by Nicki Elson
“That sounds great.”
He poured wine into one of the flutes as his girlfriend read the text. When he slid the glass across the counter to her, she looked up. “Trish and I are supposed to do something together tomorrow.” She tapped at the phone, typing a message, and then found her purse and tossed the device in.
“You can wear one of my T-shirts.” Cliff gave a nod toward the bathroom closet. “Pick whichever one you want.”
Jo disappeared for a few moments, and when she sauntered back into view, an old-school Tron T-shirt covered her torso all the way past her hips. Cliff felt a twitch in his pants at the thought of her clean, bare curves rubbing against the cotton.
“Kind of ironic that Trish used to be the one who avoided putting the two of us in the same room, and now it’s me who has to keep you two apart,” Jo said.
Cliff scrunched his lips into a pout. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m cool with it—I like being in the power position.” She winked and took a sip. “Mmm, that’s a nice wine.” She asked to see the bottle and went on to tell him interesting facts she’d learned about wine at work.
Cliff let the subject turn, but while she talked, he wondered if Trish might be the reason he couldn’t say the words out loud to Jo. The last time he’d told a girl he loved her, he’d shouted it at her. Maybe he needed to make things right with Trish before he’d be able to fully move on with anyone else. Besides, it wasn’t fair to Jo to make her avoid her friend when she was with him.
It took Cliff four days to work up the nerve to see Trish again. It wasn’t until he’d resolved to talk to her that he realized how much her stubbornness these last few months scared him. He didn’t know what kind of wrath he might face.
After wrapping up a work project on Thursday afternoon, he ran out of excuses to procrastinate. He took a long walk down Michigan Avenue—armed with props. Pushing open the glass door to her coffeehouse, he half hoped she wouldn’t be there. But standing behind the counter was the woman he’d spent so many years pining for. Her bright golden eyes snapped onto him.
He held up the white flag he’d assembled from printer paper and a pencil. One side of her mouth went up in a wry smile, and she shook her head. Encouraged by the mild reaction, he approached. As usual, only a few customers dotted the seating area at this hour.
“Please accept my belated apology,” he said. “My ambush wasn’t fair. I should’ve talked to you earlier about my issues.”
“I wish you would’ve.” She pushed through the swinging door at the end of the counter and led him to their usual table. Taking a seat across from him, she twisted her fingers together on the table’s surface. “I’m sorry, too. I never intentionally led you on, but I should’ve known better. Lyssa gave it to me pretty good when I told her about our fight. Even that damned Hayden had something to say about it. I guess I might’ve subconsciously used you as a crutch. This whole thing with Adam has been the most magical but also the most nerve-racking relationship I’ve ever been in, and you were the steady guy I knew I could always count on.”
“Until I flipped out on you. I really am sorry about how that all went down.”
“Me, too.”
“If we’re both so levelheaded about it, why haven’t we talked for almost six months?”
Trish trapped him in her concerned gaze. “I don’t want to do it to you again.”
Cliff smiled and nodded. “That’s probably why I’ve stayed away, too. Didn’t want to fall back into the same pattern. But the thing is, when I think about you, it’s the friendship I miss. I hope you believe that was all genuine.”
“I do. I wish—”
“Please don’t say you wish you could’ve loved me that way. I don’t wish that at all. Everything works out the way it’s supposed to. If you hadn’t sent me into a tailspin, Jo and I might never have happened.”
“Jo? My Jo?”
“I kinda like to think of her as my Jo now.”
Trish slammed her hands onto the table. Delighted disbelief sparked along every line of her long, straight features. “What are you telling me?”
Cliff wrinkled his brow. “Has she not mentioned that we’re dating?”
“What!” Trish shrieked. On her second, “What!” she stood and rounded the table. Bumping her hip against his to make room, she slid onto the booth seat next to him. She grabbed his hands and squeezed, holding them tightly against her collarbone. “You and Jo?”
Cliff laughed. “Yes.”
Trish’s eyes flickered down toward her grip on Cliff, and she dropped his hands, scooting an inch away from him. “Sorry. I’ll try not to be so touchy from now on.”
“This is fine.” He grabbed her hands back into his, pleased to feel none of the old tingles she used to inspire. “I’m in love with her.” The words had come rolling off his tongue with zero hesitation. Making things right with Trish had unlocked his ability to say it out loud after all.
“Holy shit. I wish we served alcohol here. I’ll have Kristie whip us up your usual so we can toast.” She hopped up and ordered the drinks, then returned, taking her seat across from him. “I knew there was something different about her lately. I suspected a guy was the reason but never would’ve guessed it was you.”
“She hasn’t even told you she’s been dating anyone?”
Trish shook her head. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since February, officially, so almost three months. But, really, it stretches back further.”
“How did it happen? You two hated each other.”
“It’s actually a pretty funny story. But we’ll tell it to you when we’re together. So, things are good with Adam?”
Trish nodded, her smile backing it up. “We’ve found a nice rhythm—and then next month it all gets thrown into a tumult again when I start traveling for the next leg of my training.”
Cliff asked her more about her work and upcoming plans. At the end of their conversation, he had an idea. “What time do you get off work?”
“In a couple of hours.”
“Jo’s coming over to my place tonight. Want to be there to surprise her? She has no idea I planned to talk to you today—or ever.”
“I love it! What time do you want me there?”
Trish came over at eight, half an hour before Cliff expected Jo to arrive, and she’d picked up a frosted coconut cake on her way. “Celebration cake—for our reunion and Clijo. Joford? We’ll work on it.”
“Thanks. I don’t have any fancy plans for the surprise. I figure you and I standing in the same room ought to be enough.”
“Yes, it ought.”
Cliff poured drinks, and they talked some more, catching each other up on their respective lives for the past few months. Both of them remarked several times how silly they were to have let their mutual silent treatment carry on as long as it had. At a little past eight thirty, there was a knock on the door. Cliff had shared his security code to get into the building but hadn’t yet given Jo a key to his unit.
“Should I hide behind the counter?” Trish hissed in a loud whisper.
“No!” Cliff harsh-whispered back. “We don’t want to scare her.” He opened the door, smiling at his girlfriend, and gave her a soft peck on the lips. “How’s your day been?”
“Better now.” She kissed him back before proceeding past him toward the kitchen, where she tossed her purse onto the counter—then stopped dead.
Trish stood on the opposite side of the small granite island, smiling like a maniac. “Did you really think you could carry on a secret romance and I wouldn’t find out about it?”
Jo’s mouth fell open, but no sound came out. Cliff waited for her to recover from the shock, expecting her excited squeal to rip through the apartment at any moment. After a few beats of time passed, he realized that wasn’t going to happen. Trish waved her hand at face level as if checking to see if Jo was still conscious.
Cliff stepped close, pressing his hand to the small
of Jo’s back. “I didn’t think it was fair to make you our monkey in the middle, so we called a truce. You don’t have to worry about keeping us in separate rooms anymore.”
“This is great.” Jo’s cheeks puffed out as she smiled. Her eyes flicked onto Cliff for a second before trailing back to Trish. She still didn’t move an inch, simply stood in the exact same position—her hands hanging at her sides.
“Are you okay?” Cliff asked, raising the back of his fingers to the side of her face. He noticed she looked pale, but she didn’t feel feverish or cold.
“Actually, I’ve been a little squishy all day. I probably shouldn’t have come over. I don’t want to get you sick, too. I’ll go.” She reached for her purse.
“But I brought cake.” Trish pouted.
“You guys enjoy it. Don’t let me ruin your fun.”
“If you’re feeling that bad, I’ll go, sweetie,” Trish offered. “You stay here and let Cliffy nurse you back to health.”
“No. I…I want my own bed.” Jo backed toward the door. “This is great news, though. I’m glad you guys worked things out.” Cliff reached for her hand, but she slithered it out of his grip. “Don’t want to spread germs.”
He followed her to the door. “I’ll drive you.”
“No, please. I’ll feel worse if I bust this up right after you two finally started talking again. I’ll be fine.”
He pressed his hand to the door to stop her from opening it. When she turned to look up at him, he caught her chin between his forefinger and thumb. “I’ll be over in a little while to check on you. You can’t stop me.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He laid a gentle kiss on her forehead and let her leave. Returning to the kitchen, he saw Trish’s celebratory mood had also been zapped. They cut the cake, but Cliff was too distracted to enjoy it. Trish left soon after, and Cliff drove to Jo’s house.
He found a parking spot only a couple of blocks away. As he traversed the dark sidewalks, he texted to let her know he was there. She responded:
Door’s open. Just come up.
From his previous visit, he knew her room was on the top floor. Stepping into the first-floor foyer, he heard voices coming from the downstairs unit, but none of them were Jo’s. He trotted up the creaky wooden staircase and into the upstairs unit. It was dark and quiet, with only one small lamp illuminated. The house was old with classic touches like thick moldings and wood floors, but the furnishing and decor were contemporary.
His girlfriend sat on the charcoal-gray sofa under the lamp’s dim glow with her legs curled underneath her and a blanket wrapped over her shoulders.
“You shouldn’t leave the front door unlocked,” he warned. “Do you know how many creeps I passed on the way here? I brought cake.” He held up the plastic container.
“I can’t do this, Cliff.” Jo stared straight in front of her. Her voice was toneless, wooden.
“You don’t have to eat it now.”
She turned her face toward him, and he saw that her eyes were puffy. She’d been crying. “I can’t do us.”
Chapter 19
CLIFF PEERED AT JO. Though the room was dim, he could see her complexion was blotchy, making her look more ill than she had at his place. He set the cake in the kitchen and came closer to her, pushing back the glass coffee table and kneeling onto the bleached shag rug to rub a comforting thumb over her knee.
“We don’t have to ‘do us’ tonight. Let me get you water, ibuprofen, whatever you need, and then I’ll get out of here and let you rest.” During the drive over, he’d planned to wrap her in his arms and tell her he loved her. But he couldn’t say it for the first time when she was feeling so off.
She pulled her hands up, pressing her palms to her forehead, half shielding her eyes as she closed them. “I told you I was fine with you two not being friends anymore.”
“Me and Trish?”
She lowered her hands and huffed, pulling her leg from under his touch and scooting to the side of the couch. “Who else?”
The bitterness in her tone confused him. “You’re pissed? Why?”
Leaning against the arm of the sofa, she pulled her knees up, bending her legs and hugging them to her. “Do you have any idea how hard it is for someone like me to be friends with someone like her? How much it sucks to always play the ugly stepsister to her Cinderella?”
“Oh, come on. It’s not like that.” He rose and sat on the couch, again reaching for her.
This time, she swatted his hand away. “Yes, it is like that. And you of anyone should know it. She’s the one you crushed on all through college. I was just a consolation fuck.” Cliff flinched, but Jo plunged on. “A few months ago, you were so in love with her it was too painful to keep seeing her. And there I was—the fugly stepsister you banged until you’d worked up enough confidence to go back to her.”
His heart thudded at the awful things she said, and he balled his hands in his lap. The urge to touch her was gone. “That’s not how this is at all.”
“Save it, Loinerd.” She shook her head back and forth, tears blurring her eyes. Even her voice sounded watery. “Maybe if you hadn’t told me all about your unrequited feelings, I could pretend I don’t know how you feel about her. But I do know.” She winced, putting an exclamation point on her statement.
“I…I guess I can see how it might look that way, but I’m telling you—that’s not how it is. If I wasn’t sure of my feelings for you, I never would’ve brought her back in between us.”
“So she is between us.” She swiped at a runaway tear with the back of her hand.
“No! That’s not what I meant. I just mean that…she’s my friend. And she’s your friend. You’re the main reason I even got back in touch with her. I didn’t think you should have to avoid her for me, and—” He stopped, realizing that the second part of his reasoning might worsen his case.
“And what?”
“And…” If they were going to work through this, he had to be completely honest with her. “I thought that until I’d fully resolved my feelings for her, I wouldn’t be able to move all the way forward with anyone else.”
Jo flung her arms to her sides, knocking the blanket from her shoulders, and splayed her hands. “Bingo.” Crashing her feet to the ground, she stood and walked away from him, toward the hall that led to her bedroom.
“Jo, stop!” Cliff flew up from the sofa and moved past her, whipping around to block her way. “I’m trying to tell you that my feelings for her are resolved. She and I are just friends.”
“Not by your choice.” She crossed her arms in front of her and looked away.
“The only difference between me and anyone else you’ve ever dated is that this time you have a crystal ball to see into my past affections. Other guys have had past crushes, too, and so have you. I haven’t done anything wrong by having cared for someone else. But you have to accept that it’s in the past.”
Keeping her face turned away, she shifted her eyes onto him. “My past is exactly why I know I’ll never be the one the guy truly wants. I’m not just talking about Trish. It’s like this with all my friends. My sisters. My roommates. Guys use me to get to them.”
Any words Cliff might’ve said caught in his throat as he fixed on her trembling lower lip. Her raw insecurities plastered against her as if her insides had been turned out. She believed what she’d said, and it broke his heart.
The stairs creaked as someone approached. Cliff grabbed Jo’s hand, and she let him pull her down the hall into her bedroom. He shut the door and came to stand in front of her, rubbing his palms gingerly over her slumping shoulders. “I don’t know how I can make you believe you’re the one I want.” His voice was low, and he heard the defeat in it.
Reflecting on the tough, loud, attention-seeking JoAnne he’d known in college and the girl he’d seen in Saint Lucia, he understood her callousness had been an act. These doubts about her self-worth had long roots. He couldn’t erase them in a night.
“I know I�
��m pathetic,” she whispered. “I’ve done so much work on myself in the last six months, and everything was going great. But seeing her in your apartment…it’s like all that just poofed.” She wiggled her fingers in the air like the ashes of fireworks dissipating and falling away. “All I knew was that I had to get out of there.”
Cliff was glad she was talking, sorting through her emotions. He stayed silent, watching her and hoping she’d work herself through her doubts. Her roommate had turned on the TV in the main room; the sound provided a shield for their conversation.
“On the way home…” Jo bit at her lips, pressing them tightly together before continuing. “I thought about going into a bar to get loaded and pick up some random guy—to take the edge off. To try to feel wanted. It’s not like I came close to actually doing it tonight, but what about the next time I freak?” Her gaze fell to the floor, and she shrugged.
He moved a hand to the side of her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb, but she turned away from his touch and stepped back. His hand fell off of her.
“It scared me, Cliff. I’m so afraid of slipping back into that person.” She lowered to sit on her bed, pulling her legs up to cross them in front of her, and dropped her face into her cupped hands. “I’m so stupid. I should’ve known everything with you was way too good to be true. I’m not ready to care about someone this…much.” Lifting her face from her hands, she looked at him through shining eyes. Her cheeks were smudged with tears.
“Jo…” His throat tightened. In a hoarse whisper, he pushed out, “I care about you, too.” He still couldn’t profess his love to her face. He wanted to think it was because the timing wasn’t right, but he was afraid something else held him back.
“Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me with one-hundred-percent certainty that you’ll never fall for her again?”
Cliff’s gaze flicked away from her, fixing on the bold geometric lines of the Powerpuff Girl pillow by her headboard. He truly didn’t feel more than a close friendship with Trish—but how many times before had he convinced himself he was over her? And how many times had he been forced to recognize that he’d only been lying to himself?