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“No,” she told me, and I couldn't help but laugh.
I was slick enough. Barry was in the line of people waiting and watching. I didn't want to watch. I wanted to participate.
13
Beatrice
As soon as I saw Jeff at the fair, I knew that things were about to go sideways. He was just the man that I let get underneath my skin, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. Jeff knew exactly what he was doing. That made me nervous, especially considering I was doing my very best to keep a little bit of distance between us.
Now we were right next to each other in the ride, being strapped together in the Gravitron. It was a ride that spun around so fast that the centrifugal force splattered you against mats. It was a rare sensation that I had always enjoyed. The fact that Jeff remembered was kind of stunning in a way, but Jeff was just like that. He would continue to stun me, it’s just what he did.
When we were finally strapped all the way into the machine, he moved to grab my hand and it was silly, but I let him. What was even sillier was the connection that I felt between the two of us and the sensation in my hand. Why was Jeff so hard to forget about? Of all the things I thought I would have to worry about when I came back, this wasn't one of them. This was the past. He was my past, so why was it so hard to let him go?
I closed my eyes when the ride started and for the next minute, I felt like I was flying under high pressure. My heart seemed to slow down even though I was so excited, and all I focused on was the feeling and the touch of Jeff's warm hand on mine. He didn't let go, not once, and when I finally opened my eyes when it was slowing back down, he was watching me. I had a pretty good feeling that he had been watching me the whole time.
“Do you want to go again?”
I was feeling a little breathless and the first answer was yes, I wanted to go again. I could probably ride this thing repeatedly and never get sick of it. I'd always loved it; it was my favorite ride, but I knew that this was not going to end well. Nothing with Jeff and I did, and five years later that hadn't changed.
“No, I should get back to my date. Are you with anybody tonight?”
He told me that he wasn’t, and I didn't know why that made me happy. It would be better if he found a girlfriend, so he wouldn't be giving me all of his attention, but I really hated the idea of Jeff with someone else. I knew that it was ridiculous to think that way. I didn’t want to be with him, couldn’t be rather, so it was wrong to string him along. I knew that deep down, but it didn’t change anything, unfortunately.
Barry was waiting for me a little anxiously and I figured that it was because I was with Jeff. Jeff was the obvious choice. He was tall, broad-shouldered, had a handsome smile and charisma that had everyone eating out of the palm of his hand.
It wasn’t that sort of competition though. Jeff was off limits and Barry wasn’t. I wasn’t looking for a love connection or anything, just a distraction really, though Barry wasn’t doing a very good job of that either.
I tried not to look back, but I did just once to see if Jeff was paying attention. He was, but why would he be grinning? Maybe he thought he had already done his damage and he would probably be right. I saw right through the distraction that was Barry. I was losing it.
Barry wasn't up for most of the fair, so we just kind of walked around and talked. There was a short time that we were tracking down a corn dog, but that was about the gist of the night. I didn't know why I thought things would be different. Everything was going okay until Jeff showed up, but now it just felt wrong. I should be out with Jeff not Barry. He was kind of boring and it was hard to find things to talk about. We had nothing in common.
He didn't even eat mustard on his corndog. I just didn't know if this was going to go anywhere. By the time he dropped me off that night, it was early, not even 11:00 o'clock, and disappointment was taking over. It wasn’t the night that I had planned. I had low expectations to begin with, but this was ridiculous.
Since I didn't want to be home, chilling with my parents, I decided to give Jeff a call. I knew it was definitely a bad idea, but I couldn't help it. I'd wanted to do something and instead of going in the house, I waited on the front porch until Jeff pulled up and then I got in the vehicle with him. He had a winning smile on his face, but I reminded him very quickly that this was just two friends going out and having a drink.
“You want to go out to my place?”
At first I was going to say yeah, because I did want to swim in his pond, but seclusion, privacy, and all those things honestly spelled disaster. “No, why don't we just get a bottle and go down to the beach or something? I don't think I'm up for going up and down your road again. I must be in the right state of mind for that.”
“Are you sure that's what it is?” Jeff wondered.
I shrugged. “Little of this, little of that.”
“You drive me bonkers; you know that, right?”
“Well, you can always tell me no, Jeff.”
He scoffed. “I wish I could do that.”
“You have before,” I reminded him, and Jeff said something about it not being his choice. He also mentioned that I was too young back then.
“Anyway, do you want to get a drink or not?” Jeff asked.
I hadn’t even gotten in his truck yet. I think I was having second thoughts or something, but I finally agreed to just go down to the beach. It was secluded and could be as problematic, but I liked to think that at least it would be neutral ground. We’d already gotten too close at his house. It would only be a reminder and it would make it easier to go down that route.
We finally agreed on the place, and I got in the truck with him. He already had a bottle of my favorite whiskey and I slid over next to him, leaning my head on his shoulder. “When did things get so complicated?” I really wanted to know. We couldn’t be friends, if all I thought about was the bad things that I wanted to do to him.
Jeff shrugged. “They've always been complicated. It just seems more so now.”
