Addicted

I met him about a month ago. Before that, he had always been somewhat of a mystery to me. Sure, I knew he existed, but only to a certain extent. He was a real person; that much I’d known, but after ‘befriending’ his roommate only months prior to that, I hadn’t physically seen him in the apartment.

And it was on a Tuesday morning that I’d literally bumped into him. His roommate had texted me at around ten a.m. asking me to come over because he was bored. Let me just say this now: bad things happen when TJ Oshie is bored. But because I’m young, naïve, and have an innate longing to be liked by someone who’s liked by everyone, I’d skipped my class and took three different buses to get to his apartment. And when I’d gotten to his apartment, I’d stood awkwardly in front of the door. It hadn’t opened by itself, which would’ve been cool if possible. Something had been holding me back that day from knocking on the door, and the longer I’d stood there, the more I felt like turning and leaving. And at one point, I almost did. I’d withdrawn my fist from hovering in front of the door, and turned on my heel. I’d planned on just texting TJ and telling him that something had come up.

I hadn’t gotten as far as the text message, though, because as I had turned on my heel, my nose buried in my phone that had a quick text QWERTY keypad, I’d bumped into something solid. My phone had clattered to the floor, and I’d been unsure if I should look up at the figure and apologize, or look to the floor to see if my phone was okay. I’d chosen the former, and now when I look back on the incident, I’m not sure if I had blushed because I was embarrassed for running into him, or because of the way he had looked at me.

His blue had been soft, as if telling me he wasn’t going to yell at me for bumping into him. I knew I’d started staring, which I’d tried to blink away the second his dimple-inducing smile appeared. “Um, s-sorry,” I’d stuttered out, and immediately dropped to my knees to retrieve my phone that had become three pieces upon impact with the floor.

His shadow had shifted in front of me, and I’d squeezed my eyes shut. After repeating a calming mantra in my head, I’d opened my eyes. He’d knelt down in front of me in the time it had taken me to calm myself down, and smiled kindly at me as he handed me the back of my phone. “Here,” he’d said when I’d once again become comatose and not acknowledged my phone piece in his hand.

I’d blushed – again – and mumbled out a thanks. He’d stood right after, luckily for me since that meant he’d missed the way my hands shook as I put my phone back together, and stepped around me to unlock the apartment door.

The rest, they say, is history. He’d announced my arrival to TJ by telling him there was a girl on her knees outside the apartment. TJ had, of course, being the dick he sometimes was, came barreling out the door and tripped over me.

That day, as TJ and I sat in the waiting room of the nearby hospital for two hours only to hear in ten minutes that TJ had sprained one of my fingers, I’d found out that TJ had mistaken me for someone else. “Thanks,” I’d told him sarcastically, accompanied by a wary glare, “for physically looking disappointed when you realized it was me on the ground.”

TJ had smiled that anemic grin he sometimes had, and informed me he had been pained at having sprained my finger, but secretly thrilled at having me on my knees in front of him again.

That had also been the day I’d punched TJ Oshie.
…
“TJ, I don’t want to watch that movie,” I whine, staring at TJ’s back as he crouches in front of his and Patrik’s DVD collection to pick out a movie.

The movie he’s picked out, The Hills Have Eyes, is not one I want to watch. I have a thing about horror movies, in that I simply can’t watch them.

He looks at me over his shoulder and wiggles the cover in the air. “Cam, come on. Last time we watched that chick flick you wanted.”

I cross my arms over my chest and sink lower in my seat. His logic is airtight in the way of movie decisions, and that’s what makes my blood boil. If it’s his turn to pick, why does he insist on making it seem like he’s going to let me pick? And why does he insist on picking movies he knows will keep me up for the next week?

When I don’t answer him, he takes it as a positive sign and inserts the DVD into the player. The lights in the room are off, since the lights of St. Louis stream through the huge window behind the couch I’m sitting on. The beginning credits appear on the screen (we’ve bypassed the previews) and I can feel myself tensing. TJ’s taken up residence beside me, not on another piece of furniture, with his arm thrown casually across the back of the couch. The only thing I can bring myself to think, though, is that I’m probably going to fail the test I have next week, because I’m not going to be able to study for it due to the fact that I’m never going to be able to sleep again after watching this movie.

“I hate you,” I feel the need to tell him as the most non-threatening music ever plays in the background of the movie.

About thirty minutes into the movie, and TJ has completely spread out on the couch. Instead of moving to the other couch in the room, he’s decided to just spread out on this one. I’ve already attempted to push his legs off me, but all that’s happened is he’s put his legs back where they had been previously.

I sigh malevolently, and push his legs one more time so I can stand up. “Where are you going?” TJ asks.

“To sit on the floor,” I tell him, because even though I don’t want his legs on me, I also don’t want to sit across the room from him. I’m not that brave.

When the front door creaks open a few minutes later, I nearly jump out of my skin. Patrik’s eyes ghost from TJ, lounging completely unperturbed on the couch behind me, to me, probably whiter than an albino. He doesn’t say anything as he toes off his shoes and hangs up his coat. In fact, he doesn’t even say anything as he plops down on the ground beside me.

I look at him curiously. Since I’ve met him, Patrik has never really spoken that much. He’s the complete opposite of his roommate, who sometimes goes off on tangents just to hear himself speak. There’s no point in asking him what he’s doing – sitting on the floor beside me instead of on another piece of furniture that’s possibly more comfortable – because I probably won’t get more than a shoulder shrug in response from him.

My staring must’ve been distracting, because Patrik turns to me slowly. His face morphs into a look that tells me he’s a stereotypical sweet Swede, with his crease-free soft blue eyes and a smile that – despite not showing any teeth – pulls the muscles in his cheeks to make his dimples appear.

“Hey,” he mumbles softly.

The hair on the back of my neck stands up, my skin tingles, and my face heats up. I can feel his shoulder touching mine, which on its own is distracting, but his smile just makes it much more dangerous. I inhale deeply, hoping that when I speak it doesn’t come out scratchy – or worse – breathy. “Hi,” I return softly.

The spell he’s put me under is broken when TJ nudges him on the back of the head with his toe. “Hey man. Do I need a nice rack for you to talk to me?”

I gape openly at TJ, my jaw nearly touching the floor. Patrik, on the other hand, seems to be less comatose than me, as he lays a good Charlie Horse on TJ’s leg. TJ recoils from the hit, and sends me an apologetic pout. “Cam, I love your boobies like a kitty loves catnip.”

My eyebrows lower over my eyes in a wry look. I guess it’s a compliment…

Patrik turns back to the television, but I spare TJ a few more seconds before I turn myself back around to face the TV. However, before I can actually understand what’s going on in the movie, Patrik throws a hand over my eyes and pulls me closer to his shoulder. “Don’t look, Camer-on,” he instructs.

A slight shiver rolls down my legs and shoots up my spine at the sound of his accent tainting my name. But at the same time, I want to know what he doesn’t want me to see. I grip his fingers with one of my hands, while I grip his wrist with my other hand. I can hear a female shrieking and screaming no while someone else creates a ruckus in the film, and despite not wanting to watch the movie, my curiosity has gotten the best of me once again. Patrik, however, has other ideas, and keeps his hand firmly over my eyes.

“I want to see,” I tell him.

“No you don’t.”

“I do!” I insist whole-heartedly. And in retrospect, that’s probably what convinced him, because he let me pull his hand away. Upon immediate discovery of the mutant raping the girl, I gasp in complete and utter horror. I want to look away, since it makes me want to throw up and swear off any kind of male penetration for the rest of my life, but I’m completely drawn to the screen. Just when I can feel the bile rising in my throat, and Patrik can probably feel my nails digging into the flesh of his hand and wrist, he covers my eyes again. “Don’t look, Camer-on,” he tells me, and this time, as I lean sideways into his shoulder, I let him block my view of one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever witnessed.
…
It’s completely silent in my room, and that’s what’s scaring me. It’s silent when a mass-murderer is trying to be all stealthy and whatnot. I’ve been tossing and turning in my bed for about three hours now, and as tired as I am, I can’t bring myself to close my eyes. I’ve shut my curtains, but the moonlight is still painting images on the wall across from my window, and the wind is howling and making the images waver. Despite the temperature in my room, I still shiver. The wind whistles again through my window, and I shoot up out of bed and run from my room.

Barging into my roommate’s room, I jump on the bed none too discretely. “Stevie,” I hiss, “wake up!”

Stevie’s blonde hair is the only thing poking out from under the covers. Although, I know she’s awake because I hear her groan and see her move under her blankets. “Go to bed, Cam,” she mumbles out groggily.

“I can’t sleep,” I tell her honestly.

She mumbles incoherently, and before I can ask her to repeat, her soft snores fill her room. Damn I’m jealous of her ability to sleep no matter what.

Resigned, I stand with a defeated sigh. Well, if I can’t sleep, neither should he.
…
I knock rapidly on the door, as if to insure the occupants wouldn’t remain sleeping – assuming they were sleeping – for very much longer. I grip my stuffed moose – coincidentally named Bruce – tighter to my chest, and look over my shoulder. No one there, thank God. The door opens, revealing a shirtless and sleepy looking Patrik Berglund. He washes his left hand over his already messy blonde hair as his right hand grips at the door handle.

His eyes land on me, quietly unassuming, and he takes in my appearance. Boy shorts and a large t-shirt. And yes, I did take three buses at four o’clock in the morning wearing this. But I had Bruce the Moose – nothing bad happened. I toe at the ground in response to his lingering eyes. “Weren’t you cold?” he finally asks.

I’m still standing out in the hallway, my skin prickling at the fact that there was so much open space behind me. “Better freezing cold than raped by a mutant.”

His face falls sympathetically, and his sleepy eyes open more. “Camer-on,” he sighs, gesturing me into the apartment, “why did you agree to watching Timmy’s movie?”

I shuffle out of my UGG boots. “Because I picked last time.”

He closes the door softly behind me, as not to wake TJ. Although, TJ’s such a heavy sleeper that a slamming door wouldn’t have woken him up anyways. I turn to him, watching as he yawns and pulls his hair into a faux hawk at the front of his head. When he looks at me, I shrug.

He eyes me with a one-sided smirk as he walks passed me towards his room. “Don’t keep him up – we have practice tomorrow.”

I flush hotly at his implications. It happens once and suddenly I’m always here to screw TJ. I should’ve been the bigger person and just gone to TJ’s room, but when Patrik shut his door, it was like he was shutting it on our conversation. So I march towards Patrik’s room, and, completely uninvited, push open his door. He doesn’t react to my intrusion, so I march over and stop at the foot of his bed. I poke at what I assume is his foot, and he still doesn’t react. I huff under my breath and climb onto his bed. As I sit behind him on my knees, he’s completely unperturbed at the fact that I’m in his bed. “Patrik!” I whisper, clasping his bare shoulder and shaking.

Just like my roommate, he groans at my intrusion. However, unlike my roommate, he physically rolls over and looks at me. “What?” he asks.

“It happened once,” I tell him.

His eyes roam over my face, before finally conceding with a quiet, “okay.”

My heart speeds up at the look on his face. I look away, feeling my face get warmer. I’m not sure why I felt the need to wake him up to tell him that. “Okay,” I repeat softly.

The sounds of him rustling in his blankets causes me to look up. He’s sitting up and leaning against his headboard. “One time when I was little, I found a tampon and ran to my mom. I was so excited to find my own stick of dynamite.”

I furrow my eyebrows, as if deciding on how legitimate his claim was. The corners of his mouth twitch into a smile. “My mom was – is – so embarrassed about it. She still can’t talk about it.”

I crack a small smile, relishing in the little butterflies that fly about in my stomach. Something so random has made me feel so much more connected to him. We sit in silence for a second, before I remember why I’m really here. “I’ll be right back,” I tell him, and then wiggle off his bed.

I walk into TJ’s room, hearing him snore peacefully on his stomach in the middle of his bed. None too gently, I smack his back and yell at him to wake up. He awakes with a startle, staring up at me with unfocused eyes. “Cam?” he asks, his voice scratchy.

“You’re a dick,” I tell him, and then turn and march back into Patrik’s room.

Patrik’s still sitting in the same position I left him. I bite my lip slowly, quickly accepting the way his smile made me feel. It’s almost like it ignites my brain when I see it, releasing endorphins and feel-good chemicals in my body that make my skin tingle appreciatively and my heart rate speed up. I crawl back up the foot of his bed until I’m sitting beside his thigh.

“When I was little, I told my little brother that if you put salt on a stick of butter, it would produce lots of heat. Then, when he went to feel, I smacked his hand into the butter.”

Patrik chuckles quietly. “Bitch.”

I pout at him and smack his thigh. “Am not!” I insist. “He told me that if my hand was bigger than my face, I had cancer!”

“And was it?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Nope.”

He gives me a small smile. “You must have tiny hands,” he tells me.

I scrunch my nose at him. “I don’t think so,” I say, and my eyes travel down to his hand. “I mean, compared to yours, sure. But you have big guy hands.” I hold my hand up. “See?”

His eyes are still soft as he glances at my hand. His eyes train on mine as he puts his hand against mine. We both look at the same time as his hand is so much bigger than mine. “So little,” he mumbles.

I give an embarrassed smile and withdraw my hand from his. “I’m proportionate,” I mutter.

“You know what they say about girls with tiny hands,” he says.

“No,” I return, “what?”

His eyes sparkle as he replies in Swedish. I let out a little laugh of disbelief. “Patrik, what did you say?”

He shrugs, clearly liking my interest in what he’d said. “De tillhörde vanligt mycket lilla kvinnor,” he repeats, and then flushes a light pink as he adds, “och ibland attraktiva kvinnor.”

“What did you say?” I ask again, my voice quieter.

“I said you look like you walked into the middle of a tornado.”

My hands jump to my hair in attempt to tame the tresses. However, I feel nothing by my own silky brown hair. “You’re a liar!” I laugh, smacking his knee through the blankets.

He laughs in response. “That’s for me to know, and you to never find out.”

I scoff, and try not to laugh. “I’ll find out one way or another, Patrik.”

He leans forward so his elbows rest on his knees. I eye him, and hope he can’t hear the way my heart’s trying to beat out of my chest at the way he’s looking at me. “You come and find me when you figure out what that means.”

“Find you?” I repeat curiously, “where are you going?”

His face flushes a darker shade than before. “Never mind,” he tells me in a mumble. He shimmies down under his covers and rolls over. Suddenly I feel like I’ve somehow offended him, but his rigid and closed body language tell me he doesn’t want to talk about it. I sigh softly, and scoot off his bed. I stand at the side of his bed, watching as his muscles shift beneath the stretch of skin on his back. He exhales once, and then his shoulders fall softly.

I make my way out of his room, and close his door behind me quietly. We’d been… bonding before I’d gone and screwed it up. I pause as I stand at TJ’s bedroom door, and look over my shoulder at Patrik’s room. His really lame attempt to make me feel better hadn’t eluded me, and I smile to myself at the thought. He really was a sweetheart.
…
I wake up the next morning in a tangle of sheets. After tunneling under TJ’s arm last night, I’d batted my eyelashes at him until he let me spend (the rest of) the night. TJ hasn’t woken up yet, and as he snores peacefully at the other end of the bed (no spooning for non-couples, I told him after he last night tried to surgically attach me to his chest), I sit up and stare contemplatively at his huge collection of hats.

I look at the alarm clock beside his bed – 10:37 in the morning – and then lightly nudge his shoulder. He lets out a quiet whine and burrows his head into his soft pillow. I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth at his childish reaction, and nudge him again. Again, he whines.

“Your vast hat collection is overcompensation for your wavering libido,” I tell him smoothly. Me talking about his sexual prowess is the right move, because he darts up in bed.

Instead of pouting like he usually does, he grabs me by the waist and pulls me down. He hovers above me, his messy, curled hair hanging in front of his face. His eyes search mine, and a cheesy grin lit up his baby face. I can tell when he’s trying to seduce me, or pull the wool over my eyes, which is exactly what he’s trying to do now. “My sexual prowess isn’t lacking,” he murmurs.

I look at him mock-seriously. “You have morning breath.”

He looks at me like I’ve grown another head; as if he can’t wrap his brain around the fact that I hadn’t fallen at his feet. Again. But then, true to his nature, he brushes it off and sits up. “Honestly Cam,” he tells me with a genuinely brilliant smile, standing up and stretching by the side of his bed, “I’m glad you broke my alarm clock.”

It’s the most genuine comment I’ve ever gotten from him. I can tell he means it, and it makes my heart swell. The night a couple of months ago when we’d hooked up in a drunken haze, he’d tried to do some fancy karma sutra move and I’d fallen off the bed. I’d grabbed for something to hold onto, and yanked his alarm clock off the stand beside his bed. We had thought the alarm clock had been okay, as we’d giggled about how it was lying upside down on the ground. It hadn’t been okay, when the next morning he’d woken up three hours after the end of his practice. What can I say; we bonded.

“I love you too Teej,” I tell him honestly.

A bright blush creeps up his neck and settles on his cheeks. He downcasts his gaze to the floor and rubs the back of his neck. “That’s, um –” The rest of his reply came in the form of a mumble, so I didn’t catch it. Even if he hadn’t mumbled it, though, I would’ve missed it. I had been too focused on the fact that I had made TJ Oshie blush, and more importantly, admitting to my affection didn’t cause little butterflies to start their own little Marti Gras party in my stomach.

Because as much as I loved TJ, I wasn’t in love with him.

I fall back into the bed as TJ makes his way out into the rest of the apartment. “Timmy,” I hear Patrik greet, “my parents are coming up…” and then I hear a series of mumbles and shuffles, and everything falls silent. TJ appears in his room a second later and tosses a towel at me.

“Shower,” he says, “because I’ve got to take you home.”

It’s my turn to grunt as I rip the towel away from my face and sit up again. TJ’s gone from the room by the time I get out of the bed. I hate being rushed in the morning, so when I am, I feel the need to shuffle around slowly.

As I drag my feet along the carpet, TJ sends me a look from the front door. “Cam, I’m going to get breakfast. Be out of the shower by the time I come back.”

I flare my nose in distaste in his direction, but don’t outright challenge him. He takes this as a submissive reaction, and gives his fingers a fruity little wiggle as he slips out the door. I pause in the living room when I see Patrik lounging with his hat covering his eyes on the couch. The television is on, quietly, as if he needs something to send him off to dream land. After last night I feel a bit awkward, but I have no idea what to say to him. So I just turn on my heel and head towards the washroom.

Under the warm spray of the showerhead, I have time to contemplate things that are running amuck in my mind. Och ibland attraktiva kvinnor. I need to know what he said to me, or else my idle curiosity will kill me.

My skin begins to turn red and prune, so I decide it’s as good a time as any to get out. I turn the water off and step out of the tub. Grasping for the towel I’d thrown over the sink, I gasp in absolute horror at the sight of the towel TJ had handed to me. It’s the sketchiest towel I’d ever seen. I’m not sure which part of me I want it to cover more, my breasts or my ass, because it certainly didn’t have the square footage to cover both. I certainly could’ve avoided the current situation by looking at the towel before hopping in the shower, but who honestly thinks to check towel size?

I look around the bathroom to see if there’s anything else I can use. I refuse to put my clothes on while I’m wet, and the only other thing is the…

Oh no.

I look at the shower curtain with a look of utter distain. Bastard. So, as gently as I could, I unclip the rings from the shower rod and remove the curtain. It’s like a tent on me, but better the whole tent that a patch of the tent, if you know what I mean. I open the door of the bathroom and look out into the apartment. “TJ,” I call, hoping against all logic that the reason I didn’t see him was because he was kneeling on the floor somewhere or something.

I get no reply. Sighing, I walk out into the living room. I feel kind of exposed, naked and dragging a shower curtain around as I search for a towel in front of the huge window. I bite my lip indecisively. The logical half of me tells me to just wake Patrik up and ask him for a towel, but the female part of me is still feeling slightly awkward from last night.

But if I don’t talk to him…

“Patrik,” I whisper – although I’m not sure why, “Patrik I need a towel!”

He slowly pushes his hat off his face and looks at me. And when I say looks at me, I mean looks at me. His eyes drift down from my chin, and I can’t bring myself to watch as he looks at me. He sits up and I pull myself up to my full height, and cinch the curtain tighter around my body.

“Is that the shower curtain?” he asks.

I flush. “Yes,” I mutter, “because TJ didn’t give me a towel.”

Patrik stands up, and the fact that he’s so much bigger than me makes me feel vulnerable. “Why did you shower if you didn’t have a towel?”

I clear my throat uncomfortably as I feel my face growing warmer. “He gave me a tiny towel,” I tell him. My eyes fixate on the hem of his blue t-shirt. I can feel myself growing older as the seconds tick by without a word exchanged between us. In fact, for all I know, he’s died standing up, and I’m just too chicken to look at him.

He curls his arms around my shoulders, and I fold into his body, despite how random and awkward the hug is. “Camer-on,” he sighs. I sigh too, but for a completely different reason. His shirt smells like fabric softener, but as I press myself closer, he smells either like deodorant or aftershave.

He gives me a little squeeze, and exhales softly. “Timmy would kill me if you died because you stopped breathing.”

My shoulders are already tense, so once I release the breath I’d been holding, I feel my whole body deflate. I look up at Patrik and smile shyly. “Thanks,” I mumble.

He gives me a kind smile and lets go. “I’ll go get you a towel,” he tells me.

As I stand in the middle of the living room, waiting for Patrik, I hear the click of the door unlocking. I turn around just as I hear, “Cam?”

“TJ!” I gasp as I see the people behind him.

“Camer-on, I –”

“Patrik!” I plead as he approaches me with a towel. He goes silent and freezes in his spot.

“Patrik?” The older woman says from behind TJ.

“Mom, dad?” Patrik replies.

The whole room goes silent. Everyone’s looking at someone. I can feel my entire body breaking out in an intense blush. Here I am, basically naked in Patrik and TJ’s apartment, and Patrik’s parents have just arrived.

I feel the need to say something; to take away some of the tension in the air. But not only am I frozen in my current spot, but my voice isn’t working. I need to say something. Quick, Cameron, think…

“So this is my girlfriend, Camer-on,” Patrik blurts out.

“Patrik!” I gasp.

He looks at me sheepishly, his face tinged with pink, and looks at me as if he wants to apologize. But it’s too late – I think his parents believed him. Apparently I’m not the only one who felt the need to say something. Except, what I would’ve said wouldn’t have made the situation so much more awkward.
…
“I’m sorry!” Patrik repeats for the millionth time in less than five minutes. After I’d dried myself off and put on some clothes that TJ just happened to have in his room of mine, I’d pulled Patrik into his room to figure some stuff out. “I panicked! In my mom’s eyes, having a naked girlfriend in the room is better than having a naked prostitute in the room!”

I flush; I wasn’t naked per say…

“But really?” I plead in an intense whisper, “that’s got to be… why didn’t you just hand me off to TJ?”

“It would be weird for me to be hanging around Timmy’s naked girlfriend,” he informs me. And, I have to admit it makes sense.

“True,” I concede.

Patrik tries to make light of the situation by giving me a disarming smile. I can feel myself wanting to agree with anything he might say immediately following his smile. “Please, Camer-on?”

A shiver races down my spine at the sound of his accent. I close my eyes, willing myself to stand up to his gently blue eyes. When I open my own eyes this time, Patrik’s standing closer.

I take in his posture, as if the move would give me an inside look at his thoughts and feelings. His back is slightly hunched towards me, his shoulders folded forwards as if not closing himself off from me, but as if subconsciously pulling me to him. “Patrik,” I try weakly, not at all put off by how breathy I sound.

“Camer-on,” he says it again, and it’s like the final nail in my coffin. Patrik knows he’s won because his fingers dance along my jaw, softly, and making my skin tingle from the contact. He straightens his back, but not his shoulders. He places a kiss on my mouth, so soft I barely felt the contact but at the same time my body’s heating up like a volcano. “It’s always the accent,” he breaths, causing me to close my eyes and relish in the cool shiver that races through my heated body.

I exhale. Why does that not surprise me?