Love Me Like I Love You

by Willow Winters

  “I’m fine, just pissed at him.” There were towels in the cabinet on the patio, so once I had some pulled out, I passed one to Troy. My heartrate was still up from the shock, and it disabled my filter. “Guess we’re even,” I said in a humorless joke. “We’ve both caught each other with a dick in our ass.”

  The moment I stopped speaking, all the air whooshed from my body.

  Troy had been toweling off, but paused mid-wipe. “Wait. What?”

  “Nothing.” I couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “Forget I said that.”

  A skeptical look crossed his face. “That’s . . . doubtful.” He straightened as he tried to figure it out, but he only looked more confused. “Okay, so Clark is—like—into pegging?”

  Oh, God. I pressed my lips together.

  I’d kept his sexuality private as Clark had asked me to. I hadn’t told a soul, outside of Derrick’s wife, even as his affair had shaken me to my core and left me questioning everything.

  Yet my ex had no problem violating my space or privacy. Why was I protecting him again?

  Troy had proven he knew how to keep a secret, and I was desperate to share it with him. “I haven’t told anyone because he asked me not to, but it’s not fair for him to ask me to lie.” I phrased it as a statement, when it was more of a question. “I can trust you.”

  His eyes widened. “Yeah, of course.”

  “When I caught him having sex,” I sucked in a breath, “it was with a man.”

  There was no reaction from him. It was proof of what a great performer he could be. He schooled himself not to show any emotion. There wasn’t unease, or pity for me, or suspicion about why my husband had turned toward men.

  “I . . .” His shoulders lifted and his eyebrows pulled together. Then, he simply said, “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  He was about to say something else when a song full of synthesizers began blaring from the lounge chair beside the pool where he’d dropped his stuff.

  It cut through the heaviness, and my lips wanted to quirk in amusement. “Your ringtone’s ‘The Final Countdown?’”

  He didn’t join me in smiling. Instead, he looked worried. “It is when my mom’s calling.”

  He was almost to his phone when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I raced after him, although I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t to stop him from answering. She could have been calling for any number of reasons, but Troy held the same trepidation as I did. My heart sputtered and climbed into my throat.

  He tapped the screen and lifted the phone to his ear, his gaze fixed on me. “Hello?”

  Jenna’s voice was raised enough I could hear her. “Where are you? You turned your location off.”

  His face twisted. “I’m at Preston’s.”

  This time she was so loud he held the phone away from his ear. “Don’t you dare lie to me, Troy Edward Osbourne. I just got off the phone with Clark Graham.”

  Everything inside me vaporized.

  Of course Clark had recognized Troy, and he’d rightly assumed Jenna wasn’t aware of our relationship, because she wouldn’t allow it if she were. So, he’d gone straight to her to punish me.

  He’d never forgiven me for telling Derrick’s wife, and I was sure he felt vindicated in exposing me. I could hear my ex’s voice echoing in my head. “Now we’re even.”

  My shoulders sank, and the utter turmoil I had was broadcast perfectly on Troy’s handsome face.

  “Fine. I’m at Erika’s.” His tone was empty. “We were going to tell you.”

  Whatever she said, it was too low for me to hear this time. He swallowed hard, making his Adam’s apple bob in his throat while he lowered the phone. Tension held his shoulders tight as he stretched his hand toward me. “She, uh, wants to talk to you.”

  I exhaled sharply and took his offered phone. I closed my eyes, centered myself, and brought it to my ear. “Jenna, I’m so sorry. We were—”

  “You. Lying. Bitch.” Venom dripped from every word. “He’s half your age, and my son. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  It was immediately followed by an electronic click as she disconnected the call, but I held his phone pressed to my cheek for several more seconds, as if my friendship with Jenna wasn’t truly over until I lowered my hand.

  He gently pulled the phone from me, dropped it on the chair, and circled his arms around my waist. I clung to his warmth because her words had invaded my mind and caused shivers to rack my body.

  “I am ashamed,” I whispered to him, “of how I lied to her.”

  He stroked a hand over the back of my head and hugged me closer. “She was going to be mad no matter what, and try to tell us we couldn’t.”

  While he was right, “That doesn’t make it okay.”

  “I know.” His heartbeat was strong and steady, maintaining a perfectly calm tempo, and I envied him for it.

  It was easier to focus my emotions into anger toward Clark instead of my own guilt, so I did that. It was so unfair. Troy and I had already decided to tell his parents. If we’d been caught in a compromising position a day later, we could have avoided Jenna learning it this way. Clark telling her was the freaking worst way possible for her to find out.

  “Come on,” Troy said softly. “Let’s get dressed and we’ll go talk to her.”

  I shot him a dubious look. I knew my friend and how she’d react to her son showing up with me in tow. “She won’t speak to me.”

  “Then I’ll do the talking,” he said, taking my hand in his.

  Troy had a calming effect, which kept my level of anxiety down just enough so I didn’t bail out of his Jeep when Jenna and Bill’s house came into view.

  But his calm demeanor came to a screeching halt when he spotted the stack of boxes at the curb. “What the fuck?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing either. “Is that your stuff?”

  Once we were in the driveway, he angrily shifted into park, shut off the engine, and climbed out of his seat. Jenna came through the gate carrying an open box with a computer keyboard sticking out the top.

  “You’re kicking me out?” he demanded.

  She pulled to a stop, but when she spied me getting out of his Jeep, her eyes narrowed to slits and she moved to add the box to the pile. “You’ve lied to me enough times you’ve lost the privilege of living under my roof.”

  For added effect, she dropped the box and it landed with a hard, careless thud, making him wince.

  “And you,” she swung an angry finger toward me, “have some fucking nerve showing up here. Jesus, Erika, I thought you were my friend. How could you?”

  My shoulders slumped and I swallowed the thick lump in my throat. “I’m sorry.”

  Troy was more focused on the immediate issue. “Where am I supposed to go?”

  She shrugged. “I guess you should have thought about that before you went behind my back. I’m sure one of your friends has a couch you can sleep on.”

  He considered her statement for a long moment, then abruptly lunged for the box. His tone was forced indifference. “Yeah, sure.” He tucked it under his arm and walked to the back of his SUV. “Or I could crash at my girlfriend’s house.”

  I could hear the needle drag across the record playing in Jenna’s head. “What?”

  He carried on with loading the box into his Jeep while I stood dumbfounded. Maybe if I held perfectly still, they would forget I was here.

  Fat chance.

  She glared at me with so much accusation in her eyes, it was a miracle I stayed on my feet. This power struggle was classic Jenna. She was a storm. She’d get all worked up, only for her emotions to peter out, and then she’d be able to see reason. I just had no idea how long her category five hurricane was going to last.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. She can’t be your girlfriend,” she announced.

  He didn’t miss a beat. “You don’t get a say in who I date. How many more times do I have to tell you that?”

  She stared at her so
n like he’d lost his mind. “She’s too old for you.”

  “Nope.” He hauled another box up into his arms and shot me a grin. “I think she’s just right.”

  Jenna made a sound of pure dissatisfaction, and her hands curled into fists. She was so upset she was shaking, and while I hated seeing my friend in distress, I couldn’t help but wonder if this would be good for her long-term. She needed to give him a chance to be his own man. To be independent.

  Didn’t she understand her attempts to shield him had also prevented him from learning the lessons that failure could teach?

  “Look,” he said pointedly, “we’re sorry we lied, and it’s not a great excuse, but the way you’re acting right now? It’s exactly why we didn’t want to tell you.”

  I pressed my fingertips to my forehead and massaged the wrinkle forming there. During the drive over, he’d reassured me he would handle it, so I’d tried to stay quiet. The last thing I wanted was to come between them more than I already had.

  Yet, as I stood there, my irritation with Jenna began to grow. She had every right to be upset. I’d been a terrible friend. But him? “Are you throwing your son out . . . because you don’t like who he’s dating?”

  Her face turned an ugly shade of red as it swung toward me. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “That’s fine. You can be as mad at me as you want. I deserve it.” I cast a hand toward him. “But he doesn’t. Let him be free to do what he wants. He’s an adult, Jenna.”

  “Don’t you dare lecture me! Adult or not, he’s still my son. I know that doesn’t mean shit to you, but I’m trying to stop him from making some truly awful decisions.”

  She didn’t say it, but it was implied by her glare, and I sensed the heat rising in Troy. Which was ironic, since his tone was frosty. “Okay, so Erika’s good enough to be your friend—your best friend—but still not good enough for me?”

  His mother threw her hands up and looked around like she couldn’t believe no one else was nearby to hear this ridiculousness. “No, she’s not good enough and she’s not my friend. Because if she were, she wouldn’t have slept with you!” She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. “Troy. This is unacceptable, and all I’ve ever wanted is what’s best for you.”

  “No,” he said. “All you’ve ever wanted is what’s best for you.” His posture was tense and confrontational. “You don’t care about what I want.”

  She gasped. “Of course, I do.”

  “Really? Do I even like working for Bill’s company?”

  His question should have been rhetorical because even I knew the answer, and yet . . . she looked confused. As if she’d never even considered it.

  His harsh tone left no doubt. “I told you—oh my God—so many times! But you only hear what you want. If you’d listened, you could have talked Bill out of offering his company to me. Instead, you pushed me into that situation and forced me to make everyone unhappy.”

  Unease seeped into the edge of her expression, because she knew there was some truth in what he’d said, and she worried she was losing control of the conversation. “I heard you, but it’s such a good company. Steady and reliable—”

  He sighed loudly and stared up at the sky. “You’re proving my point, Mom, that what I want doesn’t matter.”

  Jenna stood in her driveway, struggling with the wild swing of emotions going through her. Rage at me battled with her guilt over controlling him, and it put her off-balance. “What you want matters, Troy.”

  “Yeah?” He was firm, but beneath it there was hope. He wanted to believe her. “Prove it. I want to try for a career in music, so you can start showing up and actually supporting me.”

  He turned, his chest lifted with pride and his eyes absolute as he pointed a sharp finger at me. His words brimmed with determination.

  “And I want this woman. You need to get on board with that.”

  His defiant, sure claim on me made goosebumps burst down my legs as breath halted in my lungs.

  Jenna was frozen awkwardly, becoming a statue whose only movement was the stunned blink of her eyes. After an eternity, her anger won out and her voice turned cold.

  “No,” she announced. “Never.”

  She slung down her ultimatum with defiance burning in her eyes. It’s her or me, she silently screamed at him.

  It didn’t take Troy long to make his decision. He stacked one box on top of another and then picked them up.

  “Fine. See you around,” he said, and made his way to the Jeep.

  Holy shit. I’d thought I couldn’t possibly feel worse than I had when we’d arrived, but I’d been wrong. I’d not only destroyed my friendship, but his relationship with his mother. It was hard not to break inside, and to distract, I focused on grabbing whatever I could so we could flee.

  I had a grip on the handle of his suitcase when she abruptly spoke. Her voice was hollow and meant only for me. “He’s making a huge mistake with you.”

  It wounded me deeply, but I pretended her words didn’t reach me. “It’s his to make.”

  Erika

  It broke my heart when Troy asked if he could spend the night at my place, and then he broke it all over again when he was unsure which bedroom he’d be staying in. Like he was worried he was overstepping, and since we’d already had sex today, I’d need some distance.

  It couldn’t be further from the truth.

  I want this woman, he’d declared.

  It was too soon for me to be having all these feelings, but they existed regardless, and I needed him to know the same was true for me.

  After dinner, I got out my guitar and played the song I’d started composing after our desperate kiss against the mirror when he’d found out he’d won the spot. He not only picked up the new song quickly, he suggested some tweaks and helped me improve it.

  We didn’t have sex that night when we went to bed together. Maybe it felt disrespectful to Jenna while she was still coming to grips with our relationship, but more than anything, I think we both wanted to connect in a new and different way. We kissed, and talked, and snuggled, and what had been a helluva day at least ended as a fantastic night.

  Was this a glimpse of what could be? Because it didn’t feel like a mistake.

  It felt right.

  In the morning, I got ready for work and left him with a kiss and a spare key. I didn’t know how long it’d take Jenna to become reasonable again toward her son, but I was sure she would and hoped it wouldn’t be long. He said after his class today he’d make plans to start looking for his own place.

  Which was important to him. Although I wanted to spend every spare moment together right now, I understood and supported the idea. The honeymoon phase for me was incredibly strong and deceptive.

  My day at the office was challenging. A show promoter we’d contracted with wasn’t responding to emails or phone calls, and the drummer of one of the bands I repped had gotten arrested for a DUI last night.

  At lunch, I’d unblocked Clark’s number and attempted to call him, but it rang once before going to voicemail, and I hung up, not knowing what kind of message I would leave. We needed to have a conversation. Obviously, he had something he wanted to say to me bad enough he’d decided to come by the house, and I wanted to give him a piece of my mind about that.

  I thumbed out a message.

  Me: We need to talk about yesterday.

  As I was finishing up at the office, I checked my phone and he still hadn’t read my message. I tried calling him again and got the same result.

  Oh, how the tables had turned, he must have thought. Now my ex was the one not taking any calls.

  I’d just put my phone in my purse when it chirped with a text message.

  Troy: Got a second to talk?

  I punched his number, waved goodbye to Charlotte, and walked out the office door, my footsteps crunching on the leaves the wind had gathered on the front porch. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “So,” he said, “I just got done putting my shit back.”
>
  I missed a step coming down the porch onto the sidewalk and nearly fell. “What? You’re moving back in?”

  “Temporarily, yeah.” He sounded tired. “My mom called and asked me to come over so she could apologize.”

  “Oh.” I pulled my eyebrows together, unsure how to feel about this. “I take it you went?”

  He wasn’t tired—he was emotionally drained. “Yeah. I was still pissed off, but she was in bad shape. When I got there, she looked like she’d been crying all morning.”

  His words cut through my heart. She’d been crying because of me. I’d known getting involved with Troy was going to carry huge consequences, and yet I’d still done it, her feelings be damned.

  “Bill was there too,” he said. “And I told them I was done. I needed to live my life and if they wanted to continue being a part of it, shit had to change. Like, right now.”

  I was tense just hearing it secondhand. “How did that go over?”

  “It . . . went. I told them it’d mean a lot to me to have them there on Saturday. But if she didn’t believe in me and how I want to pursue music, then she shouldn’t bother coming to my show.” There was the sound of chair legs dragging across a hard floor, and I pictured him sitting down at his kitchen table. “So, she apologized and cried some more, and then Bill cried, and it was rough.”

  I pressed my hand to the center of my chest. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, and don’t be sorry. It was good.” He sounded cautiously optimistic. “I laid it all out there, said all the things I needed to about her smothering me, and I think she finally, really listened.” He let out a long breath. “I’m still moving out, but I’m here until I get my own place, and they agreed to give me my space in the meantime.”

  I bit down on my lip. “Do you think they’ll be able to?”

  He paused. “She’s still really upset about us, so yeah. I think she’d like to go back to not knowing, but since she can’t . . .”

  He didn’t have to say it. She wanted to pretend I no longer existed.

  “I tried telling her this isn’t your fault,” he said. “I was the one who went after you.”