by Claire Adams
Just hearing those words made me want to cry because I knew he was right, but I was not going to shed any more tears over this. It’s not like we’d even been together for that long. So what if we had earth-shattering sex? So what if I doubted I would ever feel toward anyone else what I felt toward him? I just needed to forget the whole thing. Maybe hanging out with his brother wasn’t the best way to go about doing this.
“It just…wasn’t meant to be,” I said, though I didn’t believe those words for a second. If Ollie and I weren’t meant to be, then I probably wasn’t meant to be with anyone. I’d end up being the crazy cat lady, married to her business. The future looked bleak.
But I wasn’t going to be able to wallow in my pity for long. We were on a stretch of freeway for a while, the hills golden, just like you’d expect them to be, water to my right, which Darren said was San Francisco Bay. Then, as we got closer to the city limits, I saw colorful houses built onto the hills in front of us, blues and bright pinks and mint green and sunshine yellow. It was like a colorful bouquet of flowers, except they were square, and just the sight of them made me smile. We went beneath an underpass and then another, and then I could see the skyscrapers to my right. The warm sun that had been out in full force when we’d left the airport was starting to give way to a cool, dense fog. It felt like a fifteen-degree difference, and my forearms were covered in goosebumps.
“Summer in San Francisco,” Darren said. “It’s been foggy for the past couple days, but it should be sunny tomorrow. A rare treat. So, we will definitely go out and enjoy it. I’ve been working so much lately, anyway, that I could really use a day to not really have an agenda and to just see where things take us. I do have a few places in mind, of course, but we can just take it easy for the rest of the day, if you want.”
“That sounds wonderful,” I said. “I think I need some R&R.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve got the guest room all set up, we can put some Enya on, burn some incense…whatever you want.”
I laughed. “Can you get me a full body massage with a really hot guy? That might help take my mind off things.”
“Absolutely, but he might not be into girls.”
“I’m joking. That’s really the last thing I need. Well, the massage would be nice.”
Darren’s house did, in a way, feel like I was at some sort of exotic spa. There was a spotless marble foyer and high ceilings and lots of natural light. In the living room, a magenta orchid was on the glass-top coffee table. Expensive-looking paintings adorned the walls, and the air inside smelled fresh and slightly sweet, like lavender.
“You want to just Netflix and chill?” he asked. “And I do mean that in the most literal way possible. You like Thai food? I’ve been craving some Thai lately.”
“Sounds great,” I said.
And if it was at all strange to be out here at my ex-boyfriend’s brother’s house, it didn’t feel that way in the least. Maybe it was because I was trying to have low expectations, but hanging out with Darren, watching bad movies, and eating toodmon, red curry with sticky rice, and mama kee mao, straight from the cartons was exactly what I needed.
Later that night, I lay in bed, happy that I was in a new place, getting to experience new things, but wishing that Ollie was there with me. This bed was certainly large enough. I stretched my arm out and felt the cool sheets next to me, tried to imagine him being there instead. What was he doing right now? He hadn’t tried to get in touch; he’d probably moved on, probably didn’t even think about me anymore. Guys could do that. Girls could too, though, and I was suddenly barraged with memories of all the times that I had hooked up with a guy only to not return his calls the next day. Some of the guys didn’t give a shit, but some of them had, especially those where our time together had actually gone rather well. None of that had mattered to me; I’d let them go all the same. I hadn’t bothered to think about how they felt. Clearly, what was happening now was karma.
What I should really do was go out there and sleep with a couple guys, remind myself that Ollie certainly wasn’t the only fish in the pond, that sex still felt great, whether or not I was having it with him.
I closed my eyes.
I ran my hands up and down my thighs, imagining they were his. If he were here right now, right here in bed with me, he’d be kissing my neck as he stroked my inner thighs, his touch warm and electrifying. I slid my hand up higher and then slipped it into my underwear, running my fingers through my pubes, making a mental note to trim them next time I got the chance (though what did it matter if I wasn’t going to be sleeping with anyone?). I started to rub myself, rolling my first two fingers over my clit, not touching it directly, but moving in a gentle, clockwise motion. My hand was smaller than Ollie’s, but I imagined it was his anyway as my thigh muscles tightened and relaxed and the juices started to flow. I brought my other hand up to my breast and squeezed, then pinched my nipple, hard enough to hurt but not too badly. It felt like some sort of energetic channel had opened up, located deep inside me, where the feeling was the strongest, but it was radiating outward, engulfing the rest of my body.
In my mind, he was right there, and I was climbing on top of him, sliding his dick into me, my breath catching in my throat as it happened. The way we fit so perfectly together, the firmness of his grip on my hips, the look on his face. He was so handsome. I could see his face, the look of exquisite pleasure, his eyes closed, top teeth biting into his lower lip. All because I was making him feel that way.
My breathing got faster, and the feeling washed over me with increasing intensity. It was going to swallow me up, it was going to submerge me, and I’d drown in it. I didn’t care; I wanted to. I wanted it to sweep me away. I pressed my lips together to keep from crying out as my whole body tensed, my toes curling, back arching high off the bed, the whole time Ollie’s face was there in my mind, as clear as if he were really right there next to me.
The next morning I woke up, for a second completely confused as to where I was. But then I remembered, and I settled back in the soft sheets, the down comforter like being enveloped in a fluffy cloud.
It was the smell of coffee that eventually roused me. In the kitchen, Darren was cracking eggs in a bowl.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said. “I’m making breakfast.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” I said. “I’ll just have some coffee—”
He gave me a stern look. “If you’re on the divorce diet, that’s going to stop right now. Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be anything crazy; just some eggs and croissants and coffee—of course—and then we’ll go out and do fun stuff. I’ve got the day off today, so I’m going to show you the town. Mugs are over in that cupboard,” he added.
I smiled. “That sounds lovely.” He was probably thinking that if he packed the day with enough stuff, I wouldn’t think about Ollie.
We spent the day walking around the city, taking Muni when we needed to cover a farther distance than we felt like walking. But mostly, I felt like walking because it was exhilarating to be somewhere new and to see things I’d never seen before.
It also made me start to think of what the possibilities might be like elsewhere.
We got some more coffee and croissants at a little French café in the Castro and then walked around. The fog had lifted, the sun was out, and people were walking around in tank tops and shorts and sunglasses. The outdoor seating at every restaurant we passed was full, and handsome men walked hand-in-hand, talking, laughing, everyone giddy because of the plentiful sunshine.
Even if I had wanted to mope, I wouldn’t have been able to.
Around lunchtime, Darren took me to a gourmet deli, and we got sandwiches, which we took over to Dolores Park, a sprawling green with an amazing view of downtown way off in the distance. People were parked on blankets and towels; it was like being at the beach, minus the water.
“This is great!” I said, stretching out on the warm grass, the sun beating down on me.
>
“Isn’t it? All we need is some beer, and the day would be complete.”
We lounged there for a while, until I could feel the skin on my face tightening, the effects of a mild sunburn starting to take hold. I didn’t care; it felt too good.
“So, is there anything that you’d really like to do?” Darren asked. “We’ve seen a lot of cool stuff, but if there’s anything that you’re really dying to do, you should tell me, and I can try to make it happen.”
“You know what I’d like?” I said. “I’d like to see the ocean. I’ve never seen the ocean before. In real life, that is.”
“Absolutely!” he said. “Though I hope you don’t mean to go swimming. That you’d have to do on your own.”
“No, I don’t think I’ll go swimming,” I said. “I just want to see it, dip my toes in, maybe.”
“Well, we have two choices. We can go back to my place and get the car, or we can walk over to Duboce and Noe and hop the N to Ocean Beach.”
“I’m quite enjoying taking public transportation,” I said. “So, why don’t we do that?”
“Sounds like a plan. Though I will warn you—there’s a good chance the sun will be completely gone once we’re out at the beach. That’s just how it is out here.”
We got up, stretching, and left the park, walking over to where we’d catch Muni out to the beach. While we waited, I started thinking about the restaurant.
“I’m just going to give them a call and see how it’s going,” I said, digging through my purse for the phone. I wasn’t going to admit it, but there was a teeny tiny part of me that hoped Lena would tell me that Ollie had stopped by looking for me.
“Good afternoon, Ollie’s, this is Lena,” she said when she picked up.
“Lena! Hey! It’s me,” I said. “How’s everything going?”
“Wren! Hi! So good to hear from you. We’re good! Holding the fort down. We were pretty busy this morning but things are starting to slow down now. How are you?” No mention of Ollie.
“I’m good,” I said. “I’m glad to hear things are going so smoothly.”
“Yeah, they are. I know you were probably a little nervous leaving the place, but you have nothing to worry about. We miss you, of course. But things are going really well.”
“That’s great. You know, I might as well just stay out here and not even bother to come back—oh, shit, our train is here. Okay, Lena, I’ll talk to you soon!” I hung up and tossed the phone into my purse.
When we got to the beach, Darren was right: the sun was mostly obscured by a blanket of fog that was trying to roll in, and there was a cool breeze that blew my hair back away from my face. It felt like a completely different climate than the one we’d just left at the park. I took my shoes and socks off and stood in the sand, feeling it between my toes. There were a few people walking the shore, and there were seagulls flying around, their cries sounding almost like some sort of demented laughter.
“Here it is,” Darren said.
“It’s so big.” Maybe an obvious thing to say, but it was. I’d seen land that had stretched as far as the eye could see, but I’d never seen water. The horizon line was a distant blur obscured by the fog, but even still, you could sense the vastness. “I’m going to stick my feet in,” I said.
“Just be careful,” Darren told me. “This beach is known for its strong currents.”
“I won’t go far,” I called out over my shoulder as I walked down to the water. The waves had frothy whitecaps, the water a bluish gray. The wet sand was cool and compact, and I stood there at the water’s edge, waiting for a wave to roll up far enough to get my toes wet.
It wasn’t as cold as I was expecting it to be. It was cold, yes, but not freezing, and I took a step, then another, closer. I pulled the bottoms of my pants up so the water could rush around my ankles without soaking the fabric. A big wave broke though, the spray soaking me. My breath caught in my throat, and then I was laughing because it felt good. Refreshing and cold like it was washing away something I hadn’t realized I needed to be rid of. Without thinking, I dove headfirst into the next wave, the power of it pushing me back, but my momentum enough that I broke through, the water swallowing me up.
I resurfaced, still laughing, knowing that I probably sounded and looked like a lunatic. But that just meant I wasn’t crazy, didn’t it? Because you were only truly crazy if you didn’t know it. I knew full well how it looked, and I could see Darren rushing down to the water’s edge.
“I’m okay!” I yelled, waving, hoping that it didn’t look like the universal drowning sign. I stood up, seaweed brushing against my arm. My shirt clung to me, feeling like it weighed fifty pounds. The cold air blew, and I shivered, my skin covered in goosebumps.
“What are you doing?!” Darren’s voice sounded far away. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” I shouted back.
And I really did feel amazing. I felt cleansed, purified, completely washed clean of all the shitty feelings I’d been feeling lately.
“Are you insane?” he asked. “That water must be freezing! And we don’t have a towel!”
“I needed to do that,” I said. “I’m sorry. I know it probably looked crazy.” My teeth clacked together.
“Look, honey, I totally understand wanting to just jump in the water with all your clothes on—I might’ve had the desire to do it once or twice myself—but I never actually followed through. One, because that water is cold as fuck, and two, because there’s probably sharks or some other huge-ass predatory creatures lurking about. Never mind the fact that it’s freezing, and we don’t have a towel! Here, use this to dry your hair.” Before I could say anything, he was pulling his t-shirt off and patting my wet hair with it.
“You don’t have to get your shirt all wet!” I said.
“Your hair is going to be dripping all over you if I don’t. And besides, I’ve been focusing on strengthening my core muscles lately, so I might as well show them off.”
I cast a glance at his torso, which was indeed sculpted and smooth. “You look great,” I said.
He gave me a dry look. “Why thank you. Wish I could say the same about you, but you look like a drowned rat. Let’s get back to my place so you can change out of those clothes.”
When we got back to Darren’s, I took a warm shower and used some expensive shampoo that made my hair smell like coconuts. When I got out, I put on a dry shirt and some yoga pants and wandered out to the living room, where Darren was sitting, typing something onto his phone. I went over to the side table and looked at one of the framed pictures that I’d somehow missed before.
“Is that Ollie?” I asked, picking up the picture.
“Sure is,” Darren said.
“And that must be your mom.” The picture was the two of them sitting at a picnic table. Ollie was looking at the camera, smiling, and his mom was looking at him, a matching smile on her face. “She’s beautiful,” I said.
Darren nodded. “She was. She had a hard life. Our dad was an asshole; I don’t know how much Ollie’s told you, but he certainly wasn’t going to win any father-of-the-year awards. Mom stuck it out, though. I have no idea why. Well, she probably didn’t want to break up the family, though we would’ve been so much happier without him.”
“He hasn’t told me that much,” I said.
“Probably because it’s a pretty depressing story to tell. She was finally getting to live her life, and then she finds out she has cancer. I should have come back more after she found out, but I didn’t. Things were just getting started for me in terms of work, and I really never thought I’d set foot back in that state again. That is, of course, completely selfish, and my mother deserved better, but there’s not much I can do about that now. I did go back for a little while after Ollie went to prison.” He came over and stood next to me, looked at the photograph. “He was probably fifteen in that picture. Always a good kid. Our mother just couldn’t believe that he’d done what they said he did. Though I think she would’ve forg
iven him that if he would’ve come out to see her those times she went up to visit. He never came out though. Which, funnily enough, I can understand.”
“I guess I can, too. I wouldn’t have wanted people to see me like that. But, probably more than that, I would’ve wanted to see my family and friends. I would’ve been more selfish about it.”
I sighed and set the picture back down.
“You could call him, you know,” Darren said. “It might help.”
“I don’t think it would. There was a part of me that thought he was going to call, or he’d come by, right after he broke up with me, but that never happened. I think he’s moved on. Or just forgotten about me. And if I called, it would probably just annoy him and make me seem needy.”
“Breaking up is never easy. I’m sorry, sweetie.”
“I know. But I am glad that I still got to come out here.”
Darren smiled, and it was like looking at a well-groomed version of Ollie. My heart ached. “I’m glad I get to be the silver lining,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ollie
Maybe it was getting easier.
Lately, there seemed to be whole hours that would pass that I’d be busy with work and I wouldn’t think about Wren. Everything was getting done how it should be, and I could tell that Garrett was pleased I didn’t seem to have my head up in the clouds anymore.
I was in the barn getting Bebop ready to go out on a group ride, listening to Ryan and Jesse argue over the merits of rodeo as they mucked out stalls, when Garrett strolled in. He stopped and watched me for a moment, patting Bebop’s neck.
“So, I just got a call from the Ericsons,” he said. “And they were planning to bring the trailer back here tomorrow, but I guess their truck just shit the bed.” The Ericsons were an older couple who were still trying to make it on their ranch, a small place with just a few horses now, longtime friends of Garrett’s. Technically, they were our closest neighbors. They’d borrowed one of the ranch’s trailers because theirs had rusted out, due to having been out of use for so long. Garrett shook his head.