More Than Water (32 page)

I stop in my tracks.

He sits on my bed, next to my bag, focusing on the ground.

“Foster?”

“I can’t do this anymore,” he says low and steady. “I thought it would be easier this way, but it’s not. It’s worse.”

My breath hitches, and the blood pulsing through my body drums loudly in my ears.

“Was any of it real?” Slowly, he connects his eyes with my own. “For you? Was it ever real?”

I gulp, unbelieving. “I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

“The way you used to look at me sometimes, and even still, like you just did when I was helping you with your dress…I wonder if it was real or if you were just pretending.”

“I…” is all my stunned vocal cords can muster.

“I’m not going to hide it anymore. It’s real for me, even more so than I thought.”

He stands, and I’m a statue glued to the floor.

“When your ex came to your apartment that day, I didn’t like it one bit. I hated the way it made me feel. At first, I thought it was jealousy, which I played off as being normal since we were sleeping together, but then I realized it wasn’t just that—the simple act of coveting something that wasn’t mine. It was something else, something more.”

Words.

So many words foreign to his mouth fly into the stillness and linger between us.

“The thing is, Evelyn…” Foster rubs his forehead. “Fuck, Evelyn! Do you know how hard it was for me to tell everyone that was your name tonight?”

“No,” I reply, startled, not fully comprehending. “I had no idea.”

“I guess you wouldn’t, would you?” He shakes his head, muttering to himself, “It was all part of the show. The act. The deal. Our arrangement. But it wasn’t for me. It meant more.”

“Fozzie, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fozzie.” He laughs. “Every time you say that, I always think…”

“What do you think?”

“I’m tired of pretending, Evelyn—pretending that we’re just friends, and tonight, pretending that we’re a couple.” He drags a palm across his face. “But most of all, I’m exhausted from pretending that I don’t love you—not only to you, but to myself.” Foster lowers his voice. “I’ve been falling in love with you from the moment I met you even though I’ve tried so hard not to.” He takes three calm steps toward me so that we’re an arm’s length apart. “So, I’m asking, was it ever real for you?”

My world comes to a standstill. Silence ticks and tocks between us.

“Yeah. It was,” I whisper tentatively and somewhat shakily. Releasing the pent-up emotions, I let them out slowly, so they don’t explode all at once. “It is.”

“I don’t want to be your friend, and I’m not interested in dating.”

I step back.

I blink.

My gut drops like a violent avalanche, and wrathful thoughts emerge.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that? And confusing as hell.” Circling around him to the bed, I stuff my blue dress into the bag. I gather my shoes from the floor, shove them next to my dress, and then close up my luggage. Storming in his direction, I heatedly continue, “You tell me you love me. You make me admit that I feel the same, and now, you tell me that you want nothing to do with me?”

“No,” he insists, grabbing me by the arm as I’m entering the bathroom to retrieve the rest of my things. “You’re not listening. It’s simple. I don’t want anything less than being with you. I don’t want to be friends or date or pretend or go through any more of these stupid motions that keep getting in the way of what I really want. You. I just want you. Anything else is without you.”

“You want me?”

“Yes.” His face softens. “So. Much.” His eyes close.

I melt from the inside out, and the burn of frustration fizzles.

“Is this real?” I ask, drinking in his sincerity. “No deals or stipulations? No pretenses or rules?”

“No rules,” Foster quietly utters, relaxing his grip.

Nodding, my body replies before the words can be formulated. “I want you, too.”

He slides his palm down the length of my arm, tenderly dancing his fingertips with my own. “I love you, Evelyn.” Leaning in, he grazes my earlobe with his mouth. “For longer than you might have known.”

“Likewise.”

He chuckles against my cheek. “That’s all you have to say? Likewise?”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

“I was getting there.”

Foster cups my face with both hands, and there’s no question in my mind about how he feels. It’s been there all along. He’s been asking me to love him with his expressions for months, and I was too blinded by denial to see it.

His lips float across my own, teasing and just out of reach. I silently gasp in anticipation as he marks every part of my mouth with his phantom touch. Patiently, I allow the moment to build for what’s to be our first kiss. The others don’t count because they were just surface kisses—the kinds that happen without any care, skimming along the shield we carry before us. This kiss will consummate a part of myself with him that is newly revealed—the living and breathing substance pulsating between both of us.

With noted restraint, Foster lands his lips upon mine, moving them languidly so that every crevice and cell receives the same amount of care and attention. His tongue asks entrance into my mouth, and I willingly welcome it. The familiar taste of him is like a dull echo in comparison to the new flavor he possesses now that his kisses are tainted with affection, the truest kind. It’s currently seizing my body with a keen insistence and searing its way into my heart.

We’re finding one another in a new way, laced with a sense of commitment.

Foster lowers his palms down the length of my arms to the bottom of my tank. He flirts with the hem, his fingers skimming along the space just below my navel.

“Yes,” I answer to all of the questions he isn’t asking.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Doesn’t matter. My answer is yes, Fozzie.”

“I like the sound of that.”

My shirt is quickly swept up and over my head, landing on the ground. I help him out of his, adding it to the pile on the floor, and then I press my breasts against his glorious bare skin, returning his kisses and holding him tight. Foster grips the back of my thighs, just under my ass, and lifts me from the carpet, shuffling us to the bed. He lays me down, our lips still sealed, and scoots our bodies up toward the headboard.

“Evelyn,” he enunciates, trailing his fingers along the curve of my waist.

“What is it?”

“It’s just you.” He presses his lips to the sensitive space above my collarbone. “That’s all.”

Branding my skin, Foster kisses me further down my body, between my breasts, to my navel, and lands a final pucker at my hip. I comb my fingers through his hair, along his cheek, and on the shape of his neck. He dips his fingers into the waistband of my sleep shorts, tugging them down the length of my legs and tossing them aside. Biting my lip, holding myself in place, I fixate on him as he drops his boxers to the floor, revealing his miraculous nude form.

Stepping away, Foster digs through his bag, pulls out a condom, and then crawls over my body where I’m waiting on the bed. I take the contraceptive from his hand as he dots delicate kisses across my neck.

“Foster?”

“Hmm?” he mumbles.

“I don’t want to use this.”

He releases his mouth from the space just below my chin. “Are you sure?”

I hold the unopened square wrapper between us. “We’re both clean. I’m on birth control, and I haven’t been with anyone else since you and I started sleeping together.”

“I haven’t been with anyone since you either.”

“Sounds like we’ve been exclusive for some time then.”

Foster wraps his hand around mine, crinkling the object in question. “Are you saying that we’re a couple?”

“I think we’d make a pretty good one.”

“I’d have to agree with you on that.”

He snatches the condom from my hand, tosses it to the ground, and then laces his fingers with my own as we gaze intensely into one another. Circling an arm around my waist, he presses his body flush with mine, every inch of my front touching his. I hitch my leg over his hip, glide an arm into the space between his ribs and bicep, and kiss him lustfully, inviting his tongue into my mouth.

Sliding an arm between us, Foster guides himself into my entrance, slow and steady, breathing jaggedly through every inch of the procession.

“Just so you know,” he states with evident control in his voice, his mouth on mine, “I don’t think I’ll be able to last very long. This no-condom thing is like night and day.”

“No worries.” I nibble gently on his lip. “We can do round two in a little bit. Let’s just call this appetizer sex.”

Holding me tight, Foster rolls to his back so that I’m on top. “An all-nighter then?”

“If you’re up for it. We do have some time between the sheets to make up for.”

He thumbs my lower lip. “Not to mention all of the missed I-love-yous.”

“Especially those.” I kiss his sweet mouth. “I love you, Foster Blake.”

Taking a step back, I fiddle with the ends of my hair and look over my installation in the classroom studio. It’s all or nothing from here.

“Looks good,” Wolfgang comments as he assesses my fully set-up project ready for inspection by Professor Turner.

“Do you mean the work is good, or it’s ready?” I ask, my focus roaming up and down the colorful sculpture of Foster’s bust depicting an artful array of human elements.

“Both.”

“Be honest. What do you think?”

“It’s different for you.” He circles the freestanding art piece. “Definitely a new direction.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not. It’s good to see that you’re growing. I never would have expected something like this from you. Most of your work in the past has been more fanciful.”

I join him at his side. “Like a bit of whimsy?”

“No, like from another world. This is more grounded.”

“I still don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Trust me, it’s good,” he confirms. “This is one of the most serious pieces you’ve ever done. It’s extremely well thought out.”

“Figures, given my muse.”
Foster.

It’s been a few weeks since Foster and I solidified ourselves as a couple, taking out the guesswork of what we are and filling in the grayness of our relationship. It’s comforting to finally have the freedom to express our true feelings to one another.

“How is Mr. Molecular?” Wolfgang questions, straightening his canvas on the wall. “Still working out chemical theories?”

“Pretty much.” I tie my hair into a ponytail, nervously waiting for our teacher’s arrival. “His last final exam is today.”

“Any big plans for you two over break?” he asks, referring to the week hiatus between quarters that begins tomorrow.

“I wish. He’s going out of town for most of it.”

“What did you do? Scare him off with your wild ways in the bedroom?”

I give him a bite-me look.

“Don’t pretend you aren’t a sex-tress,” he teases. “You can always tell who’s a minx in the sheets, and you, my friend, are a crazy kitty.”

“Are you trying to get a rise out of me before this critique?”

“Maybe,” he singsongs. “Is it working?”

“No, just the standard eye roll.”

“I guess that will have to do.”

With everything set in place, Wolfgang shoves his hand in his pockets, and we both focus on our final projects awaiting judgment.

“So, who’s up for crit today?” he asks me.

Two students, one guy and one girl, pace and wait on the other side of the room.

“Just you, me, Grayson, and Tawnya,” I tell him. “We’re the last ones. Everyone else is done already. He did them earlier in the week.”

“Do you know if he’s been accepting many for the show?”

“I do, and it’s less than I expected.”

“Really?” he asks, astonished.

“Yeah. Grayson told me earlier that he’s turned away over half of the class, claiming their work wasn’t good enough for installation. That surprised me because some of the pieces were noteworthy.”

“Does that mean they failed?”

“No.” I shake my head. “Everyone who completed the work and has given a reasonable defense passed. So, that’s everyone, except for Brad, who didn’t even bother to turn anything in. He was a no-show.”

“Da-amn,” he mutters, emphasizing the second part of the one-syllable word.

“Mr. Turner is making me kind of nervous.” I bite the inside of my cheek.

“Why? Based on his criteria, sounds like you’ll easily pass. Plus, your work is respectable and will speak for itself.”

“I’m not worried about passing. It’s the show I need,” I stress with the realization that this is an undeniable opportunity. This show will validate my work—not only to my peers and my family, but also to myself. “It’s make or break for me, Wolfie.”

Professor Turner enters the room with very little grandeur, plopping a tattered leather briefcase on the front desk.

“Save the best for last,” says our opinionated professor, circling around the studio space. “I hope that saying holds some weight because not much has impressed me in your group.” He rubs his hands together. “So, who wants to go first?”