He's Come Undone Page 4

  In the restroom I peed, then checked myself in the mirror, wiping a few stray smudges of black from my cheeks.

  The night was a failure. He simply wasn’t interested. Kind of the response I was used to, but not looking like this. And yet his disinterest was welcome compared to the hungry wolf looks I’d gotten on the way to the restroom. I hated to even go back out there. I wished I’d brought my coat and bag so I could slip away.

  Instead, I headed back.

  When I opened the restroom door, the noise of the bar almost knocked me over. I hadn’t been aware of the way it had filled up while I’d sat with my back to the room, trying to draw Julian into conversation. But the place was packed, the majority of the patrons college guys being the logical guess. And like college guys on a Friday night, they were pretty wasted.

  I approached the bar. As I did so, I felt a hand caress my butt. Before I knew it, I was crushed between two guys like the filling of a sandwich.

  “Hello.” Guy in front, guy behind.

  The guy in front grabbed my boob. Just reached out and grabbed it.

  I slapped his hand away. It came right back, fingers biting into my arm this time. “Let’s move this out to my car.”

  “Let go of me,” I said through gritted teeth while trying to wrench my arm away. From behind me, another guy rubbed his crotch against my butt. I could feel his erection.

  In all of this chaos, the noise, the hands, the buzz in my head, I saw Julian and the bartender coming toward me, fighting their way through the throng of tightly packed people. Julian got there first and wedged his way between me and the boob groper.

  “Out!” the bartender shouted to the two guys, while pointing in the direction of the door.

  And the band played on…

  Or rather, the jukebox played on. The song was fast and primal and seemed to drive the scene instead of accompanying it. Hands came from behind and covered both my breasts while the hard-on guy ground himself into me and breathed his hot breath against the back of my neck. He was so wasted I doubt he even knew where he was, and doubt he even knew he was in a public place.

  Then all hell broke lose.

  Julian dragged the guy off me. Groper swung. Julian flew backwards, but not far because there were so many people. Someone grabbed him, held him. And maybe it wasn’t intentional, but his arms were pinned by the person supporting him, creating an opportunity for boob grabber, who began pummeling Julian in the stomach.

  This was totally instinctual and totally unscripted, but I screamed and jumped on boob-grabber’s back. Just kind of rode him like a horse, my legs wrapped around him as I grappled with his head, twisting and turning and kicking him in the sides, then finally the crotch.

  He let out a cry of pain and threw me off.

  By now the crowd had thinned, a large portion of the people running out the door. Which meant there was no one to catch me. I flew backwards, knocking over chairs and a bistro table until I finally came to a stop when I landed on the floor, my dress hiked up to my waist, legs spread, breasts threatening to pop out of my Victoria’s Secret bra.

  Off in the distance, I heard sirens that grew closer and louder until they finally stopped right outside the door as more people scrambled.

  “Here—”

  I looked up to see a hand, then an arm, then a chest, then the face of Julian Dye. His nose was bleeding, and his lip was cracked open. But for some weird reason that totally escaped me, he was smiling.

  I grabbed his hand and let him pull me to my feet. Once upright, I swayed, and he steadied me with a grip to both shoulders. He peered intently into my face. “You okay?”

  Too freaked out to speak, I only nodded.

  That earlier stuff that took place while we sat at the bar? That wasn’t the meet. This was the meet. Because he was looking at me. Seeing me with those intense blue eyes.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” I finally managed. “What about you? You’re bleeding.”

  He wiped at his face with the back of his hand. “I’ll live.” And then he laughed, as if his words really amused him.

  “You were great,” he said. “The way you jumped on that guy. That was some crazy great stuff. I’m pretty sure they don’t teach that in self-defense classes.”

  “Bareback riding 101.”

  I thought about how it must have looked, me, on the drunk dude’s back. I started laughing, and Julian started laughing, and pretty soon we were both laughing our asses off.

  Until we were interrupted by a couple of cops.

  The bartender vouched for us, and we got off without having to share much information.

  “I better go,” I finally said, looking around for my coat, finding it trampled on the floor. I picked it up, dusted it off, tossed it over my arm, then grabbed my bag.

  “Need a ride?” Julian asked.

  How a good fight changed things. “I can walk.”

  “Let me give you a ride. You shouldn’t be walking home in the dark.”

  He was probably right.

  “My name is Julian,” he said once we were in his car, heading toward St. Anthony Main and my loft.

  “Ellie.”

  “You don’t look like an Ellie.”

  “What do I look like?”

  “I don’t know. Something exotic. An exotic name.”

  He thought I should have an exotic name. That made me happy.

  Without thinking, I almost instructed him let me out at my exact address, but at the last minute I had him go another block, to another apartment complex. Better that he not know where I lived, because who knew what would happen when this whole farce blew up.

  My hand was on the door when he reached for me. I turned back, able to get a fairly decent look at him in the glow from the streetlamps. His hair was mussed, and his bottom lip was slightly swollen. Be still, my heart.

  “You were amazing back there,” he said.

  “So were you.”

  “I don’t think anything could compare to what just happened, but would you like to go for coffee sometime?”

  I remembered how Charlotte had told me to play it cool. I didn’t want to play it cool. “Maybe.”

  “I’ll bet you have a boyfriend. I understand, but it’s just coffee.”

  I smiled. “No boyfriend, but it’s not a good time for me. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s cool.” But I could tell he was disappointed, and I wondered if he’d ever been turned down.

  We said goodbye, and I got out of the car and walked toward the apartment building where I didn’t live, hoping to hell he pulled away before I got to the door. He didn’t. He was going to watch until I was safely inside.

  A door slammed, people laughed, and a young couple emerged from the side of the building. They punched in a door code, and I smiled and followed them in, turning and waving to Julian once I was inside the open door. He pulled away, and after his taillights were gone I stepped outside and walked to my place.

  Once home, once back in my room, I pulled out my phone and entered a message to Charlotte: He gave me a ride home. With an icky feeling in the pit of my stomach, I hit Send.

  Chapter 8

  ~ Ellie ~

  I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.

  That’s what my T-shirt said as I pretend jogged along the Mississippi River. The T-shirt with the Holden Caulfield quote was part of Operation Catcher in the Rye. Luckily I’d read Catcher in the Rye maybe ten times, so it would be easy to talk about the book.

  As my new jogging shoes slapped the surface of the trail made of a kind of blacktop that was supposed to be easy on a person’s knees, my brain wandered back to something I’d been struggling with—I didn’t like what I was doing. I wanted to quit.

  But I’d signed a contract.

  Yeah, but that was more just confidentiality. I could tell them it wasn’t working out, that he wasn’t attracted to me. A lie.

  Bloody
hell. What had I gotten myself into?

  I stopped and leaned forward, both hands braced on my knees as I pulled air into my burning lungs. How far had I gone? Two blocks? Three? I’d been on the trail for a half hour, running a little, stopping to catch my breath, taking off again, all in hopes of meeting Julian face-to-face.

  What I really wanted?

  This was crazy, but what I really wanted was to undo all of this. Go back to the day outside the bar when my hair was my real hair, and my clothes were my real clothes. And when he asked if I needed help, not run. Stay and talk to him.

  Oh, my God. So fast.

  It had happened so fast.

  I’d fallen for him.

  Like all of those other girls.

  And I wanted him to like the real me.

  Pathetic.

  Once I realized I couldn’t quit thinking about him, and once I realized I had a major crush on a guy who had sex with girls and then discarded them, I wanted out. I wanted to meet him with my real self so I could have sex and be discarded.

  No, wait.

  And anyway, he’d hate me. Hate me! Maybe hate was too strong a word. He wouldn’t be attracted to me. He’d never like the real me, and this was where my internal battle came from.

  Now, as I fake jogged, my mind kept creating these scenarios where he really did fall for me. But not me. The blond bombshell me.

  I decided I’d try to be myself, or as much myself as possible, given the situation. I thought this as I pretend jogged and kept my violet-contact-lens eyes peeled for Julian.

  I’d remain true to my core self. That’s it. I might pretend to jog, but I’d try not to say stuff I wouldn’t really say, and my reactions would be real.

  But then I chided myself and asked why I was taking this position. What did it matter? The end result would be the same if things went according to plan. Wouldn’t it be better if he got dumped by a made-up girl who wasn’t at all like me?

  Oh, God. There he is.

  On the trail. Jogging toward me with his curly hair and bare chest.

  The day wasn’t that warm, maybe sixty, but there was no wind and the sun was shining, and according to Charlotte he’d probably put in five miles at this point, and who needs a shirt when you have your own furnace? The idea of his endurance kind of made my knees go weak—unless that was a result of the fake jogging.

  I took off, trying to look like a pro, imitating the posture and arm position of joggers who’d whooshed past me. As the distance between us closed, I pretended to be focused on something in my head, going for the burn or whatever. La, la, la.

  There he was. Getting closer, looking, slowing.

  I kept moving.

  “Ellie?”

  By this time we’d met and passed.

  I stopped, turned, then acted surprised to see him.

  “Oh, hi!” I said.

  He smiled.

  There in his gray shorts and bare chest and lovely legs and curly hair. “You run,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s great.”

  He walked over to me. “I’ll run with you.”

  “That’s okay. Don’t turn around for me. I’m sure you have a certain route.”

  “I do, but I’d rather run with you.” He took a few strides, paused, waited for me. I took off, falling into step beside him. I had to get out of this somehow.

  We passed a park bench. I looked at it longingly.

  By the time we passed another bench, my lungs were on fire and I was trying to hide my panting. I couldn’t continue.

  So I began limping. I grimaced.

  He stopped.

  “Go ahead,” I motioned him on. “I’ve got a leg cramp. You keep going. I’ll be okay.” So much for the plan to keep my lying to a minimum.

  He didn’t leave. He walked over to my side, taking me by the elbow, leading me to a grassy area. “Keep walking,” he said. “You have to walk it off, otherwise it’ll get worse.”

  So I kind of limped around, then slowly began to walk normally. “I think I’m okay now,” I told him. “But I’m done for the day. You go on.”

  “I’m done for the day too.”

  This was not his normal pattern. His typical jog usually took him another few miles. I wasn’t the only liar here.

  He tugged the T-shirt from the waistband of his shorts and slipped his arms in the sleeves, then with both hands he pulled the shirt over his head and down his ripped torso.

  Sigh.

  “Hey.” He pointed to my shirt. “Catcher in the Rye.”

  I looked down at my boobs and the writing across my chest. “You’re the first person to point that out.”

  Not a lie, since I’d only been wearing the shirt for an hour.

  “I love that book.”

  “Me too.”

  Side-by-side, we walked to a park bench that overlooked the Mississippi and sat down. On the opposite bank, the leaves were a gorgeous red and orange, and the sunlight sparkled off the water. I could smell fall, and the moment felt like something profound, something that made my heart swell. And then I remembered my deceit, and the beauty of the day dimmed.

  “So, have you been beating up any more drunks?” he asked, smiling at me in an almost shy way. Or was that part of his thing? This shy, kind of sweet guy? Was that an act? Were we both acting? Because the shy sweet guy didn’t match the creep I’d signed up to trick. The heart I’d signed up to break.

  I couldn’t do this. I had to stop. I had to tell the girls.

  “I have a confession to make,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “I just started jogging.”

  “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re doing it. That’s the important thing. How many miles are you up to?”

  “Five blocks.”

  He burst out laughing. Like tossed his head back and let go. Then he looked at me with a smile and shake of his head. “I’ve never met anybody like you.”

  “You don’t even know me,” I pointed out.

  “I don’t know any female who’d jump on some guy’s back like you did the other night. And to rescue me.”

  “I just saw the need.”

  “That’s the thing. Most people would see the need and ignore the need. You never hesitated. You just dove in. That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. And you even did it in a dress. They say you never really know someone until you see how they respond in a crisis. That told me pretty much everything I need to know about you right there in the space of a few seconds. And not only that-—” He pointed to my chest.

  “You like my boobs?”

  “No, well, maybe. Yeah, but I’m talking about Catcher in the Rye. You like it enough to wear a quote on your chest. I’m taking a class on Salinger right now. Love it. I’m thinking of writing my term paper on fame and how it destroys some people.”

  If he only knew.

  “Do you think that’s why Salinger became a recluse and never published another novel?” I asked. “I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Catcher in the Rye hadn’t done very well. Would he have published more books?”

  “I don’t know. Think about how different things were back then. No social media. No paparazzi, at least not the kind we have today. But at a time when people were used to a lot more privacy, he was put under a microscope. And not only that. Think about the praise that was lavished on him for years. For the rest of his life, really. How does a person cope with that? He vanishes.”

  I nodded. Fame was a hard and weird thing. And it was another thing to have fame taken away. To go from being the center of everything, to being the center of nothing. You get used to the praise until it’s almost an addiction, until you need it more than food. “I think he became a recluse because he was smart. He knew he needed to remove himself from the adoration because that’s abnormal.”

  “I think so too.”

  I suddenly realized it was getting late. I needed to g
et back to where I’d stashed my bike before hitting the trail. “I’ve gotta go,” I said, getting to my feet.

  “How’s the leg?”

  I looked at him blankly, then remembered and took a few test steps. “Seems to be fine.”

  “That’s good. Drink a lot of water when you get home.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “I’d offer to give you a ride, but…” He smiled that smile again. “No car.”

  “That’s okay. Thanks.” I was walking away when he called after me. I stopped and turned.

  “Coffee? Sometime?”

  He was persistent, but I remembered the script. Play it cool. Play hard-to-get. “I don’t think so, Julian—that’s your name, right?”

  Small nod, mixed well with an expression of hope.

  “I just got out of a relationship,” I lied, “And I’m kind of enjoying my freedom.”

  “I don’t want to put you in a cage or anything. Just coffee.”

  “Thanks, but…” My words trailed off. I gave him a smile, then turned and walked in the opposite direction. A bit later, I glanced over my shoulder to see him running down the trail, away from me.

  Chapter 9

  ~ Ellie ~

  If this were a real script, we’d be at the montage of various “accidental” meets. Where oops, I almost crashed into him in the hallway outside his Salinger class, my books spilling to the ground, Julian helping me pick them up, finding more Salinger books. Franny and Zooey, Raise the Roofbeam, and For Esme. And oh, my—condoms.

  This heavy-handed staging was Paige’s idea. I would have red-inked it as being too obvious, but once she put the idea out there the other girls applauded while I rolled my eyes.

  And I have to admit it was interesting to see Julian’s reaction as he handed me the condoms. I’m pretty sure he blushed. Condoms and J.D. Salinger.

  Instead of stuffing them in my backpack, I deliberately held them in my hand, the books and the condoms, as we talked. Then, without a ruffle, I slowly put it all away.

  He asked if I liked movies.

  The M word was getting too close to my own territory, and I might have accidentally displayed an unscripted reaction, which was a flinch.