I said softly.

“So exactly what are we going to talk about when we get to Pierce’s?” she asked and glanced over at me.

“Whatever you want,” I said, though my plan wasn’t really to do much talking.

“Okay,” she said, and I could tell that that wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting. It wasn’t really the answer I’d been thinking I was going to give, either, but I was all over the place and I didn’t really know what to do or say in this instance. I didn’t know how to act or what to say to make everything better for both of us.

“
I
just want
to kiss you,” I said as we sat on the couch, beers in hand.

“Okay.” She glanced at me.

“Can I?” I looked at her lips.

“I’m surprised you’re asking,” she said as she took a swig of her beer. “You don’t normally ask.”

“Well, I thought I’d be a gentleman today.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you had that in you,” she said with a giggle as she looked up at me under her lashes.

“I didn’t know I had it in me either,” I said and took a swig of my beer. “I guess for the right woman, any man can be a gentleman.”

“Oh.” She glanced at me. “Am I the right woman?”

“I don’t know, are you?” I said with a small smile.

“Who knows?” She took another swig of beer and I reached over and grabbed it from her and placed it on the coffee table in front of us. Then I took my beer and placed it on the table as well.

“I guess neither one of us,” I said softly as I leaned forward to kiss her. “But that’s a worry for another time.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “Right now I just want to feel your soft lips on mine.”

“Oh?” she said and gazed at me.

“Yeah.” I leaned back and winked at her. “Or somewhere else. Your pick.”

“My pick?” She glanced at me with a small frown. “What do you mean somewhere else?” She stared at me for a few seconds and then shook her head. “You’re a pervert.”

“Thank you.” I grinned at her and adjusted my growing package. “What can I say? You make me feel good—or ‘hard’ might be a better word.”

“Evan.”

“Jess.”

“Oh, my gosh, you’re not going to start that again, are you?”

“Start what again?” I looked at her with a blank face.

“Nothing.” She shook her head and I could see the uncertainty in her eyes. I leaned forward and pressed my lips hard against her and pushed my tongue into her mouth. She ran her hands through my hair and pulled slightly on my locks, and I ran my hands to her breasts and pinched her nipples lightly. “Oh, Evan.”

“You can say it a little louder if you want to.”

“I don’t want to.” She squealed as my fingers reached down to her thighs and up inside her dress and towards her panties.

“I want you to,” I growled against her lips. “I want you to be as loud as you can be.”

“I’m not loud.” She moaned as my fingers slipped inside of her panties, and she shifted on the couch. “Evan.” She sighed and gripped her legs together.

“Yes, Jess?” I moved my lips towards her neck and bit down and sucked. “What do you want me to do, Jess?”

“Evan.” She closed her eyes and rested her head back, her hands now on my back, fingers digging into my skin.

“Tell me what you want me to do, Jess?”

“Don’t stop.” She moaned as I started to move my fingers away. “Just don’t stop.”

“Don’t worry, I have no plans on stopping,” I said, moving my lips toward her ear and blowing into it softly before putting my tongue in her ear and then nibbling on her earlobes. “I’m not going to stop until you scream my name out in ecstasy.”

“You’d stop then?” She looked confused.

“No, that’s just when I’ll really get started.” I laughed and moved back slightly. “Now stand up, quickly, I want to take your dress off.”

“So bossy,” she said as she stood up.

“Isn’t that what you love about me?” I paused. “Not love-love, of course, but sexy-love.”

“Sexy-love?” She stared at me as I pulled her dress off of her and undid her bra.

“You know what I mean,” I said as I pulled my shirt off and threw it onto the floor.”

“Not really,” she said and sighed. “We didn’t even talk yet.”

“We can stop and talk first if you want.”

“You know that’s not what I want right now.” She gave me a small shy look as I played with her breasts. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you?”

“I don’t know that I
think
I’m clever.” I laughed. “I know it.”

“With old age comes wisdom, huh?” She laughed.

“You should know. What do you think?”

“I think you need to stop talking and start doing.”

“You don’t have to say that to me twice,” I said as I unbuckled my pants and pulled them down. “You want to take my boxers off?” I grinned at her as I stood there in front of us, both of us just in our underwear. I stared at her breasts, wanting to reach over and suck on them but not wanting to rush the night. I wanted to go slowly. I wanted to tantalize her body. I wanted to have her every nerve ending wanting and waiting to see what I was going to do next. I wanted her to beg me to finally take her. I wanted her to have the best orgasm of her life. I wanted this to be the night of her life. I wanted to be ingrained in her brain and body forever.

“Do you want me to take your boxers off?” she asked me with a shy smile.

“Very much so,” I said and stepped towards her.

“Okay then,” she said, and I watched as she stepped forward and stopped right in front of me, looking up at me with a small smile as her hands fell to the top of my boxers and gripped the elastic. “I’m going to do it.”

“Good, do it. I’m waiting.” I held my breath in anticipation.

“I’m doing it,” she said. And then I felt her tugging my boxers down quickly. I lifted up my right leg and then my left leg and stepped out of them quickly, my cock standing to attention. “Someone is happy to see me.”

“Very happy. Would be even happier to touch you.”

“Or for me to touch it, I’m betting?” she asked me with a small smile.

“Well, if you want to.”

“Depends on what you want.”

“I want it all,” I said as I gazed at her body. “I want all of you.”

“And I, want all of you,” she said and then she dropped to her knees and took me into her mouth, and I felt like I had been transported to heaven. I knew I shouldn’t be in this moment as much as I was, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Not when it felt this good being with her.

J
ess

"We need to come to an understanding," he said as he got ready to catch a cab. It had been two weeks since our dinner and we’d just had a nice lunch together, and even though I didn’t really know where anything was going between us, I was still fairly content in that he seemed interested in seeing me. Even if ‘seeing me’ meant that he mainly just wanted to have sex. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I knew I just had to accept what he was willing to give me at this point in time. I couldn’t make it something it wasn’t, no matter how badly I wanted to do so. No matter that at the back of my mind, I somehow still felt like I was being used.

"An understanding?" I glanced at him and his cocky smile, and frowned. "An understanding about what?" My heart thudded as I gazed at him, wondering what he was going to say. Could he tell I was developing feelings for him? Could he tell I was hoping for something more?

"An understanding about what this is and what this isn't."

"Uhm, okay?" I tried not to roll my eyes at him. I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my heart and the sudden heaviness in my stomach and eyes as I looked at him.

"I don't want you getting the wrong idea."

"Who said I had any ideas in my head in the first place?" I lied, my throat swelling up and my face starting to feel warm. I felt as if tears were welling up in my eyes. I felt as if I wanted to just crawl away from him. My back started to ache on the right side and I looked away from him. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep it together.

"I don't want you falling in love with me," he said, his voice stiff and his eyes serious and intense. Once again, I felt my heart dropping.

"Falling in love with you?" I scoffed and stared at his lips, my heart pounding like it was going to jump out of my chest. I didn’t want to feel this way and I didn’t want to cry. I just wanted to call Alyssa, but I knew she would have no sympathy for me. How could she? She’d already warned me to stay away from him. And I hadn’t listened. I’d made my bed and now I was lying in it. I was in the exact sort of situation that I’d never wanted to find myself in.

"I'm not the sort of guy you should fall in love with." His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. I didn’t understand why he was telling me this now. We’d just had a great lunch. We’d been having a great week. Well, kind of. It wasn’t everything I’d hoped it would be. It still felt slightly awkward.

"I gathered that already, trust me."

"Oh, really?" He paused, his face stilling as he gazed into my eyes intently. "How did you gather that?"

"What do you care?" I shrugged and looked away from him. His blue eyes were making my heart race too erratically and I could feel my body growing warm.

"I was just curious." He stepped closer to me and I could feel his body heat bouncing off of me. And it made me just want to have the ground swallow up and die. Or touch him. I just wanted to reach out to touch him. I wanted him to grab me, pull me into his arms and tell me that he was just joking. I wanted him to tell me he loved me. I wanted him to tell me that he was just joking and that he hoped I was falling in love with him as well. I wanted him to tell me that from the first moment he’d met me, he’d known I was the one. I wanted the fairytale and I didn’t even know why I wanted that. Or why I thought he could give it to me. I didn’t know why I cared so much. Didn’t know why I’d let myself fall in love with a man who was everything I shouldn’t want in a man. What had he shown me or done for me that made me think he could be the keeper of my heart? I was a dumbass. A real dumbass. And it made me hate myself. Really, really hate myself.

"Curiosity killed the cat," I said, stopping myself from moving back and away from him. I didn't want to let him see how much he affected me. How much he made me want to retreat. How much he was hurting my feelings right now. I didn’t want him to see how badly I wanted to cry.

"I just want to make sure you don't fall too hard for me," he said, staring at my lips, and I swallowed.
Please don’t cry, Jess, please don’t cry
. That’s all I could think to myself.
Please don’t cry
.

"My concern is that you don't fall too hard for
me
," I said so quietly that it was almost a whisper.
Why can’t you feel the same thing for me that I feel for you?
How was it possible for me to feel so much so quickly, and for him to seemingly feel nothing? How was it possible for me to feel such a connection? I didn’t understand how he could stare into my eyes and into my soul and yet not feel the same pangs of love and adoration that I felt. How was it possible for him to be in my mind all the time? How was it possible for me to want to spend every second with him? How was it possible that he never wanted to spend that much time with me?

"Oh?" He frowned.

"Yeah, I don't want you to fall in love with me," I lied. "I don't want you to get hurt."
I want you to be as hurt as I am right now. I want you to feel the pain in your soul that I feel in mine
. I knew that was wrong of me. But I just wanted him to feel. I just wanted him to know that he was putting me through hell. And I didn’t even know that he knew what that felt like. I didn’t even know if he knew what it felt like to think of someone all the time. A part of me felt like I was possessed by thoughts of him. A part of me felt like he was a part of my body. A part of me felt like he was in my soul in my mind. And I hated it. I hated feeling like he was all I could think about. I hated thinking I would never get him out of my system. Because he was a part of my soul and body, and just being around him made me feel happy. Just being around him made me feel like everything was going to be right in the world. He made me think everything in life was going to be fine. No matter how sad or upset I was. No matter how badly my day had gone. Just seeing his smile made me feel like everything was great. I saw birds in the sky, I saw butterflies flying. I saw the sun shining on grey days. Everything was good. And when he wasn’t around, I felt deep, dark, soulless. And I cried. I cried so many tears that I thought I was going to die. And I knew it didn’t make sense. I knew it didn’t make sense that not being with him made me feel such withdrawal. And it pained me to think of a day when I wouldn’t be with him. We weren’t an official couple. And he had never told me he liked me a lot or loved me or that he wanted anything from me. We’d never mentioned being a couple. Here I was dreaming of a day when we would be together forever, and here he was telling me not to get too close to him. It was killing me inside. Literally killing me and I had no idea what to do. I had no idea how to feel and I was scared I never would be able to get over him. And I had no one to talk to about it. No one who would understand just how much I loved him. How could I love a man so much who had never given me anything? How could I love a man who didn’t want me as I wanted him? I just didn’t understand it.

"Hurt?" He licked his lips slowly and I could tell he was taken aback by my words.

"Yeah, when you realize you can't live without me." I paused. "I'd hate to break your heart when I walk away." Which was a lie. I did want to break his heart. I wanted him to realize I was the best thing that had ever happened to him. I wanted him to know I’d had to walk away because he had made me. I wanted him to regret everything. I wanted him to wish he’d never had this conversation with me. How could he bring up these words to me? How could he hurt me like this and look so nonchalant as he did it? How could he look at other women? How could he talk to other women? How could he flirt with other women? With me there? Was he trying to hurt me? Did he not care about my feelings? I just didn’t understand why I wasn’t enough. I didn’t understand what I had to do. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t feel the same way as me. I’d recently started praying again. I’d started praying that he’d wake up one day and realize he was being a fool. I prayed with everything in my power that he could just love me as much as I loved him. And some days, some days, when his eyes lit up when he saw me, I really thought he felt the same way. I really thought today was going to be the day. I really thought that somehow it had clicked in him. How could he not feel what we had between us was real? How could he not know? I stood there in front of him and I felt like I just wanted to fall onto the ground and cry. I wanted to grab his legs. I wanted to hold him so he couldn’t go away. I wanted to tell him, to beg him, to please love me. To ask him why he didn’t. I knew it was pitiful. I knew I was pitiful. I knew everything I was feeling inside made me a loser. And I hated that about myself. Because I knew what Alyssa had said was right: he didn’t care about me, not in that way. He never was going to care about me in that way. And all I had was more heartache coming. With every day that I had hope, all I was doing was letting more heartache in, letting more pain in.

"Walk away?" His fingers touched my chin and pushed my face up so that I was staring into his eyes again. "Why would you walk away?" His face looked uncertain, not as confident and arrogant as before, and my stomach flipped as I gazed into his eyes, my face hot and nerves whirling in my stomach.

"Why do you think?" I licked my lips nervously.
Please tell me you love me. Please tell me you don’t want me to walk away. Please. Please
.
If there is a God. If there is a God, he will love me. He will tell me now. He will profess his love to me and everything will be okay. We will be okay. I will be okay. I will laugh about this. About everything. It will be a story to tell our kids. It will have been worth it. It would all have been worth it.

"Because you love me too much?" He almost grunted, and I started laughing. Not because I thought he was funny or because I thought it was funny, but because it was so close to the truth and I didn't want him to know. I didn't want him to know that this conversation was already too late. I didn't want him to know that I loved him. I didn't want him to know I already knew that whenever whatever we had was ended I was going to be heartbroken. He couldn't know. I was too proud for that. I started laughing so that I wouldn’t start crying. Because I knew if I started crying, it would be all over and he would think I was a psychopath. Or just crazy in the head. Which I was already starting to think was true.

"That's funny." I shook my head and smiled widely, pretending a nonchalance I didn't feel. "We don't need to come to an understanding because there is no worry about me falling for you and expecting too much." I reached over and touched his chest. "If anyone should be worried, it's you. Because when I walk away, you're going to realize that I was the best thing you ever had." He grabbed my hand and held it to his chest for a few seconds and then sighed lightly.

"Don't play with fire, Jess." He leaned forward and whispered in my ear. "One of us is going to get burned and it sure as hell isn't going to be me."

"It's not going to be me, either," I said emphatically as I pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. "I'm not going to fall in love with you."

"Good," he said as he stared at me and everything in his face told me that he didn't really feel that way. Everything in his face told me that he was hurt and that just confused me even more. It confused me because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how I was going to continue like this. If he was my Mr. Right, it shouldn’t be this hard. Should it?

“
S
o Alyssa won’t be back
for a few days,” I said as we sat on the couch in my living room. “You can stay over if you want.”

“Thanks,” he said, not looking up from his phone. I sat next to him, willing myself to not look down at his phone. I didn’t want to be nosey and I didn’t want to make myself upset, but he had been texting for the last hour with someone and barely looking at me, and it was driving me crazy.

“So are you going to stay over?” I asked feebly. “I thought maybe we could go to this cool brunch place in the morning. This place called ‘Mama’s on Washington’.”

“Eh, don’t think I can stay over.” He looked up at me and shrugged. “But thanks.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, feeling disappointed, and I glanced down at his phone screen. My heart dropped as I saw a photo on the screen of some beautiful woman and a bunch of texts back and forth between the two of them. I tried to look away from the screen, but I couldn’t stop myself from reading his last message to her. “Beautiful photo, thanks for sharing.” My heart sank. And I could feel the stirrings of jealousy in my soul. I looked away from the phone, wanting to make a comment to him but not knowing what to say. What could I say? Did I have a right to say anything? I looked back down at the screen and read some of the other messages. “Busy tonight, but maybe tomorrow?” Was the message before the photo? “Maybe this will make you change your mind,” was the message that accompanied the photo she’d sent him. I tried not to stare at her face and her body. She was young and beautiful. Really, really beautiful. I couldn’t stop myself from staring. I couldn’t stop myself from feeling inadequate. Maybe this was why he didn’t love me. I wasn’t pretty enough. I wasn’t enough. I was never going to be enough. No matter what I did. No matter what I said. It was obvious to me in that moment that nothing was going to change. Ever. He wasn’t going to wake up and tell himself he was in love with me. That was never going to happen. It wasn’t suddenly going to hit him, like it did in the movies. The movies weren’t reality. He just wasn’t that into me. He didn’t care. He didn’t care at all. He didn’t love me. He never would. He’d been sitting here with me, laughing and texting back and forth with some hot girl. Basically flaunting it in my face. Like he didn’t care at all. He didn’t care if I saw. Maybe he was doing it on purpose. Maybe he wanted to make it clear to me that I knew he didn’t care. He wanted to make sure I didn’t fall in love with him. He wanted to make sure I knew he could do better and he was and that I meant nothing to him. I sat back in the couch and closed my eyes, trying to breathe deeply and not cry. All I could see was the girl’s face in my mind. All I could think about was them kissing. Him touching her. Him wanting her. Him thinking about her. Him staring at her in wonder. Him telling her he loved her. Him thinking she was everything. Him just thinking she was everything I wasn’t. Because obviously she was everything I wasn’t. She was the one he wanted. She was the one he cared about. And why wouldn’t he? She was gorgeous. She looked sexy as hell. I bet she didn’t have any insecurities. I mean, any girl who could send a photo like that of herself didn’t have any insecurities. She was everything a man could want. Unlike me.