Boyfriend (4 page)

“How old?”

“17.”

“Aww,” she sang, smiling. “What about your parents?”

“Typical parents,” I lied.  “I came here to get out, I guess.” She nodded. “Still not sure what I’m going to do after this is over.”

“You say that like college is a way to pass time.” She smiled, clueless as to how accurate she was. “I mean, I know I’ve only been here one semester, but I love college.  I feel in charge of myself for the first time in my life.  Like, I decide what time to get out of bed.  I decide who can visit me.”

I laughed.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“No, I just think you’re cute.”

“You mean I’m a dork.  My best friend teases me about it.” She took a sip of water.  “I can’t help it. I just feel like I was in a cage for most of my life.  My parents told me what to do, where to go, who to hang out with.”  She paused as if remembering.  “It’s nice to finally be able to figure it all out.”

“Figure what out?”

“Me, I guess.”

I chuckled.

“What?” she asked, her voice dripping in insecurity.

“I never met anyone like you.” I regretted it the moment it came out of mouth.

“You should come to Connecticut.  There are thousands of me.”

“Seriously, you’re just so….”

“Naïve?”

“No.” I finished the rest of my drink. “Happy.” She looked away embarrassed.  “Trust me, that’s a good thing,” I said standing.

“Where are you going?”

“
We
are going to dance.” I lead her off her bar stool and down to the dance floor.

As we entered the lower level, the sweet, melodic sounds of the reggae music invaded our ears.  We watched as couples danced closely in the dark room, beads of sweat forming on their faces.  As soon as I found a spot, I pulled Kerry close to me and swayed with her to the music.  She laughed nervously at first and then melted into my movements allowing me to hold her close and lead her.

“You’re good,” she whispered pressing her cheek to mine.

“You too.” I turned her around and danced behind her. 

“Whoa.” She turned back around. “I like looking at who I’m dancing with.”

Surprised, I smiled.  The girls I knew preferred the opposite.

She looked into my eyes, putting her arms around my neck and smiling.  I placed my hands on the small of her back and watched her as she moved.  My gaze traveling up her legs, her form-fitting sweater and finally, resting back on her eyes. 

We stared at each other for a moment before she laughed and looked away.

“I won,” I said.

She stifled a smile and stared back at me, first into my eyes, and then at my lips.  I wanted to kiss her, but I didn’t know how she would react.  She pulled my head towards her gently and kissed my cheek.

“What was that for?” 

“I think you’re cute, too.” 

I pulled her closer to me, and she leaned in tilting her chin towards me.  Taking it as a sign, I kissed her, lightly at first and then more deeply, raising my hand to her face and running my thumb along her chin. 

“Mmm,” she hummed as I pulled away.  She looked up at me from beneath her long lashes, and I could feel myself getting turned on.

“Was that a reaction to the kiss or the dancing?”

“Both,” she said smiling.

I chuckled.

“The kiss,” she corrected herself. 

“Then do I have to ask you for another one?”

She shook her head and wrapped her arms around my waist.  I cupped her face and looked into her eyes.  She looked at me seriously and shook her head again.

“You changed your mind?”

“I’m- I’m not the kind of girl that kisses a lot of guys.”

“I know,” I said smiling.  I had already assumed I wasn’t taking Kerry home, as much as I had started to want to.

“No, seriously,” she said.  We stopped moving to the music for a moment.  “I know this is college, and I’m not looking to get married or anything.”

“Okay…”

“But, I don’t want to get hurt.”

“Okay.”

She smiled at me and began to rock to the music again.

“You can kiss me now.”

I smiled and pulled her close, kissing her with more intensity than I intended.

CHAPTER FOUR

Kerry Naomi Wallace had soft lips and skin that smelled like coconut.  She laughed so hard at her own jokes that she could never manage to tell them and slipped her arm through mine every time we crossed the street.

At first, I was attracted to the way she fell for me.  How she melted into our kisses and was never the first to pull out of our embrace.  Well after our first date, Kerry would still blush when I flirted with her and I’d watch as small goosebumps formed along her buttery brown skin each time we touched. 

She was innocent. 

In a way I had never expected.  She welcomed me into her life with no fear, no questions and no inhibitions.  Like being with me was as natural as waking up in the morning or going to sleep at night.  She accepted me into her life as if I was supposed to be there, as if I had been there all along.

After our first date, we were inseparable.  At first it was dinner each night at the dining hall by her dorm and shortly after, I was meeting her when her classes let out throughout the day.  Kerry was talkative and held little back.  As I had guessed, she came from an affluent family.  Her father was a partner at a big law firm, and her mother was a homemaker who made her name for herself in various local charities.  She spoke about her upbringing with a mixture of embarrassment and nostalgia. 

“I was the kid in the ball gown doing the waltz at sixteen,” Kerry had said, describing attending annual cotillions with her local Jack and Jill club.

“You sure you aren’t promised to be married to the Prince of Zumunda?” I had joked.  She laughed.

Kerry was from a world that might as well have been across the universe.  She only wore sneakers when she was going for a run.  Her shoes were always perfectly polished, and she wore dress shirts tucked into her perfectly fit jeans.  She was very close to her family.  Especially her father.  When she was a little girl, she promised him she would follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer and though her interests sometimes wavered, she never seemed in danger of breaking her promise. 

Her father was a formidable presence in her life.  She called him at the beginning of her day to report on what she planned to do and if we were out too late, Kerry would rush back to her dorm to call him so he wouldn’t worry.  Kerry consulted with him about everything, from the classes she took to whether she would take a long car ride on a rainy day.  Her father’s opinions on her life seemed almost as important as her own.  I didn’t know if the interest he took in her was weird or just what it looked like when a father loved his daughter.

I’d be a fool if I didn’t realize early on that her attraction to me was likely because she and I were so different.  I’d watch her eyes gleam as they traveled up and down my muscular, tattooed arms and loose fitting T-shirts.  She wanted to know “what it was like” growing up where I did and “how it felt” to live in such a big city. 

I tried my best to quench her curiosity. I painted my family as sort of a broke Huxtables.  I made my childhood seem full of love and hard work.  I made my parents the perfect pair, pushing me to go to college and achieve all the dreams they never did.  My father, the tireless provider, doling out hard-earned wisdom anytime I needed it.  My mother, overflowing with affection, pulling me into her embrace and wetting my face with kisses no matter how old I became.  And Natalie, ever the doting kid sister, bright and destined to follow in my footsteps.  It wasn’t long before the stories I told made them everything I had ever wanted them to be. 

“They must be so proud of you,” Kerry said one day, smiling at me over a pile of books at our usual spot in the library.  She had asked why I rarely went home for a visit.  I lied and said I liked to use my weekends to get a head start on my course work.

Before Kerry, I may have stepped into the library once.  After, I would feign intense studying for hours just to steal opportunities to make her blush and smile. 

“You’re so cute, you know that?” I would whisper, sitting beside her, my lips inches from her ear.  “How am I supposed to get work done with you sitting over here looking so cute?”

“Nate,” she would chastise, running her fingertips along the nape of her neck and trying to hide the smile from creeping onto her lips.  I’d kiss her collarbone and return to my work, excited at the thought of the anticipation building inside of both of us. 

After spending a long day with Kerry, I would walk her back to her dorm and kiss her before catching the bus back to my apartment.  Our kisses grew more intense as the days went by, but each night she would press her hand against my chest as a signal that it wouldn’t go any further. Her breaths would be heavy, and she would stare at me from beneath her lashes in such a way that I knew she didn’t want to stop.

I liked who I felt like I was with Kerry.  I liked who she thought I was.  Sitting across from her in the library or hearing her call my name across a crowded lecture hall made me think of possibilities for my life I had never imagined existing.  It wasn’t long before the role I was playing for her became exactly who I wanted to be.   

***

“Sooooo, when’s the wedding?” Phil asked in a high-pitched tone one night after I had gotten home from “studying” with Kerry.  He had hit ‘pause’ on the video game he was playing and sat back in the couch smirking at me. 

“What’s that voice?” I chortled, plopping down on the couch beside him.

“My Aunt Judith,” he said, laughing.  I shook my head.  “This chick must be hot; I mean, Playboy-Bunny-hot for you to be spending nights in the library with her when you haven’t even hooked up yet.” 

“See, this is why I haven’t let you meet her.”

“Why? Because she’s ugly?”

“No, man, because you’d say some crazy shit.”

He laughed.  “Nothing you bring in here can surprise me, Nate.  I know you like big girls,” he added smirking.

I sighed, picking up the other game controller.  “Kerry’s not big.  And besides, a big ass is not the same thing as a big girl,” I declared as he started a new game.

“You get to both by eating.”

I shook my head.  “If…” I paused.  “Who’s that chick you like from all those British movies?”

He shrugged.  “Oh, Keira Knightely?” he asked, remembering.

“Yes,” I said cringing.  “If Keira Knightely and Beyonce were bent over in front of you, right here… naked… you mean to tell me you’d push over Beyonce to hit Keira Knightely’s bony ass.”

He was silent.

“Phil?”

“I’m visualizing,” he said hitting pause on the game.  I laughed.  “I think Keira Knightely has a prettier face,” he concluded

“That’s fucking racist, Phil.”

He laughed.  “How’s that racist? You bring big butt white girls in here all the time who I’d pass on.  Besides, what about Kim? Remember her? We were practically a couple,” he said, reminding me of a Trinidadian co-ed he dated our sophomore year.

“Since when does smashing a girl three times make you a couple?”

“The point is, I’m not a racist.  I just don’t like big, sloppy asses,” he concluded, unpausing the game.  We were silent for a moment as we beat the shit out of each other in the game we were playing. 

“Ha!” he yelled, as his character knocked mine out.  He turned to me.  “All I’m saying is you and Kerry better hook up soon before one of those big girls you like comes in here waving her ass around and reminding you that you’re a dog.”  He laughed, standing and heading into the kitchen. 

I got up, chucking the console on the couch and walking into my room. 

“Aww! Did I hurt your feelings?” he teased as I shut the door.

Phil was right.  I had never dated a girl like Kerry.  Truthfully, I’d never really dated.  The girls I was with were usually gone by morning and if they stuck around any longer, I usually found a way to fuck it up.  The closest I had come to a girlfriend was Lisa Wilson, a camp counselor I met at a free summer camp my parents sent Natalie and me to when I was thirteen years old. 

Lisa was a tomboy with a reputation for having a short fuse and a big temper.  She was seventeen when we met, biracial and had a blast of freckles staining her light brown cheeks.  She wore her long honey-hued hair back in a tight ponytail.  Her clothes were baggy, and she was known for her spotless white sneakers.  Like me, Lisa mostly kept to herself.  We took the same bus home every day and became friends after sharing a laugh when a bus driver spazzed out on a passenger for standing in front of the white line. 

Lisa introduced me to weed and sex.  She held a small brown blunt to my lips in dark stairwell on a rainy day and laughed when I swore the stairs were moving.  We got high almost every day my last year of summer camp.  When I returned to school, she would meet me in parks and when her mother wasn’t home, she would invite me over to smoke with her and her friends.  Because I was tall for my age, her friends always thought I was older.