Then Summer Came (18 page)

There wasn’t enough to do at the office, and I was back home in less than two hours.

"Hey."  Beck said.  He was reclined back across the sofa.  The TV was off and the apartment was silent.

"Hey."  I knew I’d have to face it eventually.   

"Look, I'm sorry about last night.  It was stupid.  I was just drunk and…" 

It took me a minute to gather the confidence to ask, but I finally said, "Were you jealous?  Is that…why you shoved Clayton?" 

His gaze became nervous, and his mouth fell open, like, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.  "Yeah…"  The word was just a whisper. 

I sighed.

“You were just as jealous, Lissa!  That’s why you were dancing with Clay!”

I scoffed and threw my hands in the air.  “You were practically fucking my best friend in front of me…
and everyone else
!”

“
And you were jealous
!”

“You’re right…”  I sighed, feeling defeated.  The conversation had taken a turn somewhere I hadn’t expected.  I never wanted to argue.  "Beck, I think that lines are blearing.”  My tone was final, but my voice was weak and quiet. 

He sighed and rubbed his neck.  "Maybe…" he agreed. 

"I'm engaged to Derek.  I'm going to marry him.  He may know about us, and he may not care, but
I do
.  We have to stop this, Beck, before we take it somewhere we hadn't intended.  Somewhere…we can’t come back from." 

“I don’t want to stop…” he whispered.

His statement stunned me.  “It’s not up to you.”  My voice was shaky and sounded unsure.  “There are plenty of girls out there who can accommodate you.”

He scoffed, shaking his head, then swallowed and nodded.  "Yeah…okay.  If that's what you want, Lissa…" 

I just nodded.  I couldn’t have said anything if I’d wanted to.  I turned back toward the door.

"I'll see you later," he whispered.

I nodded, again, without turning back and left for the elevator.



“Lis!” 

I jolted, startled, and looked up at Emily.  “Sorry, what?”

I was sitting on my bed, and she was standing in front of me, her hands on her hips, blinking down at me. She looked irritated. 

“What?” I murmured. 

“I’ve been talking for twenty minutes, what part did you not hear?”

“You’ve been talking for
twenty minutes
?” I’d not heard a word she’d said.  The last I remembered she was talking on the phone.  When had she gone from talking on the phone with MIk, to talking to me? 

“So, you didn’t hear
anything
I said?  Geez, I knew you looked spaced out, but you were staring right at me!  What the hell were you thinking about?”

I stared off, shaking my head.  “I don’t know…” 

“You’re being weird.  What’s going on?”

“I-Uh…I’m just tired.”  I smiled and chuckled to try to cushion the fact that I was being a mopey brat. 

“Why, because of all the work you’ve been doing?  You’ve been at home for a week solid!”

“I know…” I sighed.  “I stopped seeing Beck.” 

Her face softened.  “Oh…”  She sank into the mattress next to me.  “When?”

“Last week.”

“Well, that’s…
good
, right?”  She asked the question very carefully. 

I thought about the question. 
It was good
.  It felt nice having someone around, someone to talk to and hang out with, but that’s as far as Beck and I could take it.  We’d gotten caught up a few times, and even Derek understood that, but we were done, and…
it was definitely a good thing.
  “Yes!  It’s a good thing.”

“Did you tell Derek?”  She leaned up trying to get a glimpse of my face.  She was trying to read me, analyze me.  I hated when she did that.  She’d definitely be great in her future career.

“I haven’t seen him.  I’ve talked to him once or twice,” I sighed, “but we weren’t talking about it.  He just said he knew about us, and he hasn’t mentioned it since.  I don’t really want to talk about it, if he doesn’t.  So, I have no intentions of saying anything.”

“Are you still going to see Beck? 
As a friend
?”

“As a friend?” I repeated the words that I knew would probably never be true about us.  “I guess…”

Em nodded.  She looked like she wanted to add something, but she spared me.  “Do you want to go to the beach?” she asked, instead. 

“Ugh, I could
so
use some beach time!”  I jumped up from the bed and dug in my swimsuit drawer, looking for any swimsuit that wasn’t
that
swimsuit
.  I grabbed my yellow two-piece and we headed down to the beach. 

We spent the whole day in the sun.  I hadn’t realized it, but I’d not really been out of the house much lately.  I’d either been at work or at home watching a movie.  Beck had taken me out a few times, but I usually stayed in Derek’s room or in my office, trying not to think about how much I missed Derek.  So, it was nice to soak up some Vitamin D. 

Emily invited Mik, and he’d finally made it for the last few hours.  He was the sweetest guy I’d ever met, and he adored Em.  It was strange to see her like that, but she adored him, too, and it was good for her.  They’d been dating for a week, but if you looked at them, you’d have thought they’d been together for years. 

I liked Mik, but I tried to avoid conversation with him, if I could; I just didn’t want to hear anything about Beck.  I’d done a fantastic job at avoiding him and his randoms for a week, and I didn’t want to hear about any of it.  I never thought a man could bring home so many women in one week.  I knew I’d have to talk to him eventually, probably sooner than later, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it.  I was fine with my almost-subtle eye rolls and sighs that were aimed at his whoring around; I didn’t need to talk to him.  Lucky for me, Mik never mentioned a word about Beck.  Not one word. 

Derek called and said he was going to dinner with his dad at seven.  He said he wanted me to join them.  It’d been over a week since I’d seen him, so I really wanted to meet him there, but as usual, I couldn’t help but wish it was going to be
just us
.



Mr. Easton was full of jokes, as usual, and he made the evening a pleasant one, but I spent our entire meal wishing I had Derek alone. 

He took me back to my apartment afterwards, and I asked him to come up.  I’d thought he might, for a second, because he’d said “Let me make a phone call.”  But after he’d hung up, he’d said he had to be in Arizona first thing the next morning, so he was going to go ahead and head out.  He did cushion the blow with a make-out session in the back of his limo, though, and I took advantage of the rare occasion, ripping into his suit and getting my hands on him everywhere I could in those few seconds. 

His hands slipped under my dress, and I was immediately on fire.  It was only caresses, but it’d been so long since I’d been that close to him and any touch would’ve been my undoing. 

I kissed him with everything I had, knowing it would probably be a week before I saw him again—or longer—but I was also holding back; I didn’t want to get too into it, only to be left hanging. 

“This dress is too much,” he breathed into my mouth.  My whole body tensed up as Beck conquered my thoughts.  He’d said almost the exact same thing to me at the club.  Suddenly, he dominated my senses and I pulled away from Derek. 

He sighed and dropped his head onto the back of the leather seat.  “I could stay here with you all night.” 

I smiled down at him, and his hands brushed over my thighs.  He pulled me back to his lips.  “I love you,” he whispered and swept my hair behind my ear. 

I climbed off his lap and pulled at the hem of my dress.  “Call me when you get back.”  I made him promise, and then I headed inside. 

I walked into my apartment and saw a note on the counter.  The note prompted me to check the fridge and microwave, where Lidia had left me a dinner plate and some banana bread.  I decided that sleep was really my only desire, and I skipped the chicken stir fry and banana bread and headed to bed. 

Chapter Seventeen

After work the next day, Mik had mentioned to Emily, who casually mentioned to me, that Beck was spending the weekend with some girl he knew in Long Beach.  I just nodded at the information and then began talking about how my grandmother had left her entire estate to me and my mother and we were heading up to Roseville next week. 

Though I acted as if I’d not even heard them mention his name, I used the information about Beck being out of town to my advantage, and I had breakfast at Derek’s apartment for the first time in over a week.  It was just like old times, which also meant it felt pretty lonely; that cold, icy kind of lonely that I didn’t care for. 

I spent the day at the craft store picking out flowers and things to piece together a new topper for my grandmother’s grave.  It would keep me busy and give me something to do for the rest of the day.  I decided to have lunch a Derek’s apartment, and then I’d start on the topper. 

I sat the bags down on the dining-room table and headed to the kitchen for a salad.  I rounded the corner and saw a girl sitting on the counter, her legs wrapped around Beck’s waist, her ankles crossed.  His hands were all over her as he kissed her under her chin. 

Guess he decided to bring her back from Long Beach
, I thought.

I watched for a second until I realized that I was just standing there staring at them, and then I padded across the kitchen, trying not to notice the repulsive display of groping going on to my left.  I grabbed the lettuce from the fridge and the chopping knife from the drawer, slamming it shut.  I sat the cutting board down onto the counter, a few feet from their make-out session, and I chopped loudly, the knife slamming into the wood grain.

I saw their faces out of the corner of my eye.  They were staring at me, but I continued to chop the vegetables and toss them into the bowl, ignoring them completely. 

Beck cleared his throat.  He was obviously trying to get my attention, but I kept chopping.

“What’re you doing?” he asked over the loud chopping.

I said nothing as I shook some croutons into the bowl. 

“Lissa!”

I jerked my head toward him, giving the impression that I hadn’t noticed he’d been talking to me.  “Hu?” I added for effect.

“What are you doing?” he asked again, sounding a bit grouchy at this point. 

“I’m fixing my lunch,” I explained, sounding grouchy myself.  “It is
a
kitchen
, after all.”

He sighed.  “I’ll meet you in my room,” he spoke quietly to the random and kissed her again.  She slid from the counter with a giggle and left the room. 

He leaned against the counter where I was mixing the bowl of veggies.  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“Uh, I think you know
exactly
what I mean, Lissa.  Why are you acting like this?  Like you’re mad?”

“I’m not mad at all.”  Yeah, it sounded pretty sarcastic. 

“Lissa, save me the bullshit.  Why are you being like this?  Why do you act mad every time I bring a woman around?”

“I told you,
I have no idea what you’re talking about
.  I haven’t done anything!  You’re the one parading floozies around and allowing them to plop their asses on the same surface I prepare my food on.”  I poured on the Italian dressing and stirred the salad, not looking at him.  I wanted him to know how little our conversation meant to me right then. 

I could almost feel him rolling his eyes. His head fell back, and he growled, sounding exasperated.  “Jesus, Lissa,” he rubbed harshly at his forehead, “how are we ever supposed to be friends if you keep acting like this?”

I shrugged.  “We just won’t be friends, I guess.” 

He crossed his arms across his chest and scoffed, shaking his head.  And with that, he left the room. 

He didn’t wait long to let me hear how great he was in bed.  I knew how great he was, but hearing it in the form of screams, in the shrill voice of his current random was infuriating.  He was doing it on purpose.  He was such a jerk, but I wasn’t going to leave and give him the pleasure of seeing me scathed.  He could forget it. 

He finally decided to leave, the random locked onto his arm. 
Damn starving piranha
.  I spent the rest of the evening crafting my grandmother’s grave topper.  It was a nice escape.  After a few hours, it was perfect and ready for me to take to Roseville.

I bided my time in front of the TV.  I really hated to go straight to bed, only to wake up and head into work.  I wanted to do something, even if it was only watching TV. 

Channel after channel blinked onto the screen as I flipped tirelessly through them.  There was nothing on at that hour.  I watched an infomercial for every kind of household item you could think of.  I was literally sick to my stomach at the sound of the generic hosts’ voices. 

I heard Beck’s key turn in the lock.  He came in sporting his usual gym attire.  He pulled his running shoes off and slouched into the chair. 

“Really, they make little tents for food?”

I glanced over at him, surprised that he’d spoken to me…or
around
me, I guess.  I couldn’t seem to find anything to say, so I just turned back to the TV. 

A new commercial started.  “Tired of your unorganized shoe closet?” asked the host. 

“Ha!” Beck scoffed.  “You’d have to have twenty of those!”

“Have.”

“Hu?” he stared blankly at me. 

“I
have
twenty of those,” I corrected.  “Well, twenty-four…”

A smile began to stretch across his face, and we both laughed.  But it slowly came to a stop, and an awkward feeling set in.  The I’m-not-sure-if-I-should-be-mad-at-you-or-not kind of awkward feeling. 

“You want a pizza?” he asked, dismissing the awkwardness.