Our Options Have Changed: On Hold Series Book #1

by Julia Kent

  “Shut up,” I growl. I’m not talking about sex with Chloe. After one of her many margaritas, Chloe whispered the fact that Charlie had been her first. Knowing we’ve both slept with her is bad enough. Having to tell Charlie is worse. If I can hold off a little longer, maybe it’ll be easier.

  “Is that why Elodie’s not here? She’s staying scarce?”

  “So far, yeah. Amelie brought an extra bag of laundry with her yesterday, though.”

  “Those two are each other’s best friends and worst enemies. Frenemies. They fight over who gets the washing machine, but give them a common enemy and they’re tight.”

  I shoot Charlie a look. “And we’re any different?”

  His grin is filled with pizza.

  “Jesus, Charlie. Swallow before you smile.”

  “That’s what I always say, too.” He leers.

  I groan. “For that, I pick the movie.”

  “Not another foreign film,” he groans, then perks up. “Unless it’s French. Love the French films.”

  “That’s because they all have threesomes in them. At least, the ones you watch.”

  “YouPorn has an excellent selection of high-quality foreign films.” He pops open another beer and shrugs.

  “Please tell me your laptop has a screen protector on it.”

  He nods. “Keyboard, too. You really have to, with the USB attachments they make now.” His eyes go blank, and he begins to talk in a businesslike, clipped tone. “If you don’t, the keyboard gets sticky, and no one wants to go to the Apple Genius Bar with the equivalent of an artificial insemination sample.”

  “Charlie!”

  “I’m not kidding. You know that company that makes the surfing equipment we sell? They’ve been bought out by the same mega-corporation that’s making dildo drones.”

  “Did you say dildo drones?” I look at my beer with suspicion. Two empties are next to me, so unless he spiked this with a hallucinogen, I’m not the crazy one here.

  “Sure. It’s like Google Glass, or Virtual Reality. Next great invention.”

  “No, the next great invention would be a vaccine that cures the Zika virus. Or cold fusion. Dildo drones rank somewhere above dog bongs and below remote-controlled zippers.”

  “Already exist.”

  “Remote-controlled zippers?”

  “Dog bongs.”

  “Someone invented a marijuana bong for canines?”

  “Sure. Even doggies need to chill once in a while. Plus, the endocannabinoid system can be very powerful when it comes to inflammatory diseases, and in veterinary medicine—”

  “Dog bongs, Charlie. Can dogs even inhale?” My brother’s a Yale Law dropout who couldn’t manage past his first year, but he clearly just picked the wrong grad school program. Biochemistry would have been a better fit. Only Charlie could struggle to maintain a permanent address and a steady job, but know the inner workings of the canine neurotransmitter system.

  Then again, he might have become Walter White. Don’t let the man anywhere near an RV.

  “I guess so. No one would have invented the dog bongs if they couldn’t.”

  “Charlie, who do you think would create such a device?”

  Silence.

  “Stoners. People who are baked out of their minds. People who go through the Taco Bell drive-thru and buy a ten-pack of soft tacos and who think God talks to them through the microphone while their fingers turn into antennae.”

  He shoots me a dirty look.

  “Those same people are the ones who look at their mother’s bichon frise in the basement apartment where they live and think, ‘Poor Peanut needs a bong.’” I’m pretty sure they invented most of the television shows my kids watched as toddlers. Whoever came up with The Big Comfy Couch and the French show Téléchat must have been huffing on some very human bongs.

  “I happen to be friends with the guy who is waiting for his patent for dog bongs to clear.” Charlie runs a hand through his hair and starts peeling the beer label on his bottle. “And it was a yorkie poo named Fluffy,” he says under his breath.

  “I work eighty hour weeks as a corporate drone in the Financial District and there are guys making money getting the family pet high.”

  “It’s a growing field.”

  “So is Alzheimer’s research.”

  “Got to follow your bliss,” Charlie says softly. “When did you turn into a grumpy old man? All you need to do is start wearing socks with sandals, get some Sansabelt slacks, start using Viagra and yell at kids on your lawn. You’re becoming Grandpa Louie.”

  “I don’t have a lawn. I live in a townhouse.” I give him the hairy eyeball. “And I don’t need Viagra.”

  “We live in a townhouse.”

  “You’re only here for a visit.”

  “And don’t knock Viagra. It’s great as a recreational drug.”

  “I do not want to hear about your twelve-hour erection.”

  “That’s not what she said.”

  “That’s it. We’re watching The Revenant.”

  “What? No, Nick, c’mon. Don’t make me watch Leo DiCaprio having sex with a bear.”

  I do a double take. “There’s no bestiality in the movie.”

  “I heard it sucked.”

  “No. What sucks is listening to you right now.” Dog bongs. What’s next? Edibles for hermit crabs?

  The front door slowly opens, the sound making us both tense by instinct. We share a look of primal danger. Then I realize Charlie’s more worried about his beer as he scrambles to catch it.

  “You expecting anyone?” Charlie whispers.

  “No.”

  “Daddy?” It’s Elodie, looking shame-faced, the crease between her eyes making her resemble Simone. It’s been a week since she called Chloe’s phone. I haven’t seen her since. Not a single text other than I’m sorry.

  This has been the longest I’ve ever gone without contact. Even when the kids were in France for their annual visits with their mother, we had daily phone calls and texts.

  “Hi, honey,” I say, studying her. Whatever she feels she needs to say, I don’t plan to make it easy. Not hard, either. But this is a life lesson, and I don’t have many more to impart to my kids.

  “Uncle Charlie!” she chirps as she spots him, running into his arms with a sweet abandon so different from her cultivated worry. I see her face over Charlie’s shoulder as he bear hugs her, lifting her off the ground, her pony tail stuck under his arm as he laughs.

  “I can’t believe you cockblocked your dad, Coco,” he says as she’s midair.

  Elodie scrambles out of his arms and gives him a look designed to make her uncle spontaneously combust.

  “Technically,” I correct him again, “she didn’t—”

  “Non!” Elodie shrieks, fingers in her ears. “I do not want to know more! Merde! This is bad enough. It’s been so bad I called Maman for advice!”

  When my kids mix French with their English, I know they’re upset.

  When Elodie tells me she called my ex-wife to talk about my sex life, I know I’m upset.

  “You what?”

  “I didn’t tell her why you hate me, Daddy!” Elodie says with great drama, including wide, sweeping hand gestures that remind me of Joan Crawford’s overacting.

  Charlie gives me a look that says, This is your kid.

  Yeah. It is.

  And Chloe wants one of these?

  “Please tell Chloe I am so sorry,” Elodie begs.

  Charlie eyes freeze on me.

  “Chloe? Your lover’s name is Chloe?”

  “Ewww, Uncle Charlie! Don’t call Chloe Daddy’s lover. She’s just a one-night stand.” She gives me a hopeful look. “Right? Because if you’re seriously dating her I am going to curl into a tiny ball of horror and just die right here on the couch, because it would be soooooo embarrassing to ever have to face her.”

  “Chloe what?” Charlie asks, his eyes slanting with a slow, taunting grin.

  “Just Chloe,” I answer.

/>   “What’s her last name, Nick? You know I dated a Chloe in high school. There aren’t that many in Boston.” His smile broadens and my fingers curl into my palms. Can’t hit my own brother.

  Not okay.

  “She was fine. Better than fine. A little wild and crazy, and she had this thing she did with her tongue that—”

  “STOP!”

  Being six years older than Charlie has its perks, chief among them that my angry voice has been programmed in him since birth.

  “It’s the same Chloe.”

  Elodie’s eyes widen. She looks just enough like Zooey Deschanel that I do a double take.

  “Wow. You look just like Katy Perry when you stare at your dad with that look of extreme shock,” Charlie tells Elodie. He gives her a weird grin before looking at me. “Chloe Browne?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re sleeping with my ex.”

  “I’m sleeping with an extraordinary thirty-five-year-old professional woman who likes my company as well.”

  We stare at each other.

  “This isn’t awkward at all,” Elodie says.

  In French.

  “C’mon. Not fair. I regret picking Spanish in high school,” Charlie whines. “If I’d have known you’d marry a Parisian, I’d have picked French.”

  “If I’d have known how wonderful Chloe was, I’d have dated her in high school before you could.”

  “She was fifteen. You were twenty-one and about to have the twins. That’s kind of sick, Nick.”

  “Daddy!” Elodie gasps.

  I fold my arms across my shoulders, puffing out my chest. “You know what I mean.”

  Charlie digests this information by drinking an entire beer in one long ribbon of swallows, then holding up a finger.

  Elodie starts clapping in anticipation.

  And Charlie burps like a dog with indigestion.

  And not a dog who has access to a bong.

  “I can see how that was funny when you were little, El, but come on. Charlie was a teenager then. Now he’s just a thirty-something man with a Peter Pan complex.”

  Charlie grins. “Thank you.”

  “That wasn’t a compliment.”

  “Depends on your point of view,” he says with a nonchalant shrug that triggers unexpected fury in me. Must be nice to slack your way through life.

  I’m about to say as much when I’m interrupted.

  “I’msorryDaddyIshouldneverhavecalledChloe’sphoneandcaughtyouhavingsexandthatwaswrongpleasedon’thateme,” Elodie says in one long, unfurling ribbon of panicky blabber.

  Charlie’s eyes narrow. He ignores the firehose of contrition pouring our of his niece. “You and Chloe. No way. She’s way too carefree for you.”

  “I don’t hate you,” I say to Elodie.

  The relief on her face is palpable.

  “And what the hell do you mean by that?” I ask Charlie, going into full-on older brother domineering mode.

  “Daddy, I think he means you—”

  Charlie holds up a palm, aimed at her. “I can speak for myself. What I mean is...” He falters, frowning. “I mean that the Chloe I slept with—”

  “Ew!” Elodie squeals. “You shared Chloe?”

  We’ve gone from dangerous territory right into full-blown toxic soup. The is the Chernobyl of family conversations.

  “Not at the same time,” Charlie helpfully clarifies. “Twenty years apart.”

  “I don’t understand,” Elodie gasps. “What does he mean, Daddy?”

  “I need an interpreter too, honey.”

  Charlie takes a deep, irritated breath. “Chloe needs a guy who’s passionate and impulsive. Romantic and wild. She needs a guy who—”

  “—who likes to use a strap-on,” Elodie elaborates.

  I drop my empty beer bottle. It crashes to the floor, cracking unevenly, pieces skittering along the kitchen floor like they’re desperately trying to escape.

  Charlie’s face twists with horror. “Elodie! How do you know what a—what that—what?”

  “STOP!” I shout, closing my eyes. “WE ARE NOT DOING THIS AGAIN.”

  “Again?’ Charlie’s voice shoots up an octave. “You’ve had previous conversations with your daughter about strap—” He can’t look at her. “About—that? Those?”

  “No.”

  “Then I am very confused.”

  “Now you know what it’s like to have a conversation with you, Charlie.”

  “Hey, man. I talk about dog bongs. Not—”

  Elodie bends at the same time I drop down, both of us carefully picking up the larger pieces of green glass among the broken bits.

  “Dog bongs? That’s a thing?” Elodie asks.

  I groan. “Please stop. Stop now. For the sake of the remaining brain cells I have left that aren’t waving a white flag of surrender, let’s reboot this entire conversation.”

  “L’ex de Chloé vend le strap-on qu’elle lui avait mis, Papa,” Elodie blurts out.

  My hand jerks so badly I cut myself, the red bloom along the line of my palm filling in the pale skin. “She what?” I say in English, followed by a string of profanity in French.

  My daughter did not just say, Chloe’s ex-lover is selling the strap-on she used on him, Daddy.

  “That’s why I came to see you.”

  Charlie appears with the broom and dust pan. Elodie waves my hands away, urging me to go to the sink. The two continue cleaning. I run my wound under cold water and close my eyes, wincing.

  “It hurts that bad?” Elodie asks.

  “This conversation does, yes.”

  “I meant your hand.”

  “The hand is a welcome distraction from talking about Chloe, strap-ons, dog bongs, and my sex life.” Never thought I’d utter the words dog bongs and my sex life in the same sentence.

  Charlie eyes us with suspicion. “What did you say in French? I heard strap-on again.” He looks away.

  Neither Elodie nor I answer, instead focusing on cleaning the mess. The cut’s so superficial it stops bleeding almost instantly, leaving a sting from the beer. I rummage through the kitchen junk drawer and find a Band-aid, absentmindedly applying it.

  A Disney Princess looks back at me. Jasmine. She was always my favorite. It’s the hair.

  How long has it been since I’ve cleaned the junk drawer?

  Elodie makes a great show of taking out her phone, tapping on the screen, and showing us an auction.

  “eBay? What does eBay have to do with Chloe?” I ask.

  “It’s not eBay, Daddy. It’s an auction site where you sell all the things your ex gave you that remind you of them.”

  Can you sell your children on this site?

  “Like eBay for relationship revenge?” Charlie asks, perking up. “Smart concept. I’ll bet they got great venture capital funding.” Charlie has worked for nine different start-ups since dropping out of Yale.

  All nine have failed.

  “Right. Most of the sales are for engagement rings, wedding dresses, books and mementos. That kind of stuff. Sometimes it’s furniture or books. But, um, this one came up and it’s going viral.”

  She turned the glass screen toward me. I squint.

  A strap-on.

  “How did you find this?”

  “Buzzfeed and TMZ are covering it.”

  Oh, hell.

  “It’s getting that much coverage already?”

  “Is that her, Daddy? I came as soon as I saw it. I know you’re not serious with her or anything, but I thought you should know. She should know. It’s so embarrassing and—”

  I hold up one finger, buying time.

  Chloe’s batshit-crazy drunk ex-boyfriend has gone on this website for people who want to sell their gifts from exes and has started one hell of a smear campaign.

  The ad for the strap-on reads:

  Khloe Brown was the love of my life.

  She dumped me for no reason. Three years down the drain.

  We had a love that was so rare. So accepting. S
o nonconformist. We created our own world and lived in it, inhabiting a space no one else ever had the right to enter.

  And now she’s gone, screwing a coworker who looks like every corn-fed Midwestern basketball player lead actor combined with the intellectual curiosity of George W. Bush.

  I start choking. Is he talking about me? Stretching up to full height, I look down. No belly. Flat abs. My arms are long, and I can still do a slam dunk on the court. Knees hurt like a sonofabitch the next day, but I can do it.

  I ignore the GWB comment.

  “Daddy? Why are you, uh...examining yourself?”

  I quickly return to the description on the phone. There are worse insults than being called “corn-fed Midwestern basketball player lead actor.”

  I went to see her at work. Sent her eight dozen roses. Pleaded with her, and her new fuckbuddy got me in a headlock and beat me until I bled.

  “What?” I shout. If that were true, I’d be charged with assault. Idiot.

  “Keep reading, Daddy.” Elodie shakes her head and offers me another beer. “Keep reading.”

  Nothing bled as much as my heart, though. I shared a love with Khloe and a sensuality that is without parallel. Do you see that dildo in the picture? It represents her.

  Beer really hurts when you inhale it.

  Charlie has his own phone in hand. He picks up where I leave off as I hack up a lung and some intellectual curiosity.

  “She was a stunning Amazon warrior princess in bed, riding me like the stallion that I am. For dumping me the way she did, refusing my calls and texts and visits—”

  “VISITS!” I say with a gag. “Visits! The asshole’s been stalking her.”

  “—for throwing away my love and support, all the nights we spent together, all the years I devoted to her, I sell this lot of items she gave me with one purpose in mind: that the money should go to a group with purpose and honor. I will donate all proceeds and match the amount.”

  “Who’s he donating the money to?” I ask, not wanting to know.

  “A men’s rights organization led by a pick-up artist,” Elodie says with obvious acrimony.

  “Of course.”

  “And!” Charlie continues, trying to read as he laughs. “Should my heartfelt words touch the cold iceberg of my beloved’s heart, I will withdraw this auction in full so we can live out the destiny that we were meant to have.”