by K. J. Lewis
I grab a bottle of wine and point to a cabinet. Elise grabs four glasses and we take our seats at the table with Gabby and Dean.
I love this part of the house, the iron work on the large windows overlooking the courtyard, the city poking up through the trees. It feels like a place where people want to be. I hate that it gets used so rarely. I usually eat out or at the island.
“How’s Ryan?” Elise asks Gabby.
“He’s upset. He tried to lock Fran out, but she got the hotel to give her a key to his room. She is going to stay with him tonight. She doesn’t want him to be alone.”
“Good. I don’t want him to be either.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Elise.”
“Heartless, but fine.”
“Elise,” I growl. “I’m not impartial to what is going on. Ryan and I agree for different reasons. I don’t want to see you hurting. I don’t like you mixed up in this.”
“I made a promise, Reid. Emily has fought for a long time. She’s stronger than any of us could possibly be. She said she would say when she was ready. That was more than a year ago. She’s done. She’s not giving up, but she wants to be at home surrounded by her things. By her animals. Friends and family. She wants to be on the farm she loves. She wants her last months to be quality even if it changes the quantity.”
“The thing is, Ryan knows this,” Gabby adds. “This is what he wants for Emily. He just can’t say it. He can’t be the one who says it’s time to stop fighting.”
“That’s why I have to do it for him,” Elise says. “He’s my friend. He may or may not choose to forgive me, but he would never forgive himself.”
“Don’t you think that’s a heavy burden to carry?” Dean asks.
“Not for Elise,” Gabby answers. “Elise is not heartless.”
“I know that, babe. Anybody can see that,” Dean responds, and I catch Elise’s smile at his endearment for Gabby.
“That’s just it. Not everyone sees it. When you do what Elise does, it’s easy to think she is heartless. It’s what gives her the edge over everyone else. They mistake her for being emotionless, but really she has a huge heart and reads people better than anyone I know. She can call a bull-shitter from a hundred yards. Her heart is directly connected to her ability to read people. That’s what makes her formidable.”
“But I don’t always get it right.” Elise bites into a spring roll. “I’ve made some doozies in my life time.”
“Evil can slip in everyone’s door before you realize it. It’s sneaky. That happens to everyone, Elise. It’s not a character flaw.”
Dean and I watch these two women. We are merely spectators in this conversation. I have to admit, there’s a history I don’t have with Elise that these friends do—that Theo does.
“So, who won the card game?” Dean changes the subject.
I study him for a moment, wondering what has happened to him. This man who had not a serious bone in his body is now calling Gabby “babe” and is trying to direct the subject to lighter matters.
“Today it was me and Fran,” Gabby answers. “We’re still way behind Elise and Blake. We’d have to win the next three months to take the lead.”
“Is it always like it was today?”
“How so?” Elise asks.
“So entertaining.”
“Yes,” I laugh.
Elise rolls her eyes. “It’s just conversation. Whatever comes to mind.” She gives up her chopsticks for the large spoon we used to serve. “What?” she asks when I can’t hide a smile.
“Opting for the shovel?” I tease.
“I’m eating my feelings. Let me be. You knew what my thighs looked like before you fell in love with me. No judging.”
I kiss her temple. “Eat it all sweetheart. I adore your thighs.”
“Gag me,” Dean says.
“I know, right?” Gabby rolls her eyes.
“This is good. Mindless conversation. Keep it coming,” Elise motions with her hand.
“Fran,” Dean and Gabby say at the same time, cracking up.
Elise leans forward. “What have I missed?”
Gabby shrugs her shoulders and raises her hands. “When you guys kissed at the retreat, she said she hadn’t been laid in a month.”
“Girl can kiss though. Wonder who she’s thinking about having a threesome with?”
“You and Fran kissed? What kind of retreat was this?” Dean asks with a raised brow.
Gabby shushes him. “Does she kiss better than me?”
Elise releases a deep breath of air. “You know you are my favorite girl-kiss, Gabriella Jane.” Elise breaks a fortune cookie open.
“You guys are going to make Dean’s head explode with that visual,” I quip.
“Don’t be nasty.” Gabby hits him on the side of the head.
“You were the one—”
“Anyways,” Gabby interrupts. “I wonder who she was thinking about having a threesome with.”
“Who knows,” Elise says, pulling out a small piece of paper.
“Maybe she and Ryan will hook up tonight.”
“Gabby,” Elise warns.
“Now that he sees you are off the market, maybe he’ll realize he is meant to be with Fran.”
Elise makes a noise that sounds like two fighting kittens sneezing. “Clarinet,” Elise says and shows Gabby her fortune.
Gabby opens hers and says something just as indecipherable. “Cook top,” she explains, showing her piece of paper to Elise.
Elise responds to the looks on my and Dean’s faces. “Chinese. The fortunes each have a word on it that you learn to say in Chinese.”
“I’m one-hundred percent sure that’s not how you pronounce those words,” Dean says. Both girls shrugging in response.
“What does your fortune say?” Gabby asks Elise.
“All things are difficult before they are easy.”
“Fitting. Mine says ‘For rectal use only.’”
“Bullshit.” Elise grabs the paper and cracks up, telling us all it really does say that. Wiping away her tears of laughter she says, “Thank you guys. I needed this.”
“Glad we could help,” Dean says like this was all his doing.
“So we really don’t know who Fran was talking about? You’d tell me if you knew, right?” Elise asks.
“Maybe it was hypothetical,” Dean offers. “Like you sleeping with a gay man.”
“Gay movie star. She’s slept with a gay man.” Gabby loads the last of the boxes into the trash bag.
“He wasn’t sure if he was bi or gay. He wasn’t full-on gay until I introduced him to Ross.”
“A week later.”
“You’ve slept with Theo?” My intention was to ask this as casually as possible, but based on the looks I’m getting, I’m not nailing it.
“In college,” Elise explains.
I try to maintain some self-control. I really do.
“I’m going out.” I leave a stunned group at the table and snatch up my coat on the way out the front door. I’m not dressed for most places, but there’s a bar I frequent a few blocks over that doesn’t have a dress code.
The bartender greets me by name and pours me a double before I even warm the seat. My phone dings.
Elise: I can’t fix this if you walk out.
I stew for a while. The bartender sets another double in front of me. Picking up my phone I text her back.
Me: I’m not a fucking case to fix Elise. Don’t wait up.
It’s less than a minute before it dings again. “
Elise: Read the text again, Dumbledick. I didn’t say YOU needed to be fixed.
“Fuck it.” I toss my phone on the bar and drink.
“Damn, you’re a stupid shit,” Dean says, taking the seat next to me.
“Go away, Dean. I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re throwing a tantrum, and you’re about to sabotage the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
I down the remainder
of my drink, waving to the bartender for a third.
“How many?” Dean asks him.
“Three.”
“Cut him off at five.”
“Fuck you,” I spit.
“Coop, he’s all yours,” Dean says over my shoulder. I turn to see Coop sitting at a table against the wall, nursing a beer. Wonder how long he’s been there. I should have known.
Dean leaves, and I drink the last two I’m allowed over the next couple of hours. Coop never says a word. When I’ve finished my five, he walks me back to the house and makes sure I am in and locked up before disappearing back to his place.
I stagger my way into the elevator. It seems like a safer mode of transportation to the top floor than the stairs.
Elise is already asleep, and instead of her normal, splayed sleeping style, she’s curled in a ball around her pillow. She looks small. Lost.
I stumble out of my shoes and jacket and make my way to the closet to change into a pair of sleeping pants. I brush my teeth and down a bottle of water and some ibuprofen to ward off my impending hangover.
Something catches my eye, and I notice Elise is sleeping with her phone in her hand. I extract it as gently as I can, given I’m almost drunk enough to have to choose the one in the middle, and place it on the night stand.
I slide under the sheets, and it only takes a minute in her slumber for Elise to be drawn to me. She wraps her arm around me and snuggles in. I’m only so strong and in this proximity I can’t hold out. I wrap my arms around her before drifting off to sleep.
I forgot to close the skylights last night and the light is pouring in, torturing me. I feel better than I should, but my head still feels like a mariachi band set up in it last night.
The bed is empty. I find Elise in the bathroom, sliding into a pair of old school Adidas. She looks so young in jeans and a striped shirt. She’s fresh-faced again.
“I have to leave for the airport in thirty minutes. I was trying to let you sleep as long as I could before I woke you.”
“So you were planning on waking me before you left?” I challenge.
“Yes, Reid.” She stands and crosses her arms in front of her. It’s a protective move, not a defensive one. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you. We’ve never talked about the people we’ve been with, with the exception—”
“I don’t consider someone who raped you a sexual partner, Elise.” I bristle at her implication.
“That is not what I meant and you know it,” she fires back. “The fact remains, he is the only one I’ve told you about. I didn’t think who I’ve slept with was a big deal. I assumed by your own admission of being a player that you’ve had a more active lifestyle than I have.”
“I don’t care about the number of people you’ve slept with, Elise, I care that you slept with Theo.”
“Why? We were both virgins. We both wanted our first time to be with someone we trusted and knew it would be safe with. Theo wasn’t sure how he really felt. It was experimental. A means to an end.”
“So it was one clumsy time and that was it?”
“Not exactly.” She bites her lip. “It was a weekend at the Ritz. We checked in on a Friday and checked out on a Monday. But that was the intention all along. Learning what we liked and didn’t like. What we would and wouldn’t do.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“What do you mean?” She has the grace to look truly confused.
“Did you enjoy the sex?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Answer the question.”
“It’s a ridiculous question. It was sex with someone I love and trusted. It wasn’t a drunken one-night stand. It was planned. We both went into with a list, and we kept going until we got it right. It wasn’t what sex is like when you are in love with someone. It was doing what Theo and I do. We worked out a problem. I introduced him to Ross the very next week. What he has with Ross is different than what he had with me.”
“Seeing as how you don’t have a dick I would imagine it would be.”
“You know what I mean, jackass. It was different because they love each other. What I did that weekend with Theo in no way compares to what we have. I’ve never had the sexual connection with anyone that I have with you. I don’t understand why you are bothered by this.”
“Theo knows,” I yell, losing the last of my composure. I hate myself when I see her flinch. “He knows all your stories. All your tells. Your cues. He knows everything.”
“We’ve known each other for more than twenty years. Of course he knows. It still doesn’t compare to what I feel for you.”
“No matter how much of you belonged to Theo, I took, I don’t know…solace, in the fact that he might have your heart, but I’m the one that knows what it feels like to be inside of you. Knows what you taste like. Knows the sweet little moans you make before you really let yourself lose control. I’m the one that knows what it feels like to have your body quiver under mine. But I don’t even get that part of you.” I run my hand through my hair. “He knows what you look like when you come. I love to watch you fall apart beneath me. He knows what that looks like. That kills me, Elise.”
“I can’t change the past, Reid. And to be honest I wouldn’t if I could. I’m not ashamed that I slept with Theo. It was safe. And I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you, there were times it was hot, but he never got from me what you get from me. He doesn’t know what you know. What is this really about, Reid?”
“I just told you.”
“Bullshit. This isn’t about Theo getting me off. This isn’t about sex, and you know it.”
“I want all of you, Elise. I refuse to settle for less.”
“You have all of me.” She picks up a messenger bag and throws it across her shoulder. “Whether you keep all of me is entirely up to you.”
“You two need therapy,” Ross says into the camera, pointing to me and Theo.
I’m by myself on the plane to Memphis. Ryan didn’t meet me at the airport. I didn’t expect him to feel differently than he did yesterday, but I was surprised he didn’t show for the flight. I conferenced Theo once we were in the air. He and Ross were still at home.
“Why? Because we won’t apologize for being best friends?” I don’t hide my bad temper.
“Because as good as you are for each other, you also use each other as a crutch.”
“I resent that,” Theo says.
“Only because you know I’m right. Look, Elise, it took a while for me to get used to sharing Theo’s heart with you. It wasn’t until I came to understand that he has the capacity to love more than one person. But it was also because he worked hard to make sure I knew that, no matter how much he loved you, I am the love of his life. He did that by sharing parts of himself with you, but not letting you have the only access to those parts.”
“But you had to let him show you that Ross. Reid won’t let me show him.”
“It’s because you are showing him sweetheart. Just not the way you think you are.”
“I swear you are talking in circles.”
“What happened yesterday with Ryan?”
“Didn’t Theo fill you in?”
“He did. I mean what happened afterwards. Who did you turn to? Who was the one you talked to about it? Who was the one you let comfort you?”
“In all fairness, Theo called me.”
“I know. And I had a discussion with him about that last night. He’s having a hard time letting you go. But those are his issues and not yours. Answer my questions, Elise.”
“I can’t help that Theo has the advantage of knowing Ryan.”
“Reid doesn’t have to know Ryan. His role is not to take care of Ryan, his role was to take care of you. Let me finish,” he says when I start to interrupt him. “I heard Theo’s side of the conversation yesterday. While he does care for Ryan and what he and his family is going through, that was not his focus. He talked to you about how you were feeling. He walked you back from thinking y
ou had made a mistake. He helped you problem-solve and work out what the next steps would be. He made sure your heart would survive the fallout of losing a dear friend, if that is what ends up happening.”
It’s quiet for a minute while I think through mine and Theo’s conversation yesterday.
“Reid is your person now. He needs to be the one that does all those things for you. Theo is the backup, or the person you complain to when Reid is making you crazy. Reid is your Sunday love. Not Theo.”
“Sunday love?”
“You know, the person you want to make love to on Saturday night but instead of sending them home you want them to stay. To work Times crossword puzzles with on a Sunday morning. The one you want to make waffles with, stay in bed all day and read with. A Sunday love.”
He turns to look at Theo. “You aren’t her soft place to land anymore. You have to let her go.”
“What if—”
Ross plants a soft kiss to Theo’s temple, holding his face next to his. “You can’t stop life from happening. You have to let her go.”
“But the last time—”
“You can’t stop bad things from happening to her, Theo. Elise is not responsible for what happened to her. Neither are you. No matter how much we protect those we love, life and bad things happen. It’s time, babe.”
The hum of the engines is all I hear for a long minute.
“He’s right.” Theo clears his throat. “I shouldn’t have called you yesterday. I should have trusted Reid to be the one to be there for you.”
“I admit that I should have handled that differently. What I can’t change is the fact that Theo and I slept together. I know Reid’s reputation. I know he laps my number like an Indy car.”
“This one wasn’t as hard for me,” Ross says. “I didn’t have the feeling of competition with you. I could give him things you couldn’t.”
“Dick.” Theo deadpans and I see his hand disappear beneath the table.
“Stop that.” Ross swats at him. “It’s more than that and you know it. Sex with a man is never going to be the same as sex with a woman. That’s a given. But that isn’t why it wasn’t an issue for me. It wasn’t an issue, because, like I said a few minutes ago, Theo made sure I knew I had his heart. If Reid knew he had yours, he wouldn’t care who you slept with. My guess is he loves you enough to take what he could get. And that was your body. When he found out even that wasn’t his, he let it get the best of him.”