For Now by Chelsea M. Cameron
“No worries. I don’t have class until nine. But I should probably change my clothes.” He looks down at his outfit from yesterday. Mine isn’t much better.
“Yeah. And food. There should be food.” I’m hungry and I have to pee, but I’m so comfortable I don’t want to move. Plus, if I move then this thing might stop and I have no idea if we’ll ever get this back again. Maybe Javi has a brain tumor and his sweetness is a side-effect.
“Take you out to breakfast?” he says.
“You don’t have to do that.”
He smiles.
“I know.”
Since I’m the one lying on him, I have to get up first, so I do, groaning in the process. Javi gets up and stretches.
Luckily it’s just the two of us since Shannon went to Jett’s last night, so no one will be witness to this. But I’m sure Javi is going to tell Jett about it. Probably in great and lurid detail.
“How about this? I’ll go back to my place and shower and then pick you up and we can go get something to eat.” Javi says, gathering his books up from the living room.
“Sounds good,” I say. “What are you going to tell Jett and Shannon?”
He shrugs.
“I’ll say I was with a girl. Not a lie.” He winks and starts to go for the door.
“Will you tell them it was me?” I call just as he’s heading out the door.
“Do you want me to?” He pauses with the door halfway open, letting the cold air in.
“No.”
“Okay, then.” The door slams behind him and I head for the shower. The more time I spend with Javi, the more confused I become and the more I wish I could figure him out.
I have another wardrobe crisis for about three minutes and then mentally slap myself before putting on jeans and a sweater and pairing it with a scarf and a pair of BBs.
I’m ready and waiting for Javi when he knocks on the door.
“You knocked?” I say as I hold the door open. “You never knock. Is everything okay with you?” I’m only half-joking. There is definitely something different about Javi and I have yet to put my finger on it.
“Figured I’d be polite.” Now? Now he decides to be polite? After all the other times he’d let himself in? Whatever. I don’t have the brain space for this.
“Sure,” I say and lock the door.
“I can be polite,” Javi says as we walk down to his truck. It’s “vintage” on a good day and a “POS” on a bad day. Still, it’s better than that wreck Jett drives.
“Uh-huh.” As if to prove his point, he shoves in front of me so he can open the truck door for me. Of course, this throws me off-balance and I nearly eat dirt.
“Wow, thanks. I nearly broke my nose, but at least I didn’t have to open my own door.” Javi laughs as I right myself and offers his hand to help me get in like he’s a chauffeur or something. I don’t take his hand and get in the truck on my own, crossing my arms. The sweet, gentle Javier is gone and he’s back to his old self. Last might must have been a fluke.
Javier gets in the driver’s side and turns on the radio. I can’t stop the disappointment from rolling through me.
“Lady’s choice,” he says, waving his arm at the dashboard as if bestowing a gift.
“How generous,” I deadpan and flip through the stations until I find the oldies station I like that plays mostly eighties and nineties hits. They’re currently playing “Vogue” by Madonna. I’ll take it.
Javier makes a sound that says he doesn’t exactly like my choice of music.
“You have a problem with Madonna?” I say as he pulls out of the parking lot and turns left. I have no idea where we’re going for breakfast, but it’s definitely not anywhere on campus.
“No, no. I have no problem with Madonna. None at all.” Yeah, I totally believe him.
“Well, you said it was my choice and this is what I choose. So suck it up, Javier.” He mutters something I don’t quite catch.
“What was that?” I say.
“Nothing. Madonna is amazing,” he grumbles and I just laugh. I’m much more comfortable with this Javier than whoever the guy was who cuddled with me last night. I don’t know how to handle that guy. I can definitely handle this guy. Irritating Javier and having him irritate me back is familiar territory.
Javi takes me to a little coffee shop in Hartford that’s not far from the bank where Shannon works.
“You going to order one of those sugar-skim-latte things?” I say as he opens the door of the truck for me.
“No. I’m going to order coffee that’s blacker than my soul.” He holds open the door of the establishment, which is simply called Hank’s and not one of those kitschy coffee place names that always makes me want to gag. In addition to their extensive coffee menu, written on gigantic blackboards, they also have some of the most incredible-looking breakfast items, including little pies covered with whipped cream.
“I come here a lot,” Javi says as we get in line to order. The place is packed, but there’s not a laptop in sight. Weird. Super weird. I understand as we get closer and see a sign that says NO WI-FI. TALK TO SOMEONE.
“Yeah, they’re not big on technology here. If you try to use a cell phone, they’ll kick you out on the street. Even in the middle of the winter,” Javi says in my ear.
Interesting. The coffee must be really good here to keep them in business. Nowadays it seems like you can’t run a business if you don’t offer Wi-Fi.
Javier goes first since I still need a minute to decide. He gets a black coffee and a chocolate chip scone and I have to stifle a laugh when he orders said scone. Because the last thing I ever thought Javier would eat would be a scone.
I order a black coffee as well and one of the little lemon pies. I’m an adult. I can have pie for breakfast if I want.
Javier and I get our coffees and plates of food and find a table near the window.
“So,” I say, looking at the scone. “A scone, huh?”
“What? You’re going to mock my breakfast choices?”
“Um, I do recall you mocking me for my potential coffee choices. So now we’re even.”
“Whatever,” he says as he picks up the scone and bites into it. “Mmmm, scone.” I grab my fork and start digging into my mini pie. It’s pure heaven.
“Shit, this is good,” I say with my mouth full. Javi just hands me a napkin and goes back to eating his scone with perfect manners. I take a few more bites of pie and then a sip of coffee before I ask the question that I’ve been putting off since we woke up this morning.
“What happened last night?” Javi sets the rest of his scone down and sips his coffee.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“You know what I mean. The kissing and then the falling asleep. And now. What is this?” I wave my hands to indicate the breakfast buying.
He shrugs one shoulder and I want to strangle him.
“What do you think it is?”
“Don’t answer a fucking question with a question,” I say in a low voice so I don’t disturb anyone with my cursing. “We both know something happened last night and I’d like to hear your side of the story.”
He wipes his mouth with a napkin and then leans back in his chair.
“We kissed. We fell asleep. That’s it.” No, that wasn’t it.
“You know that’s not it, Javier. You don’t kiss someone like that and then forget about it. You don’t spend the night with someone like that and just forget about it.” At least I don’t. I’ve never done that with anyone. Not even in high school.
“So what are you saying?” He is absolutely trying to push every single button.
“I’m saying that… that last night meant something. Means something.” Present tense.
“And what does it mean?” He leans forward and puts his arms on the table. He’s got his sleeves pulled up to show his tats.
Why am I the only one having to answer questions? I asked him first.
“What does it mean to you?”
I cross my arms and lean back in my chair and press my lips together.
Javi smiles slowly, like he’s amused by me. But I keep my mouth shut. I will not take his bait.
“Oh, that’s how you’re going to be?” he says. I say nothing. “I told you what happened. We talked, we kissed, we fell asleep. Don’t try to make this something it wasn’t.” I’m not. I’m only trying to figure out what it was. Is.
“So you’re saying that’s all it was to you? Some making out and sleeping?” He nods slowly.
I don’t believe him. The way we kissed last night and the way he looked at me… no. That wasn’t just a kiss.
“You know my history, Hazel. You know I do things like kissing with a lot of girls.” What is he doing right now? Last night he was so sweet and made me feel so special and now he’s trying to act like I’m one of many. Either I am one of many, or he’s freaking out. I really don’t know which of the two it is, but my suspicion is the latter.
“Fine,” I say. “Fine. You want to pretend like nothing happened, then we can pretend nothing happened.” I go back to eating my pie. I can’t look at him anymore.
I seriously want to cry and if I look at him, then I will.
Javi sighs and reaches out to me
“Don’t. Don’t you dare,” I say, not looking at him.
“Shit,” he says under his breath, but that’s it. We both finish our breakfast in silence and ride back to my apartment in silence. He doesn’t open the door for me this time. I feel rude not thanking him for the breakfast, so I do.
“You’re welcome.” And that’s it. I get out of the truck and he drives away.
Shit.
Javi doesn’t come over to cook dinner that night. Shannon stays with me, minus Jett. I ask why he’s not coming over and she makes some sort of random excuse about him having homework, but I know better. She’s seen the depressive state I’ve fallen into and decided I needed a friend tonight.
She’s also cooking, which is probably a good idea since I’m so distracted my cooking would be even worse than usual.
We eat together standing in the kitchen, dipping our forks into the pot of chicken and broccoli pasta. Just like old times. BJ. Before Javier.
“So, what happened?” she finally asks as we scrape the bottom of the pot.
“Nothing,” I say. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to forget it even happened. Wipe it from my memory. Hit the Delete button.
She pokes my arm with her fork.
“Ouch. Eat the pasta, not me.”
“What happened? Because you were happy yesterday and you’re not happy today and Javier was acting all weird this morning and I have the feeling that you guys did something last night. I’m not judging, but I want to know so I can help you make it better.” How someone like me scored a best friend like Shannon, I’ll never know.
“Nothing happened. I mean, not really. We kissed a little and then fell asleep and then we got up and he took me out for breakfast. That was it.” I shrug one shoulder, trying to brush it off.
“And? That was it? Are you like, together now?” I could definitely answer in the negative on that.
“No. I asked him if it meant anything, and he said no. So it was nothing. Honestly, I want to forget about it and just go back to the way things were. Javi annoys me, I annoy him. It worked. I just want to go back to that. God, I hope we can go back to that.” We might be able to hit reverse since we only kissed.
“Wow. So you didn’t have sex?”
“No, Shan, we didn’t. We just kissed a little.” A lot.
“Huh. Well, how about that?” She stabs the last piece of chicken and grins at me.
“I’m capable of not having sex with someone, you know,” I say.
“I know. I’m just surprised. I mean, you were the one who said you wanted to use him to clean out your pipes.” I roll my eyes. I should have kept my mouth shut about wanting to bang Javi.
“I know, I know. But he’s… I don’t know. He’s…”
“Javier,” she supplies. Yup. That’s the only explanation. He is who he is.
“So, was it good?” she asks. “The kissing, I mean. I’ll stop asking about it, promise.” She definitely won’t stop asking. Shannon has a bad habit of mentioning things that probably shouldn’t be mentioned. It’s like she doesn’t have control of the words that come out of her mouth. But I love her anyway.
“This kissing was… it made all the other kisses I’ve ever had seem like practice.” It was thorough, perfect and the the memory of it made my skin tingle.
“Your lips are a little red,” Shannon says while I wash out the pot and our forks.
“Are they?”
“Uh-huh.” I put my hand to my mouth. My lips are still tender and oversensitive. Wonder how long that’s going to last.
Shannon and I do homework together and then watch a movie.
“Anything but Stepbrothers,” I say. I’ll never feel the same about that movie again. Fucking Javier. Now he’s ruining movies for me.
“Okay, I’m not going to ask. How about something new?” She’s clearly been waiting for this moment and rushes to pull out a DVD box I don’t remember ever seeing before.
“I got this last week at the thrift store and I’ve been dying to show it to you so we could watch it together.” It’s a box set of the first season of FRIENDS. “I found it hidden on a shelf. You in?”
“Hell yes, I’m in,” I say. “You don’t even need to ask.” She makes a little sound of glee and puts in the first DVD.
I settle into the world of Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey, Rachel and Ross and for a little while, someone else’s relationship problems occupy my mind. But Javi is never far from my thoughts.
I can’t stop flashing back to our kiss and the aftermath. When I go to bed tonight, my sheets are going to smell like Javi. I can’t decide if I like that or not.
Shit, I need to smoke.
“You’re twitching,” Shannon points out. I can’t help it.
“Sorry. I’m stressed and I can’t smoke, so I’m twitchy. It will get better, I promise.” I have no idea if it will get better, but I’m not losing this stupid bet to Javier. Hell to the no.
“Maybe you should take up knitting,” Shannon says. I give her a look. “You know, keep your hands busy. What is it they say about idle hands? They belong to the devil or something. I have no idea.” Neither of us was raised with a working knowledge of the Bible.
“I have no idea either, but they say it’s supposed to get better,” I say, cracking my knuckles.
“Maybe you should try the gum? Or the patch?” I shake my head.
“No, that stuff is more for people who smoke a lot, I think. I shouldn’t be having this hard of a time with it. I have no idea what’s wrong with me.” Shannon gives me one of those “knowing” looks.
“What?” I say.
“I think it has less to do with quitting smoking and more to do with other things.” I know exactly what she means by “other things.” She means “other thing” and by “other thing,” Javier.
“It’s not other things. It’s just that I need nicotine in my life and I don’t have it right now. That’s it.” I cross my arms to stop my hands from twitching, but then my feet start going. I can’t win.
“Maybe some tea or something? Settle your nerves?” I’m clearly bugging Shannon, so she gets up to make some tea for me. Tea definitely isn’t going to help with this situation. Not much will.
Shannon comes back with two cups of tea that’s supposed to help you sleep, but will probably just make me want to pee. I drink it anyway.
We get halfway through the set of DVDs when Shannon falls asleep on the couch. I might be able to carry her to bed, but I tap her shoulder instead.
“Sorry, babe. I wasn’t sure if I could get you
I turn on my back and close my eyes, trying to think of something soothing, like ocean waves or crap like that. It doesn’t work, so I turn on my side and then try the other side and then my stomach.
Nothing works.
At this rate, I’m going to be up the whole night. I take a deep breath and all I can smell is Javier on my pillow.
My phone buzzes with a text message.
Can’t sleep. Come over?
It’s from Javier. This is the first time he’s ever texted me. I read it through a few times to make sure I have it right.
He wants to come over? I get up and look out the kitchen window. Sure enough, his car is sitting in the driveway.
I chew on my lip and wince.
I’m not okay with the crap he put me through this morning. But last night…
If you promise not to be an asshole.
He gets out of the car and walks to the door, feeling under the flowerpot for the spare key. But I open the door and put my finger to my lips.
“Shannon’s asleep,” I whisper. He just nods and follows me inside and to my room. I shut the door and he shucks off his coat and shoes.
“Why are you here?” I say in a low voice. I don’t want Shannon to know he’s here.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says and pulls off his pants, leaving him wearing only a t-shirt and boxers.
And then he climbs in my bed and holds the covers up for me.
“You can’t just get in my bed, Javier.”
“I just did. Get in. It’s cold.” It’s not cold, but I get in anyway, turning on my side to face him. His eyes are closed and he puts his arm around me, pulling me close.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” he says into my hair. “I just don’t want you to be mad at me.”
I’m always mad at him. He drives me crazier than anyone ever has. But lying here with him, my head is quiet and my body is calm and warm. It feels the same as last night.