But then.
Oh, but then.
Food gone, floating with a full belly and a heady buzz, I leaned back in my favorite comfy chair and twisted the stem of my wineglass, watching the light sparkle through the ruby liquid.
And I told them everything I’d told Titus.
And more.
I told them, in candid detail I’d never have shared with any man, all the things I’d done to erase the memory of that night. How I’d also used shop therapy to fill the hole, to staunch the wound. Thus, the fact that my spare bedroom was a secondary closet, filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of purses, shoes, dresses, skirts, tops, jackets, jewelry, and lingerie.
I told them everything.
How I suspected my dad wasn’t my father, the gross things I’d witnessed regularly as a child that had made sex to me always seem like no big deal. How I’d never had a sexual relationship that meant anything. How I wasn’t sure what that even looked like, how one would do that. How to…do that.
I told them everything.
Except one thing.
The one thing I’d not told Titus either.
Autumn would understand, I think. She’d suspect, if she were here, but she and Seven were still in the Caribbean.
When I was finally done talking, no one had much to say.
“Damn, Laur,” Teddy said, eventually. “I guess it all makes sense, now.”
“No shit,” Kat said.
Lizzy patted my thigh. “And you told all or most of this to Titus?”
“Yes.”
“And you’d never spoken of it before, to anyone?” she clarified.
“Right.”
“And then you and he came here,” Teddy said, twisting an empty bottle on the coffee table, “and the sex happened. Except you freaked out and made it not sex. Because feelings are hard and you don’t think you have a heart to give.”
“Right.”
Kat munched on a fortune cookie. “If it wasn’t sex, what was it?”
“And did he buy it?” Zoe asked, as a follow-up.
I closed my eyes and scooted down in the chair, feet up on the table, resting the wine-glass on my chest. “It was…just fucking around. You want to know the dirty details? Fine. He happens to be an absolute god among men at going down, by which I mean he gave me three screaming orgasms in a row without even trying, just to fucking warm me up. And then I let him fuck my tits and come all over me. And then I took a thirty-minute shower, expecting him to get the hint and leave. Only, apparently he’s not the type to ejaculate and absquatulate, and I had to be all like I’m fine, I just need time because talking about all this is a lot. And then he started to walk away, like he got it, but then…but then he decided to kiss me like I’ve never been kissed in my entire fucking life. But wait, there’s more! He walked away again, only to stop, launch himself back across the room, rip the towel off my hair and away from my body and kiss me like…” I swallowed hard. “Like…I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. Like he was saying something he didn’t have the words for. Like I was his. Like that first time we met. And before he kissed me, he said he saw me.” I blinked hard. “So I don’t know if he bought it. I don’t think he did. And I’m worried. I’m scared it was…I’m scared I’ll lose him, and I’m scared that I think I had him to lose, and I’m scared of not wanting to lose him, I’m scared of being with him, being around him at all because he just gets me—he can get me to just open up like nobody I’ve ever met and I don’t understand how or why, and if I have sex with him again it’ll be…I don’t fucking know, something I don’t know how to handle. And I’m fucking scared.”
Lizzy took my wine from me, set it aside, and curled up in the chair with me—on me. “Honey pie. Listen. I know this is scary. I know it’s hard, it doesn’t make any sense. But take it from me, okay? It can be worth it.”
“Yeah,” I sniffled. “But what if it isn’t? Braun turned out great. You have a guy so great he’s at home right now being Daddy to your little one so you can be here with my dumbass. That’s great. And it worked out for Autumn, so great for her. I’m really, really happy for you. But…I don’t know how. I’ve never seen it. Love, I mean. That’s what we’re talking about, right? Love? I don’t know how to do that, how I can…be the woman who…” I trailed off. “See? I can’t even talk about it and make any kind of sense.”
“I think you just have to give him a chance,” Kat said.
“Because so far,” Teddy said. “He’s got all the realness points in the situation. And I say that with love.”
I frowned at her. “Did you hear what I let him do? I feel like that’s pretty real.”
She shook her head. “No, babe, that was classic avoidance technique and you know it. You did that so you wouldn’t have to have actual sex with him and risk an emotional bond and connection. You know it and I think he knows it. He said he sees you, right? That means he knew exactly what that was, and he’s not gonna let you get away with it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. “How can he not let me get away with it?”
“I dunno—that’s for him to figure out. But it means you have to decide if you have the courage to try,” Teddy said.
“God, you’re such a matchmaker.”
“Always the matchmaker, never the match,” she quipped. “Still true. What I said, I mean.”
Lizzy kissed my temple. “She’s a hundred percent right. You have to figure out what you want. Him, or emotional safety. And by safety, I mean safe in the little bubble of emotional isolation you’ve been living in your whole life. Which we all get, honey. We do. Shit, Kat is still in it herself. And we all know why. And she knows she’s on the shortlist for getting matched.”
“Won’t work,” Kat said, “I don’t have the damage Laurel has—I’m just not interested.”
“Bullshit!” Lizzy sang. “But this is about Laurel here, not you, so I’ll let it slide.”
Kat just rolled her eyes.
I looked around at my friends. “I wish Autumn was here. I miss her ass.”
“You miss her ass?” Zoe asked, snickering. “Is there something you need to tell us?”
“Oh my god, Zoe. Grow up, woman, seriously.” I reached over and grabbed a fortune cookie off the side table and chucked it at her. “So immature.”
“You’re immature,” she shot back. “She does have a great ass, though, doesn’t she? Lucky Seven, that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“God, Zoe. That’s your sister!” I groaned another laugh. “What did I do to deserve such friends?” I grinned at her, at everyone. “I love you guys. I still have no clue what I’m gonna do, but I’m glad I have you guys. I may crash and burn and fall into little pieces, but at least I’ll have the five of you to be there when it happens.”
“Yes, you will,” Lizzy said. “What you’re gonna do is you’re going to give Titus Bright a chance. Because if you don’t, I’m not sure even best friend and girl code will be enough to keep Kat from trying to get her hands on him.”
Kat rolled a shoulder. “I mean, that man is the finest thing to walk this earth, and if you don’t find a way to keep him, you’ll regret it forever, and you’ll be the dumbest person to ever live, and I may never forgive you, and we can’t be friends anymore.” A huff. “But, I would never take a shot at him if it didn’t work out with the two of you, as much as it would hurt to let such a snack go. I love you too much.”
I sighed. “This is scary. He left. Because I…I guess I maybe pushed him away. What if…what he’s like, nah, not worth the rejection.”
“You didn’t reject him,” Lizzy pointed out. “You just iced him out emotionally.”
“After sharing your deepest, darkest secrets with him.” Kat reached out and held his hand. “Which I totally understand, because I’m the same way. If I open up even a little, it’s immediately followed by a complete shutdown.”
“I just…” I rubbed my face. “Now that he’s gone and I’m thinking about things and you guys a
re all like, don’t be dumb, take a chance, I’m wondering if I fucked up and if I’ll get another chance. But then I think about taking that chance and it scares me shitless. I have serious abandonment issues, you know? Like hardcore. There’s just never been a male in my life that I’ve ever trusted. Not one, ever. How do you go about reversing thirty-nine years’ worth of not ever trusting men, ever, for any reason? How do you…how do you overcome the trauma of being gang-raped? Sure it was a long fucking time ago, but still. I can say with frankness that I don’t think I’m healed from it.”
“Didn’t you hint to Autumn that you did talk to someone?” Teddy asked.
“That was…about something else.” I swallowed hard. “I can’t get into that. I have seen a therapist, but I kept those conversations narrowed to one particular issue.”
“Laurel…” Lizzy murmured. “It’s us.”
I shook my head. “Not now. Please. It’s been too much of a day. I’m nice and pleasantly drunk and I’m feeling good with you guys and I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Okay, honey.” Lizzy hugged me, and then I was being buried under an avalanche of best friends, all hugging me and smothering me with their love. “Another time, then.”
Late afternoon, at home, a few days later. I was doing laundry and listening to a podcast on recovering from unhealed trauma, when my doorbell rang.
I finished folding the skirt in my hands and headed for the front door, replacing the earbuds in their case. I opened the door to find a short woman on the far side of middle age, her graying brown hair in a cute bob, dressed casually in jeans and a white blouse; she carried a large purse, the open top revealing a clipboard with a yellow legal pad clipped to it. She wore thick-framed glasses, and her smile was friendly.
“Hi, Laurel McGillis?”
She seemed official, or something. Nerves shot through me. “Yes. How can I help you?”
She broadened her smile, perhaps sensing my nerves. “My name is Dr. Katherine Hines, I’m a psychologist specializing in sexual trauma.”
I swallowed hard. “I see.” I frowned. “One of my friends sent you, I’m guessing?”
“Actually, not the friend you’re probably thinking.” She reached into her purse and withdrew a torn slip of paper with writing scrawled on it, handed it to me.
Laurel,
Dr. Hines is the most highly regarded specialist in the country for this particular issue. I know this is not my place. I get that you may be pissed off at me for making this huge assumption. But I’m willing to piss you off if it will help you, because I guess I figure what else do I have to lose. Please understand where I’m coming from. Just talk to her.
TB
I swallowed hard, chewed back my inclination to shut down, to resort to anger. “What did Titus tell you?”
She shook her head. “Nothing at all. He paid in advance for me to come here and spend a couple hours with you. He only told me that you’re his friend, he cares about you, and that he felt like you may need help with some past issues that you’ve been…avoiding, perhaps, in my area of expertise.”
I bit back a laugh. “Titus Bright paid you, a licensed therapist, to come to my house. I didn’t think you guys did house calls.”
She chuckled. “I don’t. This is the first time for me.”
“But here you are.”
“Here I am. It’s my calling to help people, and he hinted that you may be resistant to seeking the help you need. I want to help you.” Another chuckle. “And it doesn’t hurt that he was very…generous…in compensating me for the unusual request.”
I sighed. “Well, you’re here. Come on in.”
We sat down in my living room, and she settled in with her notepad and pen. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself. Just…to break the ice a little.”
Hesitantly, at first, I told her my background. She asked subtle questions, I noticed, which got me to keep opening up. And if I attempted to gloss over something, she always caught it. By the time an hour had gone by, I’d explained most of the messy garbage from my childhood with my parents and the parties they hosted.
“So, that’s a lot,” she said, at the end of ninety minutes of me gorging on old pain. “I think it would best serve you if I came back next week and we carried on from there.” She handed me a business card. “I am willing to come back here, if it’s easiest for you. But my office is also rather close to you. Less than half an hour from here.”
“We didn’t even get to the good stuff, Dr. Hines,” I said. “The real reason you’re here in the first place.”
She nodded. “I know. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, right? I think it would overload you to get into all that right now. We’re just establishing a baseline today, okay?”
I nodded. Considered. “I can come to you. And I can pay you myself.”
She just smiled. “Mr. Bright has covered my time for at least another session, especially if you come to my office. We can discuss options beyond that.” She put her clipboard and pen in her purse. “Laurel, you’re doing the best thing possible for yourself, by addressing this stuff. I know it can be hard, when it’s something you’ve kept repressed for a long time. But if you want to have a healthy future, you need to heal. And with this stuff, with severe sexual trauma as Titus hinted we’re dealing with, it can take a long time and a lot of therapy to help you heal from it. Don’t expect overnight miracles. But if you trust me, and you’re honest with me, and you do the work, I promise, it’ll be worth it.”
“Thank you for coming, Dr. Hines.” I did feel…a sense of relief; and I did know therapy could help.
“Mr. Bright…” She smiled at me. “He cares about you. It takes courage to do what he did, sending me here.”
I nodded, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “Yeah, it does. Anyway, thank you, again.” I led her to the door. “So next week?”
She glanced at me on the way down the steps from my front porch. “Yes, I’ll contact you tomorrow with a day and time, once I have my schedule in front of me.”
“Sounds good. Bye, Dr. Hines.”
“Bye, Laurel. See you next week.”
She drove away, then, and I stood on my porch with my front door wide open, trying to fathom how I was supposed to feel about Titus, now.
Complicated, that was how.
He’d sent a therapist to my house. Clearly, he felt I needed to address the issue in my past. How presumptuous of him. But…he wasn’t wrong. Stubborn me, I’d refused for years. Refused to talk about it, pretended my fucked-up way of dealing with it was just fine. It wasn’t fine.
I mean, clearly I had issues with trust and intimacy. Look at what I’d turned things into with him, the other day.
I owed him a conversation, didn’t I?
If only I had any clue how to find him, how to get ahold of him.
“So, Laurel.” Dr. Hines gave me that kind, professional smile. “Now that we’ve had a few sessions to really dig into what happened to you, let’s spend this week discussing its effects on you.”
Almost three weeks had passed since I’d seen Titus. He’d had flowers delivered to my house, twice. An edible arrangement of fruit, once. He’d hired out a day spa for a full day, for the girls and me.
There’d been a note, as well:
Laurel,
I’m on the road this month for a series of pop-ups on the East Coast. I’m not ghosting you, I swear. But I think you need time before we can really see each other in the way I would like. I hope some of the things I’ve done have shown you that I’m looking at things with you as being more than just a hookup. A lot more, potentially. I’ll be back a week from today, and if you’re interested in spending time with me, let me know.
I like you, Laurel McGillis. I want more than just…what it’s been between us, so far. I guess I’m asking you to just give me a chance.
TB
I’d shown the note to the girls, and there was fawning and oohing and aaahing, and a lot of blunt statements that if I fucked this up,
I’d regret it the rest of my life, so don’t fuck it up.
Give him a chance.
TRY.
Thus, I’d actually had two sessions a week with Dr. Hines in the three weeks since that first one, because the more I got into it with her, the lighter I felt. Talking to Titus had sort of broken the seal, so to speak. Now that it was all coming out, I was feeling better about myself, and I was genuinely thankful that Titus had done what he did.
In today’s session with Dr. Hines, we did indeed get into the various and many ways I’d been affected by both my childhood and the traumatic assault I’d experienced as a teenager. Which…it turned out, was a lot.
At the end of it, Dr. Hines poked her chin with the clicker of her pen, regarding me steadily as she formulated her thoughts. “Laurel…” she trailed off, paused, started again. “At some point, you have to learn how to develop an intimate, vulnerable, trusting relationship with a man. If you don’t, the rest of your life will be…” she gestured with her pen, “what it has been, up till now. If that’s what you want and what you’re okay with, then that’s fine, right? But…if it’s not, at some point, you have to just take a chance on trusting someone.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, I know what you’re getting at.” I sighed. “Titus.”
She nodded. “I am absolutely not here to give you relationship advice or play matchmaker. But from what you’ve told me, and considering he risked your understandable anger in hiring me on your behalf, and unbeknownst to you at that, I’d say it seems pretty apparent he cares deeply for you.”
“How can he? We barely know each other.”
An understanding smile. “That’s not…it’s not really how love works, though, Laurel.”
“It’s not?”
“Nope. For example, I’ve been married to my husband for forty years. I’m fifty-eight years old. Do you know what that means?”
Laurel's Bright Idea (Billionaire Baby Club Book 3) Page 15