26. Brent
Brent
It takes a few rings for the piercing sound of my phone to fully penetrate my dreams. On race weekends, I sleep like the dead.
“What the fuck, Faulkner?” Ethan groans. “Who the hell is calling you at three thirty in the morning?”
The time, and the fact Posey was at a bar earlier, register in my brain at the same time, and I’m wide awake. I rub my face and snatch my phone off the nightstand. “Posey? Are you okay?”
“I’m here, and I missed you. And I’m sorry. I’ve just sobered up enough to realize coming here was probably dumb. You were going to be home on Monday. Why the hell would I take a midnight bus to Chicago?”
“You’re here?” I stand up and unlock the door to check the well-lit hallway. “Where?”
“Room 410. I’m sorry. I’ll let you go. This is a really important race weekend for you, and I’m totally fucking this up.”
“You’re in Room 410?” My brain is muddled, and tiredness lays across me like a blanket.
“Yes, but I’ll go home first thing in the morning. I shouldn’t have come. This was dumb.”
“Hold on.” I hang up the phone, and I tug on a shirt with my sleep pants. I grab my room card so I can get back in here to gather my swim things in the morning.
In the bright hallway lights, I’m a little more awake. Thankfully warmup is later, so this middle of the night disturbance isn’t dire for my performance. If she was anyone else, I’d be pissed at the detour from my routine.
But at Room 410, a surge of elation rushes through me.
She missed me, and she took a midnight bus to Chicago.
In terms of progress, this is huge. Monumental.
Not only does she give a shit about me, but she let herself feel it enough to track me down.
I knock on her door, and when it flies open, Posey covers her face with one hand.
She looks fucking phenomenal. Short denim skirt, crop top, hair long and silky around her shoulders.
She took a midnight bus looking like she stepped off a modeling runway.
Before she can apologize again, because I can sense it coming, I thrust my hands into her hair, and I draw her into a kiss.
She sighs into my mouth and molds herself to my body.
The door clicks closed behind us, and I walk us toward the bed.
Despite how much I want to bury myself inside her, I’m too aware of what’s riding on my shoulders tomorrow.
It’s my last day of competition here, and it’s going to be brutal.
My toughest races, and if I make finals, which I should, I’ll have to race them more than once.
She’s shedding her clothes, and I groan at the sight of her.
“Posey, I really need to sleep. I can’t be a zombie in the morning. Too many people are counting on me.” Notably, the college relay team where I’m the anchor.
“Oh, right. Yeah. I mean...” She stares at the two queen beds. “We don’t even have to sleep in the same bed.”
“You came all the way here in the middle of the night.” I throw back the covers, and I drag her naked body down with mine. “We’re sleeping in the same bed.”
Silence settles between us, and I’m wrapped around her and on the cusp of sleep again when she says, “Have I become a stalker?”
I chuckle in her ear. “I appreciate you coming. I’m glad you’re here. Don’t overthink it. Okay? You brought your computer for your project?”
She rotates in my arms, and she traces the edge of my face down to my lips. “I’ve never missed anyone before. Well, not a guy, anyway.”
“I’m honored to be your first.” Tiredness is making this conversation not hit as hard as it should, but tomorrow, I’ll be replaying her words. Guaranteed. Just better not be on the starting block. I kiss her forehead, and I snuggle her in tight.
“You’re not freaked out by this?”
I go still for a beat and try to figure out the right answer to this question, but I’m too tired and it’s too early in the morning for my brain to tiptoe around the landmines.
Fuck it. “No.” The opposite of freaked out, but if I get into too many details, we’ll either have an all-night discussion about our feelings, which I can’t do tonight, or she’ll run screaming from the room.
“Huh,” she says. “I thought you’d be freaked out. I’m kinda freaked out.”
No surprise there. “Babe, if I’m garbage in the pool tomorrow, I won’t handle it well. I need sleep.”
“Okay, right, sure. Yeah. Sleep.”
I can feel her staring at me, but I don’t care.
She can puzzle out her feelings while I keep her close and get enough sleep so I’m not a bear in the morning.
As glad as I am that she came, if I don’t swim well tomorrow, I’ll look back on my decision to come to Room 410 and wonder whether I’m compromising too much.
I don’t want to regret my choice or her or any of this.
Because right now? I’ve never been happier.
My alarm goes off just after eight, and I peel myself off Posey as quietly as I can. I scribble a note to her on the pad on the desk, and then I head to my room.
When I get there, Ethan is almost packed. “Where the hell did you go?”
I toss my racing suit and my goggles into my bag before grabbing a dry towel. “My girlfriend is here.”
“Val? Don’t take this the wrong way, but she seems kinda stalkerish sometimes.”
“Val and I broke up weeks ago.” The night we went to Jessica’s house, I thought I told him that. Maybe I didn’t.
“Does she know that? Jessica said Val talks about you all the time on her social media platforms. No one on the team knew you broke up. Jess thought you two might be fighting.”
“Not fighting. Broken up. Took Val a while to absorb that outcome.”
“So who the hell is at the hotel?” Ethan frowns.
“Posey Jensen.”
“You’re fucking Posey Jensen now? Wow. I think I’m impressed. She’s a really fun girl.”
I’m not touching that comment. Ethan has slept with lots of women—one of the reasons he and Jessica probably aren’t together—and while Posey never mentioned she had fallen into his bed, I don’t need that mental picture.
She came here because she missed me. Whatever happened before us doesn’t matter.
I can’t get hung up on what I can’t change.
“I tried to pick her up at a bar once or twice sophomore year. She was not interested.” Ethan shrugs. “Who wouldn’t be interested?” He eyes his muscular body in the mirror.
“Jessica,” I say.
“Fuck off.” Ethan shoves my shoulder and then he laughs. “She’s interested, but she likes to play it cool.”
If I believe Posey’s logic, Jess will never act on whatever feelings she might have for Ethan.
He’s too risky for her. It’s too early in the morning for a heart-to-heart when I’m so far from an expert.
I’ve got a girl two floors up who won’t admit we’re actually dating even though she took a midnight bus to Chicago because she missed me.
We’re totally dating for real. One hundred percent I am in the most authentic relationship I’ve ever had, and she doesn’t even realize she’s right there with me.
Cluing her in would scare her off, so I’ll have to wait for her to figure it out.
I wonder how many years we’ll have been dating by the time she admits we’re no longer in a temporary, fake relationship.
“Is she coming to watch?” Ethan asks as he shoves a dry towel into his bag.
“Doubtful. I didn’t tell her where the pool was, and she’s got a big project due on Tuesday.”
“She must really love you to take a midnight bus to Chicago when she’s drowning in schoolwork.” Ethan opens the door to our room and holds it for me to pass through.
Love. Jesus. That’s a big word. My heart kicks in my chest. Not even sure I’m ready for that one.
It’s only been two weeks, and I’ve never uttered that sentiment to a woman, no matter how much pleasure was being exchanged.
There’s definitely a strong chance I could mean those words with Posey.
A lot of things I once thought impossible don’t seem so unfeasible now.
“She’s pretty incredible,” I say as I slide past him into the hallway, and we walk toward the bus to the pool with our bags slung over our shoulders.
“I’m happy for you, man. Val was hot. Don’t get me wrong. Like five-alarm-fire hot. I can see why that’d be attractive. But I never bought what her socials tried to sell about the two of you being deeply in love. You looked great together, but it just felt so superficial. Glossy, but fake.”
Glossy, but fake. Probably the truest thing I’ve ever heard in regard to Val and me.
Ethan’s insightfulness is stunning. The guy is a workhorse in the pool, but a class-A partier out of it.
His whole problem with Jess seems to be that she can’t or won’t take him seriously.
For him to see something in Val and me that I might have felt but didn’t acknowledge is sort of amazing.
“Took me a while to see the difference between fake and real. But I get it now.” Fake might have suited me then, but that won’t be what I’m pursuing again when the real is so much more fulfilling.