One & Only (Canton) (23 page)

“But you’re not wrong,” she continued. “I think the other night had nothing to do with Hannah. It had to do with Dylan. Him wanting some time to himself was just as much about
his
own sense of morality as you not wanting to be with him until he’d broken up with Hannah was about
yours
.”

I blinked at her.

“It doesn’t matter what she knows and does not know,” Annabel explained. “You didn’t want to be the other woman, right?”

“Right.”

“And he didn’t want to be the guy who bed-hopped.” Annabel looked at me triumphantly. “See?”

I remembered what Dylan had said to me, back at the lab.
I’m mad at me.
“But if that were the case, wouldn’t he say, ‘Okay, let’s wait a week and then we can be together’? After all, I gave him rules.” Rules like no sex, no kissing, no
phone sex
until he’d broken up with Hannah.

“
Rules
?” Sylvia repeated, incredulous. “What rules?”

I lost my voice. Fortunately, Annabel filled in for me.

“She said she wouldn’t be with him until he was single. Which I think was the right move. You respected yourself, you respected Hannah, and now he’s trying to show the same respect.” She shrugged. “He just…maybe wasn’t quite as explicit about what he needed as you were when you asked him?”

“Yeah,” said Sylvia, grinning. “Tell me more about these
rules
of yours, Tess. Because in my head, they look that that contract Christian gave Anastasia in
Fifty Shades of Grey
.”

I blushed furiously and stared down at my silverware. Fucking rules. Chalk that up as another thing normal people don’t have in relationships.

“I like the idea of rules,” Annabel said. “Written down or not. Spells out your relationship. No one is left confused, or hurt, or…” She lifted her shoulders and went back to rolling.

Or alone and pregnant without a clue of what she might expect from the father of her child, as Annabel had been. Yeah, rules could come in handy. At least by following the rules, my mother knew she could count on her lover to take care of her and their baby.

The trouble was, I was already in the middle of a game with Dylan, and I had no idea what we were playing.

***

Sometime during my shift that evening, I felt a text buzz through to my phone. I pulled it out of my pocket to look at the display.

Can I see you tonight?

I showed Sylvia, who was passing with a tray. She shook her head, skepticism painted all over her features. “Last-minute enough for you? Might as well say, ‘Can I see you tonight for a booty call?’”

No. At work
, I typed back.

I checked on a few tables, then looked at my phone again.

After work is fine. I can come to Verde.

Sylvia snatched the phone from my hand. When she handed it back, I saw she’d typed:

After work is time for my beauty rest. You think this happens all by itself?

I shrugged and pressed send.

“Good girl,” said Sylvia. “Make him sweat.”

Except I was the one sweating. If he wanted to see me tonight, did that mean he was ready to be together, or did it mean he wanted to tell me it would never happen?

Either way, Sylvia probably had it right. I should play it cool. Don’t let him know how much I needed him
.
My fingers went to my throat again, where I’d put on Dylan’s silver T, though I’d hidden the necklace beneath the neckline of my shirt. Only I knew it was there. Only I knew how much this would break me.

A few minutes later, another buzz in my pocket.

Then tell me when.

Oh, now it’s my turn to say when?
I typed back furiously. I went to press Send, then thought better of it. Instead, I deleted the message. I put the phone away. Make him sweat, Sylvia had said. Fine. It was his turn, anyway.

But my fingers itched to pull my phone out of my pocket, to tell him to come now now now. I’d had enough of lying, enough of playing games. All I wanted was Dylan. If he was ready for me, I was here.

I forced myself through the next fifteen minutes without pulling my phone out of my pocket. Finally, in a lull at work, I gave in to temptation.

No new messages.

Shit. Shit shit shit. I really hated Sylvia. And Dylan. And me, for ever trying to play some stupid game instead of just telling him the truth. Because hadn’t that always been Dylan’s M.O.? Telling me exactly how he felt? No games, no pretenses, no lies unless it was absolutely necessary to help Hannah for one of the most miserable weeks of her life?

And worst of all was that sad, sick voice in the back of my head, that drumbeat of
see? You are that girl. He wants you now, there’s nothing keeping you apart, and you can resist him. You
are
that girl who only wants the boys you shouldn’t have.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up into Sylvia’s concerned face.

“Girlfriend, you look like crap. Finish your tables and go home.”

Just what I needed. More time alone with my thoughts. I shook my head resolutely.

“I’m not suggesting. I’m telling.” She slipped my phone out of my pocket. “You can have this back tomorrow. Go home. Get some sleep.”

I stared at the phone. “You realize this doesn’t stop me from just going over to his place.”

“I give you more credit than that. Go home, Tess.”

I went home. I found half a bottle of white wine in the fridge, poured myself a glass, drew a bath, and had a nice, long soak while I sipped wine and read a magazine.

That lasted for about fifteen minutes. Then I got too tired to hold the pages of the magazine high and dry above the bubbles and pitched it over the side to land on the bathmat. I sank further into the suds, bringing the stem of the wine glass with me. I tilted the wine into my mouth so the bowl and my chin all got bearded in white foam as I drank, the sweet wine mixing with the scent of lavender and rosewater from the bath. I remembered the way Dylan had tasted when we’d kissed, like the retsina we’d been drinking. Wine and wood and warm.

I lifted my hips in the tub, bubbles popping against my more sensitive parts as they crested, then sank, then crested again. And it was nice, really, this tease, relaxing and comforting, like the way the water sloshed and echoed around the outdated, dark tiles of our tub. But not enough.

My chest was half-covered with bubbles, the silver of Dylan’s chain tracing a sudsy V from my neck to the hollow between my breasts, the double-helix T like an exclamation point at the bottom. Bubbles clung to the metal, melting and sliding in a trail down from my breasts to my navel.

I closed my eyes, lay my head back against the rim of the tub, and let my hand follow the trail, longing for release, longing for
relief
, really. I’d been on edge for a week now, ever since the party, the closet, the
phone
…

The silver cooled against my skin, and I shifted in the bubbles, trying to find the purchase and pressure to get me where I needed, to no avail. I could always handle things myself, but that did nothing to slake the need Dylan had planted in me.

The problem, of course, was that it wasn’t sexual. Not wholly, anyway. Yes, I wanted to tear Dylan’s clothes off, but more than that, I wanted him with me, the way he’d been all semester, talking to me about algae and laughing with me about typos in his notes and lighting up when I served him meals at Verde. I missed that, too. Maybe, in time, I could have been happy with that. Just that.

No. Abruptly, I stood and pulled the plug. As the suds drained down, I turned on the shower and stood beneath the spray until the bubbles were gone and sanity had returned. We couldn’t go back. The next time Dylan called, I’d answer.

But it wasn’t until I was washed, dried and in bed, safely covered up in a nice pair of silk pajamas that I remembered Sylvia had swiped my phone.

***

The next morning, I woke up, exorcised. I made tea, I made toast, I read the paper. It was easily 9:00 a.m. by the time I sat down in front of my computer to check my email.

Among the new messages was one from Sylvia.

Subject:
Returning Your Phone

Okay, in retrospect, it was a bad idea to take it last night. I totally can’t remember your mom’s home number. We’ll be lucky if I got the address right. I hope you get this in time.

And forgive me.

-S

I furrowed my brows at the screen. Sylvia talking in code again? I wasn’t angry at her for taking the phone. She’d been right—I’d have driven myself crazy with it last night. And what was that crap about my address? I sincerely hoped she hadn’t mailed it to me when we’d be seeing each other at work in two hours.

Our doorbell rang.

“This is early,” Mom called from the kitchen. And unexpected. Maybe a neighbor looking to borrow a scoop of coffee? I pushed away from the desk, but by the time I’d left my room, she was already at the door.

“Hi,” said a voice I recognized. “You must be Mrs. McMann. I brought donuts.”

And now I could see him standing on the threshold, in jeans, a hooded Canton sweatshirt, and those damn, damning glasses. His hair was almost as floppy as when I’d first met him, but the scruff on his jaw told an entirely different story. It was years since high school; it was days since we’d last spoken.

He saw me, too, and blindly handed off the pastries to my mom. “Tess.” Two steps, and he was in the room, and his hands were sliding up to cup my jaw, his fingers weaving into my sleep-mussed waves. “I can’t wait anymore,” he whispered, and then our lips touched, a soft, sweet press of mouth on mouth. A greeting. A promise.

“Well,” said my mom. “I’d ask who you are, but I think I can guess. Necklace Guy.”

He turned to her and stuck out his hand. “Sorry, where are my manners? I’m Dylan Kingsley.”

“The lab partner?” My mom narrowed her eyes. “My daughter’s been holding out on me.”

“That’s fair,” Dylan replied. “Turns out, I’ve been holding out on her.”

***

“Don’t say things like that to my mom,” I said. We were out on the street, breathing in cool, crisp November air, the box of donuts forgotten on my kitchen counter as we walked and talked and figured ourselves out.

“Things like what?”

“That you’ve been holding out on me.”

“But it’s true,” Dylan replied. “And it was also funny.”

I gave a little shake of my head and looked away. “Your two favorite things.”

“You’re my favorite thing.”

I bit my lip. When he said things like this, I wanted to believe they were true. But Wednesday night…

“Don’t worry about your mom,” he said now. “I’m really good with parents.”

I could believe that. I’m sure he’d charmed the pants off Dad, right before breaking his other daughter’s heart.

“So Sylvia gave you my address?”

“And your phone.” He pulled it out and handed it over. Our fingers brushed, and I nearly fumbled.

“You think you’re good with parents?” I asked to cover my nerves. “Sylvia’s the toughest nut to crack of all. I can’t believe she told you where I lived.”

“I swore I’d cause a scene if she didn’t. Since you seemed determined to avoid me at school and at home.” He shrugged. “And even on text.”

“Sylvia took my phone,” I pointed out.

“I meant your replies.”

I walked on, quickly, so he had to jog to catch up. “So now what?” I asked. “You’re ready to come scoop me up? I’m not a library book you put on hold.”

“No. Tess…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “If I hadn’t seen you on Wednesday—if I’d called in sick to the lab that night and taken a day or two, all by myself, and then come to you and told you it was over with Hannah, would we be standing here right now?”

If, if, if. If I had never left him after Cornell, if Hannah hadn’t been sick last week, if Marie Swift hadn’t gotten pregnant with Hannah at the beginning of my parents’ affair … What was the point in thinking about ifs? We were here now.

“Probably not,” I admitted. “Maybe it’s not always a good idea to tell the truth.”

“I will never believe that. But yeah, timing might be an important factor.” Dylan reached for me, and I let him curl his fingers around mine.

We walked that way for a while, hand in hand, not saying anything.

“I want to be with you, Tess,” he said softly, squeezing my hand. “Tell me how to make that happen.”

“It’s happening. It’s already happened.”

He stopped, so abruptly I swung around on the sidewalk until I faced him. His expression was filled with wonder, his blue eyes with wild relief. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

My free hand flew to my throat, to the silver T hanging there. “What do I need to tell you, Dylan? I’m here, you’re here. There’s nothing to keep us apart anymore. Am I happy about what happened at the lab last week? No. Were you happy when I stopped calling you two years ago? Of course not. But that didn’t stop you when I came back, and I’m not going to let one stupid night stop us now.”

He tugged me into his arms and lay his head down against the crook of my neck. “Jesus, Tess,” he whispered. “I thought I’d messed everything up. When you walked out, when you didn’t show up to class…”

“It is messed up,” I agreed. “Everything has always been messed up. It’s been messed up for us for two years. But we finally have the chance to make things right.” I couldn’t let all the bad choices we’d made—all the bad choices of two generations—ruin what I had with Dylan. I wouldn’t.

We’d done the best we could with what we had. And now we could start anew.

TWENTY

It was the Friday before the Thanksgiving holiday, and Dylan was taking me out on our first real date. We’d had a hectic week, working long hours on our project and even longer on the last big round of tests, quizzes, and problem sets for our respective classes. After the Thanksgiving break, we’d have one more week of classes, then a week of studying, then final exams…and the colloquium on which I was resting all my financial hopes. I’d begged off work at Verde, which was probably going to be pretty dead anyway, as students left Canton for their hometowns. Even some of us who called Canton our hometown, like Hannah, had vamoosed for points unknown this weekend—at least, according to my mom’s report that Dad was out of town with his family.