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21
Carm
Iknew she’d figure me out. I tried to convince myself in the bathroom while throwing out the condom, that I’d get dressed and go watch television. Give her the feeling that I was done with her for now. But I walked out, and she had the sheet around her chest, her head on the pillow. The look in her eyes asked me if she should leave, and I knew I wanted her to stay because I didn’t want to hurt her. And now I’m making her a sandwich, sliding her stool closer, and kissing her every time I pass her.
To an outsider, you’d think I was done, stamp me with taken. We need to clear this up right now. I can tell her about Kami and also square things away with what’s going on between us. Easy.
“Kami Johnson. Senior year of high school.” In my peripheral vision, I see her nod.
“I’m sorry,” she says, touching my arm.
My fingers curl into a fist. “I’m not wounded from it if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just a big reason why I’m the way I am.”
“And what way is that?” She leans back on the stool, pushing aside her plate.
I side-eye her. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You think I’m a commitment-phobe now because I got hurt at seventeen.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She laughs. “What happened?”
Let’s just get this over with. “I fell hard… fast. I thought she did too. But about six months in, she started saying that I was cheating on her. Always looking at my phone. Telling me I was flirting with every girl.”
She gives me that look that says I probably was.
“It’s who I am. I can be talkative, and I’m friendly. I’m Italian.”
She quirks an eyebrow.
“I’ll tell you right now, I might be a flirt and I might sleep around when I’m single, but I would never cheat on someone.”
She touches my arm again, and warmth spreads into my flesh. “Okay. I believe you.”
“Anyway, the relationship deteriorated fast, but I still wanted her, still wanted to be with her. But one night, I had to hang back after the game at my football coach’s request, and she headed to a party with her friends. We made plans to meet up there. When I arrived, I couldn’t find her, and she wasn’t answering her phone. Her group of friends were all uncomfortable when I asked them where she was. You know when you know someone’s lying?”
She nods.
God, it sucks reliving that night. The way everyone at that party knew. Everyone but me. Me walking in there after getting my ass chewed out for not having my head in the game. Coach lecturing me about toxic relationships and how I was too young to be so serious. The entire school had seen or heard us fight by our lockers, our cars, or at parties. We were that couple, but I loved Kami. I did.
Bella’s head tilts in sympathy as she waits for what I’m going to tell her.
“Kami was in the shed in the back of the house with a college guy who’d graduated a year before us. An old teammate of mine. The one I replaced as quarterback. She’d dated him before me, and they broke up the summer before we got together. I was an idiot for not seeing how fast she jumped to me. She wasn’t in the drama club but turns out she was one helluva actress.”
“Young love can be hard. I didn’t have one, but when you’re so young…”
I nod, remembering Kami straddling him and his cocky smirk over her shoulder when the stream of light fell across the room from the open door. Her widened eyes. Climbing off him and trying to apologize. As if you can apologize when you’re bouncing on someone else’s dick.
“She was the only one I’d ever been really honest with and let in. My senior year, I had no idea what the hell I wanted to do. Some small schools had looked at me, but I didn’t think college was for me. It seemed like she got me and understood me when no one else did. Enzo told me I was being fucking stupid, that she just wanted popularity and I was the person she was using after I made first string. I didn’t listen. Told him he was jealous…” I feel like a fucking pussy sharing this. “Anyway, it was years ago, and it only has a little bit to do with why I am the way I am. I told you, it’s my schedule.”
“Uh-huh.” She sips her soda, a smile playing at her lips.
“It is.” I refrain from saying partly. That there’s always that feeling like I don’t know when I’m being played. I loved her so much that I took her back for a week after that, before finally figuring out she would only ever bring me misery.
“So this?” she asks, waving a finger between us. “What’s your game plan?”
I chuckle into my soda, not sure how to answer. “Screw you as long as you’ll let me?”
