Switch and Bait

by Ricki Schultz

  I just chew the inside of my cheek and empty the contents of my glass.

  This is good practice for Thanksgiving, I decide.

  It’s not until the conversation makes it way to gun laws that I press my napkin to my lips and excuse myself to the patio.

  And drift back three years…

  * * *

  I stand beneath the twinkly lights Isla and I spent all afternoon festooning about the patio. Rows of strings making dreamy drapes in this tiny space and dazzling against the inky sky.

  “Who’s going to want to go outside in the cold?” Graham had bustled into their formal dining room during one of his trips from the storage space with their fancy china.

  A hand to Isla’s hip. “Just because no one will be out there doesn’t mean it can’t look nice through the window,” she’d replied. “It’s…cozy.” She placed the smallest of pecks on his cheek and took the box from him.

  And she was right.

  Because here I am, beside the iced-over wrought iron table, shivering my way through a cigarette—but I’ll be damned if I don’t feel cozy.

  “You know, you shouldn’t smoke.” A commanding voice cuts through the brisk air, and I start.

  Rearrange my scarf as my adrenaline spikes when recognition sets in.

  Graham’s brother. Here we go.

  His boots crack on the ice as he reaches me, dark jeans peeking out beneath his wool topcoat.

  “I know,” I say with a conceding nod and then take a fuck-you drag. The smoke billows out into a cloud, just where I’d aimed it. “You shouldn’t be a Republican either.” I gesture toward him with the offensive item.

  I can picture him at a podium getting foamy mouthed, defending whatever GOP representative he serves as senior advisor.

  I shudder. There’s an annoying itch beneath my sternum at the thought.

  But then there’s something more.

  The moonlight catches just right, and it illuminates him. Makes his hair brighter, even more golden and inviting and impossible to ignore, like a lost treasure that’s just been discovered. Half of me wants to toss the cigarette and grab a fistful of that hair—get my fingers caught in it—pull him to me, dirty conservative or not. Teach him a thing or two about how the world works.

  A traitorous warmth stirs in my cheeks and leaks its way down my arms, my legs. Through the whole of my body.

  This arrogant Eddie Haskell thing I’m normally immune to is totally working for him.

  Maybe I’m just hammered already.

  He’s still cracking up at my quip about his political affiliation, his head falling back in a loud guffaw. He runs a hand through that slicked hair.

  “I’ll stop as soon as you stop being a lib—or a brat. Whichever comes first. Potato, potahto, really.” He gives me the side-eye. “So did you ever marry that—” He snatches ahold of my ring finger and does a little tut-tut-tut at its nakedness.

  I reclaim my hand as quickly as he took it and wave it in dismissal at him. “No need to feel sorry for me; that was another lifetime ago. I’m not even the same person I was then.” I offer a light chuckle and take another puff.

  “No?” A smile stretches across his lips. “Who are you now then?”

  Tough-girl shrug. “I’m the White Witch, can’t you tell?” But then I soften my tone around the edges. “‘Four-eyes,’ if you prefer. I’m sure you’ve met a lot of chicks in the last four years.” I wink. “Henry, right?” I squint like I don’t quite recall.

  “Reporting for duty.” He does a two-finger salute. Which could be douchey and I kind of want to think is douchey because it’s Henry—

  But it’s not for some reason.

  The amusement in his blue eyes and the smile he half stifles gives away his intent. Geeky sarcasm. It wins me over.

  I hate that.

  “Like I could forget you.” He lifts his brow. “You know, ‘Blanche’ means white. How apropos then, if you’re the White Witch.”

  “Are you mansplaining my own name to me?” I cannot help myself.

  He backs up a tick and snorts. “Of course I am. I’m a white male and, therefore, the enemy, right?”

  He’s shaking his head, and my own laugh catches me off guard. But there it is, light and feathery in the still of the night.

  “I hate that your smart-assery is totally working, but ah well. It’s New Year’s.”

  That smile of his widens.

  “Cheers,” he says, toasting me with a glass of what smells like bourbon. “Can I bum one of those, by the way?” He points to my smoke, and I nearly do a spit take.

  “You—”A shiver invigorates me as the frigid air hits my mouth, which is now hanging open.

  “You don’t know my life.” His tone is playful.

  “I guess I don’t.” I give him a cigarette and settle back into my corner. Cross one leg over the other. “But you weren’t wrong before. I shouldn’t smoke. And neither should you.”

  He nods. “Indeed. Filthy habit.”

  I watch him light up. His lips, as he tightens them around one impossibly long drag. He closes his eyes and everything about his posture relaxes, his face awash in an orange glow.

  When he comes back to Earth, he catches my stare and he grins again. He leans against the brick, inches from me. Not quite closing the space between us. But my whole left side tingles at his presence emanating there, so close. Like we’ve got tiny magnets buzzing just beneath the surface of our skin, desperate to connect.

  “Maybe it should be our resolution this year,” he says, examining his cig. “I have been trying to kick it. I don’t even enjoy it anymore.”

  “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a smoker,” I say, narrowing my gaze and examining my own cancer stick.

  “Thought you had me all figured out, huh?” He gives me another side-eye, and I can’t help but grin.

  Dammit.

  “I mean, yeah, I’m usually a pretty good judge?”

  “Well, this time, Your Honor, you were wrong.” He casts his cigarette aside and leans close. Warmth radiates between us and ignites my frozen skin against the whipping wind.

  The sounds of the street, the whooshes of passing cars, the laughter of drunken partiers, it’s all a muffled haze around us.

  I follow his stare, sparkling and blue as the icicles that hang from the railings.

  He gets closer still. A low rumble of a whisper: “Wanna get out of here?”

  It’s a question he asks my lips, his gaze affixed to them as I drink in his scent, hints of smoke and herb and wood. The intoxicating trace of bourbon on the air.

  My mouth parts. I swallow in answer and the moment gives way to laughter for both of us.

  Definitely not what I expected tonight.

  Without another word, he takes the cigarette from my hand. Threads his fingers through mine, and suddenly we’re both cracking up as he’s leading me back into the kitchen.

  Isla’s face lights as she catches us giggling our way past her. I throw her a quick glance over my shoulder—Are we really doing this?—and then Henry yanks me down the hall into the spare bedroom and shuts the door behind us.

  At first, the darkness engulfs me. All my other senses awaken, as I can’t see a thing.

  The invigorating scrape of his scruff against my cheeks, my chin, as his mouth finds mine.

  The velvet of his tongue as he searches in the dark.

  The silk of guests’ coats against my skin, as Henry shoves them out of the way.

  The soft thud of them slipping off the bed.

  The slap of leather as a belt hits the hardwood floor.

  The scratch—the rip—of the bedspread against his fingernails as he makes space.

  The thrill of his fingers as they wind around my waist.

  The snap of my bra clasp. The sweet sting at my back.

  Light leaks its way in from beneath the door and mists over us like in a dream. I scramble to unbutton Henry’s shirt, his jeans, the party still strong on the other side of these walls.
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  I jump at the pounding of feet as someone makes his or her way down the hall. The steps pounding in time with my pulse as it quickens. As Henry takes hold of my breasts with both hands. Squeezes. His breath sending hot waves of desire through me and down to my toes.

  I can’t help but run my hands down his neck, let them slide down his chest, down, down, down, over every knot, every ripple. Memorizing the feel of his solid body. Entangling him in my smooth legs.

  Every second our skin doesn’t touch—every button—every zipper—the tights I thought would be a good idea when I put on this dress—now an obstacle. We grapple against the barriers, against one another, muscles fiery from the exertion, until at last nothing separates him from me but thick anticipation as I hear him tear open the condom wrapper.

  I bite down on a gasp as he enters me—it’s been far too long. The weight of his body, his labored breaths as the two of us struggle to stay quiet, as we fight to hold on, sets every inch of me ablaze. I can’t take it much longer.

  I dig my nails across the expanse of his back. A sharp intake of breath.

  He presses a strong hand to my mouth, the other to my throat. Firm, yet gentle. But his efforts to keep me quiet—the pressure he applies—only stands to awaken. To heighten. To intensify the fireworks between us. A swell of pyrotechnics, and I almost see them, white and blinding, behind my eyelids.

  Nothing can stifle my cry out now.

  And my exhilaration must be too much for him because it’s then that I feel him toil—lose control. I yank him closer, pull him deeper, give him everything I am in that moment, take everything he is, until we are nothing but an entanglement of arms and legs and breaths and heartbeats.

  When I dare to emerge from our sweaty little cove, slink my way through the hall, it’s so bright I feel like everyone can see this rendezvous written on my face. As though they know all my deepest, darkest secrets. Each bit of eye contact I make, an interrogation. Each whisper, about me.

  There’s a fine line between extreme paranoia and extreme narcissism.

  When I make it to the kitchen to refill our drinks, however, Isla’s beside herself with excitement. She stops pouring a glass of red wine and suddenly she’s grabbing my hands and pulling me into schoolgirl circles. Her eyes are so gigantic they threaten to fall right out of her head.

  “You look a little…disheveled.” She giggles as I try to regain my balance. “How’s it going?”

  And before I have a chance to answer, she starts chattering away like a squirrel on coke.

  Something about it makes me feel more naked than I just was in that room with Henry. Makes me reach for my collar—hold it closed.

  I want to keep this between him and me. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I’ve seen what getting ahead of oneself can do to people—what it’s done to my friends in the past—and I just…

  This just happened minutes ago. Seconds, even!

  The need to stop her claws its way from the pit of my stomach right up to my cheekbones. She keeps prattling on, and I scratch at my neck, rub at my chest, anything to get this itchy, exposed feeling to subside.

  “I just can’t believe this!” she’s saying. “Graham didn’t think—but I—”

  “Hon.” I snatch the double old-fashioned glasses from her and set them on the counter with a clunk. Take hold of her shoulders.

  This one syllable deflates her whole stance and I should just leave it at that, but I can’t. I don’t, for some reason.

  Rule Number 1 is too ingrained in me, I suppose. I’ve got to hammer it in. Always get the last word.

  “We are not going to be getting married and living next door to you guys and going on vacations together.”

  There’s a pout to her bottom lip. “But—”

  I clap a palm to my forehead. “Too messy. One, I can’t be getting involved with a—” I glance left to right, then whisper: “Conservative.”

  “I’m conservative.”

  “Yes, and I don’t plan on starting a relationship with you either,” I say.

  She giggles. Pushes me off. “You’re so silly. Why the hell couldn’t it work? James Carville and his wife—”

  “That’s nice for them. But that’s not even the biggest issue. Two, did I ever even tell you what he did at the wedding? He slept with—”

  I can’t even bring myself to say it just now. Not so soon after I—hello—slept with him.

  Instead, I shake my head like I’m trying to shake the thought out of it, and continue: “Henry Hughes is good for a one-night stand, sure. But that’s—”

  I’m about to finish my thought when Graham appears and steals the moment by presenting us with a tray full of Jell-O shots.

  “Take one of these, ladies. It’ll make you feel better.”

  We do as we’re told and—clink.

  And just as the alcohol is making me fizzy, making me think, Maybe I will start a relationship with this Henry. Maybe he could be more than just a one-time thing, I return to the guest room to find the man in question tossing around jackets and scarves, the look in his eyes wild as he seems to be searching for something.

  “Hey,” I croon. Lean against the door frame for support, drink sloshing in one hand.

  “You know, I’m not some asshole,” he says, any trace of warmth gone from his tone.

  I kind of chuckle and then clap my free hand over my mouth. I’m still high from our encounter and light from the drinks; I can’t help but find his Sudden Seriousness amusing.

  “What are you looking for?” I ask in the soberest manner I can muster.

  He stops his frantic search at once and meets my gaze. The stone in his stare tells me he does not share in my amusement. In fact, there’s a hint of what looks like hurt behind those eyes, but he blinks it away as quickly as I think I perceive it.

  And I’m drunk anyway, so who really knows.

  “Apparently more than you are.” He snorts and goes back to scavenging through the discarded garments until he locates the missing item—his topcoat.

  “What’s wrong? Where are you going?”

  I take a step toward him, injecting concern into my voice, and when he meets my gaze this time, it flattens me.

  I grab at his arm as he shrugs on his coat. He stops at my touch, an energy still buzzing between us but quite different than it was a few moments ago.

  “I heard what you said to Isla. I was on my way back from the pisser.” He shakes his head. Twists that beautiful mouth of his into a scowl.

  He won’t look at me now.

  My own dumb mouth opens, but no words come out. For some reason, this indictment chokes me silent.

  There’s a flicker in his gaze I can’t quite place, but I can see he wants an answer.

  His stare yanks at something behind my ribs, it stabs—and I want to tell him I didn’t really mean it. I want to tell him all my deepest hopes and fears.

  But that’s a lot to articulate in five seconds’ time.

  And, after all, he did sleep with those chicks at the wedding, so why’s he getting so bent out of shape that I’d think him shallow?

  The only thing I can force out is some stuttering version of “N-n-n-n-no” that sounds so stupid, so contrived, so slurred (probably), that I don’t blame Henry for getting even angrier.

  He laughs. It’s a mean, cold sound that does a good job of sobering me up ruhl quick.

  “That’s fine. No big deal.” He tosses his palms ceilingward then buttons his coat. “Happy New Year,” he mutters, and then he slams the door behind him.

  Chapter 3

  I’m lost in the memory and embarrassed all over again. I don’t know how many cigarettes I’ve sucked down out here (two? twenty?) when Henry appears, hanging out the window to the patio, like somehow he can hear my thoughts.

  “Mind if I join you?” He looks like a damn Tommy Hilfiger ad with his sleeves rolled neatly midforearm, and it’s déjà vu, save for the weather.

  I’ve done a decent job of hiding my own mortif
ication this evening, so I try to continue my efforts by keeping my tone even. Light. “You’re still smoking, then, eh?”

  He grunts. “Apparently.”

  “I guess we suck at resolutions.”

  The instant it slips out, I wince.

  Why why WHY am I so bad at life?

  He’s merciful, though, and merely offers a chuckle in response. Sits at the table opposite me, wrought iron scraping across the pavement as he gets comfortable.

  “Speaking of,” he says, “could I borrow one from you? I think I left my pack in the…” He pats at his pockets, a solid couple of thuds against his chest, and seems to have come up empty.

  “There’s always one of those, isn’t there?” I click my tongue and hand the pack to him. “And no need to borrow—you can just have it.”

  The grammar Nazi is strong with me today.

  A moment goes by, and I consider addressing the three-year-old elephant tromping around on the patio. That fight, or whatever that was with Henry, had been the one time since Rule Number 1’s inception that I didn’t get the last word, and it irks me as we sit and listen to the sounds of far-off traffic, the neighbors’ children resisting bedtime next door, the occasional car horn.

  “How’s she doing, by the way?” He breaks my reverie and nods in the direction of the picture window.

  There’s a yank behind my stomach and my cheeks warm again—or they’re warm still? I can’t be sure—like he knows what I’m thinking and changes the subject.

  When I don’t answer, he continues. “I haven’t been around much lately, and I don’t know, it’s awkward to bring up, I suppose.”

  I reposition myself on the chair. It seems to bring about a whole new perspective.

  “Me too. It’s like, am I an awful person?” I laugh, and he lets a torturous beat go by.

  That elephant gets up from its corner of the patio and starts twerking in my mind’s eye.

  Does he see it too?

  And then he lets out a snort. “I’m probably not the best person to answer that.”