by Lindsey Hart
She glanced over at Jesse as he groaned. “No, mom, seriously, we are not in the process of making you a grandchild. If we were, you would have totally interrupted it anyway.”
“Oh, my fucking god,” Syd swore under her breath.
She slid into her soaking wet panties even though they were cold AF and grabbed up the sweats Jesse loaned her. She should never have put them on. It was getting out of the shower and finding his clothes neatly folded outside the bathroom door that had done her in. Wearing his clothes was sexy. It was like a sexual caress all on its own, a strangely intimate and possessive thing.
Jesse mumbled something to his mom and hung up. “Sorry,” he said before he turned around. “I think sometimes that my mom is on drugs….”
His voice faded away when he stopped and took in the fact that she was fully dressed. Her eyes dropped to his boxers, which were still currently tented. Like, really tented. By a really impressive tent pole.
“I can’t believe you still have a hard-on after talking to your mom,” she muttered. “Gross.”
He shook his head, running his hand over his face so hard that it made a rasping sound. “Good god, don’t say things like that. It’s disgusting. I had to talk to her, yes, but I had the taste of your come on my lips, in my mouth, down my throat, the whole time, so also yes, it’s pretty much impossible not to have a boner right now.”
Panic tightened her insides and crept up her throat. It was the same kind of panic that she felt after she’d woken up the next morning and found herself in bed wrapped up in her best friend’s warm, heavy limbs. Sore and achy in all the right places after four amazing orgasms.
“Jesse… seriously. I- I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”
“What?” His eyes widened. “Are you freaking serious right now?”
“Y- yes. This is- this is exactly why I left before. I had to. Because I knew what would happen if I stayed. Your parents want this. Your mom always wanted us to fall in love with each other. I knew she’d be thrilled. My mom would be too. She would have wanted me to wait a little while. Make sure it was what I wanted and all that. We were too young for all those expectations.”
“We’re not young anymore.”
“No, but we barely know each other, and our parents are still over the moon. This- this isn’t going to work. I can’t stick around with everyone wanting it so bad. I can’t deal with all that pressure. I know it will make us fail and then everyone will hate me. Everyone will hate me, because I’ve always been the wild one. I’ve always been the restless one. I’ve always been the exact opposite of you. I act first and think later. I’m like a wrecking ball most of the time. I don’t even know if I could be tied down with a person for the rest of my life and we’re like strangers now. I’m sure as heck not ready for kids. I’m not ready for any of this. I really was just drunk and I- I didn’t mean it. I can’t do this. I can’t do any of this.”
“Really, Sydney? You had to let me eat your pussy first before you had the freak-out? Why not before? It would have saved me a lot of work.”
He was goading her, and she knew it. “Fuck you,” she said as she flipped him the bird.
He grinned. “That’s more like the Syd I know. Seriously. You’re just having a freak out just like you did then. I knew you were scared. I freaking knew it. You let that fear rule your life. You let all the stupid what ifs and the unknowns take over what could have been. We could have been happy. We could have had a beautiful family by now, or spent years doing whatever it is you wanted to do. We could have started the company together, spent all our time working on helping make other people’s lives better. We could have been that unstoppable power couple. We still can be, or whatever you want. Whatever. The couple that lives in the middle of nowhere like creepy cavemen recluse style people. The average couple with a nice car and two point two kids and a cat and a dog. That couple that travels the world together and never has kids. It doesn’t matter to me. I just seriously want you to calm down and think about this. We might have been young before, but this time, we’re old enough to know better and if you’re going to let fear rule your life a second time, then you’re not the Syd that I thought I knew.”
She stared at him. He stared right back. Her chest heaved with her harsh, frantic breaths, and so did his, even though he was the one trying to be calm and rational.
“Fine conversation to have standing in your boxers.”
“Would you like it better if I wasn’t in them?”
She threw up her hands. “This is why this isn’t ever going to work. Because we know each other too well. We know all of each other’s secrets. There isn’t even a hint of mystery about us. I know that one day, maybe not for years, but one day, we’ll get bored and wonder if there was more to life than just each other.”
Jesse shook his head furiously, eyes burning. “Not going to happen.”
“It could happen. It could seriously happen. Maybe you wouldn’t do anything. Maybe it would all be me. Actually, I know it would all be me. I was always the one getting us into trouble. Always. You were perfect. So nice. Sweet. Kind. Always thinking of other people. I’m not built like that, Jesse. I’d only bring you down. It would take the media like all of five minutes to figure out who I really am and stick a fork through me and call me done. Call us done. I know it’s not going to work. It wouldn’t have worked then, and it won’t work now.”
“You’ll break my mom’s heart.”
Oh god, there he was going with the guilt trip thing again. She wasn’t going to let him get away with it this time. “I- I know I will. That’s my point. One day, I’ll screw up. One day, I’ll do something wrong. She wants grandkids. Seriously, I don’t even think I want to have kids. I always said that.”
“You did always say that,” he admitted.
“Yeah, and- and you’re too- too good for me, Jesse. You always have been. Seriously. I’m not just saying that, I know it’s the truth. The thing is, we made good friends. Friends. It doesn’t matter if you’re good at- uh- well- doing things to me and it doesn’t matter that your body likes mine or whatever-”
“I really like you.”
“That doesn’t matter though!” She wanted to stomp her foot, but she knew how childish that would look. “Chemistry doesn’t matter. Love doesn’t even matter. Most times, that’s not enough. A lot of other shit gets in the way.”
“That’s only when people don’t have anything to fall back on.”
“And what do we have to fall back? A bunch of little kid memories and one random night we both can barely remember? Seriously? That’s not enough. It’s not enough and you should never have said you’d marry me, because my stupid brain dredged that up when I was stupid drunk and I stupidly drunk posted that and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t and now I’m here and this is already turning into a huge steaming pile of poop.”
“Yeah. We used to do that too. Gather up the dog crap from people’s back yards and light in on fire on the doorsteps of those snobby bitches who used to say you were too much of a tomboy to be pretty and any teachers who dared to give you a failing grade, because god, forbid, you ever deserved it. I always took your side, Syd. I always will. This can work. It can work, you just won’t give it a chance.”
“It can’t Jesse, because we don’t know each other anymore. We’re just strangers.”
“Syd-”
“No.” She had to cut him off, because she saw the pain in his eyes, and it was everything she couldn’t deal with seeing the first time she left because she never wanted to hurt him. She’d rather cut out her own heart than hurt his. “Call your Jeeves guy, whatever his name is. I want him to bring his helicopter and come get me. I want to go home. Please, Jesse. Please just let me go home.”
His jaw clenched. A muscle in it jumped right where his pulse point beat so hard. She wanted to put her hand over it, to feel that life beating under her fingertips. No, she didn’t want to do that. What she really wanted to do was
put her lips there, press herself up against him, wrist to wrist, heart to heart, until all their pulse points were hammering together, beating in time.
She didn’t, because she couldn’t. The truth was, she loved him. She loved him and she really always had and she knew that the best thing for him was to let him be happy in ways that she was certain she could never make him.
“Please.” The word came out as little more than a hoarse whisper. She blinked back the stinging tears that threatened to spill over. She was not going to let herself cry. She had plenty of time to do that later, when she was alone.
Jesse’s shoulders fell. She almost hoped he’d stand there and fight for her a little harder. She might have given in.
He didn’t. And she told herself she was relieved when he palmed his phone and dialed it like she’d asked him to.
It didn’t hurt to lie to yourself as long as those lies were to protect the person you loved. As long as you could make yourself believe them.
CHAPTER 16
Sydney
“Where’s the monthly report on the McKinnon file?”
Stewart burst into her tiny cubicle in a panic, just like Sydney knew he would, considering it was the end of the month on a Friday morning and he had a big board meeting in an hour. She normally handed him his spreadsheets, all neatly done up for each client, so it looked like he actually gave a fuck, by end of work on Thursday. She’d never failed to send them along over email so that he was prepared for the next morning.
“Oh. Right.” Sydney leaned back in her piece of junk office chair and crossed her arms behind her head, a casual gesture that was so at odds with Stewart’s red face and his shiny bald head. His too tight dress shirt strained over his paunch and there were sweat stains forming at the collar and wet circles gracing the armpit area.
How classy.
While big shots like Stewart got a huge glass office with plushy chairs and an expensive desk, she got something that looked like it had been pulled out of the dumpster behind the building. Her entire workspace consisted of a five by five cubicle that backed the rest of the shitty other five by five cubicles where the rest of the lowly office staff worked.
She felt like a peasant in the land where kings ruled and the rest of them had to lick their boots and do their dirty bidding.
She used to just dislike her job.
That was ten years ago. Now she hated it with a passion.
She’d hoped, once, that something else would come along. That the opportunity of a lifetime would just be dumped in her lap and she could leave the shithole marketing and accounting firm she worked for.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that opportunity had come and gone and there she was, still sitting there.
Nearly a month had passed since she’d spent that day with Jesse. It was just a day. Not even a full one, but it changed her in ways she always knew it would if she ever ran into him. She was sad. Sad and tired. Exhausted by the life she’d made for herself.
She’d vowed to dig herself out, to find a semblance of happiness now that she could finally close that door on her past for good. Before it had been left open, just a quarter inch, but it was enough so that she’d never been able to properly move on. She’d slammed that door in Jesse’s face and now…
Now it was time to make some changes to try and make her life bearable, if not all the time, at least some of it.
“Where are the reports?” Stewart formed his demands into something that should have been a question, but didn’t sound at all like it, as though she hadn’t heard him the first time.
Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, over his jowls and down his thick neck. His nose was a florid red since he liked to keep a bottle of whiskey in the top drawer of his desk and sip at it all day long when he thought no one would notice. He also chewed breath mints neurotically, to try and disguise the whiskey on his breath.
“Yeah, about that… I didn’t do them.”
Stewart’s jaw nearly hit the floor. An angry purple hue crept up his neck to replace the tomato red already staining his face. “Why? Why the hell would you not have them ready? My meeting’s in an hour!”
“Well… mostly because they’re your responsibility. Everyone thinks that you do them and that you do them well. I believe you won an award last year for being so organized and on target. They called it customer service. I call it bullshit, because you never did those reports once. I’ve been doing them for nearly a decade. I’ve been doing your bidding for ten years, Stewart, and you know what my reward is? Ridiculous demands for coffee. Oh, and you staring at my tits every chance you get.”
Stewart’s mouth flapped open and shut like he was drowning and gasping for air. Yeah, he was drowning alright, floundering in the waters of her righteous indignation.
It might have come a decade too late, but hell, it finally arrived.
“You- you- you…” Stewart spluttered, and she decided to save him the trouble.
“Don’t worry, Stewy, you don’t have to say anything. I know that I’m fired. Thank fuck. It’s about time.”
She stood and grabbed the box off her desk, filled with the personal things she’d already packed, a stapler she’d bought herself because the department was too fricking cheap to get her one after hers broke, her lunch bag, a water bottle, and a small potted succulent. That’s what her ten years amounted to.
She brushed past him, careful not to touch him, because she was sure that his shirt was wringing wet at this point. “Good luck with everything, and by everything, I mean finding an assistant who can take on your whole workload for you so you can sleep for an hour every afternoon in our office behind your computer, so it looks like you’re working in there. Good luck finding someone who covers for you when you’ve had a little too much to drink and you’re worried it will show and someone will notice and you’ll get your ass canned. Good luck on finding someone who does like, all of your reports. And good luck covering the gap until then.”
“You can’t walk out on me like this,” Stewart blustered behind her.
“Yes, I can. I’m not under contract. I’ve given this place ten years of my life and I’m sure as hell not going to give it a moment more. Oh, and, Stewy, I only spat in your coffee once. And seriously, if you try and bring me up on charges for it, I’ll let everyone know that you’re screwing Bill’s wife. Though what she could possibly see in you, I have no idea.”
“Sydney! You get back here this minute. Get your ass in that chair and finish those reports. We can talk about this another time.”
She felt her eyes go wide with astonishment. Even now, he thought he could control and intimidate her into doing what he wanted. She wanted to laugh, but not at him. At herself. At herself for being so stupid that she’d actually stuck around all those years and put up with all the crap, the after-hours work email, the frantic last minute reports that needed to be done. God, she’d done this man’s dry cleaning for years. Got him coffee every single morning. Decaf. Fucking decaf. What was the point? What was the point of any of it?
“Yeah, about that… no thanks.” She balanced the box in one hand and with the other, she flipped off the asshole she’d been flipping off in her mind for a very long time.
She kept the bird flying high as she walked through the entire office, her head held high.
As she pushed out the front door, into the warm morning sunshine, she took a few confident steps, testing out what freedom felt like.
Turned out, even if she couldn’t have what she’d really always wanted, starting fresh was the next best thing. Freedom… it felt pretty dang good.
***
Too bad her mom didn’t agree.
When she’d called her over to her apartment, she wanted to sit down and have a heart to heart. She thought it was time. It was just another step in her reinvent yourself after thirty plan. She wanted to get on the right track and lying to herself and her mom wasn’t going to help her any more than sticking it out in a job she hated was going to put her on the
right path to happiness.
Instead, her mom looked at her like she’d just sprouted a third nipple the size of a dinner plate on her forehead.
“You did what? You quit your job?”
“Yeah. I quit my job.”
They were sitting in her small kitchen. She’d poured her mom half a glass of red wine, the last bottle she had left in the apartment. She’d even gone to the trouble of cutting up some cheese and put out a few slices of salami and some pickles on a plate, like they were having a classy girl’s night out.
It took her mom a second to pick her jaw off the tiny glass table. “Well- I mean- if you weren’t happy there, but don’t you think you should have waited until you found something new? How are you going to pay rent?”
“That’s the thing. It’s really expensive here. I came because I didn’t know where else to go. Everything costs a lot. You followed me here because it’s always been just us girls and we wanted to stick together, but hell. We should find somewhere cheaper to live. Somewhere that’s just as nice. I’m sure other places exist. We don’t have a ton of friends here. We’re not in relationships. It’s easy for us to just… leave. Maybe that’s what we both need.”
“I- Sydney…” her mom took a huge pull of wine, nearly draining half the glass, and started over. “I mean, this is great and all, but- well- aren’t you a little young to be having a mid-life crisis?”
“Mom! This is not a mid-life crisis. I just wanted to do something new. I don’t want to stay in a job I hate for the rest of my life. All of that time I spent working my ass off just went into paying for this place. I don’t even really like it.”
Her mom pushed out her lips in a pout. “You never said you were unhappy here.”
“I really didn’t know I was until now. At least to the point where I had to make a change, but now I do. I want to be honest with myself and I want to be honest with you.”
Her mom’s hand slapped down hard on the glass surface, her fingers clawing at the edge and clinging to it like she needed to brace herself. Sydney winced.