Thank You For Holding: On Hold Series Book #2

by Julia Kent

I nod.

  “We’re adding a hotline for sex toy… malfunctions?”

  I nod. “Marketing thinks it’ll add more of a ‘wraparound’ feel to O. All your needs taken care of in one place. It’ll be a protection plan you buy when you purchase a toy. We’re hiring customer service reps as we speak.”

  She groans, but manages to look elegant as she laughs her way to a feminine little snort. If I did that, I’d sound like a donkey choking on an apple core.

  “And financials?”

  I give her a thumbs-up.

  “This job,” she whispers under her breath as she leaves my cubicle.

  I scramble for my phone. The notification was from Jenny, posting a picture of a cat in a wedding dress.

  No Jamey.

  Around noon, I check Facebook. At the top of my news feed is a montage of four photos he just posted.

  Okay, he's alive. Whew.

  The first photo shows a shot glass full of clear liquid. Next is the doorway of a Cambridge body art studio called On the BrInk, then a selfie of Jamey smiling hard, and finally an obviously fresh tattoo of the words “Born This Way.” The shot is too close-up to be able to tell what part of the body bears the tat. No caption.

  “I knew it!” I hiss aloud. “He was totally checking out Ryan’s tattoos. That explains so much.” But why didn’t he tell me?

  Hey, I text him nervously, All good?

  Nothing. No reply.

  The day drags on. The evening drags on.

  Until finally, around ten p.m., I glance at my phone and there's a message. I've been reading in bed, or trying to, but now I sit up so fast, my copy of Me Before You drops to the floor.

  We need to talk

  The four most dreaded words ever texted. My stomach drops through the floor, and my hands and feet go numb.

  This makes no sense. What could we need to talk about? Nothing's wrong! Jamey and I get along perfectly! We're so happy! He probably means we need to talk about Jenny's wedding present, or which new restaurant to try Saturday night, that’s all.

  The phone I am holding rings, and I jump a mile. It's Jamey. I have to swipe three times before it connects.

  "Hello?"

  "Hey." His voice is quiet and flat.

  "Jamey, what's going on? What's wrong? Are you sick? I've been so worried! Did you get a tattoo?"

  "I need to tell you something. I'm so sorry, Carrie. I just — I can't do this anymore."

  "What are you talking about? I can barely hear you! Can't do what? I don't understand!"

  There's a pause. "I've met someone else. It's not you, you're wonderful. You’re my best friend. It's me."

  "Someone else? You've met someone else? Who? Who is she?"

  "It's Kevin."

  "Devin? Who is Devin? What's all that noise? Where are you?"

  "It's Kevin, Carrie." He speaks very clearly and a little bit louder. "Kevin. From the map store."

  "That's ridiculous, Kevin's a guy. This isn't funny, Jamey."

  I think I hear a man's voice in the background.

  "Carrie, listen. I'm gay. I'm gay! Kevin has taught me that I can't hide it anymore. It's been an incredible two days. For the first time in my life, I feel free. But I can't stand to hurt you. I'm sorry."

  "You can't be gay! You're my boyfriend!" I think I might be shouting. It's hard for me to tell, because there is a loud buzzing in my head. It's the sound of my entire world imploding. "You're my boyfriend, and we love each other, and we might get married, and everything is perfect! You don't become gay in two days!"

  "I do love you, Carrie, just… not that way. It didn't happen in two days. I've always been gay. I’ve been pretending my whole life to be something I’m not." I hear a man's muffled voice again. "I have to go now," Jamey says. "They're calling our flight. I'll call you when we get back. Try to be happy for me. I am so sorry."

  "Flight? Your flight? What? Where are you going? Back from where?" I yell, but the call is ended. He's gone. I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at my silent phone.

  Gay. He’s gay. Jamey can’t be gay! If he were gay, we wouldn’t have sex.

  If he were gay, we — oh, God.

  I don't know what to do. The world is spinning fast and mercilessly frozen at the same time.

  When I don't know what to do, I always call Jamey. We’re best friends. Okay, so Jenny is my best friend, too. And Ryan is my best work friend. I have a lot of best friends.

  Or maybe not so much. Jamey no longer qualifies as a “best friend.” Pretty sure dumping me by phone to run off with Kevin the Map Dude takes him out of the running.

  And yet I instinctively want to call him and tell him about this, have him comfort me and make me laugh. Make me feel not alone. But he’s not there now.

  Desperate, I open my contacts list and scroll down. Ryan! I press his name.

  "C-Shel!" He answers, thank God. There's music in the background. My name is Carrie Shelton, and Ryan came up with the nickname shortly after we met. It’s adorable, even if I am not. "What's up, beautiful? Did you see Empire tonight?"

  I open my mouth, but I can't speak.

  "Carrie?"

  If I speak, if I say it, it will be true. I can't.

  "Carrie?" He’s worried now, his voice deepening. “Carrie, are you there? What’s wrong?”

  "Gay!" I wail. "Jamey is gay!"

  The phone goes silent, followed by a masculine sound I can’t quite describe.

  "I know," Ryan says, nonplussed. "You didn't know?"

  "No, I didn't know! What do you mean you knew?" I’m shrieking. I know I shouldn’t shriek at Ryan, but Jamey isn’t here and Ryan has a penis. I need to yell at a penis.

  Logic is long gone.

  It got on a plane with a guy named Kevin and flew off, along with my dignity.

  "He's your boyfriend. How can you not know?"

  Right. Exactly. How could I not know?

  “He was my boyfriend. Now he has a boyfriend. My boyfriend has a boyfriend! And we didn’t have sex for a month and now we never will again because he’s having sex with Kevin the Map Dude and oh my God, Ryan, what am I going to do? I’m that girl. I’m the girl who was too stupid to realize she was dating a gay man. There are entire seasons of Dr. Phil devoted to people like me!” I start to hyperventilate, replaying the short phone call with Jamey over and over, etching it into my brain.

  This is real.

  I’ve been dumped.

  Jamey left me. Broke up with me by phone for… a man. Everything below my waist goes numb. I feel like I’ve malfunctioned.

  Where is the hotline for vaginas that malfunction so badly your boyfriend turns gay? I start to laugh-cry, because my next project at work will probably be to develop that hotline, and why not?

  I’m a fucking expert now.

  He sighs. "Aw, C-Shel. This isn't good. Come over. Or do you want me to come to your place? I can bring Thai and we can watch The Colony."

  It's 10:30 p.m. I pull on jeans and throw a jacket over my nightie. It's only six blocks to Ryan's. “I’m coming to you. I can buy ice cream on the way. And your apartment isn’t filled with antique finds from my weekends with Jamey,” I sob as I grab my keys and purse and slam my front door.

  Fury. Sorrow. Horror. Brokenness. Disbelief. All of it floods me as I storm my way into the convenience store, grabbing ice cream and peanut butter cups like it’s the zombie apocalypse.

  It is.

  It’s the sexpocalypse for me.

  By the time I get to Ryan’s place, I am a live wire. He opens the front door, dressed in a Cal Tech t-shirt and lounge pants.

  I fling myself into his arms, drop the bag filled with comfort carbs, and kiss him.

  Hard.

  RYAN

  She tastes like salt and sweetness, like all the soft warmth in the world is concentrated in her lips. We’re clumsy, her lips hard against mine, wet from tears. Her hands grab my biceps, the kind of grip you have on someone you’re pissed at and hold onto because you want them to bend.
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  At first, I’m stunned, the ice cream pint rolling out of the plastic bag, settling on my bare foot, the cold a tingling shock that contrasts with the warmth of her mouth. God, Carrie’s mouth. My hands go up, like she has a gun pointed at me, then they land on her shoulders, one sinking into her hair, her messy bun coming loose as her lips soften and she starts to really kiss me.

  I really kiss her, my mouth screaming yes, finally, holy shit, so many words my lips and tongue need to say. A kiss requires economy of language. You don’t have the luxury of words, so everything I want to say has to come from a suck, a nip, a lick, the parting of her lips as my tongue blindly seeks answers in a new language.

  Those hard hands on my biceps loosen, sliding up to the back of my neck, and as Carrie moves up my body, standing on tiptoe to rise up to the kiss, my heart tries to burst in my chest, like a water balloon tossed oh, so gently.

  She shivers violently, suddenly, an electric jolt between us like I’ve stuck my tongue in a light socket.

  Then she pulls back, eyes wide with alarm, hot with desire that fades so fast I almost don’t even see it.

  Panic floods her, followed by her chin jutting up as she says in an overconfident, fake voice, “There. See? I am not a broken vagina.”

  And she bursts into tears.

  I don’t know what the hell a broken vagina is, but I have a very unbroken cock tenting my pants right now. Desperate, I bend down for the ice cream and hold it right over my crotch.

  “I’m sorry,” she babbles as she walks past me into my apartment, flinging herself onto the couch, burying her face in a cushion. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  Oh, holy fuck, do it again.

  “Done what?”

  “Used you to prove that I’m not broken.”

  Use me. Use me all you want, baby.

  Why does that inner voice suddenly have an English accent?

  “You’re not broken, Carrie,” I choke out. As Ben & Jerry’s becomes an ice pack for my dick, I stand in my kitchen, paralyzed.

  What just happened?

  And how can I get it to happen more?

  “Jamey is gay. Gay!” she moans. Like a wounded animal, she’s curled in a ball, panting hard, her face pressed into my sofa, little sobs making her ass shake. Her hair is everywhere, spilling over her shoulders and back.

  This is one of those Nice Guy moments.

  You know the kind.

  Carrie is vulnerable. She feels broken. Jamey dumped her in the worst possible way — and now I really hate Jamey.

  But he’s given me an in.

  A guy like Zeke would scoop Carrie in his arms and within half an hour be buried balls deep in her, taking advantage of her misery and heartbreak, using it to get into her pants, have her moaning under him, bare breasts shaking as he comforted her until Reverse Cowgirl became a form of revenge.

  I am not that guy.

  Why can’t I be that guy?

  I push my palm against my lips. She’s still on the tip of my tongue, a salty, fresh taste I wish I could eat forever. I wonder what she tastes like in bed.

  Damn it.

  Not enough ice cream in the world to stop this hard-on, especially if I keep envisioning Carrie naked, spread out on the sheets, hair like the sun, radiating out to warm the world.

  “Carrie.” I put the ice cream on the counter and scoop out a big bowlful. Then I get out a bottle of wine. I pour her a full glass and take it over to her along with the bowl, sitting on the couch next to her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I did it again!” she wails.

  “Again?”

  “I picked a gay guy again! What is wrong with me? Why do I do this to myself?”

  “You’ve dated gay guys before?”

  Her glare melts the ice cream. “Not on purpose!”

  I retreat to the kitchen, shove the ice cream in the freezer, and press my hips against the fridge for a second, willing my erection to go away. “No. Of course not,” I say, struggling to figure out what, exactly, I’m supposed to do here.

  “You have a penis!” she shouts.

  My back’s still to her, one hand on the fridge, the other discreetly holding the object in question, rearranging. I pause.

  “Uhhh,” is my intelligent response.

  “Penises are what got me into trouble!”

  I spin around. “You’re pregnant? That fucker got you pregnant and left you for a gay dude?”

  “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” she screams.

  “You said his penis got you in trouble!”

  “Not that kind of trouble.”

  “Oh.” My cock is still paused, about ninety seconds behind my brain. Usually it’s my brain that’s slower. Down, boy.

  “We didn’t have sex often enough for me to get pregnant!” she says with a sneer, a nasty tone I’ve never heard from Carrie pouring out of her. I refrain from telling her it only takes once. I assume they had sex at least once in the two years they’ve been together.

  “‘Let’s just cuddle, Carrie,’” she says in a mocking voice, doing a damn fine imitation of Jamey. “‘I just love waking up next to you and watching you sleep,’” she continues, face twisted with fury. She takes a big sip of wine.

  Her cheeks are pink with rage, eyes red-rimmed and nose sniffling, and God help me, she’s turning me on.

  “He said that shit to you to hold off on sex?” I’m blown away. What guy has a hot woman like Carrie, ready and in his bed, and prefers to cuddle?

  Oh. Right.

  “He did! And he never mentioned anything like, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m gay.’”

  “Until today,” I add.

  And she bursts into tears, grabbing a Giants throw pillow and clutching it to her breasts.

  I’m jealous of that pillow. Go Giants!

  “No one will ever love me again!” she wails.

  Now, a voice whispers in my ear. Tell her now. Say something. Say anything.

  “And YOU!” She actually points at me.

  “What about me?” Can she tell? Women can read minds, you know. I have four older sisters. Don’t try to tell me they can’t.

  “You knew Jamey was gay and didn’t tell me!”

  I cross my arms over my chest, pretending my heart isn’t trying to claw its way into the ceiling light fixture. “I didn’t know.”

  “You suspected.”

  I can’t argue with her. She’s right.

  I shrug.

  “That’s it? I get a shrug? Men. You’re all the same.” The Giants pillow hits me in the face. I catch a whiff of her perfume, a mix of her shampoo, some lotion she uses at work, and her unique scent.

  “No,” I say carefully, forcing myself to stop thinking about her scent. “We’re not. For instance, Jamey is gay and I am not.”

  I’m really not.

  “How do I know you’re not gay?” she says in a vicious tone. ”Apparently, I have no gaydar! Maybe you’re gay. Maybe Zeke’s gay. And what about Henry?”

  “He’s married to Jemma.”

  “All the good ones are taken!” Her hands go up in the air like she’s at an evangelical revival.

  I give her a look. She scrunches up her face, searching the room with her eyes, like a DEA agent on a drug bust.

  “Where’s the Thai?”

  “On its way.”

  As if on cue, the doorbell rings. I pay the delivery dude and return. Carrie’s already got the television on. She’s halfway through an episode of a house flippers show, her wine glass empty, the pint of ice cream in her hand.

  She’s using an entire Reese’s Cup as a spoon.

  When you are the youngest brother in a family with four older sisters, you see a lot of break-ups. There’s screaming and crying, cursing and condemnation. Lots of burning of things — letters, cards, Polaroids, diaphragms.

  Pro tip: those don’t burn. Trust me. And they smell really bad when you try.

  But eventually, all that anger turns to one thought: Why me?

  When
guys get dumped, they drink heavily and recover by finding a piece of ass.

  I wish Carrie were a guy.

  Wait. That sounds wrong.

  I hand her a carton of shrimp Pad Thai and grab the quart of Tom Yum soup. I take a sip.

  “You’re not going to slurp like usual, are you?”

  I pause. “I don’t slurp.”

  She points to the television screen with her chopsticks. “I can’t hear the show over your mouth noises.”

  My eyes cut to the screen. It’s a commercial for some plantar fasciitis foot wrap.

  “God forbid you miss that important message because I am eating my dinner.”

  “Slurping. You sound like a walrus at a water fountain when we get Tom Yum soup, Ryan.”

  “No, I don’t.” But I slurp loudly on purpose, then look at her, eyebrows up.

  “I’m sorry.” She puts the carton of food down and covers her face with her palms, scrubbing her face, her fingers sliding into her messy hair, rubbing her scalp. “I don’t know why you put up with me.”

  NOW, that damn voice screams. NOW!

  I reach for her, my hand shaking. The wall between us is voluntarily broken on a regular basis. I’ve hugged Carrie. I’ve touched her hand, slung an arm around her shoulders, worked with her on fixing a leaky faucet or helped her move something heavy, our bodies brushing against each other in safe spots.

  She’s fallen asleep against me on my couch, and I’ve leaned against her while we watch shows.

  It’s not impenetrable. That wall, I mean.

  It’s just, you spend years not crossing that line and the moment it’s time, the breach takes on gravitas. Meaning.

  Intensity.

  Just as I’m about to touch her jaw, a half second before I cradle her sweet face in my hands and pull her to me for a kiss I start, a kiss I want, a kiss I plan to turn into more, she pulls away, my fingertips brushing her back instead.

  She comes in for a hug, all platonic, chin tucked down and into my shoulder before I can make a move to kiss her.

  “You’re different. I’m sorry.”

  “Different?”

  “You’re one of the nice guys.” Her shoulders relax, her voice muffled against my shoulder. As she breathes, the heat from her mouth warms the cloth of my t-shirt.

  Inches. I’m inches away from kissing her, from telling her how I really feel.