Anti-Romance

by Cassia Leo

  My eyes widened as I wondered just how far we were supposed to take this charade. Then it occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t a charade. Were the kiss behind The Continental Club and the kiss tonight a symptom of something deeper? Had I been too busy getting in one train-wreck relationship after another to realize that my best friend was falling in love with me?

  I turned to Erika and my heart actually ached for her when I saw the smile on her face. It was not a genuine “I’m so happy for you” smile. It was the kind of smile one used to mask deep pain. I knew that smile. I’d used it many times before.

  “I’m so glad you two made it out,” she said, addressing me, as if this trip were my idea. “Welcome to London.”

  She forced her smile a bit wider, and with a cordial nod she set off back to her bachelorette party.

  I turned to George. “What the fuck was that?”

  He finished downing his third shot of whiskey and shrugged. “What?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me!” I said, landing a decent swat on his arm.

  He clutched his bicep as he shot me a confused glare. “Hey, what the fuck was that?”

  I shook my head, unable to believe that he was going to ignore what just happened.

  He rolled his eyes and turned back to the bar. “You have no idea what you’ve put me through.”

  “What…I’ve put you through?”

  The bartender came back with the bottle and offered him another shot, but he had the sense to refuse. He stared at the empty shot glass in front of him in silence. All the while, my mind was racing, trying to make sense of his words.

  “George, talk to me.”

  He cast me a long sideways glance then slid off his barstool. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  Dark clouds loomed over London as the seconds inched toward midnight. George and I walked in silence for a while, until we reached Dorset Square, where we took a seat on a bench in the middle of the small park.

  “Dorset Square has some of the oldest trees in London,” George remarked as he sat back on the wooden bench.

  “Thanks for that riveting slice of history. How much is this tour going to cost me?”

  He flashed me a smile that cut deeper than the one Erika had given me. “I know you don’t believe me, Lane, but your cynicism is one of the things I love the most about you.”

  “Sure it is. Now, do you mind telling me what the hell happened in the pub?”

  He shook his head. “How can you love someone who doesn’t think they deserve to be loved? Can you answer that question for me? Because I’ve been asking myself that question for more than two years and I can’t seem to find a good fucking answer.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you telling me you are still in love with Erika?”

  He let out a sigh as he leaned forward, his blue eyes locked on mine. “Erika didn’t break up with me two years ago. I broke up with her…for you.”

  It was as if someone had just stuck my finger in an electrical socket. The jolt of shock that coursed through me lifted the hairs all over my body and rendered me temporarily dumb. I stared him straight in the eye, waiting for him to tell me this was a joke, but he never did. He just gazed back at me with that same expression of heartache I had seen him wearing for the past couple of years, the look I thought was a hallmark of his undying love for Erika. The same look Erika had seemed to perfect.

  “You…broke up with her for…?” I couldn’t bring myself to finish that sentence.

  He broke eye contact, disappointed that I couldn’t acknowledge he’d done it for me. “And that’s not even the worst part… I—”

  “Don’t!” I held up my hand to stop him. “Don’t tell me her secret. If you kept it all this time, you must have a pretty damn good reason. So…don’t.”

  He let out a harsh sigh. “If I don’t tell you, you’ll never understand why we’re here.” He laid his hand on mine. “You’ll never understand why I couldn’t tell you the truth despite the fact that I’ve been utterly and completely in love with you for more than two years.”

  Every breath I took brought forth a cloud of steam. It had to be in the low thirties out here, but I was as toasty as a marshmallow at a campfire. He squeezed my hand lightly and my shoulders relaxed.

  I chuckled softly. “This is so me. Finally, a good guy tells me he loves me and it’s none other than my best friend in the whole world.” I took a moment to compose myself as my emotions welled up inside me, threatening to thwart my resolve. George reached up to brush away a tear, but I pushed his hand away. “No, you can’t kiss me in the back of a club then whisk me away to London and tell me you love me when I’ve been right in front of you every single day for the past two years and you never said a word.”

  “Laney, you don’t understand. Two years ago, when Erika and I broke up, I didn’t tell anyone about it for weeks. I should have called you that night. Should have told you right then and there how I felt, but I was scared. You were dating some guy at the time. I think it was the motorcycle mechanic you dated for a few months. And I didn’t know if you were really serious about him.”

  My left eyebrow shot up straight into the stratosphere.

  He smiled at my skepticism. “Hey, you know me. I’ve only ever been in long-term relationships. I don’t know how casual dating works.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you waited two years to tell me this.”

  “Well, something happened a few weeks after Erika and I broke up that kind of turned my world upside down.” He looked me in the eye rather intensely, willing me to put the pieces of this puzzle together on my own.

  “She was pregnant?” I gasped as he turned away to look out toward the park. “Oh, God. Do you have a child I don’t know about?”

  He whipped his head around again. “What? No! No, that’s not… That’s not how it happened.” His shoulders slumped a bit as he turned his attention back to the park scenery and continued. “I decided I would hold off on telling anyone about the pregnancy, because the truth was that I didn’t know how I was going to tell you without completely ruining any shot I had with you. So I went to all the appointments and when she asked if we were getting back together, I told her I didn’t know. But she held out hope. Hell, even I thought, not so far in the back of my mind, that once the baby came, Erika and I would get back together. Unfortunately, around the eight-month mark, at a routine checkup, they couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat.”

  His face screwed up as if he were in physical pain. Holy hell. He had been dealing with this agony for the past year while I rambled on and on to him about all my shitty boyfriends and one-night stands? And somehow, he still loved me.

  “I’m so sorry, George. I feel like such an idiot now. How could I not have seen that you were going through something like this? What kind of friend am I?”

  “Don’t even think about blaming yourself. I locked this stuff up inside for fear of losing you as a friend, but none of that is your fault. It’s my fault for not having the guts to get shot down.” He reached for my face and this time I let him lay his hand on my cheek. “It would have hurt like hell to lose you, but I should have told you the truth.” His gaze wandered over my face. “I’ll tell you the rest at the hotel. Let’s head back before you get frostbite.”

  The Landmark London Hotel was just a block and a half away, so we were in our room, stripping away our excess clothing within minutes. If this were any other night, under any other circumstances, I would be changing into my pajamas and settling down for a chat with my best friend. But I didn’t know how to proceed now. I didn’t know if I should leave my street clothes on in case we were about to get separate rooms. Or should I just behave the way I always had because nothing had changed?

  I was still as confused about George as I was last night. Okay, maybe a bit more confused. He was still my best friend, and my polar opposite. And I still loved him.

  Maybe this would be a good time to check the text message Kade sent almost exactly twenty-four hours ag
o.

  George hung up his coat in the closet. Then, through sheer force of habit, he swiped my coat off the armchair, where I’d tossed it quite haphazardly, and hung it up next to his. I shook my head and chuckled softly, not just at how different we were, but also at how my mind immediately tried to pick up on and accentuate these differences, as if it really mattered that George liked to hang up his coat and I liked to throw mine on the chair.

  This habit didn’t make me a slob and it didn’t make him a neat freak. It certainly didn’t make us incompatible. It just made us…us. A man and woman who’d been best friends for three years.

  Were we really best friends if one of us was pining for the other?

  I took a seat on the edge of the bed and let out a deep sigh. “I feel like I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

  He took a seat next to me. “I struggled a lot when Erika came to me and told me she was pregnant,” he began. “I wanted to be honest with you and her, but I didn’t want to ruin my friendship with you or my relationship with the future mother of my child. All I knew was that I didn’t love her the way I loved you… So I told her we weren’t getting back together, but I would be there for her and the baby. Then I told myself that I would wait until after the baby was born to decide whether or not I wanted to get back together with Erika. I was good at monogamy and I knew I could make it work with her if I had to. Then we lost the baby and everything fell apart.”

  Thinking back on all the times he seemed to be lost in thought or dealing with something heavy the past two years, it always seemed to be that his mind was on Erika. I took this to mean that he hadn’t gotten over her. It turned out that he was probably just worried about her or grieving.

  Fuck. Now I felt like a massive shit-stain for giving her the nickname She-who-must-not-be-named.

  “I can’t believe you never told me any of this.”

  He nodded. “Believe me, my therapist could buy a yacht with the amount of money she’s squeezed out of my guilty conscience.”

  I chuckled then quickly covered my mouth. “Sorry. That was inappropriate.”

  He smiled. “No, it wasn’t. It was completely appropriate…for you.”

  My jaw dropped. “That’s kind of mean.”

  “Why? Your inappropriate sense of humor is one of the things I love the most about you.”

  “Well, when you put it that way…” I allowed myself a modest smile at this compliment. “So… Why did your therapist think it would be a good idea for you to come here?” I asked, glancing around the room to indicate the whole of London. “I mean, how did you and Erika go from something like that to…this?”

  He sighed. “We were there for each other after we lost the baby, but I could see that she wanted more, so I told her the truth. I couldn’t be what she needed me to be.” He reached up to brush a piece of hair away from my eyes. “We kept in touch after that with an occasional email. And our mothers became friends. They kind of leaned on each other for support. My mom is the one who actually delivered the wedding invitation to me last month. She told me the wedding was a ‘hasty affair.’ Her words, not mine. Because Erika’s pregnant. That’s when I knew I had to come. If Erika wanted me here, this is where I had to be. I owed her that much.”

  I reached out and grabbed George’s hand, giving it a light squeeze. “So you consulted with your therapist and you decided this would be a good way to get closure? By getting drunk and kissing me in front of Erika?”

  He shrugged. “I’m 0 for 2. Guess I can’t get drunk around you anymore.”

  I nudged his shoulder. “Hey, I guess kissing someone in front of your ex-girlfriend isn’t so bad. It’s not like you flashed your underwear in public, or anything crazy like that.”

  He smiled and I closed my eyes as he leaned forward and laid a soft kiss on my temple. “We should get some rest. We’ve got a wedding to attend tomorrow.”

  I stood from the bed, sliding my hand into my pocket to make sure my phone was in there. “I’m just going to change and wash up.”

  I grabbed the black Anti-Romance T-shirt I used as a nightgown and disappeared into the bathroom. Taking a deep breath, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and opened the messages app. There it was, one unread message from Kade. The first four words of the message read: I fucked up. Give… I swallowed hard as I tapped the message and it opened on my screen.

  Kade: I fucked up. Give me a chance to explain.

  I stripped down to my bra and underwear and took a piss as I tried to think of a response. I flushed the toilet and was washing my hands as it came to me.

  Me: Gonna be kind of hard to explain when I’m 5,000 miles away. Can I take a rain check?

  As I hit the send button, the toilet began to overflow.

  “Shit!” I screamed, reaching for a folded towel on the shelf behind me. I tossed it onto the running water. “George!”

  He came rushing into the bathroom and we both froze as we realized I was standing in front of him in my bra and his boxer briefs.

  “The toilet!” I shrieked, pointing at the commode.

  An hour later, the hotel maintenance insisted we had to move into another room at least until the toilet was fixed in our family room.

  The voice on the other end of the hotel phone was the same voice who had informed me of the wedding rehearsal last night. “I’m sorry, sir, but we have no available family rooms. We can downgrade you to a superior room with one queen bed or we can upgrade you to a Marylebone studio with a queen bed and a sofa.”

  “We’ll take the studio,” George replied, looking up and whispering to me, “I’ll take the sofa.”

  “No, you’re the one paying. I’ll take the sofa.”

  “Sir?” the woman interrupted our argument. “Your new room keys will be waiting for you at the front desk.”

  “Thank you,” he replied, hanging up the phone as he glared at me. “No fucking way are you sleeping on the sofa.”

  “Then we’ll sleep together,” I replied stubbornly.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Lane, I don’t want this…everything that’s happened tonight to change anything…unless you want it to change.”

  I shook my head as I walked toward the closet to retrieve my suitcase. “George, we’ve slept together plenty of times before. We should be able to do it for a few nights without your penis ending up in my vagina.”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “There are worse places for my penis to end up.”

  When we were finally settled into our new studio suite, I pulled on a pair of leggings, something I never did when I was home alone. But I didn’t want George to be subjected to my two-day-old stubble. We both slid beneath the cool sheets and switched off our bedside lamps at the same time, like an old married couple.

  I lay back in the dark, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. “Good night,” I whispered toward the ceiling, my heart pounding as I realized sleeping next to George was a bad idea. All I wanted in that moment was to scoot closer to him and fall asleep in his arms. Very bad idea.

  “Thank you for hearing me out tonight,” he whispered, rolling onto his side to face me. “Sweet dreams, Lane.”

  I slept fitfully for a couple of hours with nightmares of wedding disasters haunting me. I finally gave up around four in the morning, quietly slipping out of bed to retreat to the sitting area with my laptop. Seated cross-legged on the sofa, I opened my MacBook and logged into my website. There were drafts of eighteen as yet unpublished blog posts about Rick just waiting for me to hit the publish button. I read through the first one to make sure there were no typos or incriminating references that would give away his identity.

  November 10th

  POLITICS GONE WILD

  I don’t approve of celebrities who try to force their political beliefs on their fans, which is why I promise this next blog series, Politics Gone Wild, will not be about politics. It will be about the issues that my constituents—ahem—my readers care about most, like whether or not Republican men like a
finger in their ass when they’re getting blown and how they measure up in terms of their standing in the…polls. I promise to get to the bottom of these important issues. But first, let me preface this post by disclosing that I was warned against sharing the details of my relationship with this Republican strategist whom I will henceforth refer to as “Dick.” But I will not be shafted by Dick or any man who thinks he can cockblock my First Amendment rights.

  And now, let me tell you how I met “Dick Little.”

  Halfway through proofreading the post, my phone chimed with a new text message. I tossed my laptop onto the sofa cushion and scurried back into the bedroom to retrieve my phone from the nightstand where I’d left it. George groaned as he turned over in bed and squinted at me through the darkness.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “Why aren’t you in bed? Are you sleeping on the sofa?”

  “No. I’m just getting some work done. Just a few things I forgot to do last night,” I said, pressing the phone screen against my abdomen to stifle the light from the text notification. “Go back to sleep. You don’t have to wake up for another three hours.”

  “You coming back to bed?”

  “Yeah, I’ll just be a few more minutes.”

  He mumbled something unintelligible as he rolled over onto his stomach and instantly fell back asleep. I tiptoed back to the sofa and smiled when I finally looked at my phone. It was another text from Kade.

  Kade: Not sure what timezone you’re in. Call when you’re awake/available.

  Me: I’m awake, but can’t talk. It’s 4am in London and my friend is asleep. What’s up?

  Kade: I suck at texting. Would much rather talk.

  Me: I’ll be the judge of that. And, btw, I’m really sorry too, for messing up your pics. I’m a jerk.

  Kade: We’re both jerky.