The Real Thing (7 page)

“Gah!” she gasps, clutching her chest. Once she recovers from the tiny scare I gave her, she pulls an earbud out and smacks me. “Geez, Eric, warn me or something next time.”

“Why? This is so much more fun.”

She hits me again, then pulls her iPod out and turns it off. She’s still humming “Round Here” when her eyes sort of widen, like she just remembered something, and she rushes to her computer and closes a few browsers.

“Looking at porn again?” I tease, but really, I can’t help but wonder what she’s hiding from me. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid.

“Checking the time. I have a Skype date tonight.”

The way her smile widens makes heat crawl through my neck. “Oh, yeah? With who?”
Please say her dorm mate.

“My dad.”

That works, too. “He’s in the land of the Internet?”

“For now.” She sighs, hand falling to the washcloth she must’ve soaked in the kitchen cleaner that I smelled coming up the stairs. Her teeth pull at her lip as she mindlessly wipes the counter by her laptop. “He’ll be on the Pacific for another month starting tomorrow.”

I know there’s something I should say to comfort her, but I can’t think of a damn thing, and I’m afraid to touch her. Before I can work myself up to it, the camera window pops up on her screen and her nose wrinkles as she looks at herself. “Um, will you actually watch this for me for a minute? In case he calls.”

“Sure.”

She wiggles around me, pulling at her top, and my eyes bulge as she starts stripping it off before she even gets to her room. I catch a glimpse of the smooth lines of her back and the bottom edge of her light-blue bra, and I have to grab the counter. I guess she took it to heart when I said to make herself at home.

Now if only I could do that.

Her computer makes weird, alien-sounding skype tone, and I see a picture of Em’s dad pop up in the corner.

“Emmy?” I call, but she doesn’t answer. I hate Skype because I hate myself on camera. But it’s Em’s dad and she’ll kill me if she misses this.

I move the cursor over and click the answer button. Mr. Johnson’s bearded face pops up and his grin fades when he sees me.

“Uh, hello, sir.”

“Hi.” His forehead furrows and he moves like he’s trying to see behind me. “There’s a Mia there, right? I clicked the right button, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. She’s just in her room. I’ll go get her.”

“Hang on a second,” he says as I turn from the computer. “Who are you, and why are you in my daughter’s house?”

I laugh, moving in front of the camera again. “Mr. Johnson, it’s Eric.”

The lines in his forehead slowly smooth out. Have I really changed all that much? Feels like I’m still stuck in the same body I had three years ago.

“I’ll be damned,” he says, taking his hat off and running a hand through his graying hair.

“Yeah, I uh … lost some weight.”

“Well, I know where it went.” He pats his gut and chuckles. I smile because even though he gained weight since last I saw him, he’s still more in shape than I am.

“I’ll go get Em.”

“Good to see you, son.”

I salute him, then walk around the kitchen counter and down the hall. Just as I’m about to tap on her door, she swings it open and barrels into my chest.

I cringe because I’m sure running into a sweat-soaked shirt isn’t fun for her. She leans back and rubs the bridge of her nose. Her eyes lock with mine, and I can’t help but give her one big-ass doofy smile.

“You changed for a Skype conversation.” My smile widens as I gaze at her bright-blue T-shirt. “I gotta say, that’s pretty damn cute, Emmy.”

She blinks, and for a second it looks like her cheeks turn red, but then she lands a hard elbow in my gut. I curl over, resting my hand on the wall behind her head.

I suck in a breath and pant out, “I call you cute, and you beat me up.”

“You were making fun of me.”

I lean forward a bit to push off the wall, but I get real close to her face and stop. It seems like an intimate position for less than a second, but I can’t stay here. So I drop my arm and take a step back, rubbing my stomach.

“Your dad’s on.” I gesture to the computer. “I’m gonna hit the shower.”

“Probably a good idea.” She tugs on my shirt, but she doesn’t seem grossed out by it. She tightens her ponytail, then stretches over the counter to grab her laptop. Those cutoffs are going to undo me. My mind is already trying to come up with scenarios where I’d be allowed to touch her legs, or even “accidentally” grab some ass. But something thunders in my chest, causing my breath to come out like an old man’s wheezing. I force myself into the bathroom before I end up watching every movement she makes for the rest of the night and panicking over it.

Looks like I’m making a stop at the pharmacy tomorrow.

It was fourth and goal and Coach put me in. Ali led the cheerleaders in a routine that spelled my name, only they spelled it wrong. I thought that was funny at the time, since my last name was written as clear as could be on the back of my jersey, but now that I think about it, I should’ve expected her to not know that much about me. It was probably the hundredth clue telling me that our relationship wasn’t healthy.

I fall back on my mattress, twisting the old pigskin between my hands, and stare at the door. Em’s voice floats through, and so does her dad’s, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. It’s been so long since my shower that I’m pretty sure the towel I dropped on the floor is dry. I considered heading out to the beach, but I didn’t want to interrupt anything, so I secluded myself in my bedroom, only to find myself flashing back to the past every two minutes.

The football in my hands was the game ball. I don’t know how I ended up with it. All I did was sack the quarterback the last play of the game. We won, and I remember the team making a show of trying to lift me onto their shoulders, but they only got me a couple of inches off the ground before giving up. I laughed it off, but the look I got from Ali when I went to kiss her after that made me suck my laughter right back down my throat. It was another clue I should’ve picked up on. She pushed my face away, cringing as if I didn’t have any right to touch her. But she was my girlfriend. I didn’t get it.

Well, I didn’t get it then. I do now.

Touching wasn’t something that came naturally to me, so kissing her in front of everyone seemed like a big deal. But then the rejection and the mixed signals followed … and it was hard to tell what was appropriate, what wasn’t, what I wanted, what she wanted, and she was frustrated and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

I chuck the ball up to the ceiling, then catch it, counting the tosses. Three years should be long enough to cure something like this. Therapy, change of scenery, working out—and I’m still freaking out over shit as if I’d been diagnosed with anxiety yesterday.
Is
there a cure for anxiety? Tolani seems to have gotten better, but then again, I thought I had, too.

Sitting up, I toss the ball to the corner of the room, knocking over a few things on the bookshelf. I pull out my phone and scroll through my Facebook feed to occupy my damn mind.

There are always more posts from Em than from anyone else on my friends list. Her last status update says “Work sucks” and her friends took the liberty to finish the Blink 182 song in her comment section.

I’m never good at commenting on things. I usually just read it or like it or whatever. And I hate posts when it says something sucks and you want to like it so they know you saw it and you concur or something, but you can’t do that because it looks like you’re liking the thing that sucks … so you feel like you have to comment on the damn thing, but you have no idea what to say. Or maybe I think too much.

And I know she’s in the next room, but I always want to comment on Em’s statuses. It’s a best friend code or some shit like that.

I tap on the comment section.

You should’ve said something. I would’ve bought you ice cream.

Then I hit post before I can rethink and retype it a hundred times. I drop my phone on the mattress and it buzzes next to my thigh almost immediately. I figure it’s another someone commenting on the post, but it’s Em, and she’s IMing me instead.

I’m almost done out here. You mind if I come bug you?

Bug away.

She doesn’t write back, but I see that she saw my message. I adjust on the bed to give her room, then I check myself to make sure I won’t freak out on her again. The football is out of my hands, which helps, but thinking about it was stupid since it brings that night to the forefront of my mind.

Ali shoved me away, and I felt like shit even after helping the team win. But shit was the feeling I was used to with her, even when we were … intimate. If that’s what you call what we did. She left with the rest of the cheerleaders, and before I could ask what I did wrong that time I was sacked myself.

Em’s body always felt different than Ali’s. And when she tackled me to the ground after that game, I almost kissed her. I wanted her to know how much she meant to me and how she never made me feel like I was unworthy of her friendship. But making the move wasn’t—
isn’t
—something I’m good at, and she was off me before I could take the chance.

In hindsight, maybe that’s a good thing. I’d hate to ruin another relationship because of my jacked-up issues.

My door creaks open, and I’m jolted out of my head. Good. My head is a crappy place to be.

“So, today sucked,” Em says from the doorway. She’s sort of smiling, but mascara is blotched under her eyes.

“You okay?” I shift on the bed, patting the spot next to me.

“I think so.” She doesn’t move, and I think maybe I’m doing something wrong again, but her smile twitches and she brings up a carton of ice cream to her chin. “I know you promised anal cream, but will this work?”

“What?”

Her lips press together, holding back what I’m pretty sure is laughter as she slides onto the bed next to me. She pulls out her phone and taps the comments on her post. Right there by my name it says
You should’ve said something. I would’ve bought you anal cream.

“Shit.” I snatch up my phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Deleting that.”

She yanks my cell from my hand. “No way! You’ve already gotten ten likes out of it.”

“I don’t care.” I reach for her hand, but she shoves the phone down her cleavage. I growl and tug on the end of her ponytail. “Cheater.”

“You want it so bad, go get it,” she challenges me. I consider it for a second, but I still see the wetness on her lashes, and I forget about my phone. She blinks and a few drops fall, but she swipes them away.

“Are you okay?” I ask again, since she never really answered me before.

“Yeah. Long day at work, then, you know … Dad’s leaving for another month for one of his big summer catches, and it’s hard not to worry.”

“He’ll be okay. He always is.”

“I know, but it’s still … having him on that scary ocean with little or no cell reception or Internet or anything, I feel like every time I Skype with him or talk with him, it could be the last time.” She blows out a sigh and shakes her head. “Never mind. I know he’ll be okay. And I’ll be fine, too. Just been one of those days.”

“He’ll be okay,” I repeat, nudging her knee.

She bites back a smile and nods once. “Yes, he will.” The top of the ice cream carton makes a pop when she opens it. “Now,
I’ll
be okay if you eat this ice cream with me—even though you’ve barely eaten a damn thing since I moved in. And then you’re going to read me another Dr. Seuss and we’re not going to talk about the ocean or big fish or snow cones or parents or anything like that.”

“I take it we won’t be reading
Hop on Pop
, then.”

“No.” She dips a spoon into the chocolate chunk, then sticks it in my mouth. I may pay for it at the gym, but I don’t give a shit right now. I keep the spoon in my mouth as I lean over and browse the Seuss-covered bookshelf.

“
One Fish, Two Fish
it is,” I say around the spoon.

She smacks my shoulder, and I grab
The Lorax
instead.

It’s not until she’s half-asleep, settled against my shoulder, and I’m almost through the story, that her hand twitches and I realize it’s resting on my thigh. I drop my hand over hers and squeeze, not knowing if she’s really asleep or not. But it doesn’t matter, because she doesn’t seem upset anymore, and I’m not panicking.

Maybe I don’t need those pills after all.

Emilia Johnson is attending FIRST SUMMER BEACH PARTY!!!!! event.

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“Last call, everyone!” Rachel yells from the open SnoGo window. The party started early tonight. Either that or the afternoon crowd slowly transformed into the night crowd while I had my head stuck in a freezer.

“Miiiii-aaaaaa,” Josh Sanders, local beach bum, sings, poking his ocean-soaked head through the window. “If you like piña coladas …”

I wiggle my hips and sing the rest of the song as I pull the syrup from the top shelf. Rachel shakes the tip jar at Josh, who rolls his eyes before jamming a couple of bucks in.

“You sticking around?” he asks after I hand him his snow cone.

“Planning on it.”

His mouth quirks up in the corner, showing off some serious dimples. He leans forward, sticking the spoon for his piña colada out at me. “Tell the boss you want out early. You can help me finish this.”

Rachel maneuvers around me, shutting the window in Josh’s face. He sticks his lip out and pretends to be completely butt-hurt about it, but then a half-naked Heidi leaps on his back and takes a bite out of his snow cone. He tickles her toes and waves at me and Rachel before taking off toward the bonfire and booze. I pull my phone out and check the time, trying to ignore the bar full of notifications I have on the top of the screen.

“I can close up if you really want to go with him,” Rachel says, counting out our tips.

“Thanks, but he’s not the guy I want to hang with tonight.” I can’t stop my wide grin, and Rachel elbows me in the side.

“Already? You’ve been here a week and the only people I see you interact with reside in your phone.”