Junk Miles (18 page)

“
Or just never get attached. That’s how I manage.” Lylee laughed, a tinkling sound that was ugly in my ears.

Wasn’t motherhood the ultimate attachment?

Saxon gritted his teeth, then looked over at me.

“
So, Ireland this summer?” He smiled. “Maybe I should look into the program.”

“
Maybe you shouldn’t,” I said, and wanted to bite my tongue. Saxon and I had such a natural back and forth that I forgot to speak normally to him when we were around other people. His mother, of course, thought it was beyond funny. Mine frowned.

“
There are several good programs, Saxon,” my mother said firmly. I’m sure she hated seeing Lylee put her own son down. It just didn’t mesh with Mom’s idea of good family. “There’s one in Iran. Archeology,” Mom said brightly. I suppressed a sigh. That was the one she deemed “way too unsafe for Brenna.” I guess it was good enough for Saxon.

The food arrived and every one of us was glad for the distraction. Conversation in our group was actually painful, and I was really hoping we didn’t get stuck going out in our little quad too often.

We tried a few more seemingly mundane topics, but it didn’t get any better, so we hurried through our meals, and when all was done, we got up hurriedly.

“
I’m going to head back to the dorm sweetie. I promised Thorsten I’d call before he left for work, and I want to take notes on ideas for a Louvre trip. Are you going to go out?” Mom put on her coat and slung her purse over her shoulder.

Saxon put a hand at the small of my back. “I think so. I think Saxon and I will roam around a little.”

She gave Saxon a wary look. “Take care of yourselves.” She kissed me on the cheek.

Lylee and Saxon didn’t talk. She just flipped him a wave and followed Mom. I could tell Mom wasn’t thrilled.

“
Your mom is badass.” Saxon watched the two women walk away and pulled out his cigarettes the minute they were out of sight.

“
Sorry. She’s a little scary, right?” I was used to my mother freaking people out.

“
She loves you. She thinks you’re awesome. And she obviously doesn’t put up with any bullshit. Isn’t that pretty much a perfect mom?” He pulled me close and kissed me. My head felt light and wonderful.

“
She is pretty perfect.”

“
Lucky,” he gritted out.

Chapter Nine

We started out in the cool Parisian air. “Not really. It’s good. It’s really good to have Mom and Thorsten. But it’s a lot of pressure.”

“
Why?” He looked at me like I had twelve heads. “You could do whatever, and they would obviously still worship at your shrine.”

“
That’s just it.” I knotted my scarf tighter around my neck. “I really like them. They’re totally fair and ridiculously supportive. So if I screw up, they don’t get mad. They just get disappointed, and I wind up feeling like crap. If they were assholes, I could scream at them, throw tantrums, rebel. But how much of a creep would I be if I did that to them?”

“
Good point.” Saxon put a cigarette to his lips and lit it. “My mom and I have had our share of tantrums. It gets pretty old pretty quick.”

“
Are you serious about the cannery thing?” I watched him take a drag from the corner of my eye.

He smiled a wicked smile. “It does incite fury in all reasonable adults. I guess that’s a big part of the appeal. Other than that, I just want to get away from all of this bullshit. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of a shitstorm that I created, and I just want out.”

I took his hand. I think he did create his own horrible, shitty world to live in, but, knowing more about Saxon’s home life, I realized that he was somewhat a product of his own crappy upbringing.

And I knew exactly what he was feeling when he talked about creating his own shitstorm. I decided I’d better stop judging the guys in my life for all the crazy things they’d done. It seemed like the harsher I judged them, the worse I felt when I made the exact same mistakes. The smartest thing I could do was just accept that the two of them had done a lot more than I had, and accept the fact that I was going to make my own crazy mistakes the more experience I gained. Whether I liked it or not.

“
Why not just study abroad or something?” I took a look around at the gorgeous balconied apartments and wrought iron gates that we were passing. Living here for a year would be amazing.

He shrugged. “Seems kind of goody-goody, doesn’t it? Unless they have an exchange program with Amsterdam. That might fit.”

We walked to a huge French garden, obviously a lot less charming in the dead of winter, but still really nice. We walked through trees and past bubbling fountains and then to a small, manmade cave/tunnel. He stopped me in the middle of the dark, private enclosure.

“
C’mon, Blix. Seriously? A cozy little cave in a garden in the middle of Paris? I know I’m not the most romantic guy, but give me a little credit.” He pulled me over, and for a few minutes the world revolved solidly around the two of us. He had been fairly considerate of my prudishness, but the cocooning dark made him bolder. One warm hand slid under the hem of my shirt, then another. He pushed up along my ribs. It was different than the way Jake touched me. Saxon was smoother, slower and more controlled. When Jake touched me, it was like our minds turned off and our bodies jumped at each other. But Saxon seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He moved his hands around to my back, and slid them down until they popped out and down over my pants and held my butt hard, then squeezed and kissed harder as he did it.

I felt a rush of warmth as I relaxed in his arms. He nibbled along my jaw, kissed at my ears and sucked gently on my neck. He walked me backwards to the wall of the cave and lifted me up, so I was trapped between him and the wall and he pressed into me, wanting me to feel that he was hard.

“
It could be a lot better than this, Blix.” He kissed me again. I knew now that when he called me Blix it could mean any number of things, but it consistently meant that he was trying to lure me to do something he was well aware was no good.

“
No.” I kissed him again. “This is enough.”

“
I don’t mean sex. I could do things for you, to you…” he trailed off suggestively and rubbed against me harder.

The one thing I expected from the Saxon experiment was undivided lust, but now that I was in his arms, I didn’t feel comfortable with it. Flirting around lust was one thing, but acting on it was the ultimate vulnerability, and Saxon didn’t inspire the kind of comfort that made it okay to reveal what was vulnerable.

“
No.” I shook my head.

He pulled away and let me plop to my feet with a thud. “Whoa. Shot down by super-virgin.”

It was mean, and it was meant to be. That was so typical of Saxon, and so completely irritating. He had let himself get close to me, which he loved and hated, but any form of rejection, even completely reasonable rejection, set him off and snapping. I stalked out of the dark little space.

“
Wait!” he called, but not very loudly or adamantly. He knew he’d been an asshole, and he didn’t want a confrontation that would basically end with him admitting that fact. Again.

I jogged, then ran through the park, enjoying the pigeons that burst up and flew out of my way when I came close. I liked listening to the tiny kids swinging off of jungle gyms, calling out in their perfect babyish French. I liked the dark immigrants with coolers bungie corded around their backs, selling semi-cool sodas for a fraction of the official refreshment stand price. I liked the gypsies begging and dancing and singing here and there just outside of the doors of the major attractions.

I raced past stone steps being swept by elderly women, past churches with steeples that grazed the brooding clouds, past department stores with bored shop-girls leaned on the counters, flipping through magazines and grocery stores with fluorescent lights that looked too cold and sterile for Paris. I ran across the streets when there weren’t too many treacherously driven cars and made it down by the river, where the earth was muddy and sucked at my sneakers. I came back up off the river bank and ran around a garden, brown and shriveled in the cold except for some evergreen bushes. I ran across the streets again, playing with my life as I dodged cars that seemed like they sped up when the saw me, and wound up back on the gravelly walk of the park that was familiar. I ran in and out of every twist and corner turn until there wasn’t a corner I hadn’t chased.

Then there was a hand on my shoulder, and I screamed.

“
Whoa, it’s me, Bren. It’s just me.” Saxon was doubled over, his breathing labored and wheezy.

“
How do you keep up on the soccer field?” I put my hands on my hips and watched him choke and hack.

“
I don’t have to chase the ball five miles straight,” he gasped.

I clicked my tongue. “
Tsk.
That was not five miles. Maybe two.” I smiled at his physical weakness. “You need to stop smoking.”

“
You need to listen when you run.” He breathed hard. “I called to you.”

“
I’ve decided to tune out irritating noise.” I pushed at his shoulder so he wobbled over.

“
I’m running after you like a lunatic to…apologize,” he said finally.

I looked at him critically, tilted my head and looked again. He was so hot. Ten times hotter than when I first met him, since I now knew what he looked like with no shirt on and when he was being actually sweet and when he was hard with lust.

But he was also a pain in the ass. I hadn’t appreciated how easy Jake was to be around until I decided to blow him off for someone with so much drama he should have his own acting company.

“
Um, I don’t think this is working,” I said, unsure I was actually saying what I thought I was saying.

“
Are you dumping me, Blix?” He was still gasping for breath a little. Wow, this was low of me. I could at least let him catch his breath. But something spiteful in me enjoyed seeing him suffer. More. “We’re not even completely dating.”

“
Then I guess I’m not completely dumping you.” I rubbed his neck. “I just don’t want to play your game anymore, Saxon. It’s hard and boring and frustrating. And you’re so hot and smart, I thought you might be worth the stress, but this is just ridiculous.”

He gave me a sour look, and I think he must have mulled over ten different things to say, but finally he just shook his head and walked back the way he had come.

So I had successfully fallen in love, dated and dumped two incredibly hot, incredibly sought after guys in less than five months. Where would I go after this?

I went back to the dorm. I changed into a nice dress, white with little yellow polka dots and a wide, red belt, and Mom and I had a nice dinner in a quiet restaurant with candles on the table and wait staff in stiff black uniforms.

“
You’ve been down, Bren.” She saw straight through me, and I knew she never missed much. No matter how many secrets I kept from her, she would always know when something was wrong.

I looked at her closely. I thought about the minute Jake had given her the gloves, the way I knew she was contested about how sweet the gift was in comparison to how much she didn‘t want to acknowledge Jake’s natural sweetness. I thought about standing in front of the stove with her and talking about my father. It hurt her to talk about it, but I had a sudden nasty streak and didn’t care who was hurt while my own heart was so shredded.

“
Who is my real father?” I kept my voice respectful. I had been raised better than to be a total asshole.

Mom got rigid and put down her fork. “Thorsten is your father, Brenna. He puts food on your table. He covers your health insurance and remembers your birthday and makes sure you have everything you could possibly need or want.” She blinked several times, and when she spoke again, her voice was tight. “Thorsten Blixen is your real father.”

“
If I could have chosen my father,” I said carefully, “I would have chosen Thorsten. He’s the best. I love him completely. And I’m not about to go searching for some guy who never cared about me. But I deserve to know a little about him.”

“
Why?” Mom demanded. “What possible reason would there be to know more about him?”

“
I think you treat me…a certain way.” I stopped. “When it comes to my, um, dating. I think you’re scared I’ll fall for a guy like my father. And the reality is, I might. If I don’t know about him.” I saw her blink again, and felt like a beast. “I’m not doing this to make you upset. I know you want what’s best for me.”

“
I do,” she said, weepily. So I knew she was feeling guilt. I wasn’t sure what for yet.

“
Tell me, then.” I slid my hand across the table and took hers in mine.

“
He was so smart.” Her voice was shaky. “And really confident. I didn’t have his confidence, and I didn’t think I was nearly as smart.” She shook her head. “His name is Robert Byron.”

“
Like the poet?”
Robert Byron
. It was amazing how just knowing his name gave him more substance in my mind.

“
Yes. No relation that I know of.” She went on. “His family disapproved of me. I think that made him even more determined that we should date. He never showed me off. Never took me out openly. We went to prom together, but as part of a group, and his date was a friend, or so he said. Looking back, I was just so naïve. If only I’d had some experience.”