LOVEHATE

20

I stared at his text. I was exhausted and still mildly drunk, but I was pretty sure I knew what he was referring to.

On our ride home from Ottawa, I'd told him that getting to know each other and becoming friends made it more meaningful and just 'more' in general. Our relationship had been based on having the minimum interaction outside of anything sexual. More would change things.

And he wanted more?

What if that just meant he wanted to talk to me more? Or even more likely, what if he meant he wanted more sex? I couldn't imagine he wanted something real with me. For fuck's sake, if you looked at who I was and then looked at him, that made it clearly impossible.

I wasn't in the right frame of mind to reply. It was the middle of the night and I might make a rash decision. Instead, I put my phone down and tried to go back to sleep. This wasn't easy, of course. If I was having difficulty getting Shawn off my mind before, getting his text made my thoughts about him go into overdrive.

I woke up the next morning feeling a tad hungover. I climbed out of bed and went to the kitchen for a ginger ale, which Lil and I kept stocked in our fridge solely for the morning after drinking. I was still tired and not quite ready to face the day, so I took it back into bed with me.

I picked up my phone and saw I had a couple texts from Lil. She said not to bother coming by to clean up like I'd offered. They'd already done most of it.

I looked at Shawn's text again. More. He wanted more. Why was he so vague? And for god's sake, we'd ended up disagreeing last night just like we always did. Wasn't that proof that we shouldn't interact at all?

I could rationalize just about anything and as I sat snuggled in my bed, I tried hard to convince myself to just ignore the text.

What could I even say?

I want more, too?

That was true, but sometimes what you want isn't what you should go after. Sometimes wants were potentially hurtful. Plus there was the risk of rejection if I was misinterpreting this, which was a definite possibility.

What do you mean?

Being direct was always good, but did I want his answer? What if he suggested a hook up? Could I resist him? No. I couldn't. Seeing him last night had driven me nuts. I'd never craved something as much as I craved his body on mine.

Leave me alone.

Yeah. I wasn't about to reply with that.

After I'd wasted far too much time agonizing over what was probably a drunk text that meant nothing to him, I got up and showered. I had a meeting with a project group in one of the engineering labs on campus.

I decided to walk to campus since it was a beautiful fall day. Leaves crunched under my feet with each step, and the sky above me was a bright blue. I had my phone out, since I was texting Anthony about his costume. Halloween was on Thursday and he was really excited. I missed being there to share in the fun with him. He was dressing up as Cyborg from Teen Titans Go! No one in my family ever bought a costume, so he and my parents had spent the last couple weekends creating it.

Tony had just sent me a pic of the headpiece to show me that the red eye actually lit up, when I tripped over an uneven section of sidewalk.

No, I didn't fall and break a bone again, but my phone went flying. I knew it was toast before I even picked it up.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed loudly when I saw it was dead.

There was nothing I could do about it now. I had to get to my meeting.

I spent four hours working with my design team on the prototype of a tiny drone that could sense where walls were in a cave or tunnel. The idea was that it could be used in mine collapse rescues without being harmed. This was our big senior project that we'd be working on all year.

Once we'd gotten an adequate amount of work done, I closed out Inventor on my computer and pulled up email. I wrote to my mom explaining what had happened to my phone. I told her I'd pay for the replacement, but that I needed a new phone ASAP. I used it for school and was lost without it. Since I was on my parents' plan, they had to place the order.

By the time I got back to the apartment and sat down on the couch to check e-mail again, she'd replied. She'd gone online and looked at iPhones. She sent me my choices and I selected the one I wanted, upgrading from my old one. I then transferred the money to my parents' account, which hurt a little since I was somewhat low on funds after not working a lot over the summer. My mom replied a bit later that my phone should get to me in 2 to 3 days.

I groaned reading that. Why hadn't I told her I wanted next day shipping? Three days was an eternity to be without a phone.

As I closed up my laptop, Lillian walked in the door.

"I've been texting you for hours. What the heck, Sadie!" she said as she tossed her purse and keys on the counter before setting down several grocery bags.

"I dropped my phone and it's dead," I told her.

"Were you walking and texting again?" she asked accusatorially.

"Maybe."

"I was texting to see if you wanted to come by Owen's house tonight. There's a bunch of beer left in the second keg, and it has to be returned tomorrow. He's having a few people over to finish it off and was going to grill hot dogs and hamburgers. I volunteered to make dessert."

I didn't really want to drink again, but it was a really nice day and the thought of a cookout was pretty enticing. Plus, I knew there was a chance Shawn could be there. Maybe if I saw him I'd get a feel for what his ambiguous text meant.

"Sure. I'll come. Whatcha making?"

"Brownies. Want to help?"

"Only if I get to lick the bowl," I said as I got up and walked to the kitchen.

Once the two batches of brownies were done, I went to get ready. I may have put more effort into my appearance than was necessary for a casual cook-out. Did I need to go the extra mile with my eye make-up or curl my hair? Probably not. Did I need to wear the bra that made my boobs look their best and a tight shirt that accentuated them? No. But damned if I wasn't going to look hot if there was a chance of seeing Shawn.

Lillian and I arrived and went out to the deck where Owen, his roommates, their girlfriends, and a couple other friends were sitting around drinking beer.

Shawn was not among the small crowd.

I set the brownies on the table and took a seat near Kyrie.

"Wow, Sadie. You look so pretty. Do you have a date later tonight?"

"No. I just felt like putting some effort in."

She looked at me and then broke into a smile.

"Mendes?"

"What? No! That's in the past," I said, hoping I sounded convincing.

"I saw you two talking out here last night. There's still something there. Don't lie to me, girl."

"Okay, so maybe I was hoping he'd be here. Do not tell anyone that!" I warned.

"Your secret is safe with me."

She got up to get another beer and I saw her talking to Owen as he pumped the keg.

"He's not coming. Owen said he was headed to New York for a few days and had a flight this afternoon," she said when she sat back down.

I glared at her. "You're so subtle. I'm pretty sure Owen knows why you asked."

She shrugged. "Everyone knew you two had a thing. Relax."

My gut instinct was to sit back in my chair and sulk, but I didn't. I put on a fake happy face, went over to the table of food, and ate my hamburger. I also ate three huge brownies to console myself before sitting down next to Kyrie again.

Owen's roommate Mark sat on my other side for a bit and flirted with me in the most painfully obvious way. My mind was on Shawn, so I politely deflected his cute comments. He eventually gave up. I went home early and pouted in my room, still thinking about Shawn's text.