The Boyfriend Rivalry by Milana Spencer

12

Liam: Black Coffee

I rub my eyes as I wake up, my dream from minutes before drifting away. I try to hang on to as many details as possible because the dream was a hot one. And the person in it with me — faceless but with the most beautiful body — was also hot. It’s mornings like these when the only thing I can think about is sex. And then I wonder if I’m the only person who thinks about sex this much.

I sit up in my bed and see Curtis has already left the room, his bed made, the curtains drawn.

Curtis seems so refined and self-controlled. He probably doesn’t think about sex as much as I do. Then I remember he’s already slept with a few girls if that party from last year is any indication.

I check my phone — I’ve woken up at my usual time of 9 o’clock. Maybe I should set an alarm for tomorrow morning so I can wake up before Curtis. I sort of did yesterday, but he’d waken up before me before falling asleep again. All that skin, surrounded by his fluffy white bed. It had been fun to tease him, but when I saw the towel he’d flung over the end of his bed, I believed his story.

I flex my back, unravelling the knots in my muscle, and scratch my stomach. I had a pretty good sleep last night. After dinner, everyone played Cards against Humanity and I expected Curtis to be the most prudish, but he had won with the most horrible yet hilarious combinations. Erin was the worst player, and we all teased her, as she was the oldest. Afterwards, the cousins wanted to start a reality TV show that had just dropped on Netflix, but I headed upstairs with Curtis. I’d watched anime on my laptop for a couple of hours, and Curtis read. When I went to bed, he turned his lamp off almost immediately.

Now, the bedroom door opens and Curtis walks in, holding a steaming mug in one hand. “Morning,” he says.

“Morning,” I reply, my voice still dry with sleep.

Curtis comes to stand next to my bed, eyes flicking to my chest. I look down, but there’s nothing odd about it. Except for my nipples. But the room is cold.

He passes me his mug. Cautiously, I take it and look at the dark liquid. Even the scent of it jolts me awake.

“Do you want me to hold your coffee?” I ask though I thought he didn’t drink coffee.

“It’s not mine.” Curtis shuffles. “I brought it for you. You know — since you always bring me tea in the evenings.”

My mouth makes a circle as I look down at the mug, but after a second, everything clicks into place. I keep on forgetting that Kennedy has made Curtis promise to play nice too, and she must have told Curtis to bring me coffee, just like she told me to bring him green tea.

“Is something wrong?” Curtis asks when I haven’t taken a sip.

“No!” I say, bringing the cup up to my lips and taking a long sip. I swallow the bitter liquid, but I can’t help myself from wincing.

“You hate it,” Curtis says flatly.

I shake my head. “No…” I begin, but he sees right through me.

“You’re a terrible liar. Forget it, I shouldn’t have —” he tries to take the mug from my hand.

“No!” I say, keeping my hands wrapped around it and batting his fingers away. “Thank you. But next time, can you put in a teaspoon of sugar and some milk?”

“Shit, sorry. I should have remembered you drink coffee like that.”

“No, it’s fine. If you want to get into technicalities, it’s Kennedy who should have remembered.” I wink to let him know I know.

“Um. Right.” God, Curtis looks alarmed. Are my winks bad? What if I look like I’m spasming when I wink? Or like I have an eye twitch? What if I can’t even wink, and I just blinked two eyes at him?

“Anyway, thanks,” I say, to distract him, setting the mug down on the bedside table, with plans to fix it when I get to the kitchen.

Curtis nods. “You’re welcome.”

When he doesn’t leave, I pull myself off the bed and stretch my arms above me, moaning with contentment as my limbs relax. “Do you know what the plan is for today?”

“I’m not sure. I talked to Kennedy, but she said she wants to stay in today.”

“Makes sense.” Kennedy’s going to be in a low mood for a couple of days. Fortunately, I know that the new reality TV show will cheer her up.

I grab a change of clothes from my trunk.

“I thought it would be fun to go to the beach,” Curtis says. “We could play some soccer. The weather’s supposed to be nice. Sunny, but not too hot…”

“I’m in,” I say. “We can ask the cousins if they’re interested.”

“Okay. Good.”

When Curtis doesn’t leave, I walk to the bathroom. “I shouldn’t be too long. I just need to get ready and have breakfast,” I say from the door frame.

“Right. Yeah, no worries. Take your time.” Curtis takes a step back when he sees I’m waiting for him to leave. “Sorry, I’ll stop keeping you… um… see you downstairs.” Looking flustered, he disappears down the stairs, closing the door behind him.

I chuckle. Now that Curtis isn’t scowling at me twenty-four seven, I kind of understand what Kennedy means when she says Curtis can be adorable.

After getting ready, I head downstairs, bringing my mug of coffee. In the kitchen, I greet the girls as I add sugar and milk to my coffee. I take a sip — delicious and still warm.

After making myself a bowl of cereal, I take a seat at the kitchen table. “What are you talking about?” I ask the girls, who are in a deep discussion.

“The show we were watching last night,” Bonnie says. “I know it’s not your thing, but you’ve got to try it. It’s so addicting!”

I roll my eyes. As far as I know, the TV show Love Something-or-other is a mixture of all terrible romance reality shows rolled into one.

“I wouldn’t admit to watching it in a court of law,” Erin says, “but there’s something about hot people fighting.”

“And falling in love,” Kennedy says.

“Oh, that’s not falling in love,” Erin says.

There’s a beat of silence, and Bonnie laughs. “Erin’s now an expert in love because she’s been with her boyfriend for three years.”

“I’m just saying, the people on that show are lusting after each other. It’s all horniness, not love,” Erin says.

There’s a beat of silence before I change the topic. “Curtis and I are going to go to the beach and play soccer. Anyone else joining us? I know you want to stay home,” I say to Kennedy.

“Yeah, I reckon we’re all going to binge the TV show,” Erin says, sharing a glance with Bonnie. “We’ve already gone on a run, and we’re pretty tired.”

“How does everyone in this house wake up so early?” I ask. Even Kennedy wakes up pretty early — I know after years of sleepovers when she’d act as a human alarm clock, waking me up before eight when I wanted to sleep in.

“No worries,” Curtis says. “We should be back in a few hours.”

“What are you going to do about the movie?” Kennedy asks him, in a lower voice. I don’t want to eavesdrop on their conversation, so I pay attention to the bets the cousins are placing on the reality TV show about which couples are going to win and which will be voted off.

The kitchen empties — the cousins go to their rooms, and Curtis searches the backyard for the soccer ball — so it’s just Kennedy and me.

“Be nice,” Kennedy says.

“Don’t worry,” I say, finishing my breakfast. “I’ve only broken my promise a handful of times.” It’s a joke, but Kennedy doesn’t smile. “Seriously, though, I’ll be nice. It’s not that difficult. Curtis isn’t awful.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Kennedy says. “I told you he’s —”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say, blocking out Kennedy’s barrage of compliments about her boyfriend. “Anyway, I have a more important matter to bring up. How could you forget I like milk and sugar in my coffee?”

Yes, I’m still preoccupied about that, but Kennedy made me go through the fuss of making green tea for Curtis. In fact, she’s brainwashed me so much that I’m now making a cup for him every night without thinking about it.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Kennedy says, brow creased. “What are you —” Her eyes catch on someone behind me.

I turn and see Curtis has just arrived in the doorway, holding the soccer ball in one hand. “You almost ready?”

I straighten up, hopefully not looking like I was having a suspicious conversation with Kennedy. “I’ll be out the door in a minute,” I say, taking my dishes to the sink.

*

It doesn’t take us long to walk to the beach, and since it’s still morning, it’s not too busy. We go to the stretch of sand we went to before, and play one on one. I expect an easy game, but quickly learn I’m mistaken.

“Is this your idea of retribution?” I ask after Curtis kicks a goal through my line in the sand for the fifth time. “Making up for when you lost that other game?”

Curtis wipes his brow with the back of his hand. “I didn’t lose.”

“If you count the scores, you did. And I know you counted the scores.” I suck in a deep breath, trying to fill my lungs with air.

“That wasn’t a fair game, because of the teams —”

“Yeah, so you brought me here to rub in your superior athletic ability in my face,” I say. “Again.”

I start with the ball, and just before I run, Curtis says, “this isn’t retribution.”

Liar.

I kick the ball and try my best to dribble it across the sand, but Curtis steals it from me. And then he does it again. And again. As his tackling increases, so does mine, and I crowd him, getting my arms between us, or jumping in before him so he’s blocked by my back.

Every time I manoeuvre around him, I feel a thrill of victory and then the anticipation of him barrelling me over. If I still despised him, wrestling him would be fun, but now it’s just annoying because he always wins, pinning me to the ground. He’ll laugh good-naturedly and offer to pull me up as if he’s some sort of gentleman.

Now, I push him in the back and he falls over. Yes! Then my feet tangle with his and with an “oof” I fall on top of him.

I groan. “Ow.”

Curtis pushes himself up with his hands, and I slide off his back onto the sand beside him, looking up at the sun peeking through the clouds.

“You can’t push someone’s back in soccer. That’s illegal,” he says.

“I didn’t know that. Sorry,” I say.

Curtis’s face, glistening with perspiration, appears in my view. I squint at him.

“What?” he asks gruffly.

“You’ve got sand on your face,” I say, pointing at his lower cheek. From here I can see hints of stubble coming in around his jaw.

He brushes it away. “Have I got it all?” he asks when I’m still staring.

“Yep.” I push myself off my back and look around for the ball. It’s drifted to the ocean, so I run against the wet sand to grab it — Curtis and I decided to play barefoot like last time, even if it’s more painful for our feet because we’d rather that than sand in our shoes.

We play for another hour, and even though I know Curtis is better, I can’t help firing up every time he gets a goal and trying harder, playing rougher. I get an alright number of goals, especially towards the end when Curtis gets tired, but my score is nothing compared to Curtis’s.

“That was fun,” I say when we finish. We sit in the shade of the cliffs, panting. Sweat soaks our t-shirts and it’d be a smart idea to take them off, but neither of us does.

“It was,” Curtis agrees, using his hands to mess up his hair, making it stick up in little spikes. “You’re a good opponent.”

“Please. You destroyed me.” I lean back and gulp in a breath of air. “If we had a brain cell to share between us, we would have remembered to bring a bottle of water.”

He laughs, a sound just as deep as his voice. It’s different from his usual polite laughter.

“That wasn’t that funny,” I say, but I’m pleased.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise. I wish you’d laugh like that more often.” As I say that, I realise how rare it is to see Curtis relaxed and unguarded. “You’re usually so uptight.”

“I’m not that uptight. I’m not like Erin. No offence to her.”

“Erin’s not uptight, she’s just a stickler for rules. But you…” You’re so in control of yourself that you’re almost like a robot. You’re so closed off. But sometimes I can provoke you into acting without inhibition. That’s when you’re pissed at me, though.

“Are you enjoying the holiday?” I ask instead.

“Yeah, of course. This town is pretty, and I like living with people my age.”

“Yeah, it’s nice to get away from parents,” I say, looking out at the ocean. “To have more freedom.”

“I get you. I feel the same way,” Curtis says. “Like, I have a pretty good relationship with my family, but my parents have a lot of expectations for me. And I’m the oldest child, so I have to be the responsible one. It’s nice to relax.”

“How many siblings do you have?” I know Curtis has siblings — I’ve even met them when Kennedy forced me to hang out with her and Curtis and Curtis’s house one time — but I don’t know much about them.

“Four,” he says. “Three boys and one girl. Max is twelve, Andrew is ten, Dylan is eight, and then Harriet, who’s six.”

I whistle. “So five kids all together.”

“My parents really wanted a daughter,” Curtis says.

“So that’s six years between you and Max, and twelve years between you and your sister. You must be like a third parent.”

“That’s how it feels sometimes.”

“You’re so lucky,” I say. “I wish I had siblings.”

He looks at me in surprise and takes a moment to respond. “Yeah, I’m lucky to have them. But sometimes it’s lonely since I don’t have a sibling near my age.”

I nod, thinking of Erin and Bonnie who seem super close.

We settle into silence, both of us looking out at the ocean, cooling down from our game. I watch the waves and try to predict how big they’ll get and when they’ll crash. Above us, white seagulls fly in the air.

“Kennedy and I planned to see a movie tonight,” Curtis says. “She doesn’t want to go anymore. I think she’s still feeling tired and a bit grumpy.”

I click my tongue. “That sucks. You could always see it another time.”

He shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t think she was that interested in the movie, anyway. It’s called Lightbody’s Castle. I don’t know if you’ve seen the advertisements —”

“The thriller?” I ask, perking up. “That looks so good!”

“Right?” Curtis smiles before it fades away. “But thrillers aren’t Kennedy’s thing.”

“Kennedy doesn’t like that many movies,” I say. “She’s more of a TV show kind of gal.”

He blinks. “Oh. Well, since I’ve already bought the tickets for the cinema, and I can’t refund them, I was wondering if —”

“Sure, I’ll go with you,” I say.

“If you and Bonnie wanted them,” Curtis finishes at the same time. “What?”

“What?” I say. “Me and Bonnie?”

Curtis stares at me before looking at the sand, using a finger to draw a mindless line. “Yeah, I thought you guys could go together…”

“I could ask her. See if she’ll say yes.”

“She’ll say yes,” Curtis says.

I raise a brow.

He waves a hand. “Never mind. Anyway, enjoy the movie. It’ll be good. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go?” I ask.

Curtis shrugs. “I could always watch it when I get back to Easton. Or go by myself.”

I roll my eyes. “Jesus, why are you being so self-sacrificing? They’re your tickets, so if you want to go, go.”

He shrugs again, and I make my decision.

“Alright, you’re going.”

That gets Curtis to look at me. “I am?”

“Yep.”

“What about the other ticket?” he asks.

I smile at him, and Curtis stares until it clicks. “You want to go together?”

“Thanks. I’d love to.”

Curtis and I return to the house half an hour later and rush straight to the kitchen, our throats parched. On the way back, I suggested buying a water bottle from a convenience store, but Curtis said they were overpriced and bad for the environment.

The girls, who are sitting around the kitchen table making wraps, greet us but are cut short as we sprint to the fridge.

“Thirsty,” I explain, opening the fridge and pulling out a jug of cold water.

“Right. How was the beach?” Erin asks.

“The weather was nice,” Curtis says, grabbing two glasses from an overhead cabinet, his shirt riding up to expose tan skin. He takes the jug from me and fills the glasses.

“Thanks,” I say when he hands me a glass and I gulp the water down. “It was good,” I say to the girls as I pour a second glass, “though Curtis beat me.”

Curtis drinks his water just as fast as me, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and I pass him the jug so he can also pour another cup.

“I’m glad you guys had fun,” Kennedy says as she packs her wrap with vegetables.

I set my glass down, my thirst satisfied. “Also, Curtis and I have a movie date tonight.”

Curtis chokes on his water.

“Is that so?” Kennedy asks.

“Yep. We’re watching high brow cinema while you continue binging reality TV.”

“High brow cinema?” Kennedy laughs.

“Just you wait, Liam,” Bonnie says, “once you watch it, you’ll get hooked. We’ll drag you in front of the TV if that’s what it takes.”

“Sure, sure,” I say, setting down my glass and washing my hands. “Any food for me?” I ask when I take a seat at the table.

“Here,” Erin says, passing me a plain wrap laid out on a plate. “There’s extra stuff in the fridge if you want to customise it.”

Curtis, who has cleared his throat after choking, joins the kitchen table too, taking a seat beside Kennedy. He slides an arm over her seat.

She raises her head to kiss him on the lips before her nose wrinkles. “Ugh, you smell,” she says, pulling back.

Curtis looks at me, catching me staring. My stomach flips.