One of the Guys

by Jessica Strassner

  The door opened and Chris stood on the top step, looking over his shoulder at the three pigs working their way through every row in the garden. Kate could see that the sky had grown darker and it was starting to rain harder. “I don’t know anything about electricity or wiring to even try to fix that fence,” he said, pulling the door shut behind him. He turned and caught sight of Kate at last, holding her dirty t-shirt in front of her. “And it’s starting to rain again,” he said. There was a loud boom of thunder.

  Kate nodded, feeling awkward being stuck with Chris in the tiny mudroom. Wearing just her underwear. He looked her up and down and a smile came across his lips. He reached out and tweaked a crusty tendril of her hair. They both chuckled. Chris pulled his t-shirt off and tossed it in the washer.

  Kate was tired, chilly, and dirty. Her lower back hurt, but the sight of Chris’s naked torso perked her up a bit. She smiled as he reached for the t-shirt she was holding in front of her, gently tugged it out of her fingers, and dropped it into the wash.

  She sucked in a deep breath, wondering how in the world she was going to pull off some kind of sexy seduction move while covered in mud and grime. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at her dirt-streaked body. When she looked back up at Chris, he was moving closer.

  Reaching his hand out to her…

  She swallowed nervously as Chris took a step closer…

  Then he bent down and pulled a bath towel out of the laundry basket at their feet. “Here,” he said, draping it around her shoulders. “Get into the bathroom, get undressed, drop your stuff outside the door. I’ll get it into the washing machine.” He took her by the shoulders and guided her towards the bathroom, gently pushing her in and shutting the door behind her.

  She let the towel drop to the floor and scratched her crusty head. Puzzled, she checked herself out in the mirror over the sink. Of course she looked a mess – but she didn’t look… bad. She had a decent body. She’d never been ashamed to get naked in front of anybody and wasn’t plagued by body issues the way other women seemed to be. But Chris didn’t seem interested. Weird.

  She stripped off her undergarments and dropped them outside the door just as Chris had ordered. Then she stepped into the shower, cranking up the hot water. She stood under the spray, watching it send dark, gray water swirling down the drain. She scrubbed and scrubbed at her skin, picked at her fingernails, and finally turned her attention to her hair. After what felt like forever, her hair finally seemed dirt-free.

  Kate dried herself off and then wrapped herself in her mom’s bathrobe which had been hanging on a hook on the back of the door. She found a comb and ran it through her hair, spending a long time picking through all the knots. She looked at herself in the mirror again. She looked much better, but now she was also exhausted.

  When she left the bathroom, steam billowed out around her and she stood for a moment, listening. The house was completely quiet. The washing machine had stopped. The TV wasn’t on. But she could hear…

  Snoring?

  Kate lightly pushed open the door to the guest bedroom. Chris had obviously taken a shower, too. His hair was wet and slicked down across his forehead. He was wearing a clean t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts. He was also out cold.

  Yawning, Kate pulled the quilt up from the bottom of the bed to cover him. He stretched a little in his slumber, grasped the blanket, and tugged it up to his chin. She turned off the lamp and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  In the kitchen, she made herself a cup of tea. She pulled the clothes out of the washing machine, amazed to see that they didn’t look all that bad. She tossed them into the dryer, and then sat at the table to try to figure out what to tell her parents about their garden.

  *

  “So, how was your weekend?” Lucy asked, stretching out on the couch and plopping the papers she had been grading on the coffee table.

  “It was… good,” Kate said, sitting down on the edge of the couch.

  Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Did you and Chris…?”

  Kate shook her head sadly. She wasn’t sure, but it appeared that Lucy looked relieved. “I don’t know… We kissed and made out. It seemed like everything was going fine…” She paused for a moment, remembering how they’d stood together, half-undressed in the laundry room.

  “And…?”

  Just then, Kate’s cell phone rang. “Oh, God, that’s probably my mom!” She fished around in her purse and pulled her cell phone out. “Hello? Mom?”

  “The garden! Kate, what the hell?”

  “Mom, I can explain!”

  “What in the world happened to our garden? Why. Are. The. Pigs. In. The. Yard?”

  “Something happened with the electric fence. We had a storm, and I guess the fence shorted out. I don’t know. The pigs got out and were running all over the place and the only way we could keep them locked up was to put them in the yard,” Kate explained. “I’m sorry.”

  Lucy sat up and leaned forward, listening as Kate explained the situation to her mother.

  “And I tried and tried calling you guys, but neither one of you answered your cell phone. Honestly, Mom, what’s the point in having a cell phone if you don’t ever answer it?”

  “I’m sorry, honey,” Mrs. Thompson said. “And I’m sorry for flipping out, I just couldn’t believe it when we walked out the back door and saw the pigs all lying at the bottom of the steps. And the garden… it’s completely ruined.”

  “Is it bad?” Kate asked.

  “There’s nothing left. Your father is so upset. All that hard work.”

  “We didn’t know what else to do, Mom. I’m sorry.”

  “We? Who is we?”

  “Me… and… Chris.”

  Her mother drew in a sharp breath. “And who is Chris? A boyfriend?”

  “I guess you could say that,” Kate said, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. “He came up there and spent the night with me. I hope that’s okay. He was the one who realized the fence was messed up. He helped me get the pigs back in the yard. We didn’t know what else to do.”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine. Tell me more about him.”

  Kate smiled at Lucy and excused herself, heading into the bedroom for some privacy. “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  “What does he do? How did you meet? Is he cute?”

  “He’s a photographer. We met through work and he’s friends with Jackson. Yes, he’s cute. Very tall, built really nice, curly blonde hair. Blue eyes.”

  “Wooooo!” her mom cried. “Is it serious?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What?” she demanded. “How do you not have any idea? Is it serious or not?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. We’ve only been seeing each other for a little while. I mean, we see each other all the time through work and poker and stuff…”

  “Poker? He’s one of your… poker buddies?”

  “Well, yeah. We’re friends.”

  “Oh.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Oh.’?” Kate asked. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Do you think it’ll last?”

  “I have no idea! ‘It’ only just started.”

  Her mother clucked on the other end of the phone. “I just wish you’d find yourself a nice guy.”

  “He is a nice guy!”

  “I’m sure he is. But do you think you’ll settle down with him? Do you think he might be the one?”

  Kate giggled. “I don’t know. I’m just enjoying it for right now. Who knows where it’ll go?”

  “Well, that’s just it. You should know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t explain it, honey. You’d know it if you felt it.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “Honey, I think I better go. I should see if your father needs any help out there.”

  “Okay,” Kate said. “Tell Dad I’m really sorry about his garden. And his beer.”

  *

&nb
sp; Kate let herself into Kevin’s apartment and called out a cheerful hello to the guys. She stopped in the kitchen, tossed her purse on the counter, peeked into the pizza box on the stove, (mushrooms – she’d have to pass!) and helped herself to a beer from the fridge. “Sorry I’m late!” she said, popping the top and taking a sip. She joined them at the poker table in the dining room and took a seat between Max and Jackson. “Wedding ran a little late. The couple was having such a good time, they wanted to rent the country club a little later. Not that management minded with what they’re charging,” she added.

  “Who was the photographer?” Chris asked, shuffling the cards.

  “Lillian Gregory,” Kate said, grimacing. Lillian Gregory was an elderly woman who had been in the business forever. She was very well-known in town for her simple, classic portraits – but they weren’t as fun or as captivating as the more candid images Chris was known for. She also wasn’t as much fun to work with.

  Chris snorted and rolled his eyes as he began dealing the cards.

  “So what else is new?” Kate asked, looking around the table at the rest of the guys. She didn’t want to be obvious and focus all of her attention on Chris.

  “My divorce is final,” Jackson said abruptly.

  “Oh?” Kevin asked.

  “I got the divorce decree in the mail from my ex-wife’s attorney today,” he said.

  “Wow. You okay?” Max asked.

  Jackson stroked his chin. “Yeah. I hate to say this, but I’m glad it’s all finally over with.”

  Kate squeezed Jackson’s arm. He hadn’t ever really spoken much about the divorce to any of them. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re moving on. You’re leaving behind a relationship that wasn’t so great. And you’re working on a new one.”

  “You’re pretty lucky, dude,” Max said in agreement.

  Jackson nodded. “I know. I just hate the fact that…” he trailed off and everyone looked at him in surprise. Poker games usually didn’t get this serious. “I just hate the fact that I always wanted to be with Lucy. I wanted to marry her. I should have married her. But I made a mistake, and now… I did all that stuff with somebody else first. With the wrong person.”

  “But that part’s over now. Just focus on the future,” Chris said.

  “I know… But then I think… I messed things up for me, but I also messed things up for Sloane. I shouldn’t have married her. She was just supposed to be my rebound person after Lucy,” he chuckled. Everyone around the poker table sat quietly, letting him continue. “I guess I just kept going with the flow, doing all the stuff we were expected to do… Moved in together, got engaged, got married, started trying to have a baby… I was just doing what I thought came next, even though it wasn’t what I really wanted.”

  “What does Lucy think of all this?” Kate asked, surprised that Lucy hadn’t said anything to her about it.

  “She didn’t really want any of the details,” Jackson said. “I think it upsets her to think of herself as ‘the other woman.’ You know, like she caused the divorce.”

  “But that’s it? Your ex signs the divorce papers and you’re off the hook?” Kevin asked.

  “Basically. Neither one of us contested the divorce. We agreed on all the terms,” Jackson said. “So that’s it.”

  Kate sat back and studied Jackson. She’d envied him and Lucy for finding each other and making their relationship work after all these years. It had seemed like such a fairy tale. But when you stopped to think about it… Lucy and Jackson had both cheated on their significant others to be with each other. Lucy had broken off her engagement to her boyfriend, Matt and Jackson had left his wife, Sloane. What seemed like “happily ever after” was actually pretty messy, once you considered the details.

  “I’m just glad to finally be able to put it all behind me.”

  “Hey,” Max said. “You have Lucy now. That’s all that matters.”

  Jackson nodded. “When I moved back down here, I had no idea if I’d get her back or not,” he said. “I didn’t even know where to start. I had made such a mess of things that I didn’t know if she’d ever speak to me again.” He looked at Kate. “And then when I ran into you guys at her sister’s wedding…”

  “I remember,” she said. Jackson had just moved back into town and was staying at the Davenport Hotel where Lucy’s sister, Maggie, had gotten married. He hadn’t even known that Lucy was in town for the wedding, or that she had moved in with Kate.

  “It took, like, ten years too long, but now I finally feel like things are going the way they were supposed to,” Jackson said.

  Kate squeezed Jackson’s arm. “Want me to talk to Lucy about it?”

  Jackson looked at her for a moment, and then nodded.

  “Okay,” Kate said. “I will. Now can we play some cards, please?”

  *

  Max managed to take both Kate and Chris out of the game in one hand. His straight flush beat Kate’s three of a kind and Chris’ straight. The game stopped for a minute as Kate and Chris said goodbye to everyone and Kevin went to the kitchen to grab another slice of pizza. Kate gave Jackson a big hug as he held the door open for them and then she followed Chris down the stairs to the parking lot.

  He walked her to her car and waited as she rummaged through her purse for her keys. Suddenly, she felt nervous. Were those butterflies in her stomach again? She pushed things back and forth in her purse, knowing that her keys had probably worked their way to the bottom as usual. “So, um,” she said, pulling out two ballpoint pens and sticking them in her mouth, “do you maybe want to come over?” she mumbled.

  “Tonight?” Chris asked.

  “Yeah, like now,” Kate said. She finally located her keys and held them up triumphantly before unlocking the door. She tossed the pens back into her purse and then tossed the bag onto the passenger seat. “You don’t have to spend the night or anything. I mean, if you don’t want to.”

  “Well, first, I kind of wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “Oh.” She closed the door and leaned up against it. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and pressed her lips together. “Okay. So… talk.”

  “Last weekend was great,” he began.

  “It was?” Kate beamed. She’d been meaning to ask him about it.

  Chris grinned. “Yeah, I mean, despite the mess with the pigs, it was nice. I just don’t want to get carried away.”

  “Okay…” Kate said. “What does that mean?”

  “Look, Kate. I don’t want to mess with your emotions or anything like that. I just want to have fun and see where this takes us.”

  “Um… Okay.”

  “I guess what I mean is that we’re friends, right? I just don’t want to mess anything up… And I don’t know if we should tell any of the guys about this…”

  “Don’t worry about that. Nobody needs to know our business, okay?” Kate said. “I’m fine. It’s fine. Let’s not mess things up with all this talking, either,” she said, grabbing the front of his shirt and playfully pulling him closer. She kissed him and smiled up at him. “You can come over some other time.”

  Chris nodded. “Some other time.”

  Kate drove home, feeling a little disappointed that Chris wasn’t coming to join her, but glad that they had kind of cleared the air between them. It sounded like they were both on the same page. They both just wanted to have fun and see what happened. Nothing serious or romantic – at least not yet, anyway. And nothing that anybody needed to know about. They could just keep things quiet for as long as possible, until they figured out where exactly they stood.

  When Kate got home, she let herself in quietly and then tiptoed towards Lucy’s bedroom door. It was closed and the light was off, so she would have to talk to Lucy about Jackson’s divorce in the morning.

  She crossed the living room to her own bedroom, closed the door softly, and stripped off her dress. She hung it in the closet, thinking that if she got up early enough the next morning, she’d drop off her dry cleaning before h
eading into the office. She tossed her bra in the hamper and pulled on a t-shirt.

  In the bathroom, she pulled her hair up into a ponytail, brushed her teeth, and washed the makeup off of her face. She pulled the covers down on the bed and was just about to crawl in when she heard a car pull up in the driveway. She grinned. So Chris had decided to come by after all!

  She ran into the bathroom and tugged her ponytail holder out, shaking her hair loose so that it spilled down over her shoulders. Her t-shirt wasn’t too ratty, and it would have to do. She hurried through the bedroom and into the living room, where she flung the door open wide and struck what she hoped was a seductive, inviting pose.

  “Well, hellooo,” Max grinned, his eyes wide. “Don’t you look good enough to eat,” he said, grabbing her around the waist and pressing his lips against hers. She was so startled that she couldn’t move. Until he reached around behind her and squeezed her barely-covered behind.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed, backing away.

  “I got knocked out of the game right after you and Chris. Jackson and Kevin decided to split the pot and they’re all headed to the Sand Bar. I said I might meet them, but I thought I’d stop by here first,” he said. “Is that okay?”

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I thought maybe we could…” Max hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans. “You know. It’s been forever.”

  “You think you can just drop by after poker whenever you want and try to hook up?” Kate asked.

  “Well, isn’t that how it usually goes?” he asked.

  “Well… Yes. But…”

  Max took a step closer. “It doesn’t just have to be about hooking up, you know.” he said. “I’ve told you that before.”

  “Not tonight, Max,” Kate said. “Go to the Sand Bar with the guys and have fun, okay?”