But First, Coffee

by Sarah Darlington

  CHAPTER 23

  LANA

  Kitty hadn’t left. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest on the sidewalk in front of Abe’s truck. It was a warm night with lots of little bugs swarming the lights above.

  I sat down beside her, pulling up my knees to my chest too. The white pantsuit I’d worn today was taking a beating. “I know I’m not your favorite person, but if you want to talk, I’d like to listen.”

  “No offense, Lana, but I don’t.”

  I sighed. “Your brother cares so much about you. I hope you realize that at least.”

  “I do. It’s just . . . sometimes it’s a lot of pressure to live up to. I’m always screwing up. I don’t have a job. I live on my brother’s couch. Every boyfriend I’ve ever had has treated me like crap. It’s not easy.” She rested her head on her knees. There was a trail of ants moving past her feet that she watched.

  “I think you’re more capable than you know. And if you want a job, I’m always looking for good baristas.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll try that. I’ve never had a job before. I lived off my parents’ money until we had our falling out. Then I lived off boyfriends. Now I live off Joe.”

  I didn’t really know what to say to make her feel better. This was why I’d never been good at making girl friends. I didn’t know how to sugarcoat. But then again, maybe what Kitty needed was the hard truth. “To me it sounds like you’re ready to make a change. What about college?”

  “I dropped out.”

  “Have you ever thought about going back?”

  She shrugged.

  “It’s getting late. The bugs are swarming. I think we all could use some rest. Abe won’t mind if you return his truck tomorrow.” I pointed to whatever was happening above our heads, one large bug in particular. “Seriously? Is that a moth?”

  She laughed, standing up.

  I stood with her.

  For a second, I thought she might give me a hug. But she hesitated. Maybe Kitty wasn’t great at making girl friends, either. “Before we go in,” she said. “Are you going to forgive my brother for spying on you? Because you should. He was only doing it to help me.”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “You’re here now, aren’t you? Seems like you’ve already decided.”

  She left me, opening the motel room door, disappearing back inside.

  I was a little slower to move. I guess she made a good point.

  Back in the room, we all decided that it was too late to drive anywhere. Kitty claimed one of the beds. And I had a choice to make—sleep with Kitty or sleep with Joe.

  “Alternatively, I could go ask the front desk for a rollaway cot,” I commented, knowing Kitty didn’t care. And if Joe cared, he acted like it didn’t matter. I kind of hoped it mattered, though.

  “I’m going to brush my teeth.” He made eye contact before disappearing into the bathroom.

  Jesus, that one little look sent my heart racing. Maybe I had already forgiven him. It sure felt like it.

  “Just get in his bed, Lana,” Kitty mumbled looking half-asleep, “and cuddle your boyfriend.” She giggled to herself. “At least you get to go to New York tomorrow. I have to go meet weirdo Doug. Anything I should know about the wolf before you send me to him?”

  “Yeah,” I told her. “He can be nice when he wants.” I took off my shoes and my suit jacket, lying them on the floor beside the bed. Then I climbed into the opposite bed. “Don’t fall for that. He’s only truly nice when he wants something—I learned that the hard way. He has a bit of a temper. Though, I doubt he’d ever show that side of himself in public.”

  “Who you talking to?” Joe asked, coming from the bathroom. He glanced at Kitty who was now sound asleep.

  “Oh.” I rolled my eyes. “Nobody, I guess.”

  “You gonna wear that to bed?” He gestured to my slacks and blouse.

  I shrugged. “Yes.”

  “Here.” He pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it to me. “You can wear mine.”

  Not that I hadn’t seen him shirtless before, but I still had to pick my mouth up off the floor. The hard lines of his stomach and chest had me feeling a little dizzy.

  “I’m going to go ask the front desk for a rollaway cot. Do you want any snacks from the vending machine? Or if you’re really hungry, I could head across the street for something from Joe’s Bar.”

  “Are you going to eat?”

  “I already did before you showed up.”

  “Okay. I’m not really hungry.”

  “You sure?” He started to go.

  “I’m sure. And . . . um . . . I don’t mind if-if, um.” Spit it out, Lana. “You don’t need to go get a cot.” I took a deep breath. “You can sleep with me.”

  “Okay,” he said simply. He kicked off his shoes and climbed into the other side of my bed.

  I had his shirt in my hands still. Awkwardly, I unbuttoned my blouse, taking it off. Then I hastily pulled his T-shirt over my head. Then I got under the covers, too.

  Joe flipped off the light on his side.

  He rolled over, his back to me. I laid there, still as possible, staring into the blackness above me. He’d written me that note on the hotel pad of paper, and I thought that meant something. But maybe it didn’t. Because he was completely keeping his distance. I obviously didn’t want anything physical to happen with Kitty in the room, but the cuddling she’d suggested sounded nice.

  With a sigh, I rolled over in the opposite direction and pinched my eyes shut.

  CHAPTER 24

  JOE

  “Our flight leaves in one hour,” I told Lana. “We’d better hurry.” After the most torturous night of my life—sleeping in the same bed as Lana and not getting to touch her—we’d separated, each driving our own cars back to Portland. Then, a couple of hours later, we’d met at the Portland Airport, in the parking garage.

  I tossed a small duffle bag I’d packed over my shoulder, slamming the trunk of my car shut. “You didn’t pack a bag?”

  She was dressed in another one of her white suits, looking rejuvenated somehow, and ready to take on the world. Me—I was barely functioning today. But seeing her again gave me a much-needed boost of energy.

  “It’s one night.” She shrugged. “I have my makeup, my toothpaste, and toothbrush in my purse.”

  Yeah, and no pajamas. Our return flight wasn’t until tomorrow.

  I raised my eye brows. “What do you plan to wear to bed tonight?”

  “Maybe your shirt again.”

  Damn. I stared at her, trying to decide if she was serious or joking, the temperature in the parking lot raising a couple of degrees.

  “Let’s just go,” she urged. “I want to get this over with.”

  We started walking toward the terminal. It didn’t take long to check-in for our flight to New York City or to get through security. Before I knew it, we were boarding the plane, almost on our way.

  A last-minute flight was expensive enough, so our seats were in coach. Not that I couldn’t have afforded anything else. We each bought our own. “I’ve only ever sat in first class,” I confessed. “This should be fun.”

  “Really?”

  “The perks of being born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Mind if I take the window?” I could already feel the jitteriness of having to sit still for the next five hours starting to creep over me. This wasn’t good.

  “Go ahead.”

  I sat down, buckling in, kicking my duffle bag under the seat in front of my legs. Lana sat to my right. As much as I tried to control it, my damn knee began to bounce incessantly. I drummed my thumb against the armrest, trying to relax.

  A minute later the flight attendant came through checking that seatbelts were buckled. Then the captain announced there was a queue in the takeoff line, so we’d be waiting at the gate for a few minutes.

  I groaned and ran my hands through my hair.

  Lana placed her hand on my bouncing knee. “Are you okay?”

  Still it b
ounced. “Fine.”

  “You don’t seem fine.”

  “Remember how I suck at sitting still for long car rides? Well, it’s times ten for flights. Not sure I’ve ever even been on one sober before.”

  She started digging in her oversized purse, and after a moment, pulled something out. “Here.”

  I glanced down at a crossword puzzle book. “That’s nice, woman, but I can’t focus enough for that. Remember, it took heavy medication and alcohol to get me through school.”

  “What if I read the questions out loud?”

  “Okay. Maybe. That’s a good idea.”

  She started asking me questions and filling in the boxes as I answered.

  This was working, she was distracting me.

  Finally, the plane left the gate, taxied, and took off. We continued to do the crossword puzzle for a little while longer until I started to lose focus. The temperature on this damn plane was set to Satan’s hellfire.

  “Want to listen to music now?”

  She didn’t wait for me to answer. She took out her phone, plugged in her ear buds, and handed them over.

  I willingly took them.

  Hell yes. They were noise cancelling. And I found I desperately wanted to know what kind of music Lana liked.

  A Kings of Leon Album played.

  I knew it. I liked it.

  Then she surprised me when she lifted the armrest between us, unbuckled, and rested her head against my chest.

  I sucked in a breath at her contact. My heart thumped like a wild animal under her ear. She had to feel it. The plane still felt like a sauna, more so with her on my chest, but having her close was what I needed to calm down. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, adjusting, savoring the hell out of this. I didn’t know where we stood, but I took this small moment and held onto it—onto her—as tightly as I could.

  We sat like this for a very long time.

  My heart rate eventually slowed and even, but my thoughts wandered to Kitty and Zane. I’d known all along that Zane was an asshole. But realizing yesterday, what I should have realized from the start, that what he’d done to my sister was just another form of sexual abuse, brought my own issues with sex to the surface all over again. And I couldn’t shake this feeling that I was wrong for letting everything that happened between me and Lana happen.

  “I feel guilty,” I admitted to her. “I shouldn’t have touched you like I did when we first kissed. I shouldn’t have taken things so far in the garage. You trusted me, and I was deceiving you. I lost control—in every moment with you. But especially that moment in the garage. There were so many mixed emotions running through me after seeing Doug in the coffee shop and rather than talking to you about it, confessing it all to you, I . . ..” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, she knew the rest.

  She sat up, moving off me, the air between us instantly changing. “After seeing that woman, too?” she added.

  “What woman?”

  “The woman with Doug, the brunette. Your ex or whoever she was. Now that I know you know Doug too, that must have been especially weird seeing the two of them together. I guess she was part of your mixed emotions.”

  Nausea hit my stomach. I’d forgotten about the woman with Doug, and about how I’d told Lana we ‘used to fuck.’

  “Shit, no.” I pulled the ear buds from my ears. “I’m sorry. I never clarified that. I didn’t know the woman Doug was with that day. I lied because seeing Doug while you were holding my hand rattled me. I was afraid you’d notice something was wrong with me, and the woman with him seemed like a good enough excuse at the moment. I shouldn’t have said it either way.”

  Fuck. I tugged at my hair.

  I felt even worse now. “I was just . . ..” I leaned forward, putting my head in my hands. “I was freaked out thinking that because Doug caught us together, that this thing between us would have to end. I lost control in our next moment alone together. And now, thinking about Zane and Kitty, and how he was a dick for abusing her the way he did, and then thinking about what happened to me, I know I should have slowed down. I like you too much to have treated you like an overeager jackass. It all happened so fast.”

  She leaned forward, closer to me. “But everything was consensual. I wanted it as much as you wanted it. I lost control the same as you. If you were an overeager jackass, then so was I. Do you regret everything that happened between us?”

  “No. But I regret not being honest with you first. And I regret not letting you lead things. I should have only kissed you against your food truck. I should have only kissed you in your office. In my bed. In the garage.” I slapped my hand to my head.

  “Joe,” she said softly, “what are you really getting at? Because I kind of love the way everything happened in those moments together. The speed, the timing, it all seemed perfect to me. It seemed like you felt the same way, too. Now you’re taking it all back? Where is the doubt coming from? What is it you aren’t saying? What happened two years ago that made you give up sex?”

  My jaw tightened. I didn’t realize that was what I was actually trying to tell her. That that was the real issue behind my words. Once again, that fucking woman was still in my head. And once again, Lana had this way of getting me to talk about all the hard stuff. “It’s so stupid,” I said to Lana.

  “No, whatever it is, it’s not.”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “I was raped.”

  There, I said it.

  Out loud.

  She was the first person I’d ever told.

  CHAPTER 25

  LANA

  Now I needed the hell off this plane. I couldn’t sit still. I wanted desperately to finish this conversation with Joe—so much needed to be said, but not on a jam-packed airplane. Not when the man sitting on my other side was only pretending to read the book in front of him, secretly eavesdropping on our conversation.

  I felt it. I felt that he was listening.

  Joe was raped. I didn’t know how something like that could have happened to a strong, capable man like him. It wasn’t something you heard about on the evening news often—or ever. But I believed him when he said it because it explained a lot. It explained his hesitation to be intimate. It explained why, now knowing his sister was sexually abused too, that he feared he might have crossed some line with me.

  But he hadn’t crossed a line with me. I wanted everything just as much as he’d wanted it. I was confident in that and in our moments together.

  This heat—no, a red hot fire—ran through me. I trembled with anger over whoever had hurt him. To the woman who violated this handsome, smart, confident man—if I ever met her, I’d strangle the life out of her.

  “Lana, you’re shaking,” Joe said.

  “I’m okay.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Yes, you should have. I’m glad you did. I want to finish this conversation as soon as we get there. To hell with Leo Maddox. To hell with Doug. How much longer is this flight?”

  He checked the time. “Another hour.”

  “Fuck.”

  The corners of his mouth moved upward. “You want to do a crossword puzzle?”

  I laughed. Maybe it was the intensity of this moment combined with the playful way he’d suggested the puzzle, mocking me a little, but it made me laugh. “Okay,” I conceded. “That might help.”

  So we did another crossword puzzle, this time he read the questions to me, to pass the time until finally, the plane descended, and we landed at JFK airport.

  Exiting the plane, exiting the airport, finding a taxi—all of it was an internal nightmare as I tried to keep calm while waiting for my chance to talk to him more. Knowing what I knew now . . . it changed everything.

  “Maddox International Hotel and Tower. Upper West Side, 5th Avenue, please,” Joe told the driver in a direct and precise voice.

  He sat back in the taxi as we started to move. He rested his head back on the seat, closing his e
yes.

  I watched him, studying him. He really was one of the most handsome men I’d ever met in my life.

  “Lana,” he said with his eyes still closed, “you’re staring at me. Please don’t look at me differently because you now know.”

  “I am looking at you differently. And we have a hell of a lot of to discuss as soon as we get there.”

  He peeked at me through one eye. “I need to change before our meeting.”

  “I’m not going to any meeting until we talk first.”

  “Lana,” he urged.

  I didn’t want to argue with him, so I sat back in the seat and stopped talking. By the time we finally arrived at the Maddox Hotel, I was going out of my freaking mind. Joe pulled out his wallet to pay the taxi driver. I let him. And while he was distracted, I hopped out of the car and walked straight into the glitzy lobby of the hotel. I’d made up my mind, and there was no convincing me otherwise. I surpassed a few giant gold pillars, walking straight up to the check-in counter and to the first available waiting person.

  “I need a room,” I said to the man as I dug my credit card out of my purse and dropped it on the marble countertop. “And Leo Maddox is expecting us for a meeting. I need you to call him and tell him that his friend Joe will be late for their meeting.”

  The man stared blankly at me, looking lost.

  “The room, please,” I snapped. “Then talk to whoever you need to talk to and get that message to Leo.”

  By the time Joe caught up to me, I had a keycard in my hand—a keycard to a waiting, empty, private room, somewhere Joe and I could finally talk.

  I showed him the card. “You can change in our room,” I told him and started to walk toward the elevators.

  He hurried after to me, catching my stride. “The rooms here are so damn expensive.”

  “I’m paying.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Well, I just did it. I have the money.” I hit the button for the elevator. The doors immediately opened, and I stepped inside.