Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger

by Beth Harbison

  Nevertheless, I typed:

  You don’t owe me anything and I know it but I’m thinking about our past and I think it would help me to talk to you.

  I added my cell number and hit send.

  And regretted it immediately. I’d just handed him all my vulnerability. He might well look at that and think I was crazy for resurrecting something that he may have deleted 90 percent of from his mental hard drive. He might not answer, pretending never to have received it, thereby letting me off the proverbial hook while both of us knew the truth and could never, then, unknow the truth.

  I still cared, I’d revealed it too many ways, and maybe he didn’t.

  So when the phone rang, maybe forty-five minutes after I’d hit send, my heart nearly stopped. I hoped it was him and I hoped it wasn’t him. But mostly I hoped it was.

  And it was. “Where are you?” he asked.

  “At my house.”

  “Where’s that?”

  I’d forgotten he’d never been here. I’d only just gotten the house about five years ago. Perhaps that was the one big thing that had happened in my otherwise stagnant life.

  I told him where the house was, and he asked, “Is it okay if I come by?”

  Reflexively my hand flew to my ponytailed unwashed hair. “When?”

  “Tonight. Now. I’m still at the farm and was about to leave. I could swing by there first.”

  “Sure.” My breath was tight. “I’ll be up for a while anyway.”

  The moment we hung up, I hit the shower. It felt like I was moving in slow motion even while I felt frantic to get cleaned up and dressed so, even if the conversation went badly, he wouldn’t leave with the satisfaction of thinking I was an unkempt pig. Not that he’d have such an uncharitable thought. I’d never known him to be that way.

  But I sure didn’t want him to start tonight.

  As it turned out, I was ready well in advance, which gave me time to wander the house, wondering what to do with myself. And wondering why I was so nervous about seeing Burke and having this talk that probably any psychologist in the world would say was long overdue.

  I guess if you avoid something for long enough, as uncomfortable as it is to have it unresolved, in some ways it can be more uncomfortable to take it out and examine it.

  Then again, maybe the problem was just my premonition that it was going to go badly.

  Fortunately, before I had time to drive myself well and truly insane speculating about it, there was a knock at the door.

  I took a steadying breath and then walked over, not hurrying. Didn’t want to appear breathless or eager when I opened the door.

  Chapter 20

  When I saw him standing there on my front stoop, his dark hair gleaming under the light of the porch sconces, it very nearly did take my breath away.

  He was a very good-looking man no matter how you sliced it, but his bone structure was such that shadows and light invariably upped his hotness infinitely. He looked like a movie star, he really did. He always had, but somewhere back when he and I were a couple I had gotten used to that and wasn’t daunted by it. But perhaps nothing could have prepared me for the attractiveness of this older Burke.

  “Hey,” he said, when I didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Hi.” I opened the door. “Come on in.”

  It was surreal to see Burke Morrison walking into my house, this space that had never previously existed with him. But in a way it was kind of … healing.

  “Can I get you anything?” I ran through a mental inventory of the contents of my fridge. “Milk? Water? Old orange juice? Oh, wait, I think I have beer. Do you want a beer? They’re warm.”

  He gave a laugh. “Warm beer would be perfect. Really hit the spot on a warm night like tonight.”

  I laughed too. “Well, I could put it over ice.”

  He winced. “Let’s just keep it one kind of bad, not two.”

  “Right.” I went to the kitchen and took two ominously named Flying Dog Raging Bitch ales out of the cabinet. I don’t normally drink beer, but there’s almost nothing I like more than beer cheese soup, so I try to keep it on hand in case the mood strikes me to cook.

  “Glenn was in my neighborhood the other night,” he called.

  I winced and was glad he couldn’t see me. How to play this? Nebulous. I needed to go for nebulous. So I could admit I was there if I had to, but not if I didn’t have to. “I know,” I said with loud confidence. “At that party.”

  “It was weird. He was out front for ages with the brake lights on. I wouldn’t have known it was him if I hadn’t taken the trash out and noticed his profile.”

  “Yeah, I dunno, I was just dead that night. I can’t even remember what he said about your conversation.” Good, right? Foggy enough? I could have been there or not.

  I opened both beers and went back to the den, where he was standing in front of the fireplace I’d never lit.

  I handed him his bottle and took a sip from my own. Yup, that was warm beer, all right. I changed the subject quickly. “So I ran into Lyle right after you left the other day. That was a salesgirl from Calloway’s you saw him with.”

  “Yeah?” He looked surprised. “He introduce you?”

  I shook my head. “He came out alone. And he had no idea you or I or anyone had seen them, so I know he wasn’t making up a story. In fact, he didn’t even realize who I was for a moment, even though he was looking me right in the face. Not that we know each other so well, but … anyway. He was actually in the shop because Dottie was insisting on buying him a watch and he didn’t want her to waste her money, so he was trying to find a way to ‘request’ an inexpensive piece. It’s nice, really. Actually the opposite of gold digging.”

  He took a drag of his beer. “You’re very pretty still.”

  And, yes, it was that easy to get right to the heart of me. “Burke…”

  “You always were.”

  I swallowed. “Thanks.”

  He set his beer down on the mantel and came over to me. “You know I can’t resist you.”

  “I thought we decided this was a bad idea.”

  “I’m sure it is.” He touched my cheek.

  “Oh.” I turned my face into his touch. A reflex. “As long as we’ve got that cleared up.”

  “It’s been a long time for us.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Do you want me?” he asked, moving in to kiss my neck, my jaw.

  “No.” Lie. Stupid, lame, obvious lie. I should have popped a pacifier into my mouth, for all the sophistication of it. Then I couldn’t resist banging another nail into the coffin. “Do you want me?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, tightening his hold on me.

  My knees weakened. Literally. I don’t understand the connection between the heart, the mind, and the physiology, but it’s the physiology—which has no business in it whatsoever—that will give you away every time.

  In the combination of sudden weaknesses, I curled my hands up over the backs of his shoulders and held on, effectively pulling him closer.

  Which I couldn’t admit I wanted.

  But he knew.

  Of course he knew. He always knew. He’d always been able to read me so well that any attempt I ever made at dignity or maturity or anything resembling resistance must have looked to him exactly like a child insisting he really was Batman because he was wearing the pajamas.

  This was a defining moment for me. I had this split second to choose which direction I was going to go on the road ahead in my life. Safe and predictable? Or unquestionably foolish and dangerous?

  With one option my life would return to normal eventually. Dottie’s wedding would be over and time would turn this photograph to watercolor, and though I wouldn’t forget this moment—and maybe I’d never stop questioning whether I’d done the right thing in walking away from it—walking away was the only sure way to avoid pain.

  So I couldn’t explain why, at that moment when I was so sure that disengaging and leaving w
as the only way to save my soul, I chose instead—on some level, I must have chosen it—to risk it all.

  Almost as if acting from motor memory, I touched my fingertips to his forearms and skidded them up over the veins and skin that I’d never forget.

  His shoulders were hard under my touch, the contours uneven with muscle and bulk. When he moved his hands to my lower back and tightened his arms around me, I felt a network of muscles and tendons shift in accommodation.

  I looked at him in the dim light. The curve of his mouth, which had always been able to draw me in, no matter what he was saying or how much I tried to resist. I’d always loved his lips, his teeth: a movie star smile.

  I was never able to resist it. Not since I was fifteen.

  That smile had made me do the most idiotic things imaginable. Over and over. Often at his request, but too often born of my own lame attempts to get his attention.

  I had it now.

  “Tell me something, Quinn Barton.” He moved toward me, slid his rough hands under my shirt, and held me firm at the ribs. “Did you miss me?”

  “No.” Lie.

  He knew it too.

  “Did you miss me?” I asked, sounding a lot more pleading than I’d wanted to. I don’t care, I reminded myself with a conviction that wasn’t my own. It was Dr. Phil’s. Oprah’s. Virtually any psychologist in a Google “local therapist” search would have wanted to slap the subservience right out of me. Every pro-woman, be-independent, to-hell-with-him adviser out there was collecting in my mind like a judge-y audience, a Greek chorus of, What the fuck are you doing? This is not how you get a man!

  And that was true, the math formula was all wrong. Intellectually I knew that. People want what they think they can’t have, and he had zero doubt he could have me, despite whatever protestations I made or how hard I tried to get away.

  “Yes,” he whispered, and pulled me closer, grazing his lips along my jaw.

  My shoulders eased. This I was powerless against.

  It was as if the stability of my knees and legs were directly proportionate to the distance I had from him. Get close enough and my bones dissolved; if he wasn’t holding on to me, I would have collapsed like a broken doll at his feet.

  So what could I say to that? What would Katharine Hepburn have said to that? Well, Spencer—or whoever Spencer Tracy was playing at the time—that’s all well and good, but it’s too late. You blew it, buster.

  And then she would have marched off with Ralph Bellamy.

  And that was the problem. There were a million Ralph Bellamys out there—nice guys, always ready to pick up the scraps the leading man left behind. Always willing to be settled for. To worship, love, and adore, for a lifetime of … what? Mediocre sex. Whitman’s Samplers for Valentine’s Day. Watching CSI every … whatever night that was on, in side-by-side La-Z-Boys?

  Ralph Bellamy, or whatever alias his character might go by in my real life, was a great guy. No doubt about it. I’m sure I’d love him as my best friend’s husband. He’d be a great neighbor. I could totally see having a friendly relationship with him at the bank or the grocery store, or at the mailbox every day when he delivered the mail.

  But I would never feel the chemistry and passion for Ralph Bellamy’s character that I felt for Burke.

  Who was this guy, who could light such a fire in me, and then douse it so easily with a few words that translated to, I don’t really give a shit what you do, I’m a lone wolf in a wolf pack of one.

  I don’t need you or anyone.

  I knew he needed me. That asinine statement alone proved he needed me. There are no lone wolves! There are no wolf packs of one! Watch Animal Planet for seven minutes and you’ll see some idiot animal wander away from the pack and get torn limb from limb by someone higher up on the food chain. That’s what happens to “packs of one.”

  It made no sense.

  And it made even less than no sense under the heat of his touch. He had to feel it too, didn’t he? Could one person in a relationship feel that much more attraction than the other?

  That was more math I couldn’t figure out.

  His hands tightened at my waist, gripping me possessively while he worked his mouth along my neck, my jaw, and finally my mouth, where I gave a token two seconds’ resistance before giving in.

  Okay, I know you’re thinking I’m weak. And I am. But, I swear to god, it was like something supernatural happened around him. No matter what my resolve was, no matter how mad I was—or how right I was to be mad—he could level me so easily it was embarrassing.

  His mouth found mine, and it was the same as always. As soon as he closed those lips over mine, it was perfect. Warm and familiar. The taste indescribable but exactly right. Every movement he made was expert, his tongue, his mouth, his hands, everything worked together like a perfect orchestra performing a symphony. This was my first kiss and, now, my last, and it was always the same. It was always exactly what I wanted. No one else could do this. No one else could be this. I knew his smell, his taste, the feel of him almost better than I knew myself. I would have known any and every square millimeter of every part of his body blindfolded.

  In a sea of uninteresting offers, this was the only man I’d ever really wanted.

  And that fact alone had screwed me over time and again. And again. And again.

  Like now.

  He started to slide my shirt up and I clamped my arms down, like a fussy second-grader who didn’t want to take a bath. “No.”

  He drew back, the smallest implication of a smile quirking his lips. “No?”

  “We can’t just … do this.”

  “We can’t.” It was a statement, not a question. A dubious statement. A statement he knew he could prove wrong in ten seconds or else lose Final Jeopardy. But he never lost. He could bet on this.

  Anyone could bet on this.

  An outsider would have to think I was easy. Daisy Mae, the town whore, who would blow the hot guy behind the diner with the hope of winning his heart, only to cater his wedding three weeks later, unacknowledged, in a stiff polyester uniform composed of drugstore clothes.

  “I don’t want to,” I said, trying to add strength where I felt none, even though I knew I should.

  Because if I gave in to him now, I knew how I’d feel later tonight. How I’d feel tomorrow. How I’d feel a week from now. Lost. Wondering. Hopeful but fearful. Ashamed.

  Empty.

  He was Pandora’s Box and I was gnashing him open with my teeth, even though I dreaded all the things he’d bring out in me.

  “Shut up,” he said with a smile, like he always did, and kissed me again.

  But something stiffened in me.

  Shut up?

  I knew he hadn’t meant it that way. It wasn’t a Shut up, bitch, kind of shut up. But that was where I’d gotten into trouble so many times before. It was a dismissal of my feelings.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” I drew back. “I’m not going to shut up. I think we need to talk first.”

  I expected defensiveness. Some asshole response that I could hang my okay, then leave hat on, but instead he said, “Okay…?”

  “Okay?”

  “I’ve been waiting for this. I guess it’s time. You want to talk about the past, right? Why I cheated on you?”

  Chapter 21

  Even though I’d known it was true, on some levels I hadn’t believed it, so his words hit me like a blow. Then, immediately, I defaulted to the more comfortable thought that maybe he was being ironic, saying it because he knew I thought it was true, not because it was.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.…” But I wasn’t going to let the chance go now that he’d raised it, and especially now that the question of his faithfulness had been resurrected again.

  Even though everyone else on earth might have said it was never a question.

  “This isn’t easy for me, but, to be really uncool but honest with you, the truth is I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Chewing on it, you know? Wondering what the truth
was.”

  He looked at the floor, but I saw his jaw twitch. “That probably would have been a good conversation to have at the time.”

  “I know, I’m sorry, I just—it was so confusing and upsetting that I didn’t know which end was up. I should have—”

  “Quinn.”

  I looked at him. “Sorry, I was rambling.”

  “Please stop apologizing.”

  My heart was pounding like a scared rabbit’s. “Okay, I’m so— Okay.” Who the hell was I all of a sudden? This wasn’t like me. My nerves were betraying me terribly. “Look, I have some questions about … everything. Frank’s allegations. The business that made me call off the wedding.”

  He nodded. “I figured.”

  “Actually, I guess it all just begins with the one question.”

  “Right.” He took a sip of the beer, swallowed, then let out a long breath before meeting my eyes and saying, “I’m not sure you’re going to like what I have to say.”

  Dread snaked through me, then morphed into grief as sharp as a razor. There it was. There it was right there. That was what my nerves were about. Not the girlish attempt to dress up for my ex, not the sight of his beautiful face in the light of my porch, but the truth I must have known was underneath it all, had been underneath it all the entire time.

  An outsider might not have been sure what Burke’s response meant—after all, there were plenty of things he could say that I wouldn’t like—but I knew exactly what it meant.

  “Frank was telling the truth.”

  He gave a slow nod. “Probably.”

  My body went numb. It was like a replay of the wedding day inside of me. Shock, disbelief, anguish, anger, hatred, all wrapped in this tattered shroud of love and trust.

  “I don’t know exactly what he said to you,” Burke went on. “You never said and I never asked him.”

  “You just”—I shook my head and shrugged—“weren’t that interested?”

  “In what Frank said? No. Your reaction was probably appropriate. At the time I didn’t think so. I was marrying you, Quinn. I was ready to give everything else up and be yours alone.”