Just a Boyfriend Read online

  “I need to come. Please.”

  Too angry to argue, I nodded, and we walked in silence to her car.

  “What are you going to say?” she finally asked when we got on the road.

  “I don’t know.” It was true. I didn’t know. My brain still buzzed, and that gaping maw in my chest seemed to grow larger and larger. How dare she do this? Who did she think she was to come strolling back into our lives after she had totally upended them once already? I found the address and put it into my GPS app.

  Time seemed to fly past us so that the next thing I knew, we were sitting in front of a one-story home that looked a little like a cottage from a fairy tale.

  Ember put the car in park. “This is it. You don’t have to talk to her. I can turn this car around, and we can just go. Whatever you want to do, I’m on your side.”

  The same words I’d said to her just a couple of hours ago. “Come with me.”

  I had fully intended to do this alone, but I wanted Ember with me. Correction, I needed her with me. She nodded and we got out.

  My heart was beating so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else. She stayed a step behind me while I walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

  My spine felt like jelly. This had been a mistake. I shouldn’t be here. I was about to turn and say as much to Ember when the front door opened.

  It was my mother.

  Older, but it was her. I would have known her anywhere. It was such a shock to see her again that I was unable to speak.

  “Ian? Is that you?” Her gaze darted over to Ember, confused. Probably wondering who she was. “I . . . I can’t believe you’re here. Do you want to come in?”

  “I do not want to come in,” I said, the anger swelling inside me like a rising tide. “Who do you think you are?”

  “Why don’t you come inside?” she tried again, glancing at the street behind me.

  “What’s wrong, don’t want the neighbors to know what a bad mom you are?”

  Giving in, my mother shut the door behind her and stood out on the porch. There was a movement in the front window near the door, and two little faces peered out at me. My brother and sister.

  Some of my fight left me, but I had come here to protect the sister I already knew and loved. “Stay away from our family,” I warned her. “We don’t need you. We’ve been just fine without you.”

  Her forehead was more lined than I remembered. “I can’t do that, Bash. You can make your own choice, but Marley’s still a minor. I’m still her mother.”

  “You gave up the right to call yourself that ten years ago.”

  She reached out with her left hand. “If you’ll just come inside and let me explain and apologize . . .”

  Rage exploded inside me. “Oh, I got your letter. I’m not interested in your apologies. I know what you want. Absolution. Forgiveness. I don’t have that for you. You can’t undo what you did. You left us a long time before you walked out the door. You can’t fix me having to make sandwiches for my toddler sister and change her diapers because you refused to get out of bed and take care of her. You can’t mend my heart that broke after you left, making me question why I wasn’t enough to make you stay.”

  I felt Ember’s fingers lace through mine, and my mother’s eyes teared up. “Ian, no.”

  “Don’t call me that! My name is Bash.”

  She nodded, and her voice trembled when she spoke. “Bash, please.”

  Something broke in me then, something I feared might never be fixed. “I’m done. I will go to court and testify against you. I will tell the judge every ugly thing you ever did, every way you neglected us, and how little you deserve to be in our lives again. I will fight you to keep Marley safe. It’s what I’ve been doing my whole life.”

  I turned my back on her, walking away. It didn’t feel nearly as satisfying as I’d once hoped it would. Ember and I got in the car, and I slammed my door shut.

  Ember drove away without saying a word to me. My thoughts were jumbled inside my head, swirling like a tornado so that I couldn’t stop and think and deal with this. I started to shake. She put her hand on my forearm and pulled the car over. I buried my face in my hands, unable to catch my breath.

  “Bash.” She gripped my arm tighter. “B, please look at me.”

  I heard her undo her seat belt. “I need to know that you’re okay,” she pleaded.

  A sob tore its way out of my throat. I hadn’t cried in a decade, and here I was sobbing. It was like a dam bursting, and all the misery and heartache and pain my mother had caused me came rushing out. Ember climbed over the center console and wrapped her arms around me. I hugged her tight. She rubbed my back, my neck. It had been so long since somebody had held me like this. She kept saying soothing things like, “It will be okay. Everything will be okay,” over and over again.

  Long after my tears had subsided, we stayed this way, holding on to each other.

  I spoke, without meaning to. “Do you know that she’s the reason I hate being called Ian? She told me it was her favorite name in the whole world, which was why she chose it for me. Every time somebody used it, it made me think of her. And I hated thinking about her.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “My mother has ruined so many good things in my life. For the longest time I thought I wasn’t lovable. Who could love a guy whose own mom couldn’t love him?” I said the words into her neck, as if she could absorb them for me, make the pain go away.

  She pulled back, and in the fading sunlight she looked at me so kindly and with such concern that it nearly destroyed me. She stroked the side of my face. “That’s not true. When I was seventeen I loved you more than anything else in the whole world. You are such an incredible man. I’m surprised that every woman who meets you doesn’t fall instantly in love with you.”

  Her words pierced me to my core, shining lights on parts of myself I kept hidden. She made me want things I couldn’t have. I tried a weak joke. “I guess we’re both having some mom issues today, huh?”

  “Well, at least yours didn’t make you jump out of a plane.”

  That made me laugh, and I was glad to feel like laughter was still possible for me.

  “I kind of want to beat your mom up now,” Ember went on. “I’m pretty sure I could take her. You say the word, and I’ll go back and let her feel my fists of fury.” She balled her hands into fists, and I laughed again.

  Ember smiled at me and clapped her hands together, saying, “Okay!” Then she went back to her side of the car, and I felt the loss of her so keenly that it was like she’d ripped one of my arms off and taken it with her to the driver’s seat. “I say we drown ourselves in ice cream. You in?”

  “I’m in.”

  After we’d been driving for a few minutes, I said quietly, “Thank you for coming with me.”

  “Thank you for letting me come.”

  When my mom left, it had created this hole in my heart that I thought wouldn’t ever mend. And it was like I’d spent the last ten years searching for a way to heal it.

  It was a person who’d done that. Ember. When I made excuses to myself as to why I wanted to spend time with her, it wasn’t just that I missed her or that I liked being around her. While those were true, that wasn’t why I needed her in my life. She was the only person who managed to fill that hole all the way up.

  The only time I ever felt whole was when I was with her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EMBER

  I drove Bash home that night, not wanting to leave him. He promised me he’d be fine and that he’d call if he needed me. I knew he wouldn’t call. Bash was the strongest person I’d ever met, and he didn’t like relying on other people. I knew he must have hated that he’d broken down in front of me. And it absolutely destroyed me to see him crying that way. I’d been serious when I’d told him that I wanted to beat his mom into a pulp.

  Thinking about his mom made me recall my recent phone call with my own mother. She knew all about the situati
on with Bash and Marley’s mom and said that Doug was planning on telling Marley later on. She then proceeded to spend the rest of the conversation upset because Lauren had been hiding the fact that some of her grades were not great.

  “At least I know you don’t hide anything from me,” she’d said.

  Well, just the one thing. And I felt guilty about it, but we had bigger issues.

  Like when Doug finally did tell Marley about the letter and lawsuit, and she surprised everyone by saying that she would meet with her mother. Bash was furious, venting about it all through our dance rehearsal. I tried really hard just to listen and be there for him because, while I was a hundred percent on his side, some part of me wondered if maybe he should let his mother explain. Not because I thought she deserved it, but because I thought maybe he needed it.

  I tried to cheer him up. “So, I have news.”

  “Did you get banned from the Silver Trough, too?”

  “Too?” I echoed. “You got banned again?”

  “After that thing with my mom, I had some feelings I needed to eat. And there are two sides to every story. But you should know that whatever story the management is telling is probably the correct one.”

  “No, I didn’t get banned. I did enroll to audit a night class for creative writing.”

  Bash’s whole face lit up. “Really? Ember! That’s so great!”

  He grabbed me into a bear hug, and I relaxed into it. Hugging him was like easing into a hot bubble bath at the end of a tough day. He made everything better.

  And I was no further along in figuring out the Bash situation. Because on the one hand, I wanted to be his friend. I wanted to support him through this whole thing with his mother. Selfishly, I liked feeling like he needed me. I didn’t want to lose that.

  But maybe . . . maybe it could be more. After that almost kiss in my apartment, I had convinced myself that things weren’t one sided. That Bash, at the least, wasn’t repelled by me. It had me questioning a lot of our recent interactions. Wondering if I’d been misreading everything.

  How did you bring that up? “Hi, do you like me? Would you enjoy kissing me, or is that something that makes you want to throw up in your mouth?”

  So instead I chose silence and focused on our friendship.

  When I got home from practice, all of my roommates were home, including Ximena. They were packing a bag.

  “What are you guys doing?” I asked in the hallway. Everybody stopped what they were doing to stare at me.

  “The exhibition game with Washburn is this weekend. We’re leaving in a couple of hours.” Molly said this like I was slow.

  I’d been so focused on Bash, on his situation with his mom and our rehearsals, that I’d completely forgotten about the game. Coach Manning had told us about it. Washburn was a new junior college about four hours away that had only been open for a year. They had reached out to EOL and asked some of the teams to come and play a game with them as a fundraiser, and to raise awareness for their school in the community.

  “It is going to be so much fun,” Ximena said.

  I raised both of my eyebrows at her.

  “What?” she said. “I work hard so that I can enjoy playing hard.”

  When Deja started laughing, I knew Ximena wasn’t just talking about our volleyball game.

  “Who else is going?” I asked, suspicious.

  “The men’s volleyball team, the swim team, men’s and women’s basketball.” Deja ticked off the teams on her fingers. “Oh yeah. And the football team. Apparently Washburn has a very wealthy investor and an indoor stadium.”

  The football team?

  I had a feeling that I knew where this was headed.

  “It’s like we’re getting two girls’ weekends in a row,” Ximena said.

  “Two?” I repeated.

  Deja put her hand on her hip and stared me down. “Yes, two weekends. Next Saturday we’re going up to Molly’s uncle’s cabin, remember? I’ve told you, like, twenty times. Including in our last conversation.”

  “And I was totally listening,” I told her. It sounded vaguely familiar, and I had probably agreed to go.

  “We’re driving up at noon, but you have that test, so you’re going to come up later?” Molly reminded me, and I tried hard not to look guilty.

  “Yes. I know.” I didn’t.

  This was Bash’s fault. He had been distracting me from everything. I didn’t know why we needed a girls’ weekend, though. We already all lived together. It was just moving all this to a different location.

  But instead of questioning, I went ahead and packed my bag. Bash must not have mentioned going up to Washburn this weekend because, with how my brain was functioning, that was something I would have remembered.

  I wondered if I’d get to see him there.

  We destroyed the Washburn team. They were a new program and looked like they had talent and a good coach; it was just going to take them a while to catch up to a well-oiled machine like ours.

  When we got back to the motel we were staying at, I was informed that I would be going out that night to a local club called Slammed.

  “I’m wiped. I’ll just stay here.” And maybe go looking for Bash to see how his game had turned out. No other reason.

  “Come on,” Molly pleaded. “We’re going to get turnt. Or is it lit?”

  “What did I tell you about that?” Deja called from the bathroom.

  “That you love me, but I’m not cool enough to say that kind of stuff.” Molly sighed. “We’re still going to have fun!”

  Ximena was brushing her glossy, black hair in front of the mirror attached to the dresser. “It’s Ember’s choice. She doesn’t have to come.”

  There was a knock at the door, and Molly jumped off the bed to run over and open it. It was one of the football players from the team. I couldn’t remember his name. Daxton? Dalton?

  “You guys ready?” he asked. “I’ve got us an Uber out front.”

  “You sure?” Deja asked me as they gathered up their purses and coats.

  “Have a good time,” I told her.

  They all waved and told me good night while Molly explained to the football player that I was being a buzzkill.

  I waited about thirty minutes, and then I headed for the second floor, where the football team was being housed. Earlier I’d asked Deja if she knew Bash’s room number, and it had taken her all of thirty seconds to track it down. She’d told it to me with a wink.

  Taking in a deep breath, I knocked. A few seconds later the door was answered by a disheveled Logan. Whose shirt was on inside out. “Ember. Hi! Bash isn’t here.”

  Jess came to the door, her hair similarly messed up. “He went to that club, Slammed. Without a date. In case you were wondering.”

  I was starting to feel stupid for having interrupted them and for being so obvious about what I was there for. “Oh, no. I just had a, um, question for him, so you guys don’t need to tell him that I stopped by or anything. I’ll just . . . see him when I see him.”

  They exchanged amused, knowing glances, and I walked away without saying goodbye. I went around a corner and smacked right into Keilani.

  She put her hands on my shoulder to steady me. “Hey, where are you off to?”

  “I was thinking about going to that club, Slammed.” I hadn’t been, but now I wanted to be there.

  “Me too! But you can’t go like that. Come with me. I’ve got some tops you could borrow.” I looked down at my ratty hoodie. She was probably right to want to dress me in something else.

  We went to her room, which she did not have to share with three other people. “What are you doing here? Exhibition games don’t really have anything to do with academics.”

  She opened her closet and pulled out two slinky tops, one dark purple and the other a shiny silver sequin thing. I chose the dark-purple one. I still had some jeans on as I hadn’t committed to changing for bed yet. The top had a drawstring neck and another tie around the back. It kind of felt like weari
ng a handkerchief.

  But then I caught my reflection. I looked amazing in it.

  “What size shoe do you wear?” Keilani asked.

  I told her, and she told me that she wore the same size. She handed me a pair of black boots. “I’m here because Coach Oakley likes the staff to come along and play chaperone when the players are on the road. To make sure they’re not breaking his rules, like no drinking and no drugs.”

  I brushed my hair out, and then I used some of her lipstick and mascara.

  “Okay. Let’s go break some hearts,” she said with a wink.

  Ten minutes later we were at the club, which was apparently filled to capacity. I could hear the bass line in the music thumping hard as we got out of the car. Keilani was ready, full of confidence, and I followed along after her, wondering what I was doing.

  We got inside, and like always, I immediately sought out Bash. He was easy to find, given that he was nearly a head taller than almost everyone around him. He had on jeans and a dark, long-sleeved shirt that hugged every muscle in his arms and made his hair look almost white-blond in comparison. He was talking to a woman in six-inch high heels sporting an unnatural shade of red hair.

  Keilani followed my gaze and said, “I approve. Bash is wonderful. I’ve heard good flings come to those who wait.”

  “No flings,” I yelled back. “His dad is married to my mom.”

  “But you’re not related.”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t grow up together?” she verified.

  “No.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Right now the problem was he was flirting with another woman, and it was making me twitchy and stabby.

  Which only got worse when she pressed herself against him and then kissed him. On the mouth.

  When I was retelling this story to the judge at my criminal trial, this would be the point where I said, “That’s when I blacked out, and I don’t remember what happened next.”

  Bash immediately stopped the kiss, and when he lifted his head, he saw me. Staring daggers at him. He grinned, said something to the redhead, and made his way over to me. “Hey, I thought you weren’t coming.”