21
I was about two hundred feet down the sidewalk when he caught up with me.
“Wait! Wait – I’m sorry!” he said.
He turned around and walked backwards so he could face me as he talked.
“Was it something I said?” he grinned.
I shot him a death glare.
He put up his hands to ward it off. “Okay, yes, obviously it was what I said – ”
“Women are not just sexual playthings for your amusement.”
“I know that,” he said, a little taken aback.
“Not from the way you act.”
“Look, I’m just a sexual person – ”
“Who’s only interested in f*cking me?”
“Whoa! Whoa, hold on there, potty mouth!” he laughed.
“Oh – I’m a potty mouth, Mr. ‘Every other word out of my mouth is f*ckin’ this and f*ckin’ that’? Why am I a potty mouth, because I’m a girl?”
“Hey – hey,” he said, his voice suddenly soothing. He moved beside me and touched my arm, but I shook him off roughly.
“Please, will you just listen to me?” he asked, his voice low.
“Go ahead and talk, it’s a free country,” I snarled.
“Look… I think you’re absolutely gorgeous, and yes, I want to sleep with you.”
Oof.
My insides turned to caramel and melted sex.
I glanced at him in shock, then looked away hurriedly, afraid he might see how he’d made me feel.
He continued. “But you seem to think I only want to fu– uh, to sleep with girls and that’s it. But I like you. A lot.”
I walked on in silence.
“Are you going to say anything?” he asked.
It took me a few seconds to admit it.
“…I asked around about you,” I muttered.
“Of course you did,” he said in mild amusement.
Which infuriated me.
“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘of course you did’?”
Such an arrogant ass, just assuming I was checking him out before I slept with him –
“You’re a reporter. You’re curious about shi– uh, stuff.”
Oh.
That was an interesting take on it.
Good alibi, anyway.
“So… what’d you find out?” he smiled.
Best sex she’d ever had.
I wasn’t about to repeat any of that, though.
“You sleep with a lot of women.”
“That’s true,” he admitted.
“And you don’t date them long.”
“That’s true, too.”
“Like, the average time seems to be about, oh, two or three hours.”
“I see a lot of the girls I sleep with over and over again.”
I glared at him. “So they’re f*ck buddies?”
He put his hands up like whoooaaa. “Hey, you said it, not me.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Did you actually talk to any women I’ve slept with?”
“…one,” I grumbled.
“Did she say if we’ve slept together more than once?”
Your roommate missed out BIG time.
“No,” I lied. “But she and another girl said you never called them again.”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t have a cell phone. Actually, I don’t have a phone, period.”
I stared at him. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Too expensive.”
How poor was this guy? I’d seen homeless people with cell phones…
On the other hand, it explained some things. Like why he kept showing up at my dorm room, yet never asked for my phone number.
“They have these awesome new telephones that take quarters,” I jeered. “Maybe you’ve seen them?”
“Ha ha,” he said, not actually laughing. “Look, those girls you talked to? They want it to look like I’m a heartless jerk. I seduced them and I ditched them, and it’s all my fault because I’m bad, bad, bad.”
“No,” I said sarcastically, “you’re just a perfect little angel.”
“No, I’m very, very bad,” he grinned, and then his voice dropped suggestively. “But I’m also very, very good. Did you ask about that, too?”
I could feel my face getting hotter. “Why do you always do that?”
“What?”
“Bring it back around to sex.”
“YOU were talking about sex.”
“I walked OUT on you because YOU were talking about sex.”
“Well, what do you want? You want to date guys who don’t want to sleep with you? You should date a gay guy, then. Or a dead guy, ‘cause I think you might have a shot at turning a gay guy straight.”
“I want a gentleman.”
“Mm, well, I’m not a gentleman.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“So why are you still talking to me?”
“That’s a good question. Oh, wait – I’m not.”
I looked for traffic, then jaywalked across the street.
He was pretty surprised by that, though it took him just a second to follow me. “Okay, okay, that was a good one.”
I ignored him as I got to the median and checked the other direction. The closest car was a good two hundred feet away, so I took off again.
He puttered along beside me. “Checkmate. Very nice. You can start talking to me again.”
I kind of liked hearing him babble on idiotically, so I kept up the cold shoulder.
“You were talking to me because you like me, too,” he said as we reached the sidewalk. “You’re just afraid to get hurt. You’re afraid I’ll hurt you, and that’s why you’re pushing me away.”
“I just don’t want to waste my time with a guy who only sees me as a notch on a bedpost,” I retorted.
“I don’t. Hey – stop – I need you to listen to this, okay?”
He took hold of my arm lightly, with just the lightest of pressures.
It didn’t help that the touch of his bare skin on mine sent tingles up and down my skin.
“Please?”
I exhaled loudly and wheeled around to look at him, like, Well?
“I don’t,” he said with utter sincerity. “I don’t see you that way. If I only cared about sex, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t work this hard to get girls into bed.”
UGH.
“Oh, aren’t you Mr. – ”
“Stop it,” he said firmly. “Stop being sarcastic and pushing me away, because I’m serious. Yeah, girls jump into bed with me right away. If they don’t, I usually walk away and find another one who will. But you’re different. The second I saw you, I thought, I WANT her. And not just sex – the whole package. And yeah, while I really, REALLY want to sleep with you, I want you in my life even more. To the point where f*ck sleeping with you if I’m going to lose you over it. I’d rather be with you than just sleep with you and then lose you. I want you – ALL of you. I do, I swear to God that’s the truth.”
That took my breath away.
My heart was thudding in my chest.
Nobody had ever said anything like that to me before.
Nobody had made me feel that wanted, that desired – and yet let me know that they respected me above all else.
“I don’t believe you,” I said, though most of the anger was gone from my voice.
“Then give me a chance to prove it.”
“…how?”
“Let me be around you. No more talk about sex, no more trying to get into your pants. Let me hang out with you. Let me prove to you that I’m really, really interested in you. Let me get to know you.”
He sounded totally sincere.
It sounded amazing, and lovely, and romantic.
Though I secretly still wanted him to try to get in my pants.
But it wasn’t going to work.
I couldn’t let it work.
“I have a boyfriend.”
“Who broke up with you,” he said evenly. “And you don’t seem so upset about that, so stop using it as an excuse.”
Dammit…
But other than Kevin, there was the slightly more pressing issue of time.
I shook my head. “We’ve only got two weeks. And I’ve got finals to study for.”
“When’s your last final?”
“Thursday morning.”
“And what happens after that?”
“I go home for the summer.”
“Then I’m going to need as much of that two weeks as you can give me.”
I hugged my arms around my body like I was cold – but I wasn’t.
It was because I could feel temptation creeping in on me, using such logical words… and I so wanted to give in.
“…I need to think about it,” I whispered.
“Okay, you think about it tonight – but the flip side of the coin is I need you to get to know me, too. And you can’t know me without knowing about my music. So I want you to come meet my best friend and listen to us play.”
Oh God.
“What, at a club?” I asked dubiously.
“No. I want you to come to a practice, just me and him. We write songs together. You want to get to know the real me, then I need you to come hang out with us.”
I hesitated and chewed on my lip. “…when?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, about 3PM.”
I sighed and gave in – sort of. “Okay. Give me your number and I’ll let you know tomorrow what I decide.”
“Don’t have a cell phone,” he reminded me.
“Oh, yeah… where’s the practice?”
“Don’t worry about that. You got a car?”
“Yeah.” A clunker, but I did happen to have a car.
“Good, you can drive us.” And with that, he walked away – but backwards, so that he was still facing me as he left. “See you tomorrow around 2:30.”
“I thought you were going to take me out,” I taunted him.
“I am. You’re just driving, that’s all. I think it suits you, you being a control freak and all.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, but he just grinned and kept walking.
“I didn’t say I was going to go out with you yet,” I yelled.
“You will.”
Then he turned and walked around the corner, out of sight.
The last thing I saw was that playful, utterly confident smile.