Believe: (Intermix) (True Believers) (13 page)

Chapter Ten

Robin

I swallowed hard, my mouth hot, thighs burning from strain, as I stared down at Phoenix. His eyes watched me from under that fall of dark hair, his gaze piercing and glassy and intense. I nodded in agreement, afraid to speak, scared that I actually might start crying. What was happening between us was so much, so passionate, so beyond anything I’d ever felt, it was overwhelming in the best possible way. It was like I couldn’t contain it inside me, and my fingers shook, goose bumps rose over my body, my throat was tight.

We all wonder when we will fall in love, wonder how we’ll know that our feelings are real, if someone is the right one for us.

Then it happens, and those questions seem laughable.

Because when it’s real, you feel it in every inch of you, every cell, every vein, every nook and cranny. It moves, it rises with each breath, it’s alive, and the world around you becomes sharper, crisper, in focus.

There is no question, only the answer.

Phoenix rose up, his body brushing against mine, and he smiled. “Hey,” he whispered, kissing the lobe of my ear, his arms coming around me to gather me close.

“Hey.” My legs felt unstable, but I felt wonderful, agitated in a good way, the air between us intimate and sweet with the smell of sex. I thought I would be embarrassed, but I wasn’t. I just felt close to him, warm, safe.

“You’re good for my temper,” he said, kissing my neck before pulling back.

“Glad to help.” It had almost broken my heart to see his stoic face when he had been speaking to his mother. I didn’t even know everything that she had said, but it clearly hadn’t been good because he had alternated between holding it together with clenched fists and a tight jaw, and bursts of exasperation. I wished I could help him more, but I knew it was his decision whether to cut her out of his life or not.

But I didn’t want the moment between us to end either, so I shared my thought before I could chicken out and not say anything. “You know what I would like to do?” I asked, then continued before he could take a guess. “Take a bath.”

His eyebrows shot up. “A bath?”

“Yes. Want to join me?” My level of the apartment had the roof pitch, which was part of the reason my room was so cozy, and the bathroom was the same, on the opposite side of the house. It had a tiny shower crammed into the corner, way too small for two people, even two people who wanted to be on top of each other, but the bathtub was original to the house, a claw-foot, cast-iron soaker, and I had been eyeballing it since I’d moved in.

“Uh, hell, yeah. I don’t think I’ve taken a bath in twenty years.” He looked bemused by the idea. “But I’m down with that.”

“Awesome. And somehow I don’t think you were showering when you were three months old.”

“You don’t know that,” he said with a grin. “I was pretty independent.”

Ten minutes I had the water running and lots of bubbles industriously foaming. I slipped off my dress and underwear and quickly got in, sinking down, not wanting to give him a lengthy view of me naked. It was stupid, I knew that, but I felt exposed just walking around with no clothes on. Yet I had been known to wear dresses that came up to here and went down to there, so my magic line of modesty was a bit ridiculous. It was what it was though, and Phoenix didn’t comment on it.

He took his time stripping off his clothes and setting down two soft drinks he’d run down to the kitchen to get on the toilet lid for us. It gave me time to study his body, remembering how it felt to have him press me hard against the bedroom door.

Phoenix stuck a foot in and winced. “Fuck, that’s hot. I’m not sure about scalding water on my balls, babe. That sounds like a bad idea.”

Relaxing back against the tub, I lifted a foot out of the bubbles and tickled his thigh with my toes. “Don’t be a baby,” I teased.

“What? I think sex makes you sassy.” He made a face, but he sat down opposite from me, knees sticking out of the bubbles because his legs were too long. “Baby this.” And he gripped my foot and lightly bit my toes.

“Hey!” I said, giggling, trying to jerk it back. “That tickles.”

He smiled, a beautiful, relaxed smile as he lightly massaged my foot before putting it back in the water. He sank back, shifting so he avoided the faucet. “This feels pretty good, I have to admit. Even in August.”

It did feel good. Like being in my room with him, it was just me and Phoenix in our own small space, away from the world. He gathered bubbles to his chest and held some in his hand, inspecting them, like he’d never had a bubble bath. Maybe he never had. I watched him, in awe of the way he displayed no fear, no true bitterness about his life. I knew that Tyler had said Phoenix had issues and he had said himself that he had problems processing his anger, but I wasn’t sure anything I had seen was out the ordinary for someone who had grown up the way he had.

He froze in the middle of shaking bubbles off his palm. “What?” His voice softened. “When you look at me like that . . .”

“Like what?” I asked, even though I knew full well how I looked.

“Like you love me.”

“It’s because I do.” I didn’t think that I had ever actually been more sure of anything else in my life. It swelled inside me, and I felt it with each rise of my chest.

“I love you, too.”

No guy had really said that to me before, not like that. Not straight out,
Yes, this is how I feel
. It seemed bizarre that out of all the girls he had probably met, Phoenix would want to be with me. I wasn’t sure what I brought to the table. But I wasn’t going to let any insecurity spoil the moment, because when I looked at him, there was no doubt in my mind that he did love me. For whatever reason, he did.

“I . . . ,” I started to say, and then my throat closed up. I wanted to tell him the truth—that I was a horrible person who had blacked out and had sex with Nathan. That I didn’t understand how I could do that. But the words wouldn’t come out because I didn’t want to see the love on his face change, evaporate.

Phoenix studied me intently. After a long pause, he suddenly moved, disturbing the water and sending bubbles floating into the air. “Scoot over,” he said. “I’m coming to that side.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting forward and holding on to the tub so I didn’t go floating away.

“Like this.” He managed to get past me by standing up and resettling himself against the wall of the tub I had been leaning on. “Now get between my legs and lay back. It will be more comfortable.”

I did, my face heating a little with both arousal and embarrassment that my butt was now firmly pressed against his nakedness, breasts rising out of the water. But Phoenix’s arms wrapped around me felt wonderful as he kissed the top of my head, and I decided nothing outside of this room mattered.

Only me and him.

Happiness in the now, like he had said.

***

As I mixed paints and worked on my canvas, skipping a pencil drawing first, Phoenix lay on the couch flat on his back, sketchbook over his head. I had no idea how he was drawing like that, but it seemed to work for him. Downstairs I could hear Rory and Tyler talking in the kitchen, but Kylie didn’t seem to be home.

Tucking my hair behind my ear, I stared at my palette of blues and grays and black. I was painting a storm, with a tiny woman standing the foreground, being swept away. It was me, of course, and not in any way subtle in its metaphor, but I was taking pleasure in seeing it come to life. It was a quiet contentment I felt, being with Phoenix, rediscovering my art, staying away from alcohol.

It was like I was finally figuring out who the real Robin was, and I liked this new me, the one who didn’t crave attention for the wrong reasons.

“Babe?” Phoenix called from the couch.

“Yeah?” I glanced up.

He was on his side craning his neck to look at me, his hair in his eye. “Look at me for a second.”

“What?” I laughed. “Why?”

“I need to see your nose. I’m not getting it quite right.”

My smile grew wider. So the perfect boyfriend became even more perfect. He was sketching me.

“Make sure you get my good side.”

“All your sides are good.”

The smile fell off my face, and I looked at him, feeling reflective.

Were all the real sides of me good? The ones that didn’t come from a bottle of vodka? I thought maybe they were.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Can I see your sketch?”

“Nope. Give me a couple of days to work on it.”

I hadn’t seen any of his portrait work, but what it looked like didn’t actually matter.

Just that he wanted to capture me.

The real me.

***

Phoenix got up with me when my alarm went off even though he didn’t have to be at work until three.

“I feel weird sleeping in with you gone,” he said as he pulled on his jeans. “I don’t know if it’s okay with your roommates.”

He had a point. I had just been avoiding discussing it with them. Which was not mature at all, or fair. So when we went down to the kitchen I was glad to see Rory and Kylie both there, Rory eating cereal, Kylie oatmeal.

“Hey,” I said.

“Good morning,” Kylie said, dressed in running clothes. “I’m going to Zumba before my class. Want to come with?”

My first instinct was to make up an excuse, but then I realized that wasn’t going to solve the problem. “Um, okay, though you know I totally suck at it. I can only dance when I drink.”

“Why is that?” Kylie asked. “It’s like a universal phenomenon. Phoenix, can you dance?”

“No.” He took the glass of orange juice I had poured for him. “But maybe I could bust a move drunk, I don’t know. I’ve never been drunk, so who is to say?”

“You’ve never been drunk?” Kylie looked shocked. “Like ever?”

“Like ever.” He leaned on the counter and put his glass to his lips.

“Wait, did you meet in AA?”

Rory put down her spoon. “Ky, if he’s never been drunk, why would he need AA? And Robin hasn’t been to AA. Have you?”

I shook my head. “No.” I had brought up drinking, and I was already sorry I had. “I seem to be okay with just not drinking. I don’t think I need a counselor or anything.”

“When was the last time you drank?” Kylie asked.

Her tone was just curious, casual. She didn’t seem to understand like Jessica and Rory did how sudden my decision had been.

“June.”

“Wow. Like a summer detox?”

“Like a forever detox.”

“I guess you two are good for each other then. It’s totes awesome.” Then she seemed to lose interest in the subject.

“We are good for each other,” Phoenix said. “And I hope you don’t mind that I’ve been around. I don’t want to crowd you guys.”

“It’s fine,” Rory said. “We all come and go with our boyfriends, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“But with the situation with Easton, I’ll probably end up sleeping here a lot. If you want me to pay some rent or whatever, I can, once I’m a week or two into my job.”

I was impressed with Phoenix’s offer. It wasn’t like he had much money, but that he was willing to put it out there, that it was only fair to pay rent, made me aware of how firm his moral grounds were. It also made me warm inside that he was going to be around almost all of the time.

“I’m okay with it the way it is, because I don’t want to get into like logging in and out how many hours you, Nathan, and Tyler are here. Let’s just promise to communicate if we’re invading each other’s space, okay?” Kylie said.

“I’m good with that,” Rory said.

“Me too.” I eyed the mostly empty fridge. I needed to go to the grocery store. “Do we have time to get a muffin before Zumba?”

“You’re going to puke blueberry crumb up if you eat that then Zumba.”

“Then maybe I shouldn’t go.” For the first time in weeks, it felt like my appetite was back, and I didn’t really want to give up the muffin fantasy I was suddenly having. “I’m super hungry.”

“You should eat,” Phoenix said. “If you lose any more weight you’re going to disappear when you turn sideways.”

“You have lost a ton of weight,” Kylie said. “What diet are you on? I need to try it.”

The Guilt Diet.

“I think it’s from not drinking. There are a ton of calories in beer and all the juices I mixed vodka with. So much sugar.”

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to work out harder then.” Kylie laughed. “I like beer too much to give it up. Does that make me a dude?”

“I don’t think anyone is going to mistake you for a guy,” I told her. “Seriously. But we should leave now so you’re not late. But I’m skipping Zumba this time.”

She hugged me. “You’re so right. I missed you, by the way.”

My throat closed up. “I missed you, too.”

***

After I left Phoenix at the bus station and Kylie went on to Zumba, I headed toward the coffee shop to grab a bite before class, when I saw there was an activities fair set up in the student center. With the start of the new semester, every club in existence seemed to have a table with information set up, from table tennis to the Turkish cultural group to the Quidditch club. I wandered along the many rows, glancing at their colorful displays and wondering why I had never joined a single club at college. I had just never bothered.

There was a girl from one of my graphics class behind a table and she gave me a friendly smile. “Hi,” I said. “I think we have graphics together on Tuesday-Thursday. I’m Robin.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Helen-Marie. You should join the digital arts club if you’re in the design program. We collaborate on projects and share ideas and basically have a lot of fun.” She gave me another smile.

Helen-Marie held herself with an easy confidence I envied a little, her hair in intricate braids, her orange and gold jewelry a bright pop of color against her dark skin.

“Thanks,” I said. “I think I will.” I bent over to sign my school e-mail address on to her sign-up sheet. “I’m a commercial digital graphics major, but I love to get creative. It would be cool to hang out with some people who get that.” I loved my friends, but maybe it was time to branch out a little, try to discover my own interests a little better.

“Cool, I’ll e-mail you about the first event,” she said.