“I recently did an analysis on prostate cancer issues for health insurance purposes. New research shows that men who orgasm more than twenty times a month have reduced prostate cancer rates.”
He smiles, giving her a look like he’s seeing her in a new light. “Is that an offer to help?”
Mom turns the color of my lipstick and mumbles into her wine. She’s blushing. James reaches down and touches her shoulder with a gesture that strikes me as friendly.
James doesn’t do friendly.
Then again, people change. Especially when they have no choice.
I look at Andrew.
“I’m so sorry,” numerous folks at the table murmur. It’s hard to tell who says what because I can’t drink wine and listen at the same time. Sure, I was a cheerleader in high school and was able to be the base of three-person-tall formations, but get six (seven?) glasses of wine in me and it’s a freaking miracle if I can remember to—
Andrew’s hand goes on my knee.
Apparently, my body remembers how to respond to his touch.
“May I have a word with you?”
“Now?”
“Yes. In private,” he says through the corner of his mouth.
I start to crawl under the table. He pulls me back.
“Not there.”
“Oh.”
We stand. The ground got way lower since I sat down at the dinner table.
“I know you’re not taking me outside,” I say with far more cynicism than I should. He winces. I bite my lips to shut up.
He directs me to Shannon and Declan’s bedroom.
“Oh, no, bud. You’re not having sex with me here. Mr. I Don’t Have Time for a Quickie isn’t getting any.” I use a mocking tone that feels right when the angel inside me whispers sweet nothings in my ear, but that feels wrong when the devil tells me I should just shut up and unwind.
“What are you talking about?” He sounds genuinely perplexed.
I reach between my boobs. He stares. I pull out my phone. He smiles.
“What else do you keep in there?”
“Not quickies.”
His face falls. I shove my phone in front of him and show him his earlier text.
He frowns. “I wrote that?”
“The text is from your phone number.”
“I’m an idiot.”
I don’t argue.
His warm hand presses between my shoulder blades as he looks behind us and guides me into Declan’s walk in closet. He closes the door and turns around, giving me a smile that not only melts my non-existent panties, but I think my clitoris just became a Roman candle.
“No way,” I declare before my body can override my circuits. “I am not regressing.”
“Regressing?”
“This whole relationship started out in closets. We moved up to limos and beds and restaurants. I will not let you take us back to the dreaded closets. Nope, nope, nope.”
He looks down at the soft carpeting.
“Closets can be good.”
“For storing clothes.”
“For making up.”
“Is that what this is?”
“I’m trying, Amanda.” He steps into my space and our heat mingles. His eyelids flutter and he sighs, a sound of hope. “I’m really trying.”
“I am, too,” I confess.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his hands on my hips, reaching out like twin olive branches. “I don’t care about your father being in prison and I like your mother and I followed you that night at the marina because I had just learned about my dad’s cancer the week before and it made me think. Really think. It made me realize that life is short.” He makes a small, earnest sound. “Not that I didn’t learn that a long time ago.”
I start to open my mouth to say something about his mother, but he continues.
“When I saw you there, I didn’t chase you down to keep you quiet. I followed you because it seemed like more than coincidence to meet you there. Like fate was trying to tell me something.”
Oh.
“For the past two years I’ve been stupid. I thought you weren’t my type. I have watched Declan fall in love with Shannon and listened to our father tell my brother what a fool he is to take such a huge risk with her. I live a life where all my risk is poured into my work. Not my personal life.”
“No girlfriend,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Never. Easier that way.”
My heart tightens like someone’s pulling a drawstring.
“But not better.”
I stretch up to meet his mouth, the movement like smoke seeking the sky as I burn for him. He tastes like fine whisky and apologies, his mouth tender and loose, the kiss lush with that gentle moment when everything you thought had dark, thick borders around it turns out to be an optical illusion you invented by accident.
I’m blurring in his arms, my lips becoming his, his hard shoulder muscles now mine, the soft curve of my waist a part of Andrew, his hardness against my thigh a part of me.
Or it would be, soon.
In me, at any rate.
For weeks I have ached for him. Dreamed of him. Given over my mind to the endless recriminations of what ifs and rifled through my self-doubt like a woman who has lost her wedding ring in the trash. Did I throw away my one best hope for love because I can’t handle the hint of abandonment? Was Andrew right? Has his absence been a misunderstanding fueled by the ghosts of my past?
Shannon is the overthinker. Always has been. I’m the one who pretends to listen and then acts to fix whatever’s wrong. My mind loosened by too many fermented grapes and adrenaline, my blood thickened by want and proximity, I pull back.
It’s time to act.
“If I sleep with you right now, it’ll be hate sex,” I say, then frown. Where in the hell did that come from? I thought I was about to reach for his belt buckle, but clearly my hands and my head have two different agendas.
“Nothing wrong with hate sex.”
“Boozy hate sex we’ll both regret in the morning.”
“I might regret the booze in the morning, Amanda,” he says with a voice filled with longing and urgency, “but I would never, ever regret having sex with you.”
“How long have you been practicing that line?”
“Since you stabbed me in the neck with the fork.”
“You’re a planner.”
“I am very good at risk assessment.”
“And you’ve determined...”
“That there is no downside to sex with you. Ever.”
“No wonder you’re so good at negotiations in the boardroom.”
“I’m even better in the bedroom.”
“How about closets?”
His hands reach up to cup my breasts and I lean into the touch, his thumbs tracing circles around nipples that strain against the cloth of my bra to be closer to him. We could, you know? Make love right here, right now, against the row of ties that hang like ribbons on a vine. On the carpeted floor amidst the sterile, organized cabinetry.
I could tell him I’m sorry. That I got all the wrong ideas from all the right actions. He’s scared and vulnerable, so he creates a life that reduces risk. I understand that. I can honor it, even if it means never going outside in the sun with him eight months a year, extreme as that may be. Yielding to his obsessiveness to eliminate risk is nothing new to me.
I’ve done that most of my life with my mom.
Now, at least, I know why.
Exponentially.
All these thoughts mix in my mind like word salad, each making sense alone until they’re all blended together. He just needs to be open with me, to tell me how he feels.
And how he feels about me.
It would be so easy to say yes to sex right now. I could use a few minutes of bursting passion where I lose myself in him. The word is on the tip of my tongue, which is currently sliding against his teeth, rising up to the top of his mouth as his welcome touch makes me wonder why I’d ever say no. That yes bounces f
rom my mouth to his, then back, and I am about to release it and claim him for myself when we hear:
Tap tap tap.
Andrew groans.
“Are you two having sex in my closet?” Declan says in a voice that makes it clear that we do not, under any circumstances, have permission to have sex in his closet.
“Yes.”
“No.”
We answer simultaneously, then giggle.
The doorknob jiggles.
“Don’t come in!” Andrew shouts, reaching between us to adjust himself.
“Why not? Afraid I’ll see Amanda naked? We’d just be even, then.”
“I am not a bag of flesh you get to parade to settle some score!” I shout.
Andrew’s eyebrows go up.
The doorknob stops shaking.
“Get out here. Now. You two are the maid of honor and the best man at this wedding and you’re acting like horny teenagers. You have responsibilities. And not just announcing Dad’s cancer to a group of people and violating his privacy.”
“Shit,” Andrew hisses through his teeth. His gaze drops and he sighs.
I fling open the door and look up into the eyes of a very angry Declan McCormick.
“See here,” I say, shoving my finger in his face. “You don’t get to blame Andrew for the fact that your father doesn’t want to share his private information with you.”
“Amanda—” Andrew grabs my other arm and tries to stop me.
“Are you blaming me for what Andrew just did?” Declan’s voice goes low and dangerous, like a coiled snake preparing for a full strike.
“No.”
“Sounds like it.”
“That’s your interpretation.”
I can feel Andrew’s eyes on me, though I can’t see his face. I’m not fighting his battle for him; he can do that just fine.
I don’t really know why I’m taking on Declan. Six (seven?) glasses of wine, maybe? Does everything I do have to make sense? Everyone around me has tacit permission from the universe to act in irrational ways.
Maybe it’s my turn.
Finally.
Declan’s face is a study in how to exude power without actually doing anything. No words. No expression. No movement. Just the steady breath of a man who is accustomed to having time stop for him while he deliberates.
And then:
“Not now. I am not having this conversation now. Dad,” he says, looking around me and catching Andrew’s eye, “is out there trying to salvage everything after that bomb you dropped. You owe him, at the very least, the courtesy of your attendance.”
And with that, Declan slams the door shut in my face.
Andrew looks at me.
I look back.
He runs a shaking hand through his hair and asks, “I’m guessing sex is out of the question now?”
25
The wedding is in one week, and it’s time for final fittings, not-so-final fits, and a lot of frustration.
Plenty of words that start with the letter F.
Which means grumpy men, lots of wine, and a mother of the bride who is like a hummingbird on crack.
We are at Shannon and Declan’s apartment yet again, though there’s no fancy dinner for us to ruin. Just an assemblage of snacks, some beer and wine, and a tailor flown in from Edinburgh to make sure the men in their kilt tuxedos fit the part. Marie has gone for the modern Scottish look, with the men in tight, tailored, short jackets and bow ties, and kilts that look more complicated than a corset to assemble and wear properly. The look is more Royal Family than Eighteenth-Century Highlander, thank goodness.
I see swords and sporrans, special socks and strange shoes, and for once I’m relieved to deal with the familiar drudgery of a strapless bridesmaid dress. We women have our wedding seamstress, and she’s doing all the last-minute tucks and loosenings and fussy little tweaks that make everything perfect.
“No, Marie, I will not dye my hair auburn for the wedding,” Declan insists as the tailor adjusts his skirt...er, kilt. Sorry. I called it a skirt in front of the Scottish tailor and he hissed at me like that time I stepped on Chuckles’ tail.
“But you’ll wear the tuxedo kilt,” Marie replies.
“Of course.” Declan gestures down at his body. He’s clad in a white t-shirt that fits quite well, the kilt in question, a sporran and the woolen socks. All the pieces are being carefully checked to make sure that the suits can be delivered as planned to the Farmington Country Club groom’s quarters on D-Day.
“And the sword?”
“Mooooooooom,” Shannon says in a low voice of warning.
“The sword is a wee bit much,” the tailor mutters under his breath.
“Sure,” Declan answers. “I need to have something to fall on when you finally tip me over the edge.”
“Ye might do better with a Sgian Dubh.” He pronounces it like skee-an-doo.
“A what?” Declan asks, twitching suddenly as the kilt pin gets a wee too close to his, um...wee wee.
“A small knife you can hide in your hand and use quietly.” The smile he shares with Declan creeps me out. “Ye do more damage faster that way and put yourself out o’ your misery.”
Marie splays her palm over her heart. The tips of her fingernails are a lovely lilac that matches her eye shadow. Her own hair is a rich auburn now, permed to be curly. She’s gone from platinum blonde to auburn so fast it’s disconcerting.
Then again, who am I to talk when it comes to changing hair color?
“I am just trying to make sure I...er, you and Shannon have the best wedding ever!” She sniffs, clearly hurt. Or pretending to be hurt. Now that she’s become a Momzilla, it’s hard to tell the difference.
She gives the tailor a withering glance. He doesn’t notice. I have the distinct impression he couldn’t care if he did notice, anyhow.
Declan’s eyes narrow. Shannon puts her hand on his biceps and whispers something in his ear that makes him tense, then arch an eyebrow.
“And I’ll do the authentic kilt thing,” he says in a tight voice.
My turn to arch some eyebrows as I look at Shannon, whose cheeks are flushed.
“You’ll go commando?” Marie chirps, clapping her hands with glee.
“It turns out it might have some benefits I hadn’t considered,” Declan mutters. What I thought was a tone of frustration sounds more and more like arousal.
Get a room, you two.
Andrew lets out a snort and looks at Shannon.
Then right at me. All the blood in my body stops, pulsing in place, as if trying to decide what to do next. It’s as if my red blood cells have become sentient and aware, attuned to Andrew’s presence at all times.
Every day that this wedding planning goes on and we both have to be in the same room is a kind of exquisite torture. My breath feels charged. He won’t stop looking at me.
So what can I do?
I look back.
And imagine him commando.
My heart tugs a little every time I see him. I want to go back to that night we spent in bed, after he found me at the brew pub. It’s not the sex that I miss. I miss the intimacy. Our talks. The loose and easy way I can strip myself down to my essence and be real with him. Andrew looks like he could use a loving dose of real right now, too.
Why does all the rest of life have to get in the way?
I know he’s hurting after blurting out his father’s secret. Declan was livid. Shannon told me later that he nearly withdrew his offer for Andrew to be his best man, but she’d talked him down. James and Declan have had a contentious relationship for years, and for Declan, it felt like one more way of being unmoored in the world, untethered from the man who should be an anchor.
I know from that night when Andrew opened up to me that Declan’s not that far off base. The strain between his father and brother is one with roots so deep and searching.
Roots that wrap right around Andrew’s heart, nourished by blood and denial.
Here I am, fighting back the real
and working on my mask.
Once you taste real, though, the fakery is hard to swallow.
“Why in the hell would ye wear pants?” the tailor asks, his face a blistering pink. He has dark hair like Declan’s, though it’s gone to salt and pepper. His beard is thick like a squirrel’s tail, and he has bright blue eyes. “Yer bollocks need airing out.”
“My balls need lots of things,” Andrew mumbles.
This is the first time I’ve seen him since the dinner party. We’re taking it slow. And by slow, I mean we’re taking it nowhere, if by “it” you mean this relationship thing.
I’m nobody. Who are you?
I’m nobody who really does regret not indulging in boozy sex with Andrew in that closet.
He was right.
He’s texted me a few times. Between his traveling to New York and Europe and my last-minute wedding stuff, plus a spectacularly dull series of a few extra DoggieDates and my second childbirth class with Josh, the past few weeks have been a blur.
Not a wine-induced blur. Worse.
An ambiguous blur.
“Yer turn,” the tailor, Mr. MacNevin, tells Andrew.
Hamish saunters in at that moment, beer bottle in hand, and he reaches into a bowl of snacks someone’s put out on the kitchen counter. I see him munch on day-glo cheese balls and something chocolate.
Intrigued, I go and look.
And my joyful little heart sings.
“Cheetos and chocolate-covered pretzels!” I say, clapping, then shoving a handful in my mouth. “Hoo eatz deeze?”
“You, clearly,” Hamish says, then swigs his beer. He makes a face and looks at the label. “Jay-zuz. Piss water. All these Americans drink is piss water. Ye canna get a good lager here.”
“You’re eating Andrew’s favorite snack food,” Shannon says, ignoring Hamish. The seamstress is cupping her boobs, on her knees in front of Shannon, and Declan is watching with a leering fascination.
Andrew is staring down at his own version of seamstress, on his knees with the kilt and sporran, and a very long kilt pin that could, with a shove of two inches, turn Andrew’s unprotected balls into a pin cushion.
I swallow my mouthful and reach for my own bottle of watered-down piss.
Vote Then Read: Volume III Page 194