“Jesus, Brody,” she murmured. “Jesus Christ.”
“Tell me you don’t want it.”
“Of course I want it.”
“Tell me you don’t want me.”
Nadine sucked in an uneven breath and kissed me back, hard, and that was all the answer I required at the moment, taking off the pajamas she’d just put on, smoothing my hands down her lean body. Her skin smelled like the manly soap I’d stocked my bathroom with, but she made it sexy, somehow. Feminine and dangerous and utterly hers. The only thing confusing in this moment was why anything had to be confusing at all. When we were like this, reduced to our most basic instincts, pressing ourselves against each other, everything else fell into place.
I wouldn’t have called it making love, though. No, what we did on my bed, Nadine riding me in a brutal pace I could barely keep up with, was pure fucking. It was putting into motion and actions all the things we had trouble saying. I knew she felt the things I felt, knew that we worked together in a way that only made sense to us. That was fine. We were the only ones who had to understand it. I just needed Nadine to know that, no matter what, I didn’t stop feeling like this. I didn’t roll into work and decide to fuck with the customers because I wasn’t happy with her. I genuinely wanted her and wanted her to want me, wanted her to be happy.
When Nadine came screaming, it only made my orgasm that much better. That’s how I felt about the entire relationship. Her happiness before mine. I wanted so badly for things to work between us.
After we were done, though, both of us showeredNadine for the second time in the span of an hour or so she gave me a smile that was more like a grimace.
“Would you mind sleeping on the couch tonight?” she asked. “Or I could. I just…want to sleep alone.”
I swallowed, ready to admit defeat. “Nadine…”
“Look, you…please don’t say anything right now. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I said. “I invited you into my home. You have a right to be comfortable. I’d originally intended to be sleeping on the couch this entire time.”
“Okay. Good night.”
That was apparently enough closure and explanation to send Nadine straight to bed, but I was so puzzled dawn was breaking just outside my windows before I even felt a little bit tired. We’d had great, passionate sex, and something that felt like progress in our relationship. But she’d wanted to sleep separately with no reason other than wanting to sleep alone? It just didn’t make sense to me.
Things got so confusing that I even brought it up with the rest of the guys the next time I was off from work, Nadine was nowhere to be found, and a couple of them were relaxing at the bar.
“Are we really doing girl talk right now?” Sloan asked me after I sent out the initial feelers, even as the little weasel stroked Amy’s back. She had recently returned to Rio Seco after some time abroad, reporting on a story that was coming out in the next issue of a major news magazine. The story she’d done about Sloan’s experiences as a Navy SEAL had resonated with a ton of people, and now Amy could pretty much write about whatever she wanted. Everyone wanted to publish her work.
“We can do girl talk.” Amy paused in her writing and smiled up at me. “Girls are wonderful.”
“They are wonderful,” Sloan said patiently. “But we could be talking about other things. Like doing a ride, especially with all the fall foliage.”
“You are just as cute as a button,” she teased him. “‘Fall foliage.’” She made a notation in her notebook.
“What are you writing about?” I hazarded.
“Just notes,” she assured me, like that was supposed to make me feel any more secure about anything.
“I’m just trying to get some insight on to what’s going on,” I said, defensive. “I can consult Google, maybe hit up some message boards, or something.”
“You’re going to not want to do that,” Ace advised me. “If there’s anything I’ve learned about the Internet, it’s not to ask it the really important questions.”
“And what questions would you consider to be important?” Sloan asked him.
“You know. Symptom checkers.”
“Always cancer,” I said, nodding.
“And relationship advice,” Ace added.
“That you’re not meant to be together,” Sloan said. “So, that’s what friends are for. You can ask us the serious stuff.”
“Unless it’s about symptoms,” Amy said, not looking up from her notepad. “I’d recommend a doctor for that.”
“Yeah, we’d rather not know anything about any symptoms you’re experiencing,” Sloan agreed with a wince. “But we’re game for relationship discussions.”
“I just really need to bounce some things off you all, if you don’t mind.”
“Could I just… May I make a suggestion?” Amy gave me a sidelong look, and I nodded. “I’m assuming you’re going to be bouncing some things off us about Nadine, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you tried talking to her?”
I squirmed a little bit. “Kind of.”
“Because she would really be your best source of information on this.”
“It’s hard to talk to her about it,” I said, hesitating, dragging out each word. “Otherwise I would’ve. I don’t like to air my dirty laundry.”
“Let the man talk,” Sloan chided Amy. “That’s what friends do. Listen to each other gossip.”
“It’s not gossip!” I exploded as Ace and Sloan laughed. Amy, to her credit, pressed her lips together and returned to her writing.
“We know it’s not gossip,” Ace said, flapping his hand at me. “You’re venting, trying to figure things out. We’re just teasing you. Go on. Say what you came here to say.”
“The thing is, I’m not convinced she likes me.”
Sloan whistled. “Well, if you don’t think she even likes you, then why hold out hope for anything? Isn’t that the most basic requirement of a relationship? You have to like each other or it’s definitely not going to work.”
“You’d think so, right? But she’s still staying at my house. Claiming not to be angry with me or anything like that.”
“Well, what is making you think she’s angry with you, or she doesn’t like you?”
My face colored. “She’s hardly giving me the time of day, but she seems suddenly willing to give everyone else in town the time of day.”
Sloan frowned. “You mean she’s…”
“Flirting,” I finished for him. “With everyone who walks in through that door, and that’s only what I see when we’re both working here.”
“Wow, so it wasn’t just me,” Ace said, a look of comprehension dawning over his face.
“Wasn’t just you what?” I demanded.
“She flirted with me one night, or at least I thought she did,” he explained. “I thought there was going to be a problem, but now that I know she was flirting with everyone, I feel a lot more relieved.”
“Hey, she didn’t flirt with me,” Sloan said, clearly pouting.
“That’s supposed to be a good thing,” Amy reminded him.
“Yeah, I know, but…” He stopped, then chuckled. “Okay, that is pretty ridiculous. I felt jealous for a second.”
“My beauty can be a terrible burden,” Ace said, laughing as Sloan jabbed at him.
“I’m glad you all find this so very fucking funny,” I sniped. So far, this discussion hadn’t helped at all. I was becoming some kind of joke.
“We’re only laughing at you because we’re relieved it’s not us,” Sloan said, which wasn’t comforting at all. I wondered if he even thought it would’ve been.
“Maybe it’s the sex,” Ace suggested.
“Fuck you.” I eyed him balefully. “I have never gotten a complaint in that department.”
“Just a thought. Could be your first complaint, is all I’m saying. Happens to the best of us.”
“What are you writing down
?” I roared, rounding quickly enough on Amy to make her jump and drop her pen. “Are you recording this?”
“No,” she said, then looked guilty. “Okay, maybe.”
“Sloan,” I complained. “What the hell?”
“It’s not like I’m going to publish this conversation,” Amy said, swatting at Sloan’s hand as he tried to swipe her pen. “All I’m doing is a study on dialogue. Trying to get the hang of how real people talk to each other.”
“Why?” I spat.
“She’s looking to make a move into fiction,” Sloan said, sounding weary. “It’s been stressful.”
“It has not been stressful,” she argued. “All I ask from you is your support.”
“And what I would do if you cheated on me, or if you died, or if you decided to move halfway around the world…”
“I’m just looking for some honest reactions,” she explained. “I know how I would react in all of those situations. I needed to understand how other people would.”
“How would you react if I died?” Sloan asked slowly.
“I’d mourn you for a time, then move on,” she said brightly, belying the heaviness of the question. “Brody, what would you do if something happened for you and Nadine not to be together anymore?”
What would I do? Cast around, hoping that it wasn’t happening even if all the signs were there. Bury my head in the sand, wishing that I was wrong about everything and all of this would eventually turn around.
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s kind of hard to think about.”
“Hitting a little too close to home?” Ace asked.
“You know, I think I have some paperwork to do in the office,” I said.
“Oh, come on,” he complained. “We’re just having a discussion. Don’t run off and hide in the office because your feelings are hurt. If you have this much trouble talking about your feelings with your friends, I can’t imagine it going very well with communicating with Nadine.”
“That’s pretty insightful, coming from you,” Amy commented, jotting down a few notes.
“Thanks,” Ace said, preening, then deflated a little. “That wasn’t a compliment, was it?”
“It almost was, I think,” Sloan said. “Pretty close.”
“See you later,” I said, starting to walk off, but Sloan snagged my arm.
“Stay,” he said. “We’ll figure this out. Everyone thinks better with beers in them, right?”
“I don’t feel much like drinking,” I said. “I’ll just head on home.”
“Brody doesn’t feel like drinking?” Ace exchanged a look with Sloan. “You really are upset, bud.”
“I wasn’t faking it.”
“Tell us what to do,” Sloan pleaded. “I hate seeing you like this.”
“I guess I just have to figure it out.”
“Talk to Nadine about it,” Amy urged. “She’s the one with the answers you need.”
“I’ll try, but I don’t know if she’s going to be very forthcoming with me,” I said. Honestly, I was just hoping she’d found something to do outside of the house. I wanted to go home and take a shower to wash all this off and maybe sleep for the rest of the day. It was scary how attractive that proposal was.
“All we can do is try sometimes,” Amy said, nodding sagely. “We’re all here if you want to talk again.”
The last thing I wanted to do was agree to bare my soul to my friends again, but I nodded all the same, probably only for Amy’s sake. She was trying, at least, and that was more than I could say for Sloan and Ace.
It wasn’t really fair, though, for me to take out my frustrations on my friends. That was really the only thing going on, here. I was projecting my fears and irritations on to Sloan and Ace, and the only person I should’ve been angry with was myself. Or Nadine. Or the universe, for catapulting two completely incompatible people together and making them feel things for each other.
I was home before I knew it, walking through the door, and there was Nadine, sprawled out on the couch, watching daytime television. She jolted with surprise we’d scared each other, me with my sudden entrance, her with being there.
“I didn’t think you’d be home,” I said, feeling awkward. There was no worse feeling in the world than not wanting to be in your own home, and there was a part of me that resented Nadine for making me feel like that.
“I’m here,” she said. “Indulging in some trash TV.”
“I sort of thought you’d be out having an epic adventure or something.” God, that sounded lamer when I said it out loud than when it was bouncing around inside my skull.
She snorted. “Is that what you think I do? Just embark on epic adventures all the time? I don’t even have a way to get around here. I’m stranded if I want to go anywhere beyond reasonable walking distance. Rio Seco really could use a ride-share program, you know, but maybe that would make it lose some of its charm of being impenetrable.”
“You know, if you needed to go somewhere, you could just tell me. I’d take you wherever you needed to go.”
“I’m already inconveniencing you by staying in your home,” she said, after a beat, looking back at the TV. “I’m not going to make you be my personal chauffeur, too.”
There had been a time when she’d been thrilled to ride on the back of my motorcycle, arms clutched around my middle, laughing and shouting into the wind. It felt like those days were over.
“I’ll just be going, then,” I said, unable to stay there any longer with her. I didn’t even want to take a nap anymore, even though I was even more exhausted than before. There was just so much that had been lost, and I didn’t have a good explanation for it. I didn’t know if she had an explanation, either. I knew that Amy had told me to talk to Nadine directly, but it was just too difficult. Maybe I didn’t want to know what had gone wrong. Maybe living on the edge of possibility, hoping that we would find the way back to each other, the way we were before, was better than facing the reality of us never being good for each other again.
“You seriously just got here,” Nadine pointed out. “Why did you come here if you were just going to walk back out again?”
And what could I say to that? I’d wanted to just exist in my own space for a little while and forget about all the various ways my heart was in danger of breaking, but Nadine had already been here. I needed to go somewhere else.
“I just needed to…get something before I left,” I said, more than painfully aware that I sounded and looked ridiculous.
“Go on, then.” Nadine turned back to the TV, effectively dismissing me. Was I just imagining things, or did she actually sound…disappointed? I stood there and stared, wondering what I could do to solve this mystery I was wrapped up in. But she noticed me lingering like a fool, turned back to me, her eyebrows drawing together.
“What are you doing?”
I forced myself to face my fearsand the woman I had feelings for and plucked something out of thin air.
“I was actually just stopping by here to see if you wanted to go to a brewery with me,” I blurted out, probably just as surprised as Nadine at my explanation.
“A brewery?”
“Yes,” I said, in a rush of relief that I’d found something to talk about. God, I could talk about breweries for hours. “I’d planned to make this trip for a while, now, but it’s kind of a long haul. It would be fun if I had someone to keep me company on the ride up. It’s a brewery I’ve never visited before, so I’m pretty excited.” All of that was true. I had planned on making the long ride to visit this brewery in particular. I just didn’t know it was going to be today, or that I was going to invite Nadine along.
“I’ve never been to a brewery,” she said slowly, fidgeting with the remote control for the television.
“Well, you’re more than welcome to tag along,” I said. “I’ll be tasting a few beers, trying to figure out if they have anything that might sell well at the bar. If you’ve never been to a brewery, I could arrange for a tour or something.
Could be an interesting opportunity to take photos.”
Nadine hesitated only a moment longer before turning off the TV. “Okay. You’ve sold me. I’d love to go.”
I was surprised, but maybe the most surprising thing was just how pleased I was. I wanted to take Nadine with me, to share today with her. And maybe some selfish part of me was looking forward to her arms around me, riding on my motorcycle.
In mere minutes, we were doing just that. It wasn’t lost on me that Nadine wasn’t acting as carefree as she used to on the back of my bike, but she was taking photos all the same, all the way up, one arm always hooked around my middle to keep her secure. Her weight behind me felt good. It was almost like my motorcycle was balanced better with her on board. It made me want to drive better, to be careful, to keep both of us safe.
We ate up the miles like they were nothing, and I let myself feel like things were normal, if only for a moment.
“Hey, can we pull over for a second?” Nadine shouted at me over the wind we were generated.
“Yeah! You okay?” I slowed carefully we were on a piece of road that wasn’t frequented by a lot of traffic, so I’d been going pretty fast just for the sheer joy of it.
“Are you kidding me?” As soon as I put my feet down on the pavement, Nadine jumped off the back. “I’m better than okay. I’m fantastic! Would you just look at these mountains?”
She took her helmet off to ogle them better, and after several long minutes, removed the lens cap on her camera and started taking pictures.
“You like them?” I asked, but it was a stupid question. Of course she liked them. They were beautiful. We were getting a little bit out of the desert and into the more forested areas of the state, so it was something completely different from Rio Seco.
“They’re beautiful,” she said. “It’s hard to believe we’re getting out of the desert. I’d almost become accustomed to it, you know? Taking it for granted. This is a good reminder.”
“Good skiing up in this region, in the winter,” I said. “If that’s your thing.”
Nadine squatted down, took some more photos. “I’m sort of picking up on the idea that skiing’s not your thing.”
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