by Megan Hart
“The sex was amazing,” Dayna said. “It’s always amazing, even when I’m wracked with guilt about it.”
“What do you feel guilty about?”
“Jay.” Dayna looked sad. “I know he’s in love with Paul as much as I am. I think sometimes that if I weren’t around, Paul would maybe make a real effort with him. Make it work.”
Alice thought about that. Jay had told her he’d finally broken it off with Paul. He was dating a new guy, a few of them, in fact. He wasn’t happy about the breakup, but really, who ever was, even when it was the best choice?
“If Jay weren’t around, do you think Paul would make a real effort to make it work with you?”
Dayna looked faintly surprised, then frowned. “He got a phone call while we were watching TV, and he got up to take it in the other room. It might’ve been Jay, though I’ve heard him talking to Jay before, and I don’t think it was. I think he was talking to another woman. So, do I think if Jay weren’t around that Paul would make the effort? I don’t know. I guess not. But then he calls me up and he knows all the right things to say, and he knows just where to touch me, and the next thing I know, we’re in bed.”
“I’m the last person to tell you not to give in to a magic cock,” Alice said. “Believe me, I get it. Especially after a long, long dry spell, finding that person who makes everything work just right is super hard to give up. Even when you know you should.”
“Oh, really? Are you talking about that guy you met the last time we went out? Bill?” Dayna stirred sugar and cream into her coffee and set the spoon on her plate before giving Alice a significant look.
Alice laughed and shook her head.
“No way. Mick?”
Alice smiled.
Dayna laughed. “Wow. You guys. Again. Kind of gives a girl hope.”
“It’s either going to be the greatest love story ever told, or the greatest tragedy.” Alice sipped her own coffee and contemplated ordering cheesecake. Not that she needed it or was even that hungry after the giant salad she’d had for lunch, but because . . . cheesecake.
“Thanks for meeting me.”
Alice looked up at Dayna’s off tone. “Sure.”
“I just needed to talk to someone about stuff. And nobody knows like you do, about everything.” Dayna took a deep breath. “And look, I know Jay’s your friend . . .”
“I love Jay, and we’ve been friends for a million years,” Alice said, “but you’re my friend, too.”
“And you don’t like Paul.”
Alice couldn’t deny that, not exactly. “I like Paul just fine. I don’t like the way he treats the people who love him so much.”
“And you don’t understand why we do.” Dayna turned her cup in her hands and looked sad.
“Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone falls in love with anyone,” Alice said somewhat sourly.
Dayna looked surprised. “Uh-oh. Sounds like that’s heading more toward tragedy than love story.”
Alice was silent for a moment while she tried to put her feelings into words. She thought about seeing Mick at Bernie and Cookie’s house for the first time after so long. That first weekend, the kissing, the touching. The passion. Then his phone call, opening the door to him, his declaration. All the months that had passed since then.
“It’s like you’re elated, right? You get this high from being around the other person. Whatever it is, chemistry or whatever, you get a zing.”
“Yeah,” Dayna said with a sort of dreamy sigh. “The zing.”
“But you can’t be high forever. You have to come down, sometime. And the higher you were, the harder it is to hit the ground.”
Dayna waved to the server. “Deep philosophical questions need dessert. Two chocolate cheesecakes with strawberries, please.” To Alice, she said, “But that’s why people keep falling in love. Because it feels so good when you’re up.”
“I was totally and completely in love with him. That first time. God.” Alice shivered at the memory of it. “So caught up. Everything he did or said. I couldn’t get enough of him. The sex was great. And he could make me laugh the way no man ever has. I was so gone for him.”
“And now?”
Alice chewed the inside of her cheek for a second, thinking. “The sex is still great. Better, even, though I would never have imagined that could be. We still talk for hours, and that’s great. So long as we’re not talking about us. Then all of a sudden it’s ‘can you hear me now?’”
Dayna laughed. “I’ve had that conversation myself.”
“So why can’t I just go along with it? Have fun, like he says? I do have fun with him,” Alice said in a low voice. “He still makes me laugh harder than anyone else.”
“But . . . ?” Dayna prompted.
“But I haven’t forgotten how much he made me cry, too. And I am older. I know myself better now. A lot of what I put up with when I was twenty-three, I wouldn’t put up with now. I deserve better than to settle for half measures or someone who doesn’t listen to me or make me important. I’m trying hard to put it all in perspective. That’s all. Keep my expectations reasonable.” Alice laughed ruefully. “Look, I know that you can’t depend on any one person to make you happy, but damn, it’s not good to be with someone who makes you sad.”
Dayna looked stunned. “Oh, my God. Oh, wow. Yes. That, all over. That, ten times. Paul never makes me feel important, and he sure as hell makes me feel sad.”
The cheesecake arrived, and Alice dug in. The sugar sweetness did its best to chase away the sour taste on her tongue. But it didn’t help her to stop thinking about it.
“Does Mick make you sad?”
“He hasn’t yet,” Alice replied. “But I guess I keep waiting for him to.”
“I’m not going to see him again,” Dayna said when a minute or so of silence had passed between them while they ate their cheesecake.
Alice looked up. “What? Paul? Really?”
“Yes. I’m done.” Dayna drew in a long, shaky breath, looking pleased. “Oh, my God, I never thought I would say that. All these years, the back and forth, on and off again. I mean, I didn’t see him for months or even years at a time, but I always knew we weren’t finished. He’d knock, I’d open the door. But now, what you said . . . I’m done.”
Surprised and pleased, Alice sat back in her chair. “Wow.”
“Shit.” Dayna looked surprised, too. “I really mean it. I feel it. It’s no good to love someone who doesn’t love you back. What good is it to open the door for someone who won’t bother to be there when you do?”
Alice held up a hand for Dayna to high five. “No kidding.”
“I feel like we need champagne or something for this revelation.” Dayna gave a shaky laugh, her gaze bright. She lifted her fork of cheesecake. “I guess we can settle for toasting with chocolate. To not putting up with shit.”
“Yes.” Alice lifted her fork, too. “To all that.”
Alice to Mick
You know when you do something, even though you know you shouldn’t, but you do it anyway because it seems as though the benefits outweigh the potential for damage? Sometimes, it’s worth it and sometimes you end up wishing you’d been smarter. I think I’ve started wishing I was smarter.
—Alice to Mick, unsent
Chapter 41
“Hey, babe. It’s me. We’re starting Sunday dinner, just wanted to know if we should hold it for you.” Mick took the beer Jimmy offered him and made an apologetic face at his mother, who was pushing past him with a pan of roast beef.
Alice sounded surprised. “What?”
“I’m at Mom and Dad’s. Dinner?”
“Mick, I’m just getting in the car to take Wendy’s kids to see a movie. I didn’t know I was supposed to come over to your parents’ house. I’m sorry.” Alice said something in a muffled tone to the kids, and then her voice came back more clearly. “You didn’t mention it last night.”
“This morning I did,” he said. “I said see you later when I kissed y
ou good-bye.”
Alice made some more muffled noises and sounded disgruntled when she came back on. “You always say see you later. You didn’t say ‘see you later at my parents’ house for Sunday dinner.’ I didn’t know I was invited, and besides, I’ve had plans to take the kids to see this movie for a week.”
“Oh.” Mick frowned, kind of pissed off that she hadn’t mentioned it before now. “My mom was expecting you.”
“Tell your mother I’m sorry. I would’ve loved to come to dinner.” Alice paused. “Clearly we miscommunicated. Can I come next week?”
“Yeah. I guess so. See you later . . . will I?”
“I’ll be busy with the movie and dinner after until the evening, and then I have to run the kids back home. I’ll be home around eight, I think. But I’ll call you when I’m finished, okay?”
His mom was giving him the “sit down, it’s getting cold” look now.
“Yeah, fine. Okay. Gotta go.”
Alice sighed and muttered something he didn’t think was to the kids. Louder, she added, “Talk to you later.”
“She’s not coming,” he told his family. “Wires got crossed, she’s got plans with her niece and nephew.”
“That’s nice, that she does things with her niece and nephew.” Mary gave him a pointed look, then at her own boys, who’d barely ever given Mick the time of day as little kids and sure didn’t now that they’d become teenagers. “What a nice break for her sister, to have a whole Sunday afternoon to herself.”
“Her sister gets killer migraines, maybe you’d like one of those?”
Mary rolled her eyes, but didn’t keep poking him. Dinner was good. It always was. And nobody pestered him about why Alice had made other plans instead of being here with the family, though her absence was keenly felt by Mick because of the empty chair next to him. He’d been looking forward to some of Mom’s amazing home cooking, then maybe hitting the hardware store later to pick up a new faucet for Alice’s leaking kitchen faucet. She hadn’t mentioned it, but he’d noticed yesterday that it dripped. He could fix that, no sweat, the way he’d taken care of her squeaking drawer and the oil change for her car. That’s what a man did, he took care of his girl.
He could still do those things for her, he guessed, even if it wasn’t today. But that still meant he wasn’t going to get to see her, and that flat-out sucked. He checked his phone at the table, though his mom always scolded about that, but Alice hadn’t texted him.
Jimmy and Jack argued about professional wrestling. Mary ignored her husband, who honestly probably didn’t give a damn that he was being given the cold shoulder. Dad shoveled food into his mouth as fast as Mom could put it on the plate for him, and Mom spent so much time getting up and down to bring stuff in from the kitchen that finally, Mick lost all patience.
“Mom, sit, I’ll get it,” he told her when she’d hopped up for another set of serving spoons. “You sit.”
In the kitchen, he got more spoons and another beer, then checked his phone again for a text. Still nothing from Alice. She was busy with the kids, he reminded himself.
He wanted her there.
“I wrapped this up so you could take it home,” his mother said in the kitchen as he was getting ready to leave. She pushed a plate of chicken and potatoes at him. “There’s plenty for you and Alice, too, if she’s hungry later.”
“I’m not seeing her tonight, Mom.” Mick took the food, knowing it was too much. He’d eat some of it and end up tossing the rest.
His mother didn’t look surprised. “Your dad likes her, you know. Alice. Says she’s a keeper.”
“What? Dad told you that?” Mick couldn’t recall his father espousing an opinion on much of anything, much less Mick’s romantic partners. There’d been that awkward condom talk in high school, but beyond that, Dad had never even seemed to acknowledge Mick having any sort of love life.
Mom, on the other hand, had always had an opinion about the girls Mick dated, especially, it seemed, the ones he did not bring home. Now she bustled around the kitchen, wiping at the counters. “Yep. Dad says she’s a smart one. I like her, too. It’s too bad she had plans today.”
Mick frowned. “I didn’t know. I figured she’d come to dinner, Mom. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, honey, I’m not mad.” His mom gave him a fond look and a shake of her head. “Next time, I’m sure you’ll give her plenty of notice.”
From Mary the remark might’ve sounded snide, but Mick had never known his mom to be that way. Sometimes subtly passive aggressive, but never harsh. “She’ll come next week.”
“That’ll be fine.” From the next room came raised voices, Jimmy and Jack shouting at the television, Mary shouting something at one of her sons. Mom gave Mick a long look. “You’re a lot like your dad, Mickey. You know that?”
“I’ve heard it a few times, yeah.” Mick had his dad’s blue eyes and dark hair, but then, all the McManus kids did.
His mom laughed and folded the dishcloth neatly before putting her hands on her hips. “Do you know that I almost married Gino Batistelli?”
“Gino from Gino’s Dairy Dell? Get out of here.” Gino’s was the best hoagie shop back in his mom’s hometown. Mick hadn’t been there in years, not since Gam and Pap died.
“Yes. Just think, I could’ve been the hoagie queen of Elk County.” Mom leaned against the counter. “Gino was great, and we had a lot of fun together. But I really liked your dad a lot more. There was this little problem he had, though.”
Mick got a plastic shopping bag from the drawer where his mom kept them and settled his foil-wrapped packages inside. “What was it?”
“Your father,” Mom said, “never really figured out how to open his mouth and tell me how he felt about me.”
Mick laughed. “Yeah? No kidding. Dad’s never been a talker.”
His mother shook her head, but as fondly as she had earlier. “No. He never has been. And you’re like he is, Mickey, except that you got my dad’s, your Pap’s, golden tongue. So you talk a lot but you don’t say the right things, do you?”
This stopped him. “Huh?”
“Do you like Alice?”
“Yeah. Of course I do. I like her a lot.”
“Does she know that?”
“She ought to,” Mick said.
“Do you tell her?”
Mick frowned. “Sure. I mean . . . well, I do stuff for her.”
“Your dad was always doing stuff for me, too. Still does. The difference,” Mom said, “is that now I know what it means when he rotates my tires.”
“Are you saying I need to rotate Alice’s tires? I just changed her oil.”
Mom sighed and shook her head again with an expression Mick had long grown used to. “No. I’m saying that if you like her, you’d better tell her so, or else she might end up marrying a Gino.”
“Mom, we’re not even talking about getting married,” Mick said uncomfortably.
His mother shook her head again, looking pained. “Of course you’re not. You tell Alice I asked after her, though. You’ll do that?”
“Sure, Mom.” He had no idea why it mattered but if his mother wanted to send her regards, he’d be sure to pass them along.
At home, he busied himself catching up on all the stuff that went ignored while he was at Alice’s. Laundry, bill paying, a few DVR’d shows he wanted to see before the next episodes came out. He fell asleep on the couch and by the time he woke up, it was close to 9:00 p.m. He’d missed a phone call and a video chat request from Alice.
She was probably in bed already. They’d been up until four this morning, doing things that twitched his dick at the memory, but it was a hollow arousal now. Dammit, Mick thought as he loaded the dishwasher and started it running and set the coffeemaker for the morning, he wanted her here.
Settling at his kitchen table with his laptop, he pinged her. The video chat program rang for so long he was sure she wasn’t going to answer, but right before he was about to give up, the screen shifted from showing hi
s whole face to putting him in a tiny box in the lower corner, with Alice full screen.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
“Hi.” She yawned. Her hair was wet, and she wore a thin tank top that clung to every curve.
Damn, he liked it when she wore that shirt. “You’re in bed, huh?”
“Well,” she said, wryly amused, “when you keep me up until it’s almost sunrise . . .”
“I like it when you keep me up.”
She made a face, but looked pleased. She settled back against her pillows. She must’ve been using her tablet, because the view shifted for a woozy, unsettling minute before she adjusted. At least, until everything went dark.
“Oops,” she said as she came back into view. “Gotta prop you up.”
Mick made a little whoop-whoop and pushed upward with his hands. “Prop me up, prop prop me up.”
Alice burst into laughter, then gave him a lingering look with an expression he couldn’t quite interpret. “You make me laugh so much, Mick. I love that about you.”
He feigned peeking down her shirt. “Lean forward a little bit.”
She did, giving him a full view of her cleavage. When she sat back, her nipples erect and clearly visible through the thin fabric, heat twisted in his belly. It blazed in her eyes, too.
All at once, his longing was enormous and indescribable. He’d almost left her sleeping this morning without a kiss good-bye because he hadn’t wanted to wake her, but now he wished he’d kissed her ten times. He hadn’t known how much he would miss her tonight until he hadn’t seen her all day.
“I want you so much right now,” Mick said suddenly.
Alice shifted again to let the thin strap of her tank top fall over her shoulder, exposing her even more. She made a little noise. “Mmmm hmmm.”
He’d meant he wanted her to be there with him. In his kitchen, making a bedtime cup of tea. In his bed, leaving her scent all over his pillows. In his bathroom in the morning, with her stuff taking up all the room on the countertop.