by Sandra Lee
He had never been in her apartment before, and when he walked in, he felt cold. Not that the temperature was any cooler then it was everywhere, it was just the place itself. The walls were bare and the furniture was very modern and all of it black and gray. There wasn’t any soft color, or any soft rounded surfaces. Shelley looked right at home in it.
She didn’t leave him much time to look around though, as soon as they walked in, she turned to him and launch herself into his arms.
“No more playing hard to get now… you are mine.” She looked at him from beneath her fake eyelashes and drew a long painted fingernail down the button line of his shirt and stopped at his belt. Then she grabbed the belt buckle, brought his pelvis to hers, and somewhat lasciviously rubbed herself against him.
She was his to take but he felt no hint of desire. He looked down at her and was about to try and let her down easy when she said, a bit bitterly it seemed:
“I can please you like no other woman has ever pleased you before.”
Yeah right, he though. If his own hand turned him on more then all her attempts, he couldn’t imagine how she would be the best woman he ever had.
“Listen Shelley…” she stopped him from talking by once again pulling him down for a kiss. He had to stop her. He lowered her arms from his neck, and stepped away from her while still holding her hands.
“Jake? Is something wrong?” To her benefit, she really did look puzzled.
“ I can’t do this Shelley, I am not attracted to you.”
“Yes you are. I felt it outside.”
“No Shelley, I am not. I was thinking of someone else. I’m sorry.”
“You what? It’s impossible, you couldn’t have been. You were kissing me.”
“You were kissing me, Shelley, not the other way around.” He hated to hurt her feelings, but he felt it was better done now then wait.
She looked at him for a long moment, and then slapped him.
“You are a bastard!”
“Yeah, so I have heard.” He answered touching his reddening cheek. Slapping people seemed to be a fun pastime in this town.
“You will regret it you know. One day I will make you pay for this insult.”
“I am sorry Shelley, I never meant to hurt you.”
“I am not hurt, I am angry. Get out.”
And he did, get out that is, happily. Many men would have been happy to be in his shoes, well would have a moment ago, before the slapping of the cheek and the slamming of the door. They would have loved to remove that skin-fitting dress and discover whether she had any underwear beneath it. Instead all he thought about was the somewhat conservative outfit he had seen Eva wearing, how beautiful she had looked in it, and how much she could make his blood boil.
He hit the wall beside the door and swore. Guess it was cuddling with the bottle after all.
Chapter ten
Eva looked at herself in the mirror, the black shadow under her were still there. She sighed, and hoped she would soon be able to get a good night sleep. Lately, every time she closed her eyes, she saw Jake and Shelley in bed, on the kitchen floor, on a table, anyway, anywhere that one could think of, doing things, she had never done or even dreamed of doing. She applied cover up; it would do no good for her mother to see the enormous bags. All she would get were questions and looks of concerns; she had enough of those from James lately. She knew he meant well, but if he kept acting around her as if she was a fragile doll just about to break, she was going to have to kill him, or at the very least scream. Well, at least he wasn’t going to be at the barbecue today, one of them had to stay at the “office” and start working on the meal for the wedding they were catering next week. Since she was Josh’s sister, it was only fair that she be the one to go, although James would have liked to argue the subject, stating he was as much a part of her family as she was, which truthfully wasn’t too far from the truth, but she had claimed blood ties. He certainly couldn’t argue with that! She smiled as she remembered his mutinous expression; sometimes men were such babies. Talking about babies, she was looking forward to playing with her nieces, the twins, Gillian and Megan. They were such wonderful little girls; she didn’t understand how their mother could just have abandoned them like that. Josh had gotten married six years earlier, but his wife had not been able to handle either married life or motherhood, so she had ran away and left Josh and the babies to fend for themselves. The divorce had become final three years ago and her brother had gotten full custody of the girls without any arguments from his ex-wife. It takes a cold woman to do what her sister-in-law had done. Eva couldn’t even imagine doing something like that; she yearned for children. And if it weren’t for the whole needing a man part, she would already have a couple of her own. Smiling at the thought, she brushed her hair back from her face and tied them in a loose ponytail. The casual clothes she was wearing would do, she wasn’t such a tomboy anymore but she never stopped liking her good old uniform of jeans and tee shirts. With a final look in the mirror she shrugged and grabbed her key from the side table by the door. The drive to her brother was short, and in a matter of minutes she walked in the backyard to be assaulted by two bundles of energy.
“Auntie Eva, look what I can do!” A red haired little girl said as she did a crooked cartwheel.
“Wow!” Eva said, laughter in her eyes.” That was the best cartwheel I had ever seen.”
“My turn, my turn” answered another identical red haired little girl as she also did a crooked cartwheel.
“Bravo, bravo!” Eva clapped her hand as both little girls beamed. They were so adorable, the only thing that distinguished them at a quick glance was the front tooth Megan had lost a few days ago. She grabbed both her nieces and started a tickling match with them. When they were all disheveled, she straightened and went to ask her brother if he required any help with the cooking.
“Nah, little sis, you cook for a living, this is supposed to be a break, just enjoy it.”
“But I enjoy cooking, and I must be honest, I do not trust your cooking skills, even on the barbecue!” She added teasingly.
Josh smiled and with no warning, punched her in the arm. Out of habit, she screamed:
“Mommy, Josh hit me!” Her mother shook her head and said:
“You probably deserved it.”
Josh started laughing and told her to go and mingle with the guests, that she was naught but a nuisance. And since little sister were not supposed to listen to big brothers, no matter how old they were, she stayed right beside him and nagged him until he relented and asked her to go get the bread from the kitchen. She turned around to go inside and bumped into someone. Not any someone, but Jake. She looked at Josh questioningly; he at least had the decency to appear sheepish, while Jake acted as if everything was perfectly wonderful with the world. How could her brother do that without telling her? Ignoring both of them she stalked to the kitchen, where she knew she would have a little privacy. Josh should have prepared her, sure they had a truce, but a truce didn’t make them friends and with her newly admitted feelings, she definitely would have needed the heads up on that one. As soon as she had seen him, her first urge was to jump in his arms and kiss him; she smiled at the thought of the scene that would cause, fortunately, she still had enough control over her body to restrain herself but just barely. She collected herself and grabbed the bread from the counter. Finally, when she felt she was ready, she went back out. She noticed him right away; he was hard to miss. He was talking to her brother and they were laughing, she got so frustrated that before she noticed, the bread was out of her hands, in the air, and oups against Jake’s head. To try and cover her actions, she yelled:
“There is your bread Josh, seems like something got in the way of it.”
She then, went to see her nieces and tried ignoring the tall handsome man that everyone seemed to want to do everything with except ignore. Through the afternoon, she stayed at the opposite end of the backyard then where he was and tried to smile and look as if she had
not a care in the world. However, she was afraid someone would notice how strained her smiles were, and how fake her cheerful chatter was. But, luckily, most people were too occupied with the food and gossiping to pay too much attention to one person. The last two people she wanted to notice, of course did; Her mother and Jake. Her mother came up to her and gave her a big hug, offering a shoulder to cry on or someone to talk to if ever she needed to. As was her habit, she didn’t ask questions, Eva just nodded and moved away. She couldn’t deal with that now, she had appearances to keep. She was bringing some dirty dishes back in the kitchen for cleaning later on when he cornered her. Darn when it rained, it poured, and in her case, it was more like a hurricane. She sighed and looked up at him. His hands were stuck in his pockets, his brow was creased in what seemed to be concern, but she had been fooled before, and he had a tentative smile on his lips.
“Hey Eva, is something wrong? You have seemed tense since the moment I walked in. I hope me being here is not making you feel uncomfortable. We do have a truce after all.” He tried a smile, but she remained unresponsive; she suddenly felt angry and unsettled. She was sure he was taunting her, as always; trying to get a negative reaction from her.
“Why did you come here?” She hissed
“What do you mean? Josh invited me; he called me yesterday and told me about it. He also told me he had talked to you and you were fine with it.” She could hear his tone getting impatient, his voice losing his previous warmth.
“I was fine with you living in the same town, I was fine with him and you being friends as long as I wasn’t there. I was fine that he decided to hire you to program his game; I never said I was fine for him to invite you here today. You knew, you had to know I didn’t want you here. I don’t understand why you would choose to come to a place where you knew I would be! Either you are totally insensitive, or you are trying to rile me. Or both!”
“I thought we were past that, I thought we agreed to be civil to one another, even friends. I don’t understand what you problem with me being here is.” He was once again so calm and controlled. She wanted to remove that cold smile from his face. She wanted him to react as strongly as she did when he was with her. She wanted to hit him, she wanted to hug him, she wanted so much from this man and all he could give her was a cold smile.
“YOU agreed to be friends, I agreed to be civil that’s it.
“Is that what you call throwing a loaf of buns at my head, civil?” he asked sarcastically.
“I wasn’t throwing it at your head, Josh had asked for the bread, you just were in the way.” She squirmed a little; she didn’t like lying. Well it wasn’t really a lie, Josh had asked her for the bread, and Jake’s head had been in the way, sort of “I never in a million years expected for you to be here today! You think you can…Argh! What’s the point? You obviously don’t care about other people’s feelings.” She stared him down for a moment and then stalked out. She wanted to hit herself over the head with her own shoe. Great start at letting the past go Eva. She knew he wasn’t entirely responsible for the misery in which she had lived for the past eight years, although admittedly until a few days ago, she hadn’t known it was misery. But he had this knack of making her forget her best intentions. She was afraid to let go of the anger, afraid that if she let go of that, she would have to truly admit she was in love with him, and then there would be nothing left at all to protect her.
For the rest of the afternoon, she spied on him from the corner of her eyes and saw how he was with other people; he seemed to be charming and considerate. Always had easy smiles and kind words, and her nieces seemed to have fallen in love with him. They were each hanging from a leg, and he was good naturedly dragging them along. He was good with people, he was an entirely different person with them then he was with her. The seconds ticked away slowly; the afternoon dragged by. She cringed as she saw him charm young and old women alike, she grinded her teeth at his easy smile, almost gagged when she saw a woman put a possessive hand on his arm. That flirt could have him; she could not care less. Yet even as she thought the words, she knew they weren’t essentially true. She didn’t want him, well that was a lie; she really wanted him but knew she couldn’t have him. She didn’t want any other women to have him either; it hurt too much to think about it. She knew her jealousy was irrational, and that upset her even more because she had never been a jealous person before. Once again, she shrugged and forced herself to look elsewhere, she successfully averted his eyes until, as she was getting ready to leave, she saw him come her way. She tried to get away, but he sensed her moves and still managed to catch up with her. He started talking to her abruptly, no prologue, just plain…
“Your brother told me you’d be fine about me being here. He said you and him had a talk. I didn’t know it wasn’t true. I would never have come had I known otherwise. Despite what you may think, my main purpose in life is not to make you uncomfortable or upset. But I should have known better then to think all of it is behind us since we cant seem to be in the same room, or in this case, the same backyard without exchanging harsh words. For not thinking about that, I am sorry. As for me being your brother’s friend again, well even after that Christmas, and even after him and I stopped talking, I still considered him a friend. And no matter what you say or do, you can’t take that away. Yes, you and I caused pain to each other; yes it would have been difficult to still be friends with your brother back then. It would always have come back to what happened between us, what I had done to his little sister, what happened that I didn’t even bother seeing you in the house after we got back very early from the dance. I couldn’t talk about it, and he probably would have wanted to kill me for the thoughts I had about you. It would have been impossible for me to visit back then, but now…now, you are no longer part of the equation. I knew it was a bad idea back then to take you out, but it’s not something I could help. I wanted to do so too much. Today, I wish I had never said yes, and I am sure you feel the same, but unfortunately we have yet to invent the time machine, so we can’t change the past. My friendship with Josh remains an entirely different matter. I do understand better how you feel now, and I will try not to cross your path again.” He sighed and ran his hand through his already disheveled hair. “I, however, can’t guarantee it will always be possible. In exchange of me trying to stay out of your hair, can you please try and be less tense about it all? And for what it matters, I am sorry for the way I have been treating you since we ran into each other. Remnant of the past, I suppose. I am over it now. I hate to admit it but it was shock seeing you again.”
Eva felt childish and not just a little embarrassed that she had thought he was here only to annoy her, she felt foolish for thinking that him being there had something to do with her. How self-centered of her. He was right of course, Josh and him had been the best of friends at one point, and them not speaking for so long was due in part to her. Her brother had lost his best friend because of her, and there she was trying to push him away again. Maybe she did owe Jake an apology for insinuating he was a total jerk. Which he wasn’t, well not entirely anyway, just half of one. She realized that no matter what, he too had to deal with their past.
“Alright, I guess I should say sorry too. It’s just that every time I see you I feel so rattled and forget my manners. I am sorry I broke our truce, and…” she knew she was getting into dangerous terrain when the idea first popped into her head but she had to say it. “Well maybe we could have dinner one day and work on that being more comfortable with each other thing, since if you are going to be friends with Josh, I am afraid I’ll still see you a lot.”
“Eva, I am not sure this is such a good idea.”
Well of course it wasn’t, even she knew that. What had she been thinking?
“Oh, you are right of course, a very bad idea.” She turned and once again walked away. But not swiftly enough so he didn’t notice the flicker of hurt in her eyes.
Jake stood and watched her leave. He wished he could have said yes to t
he dinner idea, but as he had said earlier, he regretted saying yes once, he wouldn’t do the same mistake again.
Chapter eleven
“Alex, I can’t do this.” Eva was panicking. Why did she ever listen to Alex, why on earth had she accepted to go on a blind date? How could she go on that date when she knew it was doomed even before it started?
“Come on Eva, get a grip. It’s not a question of life and death; it’s a date. Plus Andrew will be there in 20 minutes so you can’t very well cancel now, can you?”
“You’re right of course, it’s just that I am so confused, and I don’t think I’ll be very good company. He will hate you for setting him up with me.”
“When did you become a coward? Seriously Eva, everything is going to be fine, and if its not, well it’s not. It’s not the end of the world. You just call me when you get back ok?”
“Ok.”
“And Eva?”
“Yes…?”
“Smile, it’s not as bad as it seems to you right now, you risk the chance of having fun, what’s wrong with that?”
“Maybe you are right, I promise I will behave.”
“Well now, you don’t have to behave, if you know what I mean” she answered naughtily.
“You are incorrigible Alex. Can’t you be serious for a moment?” This of course was a rhetorical question, for they both had heard the smile in Eva’s words.