by Leigh Landry
She’d never had someone look at her like that, staring into her. As if he really saw her. The real her. The parts she hadn’t even shown yet.
She rocked with him and wrapped her legs around his waist, angling his cock inside of her in a way that sent her immediately climbing to dizzying heights. She climbed until she cried out in ecstasy, with Shane pumping harder and faster before he tensed against her and released.
He crumpled over her, kissing her neck and then her mouth, both of them breathing too heavily to say anything yet. He rolled over to the side, then grabbed her hand and kissed it.
Natalie tried to process what just happened. The whole evening. How she’d gone from pissed and deflated to…this.
“Well, that was fun.”
She made a grunting noise. “And that was corny.”
“All right.” He rolled on his side and looked her in the eye. “How about…that was fucking amazing.”
“Damn right it was.”
He frowned then kissed her nose. “I should probably go, huh?”
Without hesitation, she squeezed his hand as if to hold him there. “Stay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Cadence is with her dad until Saturday. So, yes. Stay.” She added nervously, “If you want to.”
“Oh, I want to.” He propped his head on his hand, his elbow on the pillow beside her. “If you want me here, I absolutely want to be here.”
“That’s the thing,” she said. “I don’t normally want anyone to stick around.”
“I guess you’ve got to be more careful, or selective, or whatever, with a kid?”
“It’s not that.” She thought for a second, deciding how much to reveal, but realized she didn’t want to keep anything back. “Have you ever felt more alone lying next to another person than you feel when you’re actually alone?”
He frowned. “Yeah.”
“That’s why I don’t normally invite anyone to stay over. It always feels like that. Even with Cadence’s dad,” she said. “Especially with him.”
“Did you guys get married?”
She shook her head. “No, but we tried to make it work for a while. For too long.” She thought back to all those unending, lonely days and nights. All those tears. No one’s fault. Not really. They just didn’t work. “And that’s how it felt. All the time.”
He rubbed a hand along the side of her bare arm. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to repeat that.”
“But that’s the thing. It wasn’t some rare thing I was afraid of. It was always like that,” she said. “Until now.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I don’t feel…alone with you.”
She’d been wondering if this was some kind of wishful thinking or if she was making it up, but talking to him, she knew it was true. For the first time in years, she didn’t feel alone.
Chapter 7
Shane brushed Natalie’s hair aside and kissed her ear. She moaned softly, then rolled over to look at him. A spiral of emotions flashed in her eyes: pleasure, desire, shock…
He waited patiently for the regret.
She was afraid of letting anyone in. Afraid of getting hurt again. That much was clear. He’d been certain they were on the same page last night, but he’d been up half the night wondering if she would wake up with a change of heart in the morning.
But the shock and hint of fear faded from her eyes. Her mouth stretched into a crooked smile.
“Good morning,” she said. Her voice was thick and rich as cold cane syrup. And he wanted to eat her up just as much.
“Good morning.” The sun was beginning to stream in around her curtains. “What time do you have to be at work?”
“Nine,” she said. “You?”
“Same.” She looked around. “Shit, I left my phone in the living room.” She kissed him quickly again then rolled over to grab her jeans from the floor. She slipped them on and slid the zipper up. “I want to make sure I didn’t miss a message about Cadence.”
“Sorry. Were you waiting to hear from her?”
She paused on her way out and shook her hands emphatically. “No, no. It’s okay. I just like to make sure I check regularly. Just in case.”
Shane nodded as she left the room. He couldn’t imagine what that must feel like. It had to be nerve-racking enough, being always on guard as a parent, knowing you’re the one responsible for the kid’s safety and all. But to always be aware, waiting, even when the kid wasn’t around. Maybe even more so when the kid wasn’t around. No wonder she was on edge so much. He had no way to relate to that level of overwhelming responsibility.
But he had a hell of a lot of respect for it.
He grabbed his own jeans and shirt from the floor. As he put his arms through his sleeves and slid the shirt over his head, Shane noticed an envelope on the nightstand with Natalie’s name on it. He was still staring at the pretty handwriting and loopy little flourish beneath her name when Natalie walked back in the room. Her body froze when she saw what he was looking at, and an expression of horror inched onto her face.
“Sorry, I wasn’t snooping,” he said. “I was just…your name looked so pretty in that handwriting. I know that sounds goofy, but—”
“No, it’s fine,” she said, gathering her composure. “It’s from…a friend.” She sat beside him on the bed and picked up the letter, holding it and looking at it, not him.
“You haven’t opened it?”
She shook her head. “She left town without telling me.” She held the letter up. “Well, this was her telling me. She gave it to Robin.”
“Ah.” He put the bits of what he knew together, including Robin’s warning after their gig. “That’s why you were upset last weekend.”
“Yeah. I just…I figured I deserved more than a letter.”
“Well, sure,” he said. “But it’s been a week. You still haven’t read whatever’s in there?”
“Nope. Doesn’t change anything.”
“Right. But it’s clearly bothering you.” He put a hand on her knee. “Someone once told me, when I had something hard to do, that I should just get over myself and do the thing.”
She laughed and looked at him. “That person sounds like an asshole.”
“Nah. They were right. I’m getting my guitar back today.”
She looked back down at the envelope, and something about her expression—the way she looked at her name the same way he had looked at it—hit him with a sudden realization.
“Oh,” he said.
“Oh, what?”
He cleared his throat and considered not saying anything. He didn’t want to pry or push her away, but he wanted honesty between them, and this felt like one of those things he wanted to know about her. “She was…more than a friend, right?”
Her leg tightened against his, and he felt the air between them charge with tension. A few seconds later, she surprised him by answering. Honestly.
“Yes,” she said. “Well, no. We weren’t together or anything. She was my best friend.”
“But you loved her?”
She looked down at the letter again and nodded.
He wasn’t sure what to say. The truth scared the shit out of him, he couldn’t deny it. Not that she had been in love with a woman, but that she was so clearly still in love with someone else. Someone that wasn’t him.
But she was with him now. And she’d shared something with him that deserved acknowledgment.
Shane leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
She turned to look at him. “Does this mean I get to meet your cat now?”
He laughed and kissed her on the mouth this time. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”
* * * * *
Natalie stared at the envelope in her hands. She’d been staring at it for the last thirty minutes, ever since she walked Shane out and kissed him goodbye.
The last time she’d held that envelope, she’d been angry. Pissed right the fuck off, in fact.
She’d been pissed off at Robin. At Camille. At herself. At the whole damn situation.
She missed Camille’s laugh. She missed hanging at the park on Sunday afternoons with her and Cadence. She missed her best friend.
But she wasn’t angry anymore. She was still sad and disappointed, but not angry. And Shane was right. Not knowing what was in that envelope was bugging the shit out of her.
Shane had been right about a lot of things.
She wasn’t sure why she’d told him that she was in love with Camille. Not that she cared what he or anyone else thought of her. It just wasn’t something she went around telling people who didn’t need to know.
But she wanted Shane to know. Or at least she didn’t want to lie to him. Natalie couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so comfortable with anyone. Anyone besides her best friend.
Her phone rang on the bed next to her. Her mom. Shit.
“Hey, Mom. Sorry, forgot to check in. This week’s been…uh…something.”
“Something like last Friday night?” her mom asked with a hint of wishful thinking. “A repeat of something?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Fine.” Mom let out a heavy, exasperated sigh. “Are you being careful still?”
“Mom,” Natalie growled.
“I get to ask.”
“And I get to not answer that,” she said. Mostly because she didn’t like the answer. Sure, she and Shane were using protection, but it wasn’t as if she could get a condom for her heart. “Besides, I’m thirty-one years old. You can stop asking about my sex life any time now.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Her mom laughed softly. She always did enjoy driving Natalie bananas. Her voice got low and somber when she asked, “Any word from Camille? She should be out now, right?”
Natalie looked down at the envelope. “She’s out.”
Her mother waited a few moments for more information. When Natalie didn’t supply any, she said, “Well, that’s good.”
“Yes.” Natalie quickly switched the subject. “Cadence is with Eddie tonight. Sorry, I meant to call you yesterday, but I got busy with work and rehearsal.”
“And things,” her mother added.
“I’m hanging up now.”
Natalie ended the call with her mother chuckling in the background. She sighed and looked down at the envelope, then slipped her thumb in an opening and tore across the top in one angry slash. Her hands shook a little when she pulled out the lined paper and unfolded it. Then her eyes watered at the greeting: Dearest Nat.
What bullshit.
I’m sorry this is a letter. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there in person, telling all of this to your beautiful face.
More bullshit.
Nothing stopped Camille from doing whatever she wanted. If she’d wanted to tell Natalie in person, she would have done that.
I know you must feel hurt right now. Angry, probably. No, pissed. And you have every right to be.
Well, she got one thing right.
This is a kind of shitty thing to do, but it’s what I had to do. It’s what I needed to do. I’m sorry that this is unfair to you, but I had to put myself first. I have to be alone for a while, to figure out what I’m going to do next.
I won’t say that none of that has anything to do with you. That would be a lie. But not in the way you think. Or maybe I shouldn’t presume to know what you’re thinking. I’ll just say that my decision has nothing to do with anything you’ve done or said. The truth is, if I stay there right now, I’ll be too worried about how I’m affecting you and everyone else. I’ll be worried about being a burden. I’ll be worried about if I’m doing enough to deserve your friendship, if I’m enough. And I can’t do that right now. I can’t do that and get well and get my life back on track.
So I’m sorry. I hope you’ll understand and forgive me. One day.
She folded the letter and slipped it back inside the envelope. She’d been right. Reading it didn’t change a damn thing.
Lauren and Robin had both been right, too. Camille needed her friends to be there for her. When she needed them. Not to make decisions for her and hunt her down and drag her back for her own good. That would just be selfish. And it wouldn’t be good for any of them in the long run.
Natalie understood every word Camille said in that letter. It made perfect sense. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.
But Shane had been right, too. Getting it done did feel better.
She put the envelope in a drawer and went to get ready for work. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen with Shane. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted to happen with Shane from here on out. But reading Camille’s letter was a flashing reminder that she had a track record of shit not working out. Of choosing people who didn’t love her in return.
And she had no reason to believe Shane was going to be any different.
* * * * *
Just before his lunch break, Shane was going over a sound system installation proposal with Charles when the front door chimed. He looked up to see his brother walking through the store carrying a guitar case. His guitar case.
Charles, who’d heard about the situation from Shane back when it all went down, patted him on the back and went to help a customer near the accessory wall.
It had been less than a year since he’d seen his brother, but for some reason Shane had expected him to look different. Or at least seem different. Somehow.
“Randy.” He nodded at his brother.
“Shane.” Randy lifted the case over the counter and handed it to him. “I believe this is yours.”
“Thanks. For bringing it by.”
“Well, it was yours.”
There was an awkward silence Shane wasn’t entirely sure how to fill. Or maybe he was expecting his brother to fill it. Except his brother hadn’t filled that silence in almost a year, so he didn’t know why he was expecting anything.
“I’m about to go on my lunch break. Want to grab a bite?”
Randy looked uncomfortable. Shane was about to tell him to forget it when Randy said, “Yeah. Sure.”
“Okay,” said Shane. “Let me put this up and tell my manager I’m leaving.”
He walked to the back and leaned his guitar against a set of shelves. Then he found Charles and told him he was taking his lunch break.
Charles glanced over Shane’s shoulder at the counter. “You sure?”
“No,” Shane said. “But I’m going anyway.”
After he’d given Natalie her own words back at her, he couldn’t exactly chicken out of doing his own stuff today. Especially after she’d been brave enough to tell him everything she’d shared. No matter what that meant for them, he at least respected her for that and was going to take a confidence boost from her.
His brother offered to drive, and a few minutes later they were eating at their favorite poboy shop. They didn’t talk on the drive there, and they were pretty silent after placing their orders—a whole fried shrimp for Shane and a half ham and cheese for Randy. Shane suggested eating outside, since it was a gorgeous, unusually warm February day. They took their sandwiches and bottles of soda and water to a picnic bench outside.
“I’m glad you called,” his brother said after several awkward moments of sandwich unwrapping and chewing.
Shane’s back stiffened and his mouth froze mid-bite. He forced himself to chew, buying time. There were a lot of things he could say to his brother right then. Most of them he probably shouldn’t say. But for the life of him he couldn’t figure a single thing to say that didn’t make one of them look like an asshole. Not that his brother deserved any protection. Still, they’d gotten this far. They were eating a meal together. No sense pulling the rug on that just yet. Not when they seemed to be making progress.
And he had to admit, his brain was running away with what all of this meant—this lunch, them speaking, everything. What it could mean. Maybe they could find a way back. Maybe they could all be a family again. They
couldn’t erase the past, but maybe they could move on from it.
“I’d been meaning to get that back to you,” Randy said. “I just wasn’t sure how or what to say.”
Shane gave a half-hearted laugh. “How about, ‘Hey Shane, sorry I was a dick. Here’s your stuff back’?”
His brother shot him a dirty look across the picnic table. “Who said I was sorry?”
Unbe-fucking-lievable.
“Then why are we here, huh? Why lunch?”
Randy wiped the side of his mouth with a paper napkin. Calm. Cool. “I figured it was time to move on.”
“Move on from what? Have you moved on from thinking I would sleep with my brother’s wife? What exactly should we move on from?” Shane’s gut clenched as he thought of another possibility. “You and Julie…you aren’t—”
“We’re fine,” Randy cut in. “No thanks to you.”
Shane flinched as if his brother had punched him. “You can’t be serious.”
Randy didn’t say a word. He sipped his bottle of flavored water with his eyes glued to Shane. No reaction. No emotion.
Well, maybe some emotion. Resentment, maybe.
None of it was Shane’s fault, though. He knew that. What he didn’t know was how his own brother could blame him for that. Or Julie.
“You still think I’m lying,” Shane said. “Hell, you still think Julie is lying.” He laughed. Of course. “And you’re willing to forgive us both for it. To be the bigger man to be better than us. That’s it, right?”
Still no answer.
Shane crumpled the last bites of his sandwich in the wrapper and stood, stepping over the picnic bench and grabbing his sweet tea from the table. “Well, fuck you, man. I’ve never lied to you. I never betrayed you. And the fact that you still think that…seriously? Fuck. You.”
He tossed his trash in the nearby bin and started walking down the road. It was at least a mile back to the store, but Shane didn’t care.
He sure as hell wasn’t riding back with his brother. He had no plans to speak to the asshole ever again, if he could help it, much less ride in a car in traffic with him.