You Should Smile (16 page)

I wasn’t sure exactly what those words meant and I was afraid to ask, so I just smiled.  “I like it, too.”

His face got hard again, his words serious.  “Shay, no more drinking like that.  It’s not healthy…..Agreed?

“Agreed,” I nodded.  He was right.  I would never drink that much again. 

Just like one of those “get-to-know-you” scenes from a movie, we stayed up that night talking about everything we could think of.  It was like we were making up for lost time and running out of time to do so.  We had to catch up on knowing everything about each other…..favorites, fears, fantasies, histories, tragedies, whatever we could think of to get inside the other’s head and heart…..

***************

“I have a confession to make, Pickup Grinner.”

“What is it?”

“Drunken, stupid Shay followed Dani into the bathroom and overheard part of her cell phone conversation with someone.  That’s why I got so drunk……I still can’t get it out of my head.”

He pulled my face up to meet his.  “What is it?”

“Well, she said that she usually stayed at your place when she was in town and that you were ignoring her this time, so she probably wouldn’t be having sex this trip…..or something like that.”

He frowned.  “I hate that you heard that, Shay.  Listen, I told you to ask me anything and I meant it.  Are you sure you want to talk about this stuff, though?”

I nodded.  “Yeah, I think we need to….Yeah.”

“Okay.  I met Dani my Junior year in college.  She was our coach’s daughter and the trainer for our team.  She’s two years younger than me.  We dated for those two years until I graduated.  She’s a great girl, really.  I think you’d actually like her….but there was never that spark or that connection I feel with you…”

He sighed and I nodded, encouraging him on. 

“I was graduating and heading across the country to grad school.  I told her I needed some ‘time off’ to do that, which in guy terms means I don’t really want to date you because I’d like to see what else is out there, but maybe I’ll come back after I look around for a while.  It’s a shitty thing to do, but I’m not the first to use that line, either.  So, I go to grad school and we keep in touch – emails, visits, yeah even hook-ups now and then.  I dated one girl in grad school pretty long-term, so I obviously quit all that with Dani during that time.  But when Cam and I broke up, it was familiar to go back to Dani.”   

I held up my hand and stopped him.  “Okay.  You finish your story and then we talk about this ‘Cam’, too.  Random references get explained.  Okay?”

He smirked a bit and nodded, before expelling a heavy breath. 

“I thought Dani and I were always on the same page.  When we weren’t dating other people, we’d get together.  When we were, we wouldn’t…”  He trailed off.  “It sounds worse than it is…I mean, I’d never considered a committed future with her or anything….”  His jaw was getting tense, so I knew he was getting uncomfortable explaining.     

I sighed.  “I get what you’re saying, but she probably cares more than you think she does.  Most girls do in those situations.  She wants you any way she can have you, even if it’s just for a while….”

He nodded slowly.  “Yeah, maybe.  That sounds pretty fucking callous on my part, doesn’t it?”

I shook my head.  “Not if you’ve always let her know where she stands, I guess.”

“I’ve always tried to, Shay.”  He winced.  “She was here about a year ago and all I could think about was you, even then.  I knew at that point that whatever she and I’d been doing was over…..and I had no intention of seeing her when she came into town this time.  I didn’t know the guys had invited her to go out with us.  She’s their friend, too….” 

“I get that.” 

“Anyway, if there was ever any question in her mind about me, I think last night answered it.”  Laughing, he added, “I mean, I punched some dude in the face over you and then had you caveman-style over my shoulder.  I don’t know how much clearer I could’ve made it that my interests were elsewhere….”  I smiled at that vision, as he continued.  “After I got you home, I texted her to make sure she made it home safely.  She texted back that she had.  Then she told me that she hoped you and I could find happiness together and wished us the best.”

“That was nice.  Why can’t all of your exes be like her?”  I teased, referencing Crazy Gina.

He huffed.  “Tell me about it.”

I paused, thinking back to what he’d said about Dani visiting a year ago.  I also remembered that night on his birthday when he’d implied that his libido had been surviving on Skype memories.  “So how long did you go without sex until me, Pickup Grinner?”  Then, I immediately regretted asking. “Wait, no….don’t answer that…..”

He grinned down at me.  “Almost a year…….” I raised my eyebrows.  He nodded.  “Yeah….The guys gave me the hardest time about it.  I couldn’t even look at other girls.  You ruined me.  You were the only person I could even think about fucking and yet I couldn’t fuck you.  I was stuck with my own angry libido…..He’s a real dick.” 

I laughed out loud. 

Then, I continued the conversation from earlier.  “Okay, so tell me about this Cam girl….and any other long-term relationships.  Let’s just get this over with.”

He nodded.  “Okay.  I’ll start from the beginning, I guess.”

“Wait, how many people are we talking about?” I teased.

He shrugged.  “Shay, I’m not gonna lie to you.  I’ve had my fair share of sex over the years, but I’m a long-term relationship-type of guy.  When I’m in a relationship, I’m usually in it for a long time….and I don’t cheat….so the list of people I’d consider ‘long-term’ isn’t very extensive.”

That did make me feel better, I guess.  I didn’t want to hear about the meaningless sex ones anyway.  They didn’t matter in the end – unless they had an STD.  Then, they mattered in the end.  ‘The gift that keeps on giving,’ I thought to myself and snickered. 

He ignored my random though processes for once.  “So I dated this girl named Pamela Fuller throughout high school.….Ummm…How much detail am I supposed to go into here?” he asked.

“As much as you’d like to know if it were me telling it,” I answered honestly.

“Alright, well then, uh….she was my first time.  It wasn’t that great.  I look back now and think, ‘Eh, that was that.’  Anyway, she broke up with me not long after we had sex.  She wanted to try it out with others.  My ego took a bit of a beating, but I recovered with a little practice.”  He grinned.  Obviously he’d not been too broken up over the news.

“She sounds like a moron.  What’s she doing now?”

“Saw her at our ten-year reunion.  She’d gotten pregnant in high school and married the football player who got her pregnant.  He ended up cheating on her and leaving her with the kid.  She was divorced at the reunion and hitting on me something fierce.  Telling me she wanted to try again.  I blew her off as nicely as I could.  No thank you.  Ugh.”  He rolled his eyes and grinned.  I immediately felt better about his first high school girlfriend.

His eyes went dark.  “What about you, Shay?”

“Huh?”

“Your first time?  When?  Who?”  He chin was set and he was clenching his jaw back and forth again.  Then, he hesitated.  “Do I want to hear it?”   

I laughed.  “No, it’s okay, really.  His name was Seth Pratt and we were both twenty.  We’d been together for a while in college and it just seemed like it was time to do it, I guess.  It was terrible.  He had no idea what he was doing….”  I started laughing harder.  “That boy couldn’t find a clitoris if it smacked him in the face.  We broke up right before we graduated and I’ve never seen or talked to him again.  I think we were both relieved.”

Thad grinned broadly at this news.  “I’m glad it was awful.  I hope every time you think of him, you think about how awful the sex was.”

***************

I started playing with the hairs below his belly button as he kept talking.  “I just dated Dani in college.  Lance has no room to talk
at all
, but I admit he was right about me having a bit of a revolving door before Dani.  That night when he said that at Moe’s, though, I remember thinking, ‘No, man.  Don’t say that in front of Shay.  Fuck!’”  He laughed at the memory.

I grinned back.  “You hadn’t looked at me the whole night and when he said that, you did give me a look.  I remember.”

He kissed the top of my head, still propped upon his chest.  “I couldn’t look at you.  You were a constant reminder of all the unethical things I wanted to do to you…and how weak my resolve was…”

“I was in the same boat,” I countered, smiling up at him.

He began again.  “So in grad school, I didn’t really have any long-term relationships until Cameron.  She was in grad school with me, along with Rebecca.  We were the Three Musketeers.  Cam was cool, like one of the guys.  I think you’d like her, too.  She didn’t really take a lot of shit off anybody, though, so when she started seeing how angry I get over shit, she didn’t stick around.  She found a job right after we broke up.  It wasn’t a big heartbreak.  She found the love of her life soon after and got married.  I was happy for her.”

“Do you still talk to her?”

“Sometimes over email, but only in a professional sense.  She does know about you, though.  She and Rebecca are still good friends.  Rebecca told her I was head over heels about you and that you seemed to put up with my shit.”  He looked down at me.  “Don’t worry.  Rebecca didn’t tell her the
whole
story….Rebecca said Cam told her I should hang onto you because any woman willing to put up with my shit was worth keeping.”  He laughed.

Okay, that made me smile.  I think I would like Cam.  I was also secretly glad she was a hardass and not willing to put up with his shit….

“Any more?”  I inquired.

“Just Gina.  After Cam, I avoided relationships for a while because I knew I carried a lot of baggage, lots of daddy issues and anger issues…..in case you didn’t notice.”  I squeezed his chest and he kissed the top of my head again.  “I got the job at the other university and met Gina soon after.  I thought she was sane at first and that she put up with ‘me for me’…..When I read that diary, though, I found out that she’d learned about my family money and moved here with the intent to ‘catch’ me….”

I muttered, “I cannot stand that manipulative skank…”

“After her, you can probably see why I avoided relationships.  For the past few years, all I wanted from someone was sex…..until you.”

“So that day at the gas station?  When you asked me to go with you?  Did you just want sex then?”

He looked down at me and grinned.  “At that time?  Yeah.  I wasn’t really thinking about anything else….”  He shook his head.  “Jesus, Shay.  Sometimes you really have no idea how gorgeous you are.  Of course my first thought was fucking you!  Every guy at that gas station was thinking about it, too!  And even though you intimidated the shit out of me, I said something because you looked so sad….and I was also pissed to think you were giving it up to that tool, Pete.…”   

I laughed at his Pete comment, before registering something he’d said.  “You?  Intimidated?”

He just stared down at me.  “You really have no idea, do you?” 

I shrugged.  “It’s not something I think about…my looks, I mean.  It just doesn’t really register because it’s not something I value as a top priority, I guess.”

He nodded, his voice becoming soft.  “I know.  That’s part of the reason I fell hard for you, Smiles.” 

I grinned.  “You know when I first started falling for you, Pickup Grinner?”

“When?”

“When you bit my ear lobe playing pool!”  I felt his laugh rumble deep within his chest. 

Then, his face got serious as he thought about that Mark guy again.  “I should’ve killed that guy the first time I had a chance…..Man, I was so pissed off that you put yourself in that position – and that someone else might take you up on it.  No fucking way.” 

I kissed his chest softly.  He finally smiled again.  “You were wearing that fucking dress….and then you backed your ass into me!  I was so hard.  You had no idea…..You were lucky I didn’t fuck you right there.” 

“I probably would’ve been willing,” I laughed.

I looked up to find him grinning down at me.  “I knew I was in for it when your nipples got hard at Keno’s the first time we touched,” he teased.

I slapped his chest.  “I cannot believe you noticed that!  I could have died!”

“Oh, believe me.  I noticed.  I swear, I blame it for me finally saying ‘yes’ to the Dean’s offer.  I couldn’t think of anything else….”

***************

We kept on talking as the sun started to rise. 

“Have you talked to Grant lately?  He said he hadn’t talked to you,” I asked.

He shook his head.  “Not really.  I tried to give him some space so he wouldn’t be caught in-between.  He was your friend first and I figured you needed him more than I did….”  He hesitated.

I was drawing circles around his pecs.  I looked up, “What is it?”

“Well, I did call him once – the day after that Skype meeting where I was plastered….”

I tensed up.  “I’m sorry I told you, ‘fuck you’……Wait, no I’m not….” I grinned up at him.

He shook his head.  “I deserved it every bit and more.  I was already so fucking lost and then my dad showed up asking for money.  I was trying to push you away from all of my baggage…..but I woke up sober the next day and felt like absolute shit.  I just needed someone to talk to who knew you.  I called him and we had a good talk.”