What Fools Believe

by Harper, Mackenzie

  “And there it is. You have nothing to say to me. Tell me this though, Bex. How was the marriage? Were you happy with Spencer for even a second? You wanted the commitment I couldn’t give you so badly so you had to run right to him and like the reliable dope he was, he handed you what you told him you wanted. But it didn’t work, did it? I bet this never crossed your mind, but have you considered that maybe you’re the one with the problem?”

  She nodded and he felt vindicated until she said, “Yes, I was happy with him. I was happier with him than I ever was with you and I didn’t leave because I wanted to marry you and you couldn’t marry me. Josh, I left you because I loved him and I still do. And, no,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m not sorry for that.”

  Rebecca’s declaration hit him like a heavy weight fighter’s punch to his gut, knocking him back, and the air out of his body. His chest shrunk, collapsing around his heart. Thinking he might choke, Joshua forced himself to suck in a breath. He didn’t believe her. She wanted to wound him because he lashed out at her, so she lashed out at him with the worse insult she could think of out of spite.

  “Are we all squared now, Josh? You still want to show me the brownstone for your friend’s sake?”

  “You’re trying to get me angry? Fine. You win, but you’re a liar.”

  She laughed, an astounded look on her face. Rebecca backed away. “Tell your friend it’s a nice place, but it’s not for me.”

  5

  COULD HE HAVE imagined it all?

  Joshua found the old box with Rebecca’s name written on the top. He sliced open the taped seam and took out the contents, placing them on the floor in front of his folded legs. Movie ticket stubs from an all night horror flick marathon, a U of C hoodie she wore once, the heart-shaped pendant she lost in his sofa cushions, some pictures developed from camera phones. He compared the two in his hands. Rebecca was smiling up to her eyeballs. Was that just her way?

  No.

  She couldn’t fake the passion he saw in her eyes when they kissed. When they made love, she was there with him. With him. Not fantasizing about another man or another life.

  After going for a long walk, Joshua needed a beer. He drank several then graduated to Tequila. The afternoon wasted away. People sat down and departed from the stools beside him. Stumbling out of the bar after ten o’clock, he shivered. Joshua stuck his arm out and flagged down an approaching cab. He gave it up to a group of twenty-somethings, giggling and flirting. They urged him to join them, but he politely refused and walked to the corner of the block where he hailed another taxi. A few blocks into the drive, he told the cab driver to go to a different address.

  Joshua banged his fist on room 1919 until Rebecca yanked the door back and his arm swung and hit nothing. Without protesting, she welcomed him inside. That was as far as they got. She didn’t budge from her spot by the door. Falling back against the wall, he said, “Twenty-seven million.”

  “What?”

  “That’s how much I’ve personally brought to your sister’s firm this year alone. I’m going to make partner.”

  “I’m very happy for you.”

  He leaned his head against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. His eyelids, heavy from drinking, slowly shut. “You know what makes me a good lawyer, Rebecca?” He opened his eyes, lowered his head and answered his own question. “I know people. Early on I made it a habit to watch them. I study their habits, their quirks. I try to learn what makes them happy or sad or scared or distracted. I see the tiny specks of emotion they try to hide and other people miss because if I don’t then the other guy wins. And every lawyer hates to lose. I’ve gotten better at it since I saw you that day.”

  Rebecca wrapped herself in her cardigan, holding it tight across her body. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You loved me.”

  “Josh—”

  “Shut up!” She recoiled and he thought she might punch him in the face. “I didn’t come here to listen to any more of your lies, Rebecca.”

  “No, you just showed up, sticking of booze, to tell me how I’m supposed to feel. The whole world has to bow down to the great Joshua Phillips and his feelings because that’s the only way he could ever cope with being the narcissistic asshole he is. My marriage is over and all you can think about is yourself.”

  He chortled. “Your marriage. Your marriage.” His voice hardened. “You want to know what I spent the entire afternoon doing after your bullshit stunt today?”

  “No!”

  She stormed off and this time he followed her.

  “Well, I’m going to tell you anyway, Rebecca Norman,” he shouted to her back as she picked up the phone. “I looked at all our photographs together. I stared into your face. For hours. And I remembered everything.”

  His voice faltered. Joshua collapsed against the wall. He slammed into his elbow hard. Sliding down to the floor, he sat waiting for the pain to subside and his legs to return to life, to hear the next sound in the room that might crack in his ears. Far from resounding, it was the soft patter of Rebecca’s bare feet padding across the room. She crouched down beside him and he said, “I swore I’d never think about those days again. Then you were back and I… I didn’t invent these feelings. I’m not the kind of guy that makes shit up that isn’t there. I charge people like that hundreds of dollars an hour every day, but I’m not one of them. I don’t believe you don’t love me and I won’t ever believe it, Bex.”

  He brought his hands to the top of his head, laced his fingers together and leaned forward. His mouth watered. Beads of sweat pricked his flushed skin. Joshua retched, but tamped down the nausea. Rebecca smoothed her hands over his back and down his arms. She held him close, her chin resting on his shoulder.

  He sighed and told her, “I’m just drunk.”

  “You want to lay down for a while?”

  He nodded, swallowed and closed his eyes.

  6

  A WEAK LIGHT shined in from the hall, illuminating the far side of Rebecca’s hotel room. The bed crumbled under him at his back. Joshua rolled over. A sharp pain pierced the backs of his eyes, but Rebecca’s perfume tickled his nose, adding to the aromas already lingering around him and soothed the pain. She slumped into the pillows and held her head straight, crossing her legs at the ankles.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said.

  “You’re probably so overworked.”

  He glanced at the large diamond ring on her finger. “Why are you and Spencer getting a divorce if you still love him?”

  Rebecca moved closer and Joshua pushed himself up by the elbows to level his eyes with hers, presuming she would ever look away from the wall.

  “He doesn’t love me anymore,” she said. “So, we’ve separated. He’s leaving politics and he’s leaving me.”

  “So you really don’t want to divorce him?”

  “I’ve been in love with Spencer since I was five, Joshua. Of course I don’t want to divorce him,” she said, chuckling. “Doesn’t that make me a complete fool?”

  His eyebrows shot up. “I knew you liked the guy, but…” He shook his head. “No. No, it doesn’t make you a fool.”

  She told him about Spencer, but everyone had someone from their past, an old flame they clung to in some way or another long past the expiration date. It didn’t concern him. In all that time though, he never considered himself as the rebound guy. Women fell for him. They pursued him, mostly.

  Rebecca sighed. It broke into his musing. She stood up and Joshua expected her to abandon him, but then he remembered he was in her space. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and anchored his feet on either side of hers.

  “You can spend the night on the couch, if you want.”

  “I want to spend the night here with you.”

  Rebecca inhaled. She placed her hands on his shoulders and began massaging her fingers into them as she gazed down into his eyes with a lovely smile parting her lips. She located the tight tissues deep in his muscles and expertly kne
aded the knot loose. Joshua groaned and one of his hands clamped around her leg. He traced two fingertips up and down her thigh, inching under her dress, then lower where he drew circles into the back of her knee.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “You never wrote me. You kept my number for seven years and you never called.”

  “I hated you too much for too long,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you felt so strong about us.”

  That resembled the truth. They talked about a lot things in those days. The future seldom entered their conversations. Joshua pulled her close and smothered his face into her midsection, planting kisses above her navel. He grew stiff inside his pants.

  “Did you think of me?” he asked.

  He wanted to see her face, but settled for listening to the inflections in her voice, content just breathing into her belly.

  “Many times,” she answered.

  “We’re too old for this, Bex.”

  “You’re too old for this.”

  He chuckled. Rebecca’s hand moved up to the nape of his neck and another husky groan rumbled at the base of his throat as she tangled her fingers into his hair and pulled his head back.

  “This is killing me.”

  “You want me to let go?”

  “No.” He buried his forehead into her warm body again and mumbled, “Never let me go.”

  Joshua succumbed to a wave of impulses. He rubbed his palms up her smooth thighs, relishing in the feel of her skin. He found her panties and snaked them over her hips. They fell easily to the floor and memories sprung up again. Flashes of them making love rushed back. He heard her moaning as she climaxed, felt her soft lips pressed into his neck and the sensation of her moist flesh against his as she wrapped her legs around him and he wedged himself deeper between her thighs, the sweet squeeze pulsing down around him. Aching to relive it now, Joshua glommed on to her waist. He wanted nothing more than to pull her down onto his erection, but a nagging uncertainty halted the biting need coursing through him.

  This moment could mean nothing. But what if it meant everything?

  Joshua stopped. He gasped, breathing hard from want. After a second he tipped his head back and confessed, “You really hurt me.”

  “It happened such a long time ago, Josh.”

  “No. What you said to me today. That really hurt me.”

  “I don’t want to lie to you.”

  “I don’t want you to either.” Refusing to concede an inch, Joshua dug his fingers into her hips and held on. “Were you really happier with him than with me?”

  “Spencer and I were in love. Somewhere along the line it just wasn’t enough for him anymore. None of that means I didn’t care for you. It never meant I didn’t want to be a part of your life.”

  “But you just left.”

  “Because I know you better than you want to admit. You would’ve never accepted me being more in love with him. If I had stayed, it would’ve ruined both our chances at being happy.”

  “Olivia. Spencer. They could’ve turned me into a pariah, but if I’d had you, I would’ve been happy.” Rebecca laughed at his overture and he nudged her away. “You’re right. I am too old for this.”

  “Sleep it off. You’ll be fine by morning.”

  He flopped back onto the bed. Joshua eyed her. Spurned, but wrestling with a keening body part, he groped himself so she could see the outline of his erection. Rebecca reached out and touched his stomach, but he pushed her hand down to the bulge. His eyes rolled shut at her touch. More flashes appeared. Joshua tugged on her arm, gently encouraging her to join him on the bed. She curled into his side and he turned to her and said, “I hate you again.”

  “Can’t we just be friends first?”

  “No. That’s how much I hate you.”

  Rebecca tucked her hair behind her ear and stared into his eyes as the silence built around them. He mimicked her position on the bed then said, “I want to make love.”

  “We just decided—”

  “We did not.” He glanced down at her breasts, licked his lips. “Let me make love to you. I can tell you want me to. Just admit that, Rebecca.”

  “There’s no point in admitting that.”

  “Do you want me to beg?”

  “I want you to understand and to be okay with my decision.”

  “Be okay with your one-sided decision that involves me. Absolutely not,” he told her. She said nothing to that. He inhaled and blew out the breath. “Was the sex good at least?”

  She laughed and asked, “Is this interrogation ever going to end?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Yes.”

  “Good because I’m tired.”

  “You want me to leave?”

  “I told you you could stay and I meant it.”

  “Did you mean the part about us just being friends too?”

  “That’s your choice.”

  He cupped the back of her neck and brought her close, kissing her forehead. “Right now, I don’t want to be your friend.”

  “Maybe tomorrow you won’t feel that way. Have you considered that?”

  “How many tomorrows do you think I’ve had to consider that?” She tensed in his hand. She really didn’t believe that he loved her. “Too many is the answer,” he told her.

  Fondling her back, Joshua found her zipper and pulled. He looked up at her, fearing a rebuffing, but also terrified he might cross an unforgivable line. It figured that for someone who made a living off of reading people, the woman he fell in love with would be the one person he couldn’t read. He didn’t understand her. It worried him she remained this huge blind spot in his life, but there had been nothing like her before and no one came close after so he’d have to keep going.

  He sat up. Rebecca came up with him. He pointed to the phone on the nightstand and said, “I’ll have the concierge call me a cab.”

  She started to protest, but reconsidered.

  A short while later he stumbled into his apartment. Exhausted, he passed out on the sofa.

  7

  HIS STOMACH CHURNED from the quick upright movement. He wedged himself between the back and the arm of the couch, trying to get a hold on his surroundings. Muddled at first, the outlines of his living room sharpened as the doorbell buzzed again. Getting to his feet, he almost tumbled over but he caught the corner of the side table and knocked his phone to the floor. He scooped it up and cursed after seeing the time. He abandoned a brief and incoherent murder plot when he saw who was at the door.

  “More torture,” he said.

  “You look horrible.” She shifted the reusable grocery bag from one hand to the other and touched his face. “Let me in.”

  He let her breeze in. Joshua staggered back to the living room and eased himself onto the sofa.

  “Here. Drink this,” Rebecca said.

  As he removed his arm from over his eyes, the sunlight in his apartment nearly blinded him. “Coffee?” he asked her.

  “Not exactly.”

  “I’m not in the mood for one of your holistic herbal cocktails.”

  Rebecca kept the mug pointed at him like a pistol until he took it from her hand. She helped him up and sat at his side, watching him. Joshua tasted the elixir and whatever was floating around his stomach threatened to surge up his digestive track. “Rebecca. This is gross.”

  “You’re nearly forty and you still talk like that?” Joshua sulked. “How much did you have to drink?”

  He shrugged, took another sip then guzzled a little bit more, hoping to hasten the effects of the concoction then an image jolted him. His eyes drifted over to hers. “What happened last night?”

  She propped her chin up with her hand and asked, “You don’t remember?”

  “Not. Everything. Did I say or do anything…”

  “You said a lot of things. You didn’t do anything,” she said in a soft voice, nudging the mug toward his mouth. Joshua stared at her as he swallowed. “Think you can manage a shower while I make
us breakfast?”

  “I tried to take off your dress.”

  “Only after you succeeded in removing my panties.” His eyes snapped up. His head responded with a fresh helping of pain. “Go take a shower and don’t come back out until you’ve finished that.”

  Many details eluded him, but as hot water rained down on his head what she told him about Spencer resurfaced as clear as glass. Feeling better, and worse, he walked into the bedroom with a towel stapled around his waist. Joshua breathed in deeply. Cinnamon. Vanilla. His stomach grumbled. He threw on a pair of boxer briefs and some jogging pants.

  “Belgium Waffles,” she said.

  His favorite.

  “My favorite,” he said.

  “Your favorite.”

  Rebecca pointed to a plate with a huge waffle covered in syrup, whipped cream and chopped nuts. The plate beside it was identical. His eyes flickered up to hers. She smirked, rounded the counter and took a seat. She picked up her fork, stuck it in her mouth, cleaning the syrup and whipped cream combination from it. He gulped, staring at her mouth and remembering how good they use to taste.

  “You had a rough day yesterday,” she said.

  “True, but this was our thing,” he said shifting in his seat, facing the food. “Our Saturday morning tradition way back when we used to wake up naked together. Remember.”

  “Shut up and eat your waffle.”

  Rebecca quietly sipped orange juice and read one of his newspapers. Joshua scratched a non-existent itch then cleared his throat. “About the brownstone.”

  “Oh. You know. I don’t know.” She winched, didn’t look up from her article. “It really is too big now that I’m practically divorced and I’m still trying to get accustomed to being on my own. You know, I haven’t lived alone since before college.”

  Joshua rolled his eyes. Stories about Rebecca’s domestic arrangements, past, present or future that didn’t include him, depressed him now. She turned and looked him in the eyes.