by Jc Emery
I backed off Mel because the situation I’d created wasn’t fair to her, and H pointing that out fucking stung. I made the choice to keep my promise to Lydia, and in doing so, I had to ask Mel to wait for me. It wasn’t right, but at the time I thought it was what was best for everybody. Then Lydia and I broke up, and I should have been free to pursue this thing with Lulu.
Only, how the fuck was I supposed to do that when I’d just given H the all clear? How was I supposed to fucking go to him and tell him I’d changed my mind, that I’d made a mistake? So I suffered in silence for months while I watched Hennessey make flirty comments to Mel on Facebook and cringed when he would make subtle but pointed references to phone conversations I hadn’t known they’d had. I asked him how things were going once, and only once. I didn’t like the answer. He told me he liked her and was grateful that I’d stepped off. Told me how much he respected me for doing so and that a lesser man would have done things differently. Said that Mom and Dad would be proud of my selflessness. The asshole was laying it on thick and I knew it, but I let it go because Mel was still in New Orleans and he couldn’t do much from New York.
The only saving grace I had was when Royal let it slip that Mel was dating some douche bag backwater boy with two first names. Seemed to me that if she had a boyfriend, things weren’t working out with her and H. I couldn’t find a picture of the fucker, and she never really talked about him, so I mostly just pretended he didn’t exist. After that, I’d taken H out to Port of Call and told him we’d find him a nice badge bunny to make him feel better. It worked, and so I made sure he stayed busy and figured eventually Mel would be a distant memory by the time she graduated. It was working like a fucking charm, too. We’d go out, drink, get laid, and then do it all over again a few nights later. He didn’t talk about Mel and neither did I, and we just pretended that we both hadn’t somehow lost the best thing that never had a chance to happen to us.
I should have made it happen for me and Mel, but when the time came, I just couldn’t. And now that she’s here, I can’t even bring myself to tell her what the problem is. I’m not losing her—I’m pushing her the fuck away because I don’t know how not to.
The sliding glass door creaks open behind me and shuts forcefully. I turn to see my dad shuffling two glasses of whiskey from one hand to both hands. He meets me at the edge of the deck and props his elbows on the railing, then passes one of the glasses to me.
“Sorry about your son,” I say in reference to Hennessey.
“Which one? I got two grown idiots messing up lasagna night,” he says with a sly smile.
“I guess I deserve that.” I lift the glass to my lips but don’t take a sip and instead lower it and start rambling. Dad has this effect on people. Or at least he has this effect on me.
“H is a dick. He’s supposed to be dating Mel—or trying to—but apparently he’s fucking around with other chicks. It’s not right.”
“Right,” he says with a nod.
“I gave that fu—dumbass the green light, and he’s fucking it up.”
“Dumbass,” he mutters and shakes his head.
“And she’s fu—she’s bugging me with sh—crap, and I don’t have an answer for her.”
Dad grunts and says, “Just use the words, son. Your mother can’t hear you, and this conversation will go a lot faster if you don’t keep pausing. Lasagna’s getting cold, boy.”
“Hennessey told me he wanted to fucking change. He swore to me he wasn’t going to do this shit with Mel, but look at him—what’s he fucking doing? He’s dating someone else at the same goddamn time.”
“Man, I hate it when my brother refuses to exclusively date the woman I’m in love with,” Dad says humorously. I pause my thoughts long enough to let his words sink in. “What a tool.”
“Funny,” I say snidely.
“Didn’t you just fly out to New Orleans for her graduation?”
“Yeah,” I respond and bring the glass to my lips.
“Wasn’t that to tell her you love her? To, you know, be with her?”
“Yep.” And I down the whiskey in a single gulp.
“I’m a reasonably intelligent man, but I can’t figure out how we got from there to here.”
I blow out a heavy breath and admit to my father something I’ve barely been able to admit to myself.
“Mom’s family—she ever talk about them to you?” I already know the answer, but it’s easier to broach the topic this way. At least it’s less embarrassing than admitting the truth outright.
“Never used to,” he says. “Now with the Facebook and the Tweeter stuff, she sees things online and gets curious, then investigates. She talks about them then.”
I snort. Dad knows it’s not called the Facebook or the Tweeter, but he refuses to evolve enough to admit it. The one time he posted a photo of Hope on his wall, he acted like he didn’t know how it got there until the praise poured in. Now he’s all about the Facebook.
“Must be hard seeing your family but not being welcome to interact,” I say and hope he understands.
“Did I tell you that your mother and I had lunch with Chris and Monica a few weeks back?” he says happily and turns to face me. He’s got one elbow leaning on the railing, and he’s smiling.
I turn to give him the same respect and raise my eyebrows.
“You know damn well you didn’t.” I avoid accusing anyone of doing anything, but I’m silently cursing my mother for involving herself in shit she shouldn’t be. She’s a fixer, and she doesn’t like to see people not living their lives as fully as they can. That’s her excuse for meddling, at least.
“And I wasn’t going to, because you and Mel are both grown, but apparently your brain hasn’t caught up with the rest of you, so here goes. Monica contacted your mom for lunch because you’re an idiot. Lunch was good, by the way. Halfway through, Chris and I snuck off for a few drinks while the women hashed out how to get a wedding out of this mess.”
“It should be embarrassing to know that you all were sitting around talking about this. It should be weird to me that my mother is trying to get me married off. But it’s not. Know why?” I say.
“Because it’s normal,” he muses with a smirk. “Born into a family without boundaries or privacy. Don’t know why you’d expect it now. Just be glad neither of them brought up kids.”
“So go on,” I say and clear my throat. Mom may never have been in love with Lydia the way she is with Mel, but she certainly brought up marriage and kids enough. In Mom’s mind, we’d been together too long to not be married with a few kids. But Lydia was never it for me, and I guess I always knew it, because I hated it when Mom brought up getting married. It felt restrictive and archaic. The idea of owning Lydia wasn’t something I was interested in. But with Mel, it’s all I can think about. I want to own her and consume her the way she consumes me. I should have known I didn’t really love Lydia. How did I not know?
“Honestly, I didn’t have a defense for your behavior. I mean, what man in his right mind surprises the woman he loves and then goes on to ignore her during his entire trip?”
“Dad,” I say in warning. I feel a lecture that I don’t need coming on.
“Then Monica says that it doesn’t make sense. They showed you the best time on your trip. Upgraded your and your sister’s seats on the plane to first class. Changed out your hotel room at the Days Inn to something fancy that I can’t remember. They even took you to the nicest restaurants in the city.”
“The Kincaids are very generous,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I used to worry about it, you know—how to give your mother what she was used to. I used to think she couldn’t be happy on the Lower East Side with a guy like me. One who couldn’t afford a town car and summers in Europe. A guy who buys her a wedding ring from a pawn shop.”
“You don’t worry about it anymore?” I ask, allowing myself a sliver of hope.
“Nah,” he says. “Five kids and a grandkid later, I’m pretty sure she’s
with me for the long haul. I’m lucky, though. No in-laws meddling in my business, being nasty by giving us expensive things I can’t buy her myself. That would suck.”
I laugh wryly. “Finally we’re getting to the point.”
“You’re the one who took me on this trip down memory lane.”
“Guilty,” I say. With a deep breath, I decide we’ve been here long enough and I need to just say it already.
“I wanted to make that trip on my own dime. I bought my own ticket, got my own hotel room, and was prepared to pay for my own meals. It’s not like I’m living off a proby’s salary. I can take care of myself. I let the plane ticket go because Monica begged me to. I let the hotel go because it was too hard to explain why I’d rather be a half hour away in my two-star than around the corner in a five-star, and once they all left, I’d planned on staying in Mel’s apartment anyway.
“We’d go out to eat and they wouldn’t let me pay. Then they left, and I thought it wouldn’t feel so shitty—the charity—because it’d be just us, and how could everything not be right with me and Mel?”
“But?”
“We went to dinner after everyone left for the airport. The food was great—fucking expensive, but great. It was a romantic little restaurant, and she held my hand the entire meal. I was going to tell her after dinner. I was going to finally say it—that I love her—and we were supposed to start being us that night. I went to the bathroom about halfway through the meal and didn’t think anything of it. So when the bill came and it wasn’t a bill but the receipt with Mel’s credit card being returned, I realized she’d paid for it.”
“What a monster,” he says dryly.
“I tried to tell her that wasn’t necessary, but she said—and I quote—‘I know you don’t make much, and the meal was expensive.’ ”
“Ouch,” Dad says. “So you’re writing off this horrible monster with stingy parents because she emasculated you?”
“You have a way of making me feel stupid.”
“Well, you have a way of making yourself sound stupid.”
“So how do I stop sounding stupid?” I shouldn’t be having to ask my dad for paint-by-number instructions on how to be a better man.
“Your mother needs certain things from me. She needs to know I love Bailey just the same as I love the rest of you. Before I retired, she needed to know I did everything in my power to come home safe to her. In return, I need her to not want more than I can give, and I need her to support the decisions I make. When she does that, when I do that, that’s how we show our love and respect to each other.”
“I need her to not pay for things when we’re together. I work hard for what I have, and I take pride in that. I’m not mooching off Christian Kincaid.”
“Don’t got to tell me, son,” he says and pats my back.
My mobile beeps in my pocket, letting me know I have a text message. When I pull it out and read the screen, my stomach drops. It’s from Lydia.
MEL’S HERE. HELP?
What. The. Fuck.
Chapter 15
Jameson
I pull up the text Lydia sent months back with her new address, just in case I needed it, plug it into my travel app and race over to Lydia’s apartment as quickly as I can, which really isn’t all that quickly considering she’s moved to Brooklyn. We kept in touch long enough to settle matters with the apartment and make sure nothing came of her bullshit.
On my way, which includes a ten-minute ride on the B toward Brighton Beach and a half-mile walk to her place, I call Mel about a dozen times. I finally stop trying to reach her when her perky voice urging me to leave a message grates on my nerves. I send Lydia one text after another asking her why Mel’s there and why I’m getting messages asking for help, but after the first one she sent, I haven’t heard from her again.
I approach a three-story brownstone that’s flanked by a dry cleaner on one side and a nail salon on the other. I’m apprehensive about walking up to the door, being unsure about the directions my phone is giving me. It just doesn’t look like a place where Lydia would live. The two apartments we shared were nice—not overly fancy, but nice and, as she demanded, they had curb appeal—and from the street, this place looks dumpy.
“Just stop lying!” Mel’s voice carries to the curb in a frantic scream.
I rush up the steps to the front door. It opens into a small landing with two doors on each side and a set of stairs in the middle. The brownstone appears to be a fourplex, or a threeplex at the very least, and Mel’s voice is coming from upstairs.
I take the steps three at a time and fly around the corner at the second-floor landing, but her voice is still distant as she practically cries out. Even the sound of her distress is like a sharp knife digging into my ribcage. If Lydia said or did something to her, I’m going to fucking lose it.
By the time I make it up to the third floor, my heart is beating hard and my muscles are aching. It’s the same feeling I have when I’m heading into a fire, but there’s a sickening edge to it. This is worse because it’s so personal.
When I turn around the landing, I see the third floor also has two apartments. One near the top of the stairs and the other at the far end of the hall. Lydia’s apartment is at the far end where a wide landing is decorated by things I recognize as hers. The little bench that sits beside her door used to sit beside our door in our old apartment. It was excellent for setting bags down on, or yourself if you needed to remove muddy shoes. Now the little bench is covered by a black leather handbag and purple coat. At the doorway, Mel stands with her hands on her hips as she taps her foot incessantly. She turns as I approach, and her red-rimmed, teary eyes widen at the sight of me. She turns back to Lydia and sneers.
“Call him for backup?”
“What the hell?” I ask. Standing behind Mel, I hover over her as much as I can without encroaching on her personal space.
“She thinks I’m sending pictures of you to her,” Lydia says in a panicked tone. “She’s lost her mind.”
“Who else would be doing it?” Mel shouts and closes in on her. I reach out and pull Mel against me. I force myself to stop all thoughts of how incredible it feels to touch her. To feel the bare skin of her arm under my hands, to hear her voice. All of it reminds me what I shouldn’t have ever forgotten—that she’s worth it. Whatever it is, she’s worth it.
“I lost, okay?” Lydia shouts, now getting upset. “I lost him, and there’s no getting him back. I’m not spending my time stalking him and sending the proof of his activities to you!”
“You’re lying!”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I say firmly and drag Mel away from the door. She keeps her head ducked, letting her blonde hair create a curtain that she uses to hide her face from me. I turn and point at Lydia. “Go inside and shut the door until I knock.”
Lydia nods and retreats into her apartment while Mel struggles against me. Once we’re far enough away from Lydia’s apartment, I stop and try to turn Mel so she faces me, but she’s protests.
“Sshhh,” I murmur to her, lowering my mouth to her ear. It helps calm her, and she stops fighting me. I keep it up to try to bring her to a calm enough state where she can talk to me. When she’s less tense, I snake my arms around her and pull her into my chest. Fuck. She feels perfect in my arms. She’s soft and just the right height. I place a kiss to the top of her head and continue comforting her, hoping that soon she’ll tell me what’s going on. After a few minutes, her knees bend and she tries to sink to the floor. I try to prop her up, but she’s insistent. Bending slowly, I make sure I’m sitting on the carpet before I lower her into my lap. She tenses again for just a moment before falling against my chest. By the time I think she’s comfortable enough to speak, my ass hurts from the awkward position I’m sitting in.
“What’s going on, Lulu?”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she whispers.
“Did you really think she wouldn’t have contacted me?”
She shrugs her shou
lders but doesn’t answer right away. Sucking in a deep breath, she says, “I wouldn’t have.”
“No?” I keep rubbing her back in small circles, hoping it makes her comfortable enough to be a little chattier than she is right now.
“Not if I’d done what she has.”
“And what has she done?”
“Last week I got a text from a blocked number. There was a picture of you with someone I don’t know.”
“Okay . . .” This doesn’t sound good. At all.
“The day after that, another one came in. This time it had a message with it. It said ‘Like what you see?’ And was signed with the letter L.”
“Can I see your phone?” I ask.
She takes several deep breaths and pulls her mobile out of her pocket. I take it and pull up her texts. There are at least ten message threads from numbers not programed into her phone, each indicating they contain a picture, none of them older than a week. Her explanation of what’s gotten her so upset isn’t even the tip of the iceberg of what I’m looking at. The oldest text is a picture of me with a woman whose name I don’t know that I ever got. We’re at Port of Call, and she’s dressed provocatively. I recognize this picture as one I got tagged in on Facebook a few months back. I had it removed once I saw it, in hopes that Mel wouldn’t see it. It was January, shortly after Lydia and I broke up, and I was indulging in the attention of women I’d been turning down the entire time I was with Lydia. It felt good, if even temporarily, to have women flock to me. In my mind, come May, I’d be with Mel, and that’d be it. If I had any wild oats, I was going to sow them.
The next image is less clear but more suggestive. It was taken across the bar, and there’s a brunette in my lap. We’re each taking a shot. Every picture was taken either at Port of Call or outside the firehouse, and each one shows me with a different woman. For the first few days, only one message came in each day, but then it looks like Mel responded to one of the messages, calling the sender out and threatening whom she thought was Lydia with bodily harm. After that, the sender’s number changes a few times, and each message thread has anywhere from two to five pictures of me. And in every single one I’m with a woman. A woman who isn’t Mel. Women who don’t matter and I don’t remember. The later photos are more explicit than the earlier ones. I’m not proud of any of this, and I never expected for Mel to see it. But above that, I’m freaked the fuck out because all the images except for the first one were taken across a crowded room or street, and the messages that come with them become increasingly more disturbing.