by Tyler King
He tosses back a heavy mouthful then pours himself another.
Standing on the opposite side of the island, I cross my arms over my stomach, relieved that he’s home but disturbed by the state in which he’s returned. I can’t even begin to wonder how the hell he managed to drive home tonight, assuming he didn’t ditch his truck somewhere. That’s a fight for another time.
“I was worried about you. I tried calling.”
“Shut off my phone.”
He doesn’t look at me, preoccupied with the glass in his hand. Again he takes a swig and pours.
“You left me there.”
“Funny,” he says, nose curled and brow furrowed. “The way I remember it, you left me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Nope, I didn’t think so, either.”
I hate this person. Whoever he is, I don’t recognize him. Curt and sarcastic, callous to the point of cruelty. It leaves a cold, empty space inside me that Ethan once filled.
“So that’s it, then. I’m the enemy now.”
“I’m not the one siding against you.”
“Fine.”
I shut off the light, unable to look at him any longer. There’s a fire building in my gut, a sharp, shooting impulse threatening in the back of my head. If I stand here much longer, I’ll say something I can’t take back. As I come around the island, I brush past him and pause.
“You smell like the floor of a bar and cheap perfume,” I tell him, catching a whiff of sweat, liquor, and something noxious. “Take a shower.”
His hand captures mine as I turn away. In the darkness, I feel his stare boring into me. Tension travels through his arm and into mine. He’s silent, still. I try to yank my hand away but he holds tight.
“Ethan…” I warn.
“Do I?” The bite is gone. No trace of his simmering temper. “Honestly.”
“Yes.” This time he lets go when I tug against his hold.
“I didn’t do anything,” he says, hushed and timid. “Avery, I swear.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
I go back to bed and do my best to ignore the big black hole on the other side of the room, but it’s impossible not to notice him. I listen as he puts the bottle back in the cabinet and rinses the glass in the sink. I turn away from the light that briefly pierces the darkness as he goes into the bathroom and turns on the shower faucet. And I’m awake when he eventually slips into bed beside me, refreshed and smelling rich and clean. Like himself again. A scent that teases every nerve as I feel the warmth of his body inches from mine.
“Avery…” Searching and cautious, he wraps his arm across my stomach and presses himself flush to my back. “Hey, I wouldn’t do that to you, okay? I’d never cheat on you.”
I hate that I can’t pull away from him. That his skin against mine is like a blade of sunlight slicing through the chill on a cloudy winter day. My body so attuned to his that it awakens with desire and anticipation when he holds me in his arms. That it doesn’t matter if I’m mad at him, I still want him.
“You believe me, don’t you?”
He’s an asshole, but he’s not a liar. Angry as I am, I can’t find any part of me that believes the first thing he’d do after a night like this is go out and screw some random woman in a bar. Despite the rumors around the office, I’ve seen no evidence of that man.
“Yes,” I tell him.
“I’d never betray you. Whatever else happens, I love you.”
Fucking asshole.
“You can’t just say you love me and make the rest of it go away.” Clutching my pillow under my head, it’s all I can do to keep from rolling over and smacking him in the head. “I was mortified back there. You turned on me so fast—”
“So you do know how I felt.”
“Stop it.” I throw his arm off me. “I wasn’t the one being unreasonable. You can’t call me a traitor every time I don’t agree with you. Ethan, you were a spectacular jackass tonight. More so to your parents.”
“It’d be nice,” he says, speaking low and calm behind me, “if just once you didn’t jump at the chance to agree with my father.”
“Then I guess we’re at an impasse, Ethan.” Painful as it is—agonizing, in fact—I throw the blankets off me and sit up to get out of bed. “I’m done arguing with you.”
“Wait.” He shoots up beside me. “Where are you going?”
“Somewhere else.”
“No.” He grabs my face between both strong, firm hands. “Don’t leave. Please.”
“You’ve made up your mind that you can’t trust me.” I tear his hands from my face, steeling myself for what I’m about to suffer. “What’s the point?”
I stand and go to the dresser for my clothes.
“You’re not leaving,” he says. More a demand than a question.
“I can’t stay here.” Not if he’s unwilling to apologize or even acknowledge that ditching me at his parents’ house, embarrassing all of us, was a shit thing to do.
“Don’t.” He crushes into me. Sudden and fierce. Arms wrapped around my chest and stomach, he cages me against his hard, powerful body. It’s only then I realize he’s naked, his skin feverish and heart slamming in his chest. “Don’t go.”
“I’m not going to do this, Ethan. I’m not going to be the girl who nags and argues.”
“So don’t be.”
“But I can’t let you take shots at me because you’re pissed off at your dad or scared about your mom. I’m not going to play the easy target and just shut up and take it.”
“I’m sorry,” he breathes against my ear. A gust of air escapes his lungs. “Fuck, baby, I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t think I can.” Even if it kills me.
The longer he keeps me here, encased in his arms, engulfed in the heat of his embrace, the harder it is to maintain the anger. His touch is the antidote to everything that wounds me.
“Stay.” He turns me to face him. “I need you. Don’t let me ruin us. I’m sorry I fucked up. Just…”
His lips crash to mine, kissing me in an anguished appeal where words fail him. I have only a brief thought of pushing him away before my lips part and my hands go to his hair, tugging and holding him to me.
“Fuck, Avery.” The sound is hoarse and full of want.
He grabs the backs of my thighs and hoists me up, legs wrapped around his hips and arms gripping his shoulders. His hips flex, pressing his thick erection against my core and defeating the last of the notion I had about walking away from him.
“I have to be inside you,” he groans.
Ethan lays me down on the edge of the bed, standing between my legs and covering me with his body. Ripping away my underwear, he pushes inside me with barely a warning. The sudden sting of intrusion flares through my body, replaced just as quickly with the warm, wonderful ache of being reconnected.
“I love you,” he says, voice ragged and strained. He entwines our fingers to stretch both of my arms above my head.
Lying like this, completely open and vulnerable to him, I’ve never felt so safe or protected with another man. Despite the arguments and unresolved strain between us, I recognize he only lashed out at me out of pain. He’s terrified of being abandoned. Spent his entire life feeling betrayed by his family. He wants just one person in the world who chooses him first. And in return, he offers unconditional love. For that, I can forgive him. That, I understand.
“Please,” he breaths against my lips as he pulls out just a fraction and pushes inside again, nearly all his weight focused on the place where we connect. “Tell me.”
“I love you, too.”
* * *
The next morning, I can’t get Ethan out of bed. He’s barely lucid, and no matter what I say, he won’t budge. After last night, I just don’t have the energy to fight him. Given how much he likely had to drink, maybe it’s just as well. It’s probably better that he not show up at work with a hangover.
At the office, I se
ttle into the war room. I’ve got some calls scheduled for today, and I have to get through typing up a couple of audio transcripts before a check-in meeting with Ed to catch him up on our progress. Around eleven, Vivian wanders in. She’s dressed like it’s laundry day, downscaled from her usual cry-for-attention wardrobe to a faded T-shirt and worn jeans; wearing dark sunglasses and carrying a cardboard tray with three enormous cups of coffee.
“You like dark roast, right?” she says, and sets a cup in front of me.
“Uh, yeah. Thank you.” A brief notion that it might be poisoned crosses my mind, but I figure if Vivian were to attempt homicide, she’d do it with fewer witnesses nearby.
Setting the tray down on the table, she pulls up a chair across from me and opens her laptop.
“I take it Ethan’s sleeping it off?”
My head snaps up. “What?”
“Last night. He was on some bender.”
Face flushing red, pulse racing, I damn near lunge across the table.
“You were with him?”
Vivian takes a long, leisurely sip from her coffee. “Met him for a drink. Kinda turned into several. You two didn’t have a fight, did you?”
Like I’d tell her. “Family thing.”
“Ah.” She nods, knowing and smug. “His mother, I’m guessing. Unless his father finally dropped dead.”
“What do you know about his mother?”
“I was there when she first got sick. He spent more than a few nights sleeping it off at my place.”
Hot, scorching ire flames through my skull, tightening my shoulders. If I could get away with it, I’d toss my coffee in her face. Because I know what she’s doing. Every woman can recognize it. Teasing me, baiting. Vivian’s chumming the waters. I believe Ethan when he says he never had any interest in her, but that doesn’t mean she felt the same. There’s no doubt in my mind that if given the chance, she’d pounce on him. Which makes her my mortal enemy.
“But don’t worry,” she says, cloying smile on her thin lips. “I took good care of him. He was very well behaved.”
Uh-huh.
* * *
Whatever professional respect I had accumulated for Vivian is obliterated right there, and fully paved over by the growing contempt she elicits when she finds a way to spend all night drinking on Ethan’s couch with increasing frequency over the following two weeks. These at-home sessions began as a means of working through the night in a more comfortable environment, Ethan cooking dinner while Vivian and I kept at it. But as the days have worn on, less work gets done once we’ve cleared our plates, and more of the evening becomes dedicated to swapping old war stories and getting to the bottom of a bottle. At first I told myself this was preferable to having him roam the city with her, but now I regret not speaking up weeks ago.
Coming out of the shower one night, in my pajamas and making it quite evident that I’m one yawn away from passing out, I find them still sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey between them.
“Ethan?” I say, standing across the room beside the bed. “Can I have a minute?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He pushes himself up from the stool and saunters over, a little wobbly and listing to the left. “Hey, you going to bed? What time is it?”
“Almost three,” I say pointedly. “I can’t stay up. I’m exhausted.”
“Yeah, baby, get some sleep.” He wraps his arms around me, leaning down to kiss my forehead with harsh whiskey breath. “We’re just talking. I’ll get rid of her and be there in a minute.”
I stare into his red, glassy eyes, wishing I didn’t know that in an hour when I’m still awake, staring at the ceiling, they’ll still be sitting at the island in the kitchen, still drinking.
“Okay,” I tell him, running my hands down his stomach. His muscles don’t move, too numb to feel me. “I love you.”
His fingers push my hair behind my ear, trailing down my neck. At least I know, somewhere in there, he hasn’t forgotten me.
“Love you.”
And it goes on like that, days and nights. Everywhere I turn, Vivian’s face. We’re so close to the end—wrap up this story, make deadline, and be rid of her. Just a few more weeks, and things will get back to normal. It’s what I tell myself. But every day it gets harder to believe it. Every day, I’m watching him unravel. He won’t talk about his mother. Not sure he’s talking to her, either. The only thing he wants to do is drink and sleep and I don’t know how to break him out of the cycle. Half the time he’s too sloshed when he does come to bed to even notice I’m there. It doesn’t help that Vivian is feeding all of his worst instincts. I’d hide the liquor, but he’d go elsewhere. I’d kick her out, but it isn’t my house.
Another day, and again I find myself standing over Ethan in the morning. Lying in bed, he’s half-unconscious and surly as fuck.
“You can’t call out again this week,” I insist, ripping the blanket from his body. He groans and turns away. “Every time you ditch work, I’ve got to smooth it over with Ed. He’s getting tired of the excuses.”
“He’ll deal. Tell him I’m working from home.”
“That’s what you always say, but I keep getting stuck picking up your slack.”
“Christ, Avery, get off my case. Let me get a few hours, and I’ll be in later.”
“Forget it.” I never win this argument, so why do I keep trying? “I’m going to be late.”
When I step off the elevator at the office, I hurry straight for the war room to avoid being spotted, but Ed catches me at the door like a parent sitting in the dark waiting for their kid to sneak in after curfew.
“Ethan?” he asks without preamble. We both already know the answer.
“He’s tying up some work, and he’ll be in later,” I say.
Neither of us is impressed with my lackluster performance.
“Uh-huh.” Ed crosses his arms and I can’t escape the gnawing feeling that I’m burning through any capital I’d earned with him. “I sent you the edits on Ethan’s other pending articles. His work has turned to shit lately. Maybe you can fix it before he writes himself out of a job.”
That’s no idle threat.
23
The Libertine
There’s a tavern in Tribeca, a homey spot with exposed pipes crossing the water-stained ceiling. It’s got cheap beer and comfy pleather barstools worn in by decades of asses. The bartenders are friendly, which almost makes up for the trauma of walking into the blue-ribbon winner for worst bathroom in Manhattan. The cozy dive is lit by blue lanterns and red pin spots; drink specials are scrawled on chalkboards. At first glance, there’s nothing much remarkable about the almost-decrepit hole in the wall. But within its exposed brick walls, a cold war rages. One that has divided the New York publishing community since the first Bush administration.
“If I may have everyone’s attention.” Addison stands in front of a worn-out pool table with scratches and drink stains on the felt. About forty people crowd in around him. Above his head, a hanging exposed bulb casts bright orange light on his narrow shoulders. “This is the twenty-sixth annual tournament of champions for the right to claim The Table…”
As it goes, this crusty bar has been a popular hangout among the several magazines that reside in Lower Manhattan. As the publications traded staff over the years, more magazines began calling this place home. Until scuffles and even a few bar brawls broke out over who had claimed the territory first and to whom dibs on The Table—at perfect equidistance to the billiards and bar—belonged. One night those present nominated a champion from each magazine to play a tournament to settle the matter. And since then, for nearly three decades, we still gather to uphold the tradition. Really, at this point, it’s more about pride and bragging rights. And it’s an excuse to heckle the fancy kids from Vogue and the New Yorker.
Riot Street has entrusted our fate to Cara’s hands for the last several years, I’m told. So the rest of us stand back to watch and jeer while the champions battle it out.
“Where
’s Ethan?”
That is the question that’s recently come to define my life. Tonight, it’s Kumi asking. We sit at a high-top table listening to Addison read the rules to the participants gathered around the pool table.
“I left him at home,” I tell her. “He wasn’t feeling up to it.”
A phrase Ethan uses a lot these days. About the only thing he gets up to is a bottle of whiskey, or whatever’s handy. It’s gotten to the point that I don’t bother waking him for work in the morning. Some days he comes in; some he doesn’t. Barely skating by on his assignments, while I do my best to cover for him. The tedium is getting to me, but nothing I say seems to make a difference. Not when Vivian’s always right there, enabling. Tonight, I’m almost happy to get away from him for a few hours.
“Are you two doing okay?” she asks.
Her hair has grown out a little, almost to her shoulders. It reminds me how long it’s been since I’ve seen her, and how much of my life I’ve ignored under Ethan’s influence.
“The problem isn’t really us, you know?” Considering her deep brown eyes, I inwardly cringe at the pity behind them. I know how I sound. “He just won’t face this thing with his mom. Like if he ignores it long enough, it’ll go away. He’s in pain and he won’t talk to me. All Ethan wants to do is get shitfaced with her and stay numb.”
“Vee?” Kumi’s attention wanders toward Navid across the room. “Navi’s mentioned her. Sounds super.”
“Pretty much.”
I’ve missed their entire relationship—Navid and Kumi. From the night they met at his show, I’ve been completely out of the loop. There was a time I couldn’t make a friend if I paid them. Somehow, it’s gotten too easy to forget the ones I have.
“You know…” she says, reaching across the table to cover my hand with hers. “You can always move back in with me.”
“I—”
“No, I know. You love him, and you want to make it work. But if at some point you decide it doesn’t, I’m here for you. I miss having my roommate. Besides, the new apartment is way nicer.” She winks and tips back whatever cherry-red concoction she’s drinking. “My dad felt so bad about kicking you out—well, I laid the guilt on thick—he sprang for better digs and new furniture. And this one has a doorman.”