Stubborn Love (3 page)

Five years ago – Jared

“Hey,” I say to Mia as she
comes out of Luke’s room, closing the door behind her.

“Hey yourself,” she
answers back.

I smile at the way she
mimics the response I gave her three days ago when she arrived at my folks’
house. We’re back in the apartment in Boston now, but we’ve
kinda
adopted it as our thing and have been doing it ever
since.

Mia wanders around the
kitchen, just looking at things, before jumping up and taking a seat on the
counter. I try to avoid noticing how close she is, but it’s literally staring
me in the face. Her butt is sitting right next to where I’m busy spooning some
coffee into the machine. Her long legs are dangling, only a single step away
from me and it would be so easy to move just one step over and stand between
them, push them apart to accommodate my body as I press it into hers. I have to
shake my head to clear the very real vision I have of doing exactly that,
before I look up at her face.

“Want some coffee?” I ask,
gesturing towards the pot.

“I’d rather have a beer
actually,” she answers, hopping back off the counter and walking towards the
fridge. “You have any?”

I turn and lean back
against the counter, my hands on either side of me, griping it tightly. “Yeah,
of course, help yourself.”

“You want one?” she asks,
her head buried in the fridge now, her butt and those long legs of hers, the
only thing in my line of sight.

Fucking hell
.

“Jared?” she asks, when
it’s clear I’m not giving her an answer, obviously because I’m too busy staring
at her gorgeous ass and I can’t get any words out again.

“Yeah,” I say, taking a
deep breath as I force my eyes up and off her butt, so I don’t look like a
complete pervert.

Mia grabs two beers, pops
the tops like a pro and walks out of the kitchen and into the living room,
taking my drink with her. I have no choice but to ditch the coffee idea and
follow her. She puts my beer on the coffee table in front of her and takes a
seat, so I walk over and plant my own ass on the couch beside her.

“Luke’s asleep,” she
suddenly says, half turning to face me as she kicks off her shoes and tucks her
feet underneath her. This movement and the look on her face make her seem so
much younger. There’s only two years between us, but when she’s like this,
she’s back to being that little girl she was when she handed me my ass at
Guitar Hero
for three nights in a row at
my parents’ house. Only this time she’s not smiling and laughing, it’s the
vulnerable, frightened version of that little girl who I’m looking at. It makes
me want to wrap my arms around her again and comfort her, tell her everything
will be okay.

I take a swig of my beer,
forcing those ideas from my brain. “How are you doing?” I ask instead.

“Me?” she says, confused.

“Yeah Mia, you. Are you
okay?” I ask her again. “We’ve never really talked about how you’re doing with
all of this,” I say, gesturing towards Luke’s room.

Mia sighs now, sliding
down the couch a little so her head can fall back and rest on the cushions.
She’s staring up at the ceiling, her fingers absently picking at the label on
her beer bottle.

“I’m fine,” she says in an
entirely unconvincing way. “It’s Luke I’m worried about.”

I notice a tear sliding
down her cheek and I scoot closer to her on the couch, my arm resting along the
back, my fingers only inches from her hair. Mia turns to look at me, but
doesn’t say anything else.

“Yeah sure I get that, but
I’m asking how you’re doing, Mia,” I eventually tell her, knowing she can’t
possibly be okay when she refuses to discuss what happened. “You can talk to me
you know.”

Mia’s head turns back so
she is once again looking up at the ceiling. My hand, which was resting on the
couch, moves now and brushes away the tear on her cheek. I can feel both the
warmth of her skin and the wetness of her tears and I suddenly want to press my
mouth against her cheek.
To feel that warmth against my lips,
to taste her tears in my mouth.
But I don’t, I sit frozen to the spot
and unable to move away.

“Anyway, thanks for
letting me stay here,” Mia suddenly says, sitting up so my hand slips from her
cheek. “I’m happy to crash in with Luke, not take up the spare room.”

And with a flick of the
switch, she’s back to defensive Mia, the girl who puts up these barriers to
hide the vulnerable one underneath.

“Mia,” I say quietly.

“I just want to stay a bit
longer, until he gets back on his feet. He won’t come back to LA with me, because
he hates that place, so…”

“Mia,” I say again.

“What?” she asks, turning
to look at
me.
I watch as she takes a long pull on her
beer, her fingers still picking at the label.

I take a sip of mine too,
never taking my eyes off her face. “You can stay as long as you want to and the
spare room, it’s all yours.”

The briefest flicker of a
smile crosses her face, so quick that I would have missed it had I not been
staring at her. She doesn’t say anything, only nods at me before getting up off
the couch and heading to the kitchen where I hear the sound of the fridge
opening and more beers being pulled out. I down the rest of mine as she walks
back into the living room, determined to make her talk about this, to
acknowledge that it’s okay to need help, to accept help.

But I’m beginning to realise
this girl is just as fucking stubborn as her brother.

Three hours and countless
beers later, Mia is drunk and I am pretty much there too. She’s avoided talking
any more about Luke or her father, despite how many times I’ve tried to bring
it up. She’s always managed to somehow change the subject and right now we are
battling it out at
Halo
on Xbox. Once
again she is giving me a run for my money, despite her drunkenness, and I can’t
help but be impressed by her skills.

“Mia, fuck,” I say,
throwing my controller onto the couch as she once more blows my head off on
screen.

Laughing, Mia turns to
face me. “What, you don’t like being beaten by a girl?” she asks.

I shake my head at her.
“I’ve never even played this game against a girl, let alone been beaten by
one,” I tell her. “I have two brothers, Mia, and I had no idea girls were even
into this
kinda
stuff.”

Mia stands up, a little
unsteady on her feet. I reach out to grab her in case she falls, but she
quickly steps away, heading into the kitchen again. “Well apparently you can be
beaten by a girl, Jared,” she yells back. “I hope you’re okay with that?”

I don’t say anything, just
watch as Mia walks back into the living room with two more beers. I’m not sure
her drinking anymore is such a good idea, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t
want to stop her. She’s smiling again, laughing too and even though I know we
aren’t talking about what happened, that this is all just a mask, once again, I
don’t want to take it away from her.

“Jared?” she says, handing
me a beer. “You okay being beaten by a girl?”

She’s standing in front of
me, smiling, looking down at me as I sit on the couch. I take the beer from her
hand and when our fingers touch, it’s like a jolt shoots up my arm and then all
the way down my spine.

“I’m okay with that,” I
say quietly, unable to tear my eyes away from her face. She looks gorgeous,
even with eyes that are unfocused from all the alcohol she’s drunk. Her hair is
hanging down, slightly messy from her aggressive Xbox playing, but all I want
to do is run my fingers through it. I want to slide my hand into it, against
the back of her head and drag her lips down to mine.

She smiles at me again.
“Good,” is all she says before she puts her beer on the coffee table, straddles
my legs and sits down on my hips, pressing her mouth hard against mine.

At first I’m too shocked
to do anything. I don’t talk and I don’t kiss her back. Then my stupid fucking
brain wakes up to what’s happening here and I blindly reach out, trying to find
the coffee table so I can put my beer down, while my other arm wraps itself
around Mia’s waist and holds her against me. My mouth finally decides to join
the party too, and starts to kiss her back, my tongue slipping out to touch her
lips, gently pushing them apart.

When I do, Mia lets out a
low groan that nearly undoes me. My other hand, no longer caring where the
coffee table is, drops the beer and slides into her hair, holding her mouth
against mine, just as I was imagining. Somewhere in my brain, a voice is
telling me that I shouldn’t be doing this, that Mia is only doing this so she
doesn’t have to think or talk about what’s going on inside her head. But the
bigger part of me doesn’t care, doesn’t care that what I’m really doing is
taking advantage of a drunk, frightened girl who really needs to talk. That
asshole part of me just wants to kiss her back.

“Jared,” she whispers
against my lips.

I groan, my mouth leaving
hers as it kisses a path across her jaw and down her neck. Mia’s head falls
back, her body leaning slightly away from me and I keep kissing all the way
down to the low vee of her sweater. When I get
there
,
my tongue slips out, sliding down under her sweater and between her breasts.
Mia groans loudly now, grinding her hips into mine as if to encourage me. I am
as hard as a rock and there’s no way I can hide it from her, she’s sitting
right on my dick.

Mia’s head suddenly snaps
back up, her hands grabbing my cheeks as she starts kissing my mouth again. As
I kiss her back, her hands leave my face, reach down and start undoing the
buckle of my belt.

“Mia,” I say in a low
voice, knowing I really should stop this.

Her fingers somehow get
the buckle undone and then they’re popping the button on my jeans and slowly
undoing the zipper. I groan, pushing my hips up towards her hand, even though I
know I should be doing the complete opposite. But when her hand slips into my
boxers and around my dick, I stop thinking altogether. Instead, my eyes flick
open, just wanting to see her face, wanting to look at her as she touches me.

“Mia,” I say again,
begging her to open her eyes and look at me. Her mouth is kissing mine; my arms
are wrapped around her body, one hand under her sweater and touching her warm
skin. Mia’s fingers are trying to stroke me and it all feels so fucking good
right now. But despite how good it feels, all I want to do is look at her, see
what’s in her eyes, see what she’s thinking as she touches me like this.

“Mia,” I say once more, my
voice insistent this time.

Her eyes lazily open and
try to focus. And that’s when I realise she is drunk, really drunk, drunker
than I actually thought. She probably doesn’t even know what she’s doing, isn’t
thinking at all. She can’t even focus on me right now, and even though I really
want this to happen, I don’t want it to be like this. I want Mia to know what
she’s doing, to be fucking sober even. But more than anything I want her to do
this because she wants to. Not because she is trying to hide from something she
doesn’t want to talk about and not because she is so drunk she doesn’t care
what she does. I want her to want to do this with me, for no other reason than
she wants me as much as I now realise I want her.

“Mia,” I say one last
time, my hands on her shoulders now, pushing her back.

“What?” she slurs,
frustrated.

I reach down and pull her
hand out from inside my jeans, even though all I want to do is cover it with
mine and get it moving again. “You’re drunk, we shouldn’t be doing this.”

She smiles at me now, her
hand going back to my crotch as she tries to find a way inside again. “Yes, I
am drunk and yes we should.”

I move my hands to her
waist this time and hoist her off my lap and onto the couch beside me. She huffs
loudly as she says, “Jared, what the fuck, I thought you wanted this?”

I turn to look at her as I
attempt to shove my dick back inside my jeans and do them up. I wonder why she
thinks that, when I’ve only just realised it myself. I don’t think I’ve been that
obvious about it, and God knows it’s the last thing we should be doing. But I
answer her anyway, telling her the truth even if she won’t believe me. “Mia, I
do. I really do want to, but not like this.”

Mia’s eyes close for a
second before she snaps them open. “What’s wrong with like this Jared, what’s
wrong with now?” Her words are slurred and I know she probably won’t remember
any of this tomorrow morning. And although it will save her from the
embarrassment, it will also mean she’ll forget that in her uninhibited state,
she actually wanted to do this with me in the first place.

“You’re drunk Mia, you
don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Yes I do,” she protests,
her eyes closing again as she seems to struggle to stay awake now. “You just
don’t want me,” she whispers, a sadness creeping into her voice.

“Mia,” I plead, my hand
cupping her cheek as I try to make her understand. “I do want this, want you,
you have no idea how
much
I want it.
But not like this,” I tell her. “Not when you have
no
idea what you’re doing and can barely stay conscious.”

She says nothing, her eyes
still closed.

“Mia?” I ask, my thumb
stroking her cheek.

She doesn’t answer me,
just slumps back against the couch now and actually passes out.

Sighing, I run my hands
through my hair and stand up.
Fucking
hell
. The rush of disappointment I get crushes any lingering doubt that
maybe I should have just given her what she wanted. Even though it sucks, I
know I have made the right decision, and even if she wakes up tomorrow with no
memory of what I just said to her, it will have been the right thing to do. But
it still doesn’t make me feel any less shitty about the fact that I just turned
her down. I turned her down at a time when she needed someone, something to
make her feel good, feel wanted. And it does absolutely nothing to the fact
that I wanted her and everything she was offering, just as fucking badly.