“That’s just it.” I knotted my scarf tighter around my neck. “I really like them. They’re totally fair and ridiculously supportive. So if I screw up, they don’t get mad. They just get disappointed, and I wind up feeling like crap. If they were assholes, I could scream at them, throw tantrums, rebel. But how much of a creep would I be if I did that to them?”
“Good point.” Saxon put a cigarette to his lips and lit it. “My mom and I have had our share of tantrums. It gets pretty old pretty quick.”
“Are you serious about the cannery thing?” I watched him take a drag from the corner of my eye.
He smiled a wicked smile. “It does incite fury in all reasonable adults. I guess that’s a big part of the appeal. Other than that, I just want to get away from all of this bullshit. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of a shitstorm that I created, and I just want out.”
I took his hand. I think he did create his own horrible, shitty world to live in, but, knowing more about Saxon’s home life, I realized that he was somewhat a product of his own crappy upbringing.
And I knew exactly what he was feeling when he talked about creating his own shitstorm. I decided I’d better stop judging the guys in my life for all the crazy things they’d done. It seemed like the harsher I judged them, the worse I felt when I made the exact same mistakes. The smartest thing I could do was just accept that the two of them had done a lot more than I had, and accept the fact that I was going to make my own crazy mistakes the more experience I gained. Whether I liked it or not.
“Why not just study abroad or something?” I took a look around at the gorgeous balconied apartments and wrought iron gates that we were passing. Living here for a year would be amazing.
He shrugged. “Seems kind of goody-goody, doesn’t it? Unless they have an exchange program with Amsterdam. That might fit.”
We walked to a huge French garden, obviously a lot less charming in the dead of winter, but still really nice. We walked through trees and past bubbling fountains and then to a small, manmade cave/tunnel. He stopped me in the middle of the dark, private enclosure.
“C’mon, Blix. Seriously? A cozy little cave in a garden in the middle of Paris? I know I’m not the most romantic guy, but give me a little credit.” He pulled me over, and for a few minutes the world revolved solidly around the two of us. He had been fairly considerate of my prudishness, but the cocooning dark made him bolder. One warm hand slid under the hem of my shirt, then another. He pushed up along my ribs. It was different than the way Jake touched me. Saxon was smoother, slower and more controlled. When Jake touched me, it was like our minds turned off and our bodies jumped at each other. But Saxon seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He moved his hands around to my back, and slid them down until they popped out and down over my pants and held my butt hard, then squeezed and kissed harder as he did it.
I felt a rush of warmth as I relaxed in his arms. He nibbled along my jaw, kissed at my ears and sucked gently on my neck. He walked me backwards to the wall of the cave and lifted me up, so I was trapped between him and the wall and he pressed into me, wanting me to feel that he was hard.
“It could be a lot better than this, Blix.” He kissed me again. I knew now that when he called me Blix it could mean any number of things, but it consistently meant that he was trying to lure me to do something he was well aware was no good.
“No.” I kissed him again. “This is enough.”
“I don’t mean sex. I could do things for you, to you…” he trailed off suggestively and rubbed against me harder.
The one thing I expected from the Saxon experiment was undivided lust, but now that I was in his arms, I didn’t feel comfortable with it. Flirting around lust was one thing, but acting on it was the ultimate vulnerability, and Saxon didn’t inspire the kind of comfort that made it okay to reveal what was vulnerable.
“No.” I shook my head.
He pulled away and let me plop to my feet with a thud. “Whoa. Shot down by super-virgin.”
It was mean, and it was meant to be. That was so typical of Saxon, and so completely irritating. He had let himself get close to me, which he loved and hated, but any form of rejection, even completely reasonable rejection, set him off and snapping. I stalked out of the dark little space.
“Wait!” he called, but not very loudly or adamantly. He knew he’d been an asshole, and he didn’t want a confrontation that would basically end with him admitting that fact. Again.
I jogged, then ran through the park, enjoying the pigeons that burst up and flew out of my way when I came close. I liked listening to the tiny kids swinging off of jungle gyms, calling out in their perfect babyish French. I liked the dark immigrants with coolers bungie corded around their backs, selling semi-cool sodas for a fraction of the official refreshment stand price. I liked the gypsies begging and dancing and singing here and there just outside of the doors of the major attractions.
I raced past stone steps being swept by elderly women, past churches with steeples that grazed the brooding clouds, past department stores with bored shop-girls leaned on the counters, flipping through magazines and grocery stores with fluorescent lights that looked too cold and sterile for Paris. I ran across the streets when there weren’t too many treacherously driven cars and made it down by the river, where the earth was muddy and sucked at my sneakers. I came back up off the river bank and ran around a garden, brown and shriveled in the cold except for some evergreen bushes. I ran across the streets again, playing with my life as I dodged cars that seemed like they sped up when the saw me, and wound up back on the gravelly walk of the park that was familiar. I ran in and out of every twist and corner turn until there wasn’t a corner I hadn’t chased.
Then there was a hand on my shoulder, and I screamed.
“Whoa, it’s me, Bren. It’s just me.” Saxon was doubled over, his breathing labored and wheezy.
“How do you keep up on the soccer field?” I put my hands on my hips and watched him choke and hack.
“I don’t have to chase the ball five miles straight,” he gasped.
I clicked my tongue. “ Tsk.That was not five miles. Maybe two.” I smiled at his physical weakness. “You need to stop smoking.”
“You need to listen when you run.” He breathed hard. “I called to you.”
“I’ve decided to tune out irritating noise.” I pushed at his shoulder so he wobbled over.
“I’m running after you like a lunatic to…apologize,” he said finally.
I looked at him critically, tilted my head and looked again. He was so hot. Ten times hotter than when I first met him, since I now knew what he looked like with no shirt on and when he was being actually sweet and when he was hard with lust.
But he was also a pain in the ass. I hadn’t appreciated how easy Jake was to be around until I decided to blow him off for someone with so much drama he should have his own acting company.
“Um, I don’t think this is working,” I said, unsure I was actually saying what I thought I was saying.
“Are you dumping me, Blix?” He was still gasping for breath a little. Wow, this was low of me. I could at least let him catch his breath. But something spiteful in me enjoyed seeing him suffer. More. “We’re not even completely dating.”
“Then I guess I’m not completely dumping you.” I rubbed his neck. “I just don’t want to play your game anymore, Saxon. It’s hard and boring and frustrating. And you’re so hot and smart, I thought you might be worth the stress, but this is just ridiculous.”
He gave me a sour look, and I think he must have mulled over ten different things to say, but finally he just shook his head and walked back the way he had come.
So I had successfully fallen in love, dated and dumped two incredibly hot, incredibly sought after guys in less than five months. Where would I go after this?