RETRACE (16 page)

I think my heart just melted. I offer her my hand, “C’mere.” When she stands next to me, I tuck her under my arm and kiss the crown of her head. “I adore the shit out of you, friend.” I do, I really do.

“You’re a true poet.” She laughs. Unfortunately, it’s a short and agitated sound.

“Let’s see. We’ve got blue, we’ve got grey, we’ve got red, we’ve got purple…” I wiggle my eyebrows, setting the arsenal of home pregnancy tests I got at the pharmacy on our way home, on my en-suite vanity. “Oh, and we’ve also got pink. This one might look innocent, but I kid you not, this mother fucker claims 99.9 percent accuracy. It’s badass pink!”

Nia, by my side, watches me with a smile, the under seams of anxiety are still much evident behind that gorgeous smile. I wink at her.

“You think you got enough tests?” She teases. I swat her ass and she squeals, jerking forward. “I don’t think I’ve got enough liquid in me for all these sticks…”

“Try to fill up a cup and just stick them all there.”

“God, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.” She shakes her head.

“Pee away milady.” I bend to a full blown curtsy before stepping out of the bathroom. Nia laughs it off, waves, and closes the door behind me.

My smile crashes down as soon as I lean against the wall. Gone is my breath. I gently bang my head back while whispering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I do something I haven’t done since I can remember: I pray. Not sure to whom, but I do.

I compose myself and call out, “Hey Nia, come out, let’s wait together.”

She slowly opens the door and looks at me, seeming completely freaked out. I inwardly grimace at the worry she radiates. She took off her cardigan and she is down to a long sleeved, white shirt and jeans. Needless to say, anxious or not, she’s still incredibly attractive. I can’t get enough of how beautiful she is. I offer her my hand and she fills it with hers.

“Dance for me,” I say. Her eyes flash open.

“Are you for real? I’m about to hurl here, and you want me to dance?”

“Wasn’t it you who said dancing calms her down?” My eyebrow rises. “You know what, we both will.” I pull her after me to the bedroom. She frowns, yet follows.

I put the wackiest song I can find in my play list on and turn up the volume. Nia observes me with knitted brows, a smile slowly creeping into her lips.

When I start swaying and jumping to the crazy tune, Nia bursts into laughter and joins me. The rowdier the vibe gets, the goofier our moves become. I hold her hips and fling her to straddle me. We move together, totally out of control. When Nia starts to shake her sweet ass too excitedly, I lose balance and fall to the bed with her on top of me. Our stares unite for a long beat and we both smile softly.

“Are you ready?” I ask, breaking our silent bubble. She saws her lips and nods. All color leaves her face. I push out an exhale before entering the improvised field lab in my bathroom.

“It’ll be okay,” I say, rubbing her arm, not convincing either of us. Nia hides behind my back as I turn to check experiment number one: white and purple stick. My sigh of relief followed by a breathy “fuck,” prompts her to peep from behind me. Nia looks up at me and our stares catch with glee. We both let out a brief snicker of relief and high five. Same reaction goes to the second, third, and fourth sticks.

“Oh, shit.” I exclaim at 99.9 percent accuracy, exhibit pink.

“What?” Nia swallows the word in a sharp intake.

“What was it, two lines, or one?”

“Two?” She asks wearily, and I beam. I shove a finger through the knot of my tie, releasing it in a long pull.

“Oh God, thank you. Thank you!” Nia drops her head. I can only relate to her massive relief. Finally, the twisted string in my stomach unties. “I wanted a happy date… Here’s a happy date for us.” It’s her turn to wink, and mine to chuckle.

I lie in bed, wide awake, although I couldn’t be more beaten. This week in which I was about twenty four seven in alert mode, the flight back, and the pregnancy threat situation that literally scared the leaving shit out of me, all mesh in my head. I think I’ve reached the point where I’m too exhausted to even begin to unwind. I sink my head deeper into my clutched hands on my pillow. As I process the potential colossal mess we’ve just dodged, everything Nia takes over my mind.

Random thoughts flit by, they all end with one beautiful girl with stunning, sad eyes that took up residence inside my heart. They run from our goodbye earlier when Nia said she needed alone time to process everything, to the fact that I’ve never, so far, been to her bedroom, to having her occupy my mind all the time while I was away. Together with a strong feeling of how I should take a step back, comes the thought of how little I really know about her. About her family, friends, about her life before she moved here. I’ve managed to glean from everything she said, and not, so far, that she must have had some hell of a past.

Just like I know how involved I’m becoming with her, I know that for her sake and my heart’s that maybe at this point we should just stop. Perhaps it was a wakeup call in the form of a false alarm to stop whatever is taking over me, strongly and steadily.

The short chime of my phone breaks into my mulling. It’s after one a.m. who on earth would be calling me now? In complete contradiction to my momentary emotional retreat, my heart makes half a summersault when I see Nia’s name on the display.

“Are you awake?”

“Why are whispering?” I ask with a smile that I’m not exactly controlling.

“I thought you might be sleeping.”

“And you expected me to answer and continue sleeping?” Her soft snicker reaches me and my smile grows. “How can I help you after one a.m., Miss Mitchell?”

“Ehmm, any chance I could join you?” Her voice over the line is supple and somewhat hesitant.

“You want to sleep over?”

“Yes,” she answers and my previous thoughts are locked into a provisional drawer right after I flip them off.

“I’m waiting for you…”

Not more than five minutes later she’s spooned in my arms with her back pressed to my chest. No more than a soft “good night” whisper later, and her breathing becomes steady and calm. I inhale her subtle honey scent, and with every sweet intake the idea of taking a step back crumbles down piece by piece. By the time I kiss her silky hair, that idea turns into dust that’s carried away by the light night breeze.

The next few days post False-Alarmgate, it’s awkward zone between Nia and me. Somehow we are either too busy to meet, or just make a hell of an effort to be. We don’t see each other during the days, but we fuck each other to sleep every night. There’s a lot of raw, rough sex going on and not much talking. Not that I’ll ever complain, but it’s too odd not to make me wonder if we managed to screw up our friendship. It’s a thought I’m not even willing to bear.

“Lovely, these are just lovely sounds.” Alex mocks the rumbles my stomach produces. Growls that color the silence in the locker-room where we both change into jeans after our classes. It feels like I haven’t eaten for a week, which in a way is kind of true. Only after last night’s deep sleep did my appetite return from its long hibernation.

“Coming to Jake’s?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll check with Reeves, he is picking me up for dinner.”

Alex’s gaze narrows at me, she threads her fingers through her crazy, purple hair, making it even messier.

“You guys are together now?”

I give her a head shake. “We’re just friends.” To be honest, I’m not sure what we are anymore. Finally, we’ll meet in broad daylight, something we haven’t done for some days now.

“Cool, so he is out there for grabs?” An overly plucked eyebrow is cocked at me. I dismiss the flare in my stomach as a side effect of my hunger.

“I guess.”

“Oh, I hope you guys join us even more now … He. Is. Fine!” I smile at her, and what a hard effort that smile takes.

“Aren’t you with Toni? Didn’t you get back together?”

“Nah, we’re back to just sharing an apartment, nothing more.”

After Alex leaves, I take a few moments to apply eye shadow, blush, mascara, and a thin layer of nude lipstick. My fresh flush is courtesy of a sudden realization: I’ve just applied makeup, which I do only when I go out on dates, and I did it thinking of the person waiting for me outside. Immediately, I yank a tissue paper from the Kleenex box rested on the wide, illuminated vanity, and wipe my lips clear somewhat brutally. I leave the mascara on. It’s one thing to try and look as though you’d made no effort, it’s a totally different one to look like a rabid racoon.

I’m not looking to impress him. We’re just friends, good friends, with a whole lot of fantastic benefits. Benefits in his bed, benefits on the counter, benefits on the sofa, horizontal, vertical, and my favorite, wild, rough benefits. Wild, rough benefits in uniform… Every possible damn-mind-blowing benefit. But benefits do remain in friends’ territory for us.

This is how it should be. I cannot allow myself to put my barely held together heart out there. I’m not sure if either my heart, or I, will survive as much as even a tiny seam tiring out. And anyhow, his messages, Reeves’, verbal and silent ones, on where he’d like to take this friendship of ours were received loud, rather bitter, and very much clear.

“
If I were your boyfriend
, I’d never let you defile your perfect skin by marking it.” Read: I’m not your boyfriend, take note of that, don’t get any hopes up. His brush off of the subject when Dylan asked if we were dating was quite illuminating. How about the last few days? It’s been the worst case of odd vibe. I must admit though, it was mostly my doing, this growing apart we’ve got going on. It was me making all possible excuses not to meet during the daytime. I wanted to meet him, very much, but somehow it felt as I needed to give him some space after the bomb I dropped on him, on us.

Hypocritically so, at nights I’ve ended up in his bed, every night. That was my doing too. During the days I’ve been keeping myself busy, the nights are a whole different story. At night I need him. But I should really stop dwelling on a non-issue, it couldn’t be better this way. We are of the same mind: just friends.

So why does it still hurt?

“I missed your face,” Reeves says, watching me attentively above a lit candle as I lean in for a bread stick.

“You’ve seen my face every day,” I murmur, nibbling on the crispy delight.

Yes, we didn’t go to Jake’s after all. I might, or might have not, persuaded Reeves we must have Italian tonight. It might had to do with Alex’s recent zeal with Reeves, even tortured I’ll never admit that. Reeves keeps silent long enough to draw my look up.

“You meant to say,
every night
.” He twists his mouth, running a finger on the red and white checkered tablecloth. I lower my stare to follow his finger as it moves from side to side next to a white plate.

“More wine?” I ask, reaching for the open bottle between us, his nimble hand gets to it before me. He holds it firmly, gazing at me in edgy silence. He then tilts the bottle toward my glass and starts pouring the rich red liquid.

“Why are you acting so weird?” He finally asks, setting the bottle back and raising his eyes to mine. His jaw is tense as he observes me, waiting for my reply.

He has a long sleeved, bottle-green shirt on. The fabric accentuates his wide, sturdy pecs, while the color does wonders in emphasizing his striking eyes.

Reeves insisted we go out tonight and now I know why he wouldn’t succumb to any of my lame excuses to just a sleep over. He apparently has his mind set on not allowing me to ruin whatever we have going on.
Thank God
.

“I thought you needed some space,” I say, and my stare drops to my nervous hands on my thighs.

“I needed some space?” He repeats. “Only in the day time?”

My breath catches as I lift my eyes into scrutinizing greens.

“I thought you might want a break after the little bomb I dropped on you.”

His brows sink in. “But you still came over
every
night
…”

“I sleep better when you’re around,” I say in a low voice, watching his edginess soften.

“Why’s that?”

I shrug and reach for another bread stick.

“One of these days you’ll have to tell me what’s really goes on inside your mind,” he says in a way that tells me he is letting go of whatever we’ve just discussed. It’s more than evident we both know there’s so much more lying under our brief exchange. I couldn’t be more grateful for him to change the subject to a lighter one. He tells me about the persistent attempts of Dan to get Eileen to finally agree to go out with him. Poor guy apparently has it bad.

“Oooh, I love this song.” I interrupt our easy conversation, as the first tunes of Lemon Tree fill the small restaurant. Reeves eyes lit up.

“I like you smiling,” he says, and I beam.

Between delicious bites of artichoke, pine nuts and parmesan fresh pasta, we tell each other about the week we had. The wine slowly but consistently keeps flowing as the time pleasantly flies by.

“That’s it, I can’t breathe!” I drop my fork and slump back onto the wooden chair.

Reeves smiles.

“You didn’t even eat half of your dish.”

I frown and he shakes his head with a hint of amusement.

He takes a long sip of his tall glass and says, “Okay, let’s pay and run by Jake’s.” Catching the waitress’ stare, he signs for the check.

“Nah… Let’s just go home.”

He cocks his head in question.

“I’m not much into socializing tonight.”

“You’re socializing with me.”

“It’s different with you.”

“How is it different with me?” he asks.

“It’s the best kind of escapism.” His smile causes butterflies to flutter in my stomach. Strike that, these are not butterflies and they are not fluttering, it’s more akin to gigantic eagles, winging in ferocity.

As I unlock the door to my apartment, before actually stepping in, I look over my shoulder at Reeves. “Can we not, f…ahem…k… tonight?”