I Can't Make You Stay

“So how was it?” Adam questioned when I walked into his room. He wasn’t doing anything but playing guitar anyway, so I felt no need to knock.

His dad had yelled a hello from the basement when he heard my light footsteps walking about the house. I said one back and swiftly went up the carpeted stairs to the second floor, where Adam’s room was at the end of the hall. I poked into Adam’s younger brother Nathan’s room to see if he was in but he wasn’t.

It was the last day of Finals. I didn’t expect him to be in anyway.

“Pretty good,” I said, flopping down onto his huge King sized, four post bed. Adam had the softest sheets in the entire world, with huge pillows.

His room setup was like a typical boy’s room. Big bed, one dresser, a closet, television, crap strewn all over the floor, and guitars (bass and acoustic) at their posts by the window. No need for me to go into detail right? They all look the same.

I slid my flats off (god I hate these things) and lay back, Adam’s scent escaping the bed and enveloped me in a warm hug.

“Is that what you really wore?” Adam’s eyes had yet to meet mine. He had a notebook or two spread out in front of him as he sat on the floor, guitar in hand. His pic was stuck between the strings and the neck of the guitar, a pencil behind his ear and a pen in his hand. He scribbled out words and either replaced them or rewrote them.

This was Adam time. I had interrupted, which I often did. The same thing happened over and over during Adam time. The pencil behind his ear was a sign for ‘I forgot it was there and went searching for a pen because I was so engrossed in my music.’

He’s a musician. He sings (to me and me only), plays bass, and started messing with the acoustic the previous year.

“Yes,” I said, looking up at the black overhead of the bed. I felt my Red Berry buzz with a new text message inside my wristlet, but I ignored it. “It’s something different.”

“It’s not you Aubrey.”

What’d I tell you?

“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together,” I sang, giggling at the end.

I hopped off his bed and headed towards the end of his closet that was now mine.

I was here too often, whether it be sleeping over or just to hang out. So my stuff was here a lot too, and eventually I just left things. Adam’s mom would wash everything for me, after catching bras and thongs hanging around Adam’s room and accused him of having underage sex with girls he must be sneaking into the house (I had to rush over and convince her they were mine, which took way too long).

I hummed in thought and decided on a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, and one of Adam’s sweatshirts that I had stolen. Then I got underwear from one of the shelves in the closet. “I’m taking a shower,” I told him, and waltzed into the bathroom as he finished the song.

“Make yourself comfortable.”

“I already did. Seventeen years ago,” I grabbed some random knickknack off one of the shelves and tossed it behind me.

“Can you not throw these?” Adam yelled, as I heard it thud to the floor.

--

When I came out, I found Adam sitting on the edge of his bed, his legs barely touching the floor, sifting through my phone.

“Are you reading my text messages?” I asked him, throwing my dress down on his floor, and left my bracelet on top. I’d grab that in the morning, or whenever I left. I’m sure I’d see it in a week, hung up in the closet. I pulled my hair up into a messy bun and sauntered over to him, peering over the top of my own Red Berry.

“’Thanks again for tonight’?” Adam read aloud. “’Hope we can do it again soon’? Who the hell puts ‘xoxo’ at the end of a text?”

I snatched the phone away. “You used to say kisses.”

“When I was 12 and thought it was cute.”

I quickly texted Matt back and told him I’d tell him the next day I was free for date number two. Adam stood up from his bed and stood in front of me.

“Who’s this Matt guy anyway? Do I know him? Not Matt Ruby-Tuesday, right?”

I looked up at Adam. The kid was a giant, his whole family was.

“Don’t you think you’d know if I was going on a date with one of your friends?” I reasoned, tossing my Red Berry onto a pile of jeans by the end of the bed, after mass-texting Mom, Dad, and Julie that I’d be staying at the Lazzara residence overnight.

No one would respond except Julie anyway, who would probably say ‘Tell Adam to wrap up the pickle!’

Adam shrugged and curled my bangs behind my ear, to no avail.

“It was Matt Sanders.” I looked down.

“Matt Sanders?” Adam asked incredulously. “Matt Sanders!? This must be some joke.”

“Ad, calm down. He was really nice.”

“Nice my ass!” Adam continued. “That kid’s scum. Didn’t he throw a desk at a kid a week before school ended? And that kid had just gotten out of chemotherapy?”

“Adam please…”

“I’m surprised you made it back alive. Did he pick you up on his chopper?”

“What the hell is a chopper?” I asked, scrunching up my eyebrows in confusion.

“It’s street-slash-gang talk for motorcycle. You’ll learn it soon enough, keep hanging out with him. Oh wait, excuse me, date him. Oh my gosh, Aubrey Jeanine Spencer, you dressed up for that scumbag? He does Percocet behind the gym!”

I sighed and let Adam ramble. I reached for his stomach. Adam loves tummy rubs, and calms down when he gets one. I’ve discovered a new weakness of his, which is when you rub his sides – he purrs like a kitty.

I nodded and said uh-huh to everything Adam said, and watched him slowly quiet down as I rubbed circles into his stomach. I slipped my hands under his blue t-shirt and came in contact with his warm flesh, some hanging over the top of his pajama pants.

Adam wasn’t fat. He was very tall, very slender. He just had some stomach pudge hanging around from his early days.

I used my thumbs to softly soothe his sides, until he finally shut up, biting his lip.

“Done?”

Adam looked down at me through some of his brown hair. It was getting too long. He was probably going to grow it out this summer, because he was dirty and stupid like that. He blinked once or twice, and I saw his eyes dart from my eyes, to my nose, lips, and eyes again.

“Yup.”

“Perfect.” I pulled away from him and hopped onto my side of the bed, pulled the sheets back, and dove in.

“You’re going to bed?!” Adam made a big deal out of a lot of things. “It’s only 10:30.”

“Put a movie in and come lay with me then,” I told him, and pulled my pillow out, his pillow, and snuggled into it. Adam always sets the temperature for his room to be like 50 degrees, mostly because he favored that temperature better, which is why I wore a sweatshirt and got under the covers at his house.

I didn’t see what movie Adam put in or how long it took him before he crawled in beside me, his warmth comforting me as he came closer.

“Aubrey?” I almost missed him whispering my name over the beginning of the movie I wasn’t paying attention to.

I cracked my eyes open to see Adam directly in front of me, his charming smile lighting up his face. His pointy nose nudged mine directly at the tip, and I could feel his hot breath on my lips.

He asked me if I kissed him.

I shook my head no and watched satisfaction come across Adam’s face.
My Adam’s face.

He kissed my nose and grabbed at my hips, pulling me towards him until his met mine. My legs slid on top of his, intertwining in the most intimate way.

My eyes slid closed again. I felt Adam touch my face softly, his thumb grazing over my jaw line. Then he brushed my eyebrow, over and over.

“You tired?” He asked quietly. I nodded and cuddled close to him, my head lying directly on his chest. I could hear his heart thudding underneath me.

“I don’t wanna sleep though.”

“Sleep baby girl,” he told me. I hated when he called me shit like that.

“I don’t wanna leave you alone.”

“I’m not alone, you’re right here.” He kissed my temple. He moved me a little to fix the pillows on his side of the bed and slid down. I moved back to my spot and wrapped my arms around Adam’s torso as his arm went around my shoulders, and then down to the dip in my back, where my waist started.

Adam and I.
This is exactly how we are.