The Boy Next Door (20 page)

I blink my eyes, shocked at this outburst. I quickly glance around to make sure nobody is listening. “I’m sorry you see things that way, Lydia,” I say. “The engagement just . . . happened. It’s not like I planned to get engaged at the same time as you. I just met the right guy.”

Lydia folded her arms across her chest. “The right guy? And who is this right guy that you’re apparently cheating on with Jason.”

I don’t really have a response to that one, actually.

“Really, Tasha,” she says. “That’s the lowest of the low, using Jason like that. You know that he’s been pining after you since you guys were teenagers, and now to use him as an excuse to get out of your engagement. . . . He’s a good guy and he deserves better than that.”

“I’m not.. . . .” I start to say, but then I wonder for a moment if Lydia’s right. No, she isn’t. Definitely not. “I really like Jason. I’m not using him.”

“Oh, come on,” Lydia snorts. “After all these years, I honestly can’t see you ending up with
 
Jason
. Maybe when you’re forty and completely desperate. But I know you pretty well, and I know you haven’t been holding out so long just to marry a guy in a wheelchair. I don’t see your perfect honeymoon involving tread marks all over the threshold.”

I want to yell at Lydia that Jason is much more than just a guy in a wheelchair. But somehow the words stick in my throat. Because as much as I dislike my sister right now, in a way she sort of hit the nail on the head. I do love Jason, but could I really have a long-term relationship with him?

I picture our wedding: the groom disabled, in a wheelchair. Everyone staring at us, feeling sorry for me, like I couldn’t get anyone better. Making reservations at a hotel for our honeymoon and having to explain that my husband is in a wheelchair and they’ll have to make special accommodations. I think about the way people stare at Jason, and having to go through my whole life that way. Do I want to do that? As much as I hate to admit it, appearances are important to me.

Of course, Jason and I aren’t getting married. We’re just hooking up. But I’m in my early thirties, so really, I shouldn’t be dating anyone I wouldn’t consider marrying. And if Jason doesn’t fall into that category, maybe I shouldn’t be seeing him anymore.

God, I’m confused.

Jason calls me later that evening, after dinner is over. I see his name appear on my cell phone and I consider letting it go straight to voicemail, but I know he’ll just call again. So I answer, putting on my best exhausted voice. “Hey,” I say.

“Hi, Tasha,” Jason says, not sounding tired at all. “I miss you. Would you like to . . . come over?”

“Actually, I’m really beat,” I say, giving a yawn for added effect. “We have a big drive ahead of us tomorrow, so I think I’m just going to go to sleep now.” I add, “Here.”

“Oh.” Jason sounds a little surprised. And disappointed. “Uh, well, that’s understandable. Are you okay?”

“Uh huh,” I say, biting my lip.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “Um, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

Of course, it would be incredibly weird if I booked a  flight for tomorrow, so there’s no way out of this car trip. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Should I tell Jason that I’m having doubts? “Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jason hesitates, sounding like he wants to say something more, but thank God, he doesn’t.

When I go up to my room to sleep, I intentionally close the blinds. Not that I think Jason’s going to be watching me, but . . . well, I feel like leaving them open is almost like taunting him. Before they snap shut, I notice that the lights are out in his bedroom.

I strip down to just my bikini panties and can’t keep myself from checking out my body in the full-length mirror where I spent half my teenage years admiring myself. I’m 32-years-old and I definitely don’t look the same as I did when I was 16, despite not having borne any babies. My boobs aren’t nearly as perky as they were back then—I could never get away with going braless. And my ass isn’t as perky either. It seems like gravity has taken its toll on practically everything.

I turn to the side and frown at my tummy. I had such a perfect, flat tummy when I was 16. I only weigh maybe ten pounds more than I did back then, but somehow my tummy isn’t as perfect as it used to be. It’s definitely less toned, even though I go to the gym more often now than I did back then (which was never).

In profile, I can see the small, colorful tattoo that I have on my back, just above the line of my panties. It’s a butterfly. I got that tattoo when I was 26. While I was with Jason, as a matter of fact. We were wandering through the village after he’d watched Cynthia’s Armpit play a set at a random bar, and we were both slightly drunk. So when we passed the tattoo parlor, I grabbed his arm and squealed, “I have to get a tattoo!”

“You don’t have one?” Jason looked shocked. It was a little surprising that I made it to 26 without a tattoo, considering I had already pierced practically everything on my body. At my piercing peak, I had five holes in each ear, a hole in my nose, my tongue, my eyebrow, my lip, and my belly button. The only thing I never pierced was my clit. Right now, all the holes have closed up aside from two in my right ear and one in my left. I guess that’s the benefit of piercings over tattoos. No laser surgery required.

“I need to get one,” I told him firmly.

“Absolutely you do,” he agreed. That was the best thing about Jason. As square as he seemed sometimes, he never ever tried to talk me out of doing something a little crazy and fun. In fact, he often encouraged me. I’m sure if I had ever wanted to do something really bad (like marry a boring loser), he would have taken a stand. But other than that, he was always on my side.

We went into the tattoo parlor and looked at the wall of designs. “What do you think I should get?” I asked him.

“The snake,” Jason said, pointing to a drawing of snake that was about three feet long. “Definitely the snake.”

“Shut up. I’m not getting a huge snake tattooed on my body.”

“Wuss.”

I finally picked out the butterfly, which was small and pretty. The tattoo artist came out from the back, and he looked me over with my fishnet stockings, my hair dyed about five different colors, and my tiny leather skirt, and he got this big grin on his face. “Well, hi there,” he said. “I’m Greg. What can I do for you, sweetheart?”

That’s the thing about going places with Jason. Nobody ever thought we were a couple. Ever.

“I want the butterfly,” I told Greg. “Right here,” I said, pulling down my skirt slightly and pointing just above the string of my thong.

“Excellent choice,” Greg said, grinning as he flexed his tattoo-covered arms.

Despite being kind of numb from the alcohol, those needles really hurt. At one point, I wanted to turn around and punch Greg in the face. But it was over relatively quickly and then I had a butterfly on my back for all eternity. When I’m old and wrinkled, that butterfly will still be there.

“How about you, man?” Greg asked Jason as he was finishing up with me. “You getting one too?”

Jason shook his head. “Nah.”

“Oh my God, you have to!” I cried. “Come on, just get it on your ankle. You won’t even feel it.”

Jason thought about this for a minute, and he must have been drunker than I thought, because he said, “Okay.”

He decided to get a Phoenix tattoo on his ankle. He rolled up his pants leg and Greg got down on the floor to do it. Unfortunately, about ten seconds after he started, Jason’s leg started moving on its own volition.

Greg frowned. “You’re going to need to keep still.”

“Yeah, I can’t exactly control it,” Jason explained. He leaned forward in his chair, his hands bracing his knee, but he couldn’t get it to stop jumping every time Greg touched him. Eventually, they gave up.

I squared my bill for the butterfly at the counter, and Greg winked at me as he handed me my change. “So, can I have your number?” he asked.

I glanced over at Jason, who was several feet away. He was looking at the tattoos on the wall again. Or at least pretending to.

“You don’t even know my name,” I pointed out.

“Well, what’s your name?”

I looked Greg over. He was cute in kind of a grunge/punk way. I liked his dyed-black, spiky hair and I was admittedly curious to see the other tattoos on his body. “Tasha,” I said.

“Well, can I have your number, Tasha?”

I handed over my phone number without further resistance. Jason didn’t mention it, but I noticed he was a little subdued after we left the tattoo parlor, and our night of debauchery ended earlier than I expected. “I’m beat, Tash,” was his excuse.

When I look back on all these memories I have of Jason, now colored by the knowledge that he was head over heels in love with me, I seem like such a cold-hearted bitch in my mind. How could I have let a guy pick me up right in front of him? More than once . . . hell, more than a dozen times. It must have silently driven him crazy. At the time, though, I was sure he didn’t care.

Jason is a great guy. I owe him so much more than what I’ve been giving him. He deserves a wonderful girl. And I’m not sure that girl is me.

I don’t have the nerve to say to Jason what I’ve been thinking about, so we spend the first two hours of our drive in silence. At first, he tries to make conversation and flirt with me, but he eventually gives up. He even tried to kiss me when I first got in the car, but I turned my head to the side and he just caught my cheek/hair.

“You hungry?” Jason asks me as we pass a sign for Roy Rogers.

Fast food sounds perfect. I had been worried he’d suggest a diner where we’d be stuck there for an hour. “Sure.”

Jason exits the highway and locates the lot for Roy Rogers. When he puts the car in park, he doesn’t unbuckle his seatbelt. Instead, he lays his green eyes on me with a really serious expression on his face. My stomach turns to butterflies, like the one on my back. “We need to talk, Tasha.”

“I’m hungry,” I say lamely.

Jason frowns. “Stop it, Tasha. I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going on.”

“What?” I ask innocently.

“Come on,” he says, “you’ve barely said two words to me since we’ve gotten in the car. Usually you can’t shut up. So I’m getting the feeling you’re having second thoughts about . . . us.”

“Well,” I mumble. “I guess . . .”

He sighs and rubs his chin. “So . . . what? You want to go back to Larry?”

Did I? I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Larry didn’t make my heart beat faster, and in some ways he was totally wrong for me, but he looked good on paper. “I don’t know. I just know I need some time.”

He’s quiet for a second. “Okay . . . ,” he says. “How much time?”

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling guilty. Most guys I’ve dated would have walked away by this point in the conversation. “But I don’t expect you to wait for me or anything. I mean, if you want to date other girls . . .”

Jason’s eyes are downcast. He bites his lip and shakes his head. “I don’t,” he says. “I don’t want to date anyone else but you, Tasha.” He looks up at me, and the expression in his eyes is heartbreaking. “So I’m going to wait, and you can just let me know . . .”

I want to burst into tears. Here is this man who loves me more than anything, who has always loved me, who I love back. What am I doing?

“I don’t want anyone else but you either,” I say. “I’m sorry I was being an idiot for a minute there.”

A slow smile creeps across Jason’s face. “Really?”

“Yeah, and . . .” I take a deep breath. “I don’t want to wait even another minute to be with you. I saw this sign for a Motel 6 at this rest stop . . .”

The smile on Jason’s face broadens. “Are you serious?”

“Hell yes.”

He’s outright grinning now. He leans forward and kisses me long enough to make my toes tingle. “Well, damn. Let’s find that Motel 6!”

Jason’s fingers are trembling so much as he puts the keys back in the engine that he almost drops them. I’ve done it in a lot of weird places in my day, but sex at a Motel 6 is a new one for me. An airplane, a Greyhound bus, a park, the back of a taxi, a museum, multiple public restrooms, and once a friend’s daughter’s first birthday party. But never a Motel 6.

It isn’t terribly hard to find the motel. I reach out and squeeze Jason’s hand after he puts the car into park. He gives me this look like he doesn’t even want to wait till we get to the hotel and wants to jump me right in the car, which is also something I’ve done in the past, but I was more limber in those days.

I honestly thought checking into the Motel 6 would have taken two seconds, but I guess they’ve upped their standards or something, because Jason is filling out paperwork for several minutes while I’m practically pacing next to him. Finally, I guess I’m making him nervous because he says, “Tasha, why don’t you sit down?”

I plop down into one of the three uncomfortable wooden seats arranged by the front desk. There’s a balding, heavyset man in one of the other seats, and he starts eying me in a way I don’t particularly like. I stare ahead at Jason, willing his credit card to go through quickly.

“I haven’t seen you around before,” the man says to me.

I flash him a quick, noncommittal smile and try not to make eye contact.