One Last Touch

by Lauren Wood

  “Is she done with me?”

  God, I really hoped she was.

  “For now. I think she was taking it easy on you because you have a hangover.”

  I wasn’t going to disagree, but if that was true, then I would hate to see her at full tilt. We had our own plans that involved fishing and getting away from the women. I was ready for that more than anything after last night. Soon, this would be a normal thing and I didn’t want to lose Jesse as a friend. I had to make it up to Anna and to Mariss. I couldn’t even think about Marsha and how that was going to play out. I’d been avoiding her calls all day, prolonging the inevitable as much as possible.

  We drove in silence, both of us having a lot on our minds. Jesse had a wedding coming up and it was dictating a lot of his mind. I had one coming up as well, or I did, but that was the very last thing on my mind. The wedding wasn’t something that I was looking forward to. It was most likely not going to happen now and sadly, strangely, all I felt was relief.

  Chapter 8

  Mariss

  Breakfast was hard, but I was going to have to move on. I promised Anna that I would, and I meant it when I said it. I didn’t want to think that I couldn’t have him again, but I wasn’t going to be the other woman. I already was and that bothered me.

  “You’re quiet.”

  “It’s been a busy twenty-four hours. It’s good to see you again, but man, what a day that was.”

  She giggled and said that it sounded and looked like it hadn’t turned out all that bad in the end.

  “I can’t say that it wasn’t without it’s rewards. He is right when he says he aims to please. I don’t know what it is that he does, but wow.”

  She giggled and wanted details. I didn’t have many because it all happened so fast and before was so long ago. I didn’t remember the specific details, but I remembered the feeling and the pleasure that he gave me. That was enough to keep me hooked all these years.

  We were going out for some shopping before the wedding. She wanted to get a few things for their weeklong honey moon in Barbados. I wanted to get a few things for the fast-approaching summer and it was a beautiful day. I tried to steer the conversation away from what happened last night, and it didn’t take long. All I had to do was ask about Jesse and she would start glowing. Their love was palpable for anyone to see.

  “I’m happy that you found him.”

  “Me too. I hear Danny found her a man too.”

  I agreed. Danny was in love and it was strange to have my two best friends in steady relationships. It made me feel like an outsider, but it also had me thinking about how my own love life was going. Now, it just wasn’t going. It was that simple. I had a few friends that I would see on occasion, but nothing special and nothing that was going to turn into anything else.

  “She did. They are deliriously happy, and it makes me a little sick. But you know that I’m happy for her.”

  Anna agreed and asked how she was doing. She asked about work and what I was doing with my aunt’s money.

  “I don’t know. It’s weird to not have to ever worry about money again. I usually took jobs because I had to, now I just do what I want.”

  She told me that she envied me, but I was feeling the same green monster on my back for completely different reasons.

  “So what project are you working on now?”

  “I’m doing a mural in the Townson Library on McCorckle. It will be really nice when it is finished.”

  “A library?”

  I smiled when I thought about it. “Yeah, just a library. It’s a massive train that goes through six rooms. It’s for the kids. They called me up about it and I had to.”

  “Is that what you usually do?”

  I told her that it wasn’t. It was an odd sort of job that I was approached about and the pay wasn’t very good at all. If I hadn’t inherited a fortune from my aunt, I never would have been able to take the job because of that very reason.

  “I’m glad you’re getting to paint. It was always what you wanted to do. I’m sorry to hear about your aunt.”

  Not really wanting to talk about that either because I still missed her, I waved her off.

  “She got bad in the end. I had to move in with her for the last few months. She always did like you. She would ask about you from time to time Anna. Danielle would visit with me and she’d ask about the dark-haired one with the pretty green eyes.”

  Anna smiled, and I know that she was remembering the summer we spent a few weeks there. My aunt Betty was a hoot and a half.

  “Wow, I can’t believe I’m getting all worked up over it. I usually don’t.”

  “Emotions are high. I know that mine are on crack right now. Seeing Cal, then being with him, then finding out he’s engaged. It’s a lot to process Mariss.”

  “Thanks for not judging me for it.”

  “How would you have known if he didn’t tell you? That’s on him, not you.”

  She was right. My emotions and my thoughts in general were all over the place. I was going to blame this one on Cal. I was functioning before I ran into him again and now I was a mess.

  “Well it’s done now.”

  Anna agreed, and we pulled up at the store that she’d been raving to me about. We were there for candles that she was convinced was going to heighten their honeymoon and I was just going along with it. She’d read it somewhere in a book and though Anna was a good friend, we were also very different. Anna wanted to live like the pages of a magazine. I never did like all those fancy things. I had all the money I could ever use, but buying pretty things wasn’t really my thing. I kept trying to tell myself that today I was going to try it out.

  I was happy to be there because that meant that the unsavory conversation would end while we were in there. Anna was going into shopping mode and I knew nothing got in her way then.

  “You ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  We were sitting in the parking lot and it was crowded. I was going to have to see these candles for myself.

  When we walked in, the place smelled good. It was the kind of aroma that knocked you in the face a little bit. There were so many smells mixed together that I couldn’t distinguish one from the next.

  “So, what’s so great about these candles?”

  “They’re really pretty, last for months and you don’t even have to light them. They just smell that good all the time.”

  “So, we’re here to buy candles that you’re not even going to light?”

  I was a little incredulous and she smiled.

  “Well when you say it like that, it really takes the fun out of it.”

  “Wouldn’t dare to do that Anna. Let’s get you some non-burning candles.”

  I tried not to laugh, but her antics were funny. I was looking around when I heard Anna say a name I’d heard before.

  “Marsha. Well what are you doing here? I thought you had to work today?”

  “I did, but I’m supposed to be doing some deliveries for the boss. I can’t help it if I slip in here for a few minutes. What are you doing here?”

  “Just getting some candles for the honey moon. I wanted everything to be perfect. A good friend of mine is in town and I wanted to take her to some of the shops.”

  I heard my name called next and I turned to finally see who it was that Cal was engaged to. I had just gotten oral sex from her man a few hours before and it appeared that she knew nothing about it. How badly I wanted to make sure that things stayed that way. This could get awkward real fast.

  “Nice to meet you Mariss. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “And I you.”

  I took her hand and I felt a jolt from her touch. I wanted to recoil, but I couldn’t, so I just sort of smiled and tried my best not to let her see that I was bothered by her. I instantly hated the woman, even though I had no right to feel anything towards her, least of all hate.

  Chapter 9

  Cal

  I decided that I had to call Marsha back. She’d
been calling a lot and I hadn’t answered any of them today. I hadn’t been home, something I’m sure she was aware of and she was going to want to know why. I still wasn’t working on that answer, but of course, there was the chance that she was going to already know about Mariss and what we’d done together. That wasn’t something that I was ready to deal with, not really.

  After I got home, I knew I had to call. It was getting later in the day and she would be upset if I didn’t call her. If she didn’t know, there was no reason to rock the boat.

  So, I dialed and held my breath. I needed to talk to her, so I would know what I was going into Monday morning for work. If I wasn’t going to have a job, I needed to know that. Jesse hadn’t heard anything, but Anna wasn’t going to tell him because she knew that he’d tell me. I felt like my dick was in a vice and I didn’t like the feeling of it at all.

  “Hey baby! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for hours.”

  “Sorry, I was running around with Jesse.”

  “I know. You will never guess who I ran into at Sobee? It was just the funniest thing. I know you hear that it’s a small world, but it really is.”

  “Who?”

  Marsha liked to talk about things that didn’t matter. I saw that this was going into one of those long conversations about nothing and I wanted to get to the gist of things quickly. She didn’t seem mad and I didn’t think that Marsha had it in her to really pretend she was happy when she wasn’t.

  “Anna and her friend Mariss. She’s the cutest thing. Just like a little button and I want to boop her nose.”

  Marsha was in full stride today and I realized quickly that she was standing in front of them, having this conversation with me. It meant that Mariss was there with her. Things just got worse and the cock vice that I was feeling earlier was getting turned and tighter.

  “Oh, is that so?” What the hell else was I supposed to say?

  “Yeah, where are you at honey? Would you like to come out with us and grab a bite? We were just about to go.”

  “No, I’m on the other side of town, over by the bridge.”

  “Perfect, so are we. I will see you at Lucy’s Bar in a bit. Okay babe?”

  I said okay because I was still in shock. She wanted me to go out with her, her friend that caught me tongue banging her other friend, which I banged in my past. What could go wrong?

  Staring at the phone like it was a weapon, I wanted to kick myself for calling her at all. What the hell had I just got myself into?

  With no choice left but to face the music, I got dressed from what I was wearing the day before and took another cold shower. Thoughts of Mariss had to be squashed immediately. I didn’t know if this was a set-up or not. It could be. It very well could be, and that idea made the drive down to one of our favorite restaurants a little harder to swallow.

  Arriving in front of the place, I stayed in the car for as long as I thought I could. When I got to the door, I could see the three women sitting together, talking and laughing. It didn’t look like a scary prospect but looks could be deceiving. I knew that and that was especially true when it came to women. They always had their own way about them.

  I walked in cautiously and Anna was the first one to see me. She smiled at me and waved in a way that made it hard to breathe. Why was it so hard to breathe suddenly? She was looking at me like she’d let the cat out of the bag and if she hadn’t done it already, she was going to do it soon enough. I didn’t like the idea of that at all.

  Mariss was next to notice me, and her amber colored eyes just looked on like I wasn’t even there. She was hurt and if she didn’t tell Marsha and was sitting there with her as she went on and on, I’m sure she was not too happy. I wouldn’t have been either. I still wanted some time for us to be together alone. I wanted to explain to her what happened and hope that she believed that none of this was my intention. This moment in my life was more aptly my nightmare. It was the last thing that I’d ever wanted to happen.

  “Hey baby! I’m so glad to see you. I was just telling the girls how much I missed you last night. We don’t spend many nights apart.”

  I groaned inwardly and knew that she’d overshared. Marsha overshared for everyone, but I was sure it was worse when the receiver was the girl that I was in between her legs a few hours before. This was all so surreal.

  Marsha went on like this for a while and the only break I got was when she saw one of her friends in her ‘small world’ and went to go say hello. I watched her walk away and I was faced with the two women that were left.

  Anna spoke up finally. “You’re as white as a ghost. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “You know that I’m not. Why do you like to watch me squirm?”

  “Because you deserve it. You hurt both of my friends.”

  “Well he didn’t really hurt me Anna.”

  I smiled at Mariss for the support, but she still wasn’t happy with me and I could tell by the way she still wouldn’t look at me. I certainly wasn’t out of the dog house just yet.

  Anna didn’t like the answer. “He hurt your feelings and that’s enough.”

  “Anna, I didn’t mean to. Really I didn’t.”

  “What about Marsha?”

  She had me there, but at the same time, I had truly thought I was sleeping. It wasn’t a good excuse. I would be the first to admit that, but it was the only one that I had now and that was going to have to be enough. All I could think about was her at the time when I saw her.

  “I hadn’t seen you in a long time Mariss and I just kind of lost my head. I thought you were a dream. I’ve had them before, but that one was just really real.”

  Anna scoffed, but I wasn’t saying it for her. I wanted Mariss to understand that I didn’t try for this to turn out this way. I would have told her, and I regretted getting Marsha in the middle, but I’d made my choice, even if I didn’t know that it was a choice.

  “You need to be honest with Marsha, Cal, or I will be. Because you are Jesse’s best friend and best man, I will let you tell her, but you have to and soon.”

  I agreed, and I have to say that it was better than what I figured she would do. It seemed like Anna was going to rat me out but giving me time to tell her myself was going to help tremendously. Maybe I was going to be able to work it just right and save my job. Maybe.

  Chapter 10

  Mariss

  “You don’t really believe him, do you?”

  I shrugged because I really wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. Honestly, he looked out of it and I thought he was just a little tipsy. He could have very well thought that.”

  I didn’t like thinking that him being with me and making me feel so good was a mistake. I didn’t want to think like that and it bummed me out more than I was able to express. I don’t know why, but I’d really thought that it was magical moment. Instead it was all just a mistake. I think I liked it better when he was just a cheating jerk. Now I wasn’t so sure where I stood, and I liked that feeling even worse than being the other woman. How funny prospective was changed with a few words?

  “Well I wouldn’t forgive him or give him another chance. You deserve better and what if you were Marsha?”

  She was saying this all-in front of Cal, giving him a dirty look the whole time.

  I’d thought that before, especially when I first found out about his fiancée. Now after meeting her, I wasn’t sure how I felt. She was nice. Really, nice. But she didn’t seem to be the type of girl that Cal would be into. It seemed like she was far too nice for him.

  I tried to drop the subject and it was over quickly because Marsha was coming back to the table. She had the biggest smile on her face and it just made me feel worse. Anna had given Cal a ultimatum to tell his fiancée what had happened between us, but I had a feeling that she would just forgive him anyways. She didn’t seem to be the type that would hold a grudge for more than a few minutes. Why did I want her to drop him and leave Cal single? Why was that still on my mind after everything that had happened?
I still didn’t understand the hold that Cal had on me, but it was clear that it was still there.

  When we got back to Anna’s place, I told her that I was going to go for a walk. I needed to talk to my other friend. Danny would know what to do. We were closer than me and Anna were because we lived in the same city. I saw her every day, lived with her for years and now I needed her to tell me what it was I was supposed to do because it was becoming obvious that I had no damn clue myself.

  I called her up on my phone and waited anxiously for it to ring. I knew that she was most likely busy with everything she had going on, but I needed to talk to her. I was hoping that she would give me different advice than Anna had given me. Anna had stakes in it from the other side since she was friends with Marsha. I wasn’t sure how that was all going to pan out. In truth, I knew that she was my friend, but I also knew that she didn’t agree with Cal and I trying to start something. The ultimatum that she’d given him had made it clear to me that she didn’t exactly agree. I can’t say that I would have either, given a change in circumstances.

  Danny answered, and I felt a little sigh of relief that went through me quickly. I had been really needing to talk to her and it was good to hear her voice. She sounded the same, though I’d only been gone for a couple of days, it felt like it had been forever since we’d talked.

  “Hey Mariss. What are you doing? Are you guys having a good time?”

  I told her that we were, and she asked me to apologize for her not being able to make it.

  “I know that Anna understands that you have a lot going on right now. She said that you’re always welcome to come by when you can. I hope that the three of us can all get together soon because I miss the three of us together.”

  “Me too Mariss. So, what is up? I can tell by your voice that there is something going on.”

  Danielle knew me far too well because she was the only one that ever knew when something was wrong. I was good at hiding it, but sometimes I didn’t have the strength and if she would have seen my face, undoubtedly, she would have known sooner that something was bothering me. It was a big something and I wasn’t sure how or what to say about it. All I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to be able to get it out fast enough. It was one of those things that a person just said quickly to just get it out before the courage to say it all left them. It was one of those minutes for me as well.