Both Sides Now

by Barbara Ferrer

  “There, gorgeous…that’s it…” He continued stroking and rubbing, bringing me up and over the edge once again—this one more gentle, not as earth-shattering, simply a warm, comforting aftermath. “I love seeing you like this.” He drew me closer still, one hand stroking my hair, the other still trapped between my thighs as my muscles continued to twitch, holding tight, almost as if they were in search of still more. Definitely reluctant to let go.

  “Promise me, Libby.” His voice was a slow, soft whisper, but delivered right against my ear where I could be sure to hear, where there could be no mistake as to what he was saying.

  “Promise what, Ethan?”

  “Don’t ever let yourself lose that again.”

  My body was finally started to ease back, relaxing from the incredible ride my husband had taken it on. “Lose what?”

  “The way you look right now. God, how I’ve loved seeing it again.”

  “Okay, mi amor.” I was still floating along in the aftermath of my climax, slightly foggy and not quite sure of what he meant other than he loved my pleasure—but then, he always had. Had taken great joy in teaching me how much pleasure could be found in giving sensual fulfillment as in receiving.

  “No, Libby.” His hand rested over mine, hot and damp, stilling the motion of my fingers at his waistband. “This was for you.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry—I got what I needed, gorgeous.” In the dark he gazed at me, his hand rising to trail along my jaw, rubbing his damp thumb against my lip, before kissing me, slow and soft and deep. “I just wanted to bring that look to your face one more time.”

  There was the reference to that look again. And deep down, even though I wouldn’t allow myself to acknowledge it, I understood what he meant.

  “I love you Ethan Walker. Always.”

  “I’ve never once doubted it, Libby.”

  Libby

  March 14

  The worst part, in some ways, was coming to grips with the fact that I felt as if I was cheating on two men. The guilt had been neatly compartmentalized where Nick was concerned. In the world we’d defined for ourselves, within the four walls of any given room at Las Palmas, we were doing for each other what our spouses could no longer do for us. Beyond that, we were nothing more than friends. But somehow, in invading my dreams, Nick had broken beyond the barriers of our self-contained world; and in once again bringing me the joy he so often had in the past, Ethan had reestablished, in a fleeting, searing moment, his mark on my body and always, on my heart.

  Convoluted way of saying my worlds had collided with a big, painful bang.

  I knew Nick had seen it. We'd passed each other in the hospital corridor as I walked in with Ethan and even though our gazes only met for the merest instant as we exchanged casual hellos, there had nevertheless been something in that split-second exchange. Something that left the tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickling with heightened awareness. Glancing over my shoulder, I wasn’t that surprised to find Nick still staring after me, the line of his shoulders tense even as he leaned in toward Nan, nodding and smiling at whatever she was saying.

  And felt fresh shards of guilt poke holes in my carefully constructed defense.

  This was ridiculous. There was only one man I was cheating on—

  Only one man? Only?

  What the hell was the matter with me? How had this become justifiable?

  I didn’t even know if it was. I’d just somehow reached a point where I couldn’t function as effectively in my everyday world without the release my world with Nick provided

  As was his habit, he’d texted me his room number so when I arrived at Las Palmas, I didn’t bother with luggage or the front desk or anything—just headed straight for the elevators. My breath coming short and fast, I ran down the hall where I barely touched my knuckles to the door before it swung open and he pulled me in, his mouth covering mine and swallowing words that weren’t important.

  I pulled away, holding tight to his hair, searching his face, his gaze.

  “In here you’re mine. I’m yours.”

  We tore at our clothes, mouths and hands roaming and stroking, driving each other close to the edge—so close but still holding back, tacitly understanding that we wanted to go over together. Then the strangest thing happened—as the last piece of clothing fell away, as he lowered me to the bed and I welcomed the heavy weight of his body over mine, the tone changed. Urgency slowed to the rhythm of a sensual dance accompanied by deep breaths and soft words—eased by sweat and heat and his tears, hot against my neck as he drew my entire body flush against his, shaking with an almost violent intensity. Frightened, I held him, stroked the strong, vulnerable curve of his back and cradled his head close. And even after his body had settled, he wouldn’t release me—or let me release him, rolling us carefully to our sides, staying deep inside my body.

  “Nick?”

  He wouldn’t look at me, keeping his head down, gaze fixed, it seemed, on where our bodies remained joined. He stroked a hand up my thigh—skimmed the backs of his fingers across my abdomen and up along the curve of one breast where he paused, as if taking measure of my heartbeat. With a shaky breath, I drew his head to my shoulder and stroked his hair, waiting.

  “Katharine might be in remission.”

  Another breach—the outside world reminding us what we had was so fragile…so temporary.

  “Marco’s running some more tests. Just to be sure. But…”

  As his voice trailed away, I recalled the tense line of his shoulders, the quick, haunted meeting of our gazes back at the hospital. It wasn’t so much what he’d seen in me. It’s what he’d already known. What I knew now.

  “It’s over, Nick.”

  Even as inside I screamed, No… no… not yet—don’t take him away too. Please no, it’s too soon.

  You’d think this was when I’d pull away, put some distance between us, start reestablishing that line we should have never, never crossed. But we had crossed it and still—even riddled with guilt and with the fear of letting him go choking off air and leaving me feeling as if I wouldn’t ever be able to breathe again—I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.

  And even though I’d always known in my deepest heart I’d be the one to break it off—had prepared myself by envisioning the scenario—it had never been like this. In what I’d imagined, it had been me suffering Ethan’s loss and having to send Nick away because the scales would have tipped—our unorthodox arrangement no longer fair to either of us. But to have it happen this way? Even though it had always been every bit as likely a possibility as any other? No, no…this was too fast, too brutal. I simply couldn’t.

  Wrapping my arms around him, holding him tight within me, I whispered, “I don’t want it to be over—not yet.”

  “Me neither, Libby. No sé que voy—”

  “Una noche más,” I continued in a soft croon, almost a lullaby as I rocked him in my arms. “Just one more night, and then we’ll have to walk away because that’s what we promised.”

  “Stop.” His voice was raw and anguished and just about broke my heart.

  “Nick, you love Katharine.”

  “I do, but…” Both his hands moved to my face, tilting my head back so he could take my mouth with his. Perhaps we didn’t have the familiarity borne of years of togetherness that Ethan and I had, but the passion Nick and I shared was never too far from the surface—a seductive drug I just couldn’t get enough of.

  “Libby…mi vida.”

  No. It would be too easy to succumb, but we couldn’t.

  “I’m no one’s substitute, Nick. I don’t deserve that and neither do you.” I wouldn’t release him from my hold, wouldn’t allow him to feel rejected, but he needed to hear this. “And neither does Katharine.” His chest jerked with his sharp breath as he tried to pull back, but I held on even harder. “If you didn’t love her, you wouldn’t be feeling so torn up about this, Nick—which is why you have to take this second chance. Without me in th
e way—there as some sort of fail-safe.”

  My voice dropped. “I know I would.”

  So hard to say, but God, yes. As much as I cared for Nick and didn’t want to let him go—as much as what he’d done for me had effectively saved my life—if I had the chance he was being handed, I’d take it like a greedy toddler being offered a cookie, shoving it in my mouth and swallowing it whole.

  I knew he’d go.

  He knew there’d never really been any question, despite the momentary doubt.

  But we could give each other this gift of one last night.

  Deep into that night, in a fathomless dark where all we could rely on was touch and scent and sound, he moved in me again, slow and quiet, both hands holding mine.

  “I’ve only ever told one woman I love her.”

  “Let’s keep it that way.”

  • • •

  As dawn bled around the edges of the curtains, I pretended to be asleep. He pretended not to know I was awake.

  No goodbyes.

  No looking back.

  Just the quiet click of a door as it closed.

  Nick

  March 15

  Walking away, hearing that door close behind me—

  Knowing I was, in effect, leaving her to close in on herself once again, but also knowing I had no other choice?

  Hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

  Libby

  April 2

  In the end, it was at home and it was quiet.

  A long, shuddering breath—like a sigh of relief—and he was gone.

  It was simultaneously the saddest and happiest moment of my life.

  Nick

  April 10

  “So, bebe, planning on lurking over here all afternoon?”

  “Pretty much.” I stared through the dark lenses of my sunglasses at the group gathered on the beach about a quarter mile down from where I sat. “She doesn’t know I’m here, does she?”

  Nan slid onto the picnic bench beside me, sliding a beer across the table to me. “She doesn’t know much other than how much she misses Ethan and how much she hurts. It was very quick at the end. In spite of how much he’d been deteriorating, I think it caught her by surprise.”

  I nodded as I watched Libby laugh at something someone was saying—heard the whole group burst into laughter. Clearly, one of those memorials where funny stories were exchanged, maybe even a few dirty jokes—where the good times were remembered. This was the kind of send-off I wanted—beer, joking, warmth—remembering me as a good guy. It’s all anyone could ever ask from a life, right?

  Her body continued shaking, but something in her body language changed—a subtle shift, her shoulders tightening, hair that, for once, was loose, falling forward to expose the curve of her neck. She wasn’t laughing anymore. But before I could act on the half-assed impulse that would’ve had me down the beach and taking her away from whatever was hurting her, she was turning to the dark-haired woman next to her as a man in jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt put his arms around both of them. Her parents. Had to be.

  As the knot of the three of them got tighter, the noise from the rest of the crowd died down, as if carried off on the breeze that had just started picking up. Glancing up, I watched the sun slide behind a cloud and nodded my own agreement. Yeah, that was better—it was good to have sun for the remembrances, but something a little dimmer for the goodbyes. Had a gut feeling we were getting close to those.

  “I think she’d probably like seeing you.”

  “No.” Jesus, but my voice sounded flat and harsh—even to me. “I…I don’t think so.”

  “Oh.” Followed a few seconds later by, “I did wonder.”

  For the first time, I looked at Nan—at the knowing and sympathy in eyes that didn’t have the barrier of tinted lenses blocking them. “Did you?”

  Her smile was sad and her soft, accented voice didn’t have an ounce of judgment in it as she answered, “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know for certain until right now.”

  Damn. I had to wonder who else might’ve figured it out. I knew Nan would be the last to do or say anything, but if anyone else had figured it out—I didn’t want any potential hurt coming down on Libby. She’d had enough.

  “Nick.” She waited until I met her gaze again before going on. “You don’t honestly think you’re the first it’s ever happened to, do you, bebe?”

  “Yes. No. Hell, I don’t know.”

  “Trust me—you’re not.”

  I stared down at my beer before lifting it and taking a long drink. “It’s never happened to me before. Or her.”

  I watched as Libby pulled away from her parents and wiped at her face, back to laughing again at the giant snowy white handkerchief her dad pulled from the pocket of his faded jeans and offered her. God, but I wanted to be there. Wiping her tears with the white handkerchief with its faint grease stain that had never come completely out and that I carried with me all the time now. I wanted to lend support and kick the shit out of any hint of badness that tried to touch her.

  And let’s repeat it—last goddamn thing I had any right to be doing.

  “It’s not just some ordinary affair, Nick. You understand that, right?”

  “Wasn’t.” I tossed the empty beer bottle toward the battered drum that served as a trashcan, closing my eyes at the crash of glass shattering against metal. “Wasn’t some ordinary affair. With Kath in remission and now, Ethan…gone, Libby and I—” I swallowed hard. “It’s over.”

  “I understand that—and I understand why. But Nick, don’t discount what it was. Or what it did.” She stood, then reached out and cupped my chin, tilting my face up so I could meet her gaze. “It would have been so much harder. For both of you. And honestly?” She glanced briefly at the group on the beach before meeting my gaze once more. “Without you, I don’t know how she would have made it these last months. You brought her peace. And now, she can say goodbye with a smile on her face.”

  She bent down and brushed a kiss against my cheek. “Bonne chance, mon ami.”

  As Nan rejoined the group, Libby picked up a metal urn and walked with her parents to the water’s edge. She paused there and kissed each of them before slogging out into the choppy surf on her own, far enough for the water to hit the tops of her thighs, sending spray across her shirt. Finally, she stopped, unscrewed the lid and, bracing her body, waved her arm in a huge, sweeping arc that sent a shower of fine, gray ash up into the wind and over the water. After pressing a kiss to the urn, she drew her arm back and flung it as hard as she could into the ocean, watching until the waves flooded it and sent it sinking.

  And as she turned and made her way back to the shore, shoving her damp hair back from her face, I could see it. There was a whole lot of sad and hurt and loss in it, but Nan was right.

  She was smiling.

  • • •

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  “Nick?”

  I sat on the pew, vision blurred as I stared hard at nothing in particular, rosary and the white handkerchief clenched in one hand, the other curled around the back of the pew in front of me. I should have gone home after I snuck away from Ethan’s memorial. Should have. Should have returned to Kath, who was relaxing, regaining her strength, secure in the knowledge that it had all worked out. That all the pain had been worth it and that things were going to be better. At least for her health.

  But instead of going home, I’d come here. For the first time since we’d met, I was on Tico’s turf. No more of the neutral territory of Domino Park where he was just Tico and I was just Nick, a couple of guys with shared backgrounds and experiences. No, right now, I needed to be somewhere where the control fell completely in someone else’s hands, because me? I had control for shit.

  “M’ijo…”

  Without looking up, I repeated, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” It came out as little more than a whisper, but to my ears, it sounded like it echoed throughout the huge, empty c
hurch. My hand clenched tighter around the rosary and handkerchief. “Forgive me…” And as my voice cracked and Tico rested his hand on the back of my neck, I let go and for the second time in my adult life—for the second time in less than a month—I broke down and cried like a baby. Harsh, painful sobs that didn’t make any sound but made my chest burn and feel like it was going to split right in half, like when I’d had pneumonia, fighting for every breath in that damn oxygen tent. Except worse.

  “God, Tico… ¿qué hice? What have I done to her? What have I done to both of them?”

  Tico remained silent, his hand on my neck, waiting until the near-violent shudders settled to the occasional spasm and finally…nothing. I just didn’t have anything else left.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  Slowly, I lifted my head to find Tico, both hands folded in his lap, staring up at the cross above the altar. Releasing a deep breath, he turned to face me. “It was you I worried for, as much as Libby. And I should have said that to you. I shouldn’t have held back. I should have let you know how frightened I was for you both, but I hoped if you knew I was worried for her in particular, knowing how protective you felt of her…” He sighed again. “Please forgive my sin of arrogance, m’ijo.”

  “You knew what would happen, didn’t you?”

  “I prayed it wouldn’t.” He turned to stare at the cross again. “But you were like two wounded animals finding solace in each other against the rest of the world. I suppose the real surprise is that it hadn’t happened sooner.”

  My chest ached with renewed pain. “It was so hard—being alone. I missed Kath so much and Libby understood, because she was missing Ethan just as much—if not more. And I was so damn angry at all of it and so was she.”

  Nothing I hadn’t already admitted to him in various ways during our long afternoon talks, but with a lot more layers of meaning, I guess. I loosened my fist, allowing the rosary to slide to the seat beside me as I spread the handkerchief over my thigh and smoothed it out. “And now, Kath’s in remission and Libby—she’s so strong, Tico. Sent me away. She knows I have to take this second chance. See if Kath wants it.”