It Was You Page 11

  *

  Now that I had a game plan, I was eager to put it into play. I wasn’t going to tell Judi the “truth” via text. I wanted to do it in person, so I waited until our next date the following night.

  We’d planned to watch a new nature documentary at her place and cuddle up. As soon as she opened the door, I took her hands. “Let’s sit down for a minute before we watch the movie,” I said. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  A look of worry crossed her face. “This sounds serious.”

  “It’s nothing bad. I’m not breaking up with you or anything.” Since she looked relieved, I laughed. “I wouldn’t break this off for all the money in the world.”

  “Then what do you want to talk about?” she asked as we went up the stairs.

  “I feel like I should explain some of the things that have been going on. I haven’t been completely honest about everything.” Realizing this sounded bad, I rephrased. “None of it is a big deal – I hope you won’t think it is, anyway – but I’ve been hiding something from you, and I need to stop doing that.”

  “Okay.” She sat down on her bed, gesturing at me to sit next to her.

  I clasped both of her hands. “It’s about my family. You know how I told you I have two siblings, right? A sister and a brother.”

  “Right.” She looked completely lost.

  “My sister is nine,” I said. “Her name is Coco, and she’s the sweetest little thing you’ve ever met – even if she can drive me insane sometimes, too.”

  “Okay.” She blinked a few times, and I wondered if she was connecting the dots – if Sam had mentioned Coco to her, too.

  “My brother is twenty-one,” I said slowly. “His name is Sam.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Wait.”

  I nodded. “He’s a bit of a dumbass, and he can be incredibly thick, but he also has a good heart, and he’s one of my best friends in the entire world.”

  “You’re saying your brother is the Sam that we ran into.” She gripped my hands, as if that’d help her understand. “Sam from Caffeine Hut.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But you look different,” she said, squinting at me. “Your personalities are completely different. You have different last names!”

  “We have different dads,” I said. “Same with Coco. We all grew up together, and we still live together. And when Sam didn’t know how to talk to the cute girl at his work, he thought I might have a better sense of what girls like.”

  “He went to you for advice about me?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yeah.” Silently, I thanked Sam for coming up with the half-truth that was so much less risky than the full version. “He could see we were kind of similar, so he asked me what kind of stuff smart girls are into, and then he pretended he was into it himself.”

  “The serial killer documentary,” she breathed. “I knew he’d never watch that himself. I knew it!”

  “And Luscious Karma,” I said with a self-conscious laugh. “You thought it was such a big coincidence that I’d heard of them.”

  “Then you were weirded out when I gave you their shirt,” she said. I could see her mentally connecting the dots. “Why, though? Why was it such a big deal? You could’ve just told me you’d helped Sam talk to me.”

  “He was embarrassed, for one thing.” Thanks for the permission to throw you under the bus, I mentally told Sam. “He likes to pretend to be this cool guy, and he’s really more like a kid underneath.”

  “Oh, I noticed!”

  “But also, it wasn’t just the movies and music,” I said. “Sometimes he’d even show me your texts and ask me what to write back.”

  “Oh my God.” She snickered. “That’s… something.” She gave me a light shove on the shoulder. “I can’t believe you actually helped him!”

  She was taking this much better than I’d even hoped. If she could laugh about this, we were golden. “I didn’t know it was you,” I said. “I had no idea we’d already met, or that I’d end up clicking with you.”

  “Sam was right about one thing, anyway. We do get along.” She brought her lips to mine, and for a long moment, I let myself drown in her soft kiss. “How’s he feel about this, anyway? Now that he knows, is he freaking out?”

  “He did at first, but I think he’ll be all right,” I said. “He seems to understand that you and me are more compatible than you and him would’ve been.”

  “I’ll say.”

  I linked my fingers through hers. “It’s definitely been odd to think about my little brother lusting after you, but it seems like everything’s worked out for the best in the end.”

  “You must’ve been so scared to tell him we were dating,” she said. “Is that why you were so hesitant to tell me who he was?”

  Sure, let’s go with that. “Yeah,” I said. “I really thought I might hurt him. He was super, super into you.”

  “I hope it won’t be weird when I meet your family.”

  I liked the way she took for a given that she’d meet my family. “It’ll be okay.” I put my arms around her. “I’m so happy I told you.”

  “Me, too. This explains so much.” She shook her head. “I kept thinking Sam was so different over text. He was like a whole different person.”

  I stiffened. Did she suspect anything? Did it even matter at this point? She’d accepted the first half of my confession so readily – would she be equally calm if I told her the whole truth?

  I wasn’t going to find out. Telling her this much had been terrifying enough. I wasn’t going to risk her outrage. I’d gotten away with what I’d done, and I was never going to lie or mislead her again.

  “Ready to watch that movie now?” I asked.

  “The nature documentary? Sounds good.” She poked me. “Do you really want to watch it, or did you ask someone else for their thoughts on what you should pretend to like?”

  “I really want to watch it,” I said, kissing her neck. “Although to be fair, I’d watch anything at all if it meant being next to you.”

  Eighteen – Judi

  The couple of weeks leading up to mid-February were a little stressful for me. I’d never dated someone who was so into the holidays before. Since Ella was all about Christmas, I assumed she’d be even more into Valentine’s Day.

  I hadn’t asked her straight-out what she thought about it, not wanting to ruin the surprise. I figured she’d say it was no big deal when really she’d be secretly hoping to be wined, dined, and romanced into the night.

  She had a tendency to downplay her own needs and wants, often putting other people before herself. She wouldn’t want to make me go out of my way for V-Day, but she didn’t know I’d be happy to if it made her happy. For this particular occasion, I just wasn’t going to give her a choice. I was going to take her out and treat her like a princess, and if she thought it was too much, she was going to have to deal with it.

  One bad thing about living in a small town was that there was only one fancy restaurant to go to. I called them a week in advance, and they were already completely booked up for the night of the fourteenth. I cursed to myself.

  But… fuck it. I was thinking too small, anyway. If I wanted to give Ella a nice Valentine’s, I should make a whole romantic weekend out of it. We’d drive to Denver, four hours away, and I’d get a hotel room. It’d be a bit of a road trip, so we could get out of town for a night and revisit our old stomping grounds from our college days. Sometime during the weekend, I’d ask her to be my official girlfriend.

  And the walls at the hotel would be thicker than the ones at my house, so we could be as loud as we liked.

  I found a nice restaurant in Denver and made reservations there. I assumed Ella would be up for staying the night. She’d admitted the only reason she’d refused to before was because she didn’t want to tell Sam about us, and now that he knew, she’d started to stay over every weekend.

  It was actually cute how nervous she’d been to tell me about him. I wasn’t
sure why she thought I’d mind. Sure, it might be a bit awkward to have a former date in my partner’s family, but I figured that’d be more awkward for him than for me.

  Valentine’s fell on a Friday, and I called her the night before to hint at what we’d be doing. “Pack a nice dress in your overnight bag,” I told her. “You might have some use for it.”

  “Wait, is this a Valentine’s thing?” she asked.

  “You’ll find out.”

  I picked her up from the library after work, and she frowned as we passed the highway exit to my place. “Where are you taking me?”

  I pointed to the back seat, which was overflowing with bags of chips and bottles of pop. “Dig into some snacks. We’re going to have a long drive.”

  “What? Where are we going? We’re leaving town? What did you plan, Judi? Tell me!”

  I just smiled and kept my eyes on the road.

  “If I guess, will you tell me if I’m right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are we going skiing?”

  “No.”

  “Are we flying somewhere?”

  “No.”

  “Are we going to Denver?”

  I stayed quiet, but I couldn’t stop myself from smirking.

  “You’re taking me to Denver?” she screeched. “For Valentine’s?”

  “Is that a problem?” A rush of fear came over me. I was practically kidnapping her. I hadn’t even checked if she was okay with going so far from home.

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” she said.

  “In a good way?”

  She reached into the back seat and tore open a bag of Doritos. “I think so. We’ll see.”

  *

  We arrived in Denver just in time for our nine o’clock reservation. I’d had my pedal to the metal for the last hour of our drive, and even though Ella had offered to take over, I hadn’t wanted to stop for that long.

  “Next time, we’ll allow some wiggle room,” I panted as I finally parked.

  She took my hand. “I like how you’re already planning the next time.”

  The maître d’ seated us, and we flipped through the menu. The prices were even higher than I remembered them being on the website. Since I was paying the gas and the hotel room, this weekend would end up costing a decent chunk of change – but Ella was worth it.

  “I’ll get dinner,” she whispered.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “It’s Valentine’s. I’m treating you.” I scanned through the menu a second time. God, even the appetizers started at twenty dollars.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “Let me do this.” She took the menu out of my hands and flipped to the entrees before placing it back in front of me. “I know you want more than an appetizer.”

  “Well, if you insist.”

  The meal was delicious, although the servings were tiny. “We might have to pick up some pizza after this,” I whispered when the time came for us to pay the bill.

  She put her credit card down. “With pineapple?” she asked, her eyes sparkling.

  “Always!”

  We left hand in hand, and I reluctantly let her get in the driver’s seat of the car. “Sorry,” I said. “I really wanted to make this the best Valentine’s Day of your life, but I can’t drive a minute longer. I’m exhausted.”

  “It’s already the best Valentine’s of my life,” she said. “I’ve never done anything for it before.”

  “Because you never had a proper girlfriend?” I buckled my seat belt and put my hand on her knee, wondering if this was the moment to make her my proper girlfriend.

  “Yeah,” she said. “That’s part of it.”

  “We should change that.”

  She’d just put the key in the ignition, and now she froze and looked at me. “How do you mean?”

  “We should get you a proper girlfriend.”

  A spark of hope lit in her eyes. “Yeah? Like who?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I couldn’t resist the urge to tease her a little. “There’s a cute girl who works at the coffee shop with me. Maybe I could get you her number. I could even advise you on what to say to her.”

  She put her hand over mine, and the heat of her skin warmed me. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “I’m pretty interested in somebody else. In fact… I’m falling pretty hard for her.”

  I turned my palm up, sighing at how good it felt when my fingers interlaced with hers. “Who is she?” I asked. “Do I know her?”

  “I’m serious, Judi.” Her eyes met mine, and she used her free hand to stroke my face. “I’m falling for you.”

  “I feel the same way.” I pecked her forehead. “So this means you’ll be my girlfriend?”

  “Of course.” She turned her head upward so that my lips fell against hers. “I love you.”

  *

  Once we checked into the hotel, we tore at each other’s clothes with more urgency than ever. Now that we were an official couple, now that we’d said the L word, I needed her like never before.

  I barely saw our surroundings, too focused on her body. I loved getting her out of her work clothes. When she took off her glasses and shook out her bun, she went from a sexy librarian to a sexy woman.

  Once I had her down to her bra and panties, I palmed her ass. “I brought a few toys in our overnight bag,” I murmured. “In case you wanted anything.”

  “Right now, all I want is you.”

  She claimed my lips in another kiss, her tongue darting into my mouth and stroking my own. Heat rose in my core, and I knew no toys were necessary. With the two of us alone, I’d still be very, very satisfied.

  We made our way to the bed, where we fumbled at each other as if fighting for dominance. After a moment, we lay side by side, her hand between my legs, mine between hers. Every flick of her fingers sent shudders through my body, and judging by the sound of her moans, mine were doing the same to her.

  I turned onto my side so I could look her in the eyes as we pleasured each other. I’d never felt so close to anyone else. What we were doing was so intimate, so vulnerable. I brought my lips to hers once more, and the soft way they yielded to me drove me even wilder.

  “I love you,” I murmured into her mouth, feeling my excitement rise higher and higher. Now that we’d said those words, I wanted to keep saying them all the time. “Fuck… Ella… I love you!”

  The climax tore through me, leaving me dizzy and breathless. Ella’s lips found my collarbone, her free hand teasing a nipple as she drew the orgasm out, making it go on and on until I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “It’s your turn,” I said, gesturing at her to straddle my face.

  “Mmm… have I mentioned I love you lately?” she asked, climbing on.

  This was better than the best Valentine’s Day I could’ve imagined.

  Nineteen – Ella

  Judi and I spent a perfect weekend together in Denver. I took her to the gay bar where I’d been a regular for two years during my master’s, and we slow-danced to every song until the singles looking to mingle were sick to death of our cuteness.

  In the morning, we slept in, recovering from our mild hangovers. We had to check out by noon, so we had lazy, sleepy sex, making sure to finish by eleven fifty-five. I loved spending the night with Judi – for the all-night cuddles as well as the morning sex – and I wondered why I’d denied myself the pleasure for so long.

  She took me to her favorite Chinese restaurant, where she said she’d gone at least once a week during her undergrad. The owners still recognized her, and they insisted on heaping our plates with free spring rolls and peanut sauce.

  We strolled through the city hand-in-hand, pointing out places we’d gone and the memories we’d had there. I was surprised to find out she’d gone to one of my favorite parks regularly during the summers. Our time here had overlapped, so there was a good chance we’d both been in the same park at the same time, yet I’d never seen her.

  “And trust me, I would’ve remembered you,” I said.

  Ar
ound six, we regretfully decided it was time to head back to Fronton. I took the wheel since Judi had driven on the way here. We turned on a playlist she’d made of chill indie pop and hit the highway, her hand-feeding me snacks every few minutes.

  “This was an amazing weekend,” I told her. “It was so sweet of you to plan this for me.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she said. “I knew you’d never say you wanted to do anything for Valentine’s, but that you’d love it if I surprised you with something.”

  “Is that what you were thinking?” I asked with a laugh. “I’d been assuming we were on the same page about Valentine’s being stupid.”

  She turned sharply toward me. “Stupid?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t stupid,” I said, taking my eyes off the road for a millisecond to look at her. “I mean Valentine’s in general is a consumerist holiday that corporations came up with in order to sell more stuff.” I snorted. “Why else would anyone ever buy heart-shaped chocolate?”

  She was quiet, and I started to realize I’d put my foot in my mouth. She’d gone to all this effort to make Valentine’s special for me, and in return I’d told her the whole thing was stupid.

  “There are heart-shaped chocolates in the back seat,” she said in a small voice. “I was going to give them to you once we got back to Fronton.”

  I paused to change lanes even though I didn’t need to, just to take a moment to get my thoughts together. “I’ll eat them. Happily.”

  “While thinking they’re stupid.”

  “No! I mean…” I wished I wasn’t driving so I could hug her. “It doesn’t matter what shape they are. It’s the thought that counts.”

  “That’s what people say when someone gives them a gift they hate!” She sounded more upset than ever. “Why did you pretend you liked this? Why didn’t you say something about hating Valentine’s?”

  “I did like it,” I said. “I don’t have to be a fan of the holiday to enjoy spending a night with you in a different city.”