by Elias Taylor
“That’d be nice.” Natalie looked down at her lacy white bra. “It’s so far and I’d have to get dressed.”
“Definitely don’t do that.” Brent leaned in for a kiss as he passed her to get the food out of the oven.
They devoured the food with the last of their remaining energy before cutting off the lights and rolling into bed. Brent reached out, feeling his way through the dark. He found Natalie easily by the warmth of her body and pulled her close, claiming the role of big spoon.
Brent closed his heavy eyes to shut out the pale moonlight. When he opened them again, a streak of sunlight shone through the curtain and birds sang cheerfully outside the window. Instinctively, he tightened his grip around the weight clutched in his arms.
Huh. Brent usually tossed and turned before falling asleep. Either he and Natalie had ended up exactly how they had fallen asleep, or Brent had slept so heavily that not even nocturnal habits could budge him.
A rush of fondness surged through him when he caught sight of Natalie’s peaceful, sleeping face, and he gave her a feather-light kiss on the forehead before slowly sliding his arm out from underneath her. She didn’t stir, and he closed the door quietly behind him.
Half an hour later, Brent opened that door to find her still asleep. “Hey,” he murmured, repeating the kiss, but this time on her slightly-parted lips. “Wakey wakey eggs and bakey... literally,” he added.
“Huh?” Natalie blinked, then a brilliant smile formed through her sleepiness when she saw Brent’s face. When Brent started to move his head away, she woke up enough to pull him back in for a second kiss.
“Good morning to you too.” He resisted her attempts to drag him back into the bed. “Nuh uh. I made breakfast. Come and get it.”
“It’s not some kind of extreme muscle-building food, is it?”
Brent grabbed Natalie’s hands and practically lifted her out of the bed. “No, it’s normal breakfast food, I promise.”
“And coffee,” Natalie noticed as Brent led the way down the hall to the kitchen.
“Yeah, about the coffee. I had to go to your house to get some. I ran out the other day.”
Natalie spotted her own bag of coffee on the counter and chuckled. “That’s actually perfect because I can’t drink it at my house anyway, I’m out of sugar.”
“Isn’t it weird?” Brent asked, scooping bacon and eggs onto plates.
“What?”
“How much we have in common. I mean, we’ve had some pretty crazy fights in the past.”
“Remember that time we trashed Gideon’s room throwing stuff at each other?” Natalie reminisced.
“And when we drew graffiti all over each other’s lockers in high school?”
“Oh my God, and that time when we were stuck in the back seat on that car ride to Texas?”
“That was pretty bad,” Brent agreed. He wasn’t proud of the way he had acted on that trip, especially since Natalie’s mom had been driving.
“But not the worst. Remember that time when you made me marry you?”
Brent dropped his plate on the counter and tackled Natalie, pushing her against the counter and kissing her until breathlessness forced them apart. “That was your fault. If you hadn’t been so distracting I would have read what I was signing.”
Brent remembered many times in high school when Natalie had caught some boy’s attention, and no matter how smooth his compliment, she would brush him off like he was nothing. The Natalie Brent knew had been so good at turning compliments back on the source as an insult. But somehow, compliments from Brent turned her cheeks pink and put a little smile on her lips, which only made him want to ply her with more.
He had no idea when he had gone from hating Natalie to spending all his time with her, but that didn’t seem like a good topic for breakfast—or anytime, really. It was what it was, and whatever ‘it’ was, Brent liked it and he didn’t want things to change.
Chapter Thirteen: Natalie
When Natalie talked to Jasmine the next Friday morning after Natalie and Brent hooked up for a second time, Jasmine asked if she had sorted out the divorce yet. Natalie tried to give her friend an answer, but ended up deflecting and changing the subject because she actually didn’t have one.
On a technical level, yes, Natalie had sorted out the divorce. She knew what to do to get one—the judge explained it in detail. If she printed a couple papers, filled out a few blanks, signed a couple lines and got Brent to do the same, she could mail those papers and have her divorce filed within a couple months. She just hadn’t felt like doing it. Natalie was a busy girl with a busy life, and her newfound friendship with Brent occupied the time that her job left free.
Sometimes, Natalie stared herself down in her bathroom mirror after brushing her teeth and used the word friendship to describe her and Brent just so she wouldn’t forget the truth—that she wasn’t the relationship kind of girl. She knew girls who couldn’t function without a boyfriend, and she never wanted that to be that girl. A lot of hard work, time and money had gone into getting through technical school and getting her job at Classic Auto, and she had no intention of slowing her momentum to accommodate some guy.
Brent’s not just some guy, her treacherous mind whispered. Brent was funny, incredibly fit, mouthwateringly handsome, unafraid to speak his mind, fun and driven. He had a lot of qualities Natalie admired, not just in a potential boyfriend—which she didn’t want—but in a friend.
Jasmine had a lot of those qualities, and she was Natalie’s best friend. Brent had them too, and she enjoyed every minute she got to spend with him. They got along so well, and it still baffled Natalie that all these years, she and Brent could probably have been great friends if they had just buried the hatchet earlier.
Natalie snorted at the pile of laundry on her bed. The hatchet still wasn’t entirely buried, but she wasn’t even sure if it was a hatchet anymore. She and Brent still teased each other mercilessly, but now it was almost playful—foreplay, even, weird as it sounded to think even in the privacy of her own mind. If they had to, they could have a serious conversation, but why do that when they could enjoy a conversation that kept them on their toes? Brent pushed her to think intelligently and wittily, and she liked to think that she did the same for him. It was refreshing. Nothing ever felt stale with him, and no interaction ever happened the same way twice.
From her room, Natalie heard the front door open and close. “Hey,” she called through her open door, not at all surprised. Pretty much the first thing Natalie did every morning was unlock her front door so Brent could wander in and join her for breakfast.
“I brought fruit. And yogurt. And toast.” Brent’s voice grew louder and then softer again as he headed into the kitchen. “You’re a bad influence and you make me eat way too much junk food.”
“As long as we’re still having coffee.”
“And if I told you no coffee?” Brent’s footsteps sounded on the stairs before he appeared in her doorway, hands in the pockets of his basketball shorts as he regaled Natalie with a winning smile that nearly made her drop the T-shirt she was folding.
“Then all that working out wouldn’t matter because I would kick your ass to get to the coffee.”
“Well, luckily for you, you don’t have to see how wrong you are. Of course we’re having coffee—if you make it.”
Natalie tossed the last shirt neatly on the pile. “You brought food, so it’s only fair I make the coffee.”
Everything she and Brent did was like this. They both contributed, always.
“I thought you said you brought toast?” Natalie held up the loaf of bread after she led the way to the kitchen.
“Hush, you. It’ll take like two minutes to toast it.”
Natalie snickered and tossed a couple pieces in the toaster to toast while she got coffee going.
After breakfast, Natalie tossed her napkin into the trash and slid her plate into the sink. “Be a good husband and clean up for me? I’m running late.”
&nb
sp; “For what?”
“For work. It’s Friday, I have to go to the shop to work on a project car.”
“Fine.” Brent dragged out the end of the word into a long sigh. “But I’ll drop you off at work because I’m picking you up tonight for a date.”
Natalie stopped at the top of the stairs. “What kind of date?”
“It’s a surprise. You were the one who said ‘happy wife, happy life’. I’m under a lot of pressure to satisfy you all the time.”
Natalie laughed at that. “Well, that sounds like a win for me so I won’t argue... except for the part where you drive me. I’m meeting my mom for lunch. Unless you want to pick me up and drop me off for that too?”
“Nah. I was going to be nice, but that would be too nice.” He winked at her and rounded the corner into the kitchen. Natalie heard the tap turn on and dishes begin to clink in the sink—Brent was actually cleaning up. She hadn’t really expected him to actually go for that ‘good husband’ bit, especially since they both knew it was only temporary.
Brent Cooke, a considerate person. Who woulda thunk?
Forty-five minutes later, Natalie pulled out of her driveway to head to work, watching a waving Brent grow smaller in the mirrors. She turned a corner and he vanished from sight, but he stuck in her mind long after she arrived at work. The bright red paint of the classic 1959 Cadillac in her garage reminded her of riding shotgun in Brent’s red car. Matt’s friendly coworker banter took her back to her and Brent’s good-natured teasing. Every ding from her phone could be a text from Brent, and she couldn’t stop herself from wiping the grease off her hands and checking it right away.
The messages were never from Brent, which to her surprise left her disappointed. One was from her mom, Leena. Last week, her mom had suggested that they meet for lunch today. Of course, Natalie had agreed, but secretly, a part of her wilted with disappointment that she wouldn’t get to meet Brent instead.
Lunch with Mom, date with Brent later, she told herself sternly. Fun new friendships weren’t a good reason to forget old ones, and she and her mom had been best friends as long as Natalie could remember. Her mom had gone through it all—dating, heartbreak, drinking, clubbing, spending late nights out and not coming home the next day—and she had always been open about her experiences and which parts of them had been fun, safe or foolish. Gideon’s birth had put an end to most of their mom’s wild days, but Natalie still felt like she could tell their low-key, non-judgemental mom anything.
At 11:50 AM Natalie said goodbye to the Cadillac and rode her motorcycle to a nearby pizzeria to meet her mother. When mother and daughter stood next to each other, Natalie knew it was easy to see the resemblance. They both liked to wear their hair down to just below their shoulders, and they favored the same dark-brown messy bun when they had work or chores to do. When Natalie looked into her mother’s warm chocolate eyes, she could see herself and she was proud of that fact.
“Hi, Mom!” Natalie hopped off her bike and unbuckled her helmet so she could hug her mom.
“Hey, Honey. Oof,” Leena added in a huff of breath as Natalie squeezed her tightly.
“Sorry. I’ve just missed you.”
“We had lunch less than a week ago.”
“Aaaand my point still stands.”
The two women laughed and embraced again.
“Okay, let’s get lunch,” Natalie said. “I’m starving and I have to get back at one.”
They ordered their favorite pizza to share and sat in a corner booth, enjoying the quiet atmosphere of the restaurant and each other’s company. It was always like this when Natalie went out to eat with Brent too. They could just sit and talk and have a good time—
“Earth to Natalie!” Her mother flicked a straw paper at her.
Natalie shook herself. “Sorry.” A bite of pizza filled her mouth with flavor and brought her back to the present.
“It’s not like you to space out. What’s up?”
Natalie folded a piece of pizza in half slowly. If she told her mom she didn’t want to talk about it, she would accept that and move on to another topic. Maybe Natalie did need to talk about what was going on between her and Brent, though. She wasn’t likely to get much real advice out of Jasmine.
Natalie gave a little mental shrug. Hadn’t she just been thinking about how she could tell her mom anything? Okay, here we go.
“Remember when Gideon and I went to Vegas with the Road Warriors a few weeks ago? Well...”
It took Natalie a few minutes to explain everything, and she left nothing out. The accidental marriage, hooking up with Brent, somehow talking to him every day since then and spending more time with him than anyone else, hooking up with him again—
“The second time is never just a hookup.” Leena waited for a response, but Natalie was suddenly busy poking her straw at the slice of lemon in her water. “I’m sorry if that wasn’t what you wanted to hear.”
“It’s not—” Natalie stopped, planning her next sentences carefully. She wasn’t good at feelings. No one was good at anything they didn’t practice. “It’s not that I don’t want to hear that. I’m just... I’m a young professional just a year and a half into my career. I’m busy, and I’m not looking for a relationship.”
“I was still in medical school when I met your father, and we didn’t get married until I was a fully-employed doctor. Plenty of people have jobs and boyfriends, hon.” Natalie felt her mother’s gaze on her, examining her face. “But that isn’t why you’re not looking for a relationship, is it?”
“No,” Natalie sighed. “I hate investing time into anything that isn’t worth it. You remember, Mom. I made great grades on stuff like math and physics in high school and terrible grades on English and literature. I always knew I was going to be a mechanic, and I just couldn’t make myself try at those classes. I didn’t care.”
“So relationships aren’t worth it?”
“No, not usually. What are the divorce rates for young married couples these days?”
“They’ll be even higher if you and Brent get divorced.” Leena leaned back in her seat. “Love doesn’t always come and go. When it lasts, you have a best friend to share your life with forever, and it’s a wonderful thing.”
“But it isn’t worth the chance you have to take and the commitment you have to make to find out if it will last,” Natalie argued. “And all the lies and betrayal you’ll have to deal with along the way.”
“Natalie, honey, you’re allowed to be happy. You shouldn’t push Brent away just because your father did something terrible.”
Natalie looked away. She had never met her father, but she had been there to see the aftermath of what he did to her mother. Mason married Leena, bought a house with her, started a family with her in Gideon and got her pregnant again with Natalie. Everything had seemed great. Perfect. A dream come true.
Then, Mason dropped a bombshell on his pregnant wife—he had an entire secret family with a woman he had been cheating on Leena with for over a year.
Natalie never got to meet her father—not that she would have wanted to when she was old enough to understand why lots of other little girls and boys had fathers while she didn’t. Gideon remembered bits and pieces of him, and he hated those slivers of memory. Natalie had picked his brain once, and the memories were all raised voices from their father and tears from their mother.
Natalie couldn’t hate a man she had never met, but she could learn from him. She had seen the sadness and the loneliness her mother went through after Mason told her the truth and disappeared without a trace, and she never wanted that for herself.
“Do you still hate him?” Natalie asked.
“No. It takes a lot of energy to hate people. It’s a lot easier to forgive them... or become friends with them.” The corners of her mother’s eyes crinkled, and Natalie knew she was referring to Brent. “Why don’t you just see where things go? If it makes you uncomfortable to call it a relationship, don’t. Friends with benefits is a thing.”
<
br /> Natalie grinned. Who else had a mom this awesome?
Her grin faded after a moment when she remembered the main thing that had been eating at her lately. “What about our marriage? It was a stupid mistake and we should fix it as soon as possible, right?”
“It sounds like a blessing to me, not a mistake. It brought you together and gave you a chance to become friends, didn’t it? Anyway, I can’t tell you what you should do.”
Natalie studied her mother’s face. “But?”
“But I wouldn’t be too quick to throw away blessings.” Leena scooted to the edge of the booth and stood up, grabbing the bill. “I’ll pay this.”
Natalie watched her go, comforted and yet even more conflicted than before. She had half hoped that her mother would tell her that it was fine, she just liked Brent as a friend and she didn’t need to worry about getting caught up in a relationship.
But her mom was right—the second time was never just a hookup. Leena couldn’t tell Natalie what these feelings she had for Brent meant. She would have to figure that out for herself—and then, she would have to figure out what to do about them.
Chapter Fourteen: Brent
Brent was pleased with himself. It was a beautiful, warm evening; his motorcycle sliced through the sweet-smelling air and he had thought of the perfect date for him and Natalie.
This time, he wanted to do something a little different. Brent already knew Natalie loved to dance and party, but he also knew that she valued her money. Weekends spent drinking the night away were fun but expensive.
Tonight, Brent had something different planned. He wanted to show Natalie that having fun with him didn’t always mean crazy outings to explore Vegas or club hopping. Meeting for lunch during their lunch breaks or grabbing dinner afterward weren’t really dates—those were things they just did on the regular. Brent wanted to take this opportunity to plan something sweet, but different from one of those regular occurrences.