by Sara Cate
My nerves do not calm much when I notice a pair of long legs and a headful of blonde hair step out of the car. As I pull into my drive and pop the trunk, Lea slides up next to me with a smile on her face that used to light a spark in my dick...but doesn’t anymore.
“Alexander Caldwell, did you just go grocery shopping?” she asks with a sugar sweet grin.
I smile back, faking the pleasantries as she comes in for a hug. “Even single guys have to eat.”
When she pulls back to take a look at me, ruffling my hair and rubbing the three-day scruff on my face, I actually worry that she can see the guilt in my expression. Like what I did to Sunny last night left marks on my body, and she’ll be able to spot it in seconds. “The suburbs look good on you,” she lies. I know for a fact that I look like shit compared to how I used to look in the city.
“Thanks, Lea. To what do I owe the surprise?” I hoist the two paper bags under my arm and shut the trunk, hoping she’ll leave without walking into the house.
“Oh, just checking in on you. I don’t see you online much anymore, and I miss you. Thought we could do brunch.”
She follows me into the house, and in my head I’m making all kinds of excuses and lies for why I can’t go out with her right now when the only reason I can’t is because I just fucking don’t want to, but for some stupid reason, I’m too afraid to just say that. I’m also internally panicking, knowing that she’s about to be face-to-face with Sunny, and I can’t quite put my finger on why that freaks me out.
She doesn’t stop talking as we walk into the kitchen, going on and on about our friends and what they’ve been up to since I moved—which isn’t anything new, so no surprise there. As I drop the bags on the counter, I peek around the window to see Sunny in the same spot working on the upper half of the wall. She has the music playing as she works, loud enough that we can hear it in the house. Lea doesn’t seem to notice yet.
“So, what do you say?” she asks, looking at me expectantly.
“Um...now’s not a great day, Lea. I have stuff to do around the house.” I gesture toward the pool like a fucking idiot, at which she turns her head and sees Sunny’s movement.
“You have workers in the pool house?” she asks, peeking around the corner.
“Just someone painting a mural on the wall,” I answer casually, rubbing the back of my neck.
It clearly piques her interest. Without another word, she walks out the patio door toward the pool house. “Oh my gosh, it’s gorgeous, Alexander,” she drawls, looking at me as if I’m the one painting it.
“The credit is due to the artist.” I point toward Sunny who turns around and nearly drops her paintbrush when she sees the blonde woman standing next to me. Her cautious eyes find me, and I try to apologize with my stare. Less than twenty-four hours after I had her writhing with pleasure on her bed, I’m standing here with another woman.
“Aren’t you adorable?” Lea squeaks toward her.
She walks over, sizing up the painting, and I watch my girl squirm, her music blaring from the speaker.
“This is Sunny Thorn,” I say, introducing her, trying to act normal. “The most talented artist in Pineridge.”
Sunny glances at me, her tight-lipped expression focused on my face. I want to pull her off of that scaffolding and show this woman that Sunny is so much more than my adorable decorator.
Lea looks back at me with something sneaky in her eyes. Turning her back on Sunny, she saunters toward me. “You’ve changed, Alexander Caldwell.”
Then she leaves me standing in front of Sunny, feeling like the world’s biggest piece of shit as Lea disappears into the house with a ‘come fuck me’ face on. And like the good little boy I am, I follow. Sunny doesn’t say a word as I walk away.
The sound of a champagne bottle pop coming from my living room makes me pause. “This calls for a celebration,” she says with a laugh, pouring the bubbly into a flute, glaring at me with a smile.
“What are we celebrating?” I ask.
“You’re growing up, Alex. You have a house in the suburbs. You’re decorating, spending your days doing house work, grocery shopping!”
I let out a laugh, amusing her for the time being. I could put aside the annoyance of feeling like the butt of the joke for a moment, and acknowledge that yes, I have grown up. But I’m forty-fucking-years old, so it’s about damn time I grew up, and if the woman only five years younger than me who acts half as mature wants to have some fun with it, then I’m okay with that.
She raises her glass. “Here’s to shocking the hell out of everyone.”
I let my hand drop without a clink to her glass. My smile fades as I stare at her grin. Even my fucking friends expected me to fail.
“Oh, come on,” she teases. “I’m proud of you.”
“Yeah, you seem it. You’re proud that I didn’t fuck up like I always do, right?”
“Don’t get salty about it, Alex.” Her hand drops, and I have to step away to keep from saying something I’ll regret.
“How do you know I haven’t fucked up?” I ask, leaning against the counter and watching the girl that tempts me every day just sitting in her overalls like she’s not a walking crisis for me.
Lea notices my unfocused gaze. “Have you?”
“All I do is fuck up, right? Just like everyone expects me to. My sister, my friends, my business partners. Why even try anymore if I just fulfill their expectations of me?” I don't know if I’m saying this to Lea or to myself.
She sets her glass down next to me and rubs her hands along my forearm. It’s not a sexual movement. She’s touching me as a friend, a seemingly concerned one. And why wouldn’t she be? I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
“Alex, this transformation is good for you. You’re out of the city, getting time to reflect. Everyone is cheering for you.”
I’m not buying it, but it’s nice to hear.
“Besides,” she says, pressing her body up against mine. “I know for a fact you haven’t fucked that teenager in your pool house. So, that’s progress.” There’s a little laugh in her voice.
But my face contorts into a disappointed expression as I move away from her, not even bothering to correct her. Sunny is technically not a teenager, but I don’t even know if that matters anymore. I’m putting space between us because that’s what’s right for her.
“Come on, Lea,” I complain. “She’s just a kid.”
“Just a kid?” she echoes, eyebrows up. “Alex, I’m having a hard time keeping my hands off that girl.”
“How do you know I’m not fucking her already?”
“Oh honey, I can tell.”
Something about that statement doesn’t sit right with me. How the fuck can she tell? “How so?”
She lets out a laugh as she gulps down her champagne. “If you were screwing her or have screwed her at least once, she wouldn’t still be working for you.”
“And why the hell not?”
This time her laugh is louder, and I’m not so convinced she hasn’t already started drinking today. “Alex, come on! Girls that age don’t do casual sex without commitment. Not with guys like you. The Alex I knew would have bedded that sweet thing weeks ago. She’d grow attached, you’d break her heart, and she’d probably have burned down your pool house by now. No, there’s no way you fucked her.”
“You should read fortunes,” I tease back. “Because you’re right. I haven’t. I forgot to feel proud of that. Treating women with dignity.”
A snicker escapes her lips as she steps closer. “It was never really your style.”
My blood boils. Lea was always one of my closest friends and favorite fuck buddies, but she’s putting a distorted mirror in front of my face, and I’m starting to feel like a real asshole for it.
“I think you should leave.”
She freezes. “What? Why?”
“Because you want to celebrate how much I’ve changed, but you’re not rooting for me.”
“Alex,” she whines, rea
ching for me, but I grab her bag from the table and push it toward her chest. From my periphery, I notice that we have an audience, standing by the open patio door.
“Next time you want to check on me, don’t try to get me drunk so we can fuck, okay? Actually, just don’t fucking check on me at all, how about that?
Standing in the doorway, she twists her face in anger at me, but I’m numb to it at this point. “You’re a joke, Alex. Everyone knows you’re just putting a big ol’ bandaid over a gun wound, trying to pretend you can just buy a house and stop being such a loser. No one is rooting for you, Alex because no one fucking cares.”
She storms out the door, slamming it as she goes. I’m standing there, jaw clenched and swallowing the anger in the back of my throat when I feel Sunny’s soft hands on my arms.
“Alex.”
“You shouldn’t stay here, Sunny.” My voice comes out harsher than I mean for it to, and I see her flinch, but she doesn’t leave. Her hand doesn’t even leave my back as she keeps rubbing circles between my shoulder blades.
“Breathe.”
Lea’s words just keep repeating in my head, and no matter how much I try to argue with what she said, I can’t. She’s right. How many girls did I fuck over the years, ignoring their emotions, leaving them high and dry, not giving half a shit for how they feel about it? How long until I did the same thing to Sunny?
“Fuck!” I bark, my voice echoing around the room as I walk away, fighting the urge to put my fist through the wall.
Sunny doesn’t follow me, not at first. She only stands in her spot, watching me.
There’s a tingling in my hands, and it’s snaking its way up my arms, pooling in my chest, making my heart pound and my breathing become shallower. I plant my hands on the counter and try to control my breathing, but it’s futile. All I can manage are short, shallow inhales.
“Alex, breathe.” Her hands are rubbing circles on my back again. Her head is resting against my shoulder.
These things come around from time to time, and they just love to make an appearance whenever I give up drinking and convince myself I’m going to turn my life around. It’s like nature’s way of saying, nice try, asshole. Not today.
“I’m fine,” I mumble.
Her hands keep up the rhythmic motion on my back. It helps.
Now the heat is in my cheeks, across my chest, making my skin crawl and my ears pound. It’s like my heartbeat has traveled from my chest up to my throat and fills my head. I fucking hate it. Feeling helpless. Weak. Broken.
Once the panic subsides, I let my grip loosen on the countertop. Part of me wants to reach for the Klonipin or whiskey, which is what I usually use to make these things fuck off, but instead, I breathe in the reassurance and the girl standing next to me. Her fingers are in my hair, sending goosebumps down my spine and easing all of the tension in my back with the way she’s moving her nails against my scalp.
“Talk to me,” she whispers without pulling away or stopping her movements.
“She was right, Sunny. I haven’t changed at all.”
“Why do you need to change?” she asks, leaning her cheek on my shoulder so her voice is in my ear.
“Because I couldn’t live like that forever.”
“So, change what you do, not who you are.”
“I have to. I have to change who I am,” I growl, keeping my eyes closed tight.
“Why do you have to change?”
Pulling away, I look down into her wide eyes, those eyes with the world in them. The knowing, wise, welcoming eyes that make me feel like I’m being seen and not just looked at.
“Because I fucking hate myself, Sunny. And I can’t live like that anymore. I don’t do anything worthwhile. I don’t make anyone happy or make anyone fucking smile. I don’t even disappoint people anymore because no one has any faith in me at all.”
“At night I want to know that there’s someone in my bed that will be there the next night and the night after that. I’m tired of being lonely, Sunny.”
Her hands are on my cheeks now, the soft pads of her fingers, with the scent of acrylic paint wafting to my nose stroking the short beard down to my neck.
“One day at a time, Alex,” she whispers in the silence, and I want to kiss her so bad it hurts. It actually stings the back of my eyes to keep myself from gathering her into my arms to taste her lips, but I don’t.
Instead, I settle on pulling her in for a hug. “You’re the fucking greatest, you know that?”
Her smile against my neck eases away another layer of tension in my body.
When I finally pull away, she stands there awkwardly, and I hate myself for how tense I’ve made things between us. I had to go and do what I did last night, and now the girl doesn’t know where we stand. What I’ll do next. When we’ll do what we did last night again. Fuck, she actually asked when she could return the favor, and it nearly killed me.
But what Sunny did for me today was more than that. These lines have been crossed, but I promised her I’d take care of her, and it’s up to me to walk back over the lines to the side where we both belong.
“So…” she says, carefully, leaning against the counter, and I dread the next words out of her mouth, sure she's going to bring up last night.
“Sunny…”
“Did you get me those chickpea snacks?”
A laugh bursts through my lips as I take the bag out and toss them at her. “Knock yourself out, rain cloud.”
“Thanks,” she calls back to me, as she disappears through the door and back to her place in the pool house.
Sunny
I’m having a hard time with this blue. It’s either too green or too gray, but I need it to reflect the water from the pool, but no matter how I mix it, it just keeps turning out wrong, and it’s distracting me. When Alex calls me in for dinner, I ignore him.
“What is all this?” he asks, seeing the different shades of teal, blue, cerulean scattered around me.
“I’m working on something,” I mutter. The music has stopped playing, and he walks over to check on me, but I'm not in the mood. It’s been almost two weeks since the incident on my birthday and the girl that came over to see him. Things between us have not changed, and we are at a standstill. It’s making me restless.
We never talked about my birthday or the woman. Every night we crawl into different beds, and I have to admit the guest room is nice. I’ve brought over a few more things from my house, and I’ve managed to make it my own.
Alex and I still swim together, grocery shop together, eat together—everything a couple would do—except for get naked and have sex.
And for that reason, tensions are building.
I never really had the heart to tell him that it bugged me to see the woman at the house. I don’t know if he called her over after our night together or if she just showed up out of the blue. Every night I go to sleep, tossing and turning, wondering if anything between us is real and if he called her over to be with a real person, instead of a kid.
“I’m not hungry,” I mutter, going back to the first teal I had, hoping if I put in a dash of green it will even out.
“Sunny,” he barks at me, giving me that tone I hadn’t heard in so long. By instinct, I turn toward him. “Come eat,” he says a little softer this time.
I listen, hopping off the scaffolding and stalking past him without a second glance. I’m irritated with him without really knowing why. At the table, I pick at my dinner while he watches me, and I know he’s just as frustrated.
Finally, after a few moments, he throws down his napkin and stands up. “You have clean-up duty.”
My eyes widen. “What?”
“You’re cleaning up after dinner,” he says again, reaching for the wine bottle. “You ate it, right?”
I’ve been working all day in the pool house, painting his goddamn wall, and now he wants to treat me like a kid who needs to do chores. My jaw hangs open. “I’ve been working all day, Alex.”
“So what, Sun
ny? You can help out if you’re going to be living here.” My mouth goes dry. He doesn’t want me staying here anymore. I knew things were getting tense between us, but I still held onto hope that if I stayed, things would eventually evolve, that he would at some point give in.
The thought that he’s pushing me out, and that everything between us is over chills me to the bone.
“Then maybe I won’t live here anymore,” I threaten, feeling stubborn but also desperate to see his reaction.
“Then, don’t.” He’s pushing back. He’s not serious.
I stand up in a huff. “What the fuck is up with you right now?”
Stepping closer, he corners me. “You’re not going to be like me, Sunny. You’re not going to grow up without any responsibility or expectations. When you’re here, you’re going to pull your weight.”
“Since when did you become my parent, Alex? I’m twenty years old!”
“Since I started giving a shit about you, Sunny. Can you say the same about those other two?”
“Fucking harsh, Alex.”
“Get over it, Sun. Life sucks sometimes. Toughen up and stop expecting handouts. You know how much I wish my parents would have given enough of a shit about me to make me responsible for myself, but they didn’t. No one did, babe, so you’re welcome.”
He steps away, leaving me reeling, leaning back against the table. The anger in my stomach is mixed with something else...lust.
But he’s already gone, walking out to the pool to drink his glass of wine. Stomping over to the sink with my plate in my hand, I scrape off the food into the disposal and start on loading the dishwasher.
The whole time all I can think is that I don’t need him treating me like a kid. It’s the last thing I want for him to see me as. If he thinks I’m so fucked up already, then it means I am fucked up, and it’s too late to fix me now. He just wants to take all of his self-deprecating angst out on me. I nearly break his plates tossing them around the sink.