Harder (7 page)

She frowns, then nods and pops her head into the kitchen to sign to Ally it was nice meeting her. Ally does the same, and my mom turns to leave. On her way, she places her hand on my arm and looks into my face with a warm smile.

“Let me know if you need anything,” she signs.

“I will.”

She heads up the stairs, looking down at me again with an amused expression and I wave her off with frustration. I go back to the kitchen where Ally is poking the smoked salmon like it’s an alien life form. On my way past her to the fridge, I find my path blocked by a large cucumber.

“Draw. Your. Sword,” she says seriously.

I smile and knock it away so I can open the fridge. “You want me to rescue you from that salmon, or not?”

“Ha! I need no rescuing.” She nudges the salmon package with the cucumber. I can vanquish this odd fish on my own!” She swipes at it and knocks it off the counter. “Oh crap, sorry about that.”

I laugh and pick it up. “That’s okay. I hate that stuff anyway.” I chuck it in the trash.

“So what are you gonna make me? Why did you get rid of your mom? I like her. I want a mom like that.”

“What’s your mom like?”

She frowns and grabs the cucumber on the other end and looks down at it and bends it a little. For a moment, I think she’s going to break it. “I don’t have one.”

“Everyone has one,” I say, pulling out deli meat for sandwiches.

“I don’t,” she says, swiveling around on her stool in a circle. “Don’t ask me about it.”

“Come on, I introduced you to my family.”

She stops spinning and glares at me. “And no one said you had to, either.”

I pull out bread and jars of condiments and set them on the counter as a peace offering. I set the meat and other veggies out so she can make her own. Then I grab two plates and set out two glasses for milk and sit beside her to make dinner.

“I can just make my own?”

“Yup.” I nod. When she doesn’t want to talk, the best thing I can do is stay silent. It leaves her free to bring up whatever she wants.

“You’re probably wondering why I moved out here, aren’t you? Especially to such a crummy apartment.”

I shrug.

She picks up several pieces of ham and slaps them on her bread, then attacks the whole thing with a ludicrous amount of olive oil mayo. “The only answer is, it’s not a crummy apartment to me. It’s the best place I’ve had. I love it there.”

I nod at her and go back to arranging my olives artfully on my plate. I’m not that hungry.

“You’re probably wondering why Cali?”

I shrug.

“Because it’s far away. And I need to be far away.”

That statement seriously tests my ability to be patient. But I just nod and arrange lettuce on my bread.

“Don’t you want to know why I want to be far away?”

I shrug. “It’s your business if you want to tell me.”

“Aha! So you’re talking again.”

I sigh and finish making my sandwich, then take a huge bite as an answer.

“I can always get you to talk,” she says, patting her over stuffed sandwich closed. “Cool doorbell by the way. I guess that’s so they can see someone is here, since they can’t hear?”

“Yup. Phone is the same way.” I narrow my eyes on her sandwich, letting her know she should eat it. She grabs it and tears into it like a hyena attacking prey.

I smile and turn back to mine. I want to ask about Ohio, but I don’t want to scare her away.

“So, you having any more luck with the ladies?” she asks, nudging me with one shoulder. I raise an eyebrow at her. I thought I’d been as clear as possible after we made out at her friend’s house. There’s only one girl I’m into. I frown down at my sandwich.

“Still no luck, huh?” She sets her sandwich down and wipes her hands on her pants. “I can help again this weekend. We can go to another party. Sam’s really interested in seeing you again. She says you’re super hot. And a good kisser, though I guess I can attest to that.” She blushes and looks away. “Not that I’m about to compliment you or anything. Sheesh.” She picks her sandwich up and puts it down, then storms to the cupboards and starts opening them all, looking for something.

She grabs a cup and gets water from the fridge. “Man, if my folks had a home like this, I’d never leave home either. Still, where do you take dates after?”

“Dates? After?” I play with my olives.

“Yeah, you know…” She looks around to make sure no one’s listening, even though my parents are deaf and one isn’t home, and then leans in. “For nookie,” she whispers.

My ears immediately go red and I pull away from her, offended, and a little aroused that she mentioned it. I roll my shoulders and crick my neck back and forth while facing away from her. I don’t want to say what I’m about to say, but I have to say it at some point.

“I don’t get nookie,” I say carefully, watching her reaction.

Her dark blonde eyebrows shoot up into her hair, and she bites her lip, paling. She’s already pretty pale so right now she’s approaching ghost status. “No nookie, like ever?”

I fold my arms and look off to the side. “Ever.” I can’t believe we’re talking about this, but she was going to find out soon enough. My parents are traditional. They raised me that marriage is the only appropriate place for that, and somehow, though the other kids my age are all sleeping together, I’m inclined to agree with them. Maybe I’m more emotional than other guys, but I want it to be special. I want it to be committed.

“You want some now, then?” She wiggles her eyebrows at me.

I stumble and nearly knock my plate off the counter. She bends down beside me to whisper in my ear.

“You’re hot. I’d be into it. We could go to my place,” she murmurs. “Or, I saw you have a Jacuzzi out back…”

I swallow. I haven’t waited my whole life without sex just to go for a quickie in the backyard with a girl who doesn’t have feelings for me. “No thank you.”

“Really?” She sits back on her stool, looking disappointed. “Your loss.”

“I’m sure.”

“Why not?” she asks, after a few moments of silence and the rest of her sandwich disappearing. “Am I not good enough? Is no one good enough?”

“I don’t believe in sex before marriage.” I mumble it quickly, like someone might admit to having warts, or genital herpes. My views are about that acceptable to most people in California.

“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.”

“No sex before marriage.”

She leans in, breathing over my ear, sending a shock down my spine. “What? Still couldn’t—”

I shove away from her and stand up. “I don’t believe in sex before marriage, okay?” I yell it at her, and she starts to laugh.

“Yeah I heard you. You were just so embarrassed by it I couldn’t help messing with you. Why are you ashamed of it? Your beliefs are your beliefs. You religious or something?”

We had been, growing up. But we grew away from it. “No.”

“So why then?” She pulls me to sit down next to her, and I do so cautiously. “I’m not judging you, I’m just curious.”

“I just…” She’s going to think it’s stupid. I’m going to eliminate myself even further from her mind as an option. Then again maybe she already sees us as too impossibly different.

“Yeah?”

“I want it to be special.”

She laughs quietly and puts her hand to her stomach. “Special screwing. I like that.”

I frown over at her. “Don’t call it that.”

“Special? Or screwing?”

“It’s an ugly word.”

“Is it ugly when you think of doing it with me? I thought you said you wanted me.” She lifts an eyebrow.

I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “If we made love, I wouldn’t be screwing you. Screwing is something you do
to
someone. I want to do those kinds of things
with
you.”

“Make love?” she mutters. “What a joke. Like any men want to make love. They just want to stick it—”

I frown as she stops and shakes her head. She’s just said more about herself than about men in general, and a pain in the vicinity of my chest is starting to throb as I consider her words. “Not all men,” I say.

“Just most then,” she says, standing and putting her hands behind her head to stretch. “I’m not into that wussy love making stuff anyway. Give me hard and fast any day, none of that stupid emotion.”

It’s frustrating.

I know now that we’re headed for some kind of collision, but the more I get to know her, the more I want to be with her, even as I discover more and more the reasons why we shouldn’t ever work together.

I want it slow and easy, she wants it hard and fast. I want to make love, she wants to screw. I want it special, she wants it in the backyard.

I don’t know though, maybe it would just be special if it was with her. The first girl I’ve ever been interested in.

“I was married,” she says, facing out towards the front window, away from me. “So I guess I’ve done the married sex thing. Trust me, it wasn’t special.” Her shoulders are tense and her arms don’t look like they’re resting behind her head any more, instead it looks like she’s clutching her hair.

I come up beside her, take her hands gently and try to move them down so she’s not hurting herself but she shakes me off. I come forward again and put my arms around her. This time she sighs and rests hr head back against my shoulder. I look down and am shocked to see a tear stream down her cheek.

“Sorry, I just, I don’t like talking about marriage. Thinking about marriage. I’ll never do that again.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She puts a hand up on one of mine that is wrapping her shoulders, and rests it there. “No, yes I do. I just, I hate when people act like marriage is the shiz. For me it was just a cage.”

I hold her tighter, like I can hold her together. “I’m sorry.”

She pushes away, this time for good, and wraps her arms around herself. “Take me home. I’m ready to go home now.” She pushes out the front door and disappears without a thank you for the food or a goodbye. I follow her out, but she’s already pulling away in Big Blue before I can even get halfway down the drive.

I put my hand up to shield my eyes and wonder what exactly I did wrong.

***

My back hurts. You think you’d get used to standing on tile all day, but that’s not the case. My back hurts, my feet hurt, and even though I usually love work, today I just want to go home and hit the couch.

I shouldn’t have taken an extra shift, but I need a new math textbook and for some reason someone decided that putting the word ‘text’ in front of a book should make it cost half a month’s rent. Never mind that the target buyer is a starving college student.

I pace my spot. No kids drowning in the lap pool, so that’s good. Ryan comes in through the senior guard office. Why is he in today?

He passes my station and sends a shy smile in my direction, and it makes my stomach flip flop. Maybe just because it’s lunchtime and I haven’t eaten yet. I didn’t bring anything.

Sometimes I just forget food. I also resent it for each time it lowers my bank account. He goes to Knight, who’s running the deck today, and they talk in low voices. I turn back to my water. A couple guys are roughhousing in my area, but I’m not worried about any whirlpools.

Some of the clients probably don’t even know I’m a girl, and I prefer to keep it that way.

“Ready to go for lunch?” Ryan’s voice, distinctive and deep, startles me, letting me know he must be behind my station. How he sneaks around like that, I don’t know.

“My shift doesn’t end for another hour.”

“Amy agreed to come in an hour early for her shift. Knight and I agreed that you do enough with senior guarding. You don’t need to work extra shifts.”

“What if I need the money?”

“Do you?”

I shake my head. I guess I don’t really. This shift won’t even pay a third of a new book. “It’s not your business.”

“Anyway, Amy just started rotation, so you should be off in a few minutes. I’ll meet you out back. We’ll take my car this time.”

I grumble at his back, but we both know I’ll be out to join him in a moment.

I’d argue about being off, but I’m tired and was wishing I could get off anyway. Ryan’s controlling, but it’s always in a way that seems to understand what I want and help me achieve it, so it’s hard to argue with him.

When I’m finally rotated off, I drag my tube to the guard room, drop it off and change, and then go to the senior guard office to check the rest of the schedule.

I need to make sure Ryan hasn’t made any other unexpected changes. Rain looks over from her cubicle.

“Ally, message for you.”

“What? Did they leave a name?” No one ever calls me here. I like to keep my people in boxes. My people at school don’t know where I work, the people at work, except for Ryan, don’t know where I do school. No one should be calling me here. A sinking feeling settles over me as I take the blue post-it from Rain. I don’t want to look at it. My heart’s drumming against my stomach and sweat beads on my forehead. Has he found me?

I take a breath and look down. It’s always better to know than not.

“You skank! How could you not tell me you were dating Ryan!” At the bottom is Amy’s number.

I grin. Amy has always tried to be a friend to me. She’s a bit confused on her orientation and I think she likes being around me because I’m an odd mix of both men and women, and she doesn’t know which she likes better.

But she gets that I’m straight and we get each other. I can let my girly side out around her sometimes, and it’s still safe. How did she find out about Ryan?

I fold up the note and stick it in one of my cargo pockets, then tell Rain thanks and head over to Amy’s spot.

“So you wanna know about my date?” I say quietly over Amy’s shoulder.

She jumps and then laughs. “You’re a skank for not keeping me in the loop in the first place.” She flips out her hair with her hand and walks forward to kneel at the river and tell someone to stop flipping their tube.

She stands back up and speaks to me while facing away. “I expect all the details later. Right now you’ve got a lunch date.”

“It’s not a date,” I say. “We aren’t dating. We’re just helping each other. Did he call you in?”