Mine, All Mine Ch. 03

Her dad grinned. "Are you writing my name on your notebooks, Karen?" Her mom lobbed a wet rag at him. "OK, OK," he said, deflecting the rag, "yeah. I'd want to know about it. Guys don't do 'hints', kiddo." He turned a meaningful eye in her direction.

I think we might be beyond 'hints', at this point.

"See?" her mom said. "Just find out whether he and this girl are still together or not, and then if they're not, tell him."

Taylor's mouth made a skeptical line.

"Get it over with," she went on, undeterred. "Like ripping off a bandage. If it's meant to be, it'll be." Her dad's head was bobbing in slow agreement with this rationale.

"Well," Taylor said, unconvinced, "we'll see, anyway. I have to get him in the same room as me, and so far every time I text him to do our normal things, he's always got some excuse."

"You whippersnappers and your texting. Do you know where he lives?" her dad asked. She blinked at him. "Then just go over there. Just show up at his door."

"That's weird stalker stuff, Dad."

He puffed up his chest in mock affront. "Back in my day we called it 'courting'. Why I remember when I went a-wooing your mother—"

Her mom was already at his side, laughing and slapping at him. Despite her parents' lives being kind of a train wreck, Taylor had to admit, they were stupid for each other.

Show up at his apartment. It was creepy, but how long was he going to go on avoiding her? Maybe her folks were right. Maybe she could just put the issue to bed in one nerve-wracking confrontation. Then she could get on with life.

Maybe.

* * * *

Taylor was glaring at the metal and concrete staircase that led up to Ian and Nick's apartment with an intensity that, if she were a little girl in a Stephen King novel, would have already burnt it to the ground along with the attached building and pretty much every shrub in a three-mile radius.

Necessity and apprehension alternated in her mind with such rapid succession they became one: a single, stomach-fluttering layer of ice between her and any sort of decisive action.

Walt sat in his parking space, patient and solid as he always was, while she fidgeted in the heat. She needed to do something sooner rather than later, whether that was bite the bullet and head upstairs, or fire the Jeep back up and leave. If Nick or Ian came outside for any reason while she was still sitting there, it would just start them asking questions she didn't want to make up answers for.

Her mom was right. She just needed to tell him. Stagnating away in uncertainty in a world of evasive text messages was a state of affairs with a short half-life. If he wasn't into it—wasn't into her—she'd know, and then could make decisions from there.

Easier said than done.

She sighed. Jangled her keys in her lap some more.

"All right, god damn it," she said to the whole effed-up situation. The purple Gatorade went with her as she got out of the Jeep, for security blanket purposes.

Her sandals slapped on the sidewalk as she made her way toward the looming stairs. A handful of grackles in one of the complex's twiggy trees chittered away, probably taking bets amongst themselves on how soon she would come running out of there.

By the time she made it to the landing, the hum of nervous tension in her stomach had migrated outward to become an unnecessary cold sweat at the small of her back.

This is ridiculous.

Taylor banged her knuckles on the door before she could talk herself out of it.

There were thumping footsteps from inside and her chest felt like it was whirling down a drain. The deadbolt clunked, and then the lock.

"Oh." Nick stood there, blinking at her. "Hey, Sharpie."

She hadn't yet decided if she was disappointed or relieved that it hadn't been Ian.

"Hey, Nick."

He held the door open, his facial features still trying to process her presence. "Umm ..."

She couldn't blame him. Taylor tended to be about as spontaneous as your average tectonic plate. A geological age of nothing, and then suddenly the earth shakes and people are running around screaming and realizing they should have paid for better insurance. It explained the rousing success of her New Year's Eve kisses and wilderness blow-jobs.

"Is Ian here?"

"Uh, yeah," Nick said, snapping back to reality, "he's here. Ian!"

He ventured back into the apartment as he yelled for his roommate, leaving the door open for Taylor to follow. She shut it behind her and set her keys on the familiar kitchen counter. Landlords these days liked to call them "breakfast bars", but that was probably just an excuse to charge more rent.

"Yeah, what?" The bass of Ian's voice echoed from down the hallway. Her heart answered it back with a lurch.

"Your other girlfriend's looking for you," Nick called as he plunked himself down on the couch and started tugging on socks. Ian's roommate had referred to her as his "other girlfriend" for at least the last couple of years in a teasing reference to how often they hung out, but today the nickname jabbed a stick into a number of uncomfortable areas.

"She's looking for me? Well then why's she calling y—oh." Ian meandered around the corner of the hallway, scrubbing his hair dry with a towel. Shirtless. "Hi."

Holy Christ, look at him.

Because this was helpful. Taylor swallowed to wet her throat.

"Hey."

Splendid. Brilliant opening line.

Ian glanced down at himself and then turned to disappear back down the hall without a word. She hoped it was just to get a shirt and not him resorting to literal, physical avoidance. Well. Perhaps she wasn't hoping too badly for the shirt.

Over on the couch, there was grumbling and yanked shoelaces. Sunlight reflected off the white wall of the patio and bounced in through the sliding glass door to glare off the surface of their coffee table.

"Nick, are you going to work right now?" It was kind of late in the day for him to still be home.

"Yup," he said. "Inventory. They got the managers working overnight."

Taylor made a commiserating noise of disgust.

"This is me trying to contain my enthusiasm," he said as he stood to tuck in his polo with a grimace.

"Any chance you want to drop the rent check off on the way down?"

Her head swiveled toward the sound of his voice. Ian had emerged again, this time in a green Led Zeppelin t-shirt. Water droplets he'd missed with the towel dappled the fabric over his shoulders a darker color.

"Yeah, OK," Nick said, fishing an envelope out of a stack of papers on the counter. He looked from Ian to Taylor and back again while jamming his wallet into a pocket, and appeared to be about to ask a question before thinking better of it. A novel move, for Nick.

"All right, guys," he said instead, "I'm out." He cut Taylor a casual salute. "Good seeing you, Sharpie. We should all go hang out, soon. Get his moping ass out of the apartment." A thumb jerked in Ian's direction.

"Right?" It was an effort to make her smile and laugh seem normal. "See ya."

The door closed behind Nick with a ka-chunk, and now there was her and Ian. And silence.

It was time.

"So," she said, beginning like a master orator. "Um ... hi?"

"So ..." He took the spot Nick had occupied on the couch, crossing an ankle over the opposite knee and leaning back against the cushions. His eyes flicked around to make a point of taking in his living room with her in it. "What's going on?" The question came out curious instead of accusatory, and her shoulders loosened a fraction in relief. He wasn't angry, so at least that was something.

"OK." She prodded her petrified self out onto the edge of the diving board. Here we go. "Well, I mean ... I know a lot of stuff has gone down in the last couple weeks and"—her hands made a swirling gesture, trying to stir up words for her—"I didn't want to be all up in your business because of the whole thing with Amy. I mean, I'm sure you had enough on your plate already, but ..." Nope. Back to flummoxed again.

Bitch, didn't you run through this whole thing in your head like, a thousand times? Why are you freaking out?

"Buuut?"

She hated the way he sounded like he was trying to be patient with her. It was horrible. They'd never had to act this way around each other.

The bottle of Gatorade was a much-needed distraction. She unscrewed its lid and took a swig, buying time.

Just try to get back to zero. Then you can go from there.

"Ian, are we still friends?" she blurted in a rush.

Her words seemed to collapse some supporting structure in him, and he crumpled forward at the waist for a moment to push a frustrated hand back through his damp hair.

"Of course we're friends, Taylor," he said as though it were obvious. The inertia of his response propelled him up out of the couch again, and he moved toward her. Or, more accurately, toward the kitchen. Taylor was familiar with the sort of exasperation that wouldn't let a body sit still in one place.

"Then why do I feel like you're avoiding me?" There. The bandage was off. She was her own, blunt self again.

"I'm not avoiding you," he said, retrieving a bottle of water from the fridge. "OK, not you specifically." His hand made a negating motion with the white plastic lid. "I've pretty much been avoiding everybody."

Aaaand back to the couch. Nervous energy from his inability to settle anywhere in the room was bleeding over into her. The corner of the label on the bottle in her hands was sticking up, and she pulled at it, discouraged by her inability to meet his eyes.

"Sooo, you and Amy ..." Who the hell knew how to finish a thought like that? This had all seemed so cut and dried on her way over here.

"That whole thing is done," he said. "Done." She looked up in time to see his green eyes go flat in a way that said 'that whole thing' was locked away behind fifty deadbolts and a retinal scanner. By the angle of his eyebrows, she wasn't about to go asking for the proper security clearance, either. Her shoulders slumped.

"I'm sorry, Ian."

"Why should you be sorry?" he said, setting down the water and leaning back to cross his arms over his chest. "You're not the one who stabbed me in the back."

The words themselves and their tone struck her. A couple weeks ago, Ian had been making excuses for Amy. He'd been trying to backtrack and see if he couldn't find some other way through the maze of their relationship again and again, hoping to find the proverbial cheese somewhere. He'd been giving the benefit of the doubt. Really doing the work.

But then Amy had crossed a line. At first blush, this reached facepalming levels of obvious. But another, more subtle thing it told her was that Ian was the sort of person who set boundaries—even if he kept them to himself—and once anyone put a toe on the wrong side of the line, he'd slash the ropes and the whole bridge, with all that remained of his goodwill, would take the silent, haunting fall into the mists of the canyon below. He'd stand there and watch it go, and then dust off his hands and walk away forever.

Not only was Taylor seeing her friend as a more formidable human being than she'd originally given him credit for, but she also felt low on his behalf that someone had managed to push him so far.

All of her words seemed inadequate, but she tried, at a halting pace, to at least say something.

"I'm just ... sorry you had to have that happen to you. I mean, I know you said you guys were having problems, but ..." The Gatorade label suffered more tearing. "I just don't understand why some people have to ... be so dramatic. It's fucking childish." She was picking up steam. "Like, why not just say, 'Hey—I don't think we're right for each other?' Why the need to be a jerk about it?"

"I don't know," he said, giving a small, distant shake of his head as he stared across the room at a spot on the carpet.

Taylor refused to let his faraway look ruin her momentum.

Just get us on track. Get us on track and then tell him.

"Look. I know it's weird between us," she said, putting the bottle down and planting her hands on her knees, elbows out to the sides, steeling herself to forge ahead. "Hell, I'm the one who made it weird. I guess I'm just trying to figure out whether we're going to be able to interact like normal human beings again." She lobbed the ball into his court and sat waiting for anything he might serve back to her.

"It ... it is a little weird." Except that. Oh god. That waver of apprehension in his voice. "And don't think I haven't been thinking about it, on top of the whole Amy disaster. I'm not ... really sure how to talk about it." His lame finish had him looking at her knee, which seemed the closest he could get to her face.

He had been thinking about the blow-job? And he didn't know how to talk to her about it?

Oh no. Oh no, no no no no.

A million red and yellow signs popped up in her head, lights flashing in warning: Detour! Go Around! Take the canyon road!

Taylor had seen this sort of face before. This body language. It was the look of someone who was afraid their next words would hurt feelings.

Oh Jesus fuck.

Her mental backpedaling would have left bruises and scrapes, had it happened in the flesh. This was not the time—not the time!—to be admitting anything. Not feelings, not crushes. The whole friendship would be forfeit if she went there; she could taste it on the air.

Her coward of an internal copilot yanked the wheel out of her hands, started spilling out the lies, the bandages.

"Ian, I meant what I said back at the mine." No you fucking didn't. "That was one friend scratching the other's back, that's it." The fuck it was! "I realize the whole thing was probably tainted by everything else that happened that afternoon, but ... you don't have to worry that I'm, like, trying to convince you to be my boyfriend, or something." Don't say it, Taylor. Don't. "I just want things to go back to how they were." It was all she could do to contain her groan of utter failure.

For the briefest moment, and one she immediately consigned to the wild graspings of her imagination, Taylor thought she read disappointment on his face. The jaws of reality snapped shut on it, however, and it was gone. She saw him visibly relax, as though some grueling contest had ended.

"Yeah," he said, worrying a palm over the back of his neck. "Yeah, that's kind of what I was worried about, too." She felt her soul sink into the barstool, and when he managed to meet her gaze, it made her want to die. "I guess I just didn't know what it was going to be like, you know? If it was going to be all awkward seeing you again. I think I just built it into this crazy scenario in my head, if that makes any sense."

Taylor wouldn't know anything about building up scenarios in her head. Nope. Nothing at all. It took considerable effort to keep a smile ratcheted into place.

"See!" said her traitor's upbeat voice. "That's exactly what I was doing! But the other way around."

Ian made a face. "You were worried I was going to try to get romantic with you?"

If you cry in front of him, I will never forgive you.

"I mean,I don't know! How can I tell anything when you're avoiding me like the plague?" Such a good actress.

"All right, all right. That's fair," he said, nodding. "I'll give you that."

"OK." She made a spreading gesture with her hands, as if that settled the matter. "So can we just calm down now?"

"Yeah." It came out with a light chuckle. "OK."

It's not OK. Nothing is OK. None of this was the plan.

"Good. So we're friends again?"

He gave her a disbelieving smile. "Sharpie, we were never not friends."

Something made a fist in her chest and squeezed. She wanted to run.

You will not. You will stay right here and get used to this. Because this is how it's going to be.

"All right, then," she said, cheer in her voice as she dragged the coffin uphill. "Now that we got that figured out. It's Tuesday."

"Tuesday," he repeated, uncomprehending on multiple levels.

Sweet Lord, kill me now.

"You want to go get tacos?"

* * * *