Raining Men

Luke and I had teamed up to beat Nate and his partner at beer pong.  My prize: walking away with that hideous green visor “lucky beer pong hat” of Nate’s.  He said he was so devastated not only losing, but losing to a team that had a girl on it, that he could no longer use that as his lucky hat.  Drinking so much beer had made me really dizzy, so I ended up crashing at Luke’s.  After lying down in his bed, I fell asleep quickly, probably much to Luke’s disappointment.

Monday I didn’t go to class, because I was freaking out about the decision to make between Luke and Zach and didn’t want to see Luke in class.  I was going to New York with Zach in less than a week, and Luke had no idea.  I woke up Monday to Sarah still lying in bed, also.  It was very much unlike her to miss classes.

“Are you ok?”

“Oh yeah, I’m just feeling lazy.”

“Weird.”

“Why aren’t you in class?  Trouble in paradise?”  She laughed, as I knew she was referring to Luke.

“Sarah, I have no idea what to do.  Luke is such a good guy, and I feel like it’s starting to move to be not so casual anymore.  But I’m going to New York with Zach.  I’m torn.”

“Oh Aleah, what a great problem to have.”  I rolled on my side to face her as she continued.  “You have two great guys who want a piece of you.  You just need to decide what you’re looking for and how much distance you’re willing to work with.”

“I know…”  I sat contemplating for a little bit.  It got so quiet that I thought Sarah had fallen back to sleep.   

“Sarah?”

“Hmm?”

“Sorry.  I just don’t know what to do.  Luke is my right here, right now guy.  But Zach is who my heart belongs to.  He and I both know the timing isn’t good, though.  I just think if we did get back together, it wouldn’t last because of the distance again.  I’m really struggling.  This sucks.”

“The truth of the matter is that you aren’t exclusive with either of them.  You don’t owe either of them anything.  Have fun, and until you make a decision, or one of them brings it up, just keep having fun and getting to know them.  Have you sexed Luke yet?”

I grinned.  My roommates and I don’t really like cussing, so we use other words in place of what we really mean at times.  “Nope!”

“Do you want to?”

“I really don’t know.  I feel like it’ll confuse me even more.  I don’t know that I could do the whole friends with benefits thing.”

“But you did Zach.  Literally and figuratively.”  I rolled my eyes at her.

“You're lame.  And yeah… but Zach is different.  I’m on that level with him.  Plus, it isn’t like it was my first time with him.  Sex just means so much more to me than that, I think.  You know I’ve only been with Zach and Derek.  To be with someone else would feel so… wrong, I guess, right now.  I mean, maybe not, but I’m just not ready to take it there with Luke.”  I started blushing thinking back to Saturday night.  “Don’t get me wrong.  He’s so hot.  And I definitely want his body.  But emotionally I’m not ready.  I think I want to be exclusive for sure if we go there.  Sometimes I think that maybe I should be celibate until I get married.  If I ever get married, that is.”

Sarah had been lying on her back and rolled over facing me, propped herself up and deliberately rolled her eyes sarcastically at me.  “Yeah, okay.  You told me about your sexssions with Zach and before with Derek.  You like it too much.”  I threw my pillow at her.

“Whatever.  Let’s go get food.”

On Tuesday night I was in the library on campus studying for a test in the class I had with Luke the next day.  I had managed to stay busy and only text with him since Saturday night, in order to avoid any conversations about “us.”  I was sitting at a table hunched over a book, but had my phone laying on top of it, skimming through Facebook.

“Studying hard, or hardly studying?”  I jumped at the voice, and looked up to see Luke towering over me, beaming at me.

“You scared me!”

He laughed.  “I could tell by the fact that your whole body had air time just now.  Is this seat taken?”  He gestured towards the chair across from me at the two seated table I was sitting at.

“By you.”  He half smiled and sat down, opening the bag he had with him and pulling out the same text book I had in front of me.  “Here to study, or just stalking me?”

“Both,” he deadpanned.  I didn’t know if he was joking or being serious.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“I stopped by your apartment to see if you wanted to study and Madison told me you were here.”

“I see.  By the way, you can call her Maddie.  Hardly anyone calls her Madison.”

“Got it.”  We sat in silence for a bit, studying.  “Are you avoiding me?”

The question caught me off guard.  “Why would you think that?”

“You skipped class.  You’ve been responding to my texts with one word.  You didn’t call me back when I called you Sunday night.  Want me to keep going?”

I blushed.  I wasn’t used to such accurate directness.  “Yeah, I guess I am.”

He cocked his head sideways at me and frowned slightly.  “Why?”

I sighed deeply.  I didn’t know how much to divulge to him.  “I’m just confused.”

“About?”

“You.  And me.  And what to do.”

He closed his textbook and linked his fingers and set his hands on top of the book.  He leaned forward, looking at me intensely.  “Aleah, I saw you in the coffee shop with the flowers.  Does it have something to do with that?  After I saw you there, I figured that’s what the text meant you had sent me, the one thanking me that you never responded to when I asked what for.  You realize you don’t have to hide anything from me, right?  We aren’t together, and I’m aware you could be seeing other people, just as I could be.”

“Are you?”

“No.”  I noticed he didn’t ask me if I was. 

“There’s something you should know… I’m leaving Sunday to go to New York with a friend.  I’ll be back Thursday.”

“Okay.”  I couldn’t read his expression, though.  I also didn’t know if that okay was good or bad.  Usually guys mean what they say, but if I said okay, I would really mean: who are you going with?  What are you going to do?  Where do we stand?  Are you having sex with other people?  I’d prefer you really didn’t.

I bit at my lip, looking just as blankly back at him.

He smiled at me.  “Want me to quiz you?  He gave us a study sheet on Monday, when you weren’t there.”

I jerked my head slightly to the right and looked at him, confused.  “You don’t care?”

“That you weren’t in class, and that you’re using me for my study sheet?”

“No!  About me going to New York.”

“I was teasing!  And why would I?  We aren’t exclusive.  It doesn’t mean I don’t want to be, but knowing you’re going there, I won’t talk to you about us until you get back.  Is that fair?”

I looked at him astonished.  “Wow.  Yeah, that’s fine.  Let’s study.”  I know that if the roles were reversed I never would be feeling that way.  But he’s right.

As we were studying, my phone vibrated, and I grabbed it and saw a text from Zach.  “5 days!”  I couldn’t help myself, I grinned from ear to ear.  I snuck a peek at Luke and saw him looking at me with his eyebrows raised, but he didn’t say anything.  I blushed and tucked my phone into my bag.  We kept studying, but my thoughts kept drifting back to that text, and how excited I was to be seeing Zach soon.