I Want It That Way

I stifled a whimper.

Oblivious to what a firestarter he was, he went on, “I miss showering after and fixing breakfast while mock-arguing about whether we should go grocery shopping or back to bed.” There was a tight, drawn cast to his mouth, as if those were memories of the girl who left him.

Damn. Intuition whispered that he’d be a different sort of sad if she was dead, haunted instead of laced with regret. He radiated self-recrimination in the angle of his shoulders and the way his gaze turned inward when he spoke of her.

I tried to distract him by offering an emotional snapshot of my own. “I’ve never had that. Not in high school for obvious reasons, and until this year, I lived in the dorm. Most people bitch about the lack of privacy, but...” My voice dropped to a shy whisper. “I liked it.”

“What?” His eyes snapped open, and he stared up at me, fascinated, fully in the moment.

I’d never told anyone this, not even Lauren. “Sometimes, when my roommate was drunk, she’d bring a guy back to our room. I always pretended like I was asleep, but I loved listening, watching the shadows under the covers, seeing them twist and move.”

Telling him that sometimes I got off was probably too much information. So I shut up, studying his expression. At least he didn’t look sad anymore.

“And I’m right back to wanting to fuck your brains out,” he said hoarsely. “Is this party ever going to end?”

In his sweats, it was obvious that he was telling the truth. Tipping my head back, I implored the universe for moral fortitude. “I can go.”

“I can take it,” he said softly. “I’m a pro at not getting what I want.”

Like a bite of poisoned apple, I swallowed the argument that the old frustration didn’t have to apply to me. “Back to things you miss?”

“Yeah. This will sound really specific, but...”

“What?”

“Little things. Like...I had a girlfriend in high school. We’d study on her bed, me lying down, her propped against the headboard reading. She had the habit of pulling my shirt up and running her nails lightly up and down my back. Drove me crazy, but I loved it.”

“It turned you on?” Maybe I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t resist.

He laughed. “Well, yeah. Goose bumps over my entire body. But I was sixteen. Walking to the bathroom got me hot.”

“Fair point.” I desperately needed a change of topic, or I’d have to ask him to take a cold shower. “Is Ty short for Tyler?”

“Yeah. But it’s my last name.”

“What’s your first?”

“Daniel. Your last?”

“Conrad.”

Glancing down, I caught him shaping the syllables with his mouth, and I was tempted to tell him that my middle name was Rose, just to see him do it again. But I had to save some secrets for next time, or he might get bored. From there, I diverted the conversation to music because I couldn’t take more sex talk; I was on the verge of vibrating, and if the sparks popped any brighter between us, we’d burn his apartment down. Small comfort, but at least I knew why it wasn’t happening.

An hour later, he fell asleep in my lap, and fifteen minutes after, I dozed off, too. Later, the silence roused me, the absence of vibrations and cessation of music. Somehow we were tangled together, him on his back and me on his chest, though I didn’t remember shifting. He smelled incredible, so much that I surreptitiously rubbed my cheek against him, breathing in honey and shea butter along with the clean, cottony scent of his shirt.

My heart ached as I mustered the resolve to move. One breath, another, listening to his heartbeat, then inch by inch, I slid out of his arms, trying my damnedest not to rouse him. He stirred once, his hand tangling in my hair. I froze. It would kill me if he woke up and saw me leaving when I wanted so badly to stay.

But I can’t. I never can. When Sam wakes up, I can’t be here. Ty’s sacrificed so much for him. He’ll never change his mind about us. And I should probably be grateful for his common sense. Yet half-strangled yearning swept over me like a tidal wave, and I shivered with the force of it while Ty let his hand drop. Swallowing those feelings, I pressed a ghost of a kiss over his heart, and I rolled away, grabbed my shoes and purse and tiptoed to the door. I was a mouse creeping out of his apartment, though I did silently test the doorknob to make sure it locked behind me. No way to turn the dead bolt from this side, so that would have to do.

I let myself in upstairs and found the apartment completely trashed. To get to my room, I stepped around four people, two of whom weren’t wearing any pants. There was nobody in my bed, at least, and it looked as if Lauren had defended it before passing out in the closet. She was drinking more these days, but I didn’t know if I should mention it. Maybe she’d just tell me I was no fun. The last time I brought it up, she said, All you do is work, Nadia. Some of us want to live a little. Sighing, I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and then stumbled to bed, wrecked by the intensity of the night.

Yet despite gritty-eyed exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep. For half an hour, until the glowing numbers on my alarm clock read 4:30 a.m., I shifted and rolled, until I gave in to temptation. Feature by feature, I built Ty’s face in my mind’s eye, complete down to the tiniest detail like the faint cleft in his lower lip and the tiny, nearly imperceptible scar that bisected his left eyebrow. Once he was there with me, I dipped two fingers into my panties. One stroke, two, three, God, it was good, and I was still so slick. As the clock ticked over, I came in silence.

My whole body went limp, and I passed out a few seconds later.

The next morning, I woke in a panic, thinking I was late for class or work, then I fell back with a muffled groan. A glance at my phone told me it was just past eleven. Lauren propped herself on an elbow, looking as miserable as I’d ever seen. At some point, she must’ve crawled from the closet into bed.

“I can feel my heartbeat in my lips,” she whimpered.

“That can’t be good.” I knew to whisper.

Since I wasn’t hungover, I headed into the bathroom to wash my hands, and then I got her a cup of water and some ibuprofen. “You want toast?”

“Just let me die. You’ll have the room to yourself then.”

“We can’t afford the place without you,” I teased. “Plus...I love you too much. So what’ll it be, toast or crackers?”

“Crackers.”

I padded to the kitchen and was pleased to find Max cleaning. He’d also shooed out the floor surfers. “You weren’t kidding when you said you’d be ambitious once school started.”

“I noticed that you bugged out early last night. You okay?”

“Liar. You were banging Courtney up against your door when I left.”

He grinned. “Okay, so maybe I didn’t exactly notice. Lauren told me.”

“Yep, I’m good.” I opened the cupboard and grabbed a pack of saltines. “Have you seen Angus yet today?”

“Think he’s still in bed.”

As I nodded, I carried the breakfast of champions to Lauren. “Here, these should make you feel better.”

“You realize they’re made of flour and salt, not magic?” she asked.

“Don’t make that face, drunkie. You’re just mad because I’m not sharing your misery.”

A reluctant smile formed as she nibbled the cracker. “You may have a point. A tiny one.”

“Microscopic,” I said.

“Do you ever wish we were still in Sharon?” It was such a non sequitur that I turned on my way to the door, brows raised.

“Not really. But I miss my family.” That wasn’t the same thing.

Lauren’s expression shifted. “What do you think Rob’s doing night now?”

My brother didn’t rank high on my list of things to ponder on Sunday morning. But if he ran true to form... “Probably having brunch with our folks. Why?”

“Idle curiosity. I’ve been thinking about home lately, wondering what people are up to. Krista texted me the other day. We were talking about the old days.”

After a moment’s thought, I remembered her as a mutual friend who’d moved away before graduation, though I was bad at keeping in touch. “How’s she doing?”

“I dunno, we talked more about high school. Remember the party where Rob punched Kent Walker?”

“Not really,” I admitted. “Rest, I’m going to help Max with the fumigation.”

“Wait, he’s cleaning up his own mess?” She sat forward, then clutched her head. “I think hell has actually frozen.”

“He couldn’t be a pain in the ass forever.”

Lauren was still mumbling in wonder, saltines in hand, when I left the room. It took us three full hours to make the apartment look even remotely close to how it did when we moved in. Which wasn’t that long ago.

Angus got up just as we finished, and Max scowled at him. “Don’t even pretend you weren’t awake before now.”

I didn’t feel like refereeing, weird as it was for Max to complain about someone else slacking. So I said, “Nothing valuable broken, no stolen furniture and no vomit in my shoes. This went pretty well, huh?”

Max nodded. “But I think I’m done hosting for the semester. This shit is exhausting. Someone else can deal with the mess next time.”

“No argument from me,” I said.

By this point, I desperately needed a shower, so I took one quietly, as Lauren was still asleep. My hair went up in a ponytail, then I put on sweats and went in search of lunch. As if to apologize for shirking, Angus was making a beef stir-fry while Max waited on the other side of the breakfast bar.

“That smells fantastic.” My stomach made a weird noise.

Max teased, “You ate a T. rex, didn’t you? That sound can’t have come from a girl.”

Plunking down beside Max, I watched Angus cook through the open space over the counter. Our stools were cheap plastic, though, nowhere as nice as the ones at Ty’s place. And once his name crept in, I couldn’t banish it. That was a gateway thought, leading me to wonder where he was, if he’d taken Sam to the park, a movie or the zoo. I’d give a lot to be with them right now, but he’d made it superclear where the boundaries lay.

In under half an hour, Angus had the food on the table. I ate like it had been days. He didn’t strut his culinary prowess often, but he’d apparently learned to cook from their housekeeper. Likely he could’ve afforded this place on his own, but he didn’t want to live by himself, and he wasn’t ready to move in with Josh yet.

“It was delish, thanks.” I scraped my fork across my plate twice, saddened that there was no more food.

Max agreed, “Yep, awesome grub. I’m not even holding a grudge anymore.”

“That was the plan.” Angus grinned.

I killed the rest of the afternoon on assigned reading and coursework. By evening, Lauren was ambulatory—without barfing up her guts—so that was a good sign. I heated up a plate for her and then put on my shoes.

Max let his gaze drift over me in the insolent, up-and-down elevator look that made me want to punch him. “Hot date?”

Since I was in sweats and an old T-shirt that read The Penguin Ate My Homework, he was obviously being a tool. “With the elliptical machine. I haven’t been to the fitness center here since we moved in.”

Lauren said, “It’s nowhere near as nice as the one on campus.”

“And it smells,” Angus added.

I tilted my face heavenward. “Why are they trying so hard to crush my motivation?”

“Because secretly you’d rather sit on the couch and watch TV with us, instead.” Max patted the cushion next to him invitingly.

Shaking my head, I had to laugh. “That’s not a secret.”

“Where did you go last night, anyway?” Lauren wore a curious, quizzical look.

“Now that’s a secret.” Smirking, I swept out of the apartment amid vocal protests. Someone even threw a shoe after me for being such a tease; it thunked hard against the door as I jogged away and down the stairs.

I kept up the pace until I reached the clubhouse, though that was a big name for such an unimpressive building. There was someone on the elliptical, so I went for the treadmill, instead. I put in twenty minutes until the guy finished, and then I shifted. Forty minutes later, I was ready to call it a night. Swiping away the sweat, I headed back.

In the streaky purple twilight, Ty was helping Sam from his car seat. After last night, I wasn’t sure how to act, so I waved and kept walking. They responded with raised hands, a bright smile from the kid and a hungry stare from Ty that made my panties glow in the dark.

I won’t survive this, will I? But the fireworks will be spectacular.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Monday started strong.

When the professor called on me in my first class, I knew the answer and avoided his caustic wit. If you weren’t on point, Lynch was known for saying things like, “So you want to teach yet you can’t be bothered to prepare for my class. In five years, I hope you’re blessed with students exactly like you.” The rest of the day went just as well.

I grabbed a sandwich at a convenience store on the way to Rainbow Academy and ate it in the car. Guilt flared when I remembered what Ms. Parker had said about taking care of myself. So far, I was doing a top-notch job.

At the day-care center, I parked in my usual spot and ran in. The director waved. “I need you in Mrs. Trent’s room. Her assistant called in sick.”

“Got it.”

“Nadia...I was wondering if you’d be interested in a permanent classroom assignment? This is the fourth time Elaine has called off in two weeks. I don’t think she’s going to work out.”

“You’d put me in Mrs. Trent’s room?”

Mrs. Keller nodded. “It’s a good placement. Four-year-olds aren’t as trying as the twos.”

“Could I still work a flexible schedule?” I hesitated, wondering how Ty would feel about me spending that much time with Sam.

“Sure. Instead of hiring a full-time assistant to replace Elaine, I’ll advertise for a floater to cover the hours when you aren’t around.”

And two part-timers meant she didn’t have to pay benefits. But I couldn’t blame her for cutting costs where she could. Times were tough.

“Okay, sign me up.”

“Excellent. I’ll have a couple of things for you to sign when you finish up today.”

Because certain ratios had to be observed—for four-year-olds, it was 12:1, children to adult—they had the assistant director, Jan Greenly, in the classroom with Mrs. Trent. The kids were doing free play, a short period after lunch, which I’d just missed, and Mrs. Trent was tidying up the room. Miss Greenly looked relieved when I showed up, and she hurried to her office without looking back.

Mrs. Trent laughed. “That woman much prefers paperwork to dealing with kids. So I hear you’re joining us, going forward?”

“Wow, Keller was sure of me, huh?”

“To be honest, I asked for you.”

I was flattered, but... “How come?”

“You’re patient, good with kids, and you haven’t missed a day in the last year.”

“Thanks. What can I do to help?” Sometimes I wished I was more like Lauren, less known by traits like steady and dependable. But I’d worked hard for my reputation, living up to parental expectations, and mostly I didn’t have time for emotional turmoil. Which was why Ty constituted such a dangerous side road in my neatly mapped life.

“Wipe down the tables. Once we’re done, start setting up the cots for nap time.”

“In the closet, right?”

“Yep. Thanks a lot.”

“Not a problem.”

I got the spray bottle and washcloth, then scrubbed away all signs of lunch. While I was working, Sam ran up to me. “Nadia! You’re my new teacher?”

“Mrs. Trent’s in charge. I’m her helper.”

“Can you help me, too?” Gazing up at me, he looked so much like Ty that I couldn’t stand it. I resisted the impulse to ruffle his hair.

“Sure, if you need something. Do you?”

“Not right now. I was just checking.” Cute overload.

He chattered while I sanitized tables and did a quick head count, not easy with the kids running around. Nineteen. That meant it would be like Tetris, getting all of the cots on the floor without placing them so close that the kids could poke each other, and I also had to leave some kind of path to the door. Crazy as it seemed, as long as there were two of us in here, Mrs. Trent could take five more students. I just didn’t know where the cots would go.

While I prepared, Mrs. Trent said, “Okay, time to clean up.” They put away toys with the usual giggling and pushing, nothing serious. She had the routine down.

“I have to potty,” a little girl said.

“Yep, it’s that time,” I answered with a glance at Mrs. T. “Should I get that started?”

“Please.”

It was a lot easier than in the twos, where there might be diaper changes. In here, the kids went by themselves, but would occasionally come out with pants around their ankles, and I set them to rights then helped them wash their hands at the tiny sink. Getting nineteen pre-K kids to pee and clean up took twenty minutes, minimum.

“All right, everyone, get your nap-time bags from your cubbies and get on your cots. I’ll read one story, then it’s lights out.” Mrs. Trent motioned toward the cupboards.

Nobody complained, though Sam looked worried. Maybe he’s scared of the dark? I felt like telling him that it wouldn’t be pitch-black in here, even with the blinds partly closed. The goal was to relax the kids, not freak them out through sensory deprivation. But he went obediently to his cubby and pulled down a tiny Hulk backpack, then he carried it to a cot near the windows. The kids didn’t seem to have assigned spots, and there was only a little bickering before they got out pint-size pillows and blankets. A few had stuffed animals, and I stifled a smile when Sam dragged out his dog-eared bear. As they got comfortable, Mrs. Trent produced a copy of Crazy Town Upside Down.

She was a fantastic reader, exciting and expressive. I noted some things I’d like to incorporate in my own teaching style. Though I’d be working with older students, some might have a similar mental age. Once she closed the book, I went around doing tuck-ins as she turned on a soothing CD. Next she pulled the blinds three-quarters closed and I hit the lights. The room was pleasantly dim, but I could still see all of the little faces. Some of them closed their eyes right away; others were obviously wrigglers who would be begging to get up in fifteen minutes.

Mrs. Trent and I moved off to a corner, where we sat on a pile of rugs. From this vantage point, we could spot potential trouble before it got out of hand. I started to whisper a question, but she held up a hand and gave me a notebook, instead. Good thinking. Our talk would only encourage the kids to chatter instead of sleep.

So I wrote, What do we do with those who refuse to nap?

She replied, Wait half an hour, then give them a book. Per regs, they have to rest quietly for two hours. We can’t make them sleep.

Gotcha.

She added, Usually, I go to lunch now, but I’ll stay for the first hour, until most of them fall asleep.

Okay, thanks.

If a kid gives you problems after I leave, rub his back. That sometimes works. If it escalates to tantrum territory, call me. Then she scrawled her number. I’ll come in to regulate.

The kids were fine, though. Fifteen of them dropped off in the first twenty minutes, and another succumbed as Mrs. Trent slipped out to take a well-deserved break. As if that was his cue, Sam popped up on his cot. Oooh, you little faker.

He peered around the room. “Nadia?”

I navigated through sleeping children, afraid he’d wake them up, and it would be a huge, chaotic mess when Mrs. Trent got back. Kneeling down beside him, I whispered, “What is it?”

“I can’t sleep. There’s too much breathing.”

“Do you want to look at a book?” If I’d known he was still awake, I’d have offered him one earlier.

“Okay.”

He was close enough to the window that I wasn’t worried about his eyesight. I got him the book Mrs. Trent had read earlier, thinking it might help if he was familiar with it, since I didn’t have a clear sense of Sam’s reading aptitude. Some four-year-olds could sound out words like first graders—others were still struggling to remember what sound each letter made.

“Can you sit next to me?”

Without answering, I slid down, wedged between Sam and the wall. I could still see all the other kids, though. He turned onto his stomach and opened the book. At this point, I wasn’t sure it was even worth trying, but I followed Mrs. Trent’s advice and rubbed his back in little circles. Honest to God, I was surprised when he shoved the book to the side and flopped on his pillow. Sam gave me a sleepy smile and then closed his eyes. His breath evened out, joining the rest of the class. It was silly how happy it made me, as if I’d scaled Everest or invented a lifesaving vaccine.

On tiptoe, I went back to the carpet pile, and when Mrs. Trent flipped the lights on, the kids were bright-eyed, ready to put their stuff away. She got them settled for snack while I wiped down and put away the cots. Afterward, another potty break, and then they lined up so they could take their turn playing outside. In a month or so, this ritual would include jackets, then hats and scarves, and eventually, they’d lose outdoor playtime to frosty weather. Usually, I’d have been pulled away by now, so it was interesting to see how routine made things easier.

Mrs. Trent led them out the side door and onto the playground. I came last to make sure nobody was left behind. Sam immediately ran for the slide while some kids raced for the swings, and others jumped on wobbly bees and dragonflies. I circulated, giving a push here, admiring a rock there, until the break was over. When we took them inside, it was almost four, and time for more face-and hand-washing.

While I set out crayons and pictures to color, Mrs. Trent sat down to write up her daily reports, detailing any problems or milestones. I got the kids settled and sat with them while they created masterpieces for their parents, who started arriving half an hour later. I shook a lot of hands, confirmed that I would be replacing Elaine part-time and made people happy by confessing that I was a college junior, studying education. By 5:15 p.m. we were down to thirteen students, and Sam was one of them.

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