by Julie Kriss
“You know,” Edie said, “you haven’t kicked anyone’s ass since the trip.”
I shrugged. The bar was filling up, and I could see Shark making his way toward me, probably to send me back to Puke Patrol. “I’ve been tired.” Tired, and not really angry anymore.
“I thought the bank fired you,” Edie said, glancing at a guy who was motioning to her for a drink and looking away again. Edie didn’t take any shit.
“They did,” I said. “I’m doing other stuff during the day.”
“Like what?”
“Shouldn’t you get that guy a drink?”
She gave me a knowing look. “Fine,” she said. “Just call your cute girl, okay? Then go to her place and bang her senseless. Your celibate moping is cute, but it’s making me sad.”
She moved off, and Shark appeared at my shoulder. “We have some trouble,” he said.
I put my phone in my pocket, looking around. “What trouble?”
“I make two guys ready to fight, nine o’clock.”
Shark liked to use words like make. I glanced over, and he was right. A long-haired punk and a short-haired punk, facing off. Nothing had happened yet, but the people around them were fading back, giving them room in self-defense. I rubbed my hand over my eyes. “Oh, man. I do not have the energy for this tonight.”
“Get the energy, Mr. Football,” Shark said. “We’ve got maybe five minutes. It’ll take both of us to throw them out.” He looked at my face. “You don’t want to, you can go get another job.”
“No.” I needed the money. I’d started actual EMT training a week ago, and it would empty my savings to finish the course work until I could get a job.
I’d suggested an EMT career as a convenient lie at the wedding, but afterward the idea wouldn’t leave my brain. I’d already had most of the training, though I’d have to get properly certified to work. And I had the crazy thought that I might like it. And be good at it. Like I could do something that made a difference to people, even in a small way.
So far, I’d been right. I liked it. But it was exhausting, being in class most of the day and working at night. Too exhausting to deal with this shit.
But I needed the money.
“Take the short-haired one,” I said to Shark. “I’ll circle around behind the long-haired one.” We sauntered casually through the crowd and got ready.
It was a good plan, but it still went to shit. Short hair pushed long hair, long hair pushed back, someone shouted, and the crowd started to move. Shark got short hair in a lock and hauled him toward the side exit, while I grabbed long hair and prodded him toward the back.
Shark’s guy got nasty, kicking him in the shins; mine wove drunkenly, in a way I found so alarming I hustled him faster. When I opened the back door I actually put a foot on his ass and shot him straight out into the back parking lot. He went like a bullet until he reached the chain-link fence, leaned over, and puked.
And suddenly, it wasn’t the money. It wasn’t the job. None of it mattered. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that was worth this.
I stared at the sky, which was full of crisp autumn stars, and made a decision.
“I quit,” I said.
Twenty-Eight
Megan
“You’re going to have to start charging me for this,” Holly said, “now that you’re officially a pro.”
We were in her apartment for our Friday night photo session. I was crouching behind a tailor’s dummy that was wearing one of Holly’s creations, an assortment of pins pinched between my lips. I pulled them out and said, “You make me sound like a hooker.”
She laughed, adjusting the settings on the camera as I arranged a fold of fabric and pinned it in place. “A stylist hooker.”
“That’s me.” After getting home from my fateful trip to Cape Cod, I’d done some thinking about my life. It led me to calling up the photographer I’d worked for, Janine, and asking if she’d give me another chance as her stylist. It had taken some convincing, a little begging, and an offer to update her website for free—I hadn’t exactly been polite when I quit—but it happened that she had just gotten a big catalog contract and was short-handed, so she agreed to give me a trial run. I’d taken a leap of faith, quit Drug-Rite, and gone into it with commitment and willingness to learn. I’d even started slowly letting go of my website clients so I could focus. So far, it felt like the right decision.
I loved the work. I loved being in studio every day, always on my feet, solving the next problem, getting the next shot. No two days were alike. The hours were crazy, and the work was freelance, but I thrived on it. I felt at home with the constant unexpectedness, the stream of new people and new experiences. My dad had been right. I liked styling, and I was good at it. I never wanted to look at a website—or a Drug-Rite cash—again.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I said to Holly, looking critically at how the dress hung on the dummy and rearranging a fold I didn’t like. “I can still fail.” The thought gave me a quiver of fear I wasn’t used to. This job mattered. It was scary, caring about a job that could be a career, but it was scary in the best way.
Some things you just do, Jason had said when I’d talked to him about it, because not to do them is too hard. As always, he was right. I felt a little bubble of pleasure, like champagne.
“You’re not going to fail,” Holly said. “You can do anything you put your mind to.”
“You’ve never seen me put my mind to anything,” I pointed out.
She shrugged, and then pointedly changed the subject. “We had dinner at my mother’s last night. With Jason.”
I stabbed the last pin into the fabric and glared at her as my heart did a quick trip in my chest. “For God’s sake, Holly. You are so obvious.”
She grinned. She was completely obvious, and she didn’t care who knew it. She’d been trying to get me set up with Jason ever since we’d come home. “He looked good,” she said.
I wanted to know how he looked. I really, really wanted to know. But the details I wanted, his sister couldn’t give me. “That’s nice,” I said, though I couldn’t help but add, “He always looks good.”
She tapped her chin. “I think he’s lonely.”
“Oh, please.” Was he? I moved behind her shoulder behind the camera and looked at the digital screen. “Take the picture.” She did, and we both stared at the result.
“He quit Zoot Bar,” Holly said. “He’s just going to school for now.”
“I know,” I replied. Jason and I texted each other every day. We talked about whatever was going on, or we mock-argued, or he made me laugh. Sometimes we flirted a little. It had become our usual pattern in this new relationship between us, except that Jason now had no idea that his texts were the highlight of my day, or that even his mild flirtations made me giddy. That I read over our string of dirty texts from the night of the wedding over and over until I had them nearly memorized.
There was no sex between us. He hadn’t even tried. And now… it was what I wanted more than anything.
It wasn’t easy, being in love with the guy you’d pushed into the friend zone. I didn’t know what to do about it.
“I don’t get it,” Holly said. “You two would be so perfect together. And something happened at that wedding.”
“I don’t like how that sleeve is hanging,” I said, pointing to the picture on the camera. “That fold makes the shadow too deep.”
She waited for me to crouch next to the dress again, fixing the sleeve, and then she said, “He likes you.”
My pulse beat hard in my throat. This was the fear. Maybe he did like me—but maybe it wasn’t in the way I wanted. Not anymore. “You don’t think it would be, um, weird?” I asked, hedging. “Me and your brother?”
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “We’d just make a rule. That’s what Dean and Jason did when Dean and I got together.”
“A rule?”
“Dean is not allowed to mention our sex life to Jason. Ever.” Holly c
rossed her arms and smiled mischievously. “Actually, I think the two of them have a polite fiction that Dean and I live here together platonically, watching TV like roommates.”
“That’s their rule?” I said, laughing.
“Jason says it’s the only way he can live without having to bleach his brain.”
I adjusted the sleeve and waggled my eyebrows at her. “Well, you can always tell me. I like deets.”
She blushed, but she said, “No way. Not if you’re dating my brother.”
I stepped back and sank into a chair, taking a sip of wine while she snapped the picture again. “I don’t know,” I said, the words coming out honestly. I was tired of holding everything in, of having no one to talk to about this. I’d never been in love before, and it was overwhelming and terrifying and exciting. The one time I’d seen him in person, when he’d come over to watch a movie at my apartment, I’d been so nervous I was sweating. But he hadn’t seemed to notice, or he’d been too polite to say anything.
He’d sprawled on the sofa with me, explaining the characters throughout the movie—which mutant had which powers, and why—while I’d tried not to fidget and wondered if I should make a move. At the end he’d kissed me, long and slow and sweet, his mouth so sexy and familiar on mine, that tangy flavor of man and Jason, while I’d kissed him back with my heart in my throat. Then he’d softly said goodnight and gone home.
I’d relived that kiss for days.
It had been like a chaste first date. With a guy I’d already had sex with more times than his last girlfriend. I thought the frustration would drive me insane.
This, I realized, was usually how guys felt.
“I don’t know if it would work,” I admitted to Holly, searching for the words to explain. “I don’t know if we like each other the same way.”
“What happened?” Holly asked quietly.
“Um.” I tried to come up with an explanation that didn’t talk about the sex. “Things got intense, and I freaked out. So he backed off. That’s the short version.”
“And you regret it?”
I nearly laughed. “Have you met Jason?” I said. “I think I might be the world’s biggest idiot, yes.”
“You’re not an idiot,” she said, pulling up her own chair and picking up her glass of wine. We were done with photography for now. “You just have a lot going on.”
I shrugged. I’d told Holly about the genetic tests. I didn’t have the results yet. The idea still hung over me, the blankness of my future, but for some reason it didn’t inspire the same terror it had before. Whatever it was, it was my future, after all. It was reality. I would just have to deal with it. Whatever happened, I would handle.
“Can I make an honest suggestion?” Holly asked.
“Sure.”
“If you like him, you need to snap him up before someone else does.”
“What?” I nearly choked. “What are you talking about? Has he said something?”
“Of course not. I told you, he likes you. But Jason is…” She waved her hand, and I supplied the words in my mind. Gorgeous. Sexy. Funny. Beautiful when he’s naked. “Eligible,” she said.
Eligible. I stared down at my drink, blinking away the stab of possessive rage that made me see red. No way was some other woman getting her hands on him. No way was some other woman going to see him naked. No way.
I didn’t want some other woman doing with him the things I’d done. I couldn’t stand that. Not ever.
Damn it. I was going to have to do something.
“What if he rejects me?” I said. “I was pretty clear, and…” I forced the words out. “He was mad. And hurt. We had a fight. We’re past it, but maybe he doesn’t think of me seriously like that, you know? I don’t think I could take it.” I was too nice, he’d said. It’ll never happen again.
I turned to see Holly staring at me. “Megan, he drove to Cape Cod for you.”
“He was apologizing.” I’d told her about that, too—about the party, while leaving out the nudity details.
“Apologizing?” Holly looked like I was nuts. “If he wanted to apologize, he could have bought you flowers or sent a sincerely worded email. Instead he dropped his life and drove you across three states for five days.”
Technically it was four and a half, because he’d driven through the night to get me home while I slept in the passenger seat. Which only proved her point. “I guilted him into it,” I said. “He felt sorry for me.”
“He took you all the way to that wedding,” Holly said. “He worked extra shifts to help you pay for it. He had to hang out with your ex. He got you out of there when he saw you weren’t having a good time. Are you crazy?” She shook her head. “I know my brother. He’s nice, but he’s not that nice. I’ve never seen him do all of that for anyone before.”
And I’d pushed him away.
Maybe she was right. My fear kept me from believing it completely. But suddenly, I realized it didn’t matter. What mattered was that for the first time there was a man I really wanted—really wanted—and he was single and beautiful, and we were friends, and I had his fucking phone number, and I was sitting around moping, not doing anything about it.
Life was short. I was supposed to live in the moment.
It wasn’t always easy. It was hardly ever easy. But I was starting to learn that it was worth it.
Jason Carsleigh left me no choice.
I’d have to do something about him. For good.
Twenty-Nine
Jason
I had fallen asleep studying when my phone rang. I rolled over and picked it up, staring at it in disbelief. Megan was calling me. She never called me, especially at eleven o’clock on a Saturday night.
I answered, running a hand through my hair and trying to wake up. “Megan? What’s going on?”
“Hey,” she said, her voice tentative. “Were you asleep?”
“Nope,” I said, rolling on my back and staring at the ceiling of my bedroom in my mother’s basement. “I’m out partying. It’s nuts. I got a tattoo, and I’ve got two strippers in string bikinis. They say I can lick whipped cream from their—”
“Okay, okay,” she said. “You’re home. I get it.”
I laughed. For a split second, I was just happy to hear her voice. “What’s the matter? You sound all tied up.” I shouldn’t have said that. Now I had an image in my head. Megan with her arms over her head, her wrists tied, her back arched, her dark hair curling over the pillow. I’d lick right down her tits, over her flat stomach. I’d make her beg. I closed my eyes. I had a big fucking problem.
“I want you to come over,” she said into the middle of my dirty fantasy.
I cleared my throat. Those words were like a bomb going off inside me, but I said, “Are we watching an X-Men movie?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t,” I said, the words forced out, painful. “I’m not scratching your itch, Megan. We did that, and it was fun. But that’s done.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Uh huh. And what are you asking?”
“Why did you take me to the wedding?” she said. “Why did you do all of that for me?”
Was this a trick question? I couldn’t think of how. “I wanted to,” I said.
“But why? You didn’t want to go to a wedding, Jason.”
“No,” I admitted.
“So why did you do it?”
“For you, I guess. You asked me to.” I tried to think of the right way to put it, a way that described the sex and the way we were the rest of the time, the way I felt when I was with her. “We fit.”
She was quiet. I had been too nice again. “Listen, Megan,” I said. “I know it was too much for you—”
“I’m tired,” she said abruptly. “I’m tired of being here while you’re there. I’m tired of you not being in the same room with me. It’s making me miserable.”
Breathe, I told myself, because it was suddenly hard. I hadn’t let myself wa
nt this. I hadn’t even let myself think the words. She was too vulnerable, and the rejection was too hard. “You’re going through a lot right now,” I managed to say.
“This isn’t about that.” I could hear how hard this was for her, how much she hated being exposed. “I told you, that doesn’t mean I get to make excuses. I can do this alone. I know that. But the thing is, I don’t want to. I’d rather go through this with you. Go through everything with you. With us.” Her breath hitched. “I keep wanting to think there’s an us. And then I remember that I screwed it up and there isn’t an us. Not right now.”
“There’s always an us,” I said to her. God, it must be hard to take on everything alone the way she did. She was fucking fierce. “There always is. Whether we’re fighting or we’re fucking or we’re just friends. Whether I’m here or I’m in your bed, inside you. Whether the news is good or bad. Whether you want me or you want to kick me in the balls. All of that is us, Megan. All of it.”
She sniffed softly. “I want that. I don’t want to kick you in the balls.”
I choked a laugh. My heart was exploding in my chest. “Okay. That’s a start.”
“What do you want?”
It was easy. And terrifying. And the best words I’d ever said. “I want all of it,” I said to her. “Everything you’ve got.”
“Then for God’s sake, Jason, come over here.”
“Hold on,” I said, getting out of bed. “I’m on my way.”
Thirty
Megan
It felt like it took an hour for him to get to my apartment. I just sat still, waiting. I had almost thrown up with nerves before I made that phone call. For the first time, I had understood to the bone how terrifying rejection could be. How deep it could hurt.
But he hadn’t rejected me.
Finally, there was a knock on my door. He was wearing jeans and a thick zip-up jacket against the autumn cold, his hair mussed, his cheeks red. When he walked me back into the apartment, his hands were cold on my back.