Liberating Mr. Gable

by Tuesday Embers

  “I’m sure you do.” Etta smiled through her encroaching tension as they approached the gate. The initial reunion had been easy enough, but the mansion was the true test.

  “Where are we?” Chloe asked, looking around at the extravagant homes.

  Etta’s nerves peaked, bracing herself for her friend’s reaction. “We’re home.”

  “Where? You live at a country club or something?”

  Anson snorted as he parked the car in the multicar garage. “And I thought you were funny when I first brought you home.” He grabbed Chloe’s bag for her and punched the code to let himself inside.

  Chloe’s reaction to the house was much more gratifying than Etta’s. Etta had been trying not to get overwhelmed at the new life, so she’d muted her response. Chloe had no such qualms about being herself wherever she went. “Holy cannoli! This is your kitchen?” She took off through the house, giving herself her own tour, alerting them to her presence every now and then with a hearty “Not another room! What do you even need this for?”

  Uncertainties put Anson on edge. People in his space made him nervous, so his OCD pushed his hands under the faucet. He only washed his hands once, stopping himself before any anxiety took him over. Etta unpacked Chloe’s things in the guest room while Chloe explored the expanse, getting lost twice. When she resurfaced, it was with a mind-blown expression. “Are you kidding me with this house? What debate could there possibly have been when deciding where to live?” Her voice rose to do an impression of Etta. “‘Um, no, Anson. I’d rather stay at the French Connection where the plumbing’s always leaking.’”

  “Hey! I like my house just fine.” She hugged Anson, noticing his immediate frown. “What’s wrong?”

  “Whose house are we in?” he asked quietly, not wishing to make Chloe uncomfortable. Though, she was already rummaging through the fridge, so he guessed that was not a big possibility. “Ours,” Etta replied, catching her mistake.

  “And when we go back to spend time in the mountains, whose house will that be?”

  Etta took a deep breath, gearing herself up for a grownup moment. “Ours. Sorry, I forgot.”

  Chloe poured herself a glass of juice. “So, you guys are serious. I mean, I guessed as much from talking to you on the phone, but you’re like, serious.”

  “We are,” Etta said. “I just forget sometimes. Not used to it all yet.”

  “No joke. Not sure how anyone could get used to this life.” She stretched after downing her juice. “Though, I could give it a fair try. A bedroom for every day of the week. Private gym. Best TV in the world. Yeah. I could get used to this. If you ever need a house sitter, I’m all over it.”

  “Duly noted.” Anson pecked Etta’s cheek, noticing her skin flush pink at the not even public display of affection. “You’re so cute. Look at you, blushing. Like Chloe doesn’t know what we do in this house.”

  “Why, Etta Brossetta!” Chloe exclaimed, placing her hand over her heart. “Whatever could he mean? There wouldn’t be… hand holding going on under this roof!”

  Etta dropped to her knees and begged for forgiveness. “Never! I’ve never held a man’s hand before! I swear, Miss Chloe! I swear!”

  Chloe patted the top of Etta’s head. “That’s a good girl. Now get up and show me the rooms with buckets of gold coins!”

  Etta stood and grinned at her friend, not realizing how much she missed having her around until the banter came so easily. “Oh, that? We couldn’t spend it fast enough. It started collecting dust, so we threw it out.”

  Chloe mimed a dagger being sunk into her heart, and then righted herself, switching to the next topic in her usual ADD fashion. “So, what royal balls are you taking me to tonight?”

  Etta glanced to Anson. “Well, no royal balls, but there’s a club Ekaterina and Oksana are going to. We could tag along with them.”

  Mouth dropped open, Chloe looked up at Anson. “We’re going clubbing with Ekaterina VonHoussen? Your fiancée? LA has so many famous people!” She let out a squeal so loud, Anson winced.

  Etta shrunk a little at mention of his previous engagement. She knew it had all been for show, but Anson’s world too often disregarded the rules she’d been bred with.

  “It’s not like that. Everyone knows it was all a show to promote the movie. Kat’s out of the closet now, and we’re not ‘engaged’ anymore.”

  Etta pulled her hand out of his to show Chloe where she would be sleeping. Anson did not miss that he was not invited along.

  Making it Worse

  The club was so loud, Etta could feel her heart pounding with the deep drum beat. It was crowded beyond Anson’s comfort level, so he remained in the booth with Etta. Chloe was desperate to go on the floor and dance, so Ekaterina and Oksana took her and made a very seductive sandwich with her in the middle. Chloe was in her glory. She wore borrowed Louboutins from Etta (courtesy of Anson), and sexy clubbing clothes she pieced together from undergarments of Etta’s, a sleek tank top and a short skirt she packed. Chloe was built for LA, and Etta could see the quiet mountain life being more of the façade for her friend than the bright lights and strangers mating on the dance floor.

  Etta was tucked into Anson’s side in the VIP booth, but her heart was not in the cuddle. “What’s wrong?” he asked for the third time that night.

  Donning her brightest smile, she looked up at him. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m here. You’re here. Chloe’s having the time of her life. What could be wrong?” She did not want to lie, but she was still too new to relationships to know if the thing that bugged her was kosher to voice. As it was with every new hurdle in their relationship, she approached the possibility of conflict with caution and a closed mouth.

  “I know you’re lying.” He removed his arm from her to give her a more direct look. The noise, the people and the spontaneous camera attacks used to send him barreling for his house. With her by his side and the proper medication doses, he was able to maintain his sanity for a good hour in social settings before he broke down completely. “If you just tell me what’s bothering you, I can fix it.”

  Etta held his gaze. “No, you can’t. There’s no fixing to do. It’s done, and it’s fine. It’s just something to adjust to. That’s all.”

  “Now you’re scaring me.” He scooted out of the booth. “I’ll be right back.” He left for exactly three minutes before he returned, harried at having to be touched by so many people as he walked through the dancers. He downed one of the shots that had been a gift from some women a while ago they had not drank yet. “You want one?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I think I’ll drink one every time you hide something from me. Tell me what’s got you upset.”

  “Nothing! Honestly, Anson. I’m just being dramatic in my head.” Her eyes widened when he swallowed her shot with a noticeable shiver. “Whoa. Are you okay?”

  “No. You’re lying to me, and I don’t like it. Are you mad at me or something?”

  “Of course not.”

  He took the third shot, wincing at the burn and lack of bearable flavor. “Oh, man! That’s terrible.” He reached for the fourth with more caution and handed Etta his keys. “Let’s get out of here. Can you drive?”

  “Sure. Honey, please stop. You’re making too much out of nothing. I’m just piecing things together in my mind so they make more sense. It’s all fine.” Her eyes bugged when he drank the fourth shot like a punishment. “Okay, you’re done. Let me just go get Chloe.”

  He shook his head, leaning on the table. “Kat and Oksana promised to bring her home later. Chloe’s having too much fun, and I’m not having any.”

  “Chloe’s okay with this? You’re sure?”

  “More than okay. She’s clubbing with Ekaterina VonHoussen. They’ll be home by sun-up.” He did not reach for her hand as they exited, and Etta knew that whatever choice she had made, it was the wrong one.

  They drove home with very little conversation, and when she dropped the keys on the kitchen counter, she could feel
his eyes on her.

  “Talk,” he commanded, turning on the kitchen sink.

  “I told you, I’m fine. Besides, you don’t look up for a real conversation. How much did you drink tonight?”

  He raised an eyebrow at her as he washed his hands for the second time. “Not nearly enough.”

  Usually Etta intervened after he would wash his hands once, but tonight she did not. She watched as he soaped up and rinsed time after time with increasing anxiety as he kept going. When he finally reached the end of the soap bottle, he got another out from under the sink and pumped yet another round.

  “Stop!” Etta shouted, startling Anson with her volume. “Stop washing your hands! You’re going to make them bleed, they’re so raw! They’re clean, Anson! They’re clean!”

  “I can’t!” he admitted with dread. “They’re all wrong. I can’t get them clean.” He reached for the bottle again, but Etta snatched it up. “Etta, I need it!”

  “No, you don’t.” Etta picked up the towel and dried his hands, wishing a little hiccup was not such a huge deal. He had been doing so much better. She dreaded to think her relational flaws caused a ripple this big. “What’s got you so upset tonight?”

  He looked at her incredulously, the alcohol loosening his tongue. “You! You’re… you’re pulling away! For the past week, you’ve been here, but not.” He opened the fridge and pulled out a beer, cracking the top open on the counter, his volume climbing the more he spoke. “I don’t get it! Are you embarrassed by me? Is it the soap? Are my hang-ups too much finally?”

  Etta took a step back, her voice coming out barely a whisper. “How could you say that?”

  “What’s the matter?” he asked slowly, not allowing her to duck away from the question this time.

  “You really want to know? You really want me to hurt you? Is that what you want? Because you won’t be able to fix this.”

  It was all Anson could do not to shake the truth from her. “Just tell me! This hurts worse. I don’t like the hiding and the secrets and the fake smiles. It reminds me of my mom and her boyfriends, and I hate it. We aren’t them!”

  “Fine. But for the record, I was fine keeping this to myself, and I’ll get over it eventually.” She took a slow, steadying breath, not caring that he was seconds away from exploding. “You’ve been engaged twice.”

  Whatever Anson had been expecting her to say, it was not that. “Yeah? But you know Kat. There’s nothing between us. It was all a show.”

  “I’m friends with your ex-fiancée. She pinches my butt whenever I say something not LA to her.”

  “I can tell her not to do that. She just gets carried away sometimes. She doesn’t know normal boundaries.”

  “I don’t care about the butt pinching. She’s perfectly nice. But the fact is, you’ve been engaged twice like it was nothing. I’m friends with the woman you told the world you loved. It’s… it’s weird! Marriage is a big deal to me, but it’s not to you. It just sort of hit me today. That’s all. Nothing new.”

  Anson was pale when she looked up at him. “You think marriage is no big deal to me?”

  “When you talk about your engagements, that’s exactly what I think. It’s what you say! Was it really amazing to you to promise to marry Ekaterina or the woman before her? Did you call home? Did it shake your world? Were you in love with either of them?”

  “No, but…”

  “Exactly!”

  Anson slumped onto the barstool, rubbing his forehead as he tried to fight of the haze of the alcohol. “Etta, technically, yes. I was engaged twice. But it’s not like I led anyone on. It was a business arrangement. It wasn’t real. And it’s not like I was raised to believe in the sanctity of marriage. My mom’s on her fifth? Sixth? I can’t remember. Point is, I’m serious about you. I can’t change what I did, but I promise you, I didn’t lead anyone on.”

  “Um, except the world!” Etta countered, unhappy that he was not seeing the steep divide between them. “You told the world you loved her and were going to spend the rest of your life with Kat. Now we all go clubbing? I don’t make you hang around Cooper. Can’t you see how weird this all is?”

  He rubbed his temples. “Okay. We don’t have to hang with Kat or Oksana anymore. I thought you liked them. That’s why I keep saying yes when they invite us out.”

  “I do like them. I don’t want to cut them off. They’ve been great. I just wish anyone understood how strange it all is for me. Then Chloe shows up, and it feels normal again. I have a girlfriend who hasn’t kissed my boyfriend! Finally!”

  Anson was quiet as her words sunk in. “I can’t change who I was before you. I’ve been honest about everything, even the things I’m not proud of. Now it’s biting me in the ass?”

  “No. See?” Etta harrumphed. “This is why I wasn’t going to bring it up. I would’ve gotten over it, but now we have to talk about it. I don’t want to fight with you.”

  “So you like Kat, but you don’t want to be around her. But you do want to be around her, and you think it’s weird we were fake engaged. Is that it?”

  “You make me sound like a lunatic. Please tell me you get that it’s just weird. Nothing needs to change. It’s just strange, is all. Like everything else here, I’ll get used to it.”

  “Do you want to get engaged? Is that it? You’re upset because she was fake engaged to me, but we’re real and we’re not? Because I—”

  Blanching, Etta interrupted before he could say anything more. “No! Jiminy Cricket! How petty do you think I am? If I had been engaged before, wouldn’t it feel weird if that guy was your only friend of mine?”

  “Of course, but you would’ve gotten engaged for different reasons.” He rested his head in his hands. “But, I get it. It is weird. I guess I never thought of it like that because it wasn’t a real relationship.”

  “You leave the room whenever I’m on the phone with Coop.”

  “He forced himself on you! We were together, and he made a move on you while I was in the house! I think I’ve earned the right to keep some distance from him.”

  “Kat told that interviewer guy on that one TV show that you guys were having wild sex that woke the neighbors, and that’s why you bought this big house.”

  He flinched. “I told Jordan to screen those clips of me before he sent them to you.”

  Etta took a step back and tried to rein in her temper. “Point is, it’s all fine. Just every now and then, I miss what normal feels like. I mean, Kat was your last girlfriend, and she’s an international movie star. You’ve got to know how that could shake a girl up. And I’m already out of my element.”

  “Did you want to move back to the B&B?”

  Etta glared at him for bringing up the tease as if it was an option. “You know we can’t. We’d get all your adoring fans renting rooms, stealing your boxers and trying to seduce you.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “Moving back doesn’t mean we have to reopen the B&B. We could just live there.” He took another drink. “Come on, Etta. Don’t think I don’t see how unhappy you are here.”

  “I’m not unhappy,” she argued, though she did not know why. “I’m with you.”

  “That’s the beauty of not dating a granite statue. I’m portable. I can go wherever we want.”

  “Your life is here.”

  The look he gave her was half-exasperated and half-amused. “My life? You, Etta. You’re my life. It’d be kind of hypocritical to ask you to give up your world and not be willing to do the same for you. Coming here was your call, if you remember.”

  “Anson, are you really telling me you’d be okay moving to the mountains with me? Living with a bunch of senior citizens? No internet?”

  “I did it for months before we came here, and I never complained. There were less people taking my picture up there. So, no. I don’t mind it one bit. I could actually be myself out there. Jordan might scale the mountain himself to install a decent internet connection, but other than that, I’m fine, so long as we’re togethe
r.”

  “But work! What about bills? I can’t not have a job and keep the place going.”

  “Please.” He rolled his eyes at the near insult. “I can pay bills for however many lifetimes you want to have together.”

  “That’s not right.”

  Anson threw his hands in the air. “Then tell Vera to only book us the elderly couples. They’re not in my demographic.”

  Etta perked at this suggestion. “You’d really be okay with that?”

  “Do I look scared?”

  “No, but you do look a little tipsy. We can talk about it when you haven’t had so much to drink. You might change your mind in the morning.”

  “I won’t. I’m not exactly rooted out here.” He gestured around the empty house to show his mobility.

  Etta moved into his arms, relishing the solid chest containing a heart that seemed to only beat for her. “I love you.”

  Anson rested his forehead to hers. “I love you, little duck.” His head was spinning. “I think I should lie down.”

  Etta helped him to the couch and tucked a smooth gray blanket around him. She sat on the floor by his head and watched him breathe. Studying his face, she began to trace his features with the tips of her fingers. The sculpted lips that always had a smile for her, the five o’clock shadow, the too-long eyelashes women would pay money in salons to get.

  “Too far away,” he murmured.

  Before Etta could protest, he was lifting her to lie next to him on the couch, sprawled out across his body. He tucked her into the blanket and let out a deep sigh of contentment.

  “Are you okay?” she questioned, rubbing out the worry between his eyebrows.

  “I am now.”

  Within minutes, he was snoring softly, his neurosis finally put to rest under her sweetness that seemed to cast out all his demons.

  The room was enjoying the peaceful hush until the garage door flung open, announcing a tear-filled Chloe, followed by a concerned Ekaterina and Oksana. “Etta, I need you!” she shouted.