Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  She pauses for a long moment, then her words are measured. “That’s not a decision you get to make.”

  “And you do? That’s what has happened here. You’ve made the decision for both of us without so much as discussing it with me.”

  “You bought a house without talking to me about it, and you just assumed everything could change just because you wanted it to, or have you forgotten about that?”

  That may be true, but it’s not at all the same.

  “I asked you to be with me. I asked you because I love you, and I thought you loved me too. I thought I had felt it, something on your side, for a while, but the night we kissed…the night I held you and touched you and made you come…I felt it, Elle. I thought I knew how you really felt about me that night.” I tip my head back and blow out a hard breath. “But some rich asshole waves a good job under your nose and you just throw me away like I meant nothing to you. Shit. Maybe I didn’t mean anything to you and that’s why it was so easy for you to walk away.”

  “You know that’s not true.” Her voice cracks and it chips at the stone that has started to cover my heart. “You’re angry, I get that. Why don’t I call you…,” she tries to say something else through the tears she’s trying to tamp down, but I don’t let her finish.

  “I can’t do this, Elle. Being at the fringes of your life…it hurts too much. I don’t think I can talk to you anymore.”

  I hear her stifle a pained gasp and it almost breaks me. Now, I’m the asshole that made her cry.

  “Are you sure?” Her voice is strained. “You might feel different in a few days.”

  I might, and that’s why I can’t waiver. I lean back against the doorframe for some sort of support.

  “I’m sorry, but I just…I can’t do this. I love you too much to let you go. That’s exactly why I have to. Goodbye Elle.”

  Maybe I was too hard on her, but I just don’t think I’m strong enough to endure these glimpses of her happy new life—the life without me in it.

  It takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to get from my place to my parents’ home in Spartanburg. It’s my brother Peter’s twenty-eighth birthday. Since he just got a new job in Atlanta, my parents wanted a family get-together before their precious baby boy is gone.

  I pull into the driveway of the brick colonial with the perfect perfectly manicured lawn and neatly trimmed privet hedge out front at around eight on a Friday evening. I pull my car in next to my dad’s Mercedes and my mom’s Cadillac SUV, grab my duffle bag, and walk around to the back patio door to let myself in. As the door clicks shut behind me, I’m nearly knocked off my feet as about ninety pounds of collie mix comes bounding toward me for attention.

  I rub my hand back and forth through the soft, thick fur on his scalp. “Hi, Bailey. How’s it going, boy?” His tongue hangs out to the side, his eyes lighting up, and I don’t care what anyone says, this dog is smiling at me right now, and it’s because he’s as happy to see me as I am to see him. We’ve had him for about six years, so it’s just an unfortunate coincidence that my mom chose a name for him that happens to be the same as the girl who broke my heart less than two weeks ago.

  I don’t hear anyone on the main floor, so I go upstairs to my bedroom and drop my bag at the foot of the bed. After quickly poking my head I one room and then another upstairs, I head down to the basement, where I finally find my mom, parked in her favorite chair, reading.

  “Well there you are, Noah. I was wondering when you’d get here.” I reach down to hug her, and I’m met with an air kiss on each cheek, which she manages to do without spilling the glass of wine in her hand.

  “Is the birthday boy here yet?”

  “He was, but he and your dad…,” she looks up at me over her glasses, and it must be the first time she has really looked at me since I walked in. “Noah, what in the world is wrong?”

  She closes her book, pushes her glasses up into the thick, dark hair on top o her head, and stands. She reaches up, sliding her palm along my cheek in that way that moms do when they think their kids are sick or in pain.

  “Nothing, Mom. I’m fine—just a little tired. Work has been crazy.”

  “Hmpf. And here I thought I had done such a good job not raising any liars.” She looks at me from under her brows, silently demanding that I confess to whatever is bothering me.

  “Is Dad around?” My brows wrinkle. Telling my Mom about my problems is embarrassing enough but my dad would undoubtedly tell me to just get over it.

  “Don’t worry, the coast is clear. I sent him with your brother to go pick up groceries for dinner.” She wanders over to the plush, sectional in the corner of the den and pats the spot beside her.

  I sink into the well-worn fabric of the furniture that has been here since we moved here my senior year in high school, and when I do, Mom squeezes my hand.

  “Is it Elle?”

  A little stunned, my eyes go wide for a moment and my mouth gapes open, but then I close it and just nod.

  “Oh honey, I would’ve bet my diamond tiara that she was in love with you.”

  “Well, you don’t have a diamond tiara, so silver linings, ya know?” I shrug. “How’d you know? About Elle and me?”

  “I know the few times I’ve seen you two together she looks at you the way I look at your father. Besides, you’ve never brought a girlfriend home, or even someone you were dating casually. She’s the only woman in your life I’ve ever met. I figure that has to mean something.”

  I spend the next half hour telling her the whole story. Well, at least telling her the parts that are mom-appropriate.

  “And so, she just moved half a world away on a whim? Is she coming back? Did she take all her things?” Mom huffs out a little breath as she shakes her head incredulously from side to side.

  “She took the most important thing. The house I just bought means nothing if she’s not there to share it with me. She is home to me, so when she left, she took my home with her.”

  I know a man isn’t supposed to show emotion. We’re supposed to be strong. Be tough. When we’re little boys and get hurt, someone tells us to man up and get over it. I know all of that, and I’ve held it together, but having said it all out loud, even the parts I didn’t tell Todd about how much I really love her, I’m not strong.

  Here, sitting with my mom, it’s like I’m nine years old and Dad has just told us we’re moving in the middle of the school year, again. That was one of the worst ones. I had been in the same school since the end of the previous year and finally had some friends. I liked my baseball coach. I had even been asked to a couple of birthday parties and sleepovers. That was the time I held it together until Dad was gone, then when it was just Mom and me, I broke down, all the anger and fear mixing into a powerful cocktail of emotion, and I let a couple of tears fall.

  That’s just how I feel now. I’ve been trying to put on a brave face, but now that it’s just Mom and me, I lose control, my eyes grow a little damp, and my voice cracks.

  “I don’t know what to do, Mom.”

  She reaches up to pull me into a warm hug the likes of which only a mom can give.

  “You’re going to give it some time, and if nothing changes, you’re going to dust yourself off and move on, honey. You’re a good man, Noah. If she can’t see that, she’s not the one.”

  “She is the one, Mom.”

  “Then I’m sure you two will figure it out.”

  She’s wrong, though. Elle was the best thing in my life, and now she’s gone. I got more time with her than anyone else, but in the end, just like everything else, it was just temporary. There’s only one thing in the world that I suspect could be permanent, and that’s the ache in my heart.

  Chapter 31

  The walk from my Surry Hills apartment to the Central Station to catch a train to work is just four blocks. The twenty minute train ride into downtown is just long enough to check my email, or read a few pages of the latest suspense novel I’ve picked up. During my second week in Sydne
y, I found a furnished, short-term lease apartment and gave up the suite life of staying in a hotel for something a little more practical. It definitely doesn’t feel like home by any stretch of the imagination, but it doesn’t feel exactly temporary, either.

  Amelia and I have had lunch a few times, and gone to dinner, shopping, and out for cocktails with a couple of other women from the office. Chloe is about my age and works in product merchandising. Hazel, a British ex-pat, is in finance. We’ve all been to such together at least once a week since I started working at Banshee, and I like having a band of smart, funny women to hang out with. It’s not the same as having your best friend working in the office across the hallway, but it’s not bad, either.

  Still, despite being in a beautiful and exciting new city, despite making more money, having more responsibility, having new friends, and a charming boss who things I’m the best thing since sliced bread, my heart aches. It has been six hundred sixty hours and thirty-two minutes since I spoke to Noah. Over this past month, I’ve replayed our last days, and our last conversation, over and over in my mind. I know it could never have worked between him and me. Still, the hurt on his face when we said goodbye at the airport, the pain in his voice when he told me he couldn’t talk to me anymore, it all seemed so real.

  Coming down here and taking the job with Banshee started off being about getting away from Noah, and letting the temptation of him pass. Now that I’m doing the work, though, I’m realizing, I’m damn good at it. I created a viral social media campaign featuring Ian’s dog, Bosto, that has resulted in more email subscribers and social media followers which we plan to optimize for conversion into new customers. I have a photoshoot lined up later this week for the Summit Apparel Reef product line for our catalogs, billboards and website.

  The biggest thing I’ve got going on, though, is a live reveal fashion show of the new Summit Apparel line, simulcast on the web from both companies’ main corporate offices. Ian will host here, Sean Donovan will host there in Charlotte, and we’ll announce to the world that Banshee will be the exclusive retailer for Summit in Australia, and soon, with Ian’s big expansion announcement, in Europe as well. It’ll be the highlight of my career, if I pull it off. All I have to do is forget about the fact that the man with whom I’m in love will be there, in Charlotte, on camera, where I can see his brutally handsome face.

  On Saturday morning I agree to meet the girls at Bondi Beach. It’s the location we’re using for the shoot, and I want to scout it for the best places to showcase the products I’ve chosen. I have on the Reef swimsuit that I wore in Las Vegas. When we arrive at the beach, Amelia and Chloe each put down large, round beach blankets of sorts, each decorated with tribal pattern, the Banshee name in the company’s signature font is subtly printed on one edge. Looking around, I see several more of the round pieces of fabric, and wish I had thought to bring anything beach besides sunscreen and my swimsuit because these ladies are clearly pros.

  Hazel and I, step onto the shared blankets and drop our bags. Although she’s certainly every bit as pale as I am, Hazel is only a little taller than me. She’s a dark-haired woman who has the sort of face that’s stunningly beautiful one moment, cute and sweet the next. Amelia and Chloe, though, are like all the other Australian’s I’ve run into since I’ve been down here: tall, blonde, and stunningly gorgeous.

  We start undressing, each of us dropping our shorts and peeling off our t-shirts and cover-ups. When Amelia peels off her top, though, there is no bikini top—no top of any sort. Just an impossibly tiny bikini bottom. My jaw drops and I look around, hoping no one realizes her mistake and sees her in all her full-bosomed glory, standing topless on the beach. My pulse races, my heart thudding in my chest as the realization sinks in. She’s not the only one who’s forgotten half her suit. Half the women on the beach are topless. When Chloe peels her top off, she’s topless too, and I feel like I’m stuck in some bizarre episode of The Twilight Zone entitled, We’re All Topless Here.

  I remember, then, that Hazel’s an expat. Aren’t British people supposed to be prim and proper? I turn to her with pleading eyes. She senses my fear and gives me a soft smile. “Oh, Elle! I was just like you when I first came here. Don’t fret, though. You do get used to it.” She shrugs, and peels off her t-shirt to reveal a string bikini top and my shoulders instantly drop with relief. They tense again a moment later when she reaches behind her neck and pulls the tie holding the top on, then reaches to her back and unhooks it, letting a perky pair of C-cups, at least, bounce free. “Sorry, Elle, but you know what they say! When in Rome, eh?”

  All three women sit and grab bottles of water out of the cooler bag we brought and I sit to join them, bathing suit still firmly affixed—both pieces, thank you very much. I’ve had some weird experiences in my lifetime, to be sure, but I’m fairly certain that seeing three of your coworkers hanging out, literally, on the beach like this takes the cake.

  After a while, I start to relax, and Hazel’s right, it does get less awkward. When the topic turns to boyfriends, past and present, I feel a pang in my chest.

  “So, since it’s just us girls and all, why don’t you tell us more about the guy that made you do a runner?” Chloe wriggles her brows, and I purse my lips in response, unsure how much I want to get into.

  “Come on, then. We’ve told you loads of our stories, and mine’s a doozy!” Hazel laughs. Her ex-boyfriend back in London left her practically at the altar after deciding he wanted to quit his job and backpack around the world to find himself.

  I let out a sigh and concede, telling them all about Noah and me, including how desperately I miss him. They commiserate and then cajole me into showing them photos. I pull up the ones we took in Las Vegas.

  “Strewth, he’s a looker!” Chloe exclaims. “Must be a real horse’s ass to give up a man that looks like that.”

  “Now, now, looks aren’t everything and we all have our reasons.” Amelia comes to my defense and I would totally hug her if she weren’t half-naked.

  “True, sometimes you just get a feeling about someone. If they seem too good to be true, they generally are,” Hazel adds with a nod.

  I explain how I was so nervous about moving forward with Noah, knowing he has always been a different-woman-every-month kind of guy, and so fearful I’d lose him forever if we got together.

  “But, sweetie, not to pile on, but didn’t that happen anyway? I mean, you said he couldn’t really handle staying close to you if he couldn’t have you, right?” Hazel’s soft, green eyes are sympathetic, but still seem to question why I didn’t go for it with him in the first place. I bite my lower lip and shrug.

  “I’m sorry, but you’ve got roos loose in the top paddock letting that one go if you ask me.” Chloe shake her head and bumps my shoulder good-naturedly.

  I leave the topless trio for a bit to take some photos down the beach where I think I want to do part of the shoot next week. Checking out shooting locations is partially an excuse, though. I need to think. I miss Noah more than I ever thought I could miss anyone. I go back and forth, one moment sure he’s met someone and moved on, the next tempted to call him and see what I could possibly do to fix things. I wish I was that person who could just throw caution to the wind and take a gamble that we might make it. That has never been me, though. I may love a good wager, but usually only when I know I can win.

  After snapping the photos I wanted, I return to the girls and we decide to pack up and go find some lunch. As we’re polishing off our bottled water and starting to pack our bags, I look around at the beach one last time. Heat bubbles up in my chest and makes its way up my throat to my cheeks.

  I may not be ready for big gambles, but do I really want to be someone who makes every decision, paralyzed by fear?

  “I think…I want to try it.” My voice is small and tentative as the words tumble out.

  “Try what?” Hazel asks.

  “The thing…the beach thing—all the toplessness.” My finger wags back and forth between t
he three women until I realize how painfully weird and awkward that is, and stop.

  “Good on ya, Elle! You should go for it.” Chloe nods and gives me a wink.

  “You are gorgeous. Do what you like, but I don’t know what you’d think you’ve got to be worried about, if I’m honest.” Amelia’s words are supportive and fortifying.

  “Okay.” I nod once, then sit up on my knees. “Okay, then.” I make a smoothing motion in the air with my palms.

  “So, is that today, then, or…?” Hazel raises an eyebrow playfully and the other girls giver her a look. “What? I’m starving is all.”

  I look back to Amelia, still a little unsure, and she nods quietly, closing her eyes as her brows pinch down in approval.

  Slowly, I reach around my back and unfasten the top, holding it together. I take a deep breath, and blow it out again. Shutting my eyes, I pull the straps to the front, and pull the halter over my head. When the warm sun hits my bare breasts, it’s a bizarre sensation. A light breeze rolls off the water, and my nipples pebble a little, causing my cheeks to burn.

  I’m naked. In public!

  I’m still holding my top, clutching it tightly in my lap as if it’s the only thing still anchoring me to reality.

  “Well?” I ask, eyes still shut tight. “Is it bad? Are people giggling?”

  “Elle, no one’s even looking.” Chloe reassures me.

  “And like we said, you’re gorgeous—if they are looking, that’s why.” Amelia might be my new favorite person.

  I open one eye, the other still clenched shut tightly, and make a tentative scan of the beachgoers. To my astonishment, they’re right. I open both eyes, now, and blink. No one even noticed. I, Elle Bailey, went topless in public, and nobody cared…but, in a good way. My back straightens just a little and I sit a little taller.