Sweet

True Believers 2

by

Erin McCarthy

I couldn’t go home for the summer. I just couldn’t.

Going home would mean endless worried looks from my mother, and reminders about following curfew and the dangers of alcohol and premarital sex. My father would force me to volunteer—which was such an oxymoron—to teach Sunday school at his church and threaten to throw out all of my revealing clothes. Like shorts. Because wearing shorts in summer was so scandalous.

I couldn’t deal with it, a whole summer ruined with their good intentions and their high moral standards that only a saint could live up to. And I’m no saint.

So I lied and told them I was spending the summer in Appalachia building homes for the poor with a Christian mission group when I was actually staying in Cincinnati and working at a steakhouse. I know. That was kind of a shitty lie.

But it was the only one that would have worked, so I had gone with it and there was no turning back now. Maintaining my freedom was worth a little guilt that I wasn’t actually helping people in need, though I suppose I could argue I was at least fueling the economy by serving beef. So the only thing still unresolved was where I was going to stay for a week in the gap between when I had to leave my dorm and when I could take over a sublet on an apartment June first.

I had a plan. Turning the doorknob, I stepped inside and assessed the situation. My roommate Kylie, snuggled with her boyfriend, Nathan, who lived in the apartment. Tyler and my other roommate, Rory, also cuddling. The sap-factor in the living room was huge, with Kylie on Nathan’s lap, their fingers entwined, while Tyler did that weird thing he was constantly doing where he played with Rory’s hair and made me want to smack his hand away on her behalf. She always seemed okay with it though, go figure.

“Hey, Jessica!” Kylie said brightly. “Cute top.”

“Thanks.” I had put on the tight red tank absently, then had wondered if more cleavage would be better for what I had in mind, then had been disgusted with myself for even thinking such a thought. So then I had decided no cleavage was necessary to my self-respect and pulled a Union Jack shirt on over the tank. Appearance was such a process. “What are you guys up to?”

“I’m watching Inglourious Basterds,” came a voice from the kitchen. “Everyone else is engaged in foreplay.”

Ugh. Trying not to sigh, I turned and saw Riley Mann, Tyler’s older brother, popping the top of a beer can. He was not who I wanted to see.

“Jealous?” I asked him lightly, forcing a sardonic smile. Everything about Riley annoyed me, from his sarcasm to his inability to ever be serious, to the fact that he was hot as hell and so clearly knew it. I didn’t see him very often since he worked full-time in construction, which was perfectly fine with me. It was easier to breathe without his testosterone choking the room.

He shook his head. “No. Sex is not worth the headache of a relationship. And my hand doesn’t expect me to text it twenty times the next day.”

There was mental imagery I did not need, though I couldn’t argue with his opinion that relationships were a crapload of work. I made a face. “You’re always so charming. Is Bill here?”

“He’s studying in his room,” Nathan told me. “He has a physics final tomorrow. God, I’m so glad I’m done with my exams.”

I was done, too, which was why housing was becoming something of an issue. I only had two days until I had to vacate the dorms. “Okay, thanks.” I started down the hall to Bill’s room.

“You’re going in there?” Nathan called after me. “I’m warning you, he’s in a mood.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. I just want to say hi.” Bill had been crushing on me for six months, ever since his girlfriend from high school had dumped him for a basketball player at Ohio State. We had hooked up a few times, but I had been totally clear about not wanting to date. I was not in the market for a relationship at all.

Without knocking I went into Bill’s room. He was at his desk, and with the exception of the books and papers spread out in front of him, his room was neat as usual, bed made, no sign of finals stress. Until you got to his hair. Then the tension was evident in the floppy curls sticking out in various directions, looking like he hadn’t made nice with a hairbrush in days. His glasses were sliding down his nose when he looked up, and he was a very cute, modern interpretation of the absentminded genius.

“Hey,” he said, looking vacantly at me.

“Hey. How’s studying going?” I propped a hip on the corner of his desk and smiled.

“Not bad, but I still have a lot to go through. Did you need something, or did you just want to hang out? Because I can’t until tomorrow.”

“I wanted to know if I can stay here with you, in your room, for a few days.” Okay, so it was more like eight days, but who was counting?

“What?” He frowned. “What do you mean?” He tapped his pen on his lips and blinked up at me.

“I need a place to crash until I can get in the apartment I sublet. There’s no way I’m sleeping on that couch in the living room. It’s like chain mail. But I can sleep in your bed with you, right?” I smiled and used the tip of my finger to push his glasses up. “I promise I won’t kick you in my sleep like I did last time.”

For a second he didn’t say anything. Then he shook his head. “No.”

That was definitely not the answer I was expecting. “What? Why not? Okay, so I know I can’t promise to have control over my limbs when I’m sleeping, but you can always kick me back. I don’t mind.” He couldn’t be seriously telling me no. My heart rate started to increase, anxiety creeping up over the back of my neck.

“I don’t care if you kick me, it’s not that.” Bill sighed. “Look, Jess, we both know it’s no secret I like you, and you’ve been totally straight up with me about not returning the sentiment, and I appreciate that. Maybe it’s insane of me to say no, because sometimes I do manage to talk you into hooking up when you take pity on me, but I can’t share a bed with you every night for a week and not feel like shit about it. I just can’t.”

My jaw dropped, and I felt a hot flood of shame in my mouth, which made me angry. I hadn’t done anything to feel bad about, despite what my dad’s opinion about it would have been. “You make it sound so sketch. We’re friends. We’ve hooked up when we both felt like it, not because I was desperate and you were my only option or because I felt sorry for you. I’m not that nice of a person that I’ll blow you out of pity. I just like you as a friend and I think you’re cute. We have fun. Apparently, I was totally wrong in thinking you felt the same way.”

“I do feel the same way,” he insisted. “The problem is, I feel more than that, and I’m just not into torturing myself. I want you to be my ‘girlfriend.’” He made air quotes. “Pathetic, I know.”

The thought of being anyone’s girlfriend made me want to throw up in my mouth a little. There was no way I wanted to give a guy that much control over my emotions and my time. I had finally gotten away from that for the first time in my life.

“I’m sorry. It’s not pathetic, it’s just . . .”

“It’s you, not me.” He rolled his eyes. “I know. You can save the let-him-down-gently speech for another dude,. I get it.”

I had to admit, that was kind of a relief. “This is awkward,” I told him.

“Probably more for me than for you,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Look, you can stay on the couch in here.”

“Except now it will be weird.” It already was.

“No, it won’t. I won’t be needy or anything. I just need to have some self-preservation.”

“Okay, I understand.” I did. But it made it different. I couldn’t casually touch him anymore. I couldn’t flirt without feeling like I was leading him on, and I would have to be careful around him. I fought the urge to sigh. Why did everything have to be so complicated between guys and girls? Curse hormones. “Good luck on your final.”