After All I've Done

by Mina Hardy

  “I want to leave Jonathan.”

  Trina doesn’t even blink. She just lifts her glass and waits for me to clink mine against hers. “Get a good lawyer, that’s all I have to say. Divorce is expensive, but I took a look at the calendar and my life, and I decided I couldn’t just wait around for him to die.”

  The warmth from the wine is flowing through me. I drain my glass and nod at the passing server for another, making a small circle with my finger to indicate he should bring Trina one too. “Did you want him dead?”

  “Not enough to kill him,” Trina says. “But I guess there’s always next week.”

  “Listen, I want to apologize.”

  “I already told you—”

  “No.” I shake my head. “About how I kind of just … well, when Val moved back home …”

  “I get it. She’s your bestie. And honestly, Diana, I was in a bad place for a while. It wasn’t just you not reaching out. I was kind of holed up in my own little world.”

  “I should have been there for you.”

  “You’re here for me now,” she says.

  Fifteen minutes later, Trina and I are in the middle of the dance floor. It’s been so long since I moved this way, easy and free. I’m expecting to feel drunk after two glasses of wine, but unlike the past few times I’ve indulged, I’m no more than slightly buzzed. If anything, I feel a clarity I haven’t had in ages.

  The music thumps, and my body moves. My husband out of town and my best friend is somewhere else. And I … I can let them both go. Not yet sure exactly when or how I’ll do it, but for the first time since I got home from the hospital, I feel like I can start moving forward instead of staying stuck in one place.

  A young guy moves up behind Trina so smooth there’s no way anyone could call her the cougar. He’s clearly the predator in this case, but he’s charming about it. Hitting on her hard. His friend, shorter, not as cute, looks a little sheepish as he tries to dance with me.

  “I’m Matt,” he yells over the music.

  “Dee,” I yell back, because I’m not giving him my real name. No way.

  I’m up for the dancing, but Matt and I aren’t meshing. Matt tries, bless his heart, by putting his hands on my hips. But we don’t move together. He tries to go right, I’m twisting left. I try to let him lead, but he’s not very good at it.

  Trina and her guy are grinding. I mean, so is almost everyone else, and I’m not sure when that happened, but it’s that magic time of the night. The tipping point when everyone’s had just enough to drink and it’s close enough to closing time that suddenly finding someone to go home with becomes more important than who that person is.

  I look for Trina in the crowd. She’s sucking face with her dance partner. I wave Matt away when the song changes and push my way through the crowd. In the shadows around the back edge of the bar, I take a breath of cooler air. I type a text to Trina to let her know where I am.

  They say in dreams you can’t read or make out numbers, and if you ever wonder if you’re asleep and dreaming or awake, just try to read something. So, am I dreaming, I think as I hit the small arrow to send the message to my friend. I must be dreaming, because I look up to see the shadows move and shift next to me, revealing someone standing there.

  It’s Cole.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Cole

  I’d been watching Diana for the past hour or so. Drinking with her friend. Then dancing. I wanted to punch that little punk in the face for trying to make the moves on her, even though I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t intended to approach her tonight, just watch, but when she made a beeline for me, I figured it was fate. A swath of red and blue light washes over us for a moment, lighting up her face.

  “Cole,” she says, loud enough for me to hear her over the blast of music. Her teeth shine purple-white. “Hi!”

  I lean close enough to say into her ear, “Hey, Diana. Fancy meeting you here.”

  “I’m out with my friend!” Her breath is warm, fruity with wine.

  “Hey!” Her friend, breathless, appears and gives me a look, but only a quick one. She turns to Diana. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Where’s your boy toy?” Diana says with a grin.

  Her friend gives me another swift glance. “He’s waiting for me.”

  “Go,” Diana tells her. “I’m going to head home. Oh, Trina, this is Cole. We took a painting class together.”

  Trina’s gone in the next minute, leaving me and Diana alone.

  Diana’s lips move, but I can’t hear her. She tries again. “I asked you if you’re here alone!”

  “Oh. Yeah. My buddy just left. I was about to leave too.” The lie slides out of me, smooth as silk, so neatly I should feel bad about it, except in the case of lies, I never really do.

  I follow her outside, where our breaths make smoke. Her teeth chatter. She’s only wearing a thin top and a short skirt. I shrug out of my jacket without a second thought and hang it gently on her shoulders.

  “I was going to call for a car. You know. A Ryde.” Her voice is loud out here. Echoing.

  “It’ll be a twenty-minute wait for a car. I’ll drive you,” I tell her. “I only had one beer before my buddy had to go. Really, Diana, it’s freaking freezing out here. Let me give you a ride.”

  She nods then and follows me to the Mustang. I turn the heat on high to stop her shivering. We sit in the parking lot, staring toward the front entrance of the bar. I can smell her perfume and the wine on her breath.

  “I don’t want to go home,” Diana says.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Diana

  “Where do you want to go?” Cole asks.

  “How about your place?”

  Is it the wine buzz that’s already fading? Is it the way he smells, the cologne I’ve grown so used to, the faintest hint of cigarettes? Is it the coffee-not-dates and the way he makes me laugh?

  Is it revenge?

  I don’t know my reasons for asking this of Cole, but he must have his own reasons for agreeing because he puts the car in drive and heads out of the parking lot without so much as a raise of his eyebrows. I lean forward and twist on the radio. I expect classic rock, but I get classical.

  “Schubert? You listen to Schubert?” I lean back and look at him.

  Cole glances at me before looking back at the road. His fingers tighten on the wheel. “Yeah. It’s a CD. It was a gift.”

  “I love Schubert,” I say and fall silent as the sounds of the cello fill the car. “The cello is my favorite instrument.”

  Grit spatters the underside of the car as Cole drives. Schubert’s melody surrounds us. I can’t blame this on being drunk, and really, I don’t want to have an excuse. I’m making this choice. I know where it’s going to lead. I should feel bad or guilty about it, but I don’t.

  Cole lives in a double-wide trailer on a large lot a couple miles out of town in the opposite direction from my house. Probably about twenty minutes away, longer if you get stuck at the train tracks with a train going by. I haven’t been on this side of town in years, and I tell him so.

  Cole’s laugh is rough as he turns off the ignition. “No reason to visit the wrong side of the tracks, huh?”

  As if on cue, the train howls. We both laugh. With the heat off, the car is getting cold fast. I have a moment in which I think about asking him to turn it back on, to drive me home instead. But then he’s got his car door open, and the cold is rough, like a slap, and I’ve got my door open too.

  Then we are inside his house, and it’s warm, and before I can think about stopping myself, I let him close the door behind us, and when he turns, I grab the front of his shirt with my better hand and pull him closer. I push up on my toes to offer him my mouth, so I can’t be sure who starts the actual kiss, only that it goes on and on and on, until Cole lets out a low moan and pushes me back against the door, and I cry out. Not so much because it hurts … but because it could.

  “Oh shit, Diana. I’m sorry.” He pul
ls away from the kiss. His face is flushed, his eyes bright. His mouth is wet, and the sight of it sends sparkling sizzles all through me.

  “It’s okay. It just aches if I’m not careful.”

  We stare at each other. I’m breathing hard. So is he. I want him, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

  “Can I get you a drink?” He backs up a step.

  The moment is getting lost, but I’m not about to force it. I don’t know how to navigate this business of beginning an affair, and to be honest I’m not sure I intend for this to be more than a single night. Can you call a one-night stand an affair? I have no idea.

  “Sure. Water, please.” My laugh is self-conscious, and I realize I don’t want him to think he’s taking advantage of me.

  I take the chance to look around his place as I follow him through the tidy but sparsely furnished living room and a small, equally neat but empty dining room. His galley kitchen is decorated in hues of beige and forest green, with red accents in the wallpaper border.

  “Roosters?” I ask with a small chuckle.

  Cole looks at me over his shoulder as he opens the fridge. “They came with the place. I keep meaning to redecorate, but then I always figure I’m not going to be here much longer, and I never get around to it.”

  “Oh, you … you think you’re moving? Away?” I take the cold can of seltzer he hands me. Pink grapefruit. That’s my favorite.

  “Always thinking of moving away,” he says.

  I crack the top of the can and sip, meeting his gaze before I speak. “But you haven’t.”

  “Haven’t so far, nope.”

  “What keeps you around?” The seltzer’s fizz is crisp and delicious.

  Cole doesn’t answer me at first. He leans against the counter, both hands gripping it behind him. He licks his lower lip like he’s tasting me on his mouth. The idea of it sends another series of shivers through me. I don’t want anything else to drink, but suddenly I am so, so thirsty.

  “A job?” I ask, to break the silence. “Family?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “A woman,” I say with a small hitch in my voice that I hate because it gives away too much.

  “It’s always a woman, isn’t it?”

  I put my can on his small kitchen table. I want to step closer to him, but now I’m a little too shy. “If you have someone, why am I here?”

  “Because you asked me to bring you here,” Cole replies in a low voice.

  Tension crackles between us. Only one, two, maybe three steps at most would put me in his arms again. Neither of us moves.

  “What would she think about that?” I manage to say.

  Cole’s lips press together, like my question gives him a pain. “She wouldn’t give it any thought at all.”

  “You broke up?”

  He’s silent.

  “She broke it off?”

  “It ended,” Cole says, “but neither of us wanted it to. It was circumstances. Shit luck. That’s all.”

  “My husband is sleeping with my best friend.” I want him to know this. I want him to understand that I have a reason for being here, that I’m not the sort of woman to have an affair without justification. “I keep waiting for him to leave me for her. I think he would have already except that I had the accident, and now he feels obligated to stay. That’s how it feels to me anyway. Maybe that’s just my own projection.”

  “Why don’t you leave him?” Cole’s tone is rough.

  “I used to think it was because I loved him. Isn’t that why people usually stay?”

  “What about now?”

  Now? Now I’m not sure I have an answer, especially standing here in another man’s house far too late at night while my husband is out of town.

  “Money. Some people stay for the kids. I stayed for the bank account.” I can’t tell by his expression if he’s disgusted with me or sympathetic. “Here’s what the bridal magazines never tell you. You can be alone in a marriage, or you can be alone out of one. Sometimes, the only difference is where you get to go on vacation. I have a very comfortable life, financially, and I used to think that would be enough.”

  “But you don’t anymore?”

  “I’m done, but I can’t leave yet. If I can prove that he’s maintained a long-term physical and emotional relationship with someone else, I can clean him out. I don’t yet have all the proof I need.” I don’t say this with any kind of pride. I signed that prenup thinking it would protect me. I never dreamed it would end up like this.

  Cole’s face is still impassive, but at least I don’t think I’ve repulsed him. “And if he decides to leave you before you get it?”

  “Then he wins,” I say. “I have to be the one to bring the first accusation.”

  “What if he finds out about this?”

  “This,” I say as I take a step toward him, “is no proof of an emotional relationship, and it’s not at all long term.”

  Cole takes the next step toward me. “And what if that changes?”

  “I’m here now. That’s all I can tell you, Cole. That’s all I can think about right this minute.”

  We each take that final step. The kiss this time is softer, sweeter. His hands go easily to the curve of my hips, where they fit just right. When he breaks the kiss, he lets his forehead rest on mine. His eyes are closed. Mine aren’t, and I swear I can count each of his eyelashes, so much darker than the hair on his head or even the red-gold scruff of his beard.

  “Open your eyes,” I whisper.

  He does. They are the color of whiskey in a crystal glass held up in front of the light. A thin rim of green surrounds his pupils, gone wide and dark. Cole’s eyes are beautiful, and I lose myself in them.

  “Bedroom?” he asks.

  I nod. For a moment I’m convinced he’s going to sweep me off my feet and carry me there, and as romantic and sexy as that sounds, my entire body tenses at the thought of how it would hurt. I sigh, relieved, when instead, he guides me by the small of my back through the dining room and living room, and down the hall toward a big bedroom at the end of it.

  The only light comes from the hall, but I can see a king-sized bed, neatly made. Pleated shades are drawn over the windows. A mirror set over an antique dresser reflects light and our shadows as he leads me to the bed. He whisks away the comforter to reveal white sheets. Flannel, I feel when he gently, gently lays me down.

  We work together to get out of our clothes. He is careful of my arms and shoulders, and I am conscious of how much he’s paying attention to make sure that nothing hurts me. When we are both naked, he tugs the comforter up and over us as he settles between my legs. I feel the hot length of him against my belly.

  We are kissing, kissing, kissing. It’s sweet and hot and delicious. His mouth traces a pattern of kisses along my jaw, my throat, over my breasts. I gasp at the tug of his lips on my nipples. Lower, Cole slides his tongue along my ribs. Over the scars from my surgery, which are still pink and ugly but no longer hurt. He pauses to touch the one directly beneath my ribs with his fingertip.

  “Gallbladder,” I say in a low voice. “The night of the car accident, I was driving myself to the hospital with a gallbladder attack.”

  He kisses me again. Harder this time. One big hand moves to my rear, and he tugs to slide me beneath him again. His hand moves between my thighs, where his questing fingers find the perfect spot without effort.

  Everything Cole does is perfect. He has me on the edge in minutes. He moans into my open mouth. I want him inside me, but before I can so much as mention it, he rolls off me and fumbles in the nightstand. He kneels in front of me to tear open the condom and put it on. Then he’s between my legs again, filling me, and I gasp at the surprise and pleasure of it.

  Time slows as the desire builds. I’m not sure how exactly he’s managing it, but he’s moving inside me while kissing, and his hand is between us, stroking in perfect time. I am mindless, but not without a voice, even if I can only manage gasps and groans and finally, at the end,
his name.

  We finish together, and I am astounded at that and how good it was. Cole’s face is buried against my neck. He’s holding his weight mostly off me, which I appreciate, but I put my arms around his back anyway to hold him close. He’s warm and smells like sex, and in that moment, I am fully content in a way I haven’t been in a long, long time.

  When he finally rolls to the side to lay on his back next to me, I’m so lazy and comfortable that I don’t want to move. I have to, though. I need the toilet and I want to rinse out the taste of stale wine from my mouth. And even though I know I’ll be going home to an empty house, I would like to take a shower before I do.

  “Towels are in the closet,” Cole says sleepily. “Do you want me to get you one …?”

  I lean to kiss him lightly. “No. I’ll be fine.”

  His bathroom is clean, something I note and appreciate. In the small closet tucked between the shower/tub and the wall, I find a stack of plush navy-blue towels. I pull one out, shifting the pile, and a crinkly manila envelope shifts with it, tipping forward. I catch it before it can fall off the shelf, but not before the contents begin to slip free of the flap.

  Money.

  Lots of money.

  Embarrassed, I look over my shoulder to make sure Cole hasn’t suddenly materialized behind me and caught me snooping. I heard the low rumble of a snore, but my heart’s still racing. I tuck the money back inside as neatly as I can and push it back into the place alongside the towels.

  I don’t wash in the shower so much as rinse. I’m done in a few minutes and dry myself quickly. At his sink, I use my finger and some of his toothpaste to brush my teeth, and then I cup my hand beneath the faucet to catch some cold water. I take several swallows. I’m not buzzed anymore, but I can’t tell if the hangover is starting or if I’m just exhausted because it’s so late.

  I stare at my reflection, trying to see if I look like something’s changed. Side to side, I turn my face. I don’t look any different.

  But nothing feels the same.