Stay With Me: Part 1, page 4
It was another couple of minutes before I could collect myself and get back to the table to face him.
Back at the table, Mom sat alone. Luke’s tea had barely been touched.
“He had to go.” Mama didn’t bother looking at me. Instead she looked at her phone, scrolling through messages.
“What? Where did he go?”
“Bella Ray. I have no idea where that young man went. But if I had to guess, he’d rather be out sowing his oats than in her talking to an old hag like me. It’s best you forget about that boy, Bella. You have a bright future, and I see no reason for you to go and waste your time and energy or tears on someone who is only going to break your heart. Trust me; it’s for your own good.”
“We aren’t even dating, Mom. He’s just a friend, and now you’ve gone and scared him off.”
Mom’s laugh unnerved me.
“Just a friend? Honey. That boy has been in your pants. I can tell by the way you two barely looked at one another for fear of spontaneously combusting here at the restaurant in front of everyone.”
“Mooooooom!” My face burned with embarrassment.
“Oh, please, Bella. You act like I have never had sex before. How the hell do you think you got here? You didn’t invent sex and you certainly didn’t invent lying about sex.”
Our food came. We ate in annoyed silence, only the sound of utensils clinging against plates.
The only time we spoke was when a member of the wait staff would come by to refill our glasses. Then, we were all Southern hospitality, why thanks yous and bless your hearts. But deep inside us both, a volcano of expletive-laden words was left unspoken. They would be spoken at some point, but not today. Not in front of all the nice church folk.
I couldn’t get back to campus fast enough. The minute I parked my shitbox, I texted Luke.
Me: What the absolute fuck?
Luke: Hey.
Me: Hey? Are you shitting me right now?
Luke: Can’t talk now. Will call u later.
Me: Can’t talk now or won’t?
Luke: Can’t talk now.
Me: Fuck you.
Lucky for Becca, we were allowed to take our African Studies II test online, since we technically had no instructor. Now was as good a time as any to log in and get it done. I would channel all my energy into acing it. Then when I was done, I planned to read four chapters in my GeoTech online textbook. Since meeting Luke, I was all squishy panties and worrying about how I looked. I needed to get back to what really mattered, and that was school. Fuck Luke Elliot. Fuck love. He won’t stay with me. He won’t even make time to talk to me. So fuck him and fuck everybody and everything.
“Still in a bad mood?” Becca held a poorly-constructed sock puppet in front of my face.
I ignored her.
She did it repeatedly until I grabbed the stupid sock off her hand, strangled it, opened the one window in our room and threw it out.
“You bitch. You killed Seymour.”
“Rest in peace, Seymour,” I said, nonchalantly before raising my middle finger at it, and then closing the window.
“Seriously, Bells, you need to call Luke and talk this through. I cannot take you when you are crabby and mad at the world.”
I plopped down into the chair at our shared desk. “I’m not mad at the world. I’m mad at my mother for making me into such a socially messed up freak over guys in the military. All my life, she has warned me about guys who serve, telling me they will always put their country first and their family a distant second. She warned me I would be hurt and feel like shit when he doesn’t choose me. I built up this wall and tried to see to it that I would never end up like her. The one guy I let in my entire time here at college, the one fucking guy, just happens to have just enlisted in the military.”
“You never really talk about your mom, you know.” Becca sat beside me and gave me her best concerned friend look. She hopped onto the desk facing me.
“I know. It’s just really hard,” I said, fighting tears.
“You can cry you know. It’s OK.” Becca handed me her sleeve.
I pushed Becca’s hand away, and suddenly, everything came out.
“I’ve only known Luke for a week, but it feels like he could be ‘the one.’ I hate that I allowed myself to fall so deeply for him so soon. Now he’s enlisted and leaving for training in a few weeks, and I feel like my whole world is going with him. Is that stupid?”
Becca adjusted her butt on the hard desk. “Well, if that’s how you feel, it isn’t stupid. But, you had a plan to go to Africa for months. You had to know this thing with Luke would end up being a senior fling at best. Right?”
She was right. I know she’s right. But I hated that she was and I hated that I felt so empty and angry and lost. How could someone I barely knew have gotten under my skin like this? Why did I feel so broken? How did things get out of control so fast?
“I guess you’re right. I’m being an asshole.”
“You’re really into this guy, huh? I mean this is your first real serious thing.”
The tears fell.
“Yes. I can’t help it.”
“Oh, Bella. None of us can.” Becca reached over to hug me but stopped short. “You slept with him, didn’t you? I told you specifically NOT to sleep with him. Didn’t I?”
“What?” I wiped my nose on my sleeve.
‘You fell for his grieving crap, and now look at you. Now who’s grieving?”
“I didn’t sleep with him. I swear.”
Becca squinted at me.
“You let him go down on you?”
“No.” I wish.
“Then what? Something changed between the two of you for you to be this damn upset.”
“Nothing. Not everything is about sex, Becca.” I jumped from the chair, went into the bathroom, and slammed the door shut.
“Oh my God. He fingered you. That’s it. He fingered you, and now you’re crying because you fell in love with a guy over a finger job. Oh, Bella. What am I going to do with you?” Becca sighed.
6
Where are you? Luke’s text interrupted my Doctor Who marathon. Brian asked to join me but I wanted to be alone. Becca was shacking up with some guy she’d met online for the weekend, and I had the room to myself.
Why? I asked, wishing I could sound obnoxious in my text.
Need to talk, Luke texted.
So talk, I wrote, not wanting to talk. I wanted to punch him in the face. And kiss him. And touch him. And kiss him some more, and it infuriated me.
In person. Luke’s texts were always short and to the point.
I’m in my room. I regretted it the moment I typed it. It made it sound like I was asking him to come over.
Are you alone? Luke asked, his question loaded with innuendo and promise.
I didn’t know how to respond. Yes. I was alone, but my being alone meant if I let him come over, then we would be alone together. And, the last time we were alone together, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.
???? Bella?
I heard his voice in my head, breathy and turned on like he was the other night. The way he’d whispered in my ear, and teased me about how wet I was.
Yes.
SHIT.
Open the door.
I opened the door. “What do you want, Luke?”
The look on his face was the same look I had seen that night. Hot, bothered, I-want-to-be-inside-you-now look.
“Bella.” There it was. The way he said my name, like it was the password he needed to get off.
I backed up into the room because he looked like he was going to take me right there in the doorway.
I was weak. I knew that. He had me at “Are you alone?”
He slammed the door behind him, rushed toward me, and pulled me into him, crushing his lips against mine.
Oh God.
He tasted so good, like a drink of fresh water after a marathon in the desert.
“Luke, you said we needed to talk.” Getting those words out was hard considering he wasn’t letting up. Luke’s hands were everywhere and all over. My arms, shoulder, waist, neck, back, ass, stomach, face. He kissed me like it was his first time kissing anyone. He was hungry and emotional and sexy as fuck. His mouth, so warm. His tongue, so wet. I looked briefly into his eyes, and it felt like I was looking into his soul. He stopped to look back at me. To see me.
“We’ll talk after.”
Oh God. What was I doing?
Somehow, we ended up on my bed, Luke on top of me.
Luke reached under my shirt. His hand on my skin was warm, electric, like a shock. The feeling resonated straight down to my most private parts.
“Luke,” I breathed into his mouth, unable to talk and stop kissing him.
“Bella …”
He reached behind me and un-hooked my bra. The feeling of his hands back there made me arch my back and push my breasts into his chest. He moaned. I moaned.
“Luke, please …”
“Tell me what you want, Bella.” Luke’s words did me in. I wanted him with everything I had. I was ready for him to make me forget. Make me feel good. Make me come.
I wanted to release all my frustration and anger and sadness. I wanted to be happy, to feel loved, and needed.
“I want you,” I managed to say, but then regretted it.
“I want you too, baby.”
Oh God.
Luke’s hand moved to my sweatpants, untying the little drawstring. His other hand worked on my breast, teasing, gently kneading and pulling. I didn’t know it could be like this. This good. God, I didn’t know. Once the drawstring was free, he placed a hand inside, feeling, stroking. So slick.
“Luke. Please. We have to talk.” Even as I pushed my body against his hand, I wanted him to stop and continue, and to stop. I wanted to find my release in his hands.
“Do you want me to stop?” Luke looked at me, stopping everything in that moment even before I responded with the words he must have known I would say.
“Yes.”
I lowered my head, embarrassed once again by how quickly and eagerly I had been seduced again.
“You OK?” Luke kissed my head and despite his heavy breathing, relaxed next to me on the bed, leaning on his elbow. A quick glance down proved he was still as aroused as I was. He laughed. “It’s gonna take a minute. I can’t just turn it off.”
He caught me looking at his junk! His erect junk! I was super embarrassed, so I buried my head in his arm pit.
“I wasn’t trying to be a pervert. I’m sorry.”
“I like when you look at me” Luke said with confidence and a smile. “It’s good that you know what you do to me.”
“What I do to you?” I raised my head and looked into his eyes.
“Yes.” He stroked my face. “You make my crazy, Bella. Why is it that a girl I just met can do such things to me without even trying?”
“Crazy? I make you crazy? You’re the one who’s enlisting.”
There it was. Everything that was hanging in the air between us.
Luke sat up with his back to me. Then after a few seconds, he stood up. Shit. He was going to leave.
“Can I use your bathroom?”
I sat up too, instinctively glancing at his nuts and bolts to find his erection gone.
Luke smirked.
“Yes,” I said pointing to the open door.
The truth of the matter was, this was how it would be with Luke and I always. We would be hot and heavy and then angry and resentful and emotional the next. I would resent him and mistrust him and he would be all sexy and irresistible and charming. I would give in to him, then instantly regret it, and he would give up and leave. Any future I could have with Luke would be exactly this way, and I knew it. Why was I even bothering? I could get myself off. I didn’t need Luke to do it – even though he is arguably better at it.
Back from the bathroom, Luke sat on Becca’s bed instead of mine.
“Bella, listen. I was wrong not to tell you I had enlisted. And even more wrong to allow you to find out in front of your mother, who I’m guessing doesn’t like me.”
“You think?”
I put my feet on the floor and faced him.
“I wanted to tell you. I came here to talk to you, but I knew that if I spoke to you, in person, and was able to look at you and hear you and touch you and kiss you, I wouldn’t have the courage to leave and go enlist.”
“So, you decided to lie about it? Not call or text me for four days and then put me on blast in front of my mother?”
“I didn’t intend for that to happen. I never wanted to hurt you. It was me. I was weak and I didn’t want to face you.”
“And now?”
‘I’m still weak. Look at me, sitting here on Becca’s bed because I’m afraid of sitting next to you.”
As horrible as it was, that made me feel good to know he found me as irresistible as I found him.
“I had plans to go to Africa after we graduate.”
“I know. And I didn’t want that to change. I had no right to expect that to change. The day I met you, my life and all my plans blew up. And when Martin died, and you came to the hospital, I knew it would be hard to not hold you like that. Not be close to you.”
“You knew then?”
“I knew then that I was going to enlist. Yes. It’s what he wanted for me. I promised him I would turn my life around and make him proud, and I have. He was the only family I had left. I shit on everyone else, and they turned their backs on me. He never did. He stepped up when my family couldn’t.”
“So why did you even bother asking me to go for a ride with you that night? Why not just let me go?”
“Because I’m a selfish prick. Always have been. And I wanted to spend my birthday with you. I wanted to kiss you, and hold you, and fuck you. How’s that for honesty?”
7
“What am I supposed to say to that?”
“Say whatever you want. But don’t try to make me feel bad about my decision to enlist.”
“I’m not. I’m just telling you how it makes me feel.”
“I thought you’d be happy for me. Proud of me. I want to serve my country. What’s wrong with that?”
Nothing was wrong with it, and I knew I was being a selfish bitch. We weren’t even dating officially, but I was upset. Lost. Hurt. Sad. I wanted Luke all to myself. I didn’t want to share him with this country. I wanted to have him and talk to him and hold him any time I wanted. I didn’t want to be separated from him. The future I had imagined for us so clearly before became suddenly clouded, murky and, fractured. So, his question left me speechless. I was proud of him, and also mad at him, and afraid to lose him. I was a fucking coward.
“Nothing. I don’t know.” I hid my face in the palms of my hands and began to cry.
He didn’t come to me. He wasn’t interested in stopping me from crying. He sat across from me on Becca’s bed silently. He looked broken, sad. He looked like he could not believe what a serious cluster-fuck things had become.
After a few minutes, he said, “This thing between us. It’s only been a week and it’s already breaking us.”
He was so right. He’d had his hands between my legs twice, and I’d already felt like I owned him, that there was an “us.” He owned me. I was already his.
How the fuck did I fall so fast and so hard for this guy? What the hell was I thinking?
Suddenly, I was becoming angry. Angry at him for making me feel all the things I was feeling.
Luke didn’t respond for what felt like hours. But it was actually minutes, maybe even seconds.
“I want to be with you,” I said, lifting my head out of my hands and looking over at Luke, swallowing that anger.
“I want to be with you too. But no secrets. No keeping anything from one another. Married people do that shit. Let’s not be like that.” Luke moved next to me, and the mood immediately shifted. Being that close to him was like being close to a magnet with an opposite charge.
I was quiet and trying to hold on to my resolve to just talk and nothing else.
“Bella,” Luke said as he took my face in his hand. “I’m sorry. Will you please forgive me?”
“Yes,” I said, the pressure building inside me getting to be too much.
Luke planted a kiss on my nose then said, “What’s the story with your mom? She doesn’t like me because I’m older?”
“Ugh. My mom doesn’t like anyone in the military. But we can save that for another time.” I kissed his hand, still on my face.
“Mmmmmm.” He let out a long moan. “Why are you starting trouble?”
“What trouble? I just kissed you.” I failed to hide the smile that invaded my face. I got off the bed to retrieve my Monopoly game from under Becca’s bed. We needed a distraction, and fast.
“Nice,” Luke said as I bent over. He was insufferable.
“Hmmmm. Let’s see what you’re really made of, soldier,” I teased, placing the game on his lap.
We sat on the floor and both got serious about winning at Monopoly.
As I shuffled the cards and Luke distributed the money, we talked.
“You don’t want to talk about your mom, right? What about your dad?”
“He died when I was little … In the military. Never met him.” I hoped my tone implied I didn’t want to talk about him either.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“What about you? What’s your story?” I intended to sound chipper, unaffected by the mention of my parents. I even smiled at him.
“Drug addicts and dealers. They are in and out of jail, so I was in and out of foster homes as a kid. They got busted for the final time when I was eleven. My dad killed a guy and my mom helped him cover it up.” He searched my face. “Nice, huh? Ready to run in the other direction yet?”
I must have had a look of horror on my face.
“It’s OK. That’s a lot for most people to take on.” Luke finished distributing the money.
“You’re serious?” I blurted out.
“Unfortunately. I got into a lot of not good shit when I was a kid and with no one really keeping an eye on me. I was a throwaway kid, in and out of foster care.”
