Crushed (Crystal Brook Billionaires) (53 page)

Instead, his shoulders sag and his head droops. “You’re right. I did come here with expectations.”

He sounds so sad, all the anger in me dissipates. I almost take a step up the stairs to touch his shoulder, but the moment is still too awkward. Those few steps between us feel like a thousand miles.

“I understand it,” I murmur, remaining in my own space. “I’ve missed you too. I’ve missed everything we had.”

He gives me a woeful half smile.

“But I’m moving into a different place in life,” I go on and gesture around me.

“And I’m still in the same spot?”

“No,” I quickly say. “That’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s true. Hell, I might not ever leave Manteo, and I’m fine with that.”

The conversation is getting to me. There’s an ache behind my eyebrows and my whole body suddenly feels incredibly tired. I sit down on the step next to him, keeping a careful distance so our legs don’t touch. The physical contact right now might do me over. I don’t want to end up asking him to stay when that won’t be a good choice for either one of us in the long run.

“I get it,” I say.

“Do you?”

I crack a smile. “No. Sorry. I’m glad to be here. I don’t ever want to move back to N.C.”

Brendan laughs. “Sorry about all this.”

“Me too.”

“What did you do? You didn’t do anything.”

I run a hand through my hair, pulling on one of the strands that curls at the nape of my neck. “I don’t think I should be let off the hook that easily.”

“You are kind of demanding.”

My mouth goes dry. “What?”

He instantly looks regretful. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that… it’s just that… you were…”

“It’s okay.”

“You were talking about things we did wrong…” He trails off again.

“Was I demanding of you?”

“When we were together.”

“Oh.”

I stare at the pool, absorbing this totally new information. “What did I do that was so demanding?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, Sydney. You have a Type A personality, you know? You like things your way. You always wanted me to come visit you here and you hardly ever came to see me.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmur.

“Don’t worry about it. That’s in the past.”

I peek at him. “Was there anything else?”

He rubs his palms together. “Just lots of little things, but really, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” I whisper, knowing I won’t be able to forget about this conversation for a long time.

“I have to go.” He stands and stretches.

“Okay.” Now that things are semi-settled between us, I don’t want to let him slip away. What if he never comes back?

“Can we hang out again before you leave?” I ask.

He grins down at me, and in his face, I see half of the boy I knew and loved for years and half of the man he’s becoming, a person whose life is entirely separate from mine.

“Yeah. Bye, Sydney.”

“Bye.”

I wait until he’s gone out the front gate to head for my apartment. I kick my shoes off, letting them bounce against the wall, and then drop my bag on the floor. I halt when I see Eryk lying on the couch with his arm over his face, possibly asleep. I gently set my keys in the bowl and ease along the wall towards my room.

“Don’t rape me,” he murmurs.

I burst into laughter. “But you look so good laying there. Especially in your Pokemon pajamas.”

He laughs, then groans. “Ugh. Laughing hurts.”

“Your Pokemon pajamas hurt?” I cross the living room and sit down on one of the kitchen stools. “What’s wrong?”

“Headache.”

“Want me to get you something for it?”

He rolls over and opens his eyes. “I just took more Tylenol than I probably should have, so if I start having a seizure, you can call for an ambulance.”

“Got it.” I slide off the stool and pull some orange juice from the fridge.

“Did you see lover boy out there?” he asks.

I snatch a glass from the dish drainer and check it for cleanliness. Crystal has a bad habit of just rinsing glasses with water and setting them in the drainer — no dish soap involved. “Brendan?”

“The one and only. He knocked on the door.”

I snort. “And let me guess… you didn’t let him in?”

He gives a pathetic shrug. “I don’t feel good.”

“It’s fine. I don’t really care.”

He opens an eye a slit. “Really?”

The tone of his voice says he doesn’t believe me.

I fill the glass to the rim with juice, then swallow half of its contents in a few gulps. “Yep.”

“I thought you were ignoring me all week because I called him Brandon.”

“You did more than that, but I wasn’t ignoring you. I was just in my shell, sorry.”

“I guess no one’s perfect,” he muses.

“You can say that again.” I hold the glass of cool liquid against my temple.

“Did you talk to him?”

“What else would I have done? Walked right by him and acted like we’ve never met?”

He moans and rolls over. “Ignore him, like me.”

“I talked to him. He kind of wants me back.”

“I knew it. What did you say?”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I mean, sometimes I miss the way things used to be…”

He peeks at me again. “There are better things out there.”

I sigh and take another sip. “I know.”

“Seriously.”

“I
know.”
I lean against the counter and nibble on my thumb nail. “Do you think I’m demanding?”

“Yeah,” he says, a little too quickly.

I stare at him. “Wait. What?”

He snorts. “You’re surprised?”

I throw my hands up. “Yes! You’ve never told me I’m like that.”

“Don’t shout. Headache, remember?”

I press my fingers against my mouth. “Sorry.”

“Let me be more specific.” He sighs and fluffs the pillow under his head. “You’re Type A. You like things a certain way. In the best sense, that means you get stuff done, and you don’t quit until things are done right. In the worst sense…”

“It means I’m demanding.” I tap the glass, staring into its neon contents. “Of everyone?”

“Of some people more than others, although I doubt anyone is safe.”

“I think I was pretty demanding of Brendan when we were together.”

How could I have never noticed? Could our breakup have been partly because of my supposedly exorbitant needs, and not just due to the many miles between us?

“If he still wants you back after all this time, you couldn’t have been that bad.”

“I don’t know…”

“Unless of course he likes a woman who tells him what to do, which I wouldn’t put past him.”

“Hm,” is all I offer.

“What about Simon?” Eryk asks. “Does he like a demanding woman?”

“Forget him.”

Eryk raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, right. Not likely. Even if you weren’t entangled with him, I could never forget a face like that.”

“We want different things.”

“You also want some of the same things.”

“Okay. Sex.” I hold my finger up. “And, really, that’s the only desire that matches up. Don’t tell me that’s enough.”

“I wasn’t going to. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

I make a surly face at him. “It’s not demanding to want a normal relationship.”

“I agree.”

“Okay. Good.”

I swirl my glass around on the counter, watching the last of the juice ricochet against its sides.

“How’s it going with Brian?”

“Ugh.”

“Did you break up or something?”

“No, but if you’re talking about normal relationships, that one is anything but. You may think you have it bad with straight men but, trust me, gay men can be even worse.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Sorry.”

He sighs. “It’s fine. Want to watch
Freaks and Geeks
and do a shot every time James Franco comes on screen? Maybe if I get drunk enough, I can call Brian over and imagine he’s James.”

“You have a headache.”

“It’s getting better.”

“That still seems like the last thing you should be doing right now. Plus, it’s Thursday.”

“I don’t have to work tonight.”

I laugh. “Yeah, but I have to work in the morning.”

“And?”

My grin grows bigger. “And I think I’ll save my heavy drinking for the weekend.”

“Why?” he jokes.

“Because he’s in almost half the scenes. I’ll be drunk off my ass after ten minutes.”

“Nu-uh. There’s like a whole one or two episodes where he only shows up once.”

I gasp, my palm slapping my forehead. “Oh my God! I have to tell you what happened today.”

“Spill.” He sits up and makes room for me on the couch. “Wait. Let me guess. You met James Franco?”

“No. Is that a real guess?”

“You work at a movie studio. Anything’s possible.” He tapped his lips and tried again. “You gave your boss a blow job in the broom closet.”

“Close, but no.”

“Really?”

I roll my eyes and plop down next to him. “It just never stops with you, does it? Mr. Mulroney’s father—”

“You mean Simon.”

I pause and heave out a breath. “Okay, yes. Simon’s father came in and invited me to a barbecue at his house.”

“And you gave
him
a blow job? Or are you saving that for the barbecue?”

“Eryk!” I slapped at his leg.

He kicked me in the thigh. “God, you said I was close. I’m just guessing… will Simon be there?”

“He didn’t seem like he wanted to go, but I think so.”

Eryk sits up straighter and clutches my arm. “If you want, I can go as your date and pretend to be straight in order to make him jealous.”

I crinkle my nose. “He already saw you in high heels. I don’t think there’s any going back.”

“Damn,” he mutters.

I reach forward and grab the TV remote. “So when’s your next show?”

“Next month. Here’s hoping it will be just as dramatic as the last one, with jealous ex-lovers and sultry forbidden bosses running rampant all over the place.”

I roll my eyes once more and hit the button for the TV guide. “Here’s hoping that
never
happens again.”

S
aturday, I change outfits four times. I go from jeans and shirt to a flirty sundress to leggings and a blouse then to just bra and underwear, staring dismally at the clothes strewn all over my bed.

Finally, after fifteen minutes of standing in front of the mirror, I end up in the same jeans and pink t-shirt I started off in. Frustrated, I yell down the hall for Crystal.

“What?” she asks, poking her head around the frame of my bedroom doorway. She’s wearing nothing but a sports bra and black leggings and is somewhere in the middle of painting her nails. With one hand outstretched to dry, she holds the bottle of red polish in the other one.

I nervously flap my hand around. “I don’t know what to wear.”

“Didn’t you say it was a barbecue? You can’t get much more casual than roasting meat in someone’s backyard.”

“Yeah, but it might still be kind of upscale. It’s a Mulroney barbecue. In Beverly Hills. Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to be like the ones I’m used to.”

Crystal shrugs. “It’s still in a backyard, and it’s not a wedding. What you have on is good.”

“Really?”

She pauses, taking a second to look me up and down. “Actually, no. Here’s what you should wear.”

She goes to my closet and, using the hand with dry nails, picks out my black tube skirt and a loose white tee.

“Isn’t that kind of short?” I ask.

“The t-shirt counteracts it.”

I hold the clothes up against myself and look in the mirror. I can’t decide if I look like I’m going to a club or to the library to meet up with my study group. “So you’re saying the shirt is so casual that no one will notice how short the skirt is.”

She sits on the edge of my bed and begins painting her second hand. “Something like that.”

“Screw it. I’ll wear it.”

By the time I’m ready to go, there’s still plenty of time to make it all the way to Beverly Hills. I take the long way, not minding when I end up sitting in traffic.

The road David Mulroney lives on is even nicer than Mr. Murakami’s. Most of the houses — no, mansions — have spacious front yards. I can tell which house is my destination before I see the address. The road in front of it is lined with cars, each one of them probably costing more than ten of my little Chevy. I pull into a spot behind a white Mercedes and do one last check in the mirror.

My heart speeds up and I can’t seem to find the strength to open the door. I’ve never been good at schmoozing, and this entire party is going to be just that. Its likely I won’t know anyone there, unless of course, Simon shows up after all.

He doesn’t count.

I grab the bowl of fruit salad and open the door. I stop when I see the catering van in my rear view mirror. It’s rolling into the Mulroney driveway and I know it’s carrying food because the giant decal on the side gives it away.

I drop the bowl back in the seat. Of course a Mulroney barbecue is catered. They probably wouldn’t do it any other way. Suddenly, I feel incredibly stupid.

I thank Jesus I did not get all the way into the house with that fruit bowl. There’s a rain poncho laying in the back seat. Snatching it up, I lay it across the bowl, lest anyone see my horrendous transgression.

“Sorry strawberries,” I whisper to it. “Sorry blueberries.”

They’ll probably go bad sitting in the car, but saving food isn’t worth me walking into a party with a neon sign shouting “I Don’t Belong Here.”

I take a deep breath and exit the car, making sure to pull my skirt down before walking up the drive.

Colorful flags are strung from bamboo poles, creating a path leading to the backyard. To stop my hands from fiddling with my skirt, I clasp them in front of me while I walk around the edge of the house.

The backyard is massive, as well as lavish. It’s probably eight times the size of my apartment, with tall hedge rows along the edge. A stone patio stretches out from the house, ending in a sparkling pool. A few kids and teens swim in the water, and one of them goes down the slide and lands with a big splash. The water flies out of the pool and hits a group of ladies nearby.