“I warned him about getting too involved with a businesswoman. He needs someone a little more family oriented. Not so career driven this young. There’s time for that later, after the children are out of the house. A woman like that is a lot to handle. Too much if you ask me.” He reaches for a club as he stares down the fairway, planning his first drive.
I act as normal as possible and hold my tongue when Hugh continues to complain about women who want to have their own careers. “Any woman who could just break it off like she did.” I nod and swing my club, all the while dreading hearing more than I can take about Lori’s relationship with Max. When my dad and Hugh start joking about how good of a lay she must be to have his son so tied up, I have to excuse myself to get a drink and to try not to start throwing fucking punches.
I text Lori, hoping she has stayed at my place so I can see her for the few minutes I have between golfing and dinner. Of course, she is already home. We’re just friends with benefits. I keep trying to remind myself of that, especially after the long discussion that took place on the course. When I return to my dad and Hugh, they approach me with a plan to get Max back out in the dating game.
The plan is for me to take him out and get him around some of the girls I hang out with. It doesn’t go over my head that they know the type of girls I like: easy, available, and discrete. I agree at their insistence and just hope he will hook up with one quick so I can get home early and maybe have time to see Lori tonight.
I’m not the president of Max’s fan club, so I enlist Caleb to keep me company. After dinner with a few friends, the three of us make our way to a dark club that Max has chosen. Some women join us, and I’m grateful. Caleb hates this kind of attention, and that makes me smile. I used to love it, lived for it even, but now I just can’t get Lori out of my head.
“I love this place,” Max yells over the loud music. I can smell the alcohol on his breath already, and while I had watched him take a sip out of something from his jacket in the back of the car, I hadn’t realized it had been vodka.
“Should be a good time,” I say and give him a tight smile. I want this to be over but I can’t let on that I’m not having a good time.
“What’s your poison tonight?” Max asks with a mischievous chuckle. “Blond? Brunet? Friends?”
I hate that in the past I might have laughed at this seriously. He isn’t wrong about me. I used to see girls as physical traits. Just a checklist of my preferences for the night. But somehow when he says it now, it makes my skin crawl. I hate to see any part of myself reflected in him.
“Whatever you want. Tonight is about you, buddy,” I reply, hoping my answer pushes off his quest to hook me up with some random girl and allows his focus to go back to himself. Something he’s usually very comfortable with.
“Plenty to go around, right?” His hand claps my back and I fight the urge to remove it forcefully. I remind myself to stay calm. He has no idea why there’s an internal volcano of rage building inside me.
“Sure thing, brother. I’ll grab us some drinks.” I move to head to the bar but he blocks my path with the back of his hand. It takes everything in me not to whack it out of the way.
“Nah, man. Let the girls bring it to us. That’s what we tip them for. We look more enticing if we stay in our pack.” Max nods to a waitress, signaling for her to come over.
“Right, man. Whatever you think is best.”
“Come on, you know how it works. It’s not your first rodeo. I know it’s been a minute since I’ve been out with you guys since I had the ball and chain, but I’m a free man now.” He snaps his fingers and motions aggressively for the waitress to hurry.
After one set of songs from the DJ, I find myself studying Max, wondering what Lori saw in him. I don’t let my thoughts wander too far into their relationship, because the thought of her having sex with pisses me off. Glancing at my phone, I see that it’s eleven o’clock, and I feel my frustration building as the minutes that I could be spending with her tick by.
Caleb lifts his chin to get me to look at Max. There’s a girl sitting on his lap now, and I can’t help but feel fucking ecstatic that maybe my babysitting shift is over for the night. I listen to him hit on her and feel disgusted on her behalf. He’s crude, and she tries hard to evade his very personal questions.
The girl tolerates him for as long as she can, but when his relentless advances get to be too much, she makes a move to get off of his lap. Caleb and I are both watching as Max grabs her hips and slams her back down on his lap with a laugh. The poor girl’s face flashes with a look of terror and she makes a move to get off of him again. This time she’s a little quicker and makes it to her feet before Max grabs her wrist and twists it.
The pain is evident on her face, and I can’t help but step forward and make my way to Max. He looks pissed as he twists her wrist, forcing her back onto his lap. I put my hand firmly on his shoulder, gripping him as hard as I can manage, and then lean down so that there’s no chance he can miss what I say. “I think the young lady would like to leave your lap.”
“What the fuck, Ben? We’re just having a little fun.” He turns and smiles at the girl and lets her wrist go. She moves so quickly off his lap and away from him she almost stumbles. I watch as she rubs her wrist where he was holding her. I want to punch him so badly right now, but decide to chalk his aggressive behavior up to the alcohol. I look over at Caleb, who’s shaking his head.
The rules in our social circle have never made me angry. In fact, they usually work to my advantage. Right now, though, I want to deck this asshole and claim Lori as mine for everyone to see. I hate playing this stupid little game, but I know there will be so much hell to pay if I don’t follow the rules. Instead, I step back into the dark shadows of the club and watch as Max beckons the waitress over to our area.
“Hey, sugar. How about another round?” She nods, but as she turns to leave, Max reaches out and grabs her ass. The waitress almost drops the tray she’s carrying when she lets go with one hand to slap his groping palm away.
“Jesus, Max. Fucking cool it already!” I can’t help but growl as I move to make sure the woman gets safely out of our area. As she reaches the edge of the seats I tell her, “Keep girls away from here. He’s an asshole, I’m sorry.”
I look at my phone again and notice it isn’t even midnight.
“Hey, Ben, what do you want to bet I can bag that chick? She looks so wound up . . . I bet I could help her relax a little.” He hasn’t stopped staring at the ass of the waitress as she retreats.
“I don’t know, Max. She didn’t look that into you,” I say dryly, and watch out of the corner of my eye as Caleb laughs and almost chokes on his drink.
“She’s just playing hard to get. You know how that is. Sometimes we just have to show them how bad they want it. Right, Caleb?” He smirks and looks over at my brother, who’s now staring at him with wide eyes.
“Fuck man—that’s called rape,” Caleb says. Max snorts out a laugh and shakes his head.
“When did you two pricks get so uptight? Come on, there’s plenty of it to go around. Flash a little money and the ones that thought they were better than you suddenly would do anything to put a smile on your face.” I feel my jaw tick as I clench my teeth. Not one redeeming quality in this fucker.
Caleb puts his glass down on the table and leans in close to Max. “So, Max, what the fuck happened between you and Lori?” I move so that I can hear his answer clearly. Sitting down next to him at the table, I rest on my elbows and wait for any possible loophole in the stupid family rules.
“Fuck her. Cheating whore. Everything was great when we first got together. She was a fucking firecracker. Hard to get at first, but not in a way that made me mad, more of a way that drove me fucking insane. She’s hot, I’ll give her that. Rocking body and absolutely beautiful. Problem with that is that other guys are always sniffing around. I could tell she was cheating on me, you know.
“She would
get home late from work or make up reasons why she wouldn’t be able to come home at all. Thought I was stupid or something. She started arguing with me, withholding sex. I won’t fucking tolerate that shit. If I find out who the fucker is that took her from me, I’ll kill him. One day I showed up after work and all her shit was gone. She left a note that said if I came after her she would call the police and the papers.”
Caleb and I glance at each other really fast but then try to act as though we aren’t really that interested. He’s better at that than me. “So why would the papers give a shit about your personal life?” Caleb asks while casually sipping his drink.
“She had some shit on me. Bullshit stuff, but I wouldn’t want it getting out. I’ll get her, though. She’s going to come crawling back, just watch.”
The waitress appears and this time the bouncer is trailing her. She sets Max’s drink down on the table roughly, spilling most of it onto his lap. “You’re cut off, asshole. Drink what’s left of that and get the fuck out of here.” I throw some money down on the table and apologize for his behavior, making sure she sees the sizable tip I’m leaving. It doesn’t begin to pay for what he’s been doing to the girls in here, but maybe she won’t associate Caleb and me with Max in the future.
Max is an asshole, there’s no doubt about it, but now the seed has been planted that perhaps Lori isn’t who I thought she was. The cheating is one thing, I can understand that, but what could she have on Max and would she really be willing to use it against him? In my life, I can’t risk having people betray me when it comes to family or business. I want so badly to drive over to her place to get this sorted out, but something in the back of my head tells me I’m not going to like what I find out.
Lori
I put my running shoes on and stretch my legs for a minute before leaving my apartment. Ben never called or texted me last night. I know he said he was going to be out late, and he’s not my boyfriend so he’s not accountable to me, but I thought he would at least text. That thought has me scared—scared that I assumed he would, scared that he didn’t think to do it so he must not feel the same way I do, and scared that it hurt so badly.
My feet pound the pavement and sweat builds on my forehead and drips down my back. I know that the right move would be to let this end here—to stop trying to build a house on a faulty foundation. So why can’t I convince my heart? The little voice inside my head tells me that the pain of being in this crazy agreement with him does not yet outweigh the unbelievable feeling I have when he is with me. My shoes hit the concrete with force as I propel myself forward and away from my problems. I’m exhausted but I keep running.
I bounce off the last corner before I reach home and make my way through a small group of people scattered in the crosswalk before slowing down and taking gulps of air in front of my building. As I take in the city outside while catching my breath, I decide that I’m going to let this go a little further because I can’t help but want to get to know him outside of sex. I’m just not sure how interested in that he’s going to be.
Spinning around, I open the door to my building and hit the button to call the elevator. Stepping in, I look down at my iPod to skip forward to a slower song to cool off to. I know this trip in the elevator well, and I don’t even look up when the doors open. I make my way to my door while looking at my iPod and stop only when a pair of large shoes enters my line of sight. I follow the shoes up to the legs and then beyond to the most charming face. Ben’s leaning against my door frame, smiling at me as my eyes connect with his.
Why is it that I know he’s going to hurt me someday and yet I still lean into him and allow my heart to fill with hope and desire? I turn my iPod off and pull the buds from ears. “Hey, Ben. What’re you doing here?” I don’t wait for him to answer before I fish my key from my bra and unlock my door.
“I wanted to see you.” He follows me into my place, and I make my way over to the fridge to grab a cold water. Taking a quick sip, I wipe my mouth.
“You could have called, Romeo. What if I had just left? Come to think of it, how long have you been out there?” I bring the bottle up to my lips again and take a longer gulp this time, willing the cool liquid to flush down the hope that bubbles up in my chest.
“You could ignore a call, it’s a little harder to ignore someone standing at your door.” I know I must look puzzled, and in an effort to explain, he lifts his phone out of his pocket and then glances around my apartment and points to mine, which I left on the counter last night. As if on cue, it beeps, and his brows shoot up as a smile forms on his lips.
I make my way over to my phone to see that I have a few text messages along with a few missed calls. Joking, I say under my breath, “Stalker much?” and he laughs and shakes his head.
“I have nothing to say for myself.” He wipes his hand over his mouth in a gesture that seems like he would be smoothing down a beard if he had one. With a small chuckle and a look to the ceiling he says, “I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this.” He takes a breath and pauses one more time, as if thinking about whether he should or not, but then continues. “You know that little feeling that pinches in the bottom of your stomach? Like butterflies or some warning of something big?” He has his hand resting on his stomach and then moves it into his pocket, leaning back on his heels. “Fuck, this is so embarrassing.”
I giggle a little and then arch one eyebrow in a curious look before taking another sip of my water. “Go on.”
“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” he asks, but then blows out a breath and continues, “I have been inflicted with that feeling since I met you. It’s pleasant when you’re around or we have plans to see each other, but when we don’t and I’m not sure when I’m going to get to see you again, it becomes this vicious panic that spins in my gut. It makes me feel out of control.”
I’m stunned into silence, and I let the water bottle leave my lips as I stare into his eyes. He takes a step toward me and says, “Say something, Lori.”
Walking to him, I try hard to think about how I should handle this. I know exactly what he’s talking about but I’m afraid that sharing that with him might leave me vulnerable. I stop when our chests are touching and look up into his eyes. “Ben,” I say right before I give his lips a soft kiss, “that might be the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” I wrap my arms around him and kiss his lips gently again. His hand reaches around and lightly touches my back, pulling me tighter against his body.
“How very evasive of you, Lori,” he whispers, brushing his lips across mine for the briefest of seconds. “Do you feel that way too?” he asks, and I can only nod. “Thank God,” he says with a relieved sigh, and wraps his other arm around me. “Now what the fuck do we do about it?”
I laugh and push away from him, knowing that I’m sweaty and he’s clean. The smell of his soap is in the air, and I know that his fresh clothes are going to be soaked in sweat soon if he continues to press me against him. I take a minute to think about his question, knowing that I already figured the answer out this morning during my run. “We hang on for as long as it lasts and try to not hate each other when it has run its course.”
His lips pinch together as he nods a small nod, as if to agree. “Let me take you out today?” The tone of his voice is resigned, as if he’s come to terms with this ending one day too. I agree and point down the hall to my shower.
“Let me take a quick shower and then I’ll be right out. Where are we going?”
I’m already walking down the hall when I hear him answer, “Out of town, of course.” I stop in my tracks, waiting a second before I can muster the strength to turn around and face him. When I do, he’s standing at the end of the hall, hands in his pockets and chin down, staring into my eyes. “Can you take a couple of days? I want to be with you, and we can’t do it around here. Let’s get out of here and go somewhere we can go on a date, hold hands or I can walk beside you in public without Page Six reporting it to everyone.”
&n
bsp; Words fly from my mouth before I can think better of it. “Friends don’t go on dates, Ben.” I watch as the statement hits him and he turns his head as if slapped. I didn’t mean it to hurt, just as a reminder that we set a boundary and are now standing on the edge, and we need to decide if we want to step over. “Ben, I didn’t mean I don’t want to, I just want to be clear about what you’re saying. That little feeling you were talking about earlier, it doesn’t get better with dates and hand holding—it grows and takes root. It moves from your stomach into your soul.”
He’s back to rubbing the nonexistent beard in thought. “Lori, that little feeling doesn’t need to be nurtured to grow. I’m learning there are no fences or boundaries that will keep it from going where it wants to go. We’re just going to have to live with it until we can’t anymore. What do you say? Let’s be a little reckless and play hooky for a few days.” His smile is intoxicating as he waits for my answer.
“Give me ten minutes.”
Ben
I called in sick for the first time ever in my life. I told Caleb I was going to take a long weekend and that he would see me back on Wednesday. Caleb was cool about it but he couldn’t help but give me the warning to keep it very discreet if I was running off to be “sick” with Lori. I told him to fuck off, but I know he’s right. He can’t say much to me about missing work since his long lunches with a particular waitress are not going unnoticed.
My family has hotels all across this country, but I need to take Lori to one where I know the staff is very quiet when it comes to passing along information about me to my family or to the tabloids. I decide on our five-star property along the cliffs of Malibu. Nothing sounds better than spending a few days with Lori near the ocean and free from any worries that my father and his friends will hear about us.
Letting Go Page 10