Sometimes I get you
Sometimes I don't understand
Sometimes I love you
Sometimes it's you I can't stand
Chapter 23 ~ Complicated
Bobby Cooper
It was the sound of my phone buzzing beside me that jolted me awake the very next morning. My hands scoured the bed in search of the annoying thing without much luck, but even then I refused to open my eyes to find it. It was long after the vibration had stopped when I managed to pull the device free from under the pillow and bring it to my face, slowly cracking an eye open to stare at the lit screen.
Four missed calls from Liza.
I peeled my eyes open even further, wincing at the incoming light glaring through the naked square windows, and sucking in a breath once my eyes readjusted to catch a glimpse of Ryan's frame occupying the entirety of the bed. I was pressed against the wall while he was carelessly stretched out with his leg draped over the lower half of my body, sound asleep.
We had slept together, shirtless, in a twin bed after spending the late hours of the night kissing, cuddling, and doing a lot more than I had ever bargained for. Because as much as I liked being with Ryan in this way, it wasn't the way things were supposed to be. It was scary and frustrating how our friendship had morphed into something it wasn't over the course of this past month, and I wasn't welcoming to that idea of change. We were supposed to be best friends, best guy friends, not whatever this was.
Somehow mustering the strength to lift myself up from the bed, I carefully maneuvered over Ryan's very still and lifeless body so as to not wake him up in the process of trying to get the hell out of here. My plans were short-lived because as soon as my right foot touched the large vintage rug adorning the room, Ryan tossed in his sleep, sending me over the edge and onto the floor, face-first.
Ryan sat up, suddenly, and peered over the edge of the bed to look at me with a growing smile on his face. "Well, good morning, genius."
"You weren't sleeping, were you?"
He raked a hand through his tufts of messy brown hair. "Nope."
I turned onto my side, letting out an agonizing groan as I used my hands to get myself back to my feet again. The annoying smile seemed to be a permanent feature of Ryan's face based on the way he refused to stop looking at me like he had just conjured up an evil plan, so I turned away from him so that I wouldn't have to feel uncomfortable by being ogled by my best friend. It wasn't long before Ryan crept off the bed and made his way to me. My body froze the moment he wrapped his arms around my torso, intertwining his fingers just below my navel, and buried his face into the crook of my neck.
I didn't know how to respond because I knew the response tormenting my mind would only hurt Ryan, and we had just gotten to a good place again. Sure, Ryan was smiling because he thought we were on the verge of a romantic relationship, but at least he was smiling. The past few weeks had been hell when I couldn't see Ryan smile like he used to, and the selfish part of me wanted to keep it there for as long as possible so I stood there, still as a statue, until another one of Liza's phone calls saved the day.
Breaking Ryan's hold on me, I ran over to the bed to retrieve my phone. I didn't plan on facing Liza so soon, but it was a better alternative than dealing with the growing change of atmosphere. "Hey," I said once I answered, feigning excitement.
"Hey..." There was a brief moment of silence before she cleared her throat and asked, "...where'd you go? Thought we were going to get breakfast together?"
I offered to spend the morning with Liza as a peace offering for making her upset with me, and I would've totally followed through on my promise if Ryan hadn't showed up. "Yeah, of course, we'll go. I went for a morning swim."
"Oh, did you need to clear your head?"
I brought my attention back to Ryan who was still looking at me with that dumb smile. "Yeah," I said, looking away, "something like that."
Liza ended the call after saying, "okay, well I'll get ready. See you soon," leaving me alone with Ryan again.
I wasn't in the mood to entertain Ryan's amused face, so I walked over to the far side of the room where Ryan's opened suitcase was located, carefully avoiding his gaze. I knelt to the floor and rummaged through the suitcase in search of something to wear because walking out of the cabin with just my boxers wasn't going to be a good look.
"So, you went for a morning swim, huh?" Ryan prompted with what I already knew was a sarcastic tone. When I didn't respond, he laughed. "In what? My saliva?"
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously. You don't like her. Why do you keep leading her on?"
I looked over my shoulder to meet his gaze. "I'm not leading her on."
"You fucked her last night," he retaliated, rather harshly.
"Okay, Ryan, I'm allowed to have sex. She knows what she was getting herself into—I didn't do anything this time."
Ryan folded his arms against his chest and his gaze narrowed in judgement, but he didn't bother to dwell on the issue any further; instead, his smile returned. "Yes, you're allowed to have sex. Speaking of which..." His voice had gotten dangerously lower and the space between us had practically nonexistent. I tried to focus my attention on the suitcase, but ultimately failed when Ryan's strong hands gripped my shoulders roughly.
"Ryan?" I prompted.
"Bobby," he whispered so softly that it stung my ears and made my skin prickle with apprehension.
He retracted his hands once I shrugged on one of his t-shirts and he continued to stumble back to allow me to put my legs through a pair of his jeans. "I promised I'd take Liza out for breakfast," I said in a voice that sounded like a parent trying to explain to their child why sharing was important.
A helpless look crossed his features, but he masked it by giving me a short nod. "Yeah, sure, but before you go..." His lips stretched into that same silly smile again, but this time, it was followed by him placing a tentative hand on my chest and leaning in to kiss me.
And just like that, I melted into him, suddenly disregarding my previous decision to play it low-key. Because truth was, there was nothing low-key about the way time seemed to come to a halt every time he kissed me. There was nothing low-key about the sudden pounding in my chest that mimicked the rhythmic drums in my head. There was nothing low-key about enjoying this.
"I'm gonna go," I broke the silence that ensued after the kiss. Ryan had been looking at me through his amber eyes in a way that I hadn't seen him do with other guys before. "Liza's waiting for me." I willed for him to stop, hoping that our telepathic bond would prove itself worthy in a moment like this, but after Ryan blinked himself out of the trance he was in, I started to feel bad for missing it.
"Sure, I'll walk you out." I started to wonder what I had done to make Ryan smile like this, but I wasn't given much time to probe because he was already ushering me out of the door.
Ryan's feelings for me were strong, that was obvious, but I couldn't understand why my past shortcomings were suddenly disregarded because of it. I went through hell and back trying to prove to Ryan that we needed to stay best friends and kissing him was all it took to get him back to normal?
I expected the journey back to friendship to be a rocky one, but this was easy. Almost too easy.
"God, finally, I've been waiting for—" As soon as we rounded the corner, Bryan was waiting for us in the living room with his hands thrown in the air in exasperation. He lifted himself from the huge sectional placed in the middle of the living room, serving as its own accent piece, and started to make his way to us. He stopped in his tracks when he made eye contact with me, and the happy-go-lucky grin he wore had quickly faded into oblivion, "—what the fuck."
My body grew tense, and Ryan must've noticed because he stepped in front of me, ever so slightly. "Bryan," he chastised.
"What?" Bryan's nose crinkled with disgust as he looked at me. "Don't 'Bryan' me. I slept on the fucking couch because I thought you were getting it down with River and you show up with ... him? Where's River, anyway? He's supposed to be "destroying" me at volleyball today."
I glanced down at Ryan who was quite obviously annoyed at the mention of River's name. We had done a lot last night, but talking wasn't one of them so I still hadn't found out if Ryan had done the deed with River.
"He left."
"What do you mean he left?"
If it wasn't already obvious by Ryan's stance, he had to further express his irritation by rolling his eyes. "He left," he repeated, followed by a dramatic sigh. I opened my mouth to speak because I, too, was curious about River's whereabouts considering he had no problem sticking around yesterday, but I quickly shut it once Ryan grabbed onto my hand to lead me in the direction of the exit.
"No," I heard Bryan gasp behind us. "No! Are you kidding me? You locked me out of the room because you were—you were with him!"
Ryan whipped around, pulling me along with him. "Shut the fuck up, Bryan."
"Wow." He shook his head at the both of us all whilst a smile came to his face, but it was clear this smile held anything but happiness behind it. "Congrats, dude. You finally found another way to manipulate my brother." I frowned to myself. I didn't have an ulterior motive for kissing Ryan last night, but with my track record, I couldn't blame Bryan for thinking that I had.
Damn, this entire "trying to be sensitive to other people's feelings" thing was a lot more annoying than I thought it would be.
Ryan didn't dignify his brother's reaction with a response; instead, he squeezed my hand even tighter and continued the walk to the front porch. "I'm sorry for him. He's just being an asshole."
I shoved my hands into my pockets and began to rock back and forth on my heels. "Ryan?"
"Hm?"
"I want to be friends."
He scoffed. "Aren't we already friends?"
"I know that you think last night changes things between us and it does, I guess, things are definitely different. But I don't want them to be."
Ryan stared at me for so long that I thought he was getting ready to slap me, but he eased my concerns by smiling that. same. fucking. smile. Didn't his face muscles get tired of doing that? "You're the one acting like things are different."
"I am?" I asked both him and myself.
"Ask yourself this, why would I want to be anything more than friends when we're so good at being friends?" he questioned with a lively tone that sounded way too fake to be remotely real.
"Are you being sar–"
"Yes," Ryan deadpanned, finally letting go of the smile and the fake enthusiasm in his voice. He stepped back into the cabin, and spat, "have fun with your girlfriend, dick," just before slamming the wooden door in my face.
____
Something about the sun was exceptionally hot today. It came beaming down on us with no mercy, causing tiny beads of sweat to drip down from my brow no matter how frequently I wiped my face with the back of my hand. Liza didn't appear to be bothered by the heat, or bothered by anything really, because her main focus was with holding onto my arm for dear life. I would've much rather been cooling my body down in the lake, or doing virtually anything else but strolling along the boardwalk with Liza by my side, but my wants were known to go unheard.
Our leisurely morning walk was filled with mostly gaps of silence because neither of us knew how to speak of what would happen next. We had broken up many times, and each time, I had found a new girl to bury my worries in until it was time for us to get back together again.
This time was different because I didn't move on with some nameless girl with no goals. I moved on with Ryan.
It shouldn't have been that hard to tell her, especially now that she knew where we stood. But for some reason, every time I parted lips to speak, the voice in the back of my mind told me that I couldn't say anything to hurt her spirit. She was already going through a lot as is, and I didn't want my selfishness to add to her plate.
I was trying out this new selfless Bobby thing, and I already decided I hated it.
"So..." Liza drawled out, breaking me away from my thoughts, "...last night was fun."
Images of the previous night flooded my mind, unfolding like a racy movie. I remembered the kissing, the hair pulling, the touching, and all the intimacy that Ryan and I shared. How could something feel so innately wrong, but so dangerously right at the same time.
"Liza." I stopped walking, and she followed suit, stopping to gaze at me with curious blue eyes. She rarely wore her hair down anymore; I missed seeing her long golden tresses, but their absence made me take notice of her round, full face and how cute it made her. "I don't want to hurt you."
She gave a non-committed smile. "Then why does it sound like you're about to?"
"I—"
"Bobby, look, I get it. You're not into me. You don't love me. I'm just sex to you."
I frowned. "What? No!" I reached out to comb my fingers between hers, but they didn't quite feel the way Ryan's did. "Of course I love you, but as a friend. I'm trying so hard to make myself realize that friends don't use their friends, and I don't want to use you. I want to be honest with you even if it makes you hate me."
"You've done a lot of shit to make me hate you," she chuckled. "Give it your best shot."
It was hard to express what I had been thinking, but I figured I couldn't hide from it if I decided to just blurt out, "I like Ryan."
Liza raised an arched brow. "Yeah? So do I."
"No, I like him like him."
She pulled her brows together to convey her confusion, and I watched as her lips twisted into a pout. "What do you mean?" she asked in a very reserved tone, giving off the impression that she knew exactly what I meant. When I met her question with silence, she began to shake her head violently. "No ... no ... oh my god—no! No wonder you don't like me ... you're gay! Oh my god, I'm so fucking dumb. I actually let myself fall for a..." She sucked in a breath and created a significant distance between us, all while her breathing became more labored.
"I'm not—I'm not gay," I refuted, slightly offended.
"You just said you wanted to fuck Ryan!" she practically screamed, garnering a few wandering stares.
"I don't remember saying that, actually," I laughed in an effort to lighten the mood, but it only made matters worse.
"You were thinking it!"
Was I?
"I'm so stupid." Her voice had grown quieter now as she began to mutter incoherent words to herself. She couldn't even bring herself to look at me because her eyes remained fixed on the wooden planks beneath us.
"Hey, hey." I started to reach out to her, but she stepped back, eyes wide with anger.
"Don't touch me!"
"Liza, come on–"
"Leave me alone!" she cried out. Her clear blue eyes burned of pure terror as she continued to back away from me, not even bothering to mind her surroundings. She crashed into a woman with a stroller who had immediately begun to fling profanities into the air, but even that didn't do much to pull her out of the crazed look she was sending my way.
Eventually, she broke the stare, and took off into the opposite direction as I watched her disappear into the growing crowd of people, wondering how I managed to ruin two important relationships without even trying.
I was trying to be a better person. I was trying to get people to understand that I was capable of putting their feelings first. I was trying to not fuck up this badly!
And in my sour mood, I aimlessly wandered around the boardwalk, hoping to arrive at some revelation on how to fix things. People expected too much from me, I had come to realize, and I was tired of hurting them when I couldn't meet their expectations.
What did Ryan expect me to do? Jump in his arms and marry him? I was embarking on unsafe and unpredictable territory when it came to my feelings for him, and the least he could've done was respect the fact that I've never fucking done this before! I've never liked someone in the way that I liked him, so expecting me to just embrace something so foreign was plain stupid and selfish of him.
What would be the point in pursuing anything with Ryan, anyway? He made it clear that I couldn't be a good friend. What made him think that I'd be a good lover? Look how easy it was to fuck that up with Liza.
My thoughts left me in a rut. I wouldn't have imagined myself in this position a month ago, and I found myself wishing that things could be like how they were back when my parents weren't refusing to talk to me, when Liza gave me a way to express my sexuality, and when Ryan was still willing to put up with my antics.
I wandered around the boardwalk until I stumbled upon a carnival game where someone was angrily throwing darts at balloons. His skill was quite impressive, actually, seeing that he was able to pop any balloon no matter how far or how high. He had gained quite a few eyes from on-lookers who were probably wishing for his demise, but he remained focus on the game.
After popping one of the green balloons, he ran a hand through his shaggy blond locks and outstretched his arms. It was only then I was able to see that the balloon boy was River, in all his glory.
In just mere seconds, I was by his side. "What are you doing here?"
River glanced over his shoulder to look at me with raised brows but once our eyes met, his face fell flat and void of emotion. He turned his attention back to his game. "It's you, again."
"Like a cockroach."
"What do you want?" he asked, bitter and cold. He threw a dart at one of the balloons in the far right and managed to strike it right at its center. The resulting noise made me jump a little.
"Are you okay, dude?"
He threw another dart and popped a balloon. "What do you think?"
I folded my arms against my chest and followed his every move. "I think you're taking out your frustration on these poor balloons."
He gave me a brief side glare—not long enough to show that he what's acknowledged me, but long enough to send a chill down my spine. "Again, what do you want?"
"I don't know what happened between you and Ryan last night, but I'm sorry for having a part in it."
He shrugged. "It's whatever."
"I think you should try to win him back."
He paused and turned his head ever so slightly to face me. "What's the point? He's in love with you. I'm not going to waste my time on someone who I don't have a chance with."
"Why not? Don't you like the chase?" I countered as a joke, but River didn't find it funny. "Look, I cant give Ryan what he needs. He wants a relationship and I don't know how I even feel about the whole thing and I'm not even gay so I know that's going to be a problem. I don't want to hurt him if I can't live up to his expectations."
"Why do you assume he has expectations?" River popped his last balloon and returned the darts to the game guide. "If anything, Ryan knows not to have his hopes up with you since you're just going to crush them, anyway."
I tried not to be hurt by that. "Wow, that's nice."
"It's the truth." He started to walk away, signaling that our conversation was over, but I trailed behind him, anyway. "Look, what you need to do is stop speculating and analyzing every little thing. You said it yourself: Ryan's great. Why can't you just let that be your driving force for why you're with him? Why are you trying to make things harder for yourself by trying to put a label on it. Just be there for him and be the friend that you say he needs. It doesn't matter if I'm good for him or not because he doesn't want me. He wants you, and you obviously want him if you're trying so hard to make him happy."
I hated how River was so good with words, especially right after getting his heart broken, but I'd be lying if I said they didn't pull at my heart strings a little.
I released a sigh that I had been bottling in for a while now. "I just don't want to fuck up."
River smiled and even though I knew he was upset over losing Ryan, I also knew this smile was a real one, much like the one he had given me when we first met. "Then don't."
___
a/n: This chapter is kinda of an "eh" for me. I hate writing about feelings, ugh.
Y'all should be happy. I have to get up for work in 3 hours and haven't gone to sleep yet just so I could give you guys this chapter. And now that I have ... what do you think is Bobby's next move?
Make sure you vote and comment or I will find you.
Until next time,
Lara <3