Chapter 11
eleven
I woke up with a raging hard-on and a hangover. Both my heads were aching. Not pleasant at all. I was an idiot. Not only had I gotten drunk, I had asked Olivia out on a date, in a very awkward way. I’d had zero game. Less than zero.
When I sat up I groaned. “Fuck.” I was supposed to go see my mother and take her to the movies. I would be keeping it classy, as usual. Groping around for my phone, I knocked over the bag of chips I had decided to destroy the night before when I’d gotten home. Crumbs fell all over my carpet but I ignored them. I had bigger problems.
Olivia had texted me when she got home. It had woken me up and I had responded to her. But now I was debating if I should text her or not. Was that a thing? Was I supposed to do that? Talk to her before Friday? I had no fucking clue. When Rachel and I had been together we’d been teenagers. I hadn’t even had a smart phone because I couldn’t afford one. I had a flip phone that was hell to text on, so I kept it simple. If I texted women now it was utilitarian or blatantly sexual. I didn’t know how to be normal.
Being normal made me uncomfortable. As I padded to the shower I decided there was a reason I’d been avoiding entanglements—it sucked. But I was the dumbass who had opened my drunken mouth and now I couldn’t back out. I didn’t actually want to anyway. My dick certainly didn’t want me too. My erection wouldn’t quit.
Leaning against the shower wall, letting the hot spray cut through the hangover, I pictured Olivia in the shower with me, then cursed myself. That was not going to help my boner go away. But once the idea of her, slick and wet and pink, popped into my head, I couldn’t quit it. She was so hot and sexy, and now she was denying me. I had to manage four dates before I could taste her again? Talk about sliding backward.
She left me no choice but to take care of business myself, hand on my cock, wishing it were her mouth. Given how mouthy she was in general, she had to be awesome at blow jobs. I squeezed one last time before letting go, deciding to extend the torture and my blue balls.
After I was dressed, I called Alejandro. “Hey. When you meet a girl and you ask her out, are you supposed to text her or anything in the meantime? And after the first date, how soon do you ask her out for a second date?”
“What the actual fuck, Lewiston. Are you screwing with me?”
I made instant coffee and put it in the microwave. “No. I’m serious. Make fun of me all you want, but I need help. I have no clue what I’m doing.”
“Who did you ask out?”
“Olivia, Eva Davis’s twin sister. Ricardo’s sister-in-law.”
Alejandro whistled low into the phone. “No shit? Is she rich, too?”
“No. She’s a student at the University of Miami.” I pulled the mug back out of the microwave and took a sip.
“So all that shit about you not caring about not having a woman last night was a lie?”
“I don’t know if it was lie, I mean, I don’t want to like this girl. But...I like her.” Oh, hell, I sounded like such a pussy.
To my surprise, he didn’t laugh at me. “That’s great, man. Seriously. You’ve been riding solo way too long. But how did this go down, exactly? You asked her out and she said yes, that’s it?”
“Sure. That’s how it went.” He didn’t need to know we’d had sex. That was between me and Olivia. “But I didn’t actually suggest anything specific. I was more like “you, me, Friday, a date, let’s do it.” And she said yes.”
“Take her somewhere you can actually talk to her. Like dinner or the park. Don’t take her to the movies or a club, you can’t actually have a conversation.”
Okay. I could do that. “That sounds easy enough. So what about texting?”
“You need to text her like once or twice a day between now and then. Just like hey, what’s up, or do you like sushi or how was class.”
A cold sweat was breaking out all over my body. “This is complicated.”
He laughed. “Dude, relax. Just be natural. It’s not that hard.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Women like you.”
“They like you, too. You’re never short on company.”
“Sure, for a hook up. But that’s completely different. Everything about it is different.” I finished off the coffee, chugging it black.
“She must be pretty damn special then.”
Shit. My words had sounded wrong. “No, I didn’t mean?—.”
I cut myself off. “She’s sweet but tough. Resilient but man, the way she looks at me…” I hated that I couldn’t seem to shut up, but there it was. Alejandro could give me shit indefinitely, whatever. I deserved it.
“Then don’t fuck up,” was all he said. He showed me mercy. I would have to remember that if and when he embarrassed himself in front of me.
“Thanks, I’ll remember that.”
I texted Olivia “good morning” after I ended the call with Alejandro. She didn’t answer but I tried to reassure myself she was probably still sleeping.
This was why I didn’t date. This was crap. I hated having to worry about another person.
My mom opened her door to me and instantly homed in on my bandage. “What happened to you?”
“I cut myself shaving,” I said, giving her a smile as I walked into her apartment. She was something of a hoarder, with an addiction to thrift stores, and I had to maneuver around an end table that was overflowing with bags, mail, and unopened dollar store makeup.
“Don’t be a smart ass,” she said sharply. “What did you do?”
If I kept lying, she would get pissed so I came out with it. “I got shot.”
She made the sign of the cross. “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for my son.”
I was pretty sure God had written me off awhile ago. “It was just a nick, I promise. I’m fine.”
“You need a new job. You should go to college.”
“With what money, Mama?” This was a conversation we had about once a month. I stepped over a pile of throw pillows that were mysteriously stacked up in the dining area and shoved a stack of books over so I could sit on her couch. My head was still pounding.
“They give loans and scholarships.”
My mother was wearing tight white pants and four inch heels in hot pink. Her top matched the shoes, as did her earrings, and the bracelets racing up her arms. She was very maternal and domestic, yet she did it with a hoochie flare. As a kid, it had never occurred to me to think anything of it, but as a teen I had taken a lot of “your mom” crap. But she was pretty damned attractive, I had to say, and she deserved to show that off if she wanted to.
“I saw Benito,” I told her.
Her hand came up. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to worry. But any reason you might be seeing him is no good.”
I didn’t really want to tell her, but I wanted to give her the option to know. “He said to tell you hello.”
She made a sound of exasperation. “He can come and tell me hello in person when he’s gone straight.”
“Have you seen his house? He’s not going straight any time soon.” I wasn’t jealous though. He had earned that house by being ruthless. “On a different note, I have a date on Friday.”
She paused in going through a pile of jewelry on the coffee table. “With a girl?”
That made me laugh. “Of course with a girl. Do you seriously have questions about my sexuality?”
“No, I just meant… I don’t know.” She looked flustered. “You don’t go on dates. This is good. Really good. Where did you meet her?”
“At work.”
She made a face at that. “What’s her name? What is she like?”
“Olivia.” Saying it out loud made me feel like a douchebag. I couldn’t sit still so I jumped up off the couch. “She’s pretty.”
“A lot of girls are pretty. You don’t date them. She must be special.”
My mother was getting an excited gleam in her eye. I was sorry I’d brought it up. I wasn’t even sure why I had other than I wanted to talk about Olivia. But once I opened the door with Alejandro and my mother for a conversation, it had made me feel too vulnerable. “She’s smart. A college student.”
“Even better. It’s about time you stopped hanging around with sluts.”
“You shouldn’t slut shame your gender, Mama. If a woman wants to sleep around, that’s her right. It’s her body.”
“Of course you would say that. You’re the one getting the benefits from sluts. But I’m sorry, I think sex should be reserved for marriage.”
Occasionally I wondered if she were truly serious and had not had sex since my father left twenty-three years ago. That was a lifetime without getting it on, which seemed absolutely insane to me. Cruel and unusual punishment. But then I figured it was none of my business either way. “I’m not discussing my sex life with you,” I told her. “You’re my mother.”
“Then why did you bring it up?” she asked, piling on another bracelet and shooting me a look of exasperation.
“I didn’t,” I said, equally exasperated. “I told you I have a fucking date.”
“Don’t swear in front of me, it’s disrespectful.”
I rubbed my forehead. My head throbbing was getting worse.
“What’s the matter?”
“I have a headache.”
“Too much drinking most likely.”
That made me laugh. “Mama, you drive me crazy.”
“When you love somebody, that’s what you do.” She gave me a smile. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes.” I stood. My phone buzzed.
Good morning.
From Olivia. And she had added a blushing smiling emoji.
I smiled.
When I looked up, my mother was grinning.
By Friday, it was apparent to me that Wester was not lying when he said he didn’t date much. His texts were random and alternated between stilted and super sexual, which he then instantly retreated from.
They were things like “do you like sushi?” then when I said yes, he answered, “I don’t.”
My personal favorite was “I want to see you naked.” Followed immediately by “I mean, under your clothes.” It made no sense. Literally no sense.
It was liberating. So the charming bad boy was a little insecure when it came to actual dating. He knew how to get a woman out of her clothes, but had no idea how to just hang out.
He rang my doorbell at five minutes to eight and I appreciated that he didn’t just text to let me know he was downstairs. I opened the door and smiled. “Hi.” He looked serious. Intense. Nervous. The caged animal again, ready to pounce.
Wester had on black jeans and a turquoise shirt that made his eyes seem even cooler. “Hi.”
“Do you want to come in?” Maybe we needed an icebreaker. I didn’t feel nervous as much as I did excited, but the way he looked I was anticipating a very silent car ride, and I didn’t want that.
“Sure.” He stepped inside and glanced around. “This is nice. You have real furniture.”
That made me laugh. “I buy used furniture online. It’s the modern equivalent of my grandmother going to garage sales every weekend. She got some awesome deals and furnished our whole house when I was a kid.” I sat down on the couch and gestured for him to sit next to me.
“Your grandmother raised you?”
I nodded. “Grandparents. My mom had drug problems. She popped in and out, then finally just disappeared all together. She overdosed when Eva and I were ten.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” I shrugged. “My grandparents are awesome people. They still live in Jacksonville. How about you? You mentioned your mom.”
He sat next to me and put his forearms on his knees. He still looked uncomfortable. “It was just me and my mom. My dad bounced when I was little. My mother is loving, yet very heavy-handed. She never took shit from me and she did it wearing heels and she always managed to pay the bills.”
“That’s how my grandparents were. We were the kind of poor where we always had food and a roof over our heads and clothes to wear, but there weren’t extras. I didn’t understand they struggled financially until I was older and saw other families with bigger houses and newer things. My grandmother reused everything. Like including Ziplock bags.”
“My mom is a shopaholic. But she buys cheap stuff from the dollar store. I can’t figure it out. How many floral wreaths does one woman need?”
That made me laugh. “I don’t know. One for every door?”
He made a face.
“Can I get you a drink?” I asked. “Or do you want to go?”
“We should go,” he said, and his eyes dropped to my lips.
Well, damn. Not even discussing our childhoods could kill his libido. Here I had actually not been thinking about him naked for once. “Where are we going?”
“Some restaurant.”
Helpful. Not. “As long as they serve food, I’m fine.”
Wester drove us to the area in Coral Gables that had tons of restaurants and boutiques. I didn’t miss the beach living there because it was a real neighborhood, not crowded with tourists. I had given up that particular fantasy of being steps to the water almost immediately when I moved to South Florida.
When we walked from the car to the restaurant, he stayed close to me, but he didn’t touch me in any way. He was quiet, too. I decided he was trying to sort out how to do this. I had given him such a hard time about using lines on me, I felt like he was schooling his responses to be more neutral. It didn’t feel natural. He was stilted and I was stilted as a result.
We were being polite. Distant.
“Did you pick this place because you thought I would like it?” I asked as we put our name on the waiting list. Being Friday night, it was crowded.
He looked like a deer in the headlights. “Yes. Why? I mean, I thought it seemed like a date-place. Was I wrong?”
“Wester.” Having the upper hand was absolutely zero fun if I couldn’t get more than two words at a time out of him. “This isn’t a test. You don’t have to prove anything to me. Just be yourself.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. We were waiting for our name to be called for a table outside by the street. “Oh, my God,” he said. “You just told me to be myself like I’m an awkward fourteen year old and you’re my mother. I officially am quitting trying to date.” He glared at me. “I was actually walking down the fucking sidewalk wondering if I’m supposed to hold your hand or not. I can’t do this.”
Fighting the urge to laugh, I pursed my lips briefly to get myself under control. “Remember when you told me not to overthink it? I think you should take your own advice.”
“I’m better at telling other people what to do.”
He was very cute when he was being irrational. “What would you normally do with a guy friend on a Friday night?” I didn’t want him pretending to be something he wasn’t in order to meet my alleged expectations for dating. I didn’t have any expectations. I just wanted to get to know him. I wanted to feel like I had a glimpse into his life.
He’d been inside me. Now I wanted inside him.
“I don’t know. Play poker. Go for some hot wings and a beer. A Heat game if they’re playing and we can get tickets.”
“Then let’s do that. Let’s just go get wings and a beer.”
He looked doubtful, like the dating gods would strike him down with lightning. “What do you like to do with friends?”
“We go shopping or to the movies. Hang out at a bar by campus. When I’m not working, that is.”
“Where do you work?”
“I’m a bartender a few blocks from here actually. I like it a lot. Shifts go fast.”
He looked surprised. “I didn’t picture you as a bartender. That’s cool.”
I guess being a drink slinger gave me street cred. The thought amused me. “I took the whole week off to stay with my sister. That was a waste. I could have used the money. But I can’t get my shifts back so it is what it is.”
“Do they serve food at your bar? We could go there. I’d like to see where you work.”
That sounded unappealing to me but at the same time Wester was much more relaxed. He was being normal and I wanted to keep it that way. “Sure, if you like fried foods. Also, be forewarned, by nine o’clock karaoke starts and there is a huge contingency of singers in Spanish.”
“I speak Spanish so that doesn’t matter to me.”
“You speak Spanish? Are you Latino?”
“I think I’m everything.” He grinned. “My grandfather was Haitian, my grandmother Cuban, my father white. Maybe a few other things along the way. But yeah, I speak Spanish.”
One more reason he was sexy. Because now I was imagining him whispering words I couldn’t understand into my ear. I picked my hair off my neck and fanned the back of it. I was suddenly hot. “I’m game to go to the bar if you are.”
“Let’s do it.” He reached out and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “By the way, you look gorgeous tonight. I love you without makeup but this… this is sexy as hell. Red lips are hot on you.”
I flushed. I couldn’t help it. I had kept my outfit casual with jeans and sandals and a low cut top, but I had amped up the makeup with a cat eye and some red hot lipstick. “Thank you.”
“So I’m really not allowed to kiss you?” He had moved closer to me. Dangerously close.
I shook my head. “No. You would never do that to a girl you just met, would you?”
“You want to bet? I did it to you, didn’t I?” He looked amused, but mostly he looked masculine, strong.
He had a point. But I stepped back. He could wait. “Follow me. Unless you’re afraid to walk a few blocks.”
“Of course I can walk a few blocks. I can walk a few miles if you need me to.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t. But come on.” And I did something I knew would blow his mind more than any kiss.
I slipped my hand into his and led him down the sidewalk.
Wester looked more pained than he had when he’d been shot.