Tangled Thoughts

by Cara Bertrand

  I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

  Finally, I said, “It was great.”

  “Are you just placating me or what here?”

  “No, I mean it. It was great.”

  “So, then, where are the exclamation points?!” Amy huffed. “Why aren’t you sighing and going on about tasting and stroking and what not.”

  “What? Are you drunk?”

  “No.” She sighed, and I heard the soft, squishy sound of her million pillows as she flopped onto them. “I’ve been reading romances in my loneliness. They’re always going on about tasting him, tasting her, and what the hell? This isn’t dinner. But anyway, are you going to taste that again, or are you one and done?”

  “I’m not anything.” That was a lie. “I’m…confused.” I told her how I left and she whistled.

  “You really are my heartbreaker, aren’t you.”

  “It was one night.”

  “One you both waited for months to have—don’t try to deny it.” I wasn’t denying. “He’s been following you around awfully faithfully if all he wanted was to ba—”

  “Amy. It’s not about him.”

  She was quiet for a few, considering. Finally, “Is it Carter? Are you…regretting?”

  “It’s just…me.” And it was. I did regret everything in relation to Carter, but Jill had been right—ultimately, I’d chosen. I’d chosen everything, including last night. I’d been thinking about Jack for weeks and weeks, but that was abstract, fantasy. A crush. Reality was scary. There was so much that could go wrong.

  “Lane,” she said, paused, then started again. “Remember our conversation over the summer? I’m starting to worry again.”

  On our summer “Yes Day”, the crazy day I got my tattoo and kissed a random stranger, Amy had been brave enough to ask me if I was fighting depression. And I’d told her the truth—I didn’t know. Was it depression when the thing causing your inner-darkness had a name and a face and was running for president? And, now, worse, dating your mother-figure and fathering your brother or sister? But that wasn’t what was wrong.

  My problem was fear. Fear and sadness. I lamented what I’d given up and was afraid what I’d found would just be taken from me again. “I’m afraid,” I told her. “What if he’s too good to be true?”

  “Oh, Lane. What if he isn’t?” she countered. “What if he’s just…true?”

  What if he was? Maybe I was afraid of that, too.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Carter

  For the first time in—ever, the New Year felt entirely new. New city, new sites, new pressure of meeting your girlfriend’s parents. I’d met them many times before, but never as Alexis’s boyfriend, someone who should be worthy of her. I wasn’t, but I was trying. More every day.

  Uncle Dan had taken the birthday card from me, but I couldn’t bring myself to destroy the note. The idea alone made me feel bereft, incomplete. Instead, I relegated it to a tiny slot in my wallet and left it there, untouched. Someday maybe I’d have the courage to let it go, too.

  I thought about this as I sat alone drinking coffee and reading a newspaper at the approximate acre of Carrera marble that made up the Morrows’ kitchen island. The room was all so much gleaming white and blinding chrome. It looked like no one ever used it because the staff cleaned it faithfully every day. I had never been in a home with a full-time staff before. Uncle Dan’s ranch in Montana had a staff, but I’d never been there.

  “Up early again, I see.” My head snapped up to find Alexis’s mother in the doorway and I nearly spilled my coffee. She was wearing what I believed was called a peignoir. Whatever it was, for certain it left too little to the imagination. Jesus Christ. “Alexis told me that about you.”

  “Guilty,” I said, making sure not to look anywhere but her eyes or the counter. “It’s a habit. I can’t sleep late even if I want to.”

  “Enterprising. Brendan sleeps like the dead. He never even knows when I come and go.” She moved past me into the kitchen, making her own cup of coffee, before settling next to me at the island. She stirred in a heap of some sugar substitute, took a sip, and closed her eyes, making a contented sigh, like it was the best thing she’d taste all day. When she opened her eyes again, she said, “My daughter hasn’t brought a boy home in years you know.”

  “I’m honored. And hope I’m not a disappointment.”

  She smiled, flicking her eyes over me in a way that made me want to shift in my seat. “Not yet.” I held tight to my coffee and kept my eyes level. Barbie Morrow’s job was to be beautiful and she succeeded. Her daughter had inherited much from her, despite her father’s brown hair, but it all worked better on Alexis. I couldn’t tell which Barbie was more, jealous or proud. “Dan coming to the city soon?”

  There was a hopefulness in her voice that gave me pause. “I’m not sure. He offered me his apartment this week, though. Gave me the elevator code.”

  “Yes, well.” She waved her fingers. “I’m familiar with the code.” Before I could really think about that, she said, alarmed, “He hasn’t given it to my daughter, has he?”

  “I’m not—”

  “Who hasn’t given me what?” Lex said from the doorway. She was dressed already, a clinging dark sweater, pants, and boots, and it always amazed me how head-to-toe winter gear could be so sexy. She breezed past us to the coffee machine, like a sleek, black bird aiming for her prey. “And mother, really?” She pushed a discreet button on the counter and said, “Carmen, could you find mother’s robe? She seems to have misplaced it.”

  Not a minute later, Carmen bustled in with a blessedly opaque cashmere robe. “Here you are, Mrs. Morrow. It’s freezing out! Would you like me to find your slippers?”

  “Thank you, Carmen, this will be fine.” She slipped it over her shoulders and I was finally able to relax. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You or my thoughtful daughter.”

  Lex rolled her eyes. “Yes, mother, wouldn’t want you to be cold.”

  Carmen turned her attention on me. “Mr. Penrose, tomorrow I’ll have your breakfast ready for you, after your morning run.”

  I almost coughed my mouthful of coffee across the marble counter. “Thank you, Carmen.” Not for the first time, I felt entirely out of my depth. I wanted to tell Carmen not to worry about it, I was used to doing it myself, but I suspected that would be rude. Learning to negotiate social mores about accepting what was offered was a challenge. “Thank you,” I repeated.

  She nodded and disappeared back to whatever she’d been doing to keep the Good Ship Morrow running at peak performance. Alexis called her “the housekeeper” but Carmen was more like a household executive assistant. She had a staff of three and I suspected she made more in yearly salary than I did. Deservedly.

  “So you run every morning,” Barbie said, “even on vacation? Maybe I’ll—”

  “Mom!” Alexis’s mug rattled as she set it on the counter.

  “What?” She looked at her daughter with these innocent saucer eyes. Lex and her mother’s relationship, the entire Morrow family dynamic, was complex.

  “Just—isn’t it time for yoga?”

  Barbie sighed and carried her mug to the sink. “Probably. What are you kids doing today? I’ll be at the club for lunch if you—”

  “Mom. No. We’re doing the city. We’ll see you at dinner.” She turned to me before her mother could say anything else. “Ready, babe?”

  “WHAT’S THAT ONE?”

  Lex sighed. “It’s Rockefeller Center. See—giant Christmas tree, ice skaters? Jesus, babe, don’t you watch TV either?”

  Alexis found my lack of New York knowledge both hysterical and infuriating. I was having fun irritating her and, though she wouldn’t admit it, she was having fun showing off her city. It was cold, but bright, starkly beautiful and sexy, in its way. Kind of like Lex. Everything seemed to be black and white and yellow, with windows and taxis and puffs of breath glittering in the sun.

  “Let’s skate,” I said. Her look could
have murdered. “C’mon. It will be fun. Let me do something quintessentially New York.”

  “It is quintessentially tourist.”

  “Well, I’m a tourist. Let’s skate. I’ll buy you hot chocolate or something expensive afterward.”

  “No.”

  “Can’t you skate?” I poked her side and she crossed her arms.

  “Of course I can skate.”

  “Good. You can teach me.”

  “No.”

  “C’mon. You can watch me fall down.”

  I dragged her toward the rink but eventually she was leading. For a decidedly non-tourist, she knew right where to go.

  “So you have done this before,” I teased.

  After a sigh, she admitted, “Every little girl in New York does this.”

  I found that unlikely, considering I handed over nearly a hundred dollars before we took our first glide on the ice, but it was reality for Alexis. Her sphere of wealth and privilege extended so far, she had trouble remembering there was more beyond the edges of it. It was different from Lainey, who was alternately forgetting about her fortune or buying an armoire worth more than her car like it was nothing. I knew from living next door to it for my entire life that money wasn’t magic, but it was a better problem to have than some others.

  We stepped onto the ice together and I inched forward, away from the entrance, holding Lex’s hand. She tugged on my arm. “Watch my feet and push off. See?” She pulled me along for a few feet while I did as instructed, watching her skates make smooth strokes despite my extra weight. I was guessing she took lessons as a kid, possibly right here, and despite her protests, she liked this. “Ready?”

  “Yes.” I dropped her hand and my pretense, easily skating past her and into the flow of traffic.

  “Hey!” A glance over my shoulder showed the round O of surprise on her lips before they flattened into a pissed off line. She hurried to catch me. “You liar! You can skate!”

  When she got up next to me, I grinned and took her hand again. “I’m from New England—rural New England—remember? We play hockey.”

  “Well, I’m from New York. We don’t play fair.” She shoved me and dashed away while I caught my balance.

  I almost didn’t want to catch her, she looked so just…perfect weaving between the other skaters, her brown hair flowing behind her from under her little hat, having fun. Happy. She was happy and, I realized, so was I.

  Out here on a cold afternoon, chasing Lex through the crowds of tourists, I was happy. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been happy without trying, without thinking about it first. Alex was right in front of me now, letting herself be caught, and I wrapped my arms around her waist. She leaned back and let me push us along.

  “You’re such a cheater.”

  “Says the girl who doesn’t play fair.”

  “But you already knew that about me.”

  “So what’s something I don’t know?”

  She straightened and I let her go. “Watch!” she called as she gained some speed and distance, angling toward the inner ring of skaters. After making a tight circle around the more open center of the ice, she lifted one foot, sliding for a few feet before planting it and performing a perfect little spin jump. She twirled in a circle once more after landing and skated back to me, flushed and smiling.

  “I used to be able to do two revolutions, but still pretty good, huh?”

  I kissed her hand before we moved back into the flow. “Amazing, actually, Miss didn’t-want-to-do-this.”

  With a smile like daggers, she tugged her hand from mine. “Okay, your turn.”

  I laughed. “I can’t do that.”

  “So show me what you can do, Mr. I-can’t-skate.” She slapped my ass and pushed me forward.

  I could skate, really skate, a skill kind of like bike riding. Even if it had been a while, once I got back on the ice, the motion came back to me. I was as good skating backwards as forwards.

  I spun around, or at least I tried. It should have been easy. But I usually wore hockey skates when I did it and these were…not. My feet tangled and stuck, sending me tripping forward until I crashed to the ice in a pathetic imitation of Prometheus on the bronze statue behind me. From my supine position, it looked like he might be trying to help me up, or light me on fire. Lex skated over, not even pretending not to laugh, and did a circle around me.

  “Impressive, right?” I coughed out, trying not to wince.

  “Amazing,” she said, giggling, and reached down a hand. The other skaters parted and flowed around us, some of them laughing too. I couldn’t help but join in.

  Upright again, I pulled Alexis close, not even caring about the road block we’d become. “See? Told you you’d get to watch me fall down.” Then I kissed her, and the happy was complete.

  From up above, someone whistled. A familiar voice called, “Hey lovebirds, get out of the way!” We looked up to see Brooke Barros waving from behind the observation railing. Lex squealed and dragged us off the ice.

  BROOKE LOOKED MUCH more Manhattan when we were in Manhattan. She’d always been one of the prettier girls at Northbrook, but it was sloppier, somehow, when she was there. More relaxed. I liked that about her. Today, she looked more like Lex, with salon-straight hair and high black boots.

  I sipped coffee while the girls gossiped over cappuccinos and made fun of me.

  “You need, like, a signature cocktail or something,” Alexis said, eying my coffee like it was offensive.

  “An old-fashioned?” Brooke suggested and Lex laughed.

  “Totally!”

  “What’s wrong with black coffee?” I asked. “It’s manly. We should talk about the four spoons of sweetener you stirred into that tiny cup.” I clinked Lex’s with my own cup and took a sip.

  “Carter, seriously, you’re twenty-one now. You can order a drink and you don’t even want to.”

  “It’s barely past lunch.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Which is a perfectly acceptable time for a drink. I’d kill for a champagne right now.”

  I flagged our server. “A glass of champagne, please? My girlfriend has informed me that I’m no fun.” He nodded and didn’t even ask for my ID.

  The champagne came and I took an obligatory sip. Except for the bubbles, it was nothing like the sweet stuff Amy’d gotten everyone drunk with at every Winter Ball. Not bad, but, “I think,” I said slowly, “I’m more of a Scotch guy.”

  “Yes!” Brooke nodded. “Dad drinks it all the time, Scotch. It would look good in front of you, yeah? And it would match your hair.”

  “And your eyes,” I said and tilted my champagne at her. Lex shoved me.

  “Don’t flirt with my friends.”

  “I’ve been flirting with your friends for years. It used to be my job, remember?”

  “Yeah, well, you work with me now, remember?”

  “Yes, m’lady.” Lex narrowed her eyes but it lasted only half a second, as she only half hated it when I called her that. If anyone was aware of her princess station in life, it was Alexis Elizabeth Morrow.

  “Good,” she pronounced. “Now do me a favor and order another one of those while I go to the ladies’.”

  One thing you had to respect about Lex was she could go to the bathroom, or do anything really, by herself. At Northbrook, she’d always been surrounded by an entourage, but she didn’t need them. She liked them, because if she liked anything, it was an audience. But independence was not something she lacked. I watched her pause to talk to the Maitre’d, like they were old friends, not that he was friends with her father, and it struck me how very good she must be at events with my uncle.

  Brooke watched me watching Lex and said, “Sooo…Holidays with the families, yeah?” She turned big eyes and a big grin on me and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Just New Year’s, really. I’d never been to New York before, so how could I refuse?”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s big. Loud. Sexy, in its way. Different
from DC and Boston. I don’t have a lot to compare it to otherwise. I can see how it would be addictive though.”

  “Some of us just call it home.”

  I swirled the champagne in front of me, watching the bubbles. “I think it’s different if you grow up in a place versus adopt a place. Like a primary language. You speak it, other people learn it. They might eventually sound like they’ve always been here, but it takes a long time.”

  “Carter Penrose, philosopher.”

  I smiled. “I do like how everyone lives in apartments. Back home, I’m the only one. And I like Central Park. Hard not to, right?”

  “I think you’d learn the language here pretty easily. How’s Mr. Morrow?”

  “I believe his exact words were, ‘Glad you’ve finally come to your senses. Don’t fuck this up.’”

  Brooke had this girly laugh that was petty, like she was, and it made you want to make her do it often. “That sounds about right.”

  “But he’s refrained from asking me my net worth or offering me a more lucrative job, so I think he doesn’t hate me.”

  “Of course he doesn’t. He’s always liked you. Everyone likes you. Has Barbie made a pass at you yet?” I looked away. I didn’t want to talk about how friendly her kiss had been at the turn of New Year’s. I thought it was because she was drunk, but then this morning happened and I wasn’t so sure anymore. Brooke chuckled. “Obviously that’s a yes. You’d be hard to resist. God, she’s such a cliché.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “You know she slept with Rex?”

  I did not know that.

  She shook her head and crumbled the little cookie thing on her plate. “I don’t think anyone but me does. It was here. He was visiting at Winter Break, and Lex went to sneak down to his room one night…except her mom was already there. She didn’t tell me until last year.”

  “Jesus Christ.” I rubbed my eyes. That would explain a lot. Theodore Madsen was Alexis’s first, maybe only, love. He was also the dipshit male Siren who slept his way through Alexis’s freshman class, starting with her. Also, apparently, with her mother. And I thought I was an asshole? He was King Asshole, and I a lowly prince.