Keeping the Pieces

by Brenda Lowder

  “Emma?” Cam pulled back to look at her.

  “No.”

  “What?” He blinked at her.

  “No. No talking now.” She put a finger to his lips. “Talk after.”

  He obeyed and leveled out on top of her, pushing her against the side of the couch with his weight. Emma noted to herself that Derek was right—Cam could maybe stand to lose a few pounds. But she wasn’t thinking of Derek right now, she told herself, she was thinking of Cam.

  He kissed her neck and down her throat. It was nice, pleasant, if a little too slow. She took his hand and put it on her breast then leaned up and kissed his neck, nipping him softly with her teeth.

  Cam must have finally intuited what she wanted from him because he kicked it into a higher gear, kissing her harder. She ran her fingernails down his back and then moved a hand around to his front, caressing his hardness, then tightening her hold and working him back and forth.

  “Oh, Emma.” His voice was heavy with need. Emma took it as a compliment.

  “Do you have—”

  She didn’t have to finish her sentence because Cam produced a condom and made short work of putting it on. She tilted her hips up and guided him inside her. He moaned and buried his face in her hair. When her arm went back around him, he pushed his way home, and it was her turn to moan. She locked her legs around his back, her breathing heavier with every thrust. She wondered if Derek and Honey had done it on the floor yet. Probably not since Honey’s cast would make it difficult for her to get down there. Although, he could help her, of course. Derek was very kind and thoughtful like that. Also gentlemanly, but not in the old-fashioned way but in a way that made you feel special and cherished and like he was paying attention. And there was nothing better than having his full attention.

  “Are you close?” Cam whispered against her shoulder.

  Was he kidding? No. Not remotely. But it was a mood-killer to say so. “Ummm,” she hedged, snuggling into his neck and running her hands over his ass, then gripping hard to pull him deep.

  He groaned, and she made a corresponding low sound in her throat.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked between thrusts.

  “No, why?”

  “It’s just that you were so much louder…with Derek. Honey and I heard you…” he trailed off.

  “Oh, yeah.” She ran her hands up into his hair, stroking his head softly, reassuringly. “Well, we are in the office and not the mountains…”

  Cam nodded and pumped harder, the sweat standing out on his forehead. She made herself moan louder and thought about that time—just ten days ago, but it felt like a lifetime now—when she and Derek were jumping on the bed, shrieking their animal sounds, trying to make Honey and Cam jealous. Succeeding.

  What if they hadn’t succeeded? What if Honey hadn’t burst in? Emma was certain she and Derek would have finished what they’d started. Because she’d stopped thinking about Cam somewhere in the middle of that howl-fest, and the only thing that had filled her mind and senses had been Derek. Derek, so strong and real and present.

  Present unlike she was at this moment, realizing that she couldn’t keep her mind on Cam even though he was pumping away on top of her. It was like that time she had her wisdom teeth taken out and the dentist had given her laughing gas. She was above somewhere, floating in the air, looking down at her dental surgery with only mild interest.

  She could see herself, in her mind’s eye, writhing under Cam’s laboring body. She groaned loudly, “Oh, Cam! Yes!” and she could hear her voice giving the performance she knew he needed. And she knew, intellectually, that she’d succeeded in her goals. That she was on the sofa sexing the hell out of Cam. She congratulated herself for the triumph it was.

  But where had all the feelings gone? All those years of longing for him should have paid out in bliss, but she just wasn’t feeling it. Instead she felt empty and a little sad. Like if this was all there was to it, why had she wanted it—him—so much?

  She was being silly, she told herself. So the sex wasn’t ah-mazing. There was more to a relationship than sex. Everyone knew that. Passion faded. What was left was the strong friendship and companionship two people shared, and she and Cam had always had that. They were rock-solid on the friendship front.

  But she was ready for the sex to be over. She wanted to go home and go to sleep. Maybe curl up with a good book before nodding off. And a cup of tea. Oh, that would be perfect. She moaned just thinking about the tea.

  Cam smiled at her, encouraged by her enthusiasm, then bent and took a nipple in his mouth. He was doing it wrong, and it felt annoying rather than good. Too much teeth and too much spit and not enough…demand. Urgency. Need. Not like Derek did it.

  “Oh!” she called out, finally feeling that fluttering in her lower belly, that delicious ache, when she thought of Derek’s face, laughing in front of hers, claiming her body with his mouth. Her toes curled and her thigh muscles clenched.

  Derek.

  She panted harder. Cam redoubled his efforts. “Yes,” he grunted.

  She thought about wrapping her arms around Derek, being naked against him, his giant erection, the frustration when they were interrupted too soon. But then she imagined that they hadn’t been disturbed. That they’d come together. Not like this lukewarm heaving coupling, but with a passionate fury that popped buttons, tore sheets, and ignited a fire so hot the sprinklers would have to descend.

  “Oh, oh, oh!” she screamed and threw her arms over her head, straining her muscles into her release, feeling the warmth of her climax surge into her bloodstream. Cam finished a second later. He pulled away, holding a hand to the condom. He smiled a big, satisfied, smug-looking grin and chucked her under the chin. She smiled back, mouth tight, thinking that he needn’t look so pleased with himself. He didn’t deserve the credit for making her come.

  Derek did.

  ∞∞∞

  “Hey, Mom. How was your night?” Emma shut and locked the front door behind her before joining her mother in the living room.

  Jennifer had her arm stretched across the back of the couch and her legs folded under her. Emma thought she’d never seen her mother look so relaxed. Or so comfortable. Alarm bells sounded for Emma. She didn’t want her Mom this comfortable in Emma’s house.

  “Oh, it was good, thanks.” She smiled at Emma, and Emma couldn’t remember the last time her mother had smiled at her. Had there really been so much unhappiness that Emma simply hadn’t seen? What did that mean to the future of her parents’ marriage?

  “Except that new show I’m into went off for a while. I wonder when it will be back on. You’ve got to see it. The main character is so attractive. I call him Lance. He looks like a Lance. Tall and broad. I don’t know what his real name is. Anyway, now I’m watching this.” She looked absently at the television that was playing the movie Clue with no sound since her mother had hit the mute button. Emma sat on the couch and watched the colorful characters run screaming soundlessly from the dining room.

  “Did you have a nice time tonight?” her mother asked.

  “I did. Sort of. I, um, went to dinner with Cam after I finished my work.” Emma glanced at Jennifer without moving her head.

  “Cam. That friend of yours from college?”

  Her mother was a bit fuzzy on Cam. They’d met only a few times over the years—Emma had had no desire for him to spend any time in her former beauty queen mother’s presence lest she suffer by comparison. And Jennifer was much too self-involved to be physically present in her daughter’s life. But her mother knew the position he held in Emma’s life, and she’d been anti-Cam from the beginning.

  “Yes.”

  Her mother sighed and turned to her, scooting her back against the couch’s armrest so she could face Emma better.

  “He doesn’t deserve you.”

  Emma rolled her eyes. She was sure that “he doesn’t deserve you” was code for “you’re not in his league.”

  But her mother didn’t let it go this
time. “No, seriously, Emma. That man has been stringing you along for years. Only doling out enough to keep you on the line, to keep you running after him, begging for more. He’s too shallow to be who you need him to be.”

  Emma turned away from her mother’s intense gaze, wondering how in the world she dared to give her romance advice with her own marriage and adulterous relationship both in tatters.

  “He’s bread-crumbing you.”

  Emma blinked at her mother. “What?”

  “It means he’s stringing you along, disbursing breadcrumbs like—”

  “I know what it means,” Emma interrupted. “I’m just surprised you do.”

  Her mother waved an elegant hand. “Oh, it’s something Draxton mentioned.” At his name, the color rose in her cheeks, and she had the grace to look embarrassed. But she continued. “Cam can’t be what you want him to be, because he isn’t. You think he’s the whole package, and he keeps you at arm’s length so you never get disillusioned. If you ever truly had him, you’d find there’s nothing inside. Nothing worth your time—a selfish taker too scared to show you his lack of depth. Because then you’d stop chasing him. And he gets off on your wanting him.”

  Emma’s face felt aflame and white-hot anger stoked the fire in her stomach. Her mother hadn’t taken an interest in her life in more than a decade, and this was the venom she spewed now that she was finally getting involved? And when did she start using phrases like “get off”? Was that more of Draxton’s influence?

  Emma stood, barely controlled fury causing tiny tremors in her hands and arms which she folded as she stared down at her mother. “Just because you’re staying at my house because your husband locked you out of yours doesn’t mean you know the first thing about my life. I love Cam. I always have. And he loves me.” Even as she said the words, she felt them stumble on her tongue. “He loves me,” she said again, injecting more belief this time. “And we’ve always been friends. A team. And now that Honey’s gone he’s figuring out I’m the one he really loves.”

  She felt the tears sliding down her face, but she didn’t stop to acknowledge them. They were tears of anger at her deficient mother, she told herself. “You’ve always acted better than me because you’re so beautiful and can have any guy you want. Well, it’s not like that for the rest of us. Some of us have to wait to find our soul mate. Because people like me care about other human beings besides themselves. And you wouldn’t know about that.”

  “Emma, that’s not—” Her mother reached for her, but Emma turned and bolted for her bedroom, locking the door behind her. She threw herself onto her bed and gave in to the tears, though she tried to keep the sobs down so her mother wouldn’t hear.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Aweek later Derek was at work in a training session with a client, a twenty-eight-year-old engineer who was training for his first marathon, when Leticia from the front desk interrupted them.

  “Derek, you have a call,” she said in such a rush that he could barely make out the individual words. She was nineteen and too young to have any patience for diction.

  “A call?” he asked stupidly, looking around for his cell phone even while knowing it was locked in his locker.

  Leticia rolled her eyes. “I know. So weird. It’s on my line. But she said it was an emergency.”

  Derek’s heart sped up. Had there been an accident? His brothers? Honey? Emma?

  He asked his client to excuse him for a second and followed Leticia to the front desk. She handed him the phone and pushed the button for her line.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Derek,” Honey’s voice said into his ear.

  “Hi, what’s the matter?” he asked breathlessly.

  “When are you coming home?”

  He gritted his teeth. She was so needy. Good Lord, she was needy. How had he never noticed this about her?

  He gripped the phone harder. “Honey. Please tell me. Are you or anyone you are aware of having an emergency right now?” He bit each word off sharply.

  “Well, no. You just didn’t answer your cell.”

  “Why did you tell Leticia this was an emergency?” Leticia looked up from checking in a client on her computer, and he turned around, putting his back to her and hunching over the phone.

  “She wasn’t going to go get you.”

  “And you needed me, why?”

  “I’m lonely. I need you here.” She dropped her voice. “If you come home right now, I’ll make it fun.”

  He looked at the ceiling. He wasn’t tempted. Not even a little bit. “I can’t. I have to work.”

  Her tone switched gears abruptly. “I can’t be cooped up here all day alone, Derek.”

  “Nobody’s asked you to, Honey.”

  There was silence on the other end as she processed this. “You’d better be careful, Derek, or you’re going to lose me.”

  The line clicked. She’d hung up on him.

  He was in danger of losing her?

  Oh, to be so lucky.

  ∞∞∞

  Emma turned over and kicked the covers off. She’d been having the hardest time falling asleep these last few nights. She wished it were because of Cam, but they’d done little more than talk on the phone this week. Just as she was thinking this, her cell rang. She checked the time on her bedside clock. Five minutes after midnight. Of course it would be Cam calling. Although, maybe it would finally be her dad.

  She answered the phone without looking at the display. “Hello?”

  “Emma?”

  She would’ve liked to say that it took her a minute to recognize his voice, that it didn’t instantly register in every cell of her body from the sensitive skin on the curve of her neck to the all-too-buckling back of her knees, but it would have been a lie.

  “Derek.”

  “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Concern laced his voice, and she found herself gripping the phone to her head tighter, leaning in to that strong, comforting sound.

  “I’m fine,” she managed. “Why? What’s up?”

  “It’s just…you sounded out of breath. Sorry for calling so late. Did I wake you up? Is this a bad time?”

  Emma gazed up at her ceiling that was a dull gray in the dark and thought about how much she’d missed the sound of his voice.

  “No, I’m awake. It’s fine. I just thought you were maybe my dad, that’s all.”

  Derek blew out his breath. “Whoa. So you still haven’t heard from him?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry, Em.”

  “It’s okay. He’s gonna be okay.” She doubted that more each day, but what else could she say? He had to be okay.

  “Sure he is.”

  “So…” she started.

  “So…why am I calling?” he finished for her. “Good question.”

  “You don’t need a reason.” She sat up straight and looked at the phone. What was she doing?

  Derek sounded amused. “Oh, I don’t, do I?”

  “No. Telemarketers call me all the time, and they have less than no reason. You can call whenever you like.”

  “Even though our diabolical reverse-matchmaking has already succeeded?”

  Emma laughed. “Yes. Even then.” She paused. “Especially then. Maybe there should be a support group for people who suddenly get exactly what they want.”

  It was Derek’s turn to chuckle. “I doubt we’d get much sympathy.”

  Emma didn’t say anything as she contemplated the “we” he’d just voiced. Was Honey exactly what he wanted as much as Cam was exactly what she wanted? Which was, at best, questionable?

  Emma settled back and waited for him to tell her why he called but the empty second stretched to three then four then, “I hope you don’t mind that I called.”

  “Of course not,” she said. Wondering at his hesitation, she turned on her lamp. She picked up her block of sticky notes from her bedside table and tore off the top one. She started trying to fold it into an origami swan. She’d learned how, years ago, whe
n she was thirteen and at summer camp. “I’ve missed you,” she blurted.

  “I’ve missed you too,” he spoke in a rush, sounding relieved to say it. She wanted to believe he genuinely meant it, that he wasn’t just saying it back so she wouldn’t feel stupid. She told herself he wouldn’t have said it so quickly if he didn’t really feel that way too.

  “How are things going with Honey?”

  This answer did not come as quickly. “Um, good, I guess. I mean, she’s good. Her leg is doing well. She’s healing.” He paused and cleared his throat. “She’s been hanging out at my place a lot.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, she, um, hasn’t left since we got back from the cabin. She came home with me and never, uh, never went back to her home. Weird, huh?”

  Yeah, so weird that he was having a two-week-nonstop-boink fest with the woman of his dreams, she imagined. How totally random. It wasn’t like that was the whole freaking point in what they did to break Honey and Cam up. But it just felt pathetic that she and Cam had managed sex once during that entire time when Derek and Honey had been going at it since the first minute.

  “Sounds like you’re on your Honey-moon,” she said lamely, though she tried to keep the blame out of her voice. It wasn’t Derek’s fault that things were going so slowly with Cam. And it also wasn’t his fault (or not directly, at least) that she was having unwanted and inexplicable feelings of attraction for him over this one phone call.

  He laughed half-heartedly.

  “Sorry,” she said, waiting for his answer.

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” He sighed. “I just…it’s just that things aren’t exactly how I pictured they’d be. Do you know what I mean?”

  Did she ever. “Yeah.” Her tone must have conveyed more than she’d wanted it to because he said, “How are things going with you and Cam?”

  Emma folded the Post-it and poked her index finger with the resulting sharp point. Sleeping Beauty’s spinning wheel spindle. She might as well be sleeping.

  “Fine,” Emma lied. “We’re doing fine.”