Sometimes Resisting Is Easier Than Giving In

The afternoon sun beat down with a sort of golden intensity that it hadn’t in a long time. Maybe it was because it was the end of fall and the beginning of winter. It could have also looked different because we were alone in the creek with no one around for a mile or two. There were no houses paved roads to break up the way light filters though natural trees and plants.
The bed of Alex’s truck had been lined with a few blankets and some pillows that we had thrown on the back seat of his truck for evenings like this; they had been happening a lot more often lately. It was very comfortable to be lying in the bed of the truck as I was.
Alex was doing something with Sebastian that I couldn’t see. I think he was chasing him because I could hear Sebastian barking and Alex laughing. Maybe Sebastian was chasing him. Either way I was getting lonely but was also taking advantage of being able to work on my tan a little.
The back end of the truck tipped down and I soon felt Sebastian against my leg. I didn’t open my eyes because the sun would have burnt out my eyes but I could tell that Alex was standing over me because the light got less intense.
“You’re blocking the sun. I can’t tan like this.” I said to him.
“Mmm but I’m just enjoying the sight.” Alex replied.
“You’re such a boy.” I signed sitting up and grabbing my shirt.
“No.” Alex whined and dropped to his knees before lying onto of me. “I like you this way.”
His hands trailed down my bare sides. I shivered and he pushed his lips to my neck.
“Alex.” I tried to sound stern, but that’s not how his name broke though my lips.
He giggled against my skin and let one of his hands travel to my chest. Why did I have to choose to tan topless in the bed of his truck? Oh right, because I can’t at his house because Rian would walk out there and see me and I can’t at home because of my mother.
Alex took his own shirt off and continued kissing his way to my lips.
“Not now.” I said to him.
“Why?” He asked.
“Sebastian.” I breathed as his fingers went for the strings on my bikini bottoms.
He tugged on them and didn’t listen. I felt the bikini bottoms fall to the bed of the truck and Alex started to pull them out from under me.
“Alex.” I whined.
“Please?” He begged while biting my lip.
It was so hard to say no so I just shook my head and looked him in the eyes.
“Damn Bas, why do you always have to be such a cock block?” Alex asked looking at him.
He was curled up in the corner of the truck bed not even looking at us. I took Alex’s divided attention as a chance to retie the sides of my bikini and reach for my top. Alex’s hand stopped me.
“Alex.” I said sounding stern this time.
“What? You’ve been like this all afternoon. I don’t think Bas cares if you don’t have a top on.”
“Yea, but it’s going to tempt you.” I said.
He sighed and rolled off of me to allow me to put my top back on. I also chose to slip back into my shorts that I had originally come here in just as a precaution. It was very easy to tempt him now since I was holding back. He couldn’t figure out that I wanted to have a relationship well intact with him before we ever got back to the physical part. I wasn’t going to repeat that night after the beach and hurt him again. I never wanted to hurt him again.
Alex chose to leave his shirt off and stretch out in the sun. I laid down next to him and he took my hand in his. We stayed like that for a long time listening to the music that was coming from the cab of his truck. Sebastian moved around once in a while and let the sun beat down on him as well.
“I guess now would be a good time to talk about some stuff.” Alex said picking up my hand.
“What kind of stuff?” I asked warily.
“Well things about me and about Zack.” He said looking at me.
“What about Zack?” I asked sitting up to get a better view of his face.
“It’s nothing bad, at least I don’t think so.” Alex said reading the fear in my face.
“What is it then?”
“He’s going to move to California.” Alex sighed.
“Why is he moving there?”
“He feels at home there and he want to go. He has been for a while and he’s found some friends that he’s going to move in with down in Huntington Beach.”
“Huntington Beach? No wonder. He likes beaches and surfing and all that.”
“Yea, he’s leaving in a few weeks. He’s going to tell Courtney today what’s going on. Do you think they’ll be okay?”
“I know where Courtney is going to go for college.” I smiled.
“So they’ll be alright then?”
“Yea, she’ll be fine. Any break she has she’ll be across the country in seconds.”
“Good, because I don’t want to see anything happen to them. You should hear the way Zack talks about her when it’s just us guys. It’s sickening.” Alex laughed.
“So he’s that in love huh?” I asked kissing Alex’s chest.
“Yep.” Alex said playing with some of my hair. “But there’s more. This is the part about me, well the band actually and how it will affect us.”
I got nervous there. I looked up into his eyes and he saw what I was feeling.
“Nothing bad, I swear.” Alex said sitting up and pulling me into his chest.
“Okay.”
“So since we’re basically done with touring for now, we want to go record our next album. We’re, as a band, going out to LA to do this with Matt Squire and we’re leaving like two weeks after Zack leaves.”
“Okay.” I said thinking what he said over.
“I want you to come. I don’t want to be without you.” He said kissing the top of my head.
“I would love to come Alex, but I have school. Mid-terms are coming up and I can’t afford to leave.”
“But Baby.” Alex whined while pressing his lips to my hair.
“I can’t sweetheart. I want to, but I just can’t.”
“You don’t need school.” He reminded me.
“I do.” I countered.
“Will you come out at all?” He asked hopefully.
“After mid-terms I can come see you. I’ll be able to afford a week off from school then.”
“I guess I have to settle for that.” Alex said sadly as his face dropped.
“Alex.” I said cupping the sides of his face with my hands. “It wont be so hard.”
“Yes it will.” He protested looking down.
“I’ll be able to see you for a little while. We’ll be okay.”
“I’m not afraid of us not being okay.” He said reaching up with his left hand to touch my right hand. “I’m just don’t like being away from you.”
I pushed my lips to his just to make him happy. Alex was really unhappy about being away from me. I didn’t want to be away from him either but I knew that we could make it.
“I just don’t want you to go anywhere or do anything without me. I’ll miss you too much.” Alex said after I’d pulled back.
“God forbid I have any fun without you,” I said sarcastically.
After looking into his eyes and seeing that this was not the time for sarcasm I regretted what I had said. He was still looking sadly at me. It was almost heartbreaking.
“I’ll miss you too.” I admitted to him.
I hadn’t really admitted much to Alex about how I felt about him because I wasn’t sure of what I felt myself. His eyes lit up when I said that I would miss him. I had never said that to him and really meant it. He could see how sad I was thinking about him leaving and this time he kissed me to make me feel better.
“There’s another thing…” Alex trailed off.
I looked at him skeptically.
“You’re going to hate me for this.” He said with a smile.
“What is it?”
“I want to take Bas.” Alex said glancing at the sunbathing puppy.
I looked too and frowned. Sebastian was the one who held me together all the time. Now that I was with Alex and he was leaving I wouldn’t have anyone to keep me together, and I was going to need him.
“I just don’t ever get to take him with me on tour because the bus is not a good place for him, but we’re going to be in a house and I can take care of him that way.”
“Well, he’s your dog. You bought him. If you want to take him then you can.”
“I know, but you’re his mommy and I know how attached you are to him.”
“Take him.” I said even though it made me sad.
It was logical for Alex to take Sebastian with him while recording. He was right that it would be a good idea. Alex didn’t get to spend a lot of time with Sebastian because he was on tour so this was a good that he had time to be with his puppy. It was going to be a little hard on me to be without him and Alex but I would get though it. It was my turn to suffer a little.
“You sure?” Alex asked while giving my face kisses.
“Of course.” I said as I kissed him back.
“Thank you.”
Why he was thanking me for letting him take his dog to record, I couldn’t figure out. However I didn’t say anything to him and just gave him a few more kisses.
“I love you, Baby.” He smiled.
“I know.” I smiled back.
“You ready to get out of here?”
“Yea, I think it’s a good time to go.”
Alex kissed me again and then went to get Sebastian as I got out of the bed of the truck. When I started to roll up the blankets Alex stopped me.
“Just leave them. We’ll get them when we’re back home.”
“M’kay.”
We climbed into his truck and I took Sebastian. He fell asleep on my lap during the drive home. Alex held my hand the whole ride home and at stops he would give me kisses.This boy was really making me start to rethink what I thought I believed in.
Back at Alex’s I let Sebastian into the house and went back to the truck to help Alex with the blankets. He was rolling the blankets up with the pillows in them so I stopped him. He really would be able to survive without me.
“You can’t put blankets away with pillows in them.” I said taking the blankets from him.
“I’m not putting them away.” Alex said taking them back.
“What are you doing with them then?” I asked looking at him funny.
“Why don’t you find out?” He asked and then ran off into the back yard.
I laughed and started walking the way that he had run. Whatever he was doing I figured that he needed a moment to put the blankets down and fix the pillows so I took my time and fixed my clothes so that they fit me right.
When I turned the corner the blankets were spread out on the grass and the pillows were set up at the top of them, but he wasn’t there. I assumed he was going to come back so I walked around the pool towards the blankets. There was a tingling in my stomach that told me he was planning something romantic and I liked it. He hadn’t done anything like this yet, not even before we were together so I was nervous in the good way.
Sitting down on the blankets was soft and comfortable. The grass was dry so there was no water that could seep through to make me uncomfortable. I noticed that the pillows were situated so that if we laid down on the blankets we would be facing the west, and the sunset.
Alex came back into the back yard. I didn’t look back to see because I knew it was him. I could hear him walking around the pool and then noticed when his feet hit the grass. He was right behind me and I couldn’t wait for him to be next to me. It was like every fiber in me was reaching towards him and I had to resist turning around and grabbing him.
Finally he sat next to me and pulled me into his arms. I smiled and pushed him away playfully only to cause him to pull me closer and tighter; that was what I wanted anyways.
“So I see you figured out what I wanted you to do.” Alex said in my ear.
“Mmm that depends on what you want me to do.” I said back.
“This is what I want right now.”
“Well then you have it, Sir.”
“I brought out some wine.” Alex said handing me a glass.
I turned to take it from him and then noticed that he had placed a few candles back by the pool. It looked pretty and I kissed him for his effort.
“So you like this?” He asked.
“Yes, I like this.”
“Good, because I was hoping that we could watch the sun go down. I think I owed that to you.”
“Actually you owed a sun rise to me, but we never got to watch the sun go down either; our lips were stuck together that whole evening.”
“Well I hope this will suffice.” He said pushing his lips to mine.
I just made the kiss last longer than he expected to let him know that this was fine.
“I just can’t see us getting up in the morning to see the sun come up. I mean we sleep in late.”
“You sleep in late. I have to get up in the mornings.”
“Yea, on weekdays.”
We sat outside together and talked for a while until the sun was starting to go down. Then Alex cuddled me into his chest and held onto me while we watched. There was no way if I was with anyone else that I would have patiently watched a sun set, but with Alex it seemed right. I knew he loved the sun and he loved me so it seemed right to put the two things that he loved together even though he’d spent the day with the sun, Sebastian, and I.
After the sun had gone down we finished our wine and just hung out for a while. The wine started to wear off and I was getting cold so we went into the house. Rian was cuddled up on the couch with Kara so we walked quietly past them into Alex’s room.
I stayed for a few more hours before I decided that I had to go home and get to bed so I would be prepared for school in the morning. Leaving Alex was hard, but it was harder to leave him in the mornings and then make it though the school day without falling asleep or coming close to it.
It wasn’t easy to get to sleep at home either because Courtney called me as soon as I got home and wanted to talk about how Zack was leaving. Eventually got to talking about Alex and I had to relay all of the events that happened today to her in detail. I had fun talking about him and geeking out over what happened, but I was really tired when I got off the phone. It was twelve at night and I was so tired I fell asleep in my bathing suit and t-shirt.