This Changes Everything

by Gretchen Galway

  Mark and Rose’s driveway was gated but open, and he was able to park near the front door. Making soothing yet slightly operatic noises, he led Mouse out of the back of the Volvo and walked him to the door of the modern house perched in the hills that had once been his own. He’d never lived there; it had been just an investment. Mark had bought it from him as part of his Rose-wooing process a couple of years earlier. Because the wooing had been so successful, Sly decided he was just the guy he needed to talk to.

  He banged the knocker and scratched the top of Mouse’s skull while he waited. He knew his world had changed forever if he was seeking romantic counsel from Mark Johnson.

  To his surprise, it was Rose who answered the door. She looked as beautiful as always. A large, curvy blonde, Rose had a natural sex appeal that bowled over most men who saw her. But not him. He’d thought he’d always been immune to her charms because of Mark’s feelings for her, but now he wondered. Would it have been so easy to resist Rose if he hadn’t had Cleo in his life already?

  In fact, he hadn’t been seriously involved with any woman since he’d met Cleo, but he’d attributed that to his break with Teresa.

  What if it had been something else?

  What if his affection for Cleo had been serious for a lot longer than he thought?

  “Sylly! This is a nice surp—” Rose began. Her eyes rounded. “Oh my God, is that a bear?”

  “It’s a Mouse. Can we come in? I was hoping to talk to Mark.”

  “Please. He’s taken apart my laptop and swears he knows how to put it back together.” She looked at her watch. Long blond hair tumbled down around her face. Her hair was a little darker than Cleo’s, and longer and wavier. Stunning, really. So model perfect, it was hard to believe it was real.

  But it wasn’t as beautiful as Cleo’s.

  “He took it apart last night,” Rose continued. “I’m going to have to go to work without it.”

  Sly stepped into the foyer. Mouse lumbered in and collapsed next to a hall table that held a vase of arching blue and white flowers. Sly’s own image reflected back at him from a gilt mirror on the wall over the vase. “You’ve kept the decorating from the sale.”

  When he’d put the house on the market, Rose had lived in the house while it was artificially staged to look irresistible to buyers.

  “We have fond memories of those days,” Rose said, “so we replicated some of the decorating.”

  “Like the pillows?” The bed in the master suite had been piled high with dozens of them. Mark had admitted to him (or bragged) that repatriating them to their assigned positions after his and Rose’s first night together had been a challenge.

  Rose’s smooth skin flushed pink all over. “Actually…”

  Mark popped out from the doorway to the kitchen and put his arms around her waist. “Especially the pillows,” he said, burying his face in her neck. “We enjoy knocking them to the floor every night. You know, while we—”

  “Hey,” Sly said, holding up his hands. “Please. I don’t need to know any more.” Once, while Mark and Rose were working at WellyNelly, Sly had interrupted them at the very wrong time. On top of Mark’s desk in their Berkeley offices.

  Mark laughed and tightened his arms around Rose. “Does Cleo mind you’re such a prude?”

  “She minds about a lot of things,” Sly said. “Which is why I’m here. She hates me.”

  Mark’s smile fell. He loosened his hold on Rose. “Oh, man. Sorry.”

  “I want your advice,” Sly said.

  “Good idea,” Mark said. “Rose is really good with people.”

  Rose turned to her husband. “I think he meant you, sweetie.”

  “Yeah, right,” Mark said with a snort. “Because I’m so good with women.”

  Lowering her voice, Rose put a hand on Mark’s jaw. “Oh, you’re good, baby.”

  Mark flushed as pink as a highlighter. Sly looked away, wondering if he could bear to watch another second of these two loving each other when he was dying inside.

  “Wow, it’s really late,” Rose said, pushing away from Mark. “I have to get going. If you can’t fix my laptop by tonight, you’d better buy me a new one. Target’s open late. Nothing fancy—”

  Mark rose to his full height, which was considerable. “If I can’t fix the thing, which of course I can, I’m not going to buy some off-the-shelf POS at Target. Give me some credit.”

  Going up on tiptoes, Rose kissed him on the chin. “I credit you with the sense to make sure I have a working laptop by the time I have to write that proposal tonight.” She turned to go, catching Sly’s eye on her way across the room. “I’m sure Cleo will give you another chance, Sylly. You’re a great guy.”

  “Thanks.”

  She slung a red purse and a floral laptop bag over her shoulder. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do in the campaign.”

  “Campaign?” Mark asked.

  “To win Cleo back, of course,” she said.

  Sly smiled appreciatively at her. She was a hell of a woman. “Will do,” he said. “Thanks.”

  With a wave, she went out the door and let it slam behind her.

  Mark turned to him. “Is that really why you’re here?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Yes. How about coffee?”

  “Here?”

  “If you don’t mind,” Sly said.

  “You know me. I like staying home. Come on.” Mark wandered into the kitchen, a gleaming showcase in marble and stainless steel that had cost Sly more than the sum total of every car he’d ever owned. As an investment, however, it had worked. Mark had paid him more for the house than Sly had put into it.

  While Sly watched in silence, Mark ground the beans, measured them into a French press, then went over to an electric Japanese hot-water kettle and, after checking the temperature with an instant-read thermometer, poured the water and pushed down the plunger.

  The entire process was slow, deliberate, and exact—with impeccable results. Very Mark-ish. Sly accepted his mug with genuine eagerness and found a perch on a barstool at the counter.

  “You make a damn good cup of coffee,” Sly said, sipping it. “It’s like watching a Nobel chemist in a laboratory.”

  Mark reached under a low cabinet and pulled out a bag of Cheetos. “Don’t tell Rose about these,” he said as he ripped them open. “She says they’re bad for me.”

  “Lips are sealed.”

  Mark held up a puffy morsel and rolled it between his fingers. After a moment, he popped it into his mouth. “You were just kidding about wanting my romantic advice, right?”

  “Not at all. Who better to ask than the man who married Rose? I mean, come on. That was quite a score.”

  Eyes narrowing, Mark stopped chewing. “Admit it. You’ve always had a thing for her.”

  “Amazingly enough, no. I was just thinking about how I should have stolen her out from under you when I had the chance, but didn’t want to because—I’m just figuring this out now—I’d already met Cleo.”

  “Thank God,” Mark said, looking mournfully into the Cheetos bag. “I shudder to think what would’ve happened to me if you’d stolen Rose.”

  Sly felt like he had some idea. It was what was happening to him right now. “Dude. It was you she wanted. From the start.”

  “Only because you were too obsessed with work to make any moves.”

  “No, because she was too obsessed with you to ever look at me twice, even if I’d tried,” Sly said. “Which is why I’m here. You’re the genius. Tell me how I get Cleo to feel that way about me.”

  “How could I possibly know that?”

  “You’ve got to know something I don’t.”

  Mark smiled. “I know a crap-ton more than you. But not about women.”

  “I think you know more than you think you know.”

  Licking his fingers, Mark pondered the ceiling, the smile clinging to his lips along with the orange dust. “I like this. The famously hot Sylly Minguez seeking my sexual counsel.”
/>   “Hey. Not sexual. Got that covered. The other stuff.”

  “There’s other stuff?”

  Sly waved his hands around the house. “The part where you end up like this together.”

  Mark’s mouth fell open. “You want to settle down?”

  He hadn’t thought so until a few hours ago. “Maybe.”

  “Is that how you portrayed your feelings to the object of your affections?”

  Sly flinched. “Maybe.”

  “You dumbass.”

  “Don’t rub it in.”

  “You’re really hurting right now, aren’t you?” Mark asked.

  “I’m dying.”

  “You don’t look like it. You look the same as you always do, kind of cheerfully smug and invincible.”

  Sly looked around. “Is it too late to call Rose back home so I can talk to her instead?”

  “My point is, you need to show her how you feel.”

  “She won’t see me.”

  “Maybe I can help you with that,” Mark said. “But you have to have a plan. Go at this like you do with work.”

  “Got it. Like work. Good idea.” Sly took out his phone. “I’ll start an Evernote notebook.”

  “Christ. If you must.”

  Typing with his thumbs, Sly recorded his first few ideas. “I thought I’d take her to dinner. That worked in Vegas.”

  “Too late. Sounds like she hates you too much for eating right now.”

  “Then what?”

  “When I was in the shits with Rose, I had to trap her at my cabin in Tahoe during a blizzard.”

  Sly looked out the window. It hadn’t snowed in the Sierra for over a year. “Fucking drought.”

  “How about—” Mark’s phone began chiming in his pocket. He held up a finger and looked at the screen. “Hold on, it’s my mother. Hello?”

  Sly took advantage of the break to gulp down the perfect coffee and type a note into his phone: 1. Trap.

  “You’re what?” Mark asked.

  Looking up from his phone, Sly saw an arrested expression on his friend’s face.

  “Yes, he told me,” Mark went on. “But—”

  Sly watched him, wondering what Trixie was saying.

  Suddenly Mark’s gaze landed on Sly. “He’s right here, actually. In my kitchen.”

  They stared at each other, one of them having no idea what the phone conversation was about.

  “Tomorrow?” Mark pointed at Sly. “You free tomorrow?”

  “For what?”

  “He’s free,” Mark said into the phone.

  Presumably, Trixie continued to say something, because Mark stared off into space with the phone at his ear.

  “Let me talk to her,” Sly said. If Trixie was scheming again, he wanted in on it.

  “We’ll come over at six,” Mark said. “Should we bring something? Beer or food or whatever?… Sure, she’ll love that… Yes, he’s here too.”

  “Who?” Sly ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

  Mark pointed at Mouse, then looked away, listening again. “I’ll tell him. Tell your husband I look forward to meeting him.” Shaking his head, he put his phone in his pocket.

  “Tell me,” Sly said.

  “Liam and Bev’s house, tomorrow at six. Cleo thinks it’s a piano lesson. You can talk to her then.”

  “How—”

  “I don’t know how she does it,” Mark said. “But we might as well be glad that she does.”

  31

  Holding her overnight bag, Cleo unlocked the door to her apartment. It was Saturday morning. Because Trixie had said she would be home well before noon, Cleo had packed up and moved out by nine. Now she was home, finally home.

  Home smelled stale. She dumped her bag on the couch and walked around opening windows. All three of them. She was glad to be out of Trixie’s house for social reasons, but she’d miss the space and the view.

  Nice of Bev to dog-sit for a few hours until Trixie got home. The dogs would be all right left alone on the sun porch, but they really preferred company, especially Zeus.

  She could relate. But she wouldn’t mope. Living alone had its perks, and even if she got lonely, she was used to it by now.

  After a few trips back to the car, all her things were back where they belonged. Her clothes, her music, her toothbrush, her mangled heart.

  She sat down and tried to lose herself at the piano. After an hour, she gave up composing and opened her computer. She checked her sales on iTunes, compared income to expenses, bought some new shoes.

  Finally, it was twelve thirty. Time to teach, something to keep her busy. She set off for her piano lessons with grim determination. Halfway through teaching her first pupil, she realized she hadn’t eaten anything since gulping down half a banana in Trixie’s kitchen. That got her remembering the last good meal she’d eaten—a week earlier, listening to Sinatra at Sly’s side.

  Her student, a nine-year-old girl with enviably long fingers, stopped playing “Greensleeves” and said, “I can hear your stomach growling.”

  “Think of it as a cello accompaniment.”

  “It’s really loud,” the girl said. “And you look funny. Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks for asking. Let’s hear that again, all right?”

  On her way to her second lesson, she got a chicken sandwich at the Jack-in-the-Box drive-thru, not caring that she hated everything on the menu, just shoving it into her mouth to make the hunger pangs stop.

  On her way to her third lesson, she got a call from that pupil’s mother, canceling for the week.

  “Stomach flu,” the woman said, but Cleo figured her son hadn’t practiced again. Any eleven-year-old who got gastroenteritis as often as that kid did would be hospitalized by now. It had been so long since he’d been available for a lesson, Cleo couldn’t even remember what he looked like.

  Now it was two hours until her lesson with Bev. She thought about canceling on account of a recently acquired stomach ailment. She could say it was going around. Rubbing her stomach, she looked at herself in the rearview mirror. She definitely felt sick, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you caught from an eleven-year-old boy. A thirty-five-year-old man with bedroom eyes and a dimpled chin, yes.

  She’d caught that one bad.

  So she went home and took a second shower, got dressed in tight black clothes and leather boots that made her feel sexy and angry and powerful, swallowed a handful of Tums, brushed her teeth, tweezed her eyebrows, and got back into her car to return to the leafy upper altitudes of Oakland.

  Because she wasn’t an idiot. She knew who was going to be there. Bev hadn’t rescheduled her piano lesson because of the baby’s gym class. Trixie was behind it.

  Cleo strode out of the apartment building to her car and flung herself inside. Keeping busy hadn’t helped. She couldn’t stop thinking about Sly. Even when she wasn’t thinking about him, she was feeling him. Her skin remembered what it felt like to be close to him. Her nose dwelled over his scent. Her tongue trailed over her teeth the same way his had done, slow and confident.

  He’d adopted a dog.

  He’d then he’d bought a Volvo for his dog.

  “I hope they’re very happy together,” she muttered, coating her lips with another swipe of fuchsia lip gloss.

  Starting a family with a human woman was light years away from where he was right now. By the time he was ready for anything like that, with anyone, she’d be dead.

  And he hadn’t come close to groveling. Blaming his phone for not talking to her—please. He wasn’t the one. She had to forget him and move on.

  Blasting Philip Glass over the speakers as if he were the hottest new pop star, she drove to Bev and Liam’s house. When she pulled into the driveway, she noted it was suspiciously empty. Had Trixie been crafty enough to make everyone park at the end of the street so Cleo wouldn’t get suspicious?

  Probably.

  Squinting down the road as she walked to the front door, Cleo ignored her pounding heart and
told herself she could handle this. She could handle anything. They were bound to see each other sometime. They were friends who’d slept together, nothing more. Nothing more to him, anyway. Her feelings were her own business. If he didn’t want to be pressured into a relationship he wasn’t ready for, he wouldn’t remind her of what they’d done, what she’d admitted feeling for him.

  She pushed the doorbell. Almost instantly, Bev opened the door. Her dark hair was pulled back into a high ponytail but hung off-center as if someone had been pulling on it. She gave Cleo a quick smile, then turned away to catch a crawling baby who was dragging a large Birkenstock sandal.

  “No you don’t, Merry. Uncle Markie was looking for that. He can’t walk around in one shoe.” Bev shot Cleo a smile. “Come on in. You’d better keep your boots on. My daughter has a fetish.”

  “I can relate,” Cleo said, scanning the living room for other people. Her pulse was still overreacting to the journey from the apartment to the front door. She’d expected something other than a couch covered with stuffed animals and a floor littered with plastic blocks. Cocktails, strippers, Elvis—not sure, just something Trixie had worked up.

  Bev shoved her feet into some clogs by the front door. “I’ve still got to bring Merry over to Trixie’s. Really quick. Sorry I’m running late. Liam was in LA and I was up with the baby. When she’s not stealing shoes, she’s breaking out of her crib and playing piano at three in the morning.”

  Cleo smiled down at Merry, who was busy squatting below her, clutching her boots with both chubby hands and pulling with all she had. “Maybe she could get a job at a nightclub. Bring in some extra funds.”

  “Great idea.” Bev scooped up Merry and hauled her to the front door. “I’ll be right back, OK?”

  Merry’s head pivoted to hold her gaze on Cleo’s feet as her mother carried her out of sight.

  The door shut behind them, leaving Cleo alone with the toys, laundry, and solo Birkenstock. Pulling sheet music out of her messenger bag, she turned toward the piano.

  Sly stood next to the bench, hands in his pockets, staring at her with dark, piercing eyes.