On Paper (22 page)

I wish I could say that I was sorry I'd sent the text. The wounded ego part of me was. But the bigger part was relieved. I'd been dying to send that text for weeks. Dying to tell her I was thinking about her. It went against her rules, but I was over her rules.

The fact was, we'd had a good time together. There was no reason we couldn't continue to have a good time together without it getting weird. I'd gone along with it for awhile because it had seemed like the best idea. Now, sitting here in the dark with a hard on I couldn't tame and the need to taste her on my tongue had me reconsidering.

Maybe she wasn't a one night stand kind of girl. That was okay, I didn't want her around for just one night. I wasn't sure, but it felt like she would take a long time to get out of my system. I liked the idea of figuring out just how long it might take.

Now I just had to get her to answer the damn text.

I laughed at myself. Here I was making new rules, deciding for us when she'd been the one to walk away from me. She'd been the one to put the rules in place and to slam on the brakes there at the end to make sure that we followed them. Who was I kidding? She was the one in control of this whole thing and she was on radio silence.

I cursed again, feeling restless and antsy. I needed to figure out a way to get to her. I was creative, I just had to think. Be clever. Be charming. Be something that would make her change her mind.

Sleep must have taken me in the middle of my silent brainstorm because I woke up with a kink in my neck and a monster headache from sleeping with my head at an awkward angle. I moved slowly trying to stretch out my cranky muscles.

I picked up my phone that had fallen onto the floor at some point during the night. I turned it over in my hand, hoping that I might see the name I wanted on the screen. It wasn't there. I hadn't really expected it to be. I stood and stretched and shuffled into the kitchen to make some coffee. My late night plans were still in play in my head, working out the details of how best to catch her attention.

I flipped on the laptop as the Keurig brewed a cup of strong concentration. Rubbing my hands across my scalp I waited for it to wake up. As the screen came to life I noticed that I still had my work in progress open. It wasn't the one I was supposed to be writing. It was the one I'd started in San Francisco, my self indulgent whim of words that I wrote when I was blocked on my real project. They were all about Quinn. It was a hodge podge of memories of our time together, something that kept me sane when I couldn’t get her off my mind.

I read over the last few paragraphs as an idea began to form.

What was the point of social media if I couldn't use it to showcase my work? A smile tugged at my lips. People loved teasers. Why couldn't I put a snippet or two out there for her to stumble across? Something that she would recognize as us. Something to show her she was still on my mind. It had to work. I began to smile as I scrolled through the paragraphs looking for the perfect thing.

It was time I stepped up my game.

THERE WAS A
reason I never did anything daring or spontaneous. It was because once I did something and loved it I never let it go. I don't let go of experiences and I don't let go of people. If something grabs me, excites me, makes me feel, I just want to drown in it. I want to be surrounded by it until I've reached my fill.

Once when I was thirteen my mom took me to Memphis to see Graceland. I had fallen in love with Elvis Presley that day. I went home and watched all of his movies, gorged on his music, and read Priscilla Presley's memoir so many times that the binding broke and the pages began to fall out. I was obsessed and wanted to learn everything there was to know about him and his life.

It's my personality. I invest. I don't let go. I hold on long after there is anything left to hold on to. It's why as an adult I've learned to be careful about the things I latch on to.

So, yeah, I was supposed to let go of Keaton and San Francisco when I got on that plane to come home. I was supposed to tuck the memory away in a box only to revisit it now and then. Instead, I'd brought home the souvenir and put it right there on my desk where I could look at it every single day and remember every glorious moment in full color, vivid detail. There was no other way to remember it. It had been so real and so alive, breathing a life of it's own with every moment that there really was no way that I could walk away from it all without any repercussions.

After my talk with Lily I had managed to rein it in somewhat. I tried to find balance and leave the computer alone. I knew it wasn't good for me. All it did was keep the whole thing fresh at the surface. Like a scab I continually wanted to pick at. How was it ever going to heal if I didn't leave it alone?

Especially when he was sending me late night texts telling me that he missed me. Seriously? I had stared at my phone screen for an hour. It was the middle of the night, so I couldn't take it seriously. He was probably drunk and lonely and I was just a number in his phone, a recent good time. I couldn't text him back. I’d wanted to. I’d wanted to tell him that I missed him too, but I knew when the light of day came he'd regret having texted me at all and I'd just look foolish. So I'd left it unanswered.

That didn't keep me from going through all of the ways the conversation could have gone had I answered. I played multiple versions out in my head.

Q: I miss you, too.

K: I wish you were here.

Q: Me too.

K: Can we start over?

Or

Q: What would you do if I were there?

K: So many things.

Q: Like what?

K: All of the things that I want to do to your body.

Q: Tell me.

Obviously, this version led to epic sexting.

Q: Who is this?

K: Don't play dumb, you know who this is.

Q: What do you want?

K: Do you still have my t-shirt? I'm going to need that back.

I could go on, but every version was just as pathetic as the last. It was a good thing I hadn't replied.

Still, I craved the sound of his voice. I missed him. I missed him a lot. So much that I questioned my sanity. I’d known him for only a week, yet he’d already held on much longer than that.

But like I said, I hold on to things.

Usually when something ends, whether it's a relationship or a fling, it ends because something is wrong. It ends because something went bad. It’s the bad parts, the things that have started to turn sour that provide you with some kind of closure. It pushes you to move on, close the door and go forward. It gives your heart something unpleasant to focus on while it heals.

With Keaton, there weren't any bad moments. It was all part of the one week design. It was the whole reason I’d snuck out of his hotel room and avoided the goodbye. I thought I could just wrap the whole thing up in a nice little bow and take it home with me.

What I thought would be my biggest advantage became my biggest flaw.

My lack of bad memories hadn’t kept me from missing him. It made me miss him more. It made me crave him from deep in the pit of my stomach.

The whole thing had taken on a kind of fairytale quality. In the quiet of the night it hardly even felt real anymore. I was sure I’d simply romanced it into something way beyond what it was, a story that I could remember when I wanted to remember what it felt like to be brave.

Only then I would close my eyes and I could almost feel his lips against my own, I could almost smell the faint scent of his cologne mixed with his woodsy soap. And it was enough. Enough to tell me that it had been real. For a time. And that was all I’d dared asked for. Adventures aren't meant to last forever. If they did they wouldn't be adventures, they would be ordinary. That's what I told myself.

It worked.

Most of the time.

At least until the words started.

If I had doubted any of my memories as reality then the words would have taken me back. They were simple. A simple line across a picture and dropped at random on his social media page. There was nothing attached to it. There was no title or explanation. Everyone seemed to think that he was teasing a new book. Everyone had their theories about what it could be.

I didn't need theories.

I already knew.

She wore green, the shade of emeralds.

She was enchanting.

Then she smiled and it was in that single moment I became a believer of magic
.

Green. It had made my heart hope. Only I had no idea what it dared to hope for.

I huffed as I read the teaser again before shutting my laptop screen. What was I supposed to do with that? What was he trying to say? I could feel my heart flutter and I mentally scolded myself. This was not part of my plan. I was on a Keaton Harris hiatus. I needed him out of my head. I’d given him way too much space. I wasn't going to do this. Not anymore. It was time I started following my own rules again.

If you chose to take the ride you needed to be willing to get off when your turn was over. Our turn was over. Our expiration date had passed. One late night text and one sappy teaser didn't change any of that.

Keaton Harris was part of yesterday.

It was time he went back in the box.

"ARE YOU SURE
you don't want to go?" Lily asked me for the hundredth time.

"No," I answered. I wished she'd stop asking me this same question. If she kept at it I would change my mind and end up downtown at the stupid signing and face to face with the guy I promised not to see again. Knowing Lily, this was exactly her plan. Badgering me relentlessly to do something until I caved was one of her favorite tactics and she knew that it usually worked.

"No, you don't want to go or no, you aren't sure if you want to go?" she asked. I rolled my eyes as she smiled innocently at me.

"Both,” I admitted.

"Well, that's closer to the truth than I expected," she said. I gave her a glare and continued flipping through the magazine on my lap without reading any of it. "You know, you can still go and not see him," she pointed out. I ignored her. I heard her frustrated sigh as she came to sit next to me on the couch.

"Come on, Quinn. You're being stubborn," she said. I glanced over at her; she was dressed in white capris and a deep blue top that fell across her bare shoulder.

"Miles is going to love that outfit," I smiled.

"Nice attempt at distraction," she huffed. I shrugged and went back to my magazine.

"I don't want to go without you," she said. She'd offered to not go at all, but I knew she wanted to see Miles. They'd been talking off and on since we got back from California. It was weird for me, since he was Keaton's brother, but I tried not to think about it.

"I'm fine. Go. Have fun," I smiled back at her.

"You know he came to this signing for you," she said simply.

"Don't be ridiculous," I scolded. I didn't want to hear things like that. They just played into secret hopes and secret hopes were the most dangerous kind to have. They were the biggest and the most unlikely.

"Fine. But what am I supposed to say to him when he asks about you? Because you know he's going to ask about you."

"Don't say anything. If he asks how I am, tell him I'm doing great and then change the subject. Lily, I'm not being difficult. I'm just trying to protect myself. I don't fit into his world and I don't want anything messing up my memory of us. I know it sounds crazy, but I know how it will turn out if I go there and it's just easier this way."

"One of these days you are going to have to stop playing it safe, Quinny. Don't you remember how good it felt to let go? Don't miss out on life because you’re afraid of being hurt. There is too much you'll miss out on if you do." Lily, my ever-present cheerleader and life coach. I appreciated her advice. I really did. But for today I just didn't feel brave enough to jump.