Secondhand Boyfriends (14 page)

I dug my phone from my purse and switched it on for the first time since Saturday. The screen instantly filled with various alerts. As I rifled through them all, I counted no less than four missed calls from Bennett and five texts.

He likes me,
I thought as I smiled and clutched my phone against my chest. He’s got to, or else he wouldn’t have contacted me so much.

Hope flooded my every pore as I read his texts and listened to his voicemails. They were all apologies. They were all begging me to call him and talk to him. How could I say no?

I decided right then and there that I was going to pop over to his place right after work. Then I remembered what I looked like. I couldn’t let him see me looking all crazy. I had no other choice but to go home after work, shower, and then stop over at his place with dinner in hand. That sounded like a much better idea.

As I carried two hot, plastic bags of Chinese takeout towards Bennett’s apartment, I crossed my fingers that he was going to be home. I was taking a chance, I knew that, and I wanted it to go smoothly.

I imagined the smile that would spread across his face the moment he saw me. I imagined him wrapping his big, strong, manly arms around me, squeezing me tight, and pulling me into his warm embrace. We’d laugh and smile and say our quick apologies and move on.

In my head, that’s exactly how it was going to go. That’s how it was supposed to go. It could go no other way. That’s why when I approached his building, the last thing I expected to see was Sam standing on the front stoop.

From half a block away, I saw him look at me. He turned his entire body the other way, as if to avoid me. He pulled his phone from his pocket and pretended to check something. He was going to completely ignore me if he could.

“Sam,” I said, slightly breathless, as I approached. “Hi!”

As excited as I was to see Bennett, I was suddenly excited to see Sam as well. And the fact that he wanted nothing to do with me made me feel like I had to prove something to him. I would’ve given anything for him to look at me the way he used to, just one time.

He turned towards me, slowly, lowered his phone, and stuck his hands in his pockets. His face was solemn and lacked any sort of expression I could even attempt to read.

“Why are you here, Olivia?” he asked. I could sense a little bit of anger on his end.

“What are you talking about?” I asked with a laugh. I held up the white plastic bags filled with now lukewarm Chinese takeout and showed him. “I’m bringing dinner to Bennett.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Why am I suddenly running into you all over the place? It’s like I can’t go anywhere anymore. I can’t even stand outside my apartment without seeing you.”

“Hey,” I said with frown. “I did not come here hoping to see you.”

I could tell he didn’t believe me at all.

“I swear,” I insisted. “How would I know you’d be standing out here when I walked up?”

He raised his eyebrows and scuffed his shoe on the ground. He knew I had a point.

“I’m getting married in a month, Olivia,” he said. “Don’t do this to me. Please.”

“Don’t do what?” I was confused.

“Toy with me,” he said. His eyes turned towards mine and we locked gazes. “You really hurt me. And just when I’m about to move on from you forever, you’re popping up all over the place. It can’t all be coincidence. It’s happening way too much lately.”

I laughed nervously. “Maybe it’s a sign?”

“I’m not joking, Olivia,” he said through gritted teeth. “I love Ayla. I’m going to marry her.”

“Are you happy, Sam?” I asked. “Like really, really happy? Or are you just trying to get over me?”

“Wow,” he said. “I can’t believe you’d actually say that. Um, I’m extremely happy, Olivia.”

His words stung, but I knew deep down I needed to hear them. He had moved on, and I knew I needed to as well.

“I’m happy for you, Sam. I really am,” I said. “But I guess I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I always thought we’d end up together.”

He looked up at me, his eyes filled with a mix of rage and hurt. “Why would you tell me that? Why would you say that right now?”

“I’m just being honest,” I said. “To find out that you had moved on, that you were getting married, just hit me like a ton of bricks.”

“You didn’t want me before,” he said. “Why now?”

“I don’t want you, Sam,” I lied. I’d be doing a lot of that lately.

He shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”

“Okay so maybe seeing you with someone else sort of made me realize that I’d thrown away a good thing,” I admitted. “I’ve had a year to date other people and figure out what I want out of life. My life hasn’t been the same without you in it. No one puts up with me the way you did.”

Sam let out a snort of a laugh. “Why am I not surprised?”

“You were a great boyfriend,” I said with a wistful smile. “I didn’t deserve you.”

I took a step towards him. I wanted to hug him. I knew he was moving on, but I didn’t want to leave him thinking I was some stalker ex or that I was trying to sabotage his happiness.

“How about a hug?” I asked as I shrugged my shoulders.

Sam paused for a second to think about it and then nodded a couple times. I sat the food down on the steps, walked over to him, and wrapped my arms around him. I thought about how it was probably going to be the last time I could ever hold him like that ever again. I rested my head on his shoulder, breathed in his familiar cologne, and lingered probably a few seconds too long.

He squeezed me back, and I didn’t want to let go. I slid my hands down to his side and loosened my hold on him before pulling back, but the seconds our faces were mere inches apart, something came over me.

I leaned in and placed my mouth on his. I didn’t mean for it to happen. It just felt so natural in that moment. When I’d closed my eyes and breathed him in, it was like we were back together for a second. Time stood still. Nothing else mattered. No one else mattered.

“Olivia?” I heard a man’s voice say from the top of the stoop.

“What did you do?” Sam said as he pushed me away. The look on his face was terrifying, and I realized right then and there that he didn’t kiss me back. His lips were pursed and shut tight for those few seconds.

“Oh, my god,” I said as I realized what I’d just done. I covered my mouth. “I–I have to go.”

I turned on my heel and headed straight back to my apartment. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done, and I was sure there was going to be absolutely no coming back from that.

I knew I had a solid twenty-minute walk to convince myself to cut all ties and move on. I’d royally screwed things up with Bennett and made a huge fool of myself in front of Sam. My life couldn’t possibly get any worse.

As I turned the corner towards my apartment, it was like a breath of fresh air. My sanctuary. My refuge. My light at the end of the tunnel. My apartment sheltered me from the real world and the pain of reality. I wanted nothing more than to cuddle under the thick covers of my bed and drown out my thoughts with some cheap wine and a heart to heart with Claudia.

“Claudia?” I called out as I kicked my shoes off by the front door. “You home?”

I didn’t see her purse or keys by the front door. That wasn’t a good sign. She was probably with Eric.

The apartment echoed emptily as I went from room to room. She was definitely out.

“Ugh,” I sighed. I headed back to my room and slipped on pair of old, tattered, stretched out gray sweat pants and a plain white tank top. I pulled my hair back into a pony tail and high-tailed it to the kitchen to pop open a five-dollar bottle of white wine and a box of Oreos to drown my sorrows and eat my feelings. After the day I’d had, I more than deserved it.

Two generous glasses of Moscato and half a sleeve of Oreos later, I was sprawled out on the couch, almost asleep in front of the glow of the T.V. I was two seconds away from being utterly out cold when a knock at the door startled me into an upright position.

The clock on the wall read eight o’clock. It was growing dark outside, but it was still early enough in the evening for visitors. Amaya was known for sometimes just popping by randomly, but most of the time she’d call first.

I tiptoed over to the door, attempting to be as quiet as a mouse, and peered through the peephole. It was Bennett.

Forgetting that I looked like a hot mess covered in chocolate cookie crumbs, I pried the door open.

“Can we talk?” he said with one hand on his beltline. He stood with his head held low, but peered up at me through his intense, deep set emerald eyes. His jaw was square and tensed.

“Sure,” I relented. He’d made the effort to come all the way over here. The least I could do was hear him out.

He walked in and ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair. His eyes bored into mine.

“So that kiss… with Sam,” he said. “What was that about?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “Back up here just a second. Before we go digging into my past, why don’t you explain Ayla to me?”

He shook his head as if he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“I know you two dated,” I said. “Why would you keep that from me?”

“I didn’t keep it from you,” he said. “I told you I don’t talk about past relationships. How did you know we dated anyway?”

“I had coffee with her. It was brought up in conversation,” I replied, crossing my fingers that he’d buy it.

“What all did she say?” he asked.

“Nothing. Just that you two dated for a few months a long time ago,” I said. “She didn’t go into detail. We were just talking about what a small world it is.”

He bit his lip as if it pained him to hear she’d talked about him so casually.

“I want to hear everything from you,” I said. “There’s clearly some sort of animosity between the two of you and it’s causing problems between you and me.”

“It shouldn’t cause problems between us,” he grunted as he tossed his head back. “That’s exactly why I don’t talk about exes.”

“Can’t we make an exception to your little rule?” I asked. “I want to put this whole Ayla thing behind us. I want to move on. But I can’t. Not when you act so weird every time we run into her or she’s brought up in conversation. You know her stepmom is my boss. We’re going to run into her again. Shit, I’ve been asked to write an article about her wedding for crying out loud. We can’t sidestep this Ayla thing forever.”

He kicked off his shoes and walked over to the chair, plopping down as if he had just been defeated.

“You want me to tell you what happened?” he said. “Fine.”

I took a seat across from him on the couch. “I’m all ears.”

“We dated a few months,” he said. “Everything was great. Then she got really weird. Started talking about marriage. Wanted me to meet her parents. Talked about baby names. All of that.”

His story was already starting out completely different than Ayla’s, but I still listened intently and clung onto every word.

“She just wanted to rush things,” he continued. “You know how I am about rushing things. I get scared away.”

That was true. I’d experienced it firsthand. His version of the story was already making more sense than Ayla’s.

“She grew more and more obsessed with me,” he said. “She’d pop into the station to bring me lunch. She’d ask my partner where I was so she could surprise me. I even caught her going through my phone once.”

“Eek,” I said, scrunching my face. She didn’t seem like she’d even be smart enough to do any of that stuff, but I said nothing. “So how’d you end it?”

“I just told her, point blank, that it wasn’t working out,” he said. “She took it pretty hard. Cried. A lot. Called me for weeks, maybe even months, I don’t know. Then she moved into my building.”

A red flag went up in my head. Ayla said he’d moved into her building. I remembered that very distinctly.

“She did?” I asked. “When?”

“Less than a year ago, maybe? It was just a few weeks after I’d dumped her,” he said. “That’s when I met her mom for the first time. She knocked on my door asking me to help her move something heavy. I was shocked to see her there. I was shocked to see her moving in across from me. But her mom was standing right there, so I had to be polite and help. What could I do? Slam the door in her psychotic face?”

It made perfect sense, but then again, so did everything else he ever told me.

“The next thing I know, she’s got this new boyfriend, Sam,” he said. “She paraded him around me every chance she got. She was never into PDA before, but whenever she’d see me around, she couldn’t keep her hands off him. It was all an act.”

He sounded a tiny bit like a bitter, jealous ex-lover, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“I hate to admit this. I really do,” he continued. “But seeing her with someone else, so happy, sort of got me a little confused. Like it stirred up some old feelings or something.”

Suddenly it all made sense. Ayla was Bennett’s version of Sam. He saw her happy and he wanted her back.

I started laughing as I threw my half-drunk self back on the sofa.

“What’s so funny?” Bennett asked with one eyebrow raised. “Did I share too much? This is why I hate talking about these things.”

“No!” I laughed some more. “Sam is my ex-boyfriend. I dumped him last year, and the moment I found out he was getting married, I wanted him back.”

“Oh,” Bennett said. “You… still have feelings for him?”

“Well,” I said. “To be honest, I don’t know. I do and I don’t. It depends on the day. When I see him with Ayla or when he ignores me, it lights this fire inside of me that makes me feel like I’d do almost anything to earn my rightful spot back in his heart. But when I’m with you, I don’t even think about Sam.”

“Well, it’s settled then,” he said as he slapped his hands on his knees. “We both need to move the fuck on and get over them.”

My face lit up. I was glad to hear him say that, and for the first time ever, I felt like we were on the same page.

“Agreed,” I replied. “No sense in breaking up a happy couple when we could easily find our own happiness.”