Jade was arriving tomorrow, and that was making me feel very much on edge.
I needed to talk to someone, so I coerced my friend and co-worker, Tracy, to come for a visit to the island. She met me for lunch at the Brick Alley Pub in town. I hadn’t seen Tracy since right after the school year ended. With her kids’ busy summer schedules, she hadn’t been able to break away until now.
The first half of our lunch date was spent over nachos, giving her the full back story of my history with Justin and rehashing what had happened at the beach house up until now.
“God, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
“What can I do?”
“You could tell him how you feel about him.”
“He’s with Jade, and she’s a really good person. I can’t try to make a play for him right under her nose if that’s what you mean. I won’t do that.”
“But he obviously wants you.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Come on…the song he dedicated to you? Sure, he didn’t know you heard it, but clearly he’s got lingering feelings.”
“Lingering feelings are one thing…acting on them is totally another. He’s not going to leave his gorgeous, talented, Broadway star girlfriend, who’d been there for him when I wasn’t, just because some old feelings were rekindled. Jade’s a great girl.”
“But she’s not you. He’s always wanted you. You’re the one that got away.”
“I’m the one that ran away. He won’t forget that. He might learn to forgive me, but I don’t know that he’ll ever fully trust me. It’s not fair of me to expect him to.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. You were a kid.” Tracy took a bite of her corn chip and spoke with her mouth full, “You said you’re not selling the house, right?”
“No. We agreed to keep it. That’s what Nana would want.”
“Then whether he stays with Jade or not, this house is going to bind the two of you forever. Do you really want to spend every summer for the rest of your life watching the man you love moving on with other women?”
My heart felt like it was breaking in two. Flashes of many summers turning into winters ran through my mind on fast forward. The idea of that sounded daunting. Year after year of unrequited love for someone I couldn’t have was not something I wanted to endure.
“You’re not helping my dilemma. I was hoping you’d talk some sense into me, help me realize that I need to accept things the way they are and move on.”
“But that’s not really what you want, is it?”
No. No, it isn’t.
***
Tonight was my night off. I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved that I’d be missing Justin play. We’d kept our distance since the all-nighter. It was for the best, since things were teetering on inappropriate that night—at least in my head they were.
Tracy decided to stick around and spend the night at the beach house. With Justin out of the house, she had the bright idea that we should buy some liquor and have a girls’ night in.
We arrived at the house with a paper bag full of tequila, limes and coarse salt. My stomach dropped when I spotted Justin’s car in the driveway.
He was supposed to be working. What was he doing home?
“Shit. Justin’s home.”
“I thought he was working,” she said.
“Me, too.”
Justin was nowhere to be found when we walked in the door. I dropped the bag on the kitchen counter and went to show Tracy the upper deck. That’s where we found Justin sitting, smoking a cigar with his legs up on the balcony as he looked out toward the water. His hair was wet, like he’d just taken a dip in the ocean. He was shirtless. The top of his boxer briefs was sticking out of his jeans. He looked like a freaking Calvin Klein ad. Tracy’s mouth practically hit the floor when she got a look at him.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were playing at the restaurant.”
Smoke billowed out of his mouth. “I was supposed to be. But the place almost burned down.”
“What?”
“There was a kitchen fire this afternoon. When I showed up, they told me they had to close to air out the entire restaurant. They won’t be reopening for another week at least. It doesn’t look like I’ll get to play there again before I leave.”
“Holy shit. Did anyone get hurt?”
“No, but Salvatore was a fucking wreck.” He glanced over at Tracy. “Who’s this?”
“This is Tracy, a good friend from Providence and a teacher at my school. She came down to spend the day with me. She’s gonna sleep over tonight.”
Justin placed his baseball cap over his head backwards and stood up. “Nice to meet you,” he said, offering her his hand.
“Likewise,” she said, taking it.
I shook my head in disbelief, not only about the blaze but the fact that Justin was probably leaving with Jade sooner than I thought. “Wow. I can’t believe that about the fire.”
“I wasn’t really in the mood to perform tonight, but I would have never wished that shit on Sal.”
“Gosh. I wonder if I’ll even be working there myself again before the end of summer.”
He took another puff of the cigar and flicked the ashes. There was something so sexy about that.
“What are you ladies up to tonight?”
“We were gonna have some drinks and have a girls night in.”
“That sounds like a hot mess.”
Tracy laughed. “It’s not every night that I get away from my kids. So, a girls’ night in is about as wild as it gets for me.”
Justin winked. “Well, I’ll stay out of your way then.”
“You don’t have to,” Tracy said. “You should join us for a drink.”
“That’s alright. I’ll pass.”
When we returned downstairs, Tracy went to use the bathroom. I was cutting up limes when Justin came down and spotted the gigantic bottle of tequila on the counter.
“Jesus Christ. Enough tequila?”
“It was her idea. I’ve never done tequila shots before.”
He squinted his eyes. “You’ve never done a tequila shot?”
“Nope.”
“Damn, Patch. What did they not know how to live it up in New Hampshire?”
“I never really drank at all until about a year ago. Actually, I’ve never drank more than I have this summer.”
He flashed an impish grin. “Can I take responsibility for that?”
“Maybe.” I laughed.
Our attention turned to Tracy as she came back down the stairs.
“I’m so sorry, Amelia, but Todd just called and said that Ava is sick and throwing up. He really needs me to head back home to Warwick.”
“Are you serious? I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“I guess you two will just have to enjoy the tequila without me. I’m just glad Todd called before I started drinking and couldn’t drive myself home.”
“Do you need anything for the road?” I asked. “A bottle of water or something?”
“No. I’m good.” Tracy pulled me into a hug and said, “I’ll see you back at school in a few weeks anyway.”
“Thanks for coming down, Trace. I had a great time.”
“It was nice meeting you, Justin.”
Justin offered a silent wave before I walked her to the door.
With Tracy gone, the mood shifted from light to extremely tense. When I turned around, Justin was leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed.
This was exactly what I had been trying to avoid. Part of why I’d encouraged Tracy to spend the night was to avoid being alone with him. Tonight was likely the very last time we would be alone before he returned to New York.
I slowly walked toward where he was standing.
Justin smirked. “What are we gonna do with all this tequila?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I said, “I don’t know.”
“I think we should drink it.”
“I don’t know how to do tequila shots. Tracy was gonna show me.”
“Simple. Lick, slam, suck.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a three-step process. You wet your hand, lick the salt off, slam the drink down, and then you suck the lime. Lick, slam, suck. I’ll show you how to do it.”
Hearing him say the words lick, slam, suck made my body prickle.
Just then, my phone vibrated against the counter. It was right next to Justin. His expression darkened after he glanced down at the screen.
He lifted the phone and muttered, “Real fucking nice,” before handing it to me.
All of the blood in my body seemed to rush to my head when I read the text from Tracy.
Justin totally wants you. You should fuck him hard tonight.
His stare was piercing when I looked up.
Wracking my brain for a response, I let out a fake laugh. “She’s a jokester. She likes to bust balls. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t say anything, just stared at me with an uncomfortable intensity.
Shit. Thanks a lot, Tracy!
My heart was beating frantically.
Justin was quiet for the longest time then just simply said, “I really need that fucking drink.”
Breathing out a sigh of relief, I said, “Me, too.”
He examined the bottle. “Did you pick out this tequila?”
Good. He was letting it go.
“Yes.”
“This brand sucks. It’s cheap.”
“I told you. I don’t know anything about tequila.”
“Actually, it’s not the worst thing in the world, because we’ll chug it down so fast, you won’t even taste it. If it were the expensive stuff, then that would be a waste.”
Justin opened the small container of salt, grabbed two shot glasses from the cabinet, and placed them down on the granite before sliding one of them over to me.
Lifting his hand, he spread his thumb and his index finger open and pointed to the space between them. “Put your hand like this, and do what I do.” He then licked the space between his fingers. God, that one swipe of his tongue was so erotic. He made it easy to see what that mouth could do in other ways.
Jade was a lucky woman.
Justin watched every movement of my tongue as I did the same. He then sprinkled some salt between his fingers and mine.
“You’re gonna lick the salt off real fast before drinking the tequila down in one shot. Don’t stop. Drink it all down. Then, grab a lime and suck.”
Holy hell, hearing the demanding tone of the words lick and suck come out of his mouth…it was almost too much.
“Ready? We’ll do it together. On the count of three. One…Two…Three.”
Following his lead, I licked my hand and slammed the liquid down, the tequila burning my throat.
I’d forgotten to grab a lime. Justin took one and placed it in my mouth. “Quick. Suck on this. It will diffuse the taste.” I sucked the juice out, savoring the acidic flavor. My lips were touching his fingers as he held it. He was watching intently as I sucked on it. I wished I could have swallowed his fingers whole.
When he took the lime away, I licked my lips. “God, that was strong. What do we do now? Another one?”
“Easy, drunkass. We should wait a bit. You’re a lightweight.”
We spaced out our shots, each one packing a bigger punch than the last. When I lost my balance a little, Justin said, “Alright. That’s it. I’m cutting you off.”
I watched as he did two more shots. After several minutes, his eyes were starting to look glazed over. We were both pretty drunk.
The room swayed as I made my way over to the couch and closed my eyes. I felt a heavy weight as Justin plopped down on the cushion next to me. He lay his head back and closed his eyes, too. He’d taken off his hat, and his hair was disheveled. The recessed lighting in the living room was shining atop his head, bringing out the natural blond streaks. After staring at him for a while, the need to run my fingers through that silky hair became unbearable. I reached my hand over and started to rake my fingers slowly through it. I knew it was wrong, but I’d somehow convinced myself that it was an innocent gesture between friends. Like we used to do. Deep down, I knew I was kidding myself. The alcohol had clouded my inhibitions and given me the courage to do something I’d been wanting to for so long.
He let out a long, shaky breath but kept his eyes closed as my fingers continued to massage through his hair. At first, he looked like he was in ecstasy, so I didn’t stop. After about a minute, though, his breathing became heavier, and he started to fidget.
He shocked me when he suddenly opened his eyes and turned to me. “What the fuck are you doing, Amelia?”
I retracted my hand. My heart started to pound as I attempted to come up with an excuse. “I’m sorry. I…I got carried away.”
“I see. Blame it on the alcohol?” he scoffed.
He got up and walked to the other side of the room and pulled on his hair in frustration as he paced. Then, he did the most bizarre thing. He dropped to the floor and started doing pushups in speedy succession.
Trying to fight the tears of humiliation that were stinging my eyes, I watched as he kept with the exercises for several minutes. He was panting and exhausted by the time he collapsed onto his back. He finally sat up, bowing his head toward the floor as he looked deep in thought. Sweat was pouring off his back.
Deciding that I’d already done enough damage for one night, I got up and started to go upstairs.
His voice stopped me. “Don’t go.”
Turning around at the foot of the stairs, I said, “I think I really need to just go to sleep.”
“Come here,” he said quietly.
When I returned to my seat on the couch, his voice was more demanding. “I said come…here.” He pointed to the floor next to him. As Justin sat with his arms wrapped around his shins, I planted myself on the ground beside him, still too ashamed to look him in the eyes.
He turned his back toward me. “You asked me what this tattoo on my back meant. Look at the numbers in three sets of four under the barcode.”
They just seemed like random numerals in no particular order. Three sets of four. What did they mean?
The first set finally came to me: 1221. “That’s December twenty-first, your birthday.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
The next set was 0323. “What’s that one?”
“March 23rd, 2001,” he said.
“What’s the significance of that date?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“That was the day we met.”
“How on Earth did you remember the exact date?”
“I just never forgot.”
I looked at the next set of digits: 0726.
Now, that was a date I could never forget.
“July twenty-sixth was the date I left Providence in 2006.” I stared off for a bit before saying, “The barcode represents your birth and the beginning and end of our relationship.”
“Yeah. Defining moments of my life.”
“When did you get this tattoo?”
“The night I got it, I was in Boston finishing my first and last semester at Berklee College of Music. I knew I wasn’t going to be returning, because I couldn’t afford it. I was depressed and sad and missing you like hell that night. But I’d refused to speak to you when you tried to contact me the year before, and I wasn’t going to budge. I was young and stubborn. I wanted to make you pay for running away. The only way I knew how to achieve that was to do to you what you did to me—disappear. I found a tattoo place near school and had this inked on me. It represented letting you go once and for all.”
“Did it do the trick?”
“You know…after that day, I really followed through with my vow to move on. And every year, it did get easier to forget everything, especially after I moved to New York. Days and weeks would go by without thinking about you. I thought I’d put you in the past where you belonged.”
“Until you couldn’t avoid me anymore.”
He nodded. “Coming here, I had no idea what to expect. When I laid eyes on you that first day in the kitchen, I quickly realized that all of the feelings hadn’t really gone away at all. I’d just been suppressing them. Seeing you again as a grown woman…it was jarring. I didn’t know how to handle it.”
“Besides being mean.”
“At first, I was still so fucking angry at you. I wanted you to be a bitch to me, so that at least the anger would be justified. But instead…you were sweet and full of regret. The object of my anger has slowly been shifting from you to myself…for wasting all those years in bitterness. So, you know what this tattoo represents to me now?” He paused. “Fucking stupidity.”
“I was the stupid one for ever leaving you. I—”
“Let me finish. I’ve got to get this out tonight.”
“Alright.”
The next thing that came out of his mouth was totally unexpected.
“We need to talk about our attraction to each other, Amelia.”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
“That text from your friend…she was right. I want to fuck you so badly right now that I’m practically shaking. My conscience is the only thing stopping me. It’s wrong and so messed up.”
My body was in flux upon his admission, unsure of whether to feel turned on or sick to my stomach.
He continued, “Ever since that day I caught you watching me in my room…I haven’t been able to get you out of my head.”
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. But the thing is…I couldn’t even be mad at you, because you watching me jerk off was just about the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
Wow. I didn’t think he felt that way about it.
“I figured you thought I was perverted.”
“I would’ve done the same thing if I walked by your room and saw you touching yourself.”
“You have a beautiful body, Justin. It was hard to look away.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you were watching me. What were you thinking about?”
Since he was being so honest with me, I decided to tell him the absolute truth. “I was imagining that I was with you.”
His breath hitched, and he turned away for a moment before making eye contact. “Have you always been as attracted to me as you are now?”
“Yes. But even more so now. I know it’s wrong, Justin.”
“Right or wrong, we can’t help who we’re attracted to. I don’t want to want you like this. Just sitting next to you right now is hard for me. But wanting someone and acting on it are two different things. That’s why when you were touching my hair, I had to stop it.”
“I really wasn’t trying to sleep with you. I just missed touching your hair. That’s all. It was selfish.”
“Believe me, I understand. I’m not innocent in all of this. I’ve looked for excuses to touch you, too. But I have a girlfriend. We have a good life in New York. There’s no excuse. I’m starting to feel like my father, totally out of control with no concern for anyone else.”
“You’re not your father.”
“My mother was just as bad.”
“Well, you’re not your parents.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, either, Patch. I’m so fucking confused. This situation with sharing the house makes things very awkward.” He closed his eyes for a long moment before continuing, “Maybe we should work out an arrangement next year.”
“Arrangement?”
“Yeah, like maybe we alternate months, so that we don’t have to be here at the same time.”
It felt like he’d punched me in the heart.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Let me get this straight. You can’t trust yourself around me, so you don’t want to physically see me ever again?”
“That’s not it.”
“Then why else would you not want to be around me?”
He raised his voice, his tone bordering on angry. “Do you really enjoy hearing me and Jade fucking?”
“No. But—”
“Well, I don’t want to hear you fucking anyone, either. I’m trying to protect both of us here.”
My blood was boiling. “So, you’d rather just not see me at all?”
“I didn’t say that. But coming up with a schedule is something we should at least consider. I think that would be a smart option.”
The words were flying out of my mouth. “As hard as this has been for me, I’ve never once considered that. That’s the difference between us. I would deal with any amount of discomfort that it took in order to have you in my life. I would never choose any option that involved pretending you didn’t exist. I would take any fragment of you than nothing at all. Clearly, you don’t feel the same about me. So, you know what? Now that I know that…I’m perfectly good with a schedule.” Hot tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Fuck, Patch. Don’t cry.”
I held out my hand as I stood up. “Please. Don’t call me that name ever again.”
He buried his face in his hands and yelled into them, “Fuck!”
I stormed into the kitchen and opened the bottle of tequila, pouring myself another shot. I didn’t bother with the salt or lime and instead just drank it straight.
Justin grabbed the bottle before I could pour another. “You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
“That would be none of your concern.”
The door clicked open at that very moment. Both of our heads turned toward it simultaneously.
His face turned practically white before he flashed the fakest smile and said, “Jade!”
She ran toward him so fast before wrapping her arms around him. “I couldn’t wait till tomorrow. I missed you so much.”
She planted her lips on his, and his body stiffened. You could tell he was uncomfortable kissing her in front of me after what went down tonight.
She pulled away from him. “You smell like tequila.”
“Yeah. Her friend was here and brought it.”
“Glad to see you two are still speaking to each other.” She looked over at me then approached to give me a hug and said, “I missed you, too, Amelia.” Guilt was building within me with each second that her skinny frame pressed into me.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” I lied.
She took a look at my face. “Your eyes look red. Are you okay?”
“Yes. I just drank too much. I’m not used to it.”
“Tequila is rough.” She laughed, looking over at the bottle. “Especially cheap crap like that.”
Jade spent the next several minutes filling me in on all of the theater gossip from Broadway while Justin and I stole awkward glances at each other. When she finished rambling, I decided I needed to excuse myself.
“Well, I’m exhausted. I’m gonna head upstairs.”
“Hope we don’t disturb you too much tonight.” She winked and looked over at Justin. “It’s been a while.”
He looked stoic and extremely uncomfortable.
“Don’t worry about me. Go to town,” I bit out.
Upstairs in my room, I covered my ears with my pillow to mask the sound of his bed shaking. Listening to them having sex was painful beyond belief, but it didn’t compare to the emptiness I was feeling over the conversation Justin and I had.
My stomach was aching. I suddenly felt violently ill. Running to the bathroom, I swore that I would never drink tequila again for as long as I lived, not only because it made me sick to my stomach, but because it would always remind me of this miserable night.
