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Chris and I are alone. On a Sunday. And all my studying is done. Nothing good can come of this.
“I need you to leave,” I say as I sit up on my knees.
“Why?”
“Because.” I close my eyes so I don’t have to see that disappointed look on his face. “I’m afraid of what will happen if you stay.”
I feel him sit up so I open my eyes. He’s leaning against the wall behind my bed. I have no headboard and I try not to think of how convenient this was when Adam and I spent the weekends in this bed.
“Why are you afraid? It’s not like I’m some guy you picked up at a club. I’m not a one-night-stand. I’m your first love and the father of your child. And I’m in love with you.”
I swallow hard and try to catch my breath. “I can’t do this.”
“Come here,” he says, beckoning me into his arms.
I shake my head and he purses his lips. “Claire. Don’t make me tickle you. I still know your spot.”
I roll my eyes and he takes the opportunity to catch me off my guard and pull me toward him. I laugh as I attempt to get away, but he quickly and lightly digs his fingers into the soft flesh just below my ribs and I bellow with laughter.
“Stop!” I shriek.
He laughs as he grabs both sides of my waist and pulls me on top of him so I’m straddling his hips. We stare at each other for a moment. I don’t know what he’s thinking about, but I’m thinking of that kiss we shared yesterday. I just want to feel that way again. Like nothing has changed.
He grabs my face and pulls my lips to his. “I love you,” he says into my mouth between kisses. “I love you so fucking much.”
I’m so lost. This is wrong. I would lose my mind if Adam knew what I was doing right now. But I don’t want to stop. I want to kiss Chris. I want to feel like things can be this good again. I want to feel this good forever.
He pulls back and looks me in the eye. “I want you so bad right now. I want to make love to you, Claire.”
His hand traces the curve of my jaw and I sigh as my heart races. I’ve missed his touch, electric on my skin. This is what I dreamed of almost every night for a year before I met Adam. Even now, after learning Adam’s ways, becoming accustomed to his kiss and his intensity, I still crave the familiarity of Chris.
I shake my head as I pull away. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what I want right now and I don’t want to hurt you—” or Adam, “again.”
He nods solemnly, but I can feel the disappointment rolling off of him. “We don’t have to make love. I just want to be here with you.”
I glare at him warily. I remember how often Chris liked to have sex. I don’t know how he’s been keeping himself satisfied for the past two months, but I know he’s bullshitting when he says he just wants to be here with me.
“What?” he says as I continue to glare at him. “I can go without sex. I don’t want to go without you, but I’ll do it. As fucking painful as it will be, I will wait for you, the same way I waited until you were eighteen.” I move to get off his lap and he grabs my waist to stop me. “Are you hungry? Let’s go to Angie’s.”
“Angie’s is far.”
“But you have all day.”
Chris and I used to go to Angie’s for Sunday brunch at least once a month until I went to UNC. It was our monthly meeting with the band: Chris, me, Jake, Rachel, Tristan, and whatever girl Tristan felt like bringing. It’s strange because most people think that Chris’s band fell apart when he decided to go solo last year, but the truth is that they began growing apart as soon as I went off to college and Chris had to spend more time with me in Chapel Hill. I was their Yoko Ono.
“Fine,” I say, then something overcomes me.
I don’t know if it’s guilt from not having sex with him or from being so instrumental in the breakup of the band, but I take his face in my hands and kiss him, slowly, as a deep sigh and longing builds inside me. Finally, I pull away and press my lips together as I attempt to catch my breath.
He kisses the corner of my lips then smiles with that signature gleam in his eyes. “Sorry, babe, I’m not in the mood.”
We arrive at Angie’s Restaurant just before ten and, to my surprise and horror, the waitress who seats us in our booth recognizes us.
“Chris,” she says, poking Chris’s arm before she turns to me. “And Claire.”
I don’t recognize her and judging by the puzzled look on Chris’s face he doesn’t recognize her either. Her cheeks are hollow and her brown hair hangs all the way down to her butt in a long ponytail. Nothing about her is familiar to me, but Chris quickly recovers his wits—or his memory—and gives her his crowd smile. Ugh. I have a love/hate relationship with his crowd smile.
“Priscilla,” he says, and her gray eyes light up. “Can you believe how long it’s been?”
She hands me my menu without taking her eyes off Chris. “Where the heck have you been? Oh, wait. I know where you’ve been. You’re a friggin’ rock star now! But you look exactly the same! Except that leg. What the heck happened there?”
Chris goes into a brief explanation of the motorcycle accident, carefully leaving out the fact that he was out riding his bike that day to try to forget how upset he was over Abigail and me. She asks if she can sign his cast before she finally takes our order.
He orders the usual Denver omelet then turns to me. “Do you want the usual?”
I don’t know if he really remembers what I used to get, so I decide to test him. “Sure.”
He turns to Priscilla and she wa
its with a curious expression as he thinks for a moment. “Belgian waffle with bacon and eggs over-medium.”
Priscilla shakes her head as she jots it down. “Too cute.”
Once Priscilla is gone, I glare at him across the table. “Do you always have to show off?”
“I’m a performer. What do you expect?”
“A little humility.”
“Hey, I’m humble. I don’t go around bare-chested, wearing fucking leather pants with my shirt hanging out my back pocket.”
“Because you know I’d make fun of you if you did that.”
“No. I only do it on Wednesdays.”
Hump day.
I ignore the jealous roar inside me as I imagine how many girls have been on this end of his charming little act.
“Are you okay?” he asks as Priscilla shows up with our coffee. He flashes her a tight smile and she quickly sets off.
“I’m fine.” Just getting a glimpse of what life with you would be like now that you’re God.
“You don’t look fine. I know what you need.”
I need to not be here. I should be in my dorm moping like I have been the last few Sundays since Adam broke up with me. Instead, I’m sitting across the table from the one person, other than myself, who I can actually hold responsible for breaking us up. What is wrong with me?
“Chris, no offense, but I’m beginning to think that even I don’t know what I need.”
His smile fades and he stares at my hands for a while before he reaches across the table and grabs my left hand. He rubs his thumb over my knuckles for a moment before he brings my hand to his lips and lays a soft kiss on my ring finger.
“I know what you need.” He keeps rubbing my ring finger between his thumb and forefinger and it’s making me nervous. “It’s the same thing you’ve always needed since the day we met. You need your home.”
I swallow hard as I try not to let him see how relieved I am that he didn’t do something crazy like proposing to me in Angie’s Restaurant. A year ago, I would have loved for Chris to propose to me over a casual breakfast. I was deep in the throes of self-pity over the breakup and I wanted nothing more than for him to walk through my door and tell me he couldn’t live another day without me. Now, the thought of Chris proposing to me actually fills me with panic.
“I have a home. I live with Senia.”
“Yeah, but how about the holidays and the summer. You’re coming home, aren’t you?”
I pull my hand out of his and he narrows his eyes at me. “I promised your mom I would be there for Christmas. I’m not going to break my promise.” He shakes his head then stares out the window. “Why are you shaking your head? You can’t expect me to commit to spending every holiday at home. You’re really putting me on the spot here.”
He sighs before he turns back to me and looks me in the eye. “You want everything Claire. And to me you are everything. Do you have any fucking idea what that feels like?”
“Are you trying to make me feel guilty for being confused?”
“Did you not hear what I just said? This is it for me. I may have possibly blown my record deal and even my career to be here with you. I know you didn’t ask me to do it and I’m not asking you to drop everything for me, but can you at least pretend to care?”
“I do care. I—”
Priscilla arrives with our plates of food, one of her eyebrows raised, as she is keenly aware she has interrupted a heated discussion. She sets our plates down and leaves without asking if we need anything else.
We eat in silence, though both of us seem to have lost our appetites. When we make it back to my car, he grabs my hand before I can turn the key in the ignition. I close my eyes as I wait for him to speak.
“Can you look at me?” I open my eyes and turn to him as he releases my hand. “I need to tell you something I probably should have told you a few weeks ago.”
“What?”
He looks down at the console between us for a moment and I recognize that expression of guilt. “After I saw Abigail, I wasn’t in my right mind. I didn’t sleep that whole night.”
