Beware of Love in Technicolor (36 page)

“You totally tried to be nice,” she offered.

“I know!” I laughed. She laughed along with me. I looked up to where Topher had been standing to be sure he had caught the exchange, but he was gone.

When I had finished breaking the seal, I stepped back into Ben’s room, only to find it empty. From there, I stumbled around a bit upstairs, talking to people I had not seen in a while and such. At some point, I met back up with Gwen and Topher, and we decided to grab more beers and head for the safety and seclusion of John’s bedroom. Once there, we were greeted by about six or seven people, but did not see John or Abby anywhere.

“Oh, thank God,” I exclaimed, flopping down on the bed. What used to be my bed, kind of. “I just need to take a break from all those people!”

“There’s a lot of people out there,” someone said to me from beside the bed. I looked up to see John’s friend, Randy, sitting on the edge next to me. He was a plain guy, hardly memorable. Sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers.

“Yeah,” I said, staring at the ceiling and wondering where I could find Ben again. “It’s crazy out there,” I replied absently.

We made small talk for a few minutes, but I hardly remember the details. What I do remember is his inability to stay focused north of the black bra I was wearing underneath the black lace t- shirt. I had started out the evening with a denim button down over it, but after a few beers, had shed that layer somewhere along the way. It was as if he had never spoken to a real girl before, the way his eyes drifted constantly down my shirt.

“Hey, I’m sorry about you and John,” he offered.

“Don’t be,” I answered. It had been five beers and my mouth was running. “I’m not.”

“Thanks, Greer,” I heard John say. I looked up quickly to see him and Abby walking into the room. John and I made eye contact and I began laughing. Gwen looked up and began giggling with me, though I don’t think she knew why she was laughing, exactly. Neither of us, at that point in the evening, was feeling much pain.

John was in a good mood and let the insult roll off his back. Abby shuffled off behind him to a chair in the corner of the room. John took a seat at his desk, where he could talk with Randy.

I know that somehow, Gwen and I ended up lying on the bed together, tangled up in girlie giggles and whispers. At one point, we stopped suddenly, aware of the quiet that had overcome the room. We looked up to realize all eyes were on us. The guys in the room seemed to be enjoying the spectacle we were making of ourselves, and the only other female presence in the room came from the scowling Abby in the corner, so Gwen and I giggled harder and tried to bring ourselves back into the general conversation.

I sat up again, only to face the lascivious eyes of Randy, still hanging on to the edge of the bed next to me.

“So, Greer, I was wondering what you would say to getting dinner or going to a show sometime. I can call you--”

“What?” I demanded loudly. I looked at him with disbelief. “Are you asking me out?”

“Hey, no, it’s not like that,” he said like a snake, smiling at me like he was trying to tame me. “I already asked him,” he continued, motioning toward John. “He said it was fine with him.”

“Oh, and that makes it ok,” I said, rolling my eyes. John looked over with a confused expression. “”Is this true, John? You gave Randy your permission to ask me out?”

“I told him I didn’t care,” he replied with that damn smile on his damned lips. I saw Abby was smiling too. “Big difference.”

The topic of conversation caught Gwen’s attention.

“You jerk!” she aimed at John.

“Oooh, good one,” I started laughing again, which set her off as well. Once again, we were caught in a fit of drunken giggles, and fell back onto the bed, clutching each other and gasping for air.

“You two airheads are loaded,” John said in our direction. “I hope you know how you’re getting home tonight.”

Gwen and I both flashed our middle fingers at him, which made the room laugh, and everyone went back to their private conversations. The next few moments get a bit fuzzy. I know that Gwen and I were huddled on John’s bed, giggling privately about which boys at the party were cutest, and how we had waited too long to party together. Innocent stuff. But then I had to pee again, and so I clambered off the bed and made a very daffy beeline for the door. As I turned to close it behind me, I was taken aback by John standing right there, following me out to the landing at the bottom of the stairs. He closed the door, shutting out our audience in his bedroom.

“Just what the hell do you think you are doing?” he demanded.

“What?” I asked, still giggling a bit.

“In there. You and Gwen.”

“You’ve lost me, honestly John,” I said, turning to walk away. But he would not let me go. He grabbed my arm, and swung me back around to face him. It was the first time he had ever laid a hand on me in force, and I didn’t like it.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” I questioned, removing his hand from my arm and pushing it away. I spoke through clenched teeth. “What the hell is your problem?”

“You. You giggling like a little bitch in there, doing everything you can do to make Abby uncomfortable.”

“What?” I spat at him.

“What was it?” he continued. “You don’t like her shoes, or her jeans are out of style?”

“First of all John,” I started, slowing my voice down so I could get the words out. “You need to lay off the pipe. You invited me here, remember? You told me I should come tonight. It sounds like you have some issues with Abby that have nothing to do with me.” He tried to speak, but I wouldn’t let him cut me off. I was on a roll.

“Gwen and I are too drunk to even know she is in the room. Is she even in there? She doesn’t exactly make her presence known. And if you must know, we were giggling about boys. Cute ones. And how happy we are to be hanging out together. And how drunk we are. That’s it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly, softening, a wave of guilt washing over his face. “I just assumed...,”

“You assumed the worst about me,” I continued. I couldn’t stop. “And so thanks a lot. Thanks for showing me just how well you really know me. And you know, if you really feel up for chastising somebody about bad manners, you may just want to start with that little prize you have in there. I’ve tried being nice, even friendly, and she was the one who was terribly rude and bitchy. Start with her.”

I did not wait for a response before I turned on my heel and started up the stairs. I looked up to see Ben at the top, witness to the entire transaction between John and me. Of course, about forty or so people had observed the fight, but they did not concern me.  Ben held out his hand, which I gladly accepted.

“Well done,” he said with an approving smile. “Feel better?”

“I guess,” I said. “He comes out of left field sometimes.”

“Well, you handled him with class. I don’t think many people could have resisted hitting him.”

“Believe me,” I joked. “The thought did occur to me. But I’d hate to hurt my hand like that. He’s not worth it.”

“Do you remember Halloween?” he asked suddenly. He was leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs. I was standing very close to him, pressed up to him by the people going up and down and trying to find their friends. The night was getting late, and now it was a question of whether or not the cops would show before the beer ran out.

“Of course,” I said to him, thinking about our night spent under the blanket six months earlier. I had resisted him that night, and for what? I should have just gone for it, consequences be damned. Except that now, I still had that delicious first kiss tantalizingly in front of me. Not yet a memory.

“You know,” he said, leaning down and whispering in my ear. “There was something I wanted to do that night, and now I think I may finally have my chance.”

“What is that?” I asked, whispering right back in his ear. He slipped his left arm around the small of my back, and reached up to touch my face with his right hand. I placed my left hand on his hip, right above the waistband of his jeans, under that perfectly faded yellow t shirt. And right at that moment when his lips brushed mine, and I felt myself give in to the kiss I had been waiting for all night, we heard the smashing of glass and people screaming.

“What the hell was that?” Ben cried out, pulling away from me to see what was happening in his house.

Behind me, in the kitchen, people were smashing the window just to get out of the crowded house. Others were running along the top of the counter, leaping over people to get through the mass of drunken idiots. The sliding doors from the living room to the deck outside were flung wide open, and off their tracks.

“Go to my room,” Ben directed me, before heading into the crowd to try and restore some order to the mass exodus. I turned around in time to be face to face with Gwen and Topher, flowing up the stairs as if riding the crest of a wave.

“They ran out of beer,” Gwen said, pouting and showing me her empty cup, before she dropped it in the confusion.

“Come with me,” I said, grabbing her hand and leading them to Ben’s room. Inside, we closed the door behind us, and walked to the window.

Outside, we saw a number of police cruisers, all with their lights flashing, lining the street. Students were rushing about in the darkness, not sure exactly where to go. The ones who did not panic were ushered to two buses sent to drive the intoxicated and stranded partygoers back to campus. About ten minutes later, Ben entered the room looking relaxed, as if nothing at all was happening outside his door.

“Everything ok out there?” Topher asked him. Ben smiled.

“Yeah, yeah,” he answered, walking to my side. “The cops are here. They’re getting everyone out. Did you see the buses they sent? This was definitely a big party!”

“Best one of the year,” I said, enjoying his arm wrapped around my waist. I focused on his fingers effortlessly tugging on one of the belt loops of my jeans, and not on the look I was getting from Topher. I hadn’t seen much of him at the party, and had assumed, this late in the evening, he would be trying to charm Gwen, but when I looked over at her, she was starting to look green.

“I wanna go home,” she said, and slumped down in Ben’s desk chair in the corner of the room.

              “I’ll find Patrick,” Topher said to us. “He’s our ride.”

             
I attended to Gwen, got her a water out of Ben’s fridge, and made sure she was not going to be sick anywhere. When I saw Patrick waving to us to go, I readied myself to leave, but before leaving his room, Ben pulled me to one side.

             
“You can stay here,” he said.

             
“No, I really can’t,” I replied. I wanted to. I really wanted to. I thought about what was downstairs. Just one floor below us was John and Abby. It was too weird, just not right.

             
“I know,” he conceded. Then he leaned in, and gave me the kiss I had been waiting for all night. He touched my face, which I like, and held me close. If a man’s kiss is his signature, Ben’s was written in honey and pomegranate. And it was good. Real good. Good enough to make me consider changing my mind. His lips were soft, but he was most definitely in charge, and he had a way of holding me close that made me want to forget everything around me.

             
“Not fair,” I whispered, our foreheads pressed together.

             
“I’m not trying to be fair.”

             
“I have to go,” I said.

             
“No, you can’t.”

             
“I have to.”

             
“Then let me take you home. You are not running away from me again.”

***

              We all have those moments, I suppose. The moments we can look back to, years later, and see where we jumped tracks and set off on a new course. The times when we become a slightly different version of ourselves. My impetus came with the mention from Ben that he would not be around the following year.

             
“Where will you be?” I asked, still feeling my buzz, but not quite so drunk as before. My thoughts and my sentences were complete. We were in his car, winding our way over the back roads that lead to campus from the south. His eyes were on the road, which gave me the perfect opportunity to really look at him in profile in the dim light from the dashboard. There was nothing sexier, at that moment in time, than him shifting gears in the new, black SAAB he drove. There was a small hole in the right knee of his jeans.

“Mexico,” he answered, shifting into fourth. “Jared and I are doing an exchange program for a year.”

“Wow,” I said, noting the excitement in his voice. He was a guy who attacked life, and expected to win. It was charming and contagious. I felt better about myself, sitting there next to Ben, than I had in a long time. He made me want to take to chances.

“You’re not going to want to come back,” I said.

“Oh, I can think of a few reasons for coming back,” he said, turning and winking at me in the passing light of a streetlamp. He placed his right hand on my left knee and squeezed.  My ego soared, and I felt my courage grow stronger as the car handled the road the way I was hoping Ben would handle me.