She flops down onto her back. “He’s, I don’t know. Even-tempered. Hard-working. A little insecure. His dad ignored him a lot.”
“Why? Lots of siblings?”
“He’s an only child, but his dad’s a big shot lawyer in Chicago who worked long hours. His mom had a prescription drug problem, still does, so his nanny did most of the heavy lifting.”
I look up at the ceiling. An almost imperceptible crack runs along one side. My dad broke his back working long hours too, but it was out of necessity. He was away a lot, doing overtime at the factory where he worked. He was the opposite of a deadbeat dad—so much so that I rarely saw him. So, I was the man of the house. That’s what my parents told me, at least. I didn’t take that responsibility lightly, but no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t man enough. I couldn’t keep my mom from spiraling downward, even though I rarely left her side. “Maybe Rich and I aren’t so different,” I say.
“You feel different.” She curls back into me. Her lashes brush my chest when she looks up. “You never talk about your parents. All I know is you’re an only child.”
“My pops passed a few years ago. My mom has . . .” Halston shifts against me, and I wrap my arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. “She’s got something like Alzheimer’s. Brain damage from drinking so much. She stopped drinking when my dad died, but it was too late. She’s in a home now.”
“I’m sorry.” Halston’s gray eyes get cloudy, but not the way they were when we met. I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss it, accepting her sympathy. “Was she an alcoholic when you were younger?” she asks.
“Yeah. I didn’t understand that back then, and we didn’t call it that. But she was. She functioned all right. She’d get up, send me off to school with lunch, promise me it would be a good day, and sometimes it was.”
“And the bad days?” Halston asks.
“At school, I’d think of things we could do when I got home, like garden or sit at the dog park or rent a movie. On grocery days, I made up games to get all the items on the list.”
She grins. “Sounds like fun.”
“I guess I thought if I kept her busy enough, if I gave her a reason to be happy, she wouldn’t drink. I didn’t understand alcohol, but I knew when she went to this specific cupboard in the house, she’d turn into a different person. Once, we were in the middle of planting flowers in the front yard, and I was telling her about my day, and she just got up in the middle of it to pour herself a drink. You don’t forget that feeling.” My throat thickens. Am I blind to trust Halston to stick around when others haven’t? “Every day I tried to get her to choose me over that cupboard, but she chose the alcohol more often than not.”
My watch on the nightstand ticks, the only noise for a while.
“It wasn’t you,” Halston says gently. “She had an addiction.”
“I know.”
“I choose you every day.”
I look down at her. “What do you mean?”
“I’m like her,” she says. “I get like that, where I need something or I don’t feel right.”
“You’re not like her,” I say. “Are you talking about the coffee?”
She frowns. “You knew?”
“Knew what?”
“I tried stopping antidepressants about a year and half ago. I was doing well with Rich, and it’d been eight years since my mom’s death, so I wanted to see how it’d go. Doctor Lumby lowered my dosage, and I was fine for a few days, but then I started to get antsy.”
“Did Rich know?”
“I sat down with him and my dad and told them my decision. They weren’t thrilled, but they said they’d help.” She rolls onto her back, away from me. “Anyway, one night I was on my own and had a big meeting the next day, one of the most important of my career. I was anxious, so I had a glass of wine. Then another. I felt calmer and I pulled off the presentation so I celebrated.”
“With wine?” I guess.
She nods. “Nobody noticed how much I was drinking until I made a scene at a client dinner and got us kicked out of the restaurant. Of course, my dad and Rich were horrified and made me go back to my psychiatrist to tell him I needed the meds. And truthfully, I agreed. I’d never acted like that. Except once, when my recklessness—” She squints at the ceiling. “I would’ve started treatment again whether the three of them had made me or not.”
My heart begins to race. Coffee, I can handle. Antidepressants too. But alcohol? I don’t know. I’ve been down that path once and have no interest in ever returning. When Halston showed up drunk at my place that night, I figured it was a one-time thing. “Do you still drink?”
“Occasionally, but not like that. We upped my dosage, but for whatever reason, my patterns, as Rich calls them, stuck.”
“Patterns?”
“I weaned myself off wine with cigarettes, which is when I lost weight. But I hated the stink of smoke, so I started running and when I got bored with that, I went shopping. A lot. I had this incredible new body to show off, after all. My dad put an end to that when he saw my credit card bills, so I moved on to coffee.”
“That explains why the first few times I saw you, you were never without your cup.”
“For a while, I was drinking it all day—black coffee, lattes, cold brew, however I could get it.”
My mind reels to catch up. I’d suspected something with the coffee, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. What does it mean that she’s nearly stopped drinking it since we met? Could something else have replaced it? Me, even? “Huh,” is all I can think to say.
“Yeah.” She swallows audibly. “The writing too. I’ve kept a journal compulsively since I left the psych ward. My counselor there got me to start it. It’s just the past few weeks I haven’t been doing it. I’m sorry.”
She tacks the apology on so quickly, I almost miss it. “Sorry? For what?”
“I’m not what you thought. I didn’t know about your mom. If I had, I might’ve told you all this sooner. Or not. I would’ve been afraid to freak you out.”
“Ah,” I say. “Tell me, what would’ve happened if I’d freaked out?”
“You’d have left,” she says. “I wouldn’t have blamed you. But now that you love me, well . . .” She looks over at me. “Maybe you’re more open to accepting my weird behaviors.”
I bring her back into my chest. “None of it sounds weird to me.”
“How does it sound?”
“Like you went through something traumatic, and nobody really took care of you after.” Any concern I just felt vanishes. At her core, she’s still the fifteen-year-old girl who blames herself for her mom’s death. I doubt anyone tried to convince her otherwise. She’s not obsessed with the photos or me or sex—not that I’d mind since I can’t get enough of her, either. She just stopped drinking coffee because I’m here now, and she doesn’t need it. I satisfy her in ways nobody else has been able. Like she said—she chooses me.
“I’m going to take care of you now,” I say. “I promise.”
“You already have. With you, I’m . . . I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Even when I was taking drugs specifically to be happy.”
We both laugh softly, and I kiss the top of her head. I’m even more confident now that yesterday’s chat with Rich was necessary. Maybe he’s not bad for her, but he’s not right for her. She needs a man strong enough to carry some of her burden, committed enough not to drop it when it’s too heavy. He isn’t that. He couldn’t keep the patterns at bay like I do. He didn’t protect her. “Speaking of happy stuff,” I say, “we haven’t talked about Sunday.”
“I know. I’ve been afraid to bring it up.”
“Me too.” As if on cue, we both sit up. She gets my t-shirt from the end of the bed. I can’t stand that she still isn’t comfortable enough to be naked with me when we aren’t in the heat of the moment, but I’ll keep working on that. She crosses her legs, and I get a peek under the shirt right before she pulls it over her crotch. We just made love, but my cock stirs
. When she tries to hide herself, I’m even more tempted by her.
“Christmas,” she says seriously.
“Yeah. I want to spend it with you.”
She brightens. “I want to spend it with you too.”
I take her hand. “But I can’t. I’ve thought about it from every angle, and I just can’t make it work.”
“Oh.” Her posture droops. “I figured.”
“Kendra’s boyfriend talked her into giving me three days at her parents’, which is why I haven’t had Marissa since earlier this month. It’s the only way I’ll get to watch Marissa open her presents. I didn’t get to spend last Christmas with her, so . . .”
“Then you have to go.” Halston nods. “My dad’s expecting me anyway. I wasn’t sure of your plans, so I didn’t tell him otherwise.”
“If I could bring you, I would.” I can’t. Kendra will never let me forget how I admonished her for introducing her five-week-long boyfriend to Marissa. I’ve known Halston less time than that. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s okay.” She smiles. “I should be with my dad. It’s a difficult time of year for him because of the accident.”
I squeeze her hand. “It’s difficult for both of you. Last year was hard for me too. Kendra had just learned about the affair.”
“You’re lucky she came around.”
“Yeah. Her boyfriend’s going to be good for her, I think.” This is as good an opening as I’m going to get. “So it’ll just be the two of you?”
She opens her mouth but just looks at me.
“Let me put it this way,” I say. “If I didn’t have Marissa to see, would you be bringing me home to meet the dad?”
“No.” She plays with the hem of the shirt. “It wouldn’t be a good time. What with my mom’s stuff and all.”
A movement outside catches my eye. The people in the apartment across the street have their curtains open and lights on. So do we. I wonder if they saw what we just did, if they notice us verging on an argument. “So that’s the only reason?” I ask, returning my attention to her.
“No.”
My throat gets dry. She’s obviously circumventing the truth, hiding something. “You promised me honesty, Halston.”
She sucks in a breath and spits it out. “Rich will be at the house. His parents too.”
I press my lips into a line. Rich was right, and I must’ve looked like a complete ass yesterday, peacocking around like I knew what was what. “Were you going to tell me?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
She frowns. “When I was ready. You don’t corner the market on complicated.”
“I know, so I’m asking you to explain.”
She rubs the tip of her nose. A light goes off in the apartment across the street. “He still thinks Rich and I are a couple,” she says. “Everyone does. His parents, our colleagues. Except Benny. She knows.”
My face warms. A couple. With Rich. I flex my hands in and out of fists. “Why?”
“It’s a hard time of year for Dad. He’s under a lot of pressure with it being the end of the last quarter, and dealing with the anniversary of Mom’s death—”
“How is that different from every other year?”
“It’s not, but . . .” She crosses her legs more tightly. “I mean it is, because it’s ten years now. That’s big.”
“I get that, I do. But there’ll always be something. At some point, you have to stop giving your dad the excuse to run your life.”
“I tried. I told him I was ending it with Rich and stopping the meds, but it’s too much right now. I could see how stressed he was. It could only be one or the other, and I knew I could lie to him about Rich, but not about my treatment.”
She’s not hearing me. I have to wonder if she’s making excuses so she doesn’t have to cut off her dad’s power over her. Either she’s afraid of him, or she’s gotten so used to it, she doesn’t really want the freedom she says she does. “It’s not healthy, Hals. You’ve got to come clean with him. You don’t owe him your life because of a mistake you made years ago.”
“I’m not going to kick him when he’s down. When I’m medicated and being looked after, he doesn’t worry about me as much. I couldn’t take both those things out of the equation and expect him to be okay with that.”
“He doesn’t have to be okay with it. You’re a grown woman.”
“He’s my dad.” She frowns. “I’m only talking about a few weeks. I’ll tell him after December. Why does it have to be now?”
“Because I get the feeling you’ve been making excuses for him for a while. Is that why you never broke up with Rich?”
Her posture slumps a little. “It’s not that black and white.”
That answer’s as good as yes. It is the reason. She was willing to stay with Rich to make her dad happy. Would she go back to him for that reason? Her dad introduced them after all. “Is that why you got together with him in the first place? For your dad?”
“Would it make you feel better if I did?”
People stay in relationships for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with love—including not believing they deserve better. “It makes me think if push comes to shove, you’d put your dad before yourself. And that could be bad for us.”
Her expression softens. “You still think I might go back to Rich.”
“If your dad’s been controlling you this long, what happens if he doesn’t accept your breakup?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know how else to tell you it’s over.”
“Does Rich know that?”
“God, Finn, you have to understand—it means absolutely nothing. It’s just a show for my dad. Rich wants me back, but that’s his issue.”
I lean my back against the headboard. “I’m asking you to tell your dad now. Before Rich’s family comes over.”
“I can’t. It’s Christmas. It’ll ruin everyone’s holiday.” She looks at her hands. “I’m sorry. We’ll all spend a polite weekend together, and then I’ll come home to you.”
“Weekend?”
“I’m going to take the train to Westchester tomorrow after work. My mom baked on the twenty-fourth, and I think my dad would really like if I started that tradition again.”
I look out the window. Dinner with the ex and his family isn’t how I want my girlfriend spending her holiday weekend, but I’m doing the exact same thing. I’m not sure how else to tell her what I want. “Let’s forget about it for now,” I say. “We’ll spend a few days apart, make our families happy, and before we know it, we’ll be back in bed, fucking in the new year.”
She launches herself at me. “Best idea I’ve heard all day.”
I catch her and lie us back on the mattress. “But what’ll we do until then?”
She straddles me. “I can think of a few things.”
“You know people can see us?”
She looks sidelong out the window. “Does it bother you?”
I lift her t-shirt to steal a peek at her breasts, appreciating their round fullness, the pretty pink peaks. My pretty pink peaks. “A little.”
“Aw.” She reaches between to touch me. She’s not as timid as she was when we started sleeping together. I liked her timid sometimes, but I also like her bold if it’s because I’ve made her comfortable. She sinks down on me. “You’re jealous?”
“You would be too if—” I groan as she swivels her hips. “If you had someone others could only dream of having.”
She drops her forehead to mine, looks me in the eye, and says, “I do.”
I try to focus on how her warmth envelops me.
I try not to wonder what Christmas at the Fox’s is like.
Or if I mistakenly worried about Rich when it’s becoming clear Halston’s dad is the one pulling the strings.
20
I wake up early to pack for Westchester so I can spend the morning with Finn. It occurs to me as I bag up tampons that I’ve hardly been to my apartment the last few weeks. I’
m not bringing much, most of what I’d need is already at my dad’s, but it’s still strange to pack here rather than at home.
I put my overnight bag by the front door and take my phone into the kitchen. I check inside the refrigerator. I haven’t ever made Finn breakfast, but that’s usually because he’s up before me. I get out some eggs and find bacon in the freezer. While I wait for it to defrost in the microwave, I check our latest post. Only thirty-two photos in and we’re nearing three thousand followers. It’s incredible. I have friends who’ve been using the app for years and can’t crack a thousand. I’ve started tracking the number of followers we get a day. If the photos are good, we can double our numbers by posting twice in twenty-four hours. We can quadruple them or more if a bigger account shares our work.
Not every photo works. I’ve inspected the ones that don’t—the angle, my pose, my words—to see what’s missing. I don’t have enough data to identify any patterns yet, but the sexier the photo, the more attention it gets. The peek at the tops of my stockings has been one of the most successful ones, but one of just my hair and bra strap fell flat.
I put the phone away to search for a frying pan and bump the coffee maker with my hand.
I forgot.
About coffee.
It’s not the first time this has happened. One day last week, I didn’t think about it until three in the afternoon, and that point, I didn’t feel like making any. Even before I drank it like water, I still had a cup a day.
This must be what it feels like to be satisfied. Happy. I stopped the antidepressants on the seventeenth—the anniversary of my mom’s death—and I can’t help but think it was the right choice. Aside from some headaches, mood swings, and minor anxiety, I’ve handled the transition well.
I get a pot going. I’m scrambling eggs when Finn zombie-walks into the kitchen wearing only boxer-briefs. His burnt-butter hair sticks up on one side, and his eyes are heavy with sleep. He yawns. “Eight solid hours, and I still feel like I was knocked out with a two-by-four.”
“That’s the power of good pussy.”
“The power of your pussy.” He grins. “What’s all this?”
Yours to Bare Page 20