by Cara McKenna
The bedroom door swung in slowly, and Vaughn’s face appeared. Upon finding her awake, he pushed it wide, offering a faint smile, a raising of his hand.
“Morning,” she said, and sat up, holding the covers over her breasts.
“Sleep okay?” He was wearing track pants, no shirt, and the scent of shaving cream accompanied him.
“Yeah, like a rock.” Like I got three orgasms last night, from two different men.
“Cool.” He strode to a tall dresser facing the bed. Clare admired the long, toned expanse of his back until he tugged an undershirt down to wreck the view.
“You working this morning?” she asked, abandoning the covers to dress. He’d seen it all last night; it was silly to be acting so modest now.
“No, I have the day off. Mica left around seven, though.”
“Ah.” She tugged her shirt over her head. “A familiar development.”
He shot her an apologetic look on his friend’s behalf, his gaze making a shy, brief scan of Clare’s bare legs as she pulled up her jeans.
She shrugged. “It’s okay. Small price to pay for crazy sex, right?”
He laughed, the sound nervous or a trace uncomfortable. “Fair point.”
“I’ll get out of your way,” she said, stooping to peer under the bed, “as soon as I find my shoes and make a pit stop.”
“No rush. You want coffee before you head out?”
The “Hallelujah” chorus crescendoed in her head. “I wouldn’t mind it.”
He shot her a smile over his shoulder, a deep one, as he pulled a long-sleeved thermal down his trunk. “I don’t usually wake up this way,” he said. “If I’m supposed to be a dick and rush you out the door, sorry—my dad didn’t raise me like that. Feel free to escape whenever, but after everything that happened last night, I can at least offer you some cereal.” He stooped, straightening with one of her sandals in his hand, and brought it over.
“Thanks.” His tone and his words had relaxed her entire body. “I don’t really know what I’m doing, either,” she admitted. “But I’d love a coffee.”
“Remind me how you take it. I’ll make you a cup while you use the bathroom. Oh—there’s a couple of spare toothbrushes in the top drawer under the sink. Help yourself if you want.”
“Thanks. And cream and one sugar, for the coffee.”
“Milk okay?”
“Fine.”
“Cool. I’ll see you out there.”
She smiled until he’d passed and disappeared back into the hall, her chest feeling weird—tight and loose at once. A small jab of irritation caught her, just as she spotted her other sandal under the far end of bed.
Both of those men were her lovers now, she thought as she circled to the other side, but she’d been Mica’s guest. He could have let her know he’d be disappearing early, before they’d fallen asleep, could have warned her she was going to get passed off like a baton to Vaughn this morning and left to stumble through what felt weirdly like a blind date. A blind date done in totally the wrong order—kinky three-way first, followed by coffee and small talk.
But even as she could claim to barely know Mica, this felt right. Or if not right, predictable somehow. He was tough to nail down on details and arrangements, tough to read, emotionally. Not cagey, just . . . slippery. It seemed only natural that he also be the type to fail to mention that he’d be leaving early, and to fail to wake her to say good-bye when he did. He was the sort of thoughtless—but not heartless—man for whom those courtesies simply didn’t register. Like a teenage boy in some ways, oblivious to such subtle social customs.
Annoying, but not such a high price to pay for life-altering sex.
She did indeed find spare brushes in the bathroom drawer, wrapped in cellophane and stamped with the phone number of a dentist’s office. She gave her face and hair a study. She looked rumpled but not awful. Not hungover or slovenly, but Vaughn would be witnessing her with her hair wild and her freckles in full effect, not a drop of makeup. He’d be getting Clare, unfiltered, she thought as she cleaned her face with a washcloth, a version of herself she usually held in reserve until at least a few dates into a new relationship. At least one actual date, for heaven’s sake. She helped herself to a dollop of someone’s body lotion to moisturize her face, tamed her curls with her hairband, and deemed herself presentable.
The worries were silly anyway—it wasn’t Vaughn she was hung up on. Let him see her without mascara. He seemed like a practical, down-to-earth sort of man, the type who wouldn’t notice the difference anyhow.
Before she left the bathroom, she gave their cabinet a quick snooping through. Sporty deodorant, Claritin, bandages, mouthwash, some sort of muscle-building supplements. Pretty standard manly stuff. She flipped off the light and headed to the kitchen, nerves spiking just a touch.
Vaughn was sitting at the dining table, a steaming mug in his hand and another waiting on the other side. He looked up from a magazine as she entered.
“Smells good.”
He smiled. “Perk of living with a barista—he brings home way better beans than I’d ever buy for myself.”
She took a seat and slid her mug close.
“This is a little weird, right?” he asked.
“Maybe. A little less weird than the first time, though, since at least one of the men I slept with last night is having a coffee with me.” She smiled back. “Which is fine, by the way—Mica hasn’t given me any reason to have any expectations. Apart from the crazy sex, I mean.”
Vaughn nodded, and she sensed a blush behind that dark skin.
“I’m realizing that he’s not really boyfriend material,” she added. “Not that I’m in the market for that anyway. But if I were, I’m smart enough to know he’s not the ideal candidate.”
“But for random Wednesday-night three-ways . . . ?”
She laughed, glad he was being candid about it. “Yeah, for those, he’d be the first one I’d call.” The funny thing about this morning, she thought, was the fact that the man she was sitting across from was now her lover. And yet to greet him with a kiss felt absolutely wrong—absolutely strange. Did that make her Mica’s, in a way? She could kiss Vaughn when Mica directed her to, and really mean it, really feel it, and enjoy every second of it, and yet the thought of going there on her own felt a hundred percent counterintuitive.
When I’m here, I’m his. Mica’s plaything, basically. She’d tell him no if he asked her to do anything that truly crossed a line, but she also knew she’d let him lead her further than she’d ever expect she’d want to be taken. Places she’d not follow most any other man. He was magical in that way. And powerful, and a little addictive, and he undeniably had a hold on her.
I’m his, she thought again, and the notion aroused her even as it put her on edge. She wasn’t the sort of girl who went looking to be a man’s possession, yet the idea sizzled.
Everything wrong is right, with him. And it had been so long since she’d felt so exquisitely wanted.
The kitchen looked different in the morning. There was only one window, but it got nice eastern light, and for the first time she noticed a spider plant hanging above the sink. There was something encouraging about a guy who had houseplants. Something reliable. It jibed nicely with Vaughn’s day job. She’d feel very confident indeed if this man showed up and busted down her door, carried her to an ambulance in her hour of need. She wondered how he’d wound up in that line of work.
“At the risk of sounding like we’ve woken up on a blind date,” she said to Vaughn, “can I ask how you wound up in your field?”
He laughed, and his broad smile transformed his face, making him about handsome enough to be a model, she felt. It eased her lingering nerves, softened her posture.
“I was thinking the same thing,” he said. “About this feeling like a blind date. Or like, Mica tag-teamed me halfway through the da
te and now it’s my job to close for him.”
“It’s a little fucked-up,” she admitted. “We can agree on that. But it’s good coffee.”
“Sorry about that, by the way—him taking off. Again.”
“It’s not your job to apologize for your roommate.”
“For my best friend. And sometimes I feel like it is. Shit like that doesn’t register with Mica. He doesn’t think. Not more than twenty minutes into the future, that is.”
“So I’m coming to realize. And it’s okay. Awkward doesn’t scare me. Anyway, tell me about your job, Vaughn Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is.”
“Tucker,” he said, and extended a hand.
“Clare Geddes,” she offered studiously, and they shared a mock-formal handshake.
“And I don’t know exactly why I wanted to become an EMT,” he said as he let her hand go. “Some stuff in my childhood probably primed me for it, but it was mainly because of that Urban Exchange program I did. Once I graduated high school and couldn’t go as a student, I was a counselor for two summers. We got trained in first aid, and I just really liked that. Made me feel empowered, maybe. Confident. And life’s too short to spend forty, fifty hours a week doing something you don’t believe in.”
Clare smiled, though inside she cringed. That’s exactly what I’m doing, isn’t it? Suffering through the tedium of the workday, so eager to punch out and escape. She wasn’t the only one, certainly—probably among the majority, in fact—and having a job and a passion align felt more like a privilege than a right. Not everyone got to have that. Though she couldn’t help but feel sometimes that she should. She’d been fortunate enough to afford an education, and to have been born with creativity and some talent, a unique perspective and ideas to share. Yet here she was, thirty, working a job most people took out of desperation and a lack of skills.
“First aid and climbing were the first things I ever tried and felt like, hey, I’m good at this,” Vaughn went on, yanking her out of the self-pity party. “I’m better than most people at this. And since nobody was about to pay me to climb . . .”
She nodded. “And how does your job work? Do you work for a specific hospital?”
“No, it’s an independent company. We serve a bunch of different places.”
“I’m picturing lots of CPR and those things where you shout, Clear! and shock people’s hearts back to life.”
He made a receptive face. “That’s not entirely wrong.”
“Do you like it?”
He nodded and blew on his mug. “Yeah, most days. Some are tough, you know, when you aren’t able to get people where they need to be in time.”
“Oh, of course.” On TV, there was always a happy ending, it seemed.
“Yesterday was one of those days. Hence the whiskey.”
And hence everything that had come after the whiskey. Which really needed further broaching.
“Can I ask you something else?”
He sipped his coffee, set it down. The way he took his time with the motions, she bet he knew what was coming, and needed a couple of extra seconds to parse his reply. “Sure.”
“You and Mica . . . Have you done that before? You two, and a girl?”
His smile was nervous, but he shook his head. “No. Never. That was a first, I promise you.”
“It’s just that the way he talked . . . I dunno. It didn’t feel like something new to him.”
“Mica’s fearless. He takes people places, just on a whim. He does what he wants, and his momentum is tough to escape, I guess.”
“No kidding.”
“But no, we’ve never been with a woman together before. Trust me, I was as surprised as you.”
And he’d looked it. But still, there was something unusual about the two of them. A familiarity to the power exchange last night that hadn’t felt spontaneous, necessarily. Not unnatural—quite the contrary—but not completely out of left field.
“You two must be really close,” she ventured. “Just since . . . you know. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, except what happened was . . .”
He nodded, seeming to agree that there was no word quite right to capture it all. “We have an intense relationship, in more ways than one. We’ve seen each other through some tough stuff, and we met at a rough time in both our lives. We don’t have any secrets. Maybe that translates to us not having many boundaries, either. Not once we’ve had enough to drink, that is.”
She nodded, though she had to wonder, was he speaking strictly about last night, or historically? “Long as I didn’t barge in and dump a whole truckload of weird on top of a good friendship, I’m not complaining.”
Vaughn shook his head. “Mica did the dumping. And considering that he and I basically bonded after we got into a fistfight with each other, I doubt what happened has the power to wreck anything.”
“Right, you mentioned that. Yikes.”
“We were kids. And the thing you need to know about Mica . . .” Vaughn seemed to search for the right word. “He’s thoughtless. And most of the time, that’s the most impressive thing about him. You watch him climb, and it’s like his body knows the rock, knows exactly where every hold is, like he’s been there a hundred times, even though you know it’s the opposite. Everything he does—the way he moves and the way he talks, it’s totally thoughtless. It’s like . . . It’s kind of amazing.”
She nodded. “It is.”
“But it can also be incredibly irritating. Being thoughtless about a climb—that’s terrifying, as an observer, but also impressive. Intuitive. But if you’re trying to coordinate flights with Mica, or any other sort of plans, or getting a rent check out of him . . . Yeah, I love the guy, but I want to wring his neck on a daily basis. He’s a terrible roommate.”
“Some people are just like that, I guess. Immediate. Present.”
“Yeah, people like teenagers,” Vaughn said with a soft little sigh.
“You regretting letting him sublet?”
“Nah, I’m not. I knew it’d be like this. I mean, I’ve known the dude for, like, thirteen years. I’ve spent weeks with just him, out in the wilderness. I know him, all the good stuff and all the aggravating shit.”
She smiled. “Sounds like a marriage.”
“Man, I hope not.” Vaughn laughed. “When I get married, I want my wife to be my partner. The one who picks up the slack and covers for me when I mess up, or when things don’t go the way I plan them to. I can deal with a flaky best friend, but a flaky partner? Nobody’s perfect, but I plan to find myself a grown-ass woman.”
That bloomed her smile anew. “You two really are opposites, aren’t you?”
“In every way except growing up broke? Yeah. We are. Can I ask how old you are?”
“Thirty,” she said. “I turned thirty last week, actually, the night of that party at your friends’ place.”
“Oh shit, you should have said.”
She shrugged. “I’m not a hundred percent in love with that number yet—plus, I wasn’t sure how old Mica is. And I still don’t know. How old is he?”
“Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine in July. The tenth, I think.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be thirty in December.”
“Not so scandalous. Though I can still tell myself that on my thirtieth birthday I got taken home by a younger man and had my mind blown.”
Vaughn’s turn to smile. “Not a bad way to kick off the decade.”
“So what . . . Why’s he like that?” she asked. “Flaky, or thoughtless, or however you think of it?”
He made a face, hesitating. “I think I know, but it’s personal. I’m not sure I should say.”
“Fair enough.” Even if the mystery had her itching with curiosity.
“He’s like the rest of us—childhood stuff leaves everybody a little messed up.” Vaughn paused, then went on, spe
aking slowly, thoughtfully. “Long story short, Mica didn’t have many people to rely on, growing up. He doesn’t know how to handle it when people stick around—when people get attached to him. He tends to shut people out when he feels like they’re starting to expect things from him. Or that’s my theory, anyhow.”
She nodded, turning that around in her head. “Guess he’s not the type for serious relationships, huh?”
Vaughn smiled, the gesture apologetic. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
“I wasn’t. Like I said, he hadn’t struck me as boyfriend material.”
“He’s kind of a dangerous combination that way,” Vaughn said, his expression growing pensive, attention drifting to the window. “He’s like . . . He’s magnetic. He can draw people to him just by being there, and I know he likes that. He wants the attention, on a certain level. But then he hits this wall where it starts to be too much, so he draws back.”
Clare found it interesting to hear the guy’s friend dissect him this way, and to know she wasn’t the only one who found him mystifying. “Is he like that with you?”
Vaughn nodded. “Yeah, he can be. Not like how I’ve seen him get with women, not that obvious. But if we’re planning a climbing trip, and I’m Mr. Let’s Get This All Organized, I know that the more I bug him to get his shit booked and give me some ETAs, the less likely he is to pick up when I call.”
“Huh.”
“It’s the pressure. He doesn’t like people demanding anything from him. Expecting anything. Not to psychoanalyze the dude, but I think he spent enough time feeling like he had nobody to depend on, now he’s like, Why the fuck should I have to go out of my way to meet anybody else’s needs? Or else maybe he just doesn’t know how to. Something like that.”
“Sounds . . . frustrating.”
“I guess, but I mean, most people are, when you get down to it. All the ones you’re in deep with anyhow. Siblings, close friends, parents. The ones you’re stuck with, or the ones you know are worth keeping around you. I’ve learned how to manipulate him over the years—not in a shady way, just how to approach him so he’ll actually take action on getting a flight nailed down or whatever.”