Secondhand Boyfriends (18 page)

“I could see that.” I bit at my lip and wondered if Sam still had an ounce of feelings left for me.

“Sam was an amazing boyfriend to you,” Claudia said point-blank. “He put up with a lot of your shit. Not a lot of guys would do that.”

“You’re right,” I replied. I both loved and hated it when she was right, which was most of the time.

“Why don’t you call him up?” she asked. “Enough sitting around talking about him. Call him. Check on him. Make sure he’s okay.”

I wondered what he was up to in that moment. It was nearly nine in the evening. The fiasco at the church ended long before. We all should’ve been at his reception, drinking and dancing and celebrating. I imagined poor Sam sitting alone in his apartment, drinking beer and flipping through pictures of the two of them. He always was the sentimental kind.

I picked up my phone, hands trembling, and pulled up his contact information.

“I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” I said to Claudia, locking eyes with her from across the room. “I’ve never been this way with him before.”

“Because you love him. Duh,” she said. She was smiling like some junior high kid watching her best friend call a boy.

I pressed his name on my screen, and within seconds, it was ringing.

“He probably won’t even answer,” I sighed. Deep down I almost didn’t want him to. If he saw I had called him, the ball would be in his court. If he didn’t call me back, I’d know that I’d blown it with him for good.

“Hello?” he answered.

My mouth instantly went dry and a lump formed in my throat. My eyes went wide as I stared at a giggling Claudia.

“Hello?” he said again.

“Sam.” I finally managed to spit out the words. “Hi.”

“Yes,” he said. “What do you need?”

He didn’t exactly seem receptive to talking to me, but the fact that he answered my call was a step in the right direction.

“I, um, just wanted to see if you were doing okay,” I said.

The other end was silent, and then I heard him breathe loudly into the phone.

“Are you by yourself?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Want some company?” I asked.

He was quiet again.

“I’ll understand if you don’t want any company,” I said. “Or if you don’t want to be around me.”

He was still quiet.

“Where are you, by the way?” I asked. I knew he wouldn’t be at his and Ayla’s apartment. That would just be too weird.

“I’m at Joe’s,” he said. Joe was his younger brother who lived across town.

“Joe’s not with you?” I asked, not that it was any of my business.

“I told him I wanted to be alone,” Sam said. His voice was flat, but he was still on the line with me which was a good sign.

“Oh, I see,” I replied. “Well if you decide later that you want someone to talk to, you’re more than welcome to come over to my place. You know where I live.”

I listened as Sam took a deep breath on the other end. I couldn’t tell if he was thinking about it or if he was appalled at the audacity of my offer.

“Okay, well, I’ll let you go now,” I said, growing irrationally annoyed at his lack of words. I should’ve had more sympathy for him and what he’d just been through. “You know how to get a hold of me.”

I waited for him to say something, anything, but he said nothing. I hung up.

“That was weird,” I said to Claudia as I scrunched my face. “He doesn’t want to talk to me. It’s pretty obvious.”

“He’ll come around,” she insisted. “And if not, well, you know now that you’re perfectly capable of moving on.”

“Do you care if I go to Eric’s?” Claudia asked me after I hung up with Sam. “I can stay if you want me to.”

The eagerness on her face told me that I couldn’t keep her to myself. I couldn’t keep her from spending all of her time with Eric. He was a good guy.

“You can go,” I said with a teasing lament.

“You sure?” she asked as she winced. “I’m serious. I’ll stay if you need me to.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “Honest.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

I glanced at the clock on my phone and threw it back down on the side table as I shrugged my shoulders.

“Probably go to bed soon,” I said. “If you really want to know.”

“Today was a shitty day,” Claudia said. She stood up and placed one hand gently on my shoulder as she walked by. “You did good though. I’m proud of you.”

I laughed. “Proud of me for what?”

“Standing up to Bennett. Calling Sam. Not being a blubbering pile of melted goo all day long,” she said. “You had a double whammy today. You hung in there.”

“Thanks,” I said as I placed my hand over hers.

She slipped away and headed down the hall to her room to get ready. She and Eric were pretty much inseparable, and as much as I missed her company, I was happy for her. She’d dated a lot of duds. She deserved to date a nice guy for a change.

I took Claudia’s spot on the couch and covered my feet with a throw blanket.

“Okay, I’m out of here,” Claudia said as she walked down the hall and past the living room where I was busy channel surfing. A cloud of hairspray and perfume filled the space around her, and I noticed her makeup had been touched up. She’d been wearing a lot more makeup lately since she’d been with Eric. It was cute.

“Have fun,” I called out.

“Call me if you need me,” she replied as she rushed out the door.

I was back to being alone. Just me, myself, and I. If things had gone the way they were supposed to go, I’d have been dancing my tired little feet off at Sam and Ayla’s wedding in the arms of the gorgeous Bennett Townsend. I’d be dreaming of my future with Bennett instead of obsessing over Sam’s future with Ayla. I’d have gotten the closure I needed to fully move on from Sam, and everything would’ve been peachy keen.

My eyelids grew heavy as I sat in the darkness of my living room in front of the glow of the T.V. Some late night reality rerun flashed across the screen, but I really wasn’t paying much attention.

As soon as my eyes had closed and I was mere seconds away from dreamland, I heard a knock at the door. I jumped up to my feet, startled, and tiptoed towards the peephole. It had to have been past ten, and part of me wondered if it was Bennett coming back to tell me he’d made a mistake and that Ayla really was a self-centered monster who only cared about herself.

I vowed I wouldn’t fall for his antics again. If it was him on the other side of the door, I was going to tell him off like I’d never told anyone off before. He was going to hear it from me. I was going to give him a piece of my mind.

I stood on my toes and peered through the tiny hole in the door. It was Sam. I smoothed my hair back and re-did my ponytail, checked my breath, and opened the door.

“Hi, Sam,” I said with a coy smile. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

His eyes looked worn and tired and he was packing some major bags under them. He’d clearly been crying.

“Come in, come in,” I said as I got out of the way. “Have a seat.”

He took a seat in the arm chair closest to the door. His body was rigid and tense, and I could see him clenching his jaw.

“You okay, Sam?” I asked. “Want something to drink? Beer? Wine? Water?”

He glanced up at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen and said nothing. It didn’t seem like he knew what to say or where to begin, or maybe he just didn’t have the energy to talk.

“Beer it is,” I said as I scampered off to the kitchen to grab the last of the pale ale. “Here you go.”

Sam took the cold, uncapped bottle from my hand and chugged it all in one go.

I took a seat across from him on the sofa, hands folded in my lap, and waited for him to speak. He looked so sweet sitting there like some brokenhearted little bird. I just wanted to hold him in my arms and tell him everything was going to be okay. I knew he deserved better than Ayla, but I had no idea how I could convince him of that.

“God, what a royal fuck up today was,” he said as he finally broke the silence.

“I know, right?” I replied.

“What were you trying to tell me earlier today?” he asked. His eyes honed in on mine, and I couldn’t escape the intensity of his gaze even if I tried. “When you asked me something off the record?”

“Um,” I stammered. “I was just asking if you thought you were making the right decision.”

“Yeah, that,” he said. “Why’d you ask that?”

I hesitated.

“Did you know something I didn’t know?” he asked. “Did you know about Bennett and Ayla?”

“Oh, God, no, Sam,” I said as I placed my hand out. “I knew nothing. It was just as shocking for me as it was for you. I mean, I knew they had dated, but I didn’t know they still had feelings for each other. I didn’t know he was going to stand up and object to your marriage.”

Sam’s shoulders shrunk as he slumped down in the chair.

“People like Bennett and Ayla,” I said. “They’re users. They used us, Sam. We deserve better than that because we are not those kinds of people.”

Sam looked back up at me as he listened intently.

“You especially. You are one of the most genuine people I’ve ever known,” I said.

“What did Ayla say when you asked her those interview questions,” he asked. He was apparently still stuck on her.

“Oh, um, well…” I hesitated. “Do you want the truth?”

He nodded.

“She had a hard time answering them, Sam,” I said as I cringed. I waited for his tears to start falling, but they never came. “She actually kicked everyone out of the room and asked me if she was making a mistake. She said she could always divorce you if she was making the wrong decision.”

His face twisted into an appalled, sickened reaction.

“And what did you say?” he asked.

“I didn’t really have a chance to respond. Her mom came busting through the door talking about how happy you were,” I said.

“Huh,” Sam said as he stared down at the carpet. “How about that for timing.”

“So when you asked me off record if I thought I was making the right decision, you were really just referring to the fact that Ayla didn’t want to marry me,” he added.

“I guess,” I replied.

“It had nothing to do with you still having feelings for me or anything?” He glanced over at me with questioning eyes, and I saw a completely different side of him emerge. “I guess as much as you’ve been bumping into me the last few months, I didn’t know if you were trying to pull something.”

I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth, but no response came out.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. He hardly gave me enough time to even think about my answer.

“Can I be totally honest with you?” I said. “When I found out you were engaged to Ayla Giovanni and so soon after our relationship ended, something in me changed. Something in me woke up.”

“Why?” he asked. “Because you always want what you don’t have?”

“No,” I said. “Maybe. I don’t know. I guess it made me look at you in a different light. That and I always thought we’d end up together.”

“Me too,” he said. His face was all sorts of pissed off, and I couldn’t tell what exactly he was upset about.

When I looked over at Sam, I no longer saw his sloped wrestler shoulders or his flaky scalp or his thinning, mousy brown hair. I no longer saw his imperfect smile or that his ears stuck out just a little too much.

Maybe I had grown up in that past year. Maybe I’d finally started to realize that people’s insides and outsides don’t always tend to match.

“It’s not too late,” I said to Sam.

“Not too late for what?” he huffed.

“For us to see if we can make this work again,” I proposed. “You’re single. I’m single. We had something good once. We can get it again, right?”

Sam sat quietly in the chair, gripping the arms tight. He started rubbing his palms nervously against the sides before standing up. I was sure he was going to walk to the door and leave and I’d never see him again.

To my surprise, he headed over towards the sofa and took a seat right next to me. He stared ahead as he scratched the side of his head and cleared his throat. It was almost like he had something important to tell me.

“Olivia,” he began, though it didn’t sound good. “Look. You were my first real girlfriend. The first woman I ever loved.”

“Oh, okay,” I said as I sunk back into the cushion. I was about to get some sort of rejection speech, I could feel it.

“I have never stopped loving you,” he said.

I sat back up, suddenly tuned back in, and turned to face him. His eyes shifted nervously at mine as he clutched his hands together.

He took a deep breath, and I braced myself for what was to come next. It was either going to be really good or really bad.

“I’m not ready to be in another relationship right now,” he said.

My heart fell deep into my chest.

“But,” he continued. “It doesn’t mean that I’m not open to the idea of maybe trying to figure out if there’s something we can salvage here.”

My eyes lit up, and I couldn’t hide the smile that was spreading across my lips.

“Is that something you’d be willing to work with?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

I nodded vigorously and had to keep myself from throwing my arms happily around him.

“I want to take things slow,” he said. “I rushed things with Ayla, and look how that turned out. You and I had our own issues. I want to start slow and fresh.”

“I think that sounds perfect,” I said with a grin.

He shifted closer towards me and reached out to take one of my hands in his.

“Like I said, I never stopped loving you,” he admitted as he looked me deeply in the eyes. “Even when I proposed to Ayla, there was a part of me that wished it was you standing there.”

“Really?!” I asked.

“Ayla was a fantasy,” he said. “I didn’t have a future with her. I was just fooling myself to think that she and I had anything in common. Looking back, we probably looked so silly together.”

“Don’t say that,” I said as I swatted his arm. “That’s not true.”

“No,” he laughed, revealing his imperfect smile. “She was totally out of my league.”