by Serena Bell
It’s time to admit it: I want to have sex with her again. In pretty much the worst way.
I try not to give too much thought to the question of why, of all people, she’s the one who makes me contemplate a redo…
Instead, I haul armfuls of carpet and rubber mat and those goddamn prickly little tack strips down to the garage. I pause to make myself a ham sandwich, then eat it standing up in the living room, thinking about next steps. I want to find some oak flooring. There’s a place I like in Seattle that salvages and resells reclaimed flooring, and I’ve gotten great stuff there in the past—boards with a lot of wear left in them, with their tongue-and-groove still intact so they’re relatively easy to install without a lot of extra joint-cutting. That would be the easiest. Or I could look for something with more of a story—boards coming out of a house where a family lived happily for years, or from an old dance floor, whatever. We’ll see. I’ll see how much time and energy I have.
I head down to my garage workshop and survey the stack of materials I’ve collected for the furniture work. If I do them in parallel, I have enough space to construct three tables pretty quickly, box them, and ship them. The catalog company does the collateral—the assembly instructions and all that.
I whistle as I work.
I haven’t whistled in a long, long time.
Chapter 14
Elle
It’s Friday afternoon. Madden is up in his room packing a bag for a weekend with his dad. I’m working on a profile of a local nurse midwife, sitting at the dining room table with my laptop.
Well, I’m supposed to be working on that profile.
I’ve got a second file open, and I’m working on my super-secret project. It’s so secret that it will probably never see the light of day. It’s a book about divorce. At first it was just me writing down things that happened, like notes to myself so I wouldn’t forget, but then I realized it had turned into kind of a memoir crossed with a self-help book.
It was so damn therapeutic to write about how it felt to find out the truth. How I nudged the mouse on Trevor’s computer one day while searching for a tax form I needed, and his computer sprang to life, open to a long Facebook Messenger exchange between him and Helen. How I tried not to read it, but words kept jumping off the screen at me. How much longer do you think until you can tell her?
Not too much longer.
When I saw that, I thought about movies where the Other Woman kept wanting her lover to leave his wife, and he kept not doing it. Maybe this is like that, I thought. Maybe if I don’t say anything, eventually Trevor will just come back to me.
Then I realized how pathetic that was, keeping quiet and hoping I’d win in the end, and I couldn’t do it. I had to tell him what I’d seen. But even then, there was a part of me that hoped he’d tell me it didn’t mean what it looked like.
That didn’t happen.
I cried for weeks before I made the decision to stop crying and embrace who I was now. A single mom sharing custody of her great son, a woman who was lucky enough to have a career to come back to when her marriage fell apart. I didn’t make myself sound like a hero. I wrote it as truthfully as I could, detailing how the first days after I stopped crying I still felt like I was dragging around a corpse behind me (except the corpse was me, my actual body; it just felt that heavy). And then gradually I got lighter and started to actually enjoy myself. Until finally some things—like Trevor’s yappiness—were funny.
Today I’m writing about the night I slept with Sawyer.
Because weird as it is to say, I think something turned around that night. I reclaimed another piece of myself, the sexy part. The fun part. And even if nothing ever happens again with Sawyer, I’ll always know he gave me that back.
Writing about that night means, of course, thinking about that night, and I find myself dreamily recalling the moment when he reached his hand out and brushed his thumb across my lower lip.
That man has the off switch for my common sense. If he actually had touched me the other day after our meeting in Mr. McKibben’s office, I probably would have ended up making out with him in a deserted elementary school classroom. Good thing he didn’t.
I write a few more lines, then sit back and admire my handiwork.
Hattie thinks I should try to get it published. She’s read some bits and she says it’s really touching and sometimes downright hilarious. But I told her that no one wants to read a book about a suburban divorced thirty-something. Anyway, remember Eat Pray Love? There are a million memoir-meets-self-help books about stuff, including divorce. So I just keep adding bits, mostly for my own enjoyment.
I get up and step over to the window, ostensibly just to stretch and take a break, but actually because I need to enjoy the view. This ritual has become part of my writing routine.
Sawyer, cordless power tool in one hand, is standing on a ladder on his side of the fence, attaching lattice panels to the top of our side of the fence.
The fence is a gorgeous piece of work.
So is he.
The sun is touching his dark hair, which gleams. The fierce look of concentration on his face sends a pleasant shiver up my spine. His T-shirt stretches taut across his pecs and biceps as he moves and shifts, and his forearms are bare—well muscled, dusted with dark hair, beautiful to watch in action.
I should stop acting like a stalker and go have a conversation with him. I force myself to move away from behind the dining room curtain and head out into the yard. As I emerge from the house, he shuts off the electric screwdriver and raises his head, nodding in greeting.
“Hey,” I call.
“Hey.”
It’s funny how I’ve stopped hearing his curtness as rudeness or lack of interest. The more I get to know him, the more I understand that he’s just like that. Not a lot of words. But he’s a good listener, and he cares about other people.
I approach the fence and touch the lattice panel next to where he’s working. The boards of the main fence, beautiful but rugged in much the same way as Sawyer himself, run horizontal. “This is a sweet fence. But I thought you said it was going to be plain old pickets, like the old one?”
He frowns. “If I built a picket fence, there’d be a front and a back side, and one of us would have to look at the back.”
“Why didn’t you just face the back toward me?”
He shrugs. “Didn’t want to. After I didn’t ask your permission to tear the fence down, didn’t seem right.”
“Aw,” I say. “That’s awfully nice.”
Faint color rises in his cheeks, and he waves me off. “Thought about doing it a good-neighbor fence, where the pickets alternate so neither of us sees the back, but I don’t like the way those look. So I did it this way.”
“And the lattice?”
The lattice strikes me as very un-Sawyer-like. It’s beautiful, ornamental, but it doesn’t fit his no-nonsense style.
“Thought you’d like it,” he says, with another of his eloquent shrugs.
It’s hard to express exactly how that makes me feel. Warm and fuzzy, and also a little terrified. Because this is a guy who—with a few words and a throwaway gesture—can make me feel like I actually matter.
Pretty much everything that’s happened to me in the last year has made me feel like I don’t. Trevor’s actions this year have not only hurt my feelings in the short term but also made me question every time I ever believed or trusted him, every time I ever felt safe and secure in his affections. Trevor did a bang-up job of making me feel like I didn’t matter at all, and never really had.
And then Sawyer Paulson goes and builds a few lattice panels and all of a sudden I go all soft and gooey.
Hmm. I may be in trouble.
I can’t even run away, because he lives here.
“Don’t you like it?” he asks.
There is a war
iness on his face that I can’t stand, like the expression of a dog that has been beaten one too many times.
I sigh. “Sawyer. I love it.”
Chapter 15
Sawyer
Huh. So apparently, without realizing it, I’ve been building this fence for Elle. As soon as I asked the question—Don’t you like it?—even before I found myself waiting eagerly for her answer, I knew.
I’ve been showing off for her.
Two-sided fence? For Elle. Horizontal pickets, with their fidgety fit into the posts? For Elle. Lattice, which has taken me freaking forever to construct one panel at a time? For Elle.
One reclaimed cedar fence, ten times fancier than the situation requires?
For Elle.
Basically, that fence is like a male peacock displaying its tail feathers.
I’m definitely going to have sex with her again.
I probably should have known I was going to go after round two when I got home from Maeve’s right after our alley encounter. I jogged up the stairs—Jonah was sleeping at his grandparents’ house—brushed my teeth, removed my belt, jeans, and shoes, and got into bed. I was expecting to pretty much pass out, what with the whiskey and how hard I’d come—standing up—a mere half hour ago, but that wasn’t what happened.
By all rights, sex should have been the last thing on my mind, except maybe a quick mental review—you know, storing the images up for future spank-bank material.
Instead, I was imagining how it would be if there were a next time.
What would it have been like if I fucked her from behind? Her hands up on the wall? Or bent her over the edge of a bed?
Or, what if we did it lying down? Slow. Face-to-face, so I could watch what her face did when she made those noises. When she pulsed and spasmed around me.
Spoiler: I ended up with my dick out, a palm full of lube, and a chest covered with cum. So in that sense, she was the first woman since Lucy died who got me off twice in one night.
Yes, that made me feel guilty as shit. Which is part of why I made myself put her out of my head for a while after that.
Until she showed up at my front door. Whereupon I got my second strong set of clues that I wasn’t done with her. That I still had designs aplenty on her.
And if that wasn’t information enough, there was the ordeal of hiking in the woods after seeing her with the spatula in her hand.
And watching her go toe-to-toe with McKibben.
Anyway, the point is, now I’ve quit denying what I should have known all along.
I don’t have time to act on my newfound knowledge, though, because just then a familiar car pulls up outside Elle’s house. Madden’s dad’s Camry.
Elle turns to look in the direction of my gaze and sighs heavily. “Wish me luck.”
I watch Mr. Yap step out of the driver’s seat. “Have you tried bacon treats? I hear they’re great for house training.”
She laughs, shoots me an appreciative look, and heads over to her front yard to greet Trevor. There’s someone else emerging from the car now, a tall, willowy, raven-haired woman.
Oh, shit. I have to assume she’s Trevor’s high school girlfriend and fiancée, and my heart picks up in sympathy for Elle.
Elle’s step hitches—she’s seen the other woman, and she hesitates a moment before continuing. She’s got to be feeling pretty miserable right now. Trevor on his own is bad enough, but having your kid picked up by the woman who stole your husband…?
No fun.
I watch through the lattice—stalker-neighbor-style—as the woman approaches Elle with a smile and extends her hand to shake. The other woman is wearing a short skirt and a white V-neck shirt that reveals epic quantities of cleavage. There’s no denying she’s a beautiful woman, but not my type—she looks wound too tight. I know, though, that she’s the kind of woman who makes other women crazy—makes them go home and pinch their invisible belly fat and schedule haircuts and makeovers. I know because that used to happen to Lucy sometimes. She’d come home from the gym or a PTO meeting and stand in front of the mirror and fidget with her hair and look completely defeated.
But you’re beautiful!
Not like so-and-so, though.
You’re better!
You’re just saying that because you’re my husband.
I’m saying it because it’s true.
I could usually make her believe it. She’d abandon her hairbrush or her eyeliner and come with me into the bedroom, and I’d finish convincing her.
I close my eyes against the pain, but when I open them again, Helen is tossing her hair and laughing.
Possessed by some impulse I can’t quite name, I set down my tools and head around the fence and into Elle’s yard.
Trevor, Helen, and Elle are standing in a small clump. Elle looks miserable, her shoulders slumped inward like she’s trying to disappear.
“Hey,” I call out.
Trevor looks up. An irritated expression crosses his face. Excellent. Ticking Trevor off is my new favorite sport.
“Hi, Simon,” Trevor says.
“Sawyer,” Elle bites out.
“Hi, Travis,” I reply cheerfully.
Elle doesn’t correct me, and Travis bristles. 2–0, me.
“This is Helen,” Elle tells me, indicating the other woman. “She and Trevor are getting married in a couple of weeks.”
“Which reminds me,” Helen says. Her voice is husky and rich. Her eyes are dark and rimmed with smoky makeup. She would definitely have made Lucy crazy. “We haven’t gotten an RSVP from you.”
She’s a sadist.
Elle opens her mouth, but Helen interrupts. “We understand if it’s too difficult,” she says sympathetically.
No, pityingly.
I can’t help it—I jump in. I tell myself I’m doing it for Lucy and all the other women in the world who feel intimidated by Helen, but the truth is, I can’t stand the smugness on Helen’s face, or the despair on Elle’s.
“That’s my fault. I’ve been trying to change some plans around. But we’re in. For sure. Right, babe?”
I put my arm around Elle’s slim waist and drop a casual kiss on her mouth.
Or, that’s my plan.
I forget, though, about the power of Elle.
I feel her breath on my lips. A slight shiver goes through her body, and I remember the way she responded to me that night in the alley. And even though the kiss lasts only a millisecond, I smell her skin and her flowery shampoo, and I taste her mouth.
I go from zero to sixty.
I want to tease her lips apart, find her tongue with mine, turn her into my arms, and take everything I want from her.
It’s Elle who keeps things from getting out of control. She gives a small, light laugh and slips her hand between us, pushing gently on my chest. “That’s right. We’re in,” she tells Trevor and Helen.
I have to give her kudos—it’s seamless. You can’t tell I caught her totally off guard.
“Hi, Daddy.”
Madden is suddenly at my elbow. Did he see me kiss his mom? He doesn’t seem unsettled or perturbed in the slightest. He hugs his dad, gives his stepmother-to-be a cool glance, and accepts her pat on the head.
“Well,” says Helen, “we’re delighted we’ll have you both there.”
She sounds disappointed, and I want to do a victory lap. Or maybe that’s because of the sensation that rushed through my body when my mouth touched Elle’s, like flame leaping from paper to tinder.
“Run and get your bag,” Elle tells Madden. “It’s in the living room.”
Madden runs. Trevor is staring at Elle like she’s grown a third arm. “I hope you’ll be careful of Madden’s feelings,” he says prissily.
When Elle said he was a small dog, I’d thought of him as a Yorkshire terrier, but right
now I’m picturing him as a Maltese with its fluffy white hair in a bow on top of its head.
I have to work really hard not to laugh.
“I’m always careful with Madden’s feelings,” Elle says mildly.
“This could be confusing for him, I’d think,” Trevor says.
What a dick! So the rules are, he’s allowed to bust up his marriage and turn his kid’s life upside down, but she has to be celibate till the end of time? I almost get up in the guy’s face, but Elle beats me to it.
“Would that be more or less confusing than his father leaving his mother because he cheated on her with his high school girlfriend?” Elle inquires.
Trevor’s face goes blank. So does Helen’s.
I fail, completely, to keep a straight face.
Elle slips her small, warm hand into mine and leans back against me.
It feels way better than scoring a point against Trevor.
It’s more like when you level up in an arcade game and the numbers roll up, over and over, in celebration.
Chapter 16
Elle
Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God.
I recover my senses just enough that when Madden comes outside, I step away from Sawyer, pulling my hand out of his. As irritated as I am with Trevor, I know he’s right. We can’t make things any more complicated for Madden than they already are. I have no intention of involving him in Sawyer’s and my ploy—which is all it is, of course. Luckily, I’m pretty sure Madden didn’t see Sawyer lay one on me.
But Oh my God.
It was the most innocent of kisses. It was barely even a kiss, the lightest touch of lips to lips.
Yet I’m buzzing all over, every inch of me begging for more.
A moment before the kiss, I’d wanted to sink through the ground. Helen was standing there, looking magnificent and being understanding in the most condescending way. Then Sawyer swooped in and saved my pride.
“Have a good weekend, bud,” I tell Madden, leaning down to hug him tight. I steer him gently toward Helen and Trevor, stroke his hair, and let him go.