One Good Thing

by Lily Maxton

  “What would you be doing right now if you didn’t need money?” he asked.

  I thought about it. “I would have said painting less than a year ago. But things have changed.”

  “What’s changed?”

  “I don’t really know.” My fingers tapped a scattered rhythm on the counter. “If you didn’t need money, what would you be doing?”

  “I would test video games,” he said instantly.

  I smiled. “Really? You don’t think that would get boring?”

  “No way,” he said. “You’d get to play games before they were released and tell the developers what you thought. It would be great.”

  “You’re not like a gamer, are you? How many hours a week do you play?”

  He laughed. “It feels like you’re testing me for an addiction. I don’t know, maybe two or three?”

  “That’s not bad.”

  “But I watch porn nearly triple that amount.”

  “What?” I shrieked.

  He chuckled. “I’m just kidding. I don’t watch porn. Well,” he amended, “that’s to say I don’t watch it regularly. I think most guys would be lying if they said they’d never watched porn.”

  I stared at the phone, oddly intrigued. Drew and I had never discussed anything like this. We might have had a sex life, but we hadn’t really talked things through very much. I assumed Drew had watched porn before, but he’d never just volunteered the information.

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  “It’s okay. Physiologically it does what it’s supposed to do.”

  I couldn’t even bring myself to point out his use of ‘physiologically.’ “But you don’t prefer it?” I asked hesitantly.

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Well that was definitive. I turned the stove off and then moved the pot away from the burner. I seriously wasn’t going to ask him anything else, but then, like two seconds later, “What do you prefer?” Shit, this was not the direction I’d wanted this conversation to take. I was sending mixed signals. I might have officially become a cock tease. But it was too intriguing, and it was easier to talk about when we weren’t face-to-face. I didn’t have to worry I’d do something stupid like jump his bones.

  “What are we talking about? Like if I’m by myself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My own imagination usually suffices.”

  “What ”—I swallowed—“… what do you fantasize about?”

  “I would tell you, but I don’t think you’ll like the answer.”

  I stopped breathing for a second. “Oh. Okay.” There was a strange wavering note to my voice. I’d hoped to say it more casually, but my heart was racing.

  He hesitated. “Unless you want me to tell you.”

  That would really be taking things too far. What was I hoping he’d say? That he fantasized about me? Even if he did, that definitely wasn’t something I needed to know about. It would just make work really, really awkward.

  “I think I do,” I said.

  There must have been some kind of horrible disconnect between my brain and my mouth. Maybe I should see a doctor.

  “Lately … you,” he said. “In the break room.”

  “Oh,” was all I could manage. My stomach felt hot. No, on reevaluation, I felt hot everywhere.

  “Are you about ready to hang up on me?”

  I shook my head before I realized he couldn’t see me. I had to lick my lips before I spoke. “No,” I whispered.

  “You’re not pissed off?”

  Not even close. I sort of wished I was, though. My anger would have turned into sarcasm and become somewhat manageable. This … whatever this was … just left me hot and wanting and frustrated. There was no answer to it.

  But I couldn’t not know at this point. I’d be wondering for weeks, months, maybe the rest of my life! It would be like a movie. I’d be old and withered with my grandchildren sitting around me as I told them about my youth. And I’d bring up Evan and our phone call. And they’d ask what he’d been fantasizing about, and I’d say, woefully, I never found out, children, I never found out.

  Or, you know, something along those lines.

  “What else?” I asked quietly.

  “What?”

  “What exactly do you imagine?”

  There was a long pause, and then he answered bluntly, “I imagine bending you over the counter and sliding your dress up. Or when you’re on the counter, facing me, your legs wrapped around my waist.”

  If I’d been holding the phone, I would have dropped it. All of my blood must have been rushing from my brain downward because I lost the capability of speech.

  “Now you’re pissed off?” Evan asked into the silence.

  “Not exactly,” I said hoarsely.

  “Are you alone?”

  My heart thrummed. “Yeah.”

  “What are you wearing?”

  My mind was a total blank. I couldn’t remember, so I glanced down and realized I hadn’t changed after I’d gotten home from work. “A blouse and black slacks.”

  “Does the blouse button in the front?”

  “Yes.”

  “Unbutton it.”

  Damn … the way he said that was sexy. My fingers trembled as I reached for the top button. I undid it slowly. Then fumbled for the second button. And the third.

  “Is it off?”

  “Almost.” I undid the last button and then shrugged out of the shirt, setting it on the counter next to the phone. I was standing in the kitchen in just my bra and pants. “Now it is.”

  “What’s your bra look like?”

  “It’s lavender colored. Front clasp.”

  “A front clasp?” He sounded intrigued. “Unclasp it.”

  I followed his command, letting the bra hang off my shoulders, open.

  “Do you like to touch your breasts?”

  “It feels better when someone else does it,” I said.

  “Pretend I’m touching you, then. Touch them for me.”

  I cupped my breast in my palm. My heart thudded against my hand. Slowly, softly, I grazed my thumb across my nipple and pretended Evan’s hands were on me. Oh, that was good.

  “I’m touching them for you,” I told him softly.

  “Do you like it?”

  I was starting to say yes when the door slammed, making my yes turn into more of a yelp. My heart lurched. I yanked on my blouse and hit the Speaker button on the phone.

  “Hey,” Alyssa said, spotting me from the living room.

  “Hi. I thought you had a date tonight.” My voice came out high-pitched and breathless. I kept my body toward the stove and just glanced at her over my shoulder since I was currently holding the sides of my shirt together with one arm tight around my torso.

  “I left early. The guy was a total dick.” She paused. “Are you okay? Your face is really red.”

  “I’m fine.” Damn, it sounded like I’d just gotten back from a workout. Alyssa knew the most exercise I usually did was walking. I cleared my throat. “I’ve been cooking,” I said, waving vaguely at the stovetop with my free arm. “It got kind of hot.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Okay.”

  As soon as she disappeared from view, I buttoned my shirt and then picked up the phone. “Um …”

  “It sounds like you’re not alone anymore.”

  “Alyssa just got home.”

  “I think Alyssa is my least favorite person in the world right now.”

  I laughed weakly. “So … I guess I’ll see you at work tomorrow. If you feel better?”

  And now my common sense decided to step it up. Now I felt relieved my roommate had walked in when she did. Now I worried about what would happen later.

  Lately, my common sense was an epic fail.

  “Yeah, hopefully.”

  When I ended the call and turned, Alyssa was in the kitchen, her hands on her hips and her head tilted to the side.

  I jumped, my hand flying to my throat. “You startled me. I thought you were in the bedroom.”


  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  “What? What is that look?”

  “Who was on the phone just now?”

  “Evan,” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “I thought so.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her and remained silent.

  “By the way, your shirt is buttoned wrong,” she said, sauntering casually out of the kitchen.

  I tilted my chin down to look. “Damn it!”

  Chapter Ten

  Evan wasn’t at work the next day either. I slogged through the numbers, watching the minutes drag by on the bottom corner of the screen. Even my afternoon tea didn’t help. Not having him in the office proved even more distracting than having him there.

  I slid my phone out of my purse and thought about texting to see if he was feeling all right. But then I decided I’d already sent him enough mixed signals. I didn’t want to be that kind of woman. I couldn’t keep pushing him away and then nearly having phone sex with him.

  I blushed just thinking about the term. “Phone sex.” It was like some strange, forbidden act I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around. I’d never been tempted to do anything like that with Drew and we’d dated for a year. And Evan had me acting wild and wanton after a few weeks?

  If I was going to take a stand, I needed to take it. No more phone calls. No more friendly outings. No more drinking together.

  Something about him made it way too easy for me to transgress.

  I looked up from my typing when a woman leaned against my cubicle, all the way up a shapely leg to dark brown eyes. “Hi, Danielle.”

  “Natalie,” I muttered, feeling irritable. Her hair was glossy with a slight wave, her makeup perfect, enhancing her large eyes. Why did she always manage to look like she’d just stepped from the cover of a magazine? It wasn’t natural to be so polished.

  Maybe she was an android.

  “Did you need me to mail something?” I asked, even though I didn’t think it was likely. Usually David, the supervisor of the Analytics Department, was in charge of giving me tasks, or Lucy if David was busy.

  Natalie rarely spoke to me, but I’d overheard a few of her conversations with some of the other employees … she had a way of being subtly condescending, but not outright insulting. I wasn’t sure what her deal was—maybe she actually thought she was better than everyone else. Maybe she had low self-esteem and putting other people down made her feel better.

  Either way, the only one of her peers she seemed to play nice with was Evan.

  So maybe I should have guessed that was what she wanted to talk to me about.

  “Have you spoken with Evan?” she asked casually, totally ignoring my question.

  My eyebrows slanted down. “He’s not here,” I responded. I wasn’t going to reveal to her that we’d talked on the phone.

  “So you don’t talk to him outside of work?” she pressed, a triumphant twist to her lips.

  “No.”

  “We just spoke this afternoon. He thinks he’ll be back tomorrow.”

  My fingers slid from the keyboard. “Does he?” I found it difficult to speak. “You called him?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” she asked. She flashed a smile with abnormally white android teeth, a huge cat-who-ate-the-canary smile. “We’re close.”

  “Close?”

  She leaned toward me, like she was about to impart a very important secret. The motion drifted the scent of hair product toward me, light and fruity and vaguely chemical. “Very close.”

  I laid my hands flat out on the edge of the desk. “Why doesn’t anyone know you’re together then?”

  She laughed, right in my face. My fingers curled and I stared down at my clenched fists. “I didn’t say we were together.” Her tone was airy and sympathetic, like I was some poor, naive girl who didn’t understand the ways of the world, even though she couldn’t have been more than three or four years older than me.

  I stopped trying for politeness. “I need to get to work,” I said flatly.

  “Of course.” Those two words dripped with fake sympathy.

  Once she was out of sight, presumably back in her cell—er, cubicle—I counted to ten, taking a deep breath every odd second and releasing it every even second.

  And I reminded myself that Evan’s personal life didn’t concern me. Not at all. Still, it didn’t do much to ease the tightness in my chest.

  *

  I was curled up in the recliner in the living room with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and an ancient laptop on my knees. Staring at the latest celebrity news. And listening to the patter of a cold rain against the windows.

  Princess watched me from the couch, looking mildly malevolent but too lazy to do anything about it, like cats sometimes were.

  “I hope you’re not getting cat hair on my bed,” I muttered.

  She yawned, showing off sharp feline teeth. I turned my attention back to the computer.

  I didn’t even like celebrities. I didn’t know why I was wasting time on the sordid details of their lives.

  Or maybe I did know. It might have had something to do with the easel and blank canvas I’d set up in the corner of the living room. I shouldn’t have brought it out from the closest, thinking today might be the day I’d get back to what I used to love. Looking at all that empty white made my heart ache.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. My gaze arrowed to the door. I must have been in a strange frame of mind (possibly brought on by the rain and cold and eerie gray of the day), but my first thought was of “The Raven” by Poe—I imagined myself opening the door to find some otherworldly bird waiting with a disturbing message.

  You will paint … nevermore.

  Tap. Tap.

  I edged forward, watched my hand as it reached for the knob and pulled on the door.

  “Hi,” Drew said.

  I stared at him. He’d forgotten his umbrella, his dark hair was plastered to his head, black from moisture. “Can’t you knock louder?”

  He frowned. “What?”

  I shook my head. He must have followed a resident into the building; a little warning from the intercom would have been nice. “Never mind. What is it?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Sure,” I said, and then I remembered my hospitality. “I’ll get you a towel.”

  Drew sat on the floor next to the couch so he wouldn’t get the furniture wet. I perched on the edge of the cushion next to Princess, who eyed our guest with an evil glint.

  I watched as Drew scrubbed his face and hair with the towel. “So it’s raining pretty hard?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Um … what are you doing here?”

  “I told you I didn’t like the way we left things.”

  I folded my hands on my lap. An uncertain gesture. Something to focus on. “You want to be friends?”

  “At least.”

  I looked up, startled. “At least?”

  Drew stared at the blank television. “Since we broke up, I’ve been thinking about how good things were at first. I think … I’d like to try to get back to that. It’s my fault that we grew apart. I’ve been so focused on my job I let our relationship take a backseat.”

  My mouth literally fell open. After a moment of stunned silence, I said, “But you’ve been dating other people.”

  “I’ve been trying to date other people. I think of you a lot.”

  “So what … you just needed to date other people—or have sex with other people—for a month, and now your restlessness is curbed and you want to get back together?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “It’s not like that. Dating other people made me realize I miss you.”

  It was difficult not to note he didn’t address the sex comment. “But you didn’t miss last-six-months Dani, you missed end-of-college Dani?”

  “What does that mean?”

  I picked at one of my fingernails. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re just a fair-weather kind of guy.”

  His mouth pinched. “I’m not
,” he insisted. “Or if I was, I didn’t realize it. That’s not who I want to be.”

  My shoulder lifted. “Maybe it was for the best though. People grow apart for a reason.”

  “We grew apart because I didn’t try,” he insisted. “Because I didn’t realize what we had. Is this hesitation because of the guy I saw you talking to?”

  “No,” I shook my head. My throat felt tight when I thought about Evan. Particularly when I thought about Evan and Natalie and all the things they might have done together. Had he touched her the way he’d touched me?

  Was Natalie lying?

  I didn’t like that my hopes seemed to hinge on a chance. It shouldn’t even matter what Evan did in his free time. Or who.

  Drew moved closer to me. He knelt between my legs, placing his hands on my knees. I felt the familiar, solid weight of them through my pants. “We could just take things slow. Hang out. See if we can get back to what we were.”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “Look who I ran into—” Alyssa’s voice filled the room, halting on a surprised note.

  Evan stood behind her.

  Of course he did. Of course fate would jump at another chance to make me fumble. I was starting to think fate had some kind of grudge against me.

  His eyes flicked to Drew, to his hands on my knees, and then to my face. I don’t know how I looked—puzzled, frazzled, nauseous? His expression was oddly calm.

  Until I noticed a muscle in his jaw twitch. Like he was gritting his teeth. Or keeping a rein on his temper. I hadn’t seen Evan angry before; was it a simmering, contained sort of anger or more explosive? For some reason, I was curious to see what he was like at his worst.

  “I didn’t know you had company,” Alyssa squeaked.

  “It’s fine,” I said. Even though I was a little pissed that I had no privacy and that my roommate had such bad timing. And I was pissed at the emotion churning in my stomach—guilt. Even when I had absolutely nothing to be guilty for.

  I stood up, nearly knocking Drew over in the process. “Hi,” I said to Evan.

  “Hi.”

  We stared at each other. I could feel Alyssa and Drew staring at us. I shoved my hands into my blue jean pockets and pretended all these intent looks were really normal, even though I was on edge.

  “Can I talk to you privately?” Evan asked, cocking his head toward the door.