For Real (Rules of Love, Book One) (17 page)

“No, I am not asking to borrow your vibrator. Plastic doesn’t do it for me. I need a hot, sweaty man. Just some guy to grab me and have his way with me. Some good old-fashioned animalistic fucking. You know?” Yeah, because I’m doing that all the time.

“Why don’t you just go pick someone up at the bar?” If it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for her.

“I’ve done that. A lot of the guys are too drunk to perform, or just bad at it. I want a man to satisfy me. Someone who knows the art of lovemaking and how to push all the right buttons. I guess Jett knows all your buttons by now.” She kind of glares at me when she says the last part.

“Yeah, he’s good.” I manage to make it sound both secretive and dreamy, as if I just don’t want to share any details because it would ruin it. “But I’m not talking about him. This is supposed to be penis free.”

“I can’t help it. I need some penis in my life. Although, this is really nice. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. Who knew when I took your keys and told you to get laid you’d find a guy like Jett? I’m really happy for you, Shan. He seems like one of the good ones, but I’m so sorry about the way you met him.”

“He is one of the good ones.” She has no idea. I let the other comment go.

“I want to find one like him. With more meat.” Oh, here we go with the meat talk again.

“I’ll be on the lookout.”

“What about Jett’s roommate? Javier. Gah, I just love saying his name. It sounds so sexy when you say it. Javier.
Javier
.” I give her a look. She can go ahead and hook up with whomever she wants to, but I would advise her to stay away from Javier, despite his sexy name. Boys like him are nothing but trouble. I don’t need to have any dating experience to know this. Boys like Javier come into your life, tear it apart and then leave as quickly as they arrive, and all you’re left with is broken pieces. Or at least that’s what I can surmise based on my interactions with him so far.

He reminds me a bit of my brother, and I remember what he used to do to his girlfriends. They were destroyed afterwards. Not saying that Javier is a bad guy. It’s just who he is. A human wrecking ball.

“He’s a possibility,” she says, sighing. “But I think I’m going to be more selective this time. I’ve been burned too many times in the past.” Isn’t that the truth? Last year there had been a parade of guys in and out of our apartment. One night I even saw one guy come in and a completely different guy leave in the morning. I’m still trying to figure that out.

“That’s probably a good plan.” We start talking about other things, and pretty soon Hazel is asleep. I extricate myself from under her, cover her with a blanket and go and do the dishes. God, I hope she stays away from Javier.

“Did you miss me?” I ask like a needy, clingy girlfriend when we’re in bed that night. Jett chuckles.

“Just a little. Javier isn’t nearly as pretty as you are, and his hair isn’t as nice.” Well, that is true on both counts.

I tell him about Hazel.

“Well, she’s not the only one who’s interested. He’s been asking me about her as well. But the thing about Javi is that his attention span is pretty damn short. About as long as it takes for him to get off, and then he’s looking for the next one.”

“That’s kind of disgusting,” I say as Jett strokes my hair.

He sighs.

“I know it’s not the best way to live, but he’s not a bad guy, really. He’s done a lot for me, and I don’t know where I’d be without him. He was my only friend for a while when I didn’t have anyone else, and I feel like I’ll always owe him for that, so I stick by his side. His softer side he keeps pretty well hidden. His persona is very important to him.” Big shock.

“Do you have to work tomorrow?” Jett just started a job working in the cafeteria. Apparently website design is not paying enough for him to put himself through school.

I’ve never asked about his family, other than that first time when he showed me his sister’s picture. I can only assume from the fact that he doesn’t talk about his parents, that they’re dead. Probably some tragic accident. It makes me so sad I can’t even think, and I want him to share it with me so I can hold him and care for him. But he doesn’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want to push him. It’s not really my business. I’m only his Fake Girlfriend. Not his real one.

But I want to ask him something personal, so I choose something else.

“What do your tattoos mean?” I stroke the tail of the red dragon on his arm. It’s been killing me not to know about them, but I don’t want to pry.

“They mean a lot of things, and I’m not sure if I can really put into words what they mean, specifically. My body is mine and I can do what I want with it. So I choose to cover it with ink and dragons and all sorts of things. Does that make sense?”

Yeah. Yeah, it does.

“Can I see them?” I’m not asking to see him naked, but it almost seems like I am. Jett looks at me for the longest moment ever and then lets me go, sitting up so he can pull his shirt over his head. I almost hear a drumroll in my brain before he sets the shirt down and turns so I can stare at him. I lean back so I can get the full effect.

Breathtaking. He’s breathtaking. My breath has been taken, and I don’t know how to get it back.

The red dragon covers almost his entire chest, curling around on itself, all claws and fiery scales. The swirling water starts behind the dragon on the left side of his shoulder and then covers the rest of his arm. My eyes follow the rest of the waves, finally landing on the little boat that’s bobbing in that restless sea. Tentatively, I reach one finger out and trace it, tossing about in the chaos, and I understand what it means, even without him having to tell me.

He’s tense, waiting for my verdict, or approval. He doesn’t know he already had it.

“It’s beautiful.” He’s beautiful.

I keep following the swirls of the waves, and he turns, so I can see his back and the blue dragon. It’s less intense than the red dragon. More peaceful and calm. Fire and water. Yin and yang.

I could sit and look at him all day, but I feel bad ogling him.

“You can put your shirt on if you want.” It seems like a weird thing to say, so I look away from him when I say it. He’s still gazing at me over his shoulder.

After a beat of silence, he pulls his shirt back on and I say goodbye to the dragons and waves in my mind. Jett is very modest for a guy, or maybe he’s just trying to keep the Fake Dating boundaries clear. He’s better at it than I am.

The boundaries, even though we wrote them down, are becoming increasingly blurry in my mind. I mean, we’ve pretty much thrown out the Rule about incidental contact, because we sleep together every night. And I like it when he calls me princess when we’re alone. There are a million other little Rule violations each and every day that I totally ignore because I don’t care anymore. I’m having too much fun being a Fake Girlfriend.

“Thank you for sharing that with me. I feel like I should show you my tattoos, but I don’t have any.” He lies back down next to me, but on his stomach, propped up on his elbows.

“So tell me something. Something no one else knows.” I look away from his face and up at the ceiling. Well, there’s one thing I could tell him, but all my friends know about my virginity, so that actually doesn’t count. Thankfully.

So what can I tell him? Not something embarrassing. Something that will make him think I’m adorable and might want to take off his shirt again. The first is possible, but the second probably isn’t. Ah, got it.

“Okay, when I was seven, I was completely in love with Batman. I used to watch the cartoons and movies, even more than my brother.” I don’t think I’ve mentioned my brother to Jett yet. Oh well.

“Okay, so I’m obsessed with Batman. I wanted, more than anything, a Batman shirt to wear with the Bat Signal on it. My brother had one, but he would hide it from me, and lord it over me and I was so jealous. So I begged my mom for it, but she told me that girls weren’t supposed to wear Batman shirts. Yeah, I know. There’s a reason I don’t talk to my parents. She bought me a Disney Princess shirt, which was fine, but I wanted a Batman shirt. So I decided that I was going to get one, no matter what. The next time my mom took me clothes shopping, I ended up hiding in a rack and waiting for her to get distracted so I could run to the boys’ department, grab a shirt, run to the bathroom, tear the tags off with my teeth, put it on under my other shirt and walk out like nothing had happened. They didn’t have those tags that would set off the alarms back then. Or maybe they just didn’t have it in this store. I wore that shirt under my other clothes for the next month. Every day. No one ever noticed, but I couldn’t put it in the wash, so I hid it at the back of my drawer. It’s probably still there.”

It’s a stupid story, and not that great, but it’s one of those things that I think about sometimes that no one else knows.

“So there. Now you know about my history as a Batman t-shirt klepto.” Jett grins wide and grabs my face and gives me a kiss.

“You’re the sweetest klepto I’ve ever met. And I won’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me, princess.”

“Cross your heart?” I say.

“Cross my heart,” he says, making an X on his chest. Right on the red dragon. Hopefully the dragon will also keep my secret.

“To the halfway mark,” Jett says as we have lunch on the exact day it’s been two weeks. I thought I was the only one who was obsessively counting, so I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.

“To two weeks of successful Fake Dating. How’s it been for you?” I say, clinking my plastic glass with his.

“I think it’s been great so far. Javier is off my back and your apartment is much nicer than mine. Plus, you’re also better at cooking.”

“Not when it comes to nachos.”

“That is true. I am really good at nachos.”

“And art. You kick my ass at art. And folding paper. You’re the best at that too. And I think you’re a better liar than I am.” He’s definitely a better liar than I am. That’s been proven several times.

“But you’re the best at waffles. And picking chairs. And stealing Batman shirts. Speaking of that, I have something for you as sort of an anniversary present.” He pulls something out of his bag. It’s a present wrapped in the school newspaper.

“Sorry about the wrapping job. The only paper that I have is tiny origami paper that wouldn’t work. I was going to tape it together, but . . . Anyway. It was this or toilet paper. I figured you wouldn’t want toilet paper.”

“You got that right.” I take the present from him and open it slowly. I don’t want to act like a kid and tear it open. Something black and soft emerges, and I realize what it is fairly quickly.

“You are such a dork,” I say as I pull out the Batman t-shirt. It’s exactly my size. He must have either gone through my drawers, or he’s looked at the tags in my shirts.

“Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t get me a present to celebrate our anniversary? Don’t chicks love that stuff?”

I look up from the shirt and I can see that he’s joking. He’d better be.

“I didn’t know we were doing presents. You should have informed me beforehand. I think we need to add that to the Rules. When presents are going to be given, the other should be informed so they can reciprocate.”

“But that takes all the spontaneity out of giving presents. Besides, I don’t want anything.” That’s silly. Everyone loves presents. “And you got me a chair. That’s all I need.”

That is true. I got him a chair. So maybe that makes up for the shirt.

“Do you like it?” he says.

“I freaking love it. I’m never taking it off.”

“So you have a shirt that has Batman on it and you’re going to wear it under all your clothes?” I know he’s paraphrasing a quote from
Mean Girls
and I love it.

“This one time, Batman punched me in the face. It was awesome.”

We both laugh and I hug the shirt into my chest. I’m totally putting it on as soon as I get back to the apartment, and I’m sleeping in it tonight.

“On a less fun note, I was thinking we should start talking about how we’re going to end this. I think it should be public, for maximum impact and finality. Don’t you think?” The topic shift leaves me with my head spinning.