Ties (15 page)

I know he says that as a way of assuring me that there was no emotional entanglement, but I don’t believe that, first of all. Secondly, I don’t really get what’s so reassuring about the fact that it was
only
physical.

Since Whit’s
only
a goddess.

And she was probably
only
the best sexual partner ever.

Add in the fact that I’m
only
a virgin and chronic over-analyzer, and the thought of anything “purely physical” between Ryan and Whit makes me cringe.

“Right. I get it.” I nod like it barely interests me.

Ryan grabs me by the wrists. “Uh, no you don’t.”

“I
do
,” I insist, trying to pull away, but he leans back on the chalkboard--apparently not caring that he’s covered in chalk dust--and traps me between his thighs. I can’t help leaning into their muscled strength.

“Look at me.”

I look at his eyebrows and he shakes his head. I watch his forehead crinkle, knowing it’s because he’s giving me that exasperated smile that seems to be a permanent fixture on his face when I’m around.

“You don’t ‘get it’ because I never explained it. To you or anyone.”

“I don’t need an explanation.” I’m practically begging. “Seriously. I really don’t. It’s clearer than you think.”

“I had the same girlfriend from middle school right through my sophomore year in college,” Ryan begins despite my pleas, his thumbs tracing along my knuckles, down my fingers, along my palms. “I thought I’d marry her. And then, out of the clear blue, she dumped me. And when I say it broke my heart, that’s the biggest understatement of my life.”

Even though I asked him not to explain, I regret this abbreviated version of the story. If I have to know it, I want to know it all. Who was she? Why did she date him so long and just drop him like that? Did she meet someone else? Why didn’t he just move on?

But he fast forwards through all those questions and goes directly to the crazy.

“I was emotionally gutted, and I dealt with it by staying perpetually wasted. Getting drunk every weekend, stalking my ex to the point where she was about to get a restraining order. I was out of my fucking mind.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I was also incredibly immature. I’d had one girlfriend.
One
. Our first date was our eighth grade dinner dance. I was a social moron when it came to girls. So I decided to get an education.”

“You mean a
sexual
education,” I clarify. “You never finished college, so you obviously weren’t focused on an
academic
education. Right?”

He leans his forehead to mine and chuckles, his breath brushing my cheek. “Jesus Christ, you’re not gonna cut me any slack, are you?”

“Cut you slack? After the part in the story where you give up a solid college education to become a professional Don Juan? Or maybe after the part where you detail your rebound sexual exploits to try to illicit my sympathy?” I raise an eyebrow at him. “It’s not like you’re telling me the story of how you beat cancer or overcame an impoverished upbringing. People break up, Ryan. Even people who went to the eighth grade dinner dance together.” I tap a finger to the side of my lips. “Actually
especially
people who went to the eighth grade dinner dance together. Are you seriously standing here trying to tell me the downfall of that relationship came as a
surprise
to you?”

He puts his hands on either side of my face and kisses me: just the barest brush of his lips over mine.

“It honestly did. I guess I’m a little bit of a romantic.”

“You don’t mean ‘romantic,’” I whisper, thinking he’s ridiculous even as I press my lips against his harder, wanting him more. “You mean ‘settler.’ As in, you settle way too easily.”

“I settl
ed
way too easily,” Ryan says, gathering me in his arms again. “I guess it was easy to be afraid of something new when I’d only experienced one thing. But give me some credit, Hattie. I changed.”

I blow out a long stream of breath. “You changed from settling for one girl to settling on all of them. You still weren’t challenging yourself. You were taking the easy way out.”

He grunts with frustration, twining his fingers through mine and locking my hands behind my back, so my knuckles graze the cool blackboard. “So, if I love things easy, what the hell am I doing with you?”

I wriggle, mostly to see if I could break his hold easily. I can’t.

“I have no idea. More games?” I guess.

“Except games are supposed to be fun. This feels kind of like masochism.”

He drops his head and kisses my shoulder through the thin lace of my dress. The heat of his lips through the stiff fabric makes me shudder.

“Masochism isn’t fun? I think, under the right circumstances, a little S&M could be
really
fun.” I dip my mouth to his and nip his bottom lip between my teeth.

His eyes go wide and dark. “Leave this place. With me. Now.”

“Can’t.” I put more pressure on my wrists and break his hold. Or, more accurately, he lets me break his hold. “My family expects me to stay. I came with them, to spend time with them.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Hmm. Your family. Not my biggest fans. You sure this isn’t about what they think of me?”

“No.” I shake my head like I’m trying to convince myself that I’m not lying through my teeth. “I love them, but I’ve been making my own decisions without worrying about what other people think for a long time now. I have no plans to let anyone else interfere with what I want.”

Partial lie.

Mom and I are both so independent she never really invaded my personal life or gave her opinion on who I should spend time with. Plus she would have loved for me to date more. She said I was wasting my youth by not balancing work and social life.

But Deo and Grandpa? Whit? It’s not only the fact that they’re so strangely overprotective--which I chalk up to all those lost years, plus it just seems to be a family thing with them to be in each other’s business--it’s that I’m not really sure how to react to it.

And, yes. It’s also Ryan’s twisted history with Whit.

He’s fun. He’s sexy. He’s interesting. I’ve never been more eager to spend time with anyone, never looked forward to debating and arguing with any person more. But that’s just because this thing we have is a novelty. New. Sexy.

Ryan is
not
the guy I’m going to be with for the rest of my life. He’s a great guy, but he’s not my type by any stretch of the imagination. I’m going to be very careful when I choose the person I’ll spend my life with, and it will definitely be someone with real direction, someone who agrees with my way of seeing things...someone who doesn’t have an insane history with people in my extended family.

Contrary to my mother’s proclamations, you absolutely
can
choose who you love, and you can do it using logic
and
feelings.

I’m not worried, even if I sometimes get a tight knot in the pit of my stomach when I wonder if I’ll ever meet someone I connect with like this again.

Which is ridiculous.

I
will
feel this spark again. I 
will
find someone who makes me smile and turns me on again: someone who looks at me like I’m the only thing worth looking at...someone who looks at me the way Ryan does.

But love and lust are two very different things, and I’m not quite willing to give up on the intense feelings I have for Ryan in the lust department. Plus, he’s experienced, and I could use a tutor. I’m not planning to wait until I’m married to have sex, and I’d like to feel things out with someone who knows what he’s doing, who I care about, and who I can say good-bye to cleanly, no broken hearts or restraining orders when it’s all done.

Ryan makes sense for that. He has a long track record for being a great temporary guy, and that’s what I need.

“Look, I don’t want to be hanging all over each other at a religious festival. It’s pathetic.” I run a thumb over his jaw, watching his eyelids flutter shut. “But I would love to meet up later. Maybe get a bite?”

“Maybe pack one and bring it out on the boat? I swear we can keep things clean.” He holds his hands up, proclaiming his innocence. “Unless you were serious about the S&M thing, because I’m open to whatever you’re up for.”

I give him a quick last peck. “Maybe if you’re lucky.” I brush the chalk off my dress. “Okay, I’m going. Wait five minutes so no one sees us coming out together.”

The easy look on his face tightens, and he lowers his eyebrows. “What?”

“Or ten. Maybe ten will look less obvious?” When he just stares at me, I shrug. “Whatever you think. You text me a time and place for later.”

I duck out of the classroom and find my family. They ask a million questions about where I’ve been, and I do my best to remember that they’re asking because they’re worried, not because they’re prying.

I resist the urge to snap that I’m just fine, that I’m a grown woman who’s been taking care of herself for a long time without family chaperones.

But Deo’s smile is so lovingly goofy and Grandpa is so adorable when he pulls me onto the floor and waltzes me in quick, light circles until I’m breathless with laughter--I don’t need to ruin it by asserting my independence right now. Being this entangled with their lives is temporary. I can go back to my real life, complete with all my freedoms, when this is all over. I’m trying to just enjoy what I have with them right now.

Ryan makes a single attempt to come up and talk to me just before Cece’s acting troupe gets onstage, but I glare and shake my head, relieved when he strides away and I assure myself no one noticed us.

I like being with him. I like being with my family. I just can’t let them intersect, and he needs to respect that.

I know he will.

I hope he will.

I don’t run into him again for the duration of the festival, and that makes me breathe a sigh of relief. Until I find myself sitting in Marigold’s guest room later that night, my phone in my lap, and no text from Ryan.

I refuse to text him.

An hour passes. Two. Three. Soon it will be too late to do anything and that old saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face slaps me upside the head.

The rules are only really about the guy I’m going to be with for good, whoever he is, I rationalize.

I don’t like it, but I think I can bend things for Ryan. He’s going to be my one deviation from the rules, anyway, so why be such a stickler?

Plus I want to make out with him so badly, it aches. Mmm, seriously aches.

I pick up the phone and break one of my most stringent rules about guys: I text first. I grit my teeth doing it and hope he’s got a good reason to leave me hanging, because I refuse to break my second rule.

Which is ‘no begging for a guy’s attention.’

I will
not
break my second rule.

Unless he doesn’t return my text in the next fifteen minutes.

I can’t believe this is happening.

11
RYAN

“What’s that girl Whitney up to? Are you still seeing her?” my mom asks as she rinses a tomato, then starts chopping it for her famous pasta salad.

Well, famous because it was Dad’s favorite. She’s now taken to making it every time I come by.

Since there haven’t been many girls that my mom has actually met, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when she asks about her, but after running into Whit a few days ago for the first time since she broke off whatever it was she and I had going, it’s unnerving to talk about her.

“It’s Whit,” I say. I have no idea if that’s her full name or not; I never bothered to ask. “And no, I’m not seeing her.”

Whit wasn’t like the other girls that I brought home from bars. She wasn’t in it hoping to be the one to change me, to save me, to bring me back to life.

She was in it because she was running from something, same as me. She was running from feelings she didn’t want too close to the surface, she was doing what she had to do to forget, even if that was becoming someone she wasn’t.

I knew that the first time I saw her. Gorgeous face, killer rack, and the saddest fucking eyes I’d ever seen.

I guess the fact that I took her home makes me the asshole dirtbag that Deo says I am, but at the time, I couldn’t see past the fact that she understood what I needed without me ever having to say it.

She’s also the only girl apart from Megan who ever met my mom.

It was the single night that Whit spent at my place. Not by choice: she always made sure to leave before I’d even pulled the condom off most nights. Or I’d slip into the bathroom and come out and she’d be long gone.

Because back then, it was what we both wanted, even needed.

That one night Whit and I shared a few too many beers, and she passed out on my chest. Scared the shit out of me to find her there when I heard knocking on the front door of my apartment the next morning. Not because it meant we’d been caught: I didn’t care who saw me with any girl. But waking up to her clutching onto me like she needed me there freaked me out--and it did the same to her when she woke up.

Ma had come by with bagels, which Whit politely declined since she “only ate
real
bagels, from the northeast, like God intended.” Ma was grinning like crazy watching Whit and I--half-dressed--scrambling for clothes and exchanging awkward goodbyes. It was one of the last nights I spent with Whit, and I missed hanging out with her when she stopped returning my calls.

But, damn, I’m so glad a rad chick like that found someone to make her happy the way she deserves.

“Shame, she was a pretty little thing,” Mom says, pointing at me with the knife. “Is there anyone else?”

I’m pretty sure she doesn’t mean for it to sound like a threat, but I know it’s coming just before a long sermon about how ‘all the good girls will get snatched up’ and ‘starting a family is the best investment in a future a man can make.’

As if that’s not bad enough, she’ll drag Dad into it. She might even pull the old photo albums down and want to look at pictures of the good old times.

Not that they weren’t good times.

The best times.

I just can’t think about my father and his life right now. I loved my father, but his life isn’t my life, and I can’t make decisions that were identical to his just to keep some Byrne legacy alive.

My mother thinks I’m being a narcissist by choosing a life that’s different from my father’s. What she doesn’t realize is that I think about him every time I make any decision: I think about how much he gave up. I think about the man he never got to be, the life he never gave himself the chance to live.

“Mom, you know I’ve been busy. I’m out on the water every morning before work, and most nights I get out there again. I barely have time to eat and sleep.”

I think about the last few weeks, the way the days have started to bleed together. What used to be the one thing that could ricochet energy through my body has started to feel like work. Maybe it’s the press of always having to do better, knowing that a few seconds can cost me sponsorship and my future.

Mom’s sigh is long and tortured. “Again? With the boats? Ry, I love you. I do. But sailing isn’t a poor guy’s game. If you had a trust fund and time to spare? Wonderful. But you’re a blue collar guy from a blue collar family. I know you don’t want to do plumbing--”

“Please, Ma,” I beg. “Not with plumbing again. Uncle Pat can recruit Tommy if he’s that desperate. I’m not old enough to give up on life like that yet. Poor Dad got sucked in and never got back out.”

She whips her head up and I wish I could cram my insensitive words back down my goddamn throat. “What makes you think your father got sucked into
anything
?” she asks, her voice so calm it’s fucking scary.

“Seriously? Who grows up wanting to be a plumber?” I scoff.

Mom slams a hand into her hip, the look on her face the same pitying one I saw so many times growing up: when I asked for a dirt bike for Christmas, when I told her Megan and I were getting our own place senior year of high school, when I announced that my job making sandwiches at Subway made me an adult and negated the need for me to have a curfew.

“You know who wants to be plumbers, Ryan?” She stares me down. “You know who?
Men
. Grown-up men who take pride in putting bread on the table. I know everyone thinks they can be a rockstar or a cage fighter and make the big money, but those are boys’ dreams, and they only become reality for very few men. And I use the term ‘men’ lightly in that scenario.”

“Sailing is nothing like that,” I argue, but I know it’s going to fall on deaf ears. “I train my ass off. It’s Olympic level training. And it’s not just physical. I study. I learn. I have to go out there and observe every damn day.”

“Yeah,” Mom says, going back to her chopping. “Do you
observe
any girls while you’re out there? Megan wasn’t the only one. You’re a good-looking guy, and you got your dad’s work ethic, thank God. I’d like to see you with someone who can make you happy.”

I pop a bite of cubed cheese into my mouth to draw out my response. I want to tell her about Hattie so I don’t have to listen to the whole song and dance, but I wouldn’t even know what to say. Hattie is amazing, but she may very well be off limits to me. If her strict-ass, self-imposed rules about who she dates and when and for how long don’t get me, her big bro and his chest-thumping, territorial bullshit just might.

Even without all that, there’s the point that she and I want to take this whole thing in seriously different directions. I left the synagogue feeling pretty pissed, even though she acted exactly the way she told me she would: she acted like I was a fling, good for fun and nothing else. She was clear that she didn’t want family meetings and “complications.”

The thing is, I never agreed to doing this half-assed, and I’m not about to give up on nudging her outside of her rules. Which is why I haven’t called yet, even though I know she’s waiting on me. I’m not about to let this sink into something meaningless. I can’t toss her aside like I did with so many girls before.

I’m not about to explain this all to my mom. Hell, I don’t know that I’ve even got a handle on it myself.

But Tommy saves me before I have to say anything. He whips in through the kitchen door, plopping a six pack of Harp on the counter as he catches our mother around the waist, smacks a kiss on her cheek, and steals a whole, ripe tomato. He bites it like an apple and red juice drips down his chin, making him look like a pale, ginger vampire.

“Tommy!” Mom catches my brother under his chin, turning his face back and forth like she’s inspecting him for some disease. “You’re too skinny. Are you and Pat eating anything other than take out?”

My brother pats his flat stomach and talks around a mouthful of tomato. “Sometimes we do TV dinners. I need to get rich and famous so I can get me a chef.” He grins at me, and I shake my head, because he dropped that one right into Ma’s lap.

“A chef? A chef?” She shakes her shaggy hair, dyed the same shade of red as Tommy’s, which is the color it was before she started going gray the year dad got sick. “How ‘bout a wife? Huh? You two ever heard of getting married?”

Tommy pretends to choke, going as far as falling off the counter under Mom’s feet, holding his throat and gasping, arms outstretched. “Ma...” he wheezes. “Ma...I’m gonna...die alone...a bachelor.”

She kicks him hard in his bony ass. “It’s a big joke, isn’t it? Hardy har har, your old mom is so stupid, isn’t she? I’ll tell you both what’s going to happen.” She waves the knife around and Tommy yelps. “All the good girls, all the nice ones, are gonna get themselves
married.
To
smart boys
. And you idiots will be left with the village bicycles still riding around the bars. How do you like that?”

“I
love
a good bike ride,” Tommy says, and Mom pokes the knife dangerously close to his chest. “Ah! Woman, you’re scaring me. I promise you, I swear--” He lays a hand over his heart. “I swear I will be married by twenty seven.” Mom narrows her eyes and fury radiates off of her. “Twenty five!” Tommy amends.

She sighs and chops away at the remaining vegetables with all the gusto of a butcher working on a tough old carcass. “Maybe I’m old fashioned? I don’t know. I just think this whole waiting to start a family thing is nuts. No one can afford to live on their own anymore. Trust me, if you think you’re gonna wait til you have it all figured out, you really will die alone.” She swats Tommy’s hand with a wooden spoon when he makes a grab for her other tomato.

“We’re still young, Ma,” I reason.

Correction: I attempt to reason.

And should have kept my damn mouth shut.

“You are today. Close your eyes and blink, son. You’ll have gray hairs, a pot belly, and a load of debt. It goes like that.” She holds a hand up and snaps her fingers, her blood-red nails shiny in the light. “You wanna end up like Uncle Pat?”

“He was married,” Tommy points out, jumping up on the counter, just close enough to the cutting board that Mom has to shove him over. He grins like a fool.

“To the village bicycle! He picked her up after a few
kegs
too many. See my point?” She puts a hand on her hip.

“Yes, ma’am.” Tommy salutes and nabs a handful of olives. “I will pick up a mail order bride catalog today! I’ll pay extra to get my wife shipped overnight.”

“You’re an asshole, Tommy. You know that?” Mom says, chuckling despite herself. “Here’s an idea. Why didn’t you scoop Jenny up before she got herself engaged? She showed me her rock after mass, and that McCarthy boy must be doing well for himself. Could have been a ring you bought on her finger, Tommy.”

Tommy tosses the olives back in the bowl and slides off the counter, his scowl fierce. “I gotta check some shit out back.” He stalks out and slams the door hard enough to shake the frame.

“What the hell crawled up his ass?” Mom asks.

I don’t care if telling my mother makes me a traitor: she’d weasel the story out of someone else, then give me hell when she found out I already knew.

“Tommy and Jen had something going on, I guess? They were just...casual.” I watch Mom frown because she knows full well I mean they were just
fuck buddies
, even if I’m not about to utter those words in front of her. “Anyway, she stopped calling, and he didn’t think too much about it. When he found out she was engaged, he went to her house and went apeshit in her front yard. Punched Troy in the face.”

Mom stops her manic chopping and grips the counter, her head hanging down. “Holy Mother of God, what did I ever do to deserve such stupid boys?” she implores her Virgin Mother statue, the tiny ceramic one who’s guarded the sink ever since I was a kid.

There’s a Holy Mother in every room of my house, one in the front and backyard, and one in the glove compartment of every vehicle we’ve ever owned. Mom doesn’t like to take chances that the Virgin Mary might miss out on one of her prayers to help heal us of our rampant stupidity.

“He was so drunk, the punch hardly landed.”

It sounded more comforting in my head.

“Did he
drive
drunk?” She shrieks like a harpy, that damn knife still clutched in her fist.

“How the hell would I know, Ma? I wasn’t there.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “He’s supposed to be an adult, you know. I’m not his keeper.”

“He needs a keeper,” Mom bites out. “He needs a
wife
. Why didn’t he scoop Jenny up?” She takes the kind of long, shuddery breath that usually means she’s about to weep.

Shit.

“I think Tommy always assumed Jen would be there waiting. Forever.” I try to keep my voice gentle for her benefit, but this whole family drives me fucking batshit crazy.

“That’s my point.” Ma bangs the knife handle on the counter and focuses her crazy eyes my way. “That’s exactly my point! A pretty, smart, sweet girl like Jen with a degree and a good job? A girl who goes to mass every Sunday and has good birthing hips? Mark my words, she’ll get knocked up on her honeymoon. That kind of girl doesn’t wait for a guy, because she has choices. She has choices.” She pushes her bangs out of her eyes. “You boys will be left in the dust.”