by Sophie Kent
“Hey,” Susan said tentatively into the phone.
“Suze, you’re out of the coma! Tell me, was it a deeply spiritual experience or did you just watch reruns of I Love Lucy all day?”
Susan smiled wryly. “There was Leave It to Beaver and Happy Days too.”
“Leave it to you to turn a coma into your usual weekend on the couch.”
Susan felt weird lying to her, but she was sure Liz didn’t need to know about the real life reruns plaguing her mind.
“So have you even left the room yet?” Liz’s voice broke through Susan’s momentary reverie. “Will I have to pry you out of there with a crowbar when I arrive?”
“No, Liz, Kevin dragged me out this afternoon. We went paragliding.”
“Para what?” Liz’s laugh was a little uneasy. “Tell me it wasn’t some stupid sex thing! ’Cause I’ll rip Kevin’s--”
“No, silly. It was like hang gliding, except with a parachute, and you get towed around by a speedboat.”
“Oh.” She sounded even more worried, and she got sarcastic. “How did that go, Little Miss Scared of Heights? I remember someone freaking out in line for a ferris wheel once.”
Kevin was gulping down the last of his margarita, and smiled as Susan said, “No, I didn’t have a panic attack this time.”
The eyebrow he raised fit perfectly with the “Yeah, right,” Liz muttered over the phone.
“I mean it, Liz. I did great.”
Kevin threw his head back and chuckled, mouthing the words, Big, fat liar!
Susan stuck out her tongue at him, and he laughed even harder.
“Well, however it happened, at least you’re getting out of the room.”
“So when are you coming down?” Susan wanted her other best friend with her, needed her there.
“Two, three days, tops. I’ve got an important showing to get through--busy, busy--then I’m all yours.”
Susan bit her lip, feeling that warm, wet feeling behind her eyes.
Kevin saw it, and shook his head. “Sorry, babe, but I’m too drunk for chicks crying right now.” He stood up and teetered back on his heels. “I’m gonna leave you two alone and say good night.”
Susan sniffled and tried to smile.
“Pussy!” Liz chided in her ear.
Kevin walked unsteadily to the back of the suite and took a right into the common bathroom. A couple of seconds later, Susan heard the shower running.
“Hey, he’s done really well with me crying. You’ve got to give him credit for that.”
“Sure, sure. He’s a freaking saint...Saint Kevin of the crying woman! I hear the Pope will be inducting him into the Martyr Hall of Fame.”
“You’re terrible!” Susan said. “I thought you two had a truce going or something?”
“Or something.” Liz clucked her tongue. “Thank God he finally grew into a stud. Soon he’ll find some nice girl, and they’ll get married and have nice babies, and leave us alone.”
“What?” The thought of Kevin finding someone was... It made her head ache like it was going to split open and her brain bounce out like a grotesque beach ball. He was, and had always been, Susan’s. She shook that off just as the last thing Liz said bombarded her. He’ll “leave us alone.” That would be horrible! What would she do without him? She didn’t want him to leave her alone. She liked having him around. “You think Kevin’s a stud?”
“Yeah, sure. If I didn’t already despise him from our college days, I would’ve bagged and tagged him before you two got on the plane for paradise.”
“Yuck!” The mere thought of having her two best friends getting it on made Susan’s nose wrinkle and caused the acid in her stomach to rise in her throat. “Promise me you’ll never...”
“Jesus, Suze, you are one paranoid little puppy, aren’t you?” Liz waited for a reply until the pause grew uncomfortable. Finally, Liz gave in. “Fine, fine! I promise to never fuck Kevin! Okay?”
“Okay,” Susan said with relief. How would she go on if her two, wonderfully separate best friends, morphed into one? And what about all the kissing and inadvertent sex things she would be walking in on for who knew how long? And what if they broke up?
“I can’t believe you think I could...with Kevin!”
“You just said you would’ve ‘bagged and tagged’ him,” she grumbled. “What else am I supposed to think?”
“Okay, fine. You’re a drunk, clinically depressed former bride with abandonment issues. So you get a free pass...this time.”
“Thanks. When you say it like that, I really should call the front desk and ask if they have a suicide watch service.” Susan took another long pull of her margarita.
“That’s my girl,” Liz said. “She’s got her sense of humor back.”
Susan shook her head at the phrase--the phrase both Kevin and Liz had said in the last ten minutes.
“And don’t worry, sweetie,” Liz went on. “When I get down there, we’ll work on getting you a rebound fling going.”
“A rebound what?”
Liz sighed petulantly on the other end of the connection. “A rebound fling. You know, you go find some super hot guy, hotter than shit-head Mark, and you unceremoniously fuck the shit out of him...several times...and then you never see him again.”
“Why do you think I need to do that?”
“Because you’ve been dumped!” Liz groaned. “And the fastest, easiest way to get over the pain and agony of being dumped is to have rebound sex. Guys do it all the time.”
Susan’s jaw dropped and she sagged a little as she mulled this over. The fastest, easiest way to get over the pain of being dumped? And all she had to do was have sex with some hot guy?
“And you’re sure it works?”
Susan could practically see Liz smiling on the other end. “Works for me every week.”
Susan shook that fact out of her head. Liz was infamous for going through a guy a week. She just got bored easily, and if she didn’t, the guy got tired of being shelved for days on end until Liz was horned-up enough to blow off her career for a few days.
She had to concede to Liz’s vast experience.
“Just wait,” Liz said, “in three days I’ll be down there, and we’ll start stud hunting for the perfect rebound fuck!”
The bathroom door swung open, and a wet and naked Kevin stumbled out, with just a towel wrapped around his hips. Susan hadn’t seen him shirtless in a very long time. Gone was the skinny kid that used to flex his stringy arms for her amusement. Tall, lean, broad shouldered, thick slabs of muscle making his chest perfect, a ripped gut that obviously he’d worked on tirelessly for about a million years--and what a butt! Hard, round, and even through the towel Susan could see dimples--and it had just the right amount of jiggle left in it.
Kevin disappeared into his room and Susan slowly closed her gaping mouth, swallowing hard and trying to form a rational thought in her sex crazed mind. But all she could think was, find some super hot guy, and fuck the shit out of him.
“You there, Suze?” Liz sounded worried.
“I gotta go.” Susan stood and wobbled on her margarita steeped legs. “Got hunting to do.” And she hung up Kevin’s cellphone.
###
Kevin dried off and stumbled around as he tried putting on a pair of sweats. He knew he should sit down and pull them on, but in his intoxicated state he couldn’t seem to make himself do what he should. He could’ve fallen into bed naked. That would’ve been easiest, and was how he slept most of the time. It was just, with the margaritas in his blood and Susan’s scent still lingering on him--even after the shower--he would find no rest if his private parts were left to rub freely against the sheets.
And what if Susan came in to sleep with him? Being naked, and getting hard naked--those things would be hard to explain, and to hide.
When he did sit down on the bed he dried his short cropped hair with the towel and looked up. The room was tipping ever so slightly from left to right. And there in the middle, standing in his door
way, was Susan.
“Hey,” he said, scratching his head and falling back on the mattress. “I’m so drunk.”
“I can see that.” Susan stood over him, her big green eyes instantly turning from amused to smoldering.
For a moment Kevin thought Susan was mad at him, but she crawled on the bed with him and positioned herself on top of him, straddling his hips.
“Suze, what are you doing?” Kevin shook his head.
Susan gently placed each hand on Kevin’s chest. She made this humming noise as she stroked his flesh.
Kevin’s body suddenly sprung to life. His flesh tingled where her hands had touched him, her scent soaking through his tequila besotted mind. His manhood stirred and hardened with instant appreciation. Even the sight of her, how intent she seemed, how much she seemed to want him--it was too much to take in, too much to believe.
And exactly what he’d always wanted.
But even with hormones and alcohol running through his blood, fogging his mind with lust and want, he remembered why they were together. Why he was in paradise babysitting his best friend. A best friend that only a couple days ago was to be married to the man of her dreams, and now without any warning she was wordlessly trying to seduce him?
It didn’t add up.
She leaned down, hesitating for a moment before planting a hard, desperate kiss on his lips.
That was it! She was trying too hard. Kevin could feel it, how tense her entire body was, how her hands were trembling a little, and her lips felt like cool stone against his own.
All he could think was no, this can’t be what she wants.
Kevin gently pushed Susan away, peeling her lips from his own and staring into her shock widened eyes. The prettiest eyes in the world.
She tried to smile, but it looked so false. And then she tried to lean down to kiss him again. But he held her back, though he held her carefully, not wanting to hurt her in the least bit.
“What’s wrong?” Kevin finally said to Susan’s questioning glare. “What are you trying to do?”
“Isn’t it obvious what I’m trying to do?” She tried the smile again, this time solicitous, but still tinged with desperation.
“Okay, then why right now? What’s wrong?” Kevin’s gaze bore into Susan, demanding an answer.
She made a little face, and sighed. “Nothing’s wrong... Well, everything’s wrong! Of course it’s all wrong!” She brought up her arms and disconnected Kevin’s hands from her shoulders. “I’m supposed to be on my goddamn honeymoon! I’m supposed to be here with my husband, happy and married and dreaming about my future!”
Kevin groaned as she hit him in the chest with her fist. Susan looked horrified as soon as she did it, tears welling up in her eyes, but not spilling down her face. She kept them reined in, blinking them away.
She peered into Kevin’s eyes with a blank stare. “And I’m supposed to be having ridiculous amounts of sex.”
Kevin gulped. He felt his face flush, not knowing how to take her apparent decision to have that missed-out-on sex with him. He shook his head and closed his eyes to the need that burned in her eyes. “But why me, and why now when we’re both drunk.”
“Because I need to get this over with.” Susan’s voice was sharp and brittle, and it made Kevin open his eyes with a start. The look on her face had changed again. This time the desperation was tinged with fear, and pain.
“What do you need to get over with?” She was confusing him entirely.
“The pain!” She sobbed, covering her mouth, trying to hold back what was pushing to escape her lips. She breathed deep for a few moments and let her hand fall from her lips. “If I can do this, then I can make the pain go away.”
“Do what? If you can do what?”
She shook her head, and she leaned down and kissed him again. This time was more urgent, yet less cold and desperate. This time, Kevin felt the heat rising in both of them, could feel himself losing his willpower, could feel the way their bodies seemed to connect even with their clothes on.
But he could also taste the tears on her lips, and hear the rasp of muffled sobs in her breathing.
He wasn’t doing this. He may have been dreaming about this very scenario every night since he’d met Susan, but he’d be damned if it was going to be like this. Not a drunken one-night stand, not after all these years, not with all she meant to him. They would regret it in the morning. They would never be the same.
What if he lost her?
He would not let himself do it. And he wouldn’t let her do it either. Kevin tore his face away, breaking their lip-lock. He rolled off the bed, picked her up and staggered into the hallway with her clutched to his chest, her arms restrained under his own. Susan giggled as he stumbled, still drunk, and tried to negotiate the turn into her room. But her giggling stopped short when he dropped her on the bed like a sack of potatoes.
When the mattress stopped bouncing, Susan looked up at him.
“If you remember any of this in the morning, then we’ll talk.”
“But--”
“Until then, stay in your own room!” He pointed his finger at Susan and felt the hurt and anger rip through his voice. “Never like this,” he muttered as he stomped barefoot out of Susan’s room, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter 5
WHEN DENTON CRANE CALLED with Mark’s exact whereabouts Liz’s plane had just landed in Colorado. “Perfect timing, Mr. Crane. Where is he?”
Technically, she had lied to Kevin. Though she’d needed some more time to prepare for the showing, she had no intention of attending it. Curtis Browning was a highly regarded artist, and he trusted Liz with showing and auctioning his work, but they simply despised each other. But as a token of good faith Liz had left her assistant, the young and obscenely sexy Lance, in her place. And though Lance would hardly let himself be compromised by anyone, let alone some trite old art luminary, he did have a preternatural charm about him.
By the time Lance was done with Curtis, he wouldn’t know what had hit him.
This left Liz with plenty of time to hunt down cheating, dick-head Mark, which was exactly what she was doing two hours later as she entered the bar area of the Pine Mountain Lodge in Aspen, Colorado. She stopped at the periphery, finding the best angle to scope out the room. A few beats later she caught sight of her prey, leaning against the bar with a snifter of cognac in one hand, his other hand energetically pawing at the spandex-clad ass of the easily recognizable red-haired Shauna.
Liz sauntered forward, keeping her eyes latched onto Mark’s smiling, drooling mug. The gathered crowd of vacationing attorneys and doctors and their surgically enhanced snow bunnies magically parted as Liz cut a swath through their number in a straight line to her objective.
She came up behind Mark, tossed back her hair and shot her prettiest smile at the red-headed cocktail waitress. Shauna smiled back, and as if Liz had commanded her to with just the power off her mind, she tapped the still blathering Mark on the forearm and pointed behind him.
He swung around, his face alight with happiness, his cheeks flushed like a Campbell’s Soup Kid--until his alcohol-hazed mind caught up with his radically changed reality. But by then, it was too late. Liz had smiled beautifully, had said his name as if she were greeting a long lost best friend, and grabbed him by the shoulders, using his own bulk as leverage, and planted her knee in his groin with a sharp, Tae Bo perfected motion. Immediately Mark’s face turned purple and his body curled up in the fetal position on the high gloss hardwood floor of the bar, where he unceremoniously heaved up his lunch and all the pretentiously overpriced cognac.
Liz waltzed uncontested from the resort, stepped into the taxi that awaited her at the curb, and drove off to the airport again for a quick trip home before she headed down to Cancun. She smiled with satisfaction as she replayed her triumph in her head, over and over and over again.
###
Susan never realized how many irritating, if not downright painfully loud sounds surrounded
her, especially when she woke up. Usually those sounds just melted together to form a complex, though ignorable, mixture. As with most people, Susan was so used to these sounds that she needed to employ the use of an alarm clock.
Happily, paradise had no screeching, ear splitting alarm clocks.
But what paradise did have was a multitude of sounds that, as hungover as Susan was, left her in excruciating pain and begging the gods to kill her.
Susan had woken with the sound of the surf in her ears, which created a dull ache in her head and made her stomach lurch. The wind blowing through the palm trees, the swoosh causing painful tingles to climb up her spine to the back of her neck, made her shudder. And worst of all--wind chimes.
Wind chimes are supposed to be relaxing and peaceful, but with Susan’s hangover, they were clanging, deafening train wrecks, and no matter how she covered her head with the pillow, she couldn’t escape them.
Hell is probably polluted with wind chimes!
Susan scrambled out of bed and staggered to the door of her room, passing into the living room with the blanket still wrapped around her. She collapsed on the couch beside Kevin, and fell against him, holding her ears.
“Turn on the TV!” she moaned.
Kevin grabbed the remote and the large screen, flat panel TV blinked to life.
“Turn it up!” Susan pleaded.
Kevin complied and Susan leaned into him more, relaxing as the easily ignored racket of the television eradicated the deathly cacophony of the tropical paradise. Susan couldn’t remember the last time she’d been hungover. Probably after one of Liz’s art shows. Liz always had great after parties, where the wine and champagne flowed into the wee hours of the night. But whatever headaches those parties had caused were nothing compared to the throbbing, searing pain that now bloomed inside Susan’s skull.
“Take me now, Lord,” Susan cried as she pulled Kevin’s brawny arm around her head, like a pillow, to quell paradise’s racket. She was ready.