Entangle

by Veronica Larsen

  Though Alexis doesn’t say it, I can sense she intentionally keeps Emily and me apart. I can only guess it’s because Emily doesn’t like me. If Alexis knows this then her sister already said something to the effect. I prepare myself to explain the text messages, but Alexis never brings them up.

  As soon as Emily drives off north, Alexis is on the phone, asking me what I’m in the mood for. I’m in the mood for her, of course, I’m always in the mood for her. The following two weeks are a blur of detached daytime office encounters, punctuated by long nights of vigorous fucking.

  Neither one of us talks about making our relationship public, nor do we discuss keeping it hidden. We continue doing what we’ve always done. We keep our office interactions respectful and professional. We share repressed smiles and undress each other in brief, stolen glances.

  Every once in a while, we’ll catch an opportune moment behind closed doors to share a kiss, a stroke, a whispered promise, but never anything more. Because for us, being at work together doubles as foreplay.

  We let our appetite for each other stockpile and ride into it like a freight train through the night. It’s tantalizing to address her in the office as my boss, then bend her over my hard dick in her kitchen. Most nights we don’t get to bed until 2 AM and we slink into our respective offices later in the morning, worn but immeasurably satisfied.

  Then, of course, there are our text messages. Alexis and I measure our days by either fucking or thinking of fucking. And if we aren’t touching each other, we are letting the other know how badly we want it.

  <<>>

  [I’m in that meeting for the Lionel project, but I really wish you were fucking me right now.]

  [Be a good girl and pay attention. Then tonight, I’m doing awful things to your body.]

  <<>>

  [Fuck. Can’t stop thinking about how wet you were this morning. You were dripping all over me.]

  [I’m already wet again. Wish I could touch myself right now.]

  <<>>

  [I’m sore. It hurts when I sit. But I. Want. More.]

  [Good. Because you’re getting more.]

  <<>>

  I’ve already had her a hundred different ways and I want her in a thousand more. I can’t get enough. Her skin is where my libido lives and her moans are what stir it alive. My fingertips prickle at the thought of touching her; my lips can conjure the taste of her at will. Some days we don’t make it until the evening and end up going to her condo for a quickie. Those days we don’t even eat lunch, but we barely notice because we are full of something else, something neither one of us has yet to admit.

  Nearly two weeks of this. I realize I should do something nice for her, something to show her she isn’t just a pair of legs I like to crawl in between. That night on the beach, she said she would give me a chance. I intend to show her she made the right choice. She isn’t complaining, but I want to give her something more than sex.

  On the Sunday before the office Christmas party, I ask her to wear a nice cocktail dress and meet me at my condo at 7 PM sharp.

  I’ve been planning this for a few days. She mentioned once wanting to visit Barcelona. I hang up garden lights over my dining room, dim down the lights, and place candles all around. It’s a bit cheesier than I’d typically go for, but cheesy is what makes women swoon.

  White tablecloth, white plates, and white cloth napkins. Candles in the center of the table. I draw my shades to reveal the view. The hilltop areas of San Diego always remind me of a European countryside, red-topped houses dotting hills in the distance.

  If this doesn’t romance her right out of her panties, the food will. I cook one of my favorite Catalan meals. For a salad, I toss together some chopped peppers, tomatoes, onions, avocado, and red wine vinegar. The main course is a plate of seafood paella with lobster, baby shrimp, and mussels. Dessert is casual, just thick, Spanish hot chocolate and churros. My favorite thing to eat whenever my family vacationed in Barcelona.

  I hear my phone ping as I’m stirring the hot chocolate in the stove and setting the burner to low. The aroma of chocolate fills my condo. I wipe my hands on the kitchen towel and check my phone. It’s Alexis:

  [I’ll be there in 10.]

  I go into my room and put on fresh clothes that don’t smell of food.

  Before I know it, my doorbell rings. I turn down the lights to play up the glow of the candles before I open the door.

  My eyes widen. Fuck. My. Life.

  Standing outside of my door, wearing dark wash jeans and a form-fitting blouse, unbuttoned toward the top, is Katy.

  I get the overwhelming urge to slam the door in front of her, but I know that isn’t enough to make her go away. And she needs to go the fuck away.

  I grip the edge of the door tightly enough for my knuckles to crack.

  “Katy, you can’t be here right now.”

  She crosses her arms then sets her jaw and says, “I came for my student ID. I told you, I left it here and I need it.”

  Without warning, she tries to walk past me, but I grab her shoulder to stop her. Her mouth drops open when she catches sight of my dining room.

  “Are you fucking kidding me with this? Who is this for?”

  I pull her out onto the hall.

  “Jesus Christ, Katy. You need to go. I can’t deal with you right now.”

  She crosses her arms. “I’m not leaving without my ID.”

  “It’s. Not. Here!” I scream the words at her and she flinches. Damn it. I hate losing my temper this way. Taking a deep breath, I pinch the space between my eyes.

  “Why are you yelling at me! Just give me my ID!”

  “Stop doing this. Stop showing up here. I don’t want you here. I don’t have anything that belongs to you. I mailed all your things back to you months ago. We. Are. Over. You need to go.”

  “Since when are you into all this...romantic shit?”

  The torment in her eyes chips at my anger, but not nearly enough. I take a sharp breath and walk back into my condo before turning to face her again.

  “Don’t come back here again.”

  I slam the door in front of her.

  XXVII

  Alexis

  I’m running late. I walk into Leo’s building and head toward the elevators. They open long before I reach them and a young woman steps out. Gorgeous girl, dark-haired with big brown eyes. She reminds me of Julia.

  “Can you hold that for me, please?” I call out to her as the elevator doors begin to close behind her.

  She reacts in an instant, catching the doors before they swing completely shut. She is kind enough to keep her arm between them until I make it to the elevator.

  “Thank you so much.”

  I smile as I pass her.

  The smile she returns to me doesn’t quite reach her eyes, which I notice now hold a far-off, doleful expression. She turns to walk away, but something prompts her to turn back to me. She looks at me, her eyes narrowing in sudden recognition, and her hand halts the elevator doors from closing again.

  “Are you—” She hesitates. “Are you here to see Leo?”

  I feel myself falter. Hearing Leo’s name come out of this woman’s mouth sends an awkward shiver through me. I tilt my head at her. “I’m sorry, who are you again?”

  Her expression melts into half-hearted contempt.

  “I guess that’s a yes. Go ahead.” She lets go of the doors, but I’m squinting at her in confusion. She goes on, “I just finished with that fuck toy. You can have whatever is left. Name’s Katy, by the way.”

  The elevator doors close between us and I’m left with my gut in my hands.

  Every fiber in my body screams at me to get back in the elevator and leave the building. But I ignore it. Adrenaline pulses through me and my fight or flight response kicks in. In matters of the heart, my response is almost always flight. But today, I feel a combination of both coming about, fight then flight. In that order.

  I ring Leo’s doorbell once. When the door opens he seems t
o breathe out in relief. He kisses me and I let him, but I don’t kiss him back.

  “How are you?” he asks as I walk into his apartment.

  I’m momentarily stunned. He’s decorated his dining room with garden lights and candles. A meal is spread out on the table, Mediterranean music playing in the background. It’s beautiful, it’s intimate. It’s incredibly elaborate.

  “Barcelona,” I whisper, feeling something tug at my heart.

  “Yes.”

  He kisses me again, but again I don’t kiss him back. My insides are ice and the coldness permeates the air around us.

  “Alexis, what’s wrong?”

  I keep my gaze fixed on his, noticing the dread etching across his face. He already knows what’s wrong. He’s dreading the confirmation.

  “I met someone on the way in. Katy?”

  Full-on fear floods his eyes. Seeing it is almost a confession for me. Obviously he knows this girl. Obviously in a way that he doesn’t want me finding out about.

  “What did she tell you?” he asks in a low voice.

  “What do you think she told me?”

  I bite the inside of my cheek and let the silence weigh over us until he finds his words.

  He lets out a long breath and places his hands at my waist. I resist the urge to cringe. I don’t want him touching me, but rejecting his touch is premature and will shift the attention from my question.

  “I don’t know what she said. She’s a loose cannon.”

  That doesn’t answer my question and his deflection doesn’t make me feel any better.

  “Are you seriously going to make me ask you who she is?”

  “We used to—” He hesitates. “We were together, but it ended months ago. Before I started working for you. She keeps trying to—”

  I take a step away from him as the words burst out of me, “Did you fuck her just now?”

  “No. She just showed up here because I’ve been ignoring her calls. I haven’t been with anyone since we met. I swear.”

  He touches his hand to his heart in an apparent unconscious move of sincerity. I want to believe him, but I’m just not sure. Is that a genuine plea in his eyes? Or is that how he lies? I don’t fucking know. How should I know what his lies look like? How am I supposed to know the difference?

  I’m searching my gut feeling for a hint, some sort of clairvoyance or sixth sense to tell me what to believe. But my gut is broken. It can’t distinguish the truth from a lie, not when they are coming from Leo. I wrap my arms around myself, using them to gain extra space between our bodies.

  “What do you mean you two were together?”

  “It was never anything serious. We were sleeping together for a while, then she started wanting more—”

  Laughter rips from my throat.

  “Alexis, I know how that sounds but that’s not what’s happening with us.”

  He tries to slide his arms around my waist but I step back and out of his reach.

  “Don’t touch me, please. I’m trying to think.”

  Is he toying with me? Stringing me along? Did he agree he wouldn’t fuck anyone else, or was I the only one that agreed to that? Am I one in a string of fucks that he claims? God, who have I been kidding? I’ve never been good at reading men. I thought I could read Leo, but I’m suddenly drawing a blank. I thought I knew Jeremy, but I had no idea that he wanted out until he was already gone.

  “What ruined it for you? She started getting too attached? She started wanting you too much and you couldn’t handle it?”

  I see my words strike a chord of truth in his eyes. And I’m disgusted.

  “It doesn’t matter. That’s in the past. With you, it’s different. I want to be with you.”

  He tries to come closer again but I hold out my hands to stop him.

  “Right. I’m sure this isn’t about wanting what you thought you couldn’t have. Some conquest.” I let out a humorless laugh. “All you care about is getting your cock wet.”

  Those are Emily’s words, not mine. But they leave my lips with conviction and seem to slap him. I swallow back the guilt. I can’t believe I said that. But it’s done. His reaction twists into mean, hard lines.

  “What is this really about?” he asks. “Because I think you know damn well nothing happened. We’ve spent every moment together. You know there’s no one else.”

  Do I? My eyes dart to the dining room and my stomach clenches. Of course he’s right. He spends all of his free time with me. At what point would he fit in fucking that girl between preparing this for me? I know it doesn’t make sense that he could. And my gut suddenly roars to life and tells me he hasn’t. But why am I still so angry? Is it even anger I’m feeling? What is this pulsing inside of me that’s making me feel sick to my stomach? Why does his touch suddenly burn my skin?

  Seeing that girl, the way she talked about Leo, it jarred me to the realization that I’m in way too deep. My head is under water and I didn’t even realize it until this whole thing between us threatened to crumble to the ground.

  I realize I haven’t answered him. He must think I don’t plan to because he half turns from me and his voice ices over.

  “Do you know what I think? I think you’re grasping around for a reason to run. Because you don’t know what the hell you want.”

  I set my jaw and say, “I know what I want.”

  “Really, Alexis? Do you? Because it doesn’t seem to me that you do. You have no fucking idea what you want.”

  I scoff, a prickling heat crawls over my skin. Jeremy said those exact words to me before. He told me that I didn’t know what I wanted. He said I claimed to want a family but poured myself into work instead; that I claimed to love him, but didn’t show it the way I was supposed to. His words made me desperate to prove myself to him. But it was a trap. A maze with no end point, a puzzle with the wrong pieces. All bullshit. He didn’t want me to figure out what I wanted or what I needed, or even why. He wanted me to want what he wanted, need what he needed. Because fuck what I want. Because what he wants is all that matters. Because I’m supposed to tip myself over and pour everything into a man without hesitation, but never expect the same in return.

  “I’ll make it simple for you,” I say. “What I don’t want is to look down in time to see the rug’s been pulled from under me. I don’t wait for that to happen. I don’t even stand on rugs anymore.”

  I don’t like the way he’s eyeing me. Serious-faced and agitated, as though I’m purposely trying to upset him. Like there is something seriously wrong with me and he is trying to do me a favor and fix it.

  “This is bullshit, Alexis. You start feeling something other than the little script you’ve written for yourself and you get scared. That’s what’s happening here.”

  I feel myself blink and I think, perhaps, he sees his words strike some kind of truth in me. I run a hand through my hair. My body is itching for me to walk out of the door, I’m trying to will myself to stay and I don’t even know why. My teeth grind together. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  He throws his hands up in the air. “Exactly. I don’t. I keep trying, but you won’t let me in.”

  A silence falls over us and he scrutinizes me, his expression falling further with each passing second. It’s like he sees pages of a book written on my face, pages he can read out loud.

  My thoughts are racing, but everything I want to say weighs down on my tongue. Then something shifts in his eyes, a sort of barbed outline settles into place. It’s as though my silence, my expression, or a combination of both, serve as a confirmation to some unspoken question of his.

  He looks away, shakes his head, and looks back at me. “This was a mistake.”

  I stare at him, squaring my shoulders. “What are you saying?”

  “This.” He gestures between us. “It’s just another thing I let go on for too long.” His voice is so cruel I barely recognize it. “It’s a bad habit of mine.”

  I set my jaw. “Seriously?”

 
His expression hardens even further and he walks over to the door and opens it. “Yes. We’re done.”

  XXVIII

  Leo

  I’m not sure what time it is, but I’m awake before my eyes even open. I stare at the back of my eyelids and strain to make out some sounds from around me or even from outside of my bedroom window. There is only stillness. Silence.

  When my eyelids flutter open, my vision is met with more darkness. My bedside clock tells me it’s five minutes to 1 AM.

  How is that possible? I feel like I’ve been sleeping for days.

  Not because I feel rested, but because last night feels a lifetime away.

  A slow blink weighs down my lids.

  Pale-green eyes, small laughter trailing through soft parted lips.

  My mind is wide awake and it has been from the instant I regained consciousness. My body, on the other hand, is exhausted. I sit up in my bed. Fuck. What the hell is going on? I feel like I’ve been hit by a semi-truck. My muscles are sore, my throat is dry and aches. I must be getting sick. That’s fantastic. Just fucking fantastic.

  I try to shut my eyes again.

  Fingers grazing over pale skin, the warm scent of flowers and sugar lingering over my face.

  I’m back to staring at the walls for a few seconds, feeling the need to get up but lacking the motivation. Why don’t I go back to sleep? Why am I thinking about cleaning my dining room in the middle of the night?

  Because I really should.

  I should take down the string of lights hanging from my ceiling. I should put away the dozens of candles I left out. Shit. Did I put them out? I did, the memory returns to me. I pinched each flame between my thumb and forefinger until my condo was littered in small wispy clouds and my fingers were black with soot.

  At the least, I should go clean up the food. It will have to be thrown out now; it’s been sitting out all night. Speaking of food, I should be hungry. I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. But the thought of seeing all that food sitting on my counter turns my stomach. I’ll deal with it later. I lay back. I should sleep. I’m going to sleep.