Something More (11 page)

“If you can keep these rules, then I can,” he said, nodding his head to her.

“That is my intention. Ethan sent out an email saying he wants you out of the groups. I have responded and said it’s not necessary. It’s not fair to kick you out for no reason.” She was all business now.

“Thank you,” he said softly. She stood there ready to dismiss him, but he wasn’t ready to go. He had his piece to say; he summoned the courage as she looked at him. She expected him to turn and leave; he didn’t.

“I will do what you want on two conditions.” He looked at her, and she rolled her eyes. “First, when you accept that you want to be with me, I will be the first person you tell.” He closed the distance between them and took the coffee mug from her hand and sat it on the counter. “And—” He paused, searching her eyes, before he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. He kissed her long. She kissed him back and finally put her arms around his neck as he tried to pull away.

“See, that is why I was leery of asking you up,” she accused him and pounded her fist against his chest, but she didn’t leave his embrace.

“That was my second condition. That should hold me over until all this other stuff blows over.” He smoothed her hair away from her face. She looked up at him, seeing the sincerity in his eyes, hoping her desperation didn’t show. He kissed her forehead. Then he turned and left her apartment. He left her standing there watching him leave.

Chapter 13

It took a couple of weeks for things to feel normal again, or the new normal, because Jamison no longer spoke to Nyla unless she addressed him first. He rarely showed up randomly where she was, and when he did, it was purely coincidence. When he did, he ignored her as if she wasn’t there. He still stole glances at her, but she didn’t see them. Neither did Ethan. He began to dream every night about her coming to him and confessing her love for him; in those dreams he always made love to her.

In the groups, he was himself as much as he could be, but he held back. He didn’t want to make Nyla uncomfortable. Her happiness was his priority now, and if Ethan made her happy, he would accept it, but he could never move on. Ethan had backed off his case when Nyla was around, but living with him was becoming unbearable. He didn’t respect Jamison’s rules for the apartment, and he purposefully made messes that he refused to clean up.

It was beginning really to bother Nyla that Jamison was being so casual. There was a week and half left of school, and she was counting the days till she could go back home and ignore both Ethan and Jamison. Ethan wanted so much more, so much faster than she was willing to give him. Just the night before when they were in her apartment having a makeout session on her couch, he tried to put his hand up her shirt. He had gently lifted her blouse and softly traced her skin. She smacked his hand away, leading it out of her shirt, he groaned in frustration. She ignored it and smiled at him innocently.

“What are we waiting for?” he asked, as he moved his hand to her side, trying to cop a feel of her breast.

“I’m not ready,” she simply said, moving his hand back down to her waist.

“I’m not asking to sleep with you; I want to feel you a little,” he whined a lot these days, not an attractive feature, but one of a growing mental list she was compiling about him.

“I’m not ready.” She stood and put some distance between them, grabbing their drinks and taking them to the kitchen with the intention to refresh them.

“Why not? We’ve been dating for four months. It’s time I got somewhere.” He slouched back on the couch.

“You want to get somewhere? I can tell you where you can go.” She meant to say it under her breath, but it came out louder than that.

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing, Ethan. I’m tired; maybe it’s time you went home.” She leaned against the counter with her back to him.

“Maybe I shouldn’t come back,” he threatened putting on his coat.

“If that’s what you want.” She inhaled deeply.

“It’s not what I want, Nyla, but I think it’s what you want. I think you want me to end this so you can go be with Jamison?” She jerked her head up and looked at him with hurt in her eyes.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“So you’re not denying it?” He stood by the door with his hand on the knob.

“I just don’t want to be pressured into doing something that I’m not ready to do with you.”

“With me.” He rephrased the words. “Would you do them with someone else? You’d probably already be sleeping with someone else if you were in a relationship with anyone else. I see the way you look at him, and I see the way he looks at you. What’s happened between you two? Something has, and now I’m not the one you want to be with.” He opened the door.

“Ethan,” she pleaded. “Don’t leave like this.”

“Make up your mind, Nyla. Do you want me to leave or not? Do you want to be with me or Jamison? Make a decision.” He turned and walked out the door. She stood there her face in her hands, and the tears flowing freely.

Now they sat in group, their study session over. She was grateful that Maddie was dominating the conversation as usual. Ethan wasn’t talking to her, and Jamison wouldn’t look at her. She stared at her notes and let the conversation pass her by. She didn’t know what was said, but then everyone was packing up, so she did too. She found herself walking home. She refused to use her car for such a short distance even though it was beginning to get bitter cold. They didn’t call it the windy city for nothing.

Later that week, Jamison sat at a wooden table in the middle of the library. He couldn’t stand to be in his apartment any longer with the sulking Ethan. He heard him talking on the phone about Nyla. They were fighting because she wouldn’t put out. He was proud of his girl. He smiled thinking of the frustration in Ethan’s voice.

“Is this seat taken?” A pretty blond put her books in front of the chair diagonal from him even though there were three empty tables around him. She wore a wool sweater with a low V-neck. She leaned over as she asked him, and he could see all the way down her sweater. He was sure she did that on purpose. He shook his head no. “You’re Jami right?” She smiled as she sat and opened her books.

“Yeah,” he said and went back to the notes he was making for his final paper in anthropology.

“I’m Brianna.” She sat there and annoyingly seemed to have no intention of working or letting him work. He nodded but didn’t look up.

“There’s this party tonight; it’s supposed to be a real rager. Like totally epic. Do you think you’d want to come with me?” she asked as she leaned toward him, again letting him glance down her sweater if he wanted to.

“I’m actually busy, sorry.” He didn’t look up.

“You don’t have a girlfriend do you?” she asked.

“Actually, I am involved with someone.” He finally looked up at her with a “bug off” expression. She stammered and stuttered something about being sorry to bother him and left. He smiled, relieved to be alone.

Nyla was at the grocery store when her cell phone went off. It was Ethan, begging to come see her. She wasn’t in the mood for him, especially with his new pity party. She told him she was at the grocery and would call him when she was home. She continued perusing the aisles. She had a list of things she needed, but she was suddenly in no hurry to get through them. She looked at things she wouldn’t normally. Her mind was going in so many different directions, but they all led back to one place, Jamison. She didn’t like how he was now consuming her mind. She had been in the stacks near him in the library when the told the skanky blond that he was “involved with someone.” She wondered who it was.

“So much for that kiss holding him over,” she mumbled to herself as an older woman looked at her cautiously and hurried past her. This was supposed to be easy. He would leave her alone; she would be with Ethan; and she would be happy, but instead she was miserable. Ethan was miserable, and Jamison? He always landed on his feet. He wasn’t a frog; he was a cat, a leopard, or tiger. She wondered who he’d found already. There were a ton of girls interested in him as always. He’d been sitting by a Darcy chick during the Friday lecture. She wondered if Darcy was the “someone he was “involved” with. She hated Darcy. She looked down at her cart and realized she’d unconsciously put three different kinds of ice cream in her cart. She left them there and made her way to the check out.

When she arrived home, Ethan was sitting by the back stoop. She pulled into her assigned parking spot, took a deep breath, and looked at him. His cheeks were white, but his nose was red. He rushed to her car and stood by the trunk as she popped it and got out of the warm car. He lifted the trunk and grabbed four of the six bags, leaving her to grab the last two and the milk. He followed her up to her apartment and into the kitchen. She thanked him for helping her.

“Nyla, I’m a mess when you’re mad at me.” He didn’t let her put her things away first, he just dove into the reason he was there.

“Me, too,” she sighed as she put her three kinds of ice cream away, hoping he didn’t notice. He did and raised his eyebrows.

“Let’s not fight anymore. We’re going to be going home for three weeks soon, and we’ll be apart. I don’t want to be away from you when you are so upset.” He pulled her to him. She leaned into him, letting him be strong for her.

“OK,” she said. If Ethan would give her another chance, she’d try to make things work. If Jamison was moving on, then she would stay where she was and move on with Ethan.

“OK,” Ethan said, as he squeezed her to him. His hug felt desperate, as if he was clinging to her, trying to force something that should have been easy, something that should have fit. She wondered why it didn’t fit.

Chapter 14

The last week of school, Ethan came over early Friday before her final class. They had agreed to exchange gifts before they left for winter break. She had gotten him a soft, fluffy scarf in a sea green color she was sure would make his eyes sparkle. His gift to her was a CD of a band he liked that he had tried to get her to listen to. But even though she tried, she hadn’t enjoyed it. This CD was
not
going into her iTunes.

Jamison offered a few times to take Nyla home for vacation. She told him she didn’t think it was a good idea. She wanted to have her own car at home. He offered to caravan with her. She thanked him but declined his offer. He planned to leave as soon as classes were over on Friday. She would leave after her final shift on Saturday. She was glad to be away from work for a few weeks. Angela had been a mess when Jamison broke up with her. She insisted on giving Nyla every detail too. Jamison took Angela to a fancy French restaurant. He’d let her enjoy the entire meal thinking everything was OK, and she had rambled about taking a ski vacation in Aspen over winter break. Finally, after she had ordered dessert, he told her that things weren’t working out as he had thought they would. It wasn’t her; it was him. He wasn’t ready for a relationship with her, and she deserved someone who would sweep her off her feet. She insisted to Nyla that he had swept her off her feet and admitted that she felt stupid for not seeing the signs. He wasn’t into her, especially as much as she was into him. As if Nyla’s brain wasn’t giving her enough grief, Angela’s voice was becoming like nails on a chalkboard, especially when she obsessed about Jamison.

Nyla listened a lot to Taylor Swift on the way home, singing about white horses and fighting in the rain at two a.m. She knew how Taylor felt when she wrote those songs. The iPod shuffled to the John Mayer song that she and Jamison had listened to on their way home for Thanksgiving. That felt like a lifetime ago. She smiled, remembering how red his face had turned when he said she was sexy. What had changed? When did he change? She thought hard and couldn’t put her finger on it exactly. Suddenly a memory flashed before her eyes like she was watching a movie. She swerved a little on the road, but recovered. On graduation day, when her name was called to receive her diploma, she climbed the stairs and surveyed the crowd, smiling, so proud of herself and happy that it was over, her eyes fell on his. Before it registered who she was looking at, she gave him a genuine smile. He’d been frowning, slouched, with his arms across his chest, but suddenly his eyes softened. He tilted his head and didn’t take his eyes off her. She remembered thinking that if only things could have been different for them. They could have been friends. She returned to her seat. When his name was called, he scanned the crowd similarly, smiling to where his family sat. Then his eyes rested on Nyla. It was only for a second, but the expression was something she’d never seen in his eyes before. It gave her chills as she remembered falling to sleep that night, his face in front of her. She had felt insane the next morning for putting emotions behind a look that probably wasn’t there. But now, looking back, she wondered if it was a turning point for both of them.

She arrived home to a house lit up like a Christmas tree. She grabbed her bags and went inside. Of course, no one was home. She took her things up to her bedroom and began to unpack. When she opened the drawer to her dresser, she found a small box and took it out. There was no note on it. It had silver wrapping and a tiny red bow on the top. It fit into the palm of her hand. She placed it on the center of her dresser and stared at it for a long moment. She left it there as she finished unpacking. Nadia stood silently in her doorway as she put her suitcases in her closet. When she came out, Nyla jumped, startled.

“What’s this?” She walked over to the box and smiled at it.

“I don’t know. It was in my drawer. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?” Nyla asked.

“I might. Why haven’t you opened it yet?” She grinned at her into her mirror.

“Who is it from?” Nyla crossed her arms over her chest.

“I can’t tell. I’m sworn to secrecy.” Nadia held it out to her. Nyla had a sinking suspicion that it was from Jamison. This had him written all over it. She wondered what kind of game he was playing, telling her he was in love with her, but jumping the first girl came along.

“Open it, Nyla.” She stretched her hand out to Nyla again, but she shook her head no.

“I don’t want anything from him,” she groaned. Nadia looked at her in confusion.

“Suit yourself.” She put it back down on the dresser.

Jamison loved being home. He missed being spoiled by his mom’s cooking, and she did his laundry. He missed all of his friends. He didn’t realize how much. On Saturday, he met up with Wesley for lunch and Christmas shopping. Wesley spent more money on himself than on anyone on his list.

“I love Christmas shopping.” Wesley swung his bags as they walked down the aisles of Greenwood Park Mall.

“It’s called the season of giving for a reason,” Jamison smirked. He had one person left to shop for but wasn’t sure what to get yet.

“So, no Nyla Anderson this visit?” Wesley asked, sliding his beanie sock hat with the rim sideways and walking with a “pimp limp,” half-mocking the kids they just passed.

“No Nyla, and here I thought you were
my
friend,” Jamison said.

“What’s going on with the two of you, anyway?” Wesley asked, only half caring. He stopped at a kiosk in the middle of the mall to look at some cologne.