by Gabrielle G.
For the first time in my life, my heart doesn’t flutter when I see Chris. It’s a change, a good change. My eyes do tear up though seeing Jordan’s emotions, and I know I can’t stay mad at him for what happened. It helped me to get over my crush, to gain experience, to try something, and as much as it was hard to see them together at first, I can’t deny that they’re good for one another.
“So, everybody calls you Baby Cakes now? I still prefer Snot,” Chris says, trying to break the ice.
Jordan looks uncomfortable, so I walk around the counter and hug him tight to show him I do forgive him, even if I won’t be sharing any of my secrets with him anymore.
“I’ve missed you, Sal. I’m so sorry.” He sobs. “I wanted so much for your family to like me. I just—”
“I know,” I interrupt him, “it’s all good.” I pat his back. Chris is looking at me with regret as well, and I wonder if Jordan has told him what he meant that night.
“Are those tattoos?” Chris takes my wrists and explores my new ink. If seeing him didn’t trigger anything, his touch is like a burn on my skin. I jerk away, rubbing the ink as to make him believe it’s still a little sensitive.
“I didn’t know you wanted a tattoo, Snot.” Chris comes in for a hug, enveloping me in his arms. I step away and see the confusion he tries to hide.
“There is a lot you don’t know about me, Chris.” I smirk.
“Yeah, I got that in the last eight months. Are we good?” His eyes are blue today, full of regret. I nod to reassure him. We’re good, more than good in fact, as long as we don’t touch.
“Would you have time to have a drink?” Jordan asks. “I’m getting inked today but maybe afterwards?” That’s when I remember they are not here for me, they’re here for a tattoo. Luke made sure I was around to get over the awkwardness of the situation, but Jordan didn’t seek me out to rekindle our friendship.
I’m a fool for thinking he ever was my best friend.
Best friends don’t backstab you, blurting out your secrets.
Best friends don’t apologize in thin air.
Best friends don’t behave the way he does.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t.” I pack my files, trying to avoid both of their gazes.
“A date?” Jordan quips. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“I wish,” I say in an uncomfortable laugh. “I have a lot of work, in fact, I was on my way back to my office upstairs when you arrived.” If Jordan seems relieved that I’m leaving, Chris looks perplexed.
I walk away, not understanding what I did for Jordan to treat me this way, but happy with my decision to distance myself from them.
Chris
3 months later
Every night, I think of her.
While my boyfriend sleeps next to me, I try to understand what happened between them.
Seeing Sal has been like a kick in the gut.
She seemed so happy. So happy far away from me, from us.
In the past, every time I was around her, there was sadness in her eyes.
But not this time.
Something had changed since she stormed out on moving day.
And when I saw her, I felt peace invade me again, just like every time she’s around me.
I had gone a longer stretch without seeing her, yet it had never happened when we were in the same city. We tended to spend a lot of time together when we were in Springs Falls at the same time. Even when she was living in New York, I would text her when I was back home, and she would come to visit.
Most of the time, I would see her before Aaron even, so we could get a quiet evening to watch a movie and spend time together. In a way, maybe she was my best friend more than Aaron was. Not being able to contact her now when I knew where she worked was insufferable. I had no idea what had crawled into Jordan’s ass, but he was adamant not to see her. So, I was keeping my distance and hurting silently.
Nevertheless, I used the excuse that he was missing her, and orchestrated a run in with Luke’s help. Sal had been happy to see us at first, forgiving Jordan for what had happened, until she realized he wasn’t here for her but to get a tattoo.
Then her face fell, and she ran away.
It broke my heart. I failed not to hurt her. I failed to protect her. I failed to be her shoulder to cry on.
I wanted to run after her, but Jordan just raised his hand and said, “Don’t.” And for a reason I still can’t comprehend, I didn’t.
Three months later, she’s still out of our life.
I miss her.
Jordan works a lot and keeps saying he will reach out to her once he has more time, asking me to let him deal with it.
It’s bullshit.
He hasn’t called her once in five months… but since all the fights we ever have, are about Sal, I don’t dare contact her.
I’m a wuss.
The whole Gritt family has given me shit for letting the situation rot, but in times of cold civil war, you sometimes have to choose sides, even if it hurts you deeply.
Choosing Sal might mean losing Jordan, and I’m not sure I can lose him now.
I’ve never felt this way for someone before. I love him, even when he’s demanding and moody, even when I see people I consider like family less often—since he doesn’t want me to, even if I have to cut off a girl I loved more than my own sister.
“Chris?” Jordan whispers my name before scooting close to me. I roll onto my back, and he places his head on my chest. I wrap my arm around him to bring him closer, lovingly.
“Yeah?” His fingers trace my collarbone. I really hope he doesn’t want sex. I’m not in the mood. I’m tired of my drifting thoughts, and I would like to sleep because tomorrow is filled with appointments and meetings.
“I think we should get married…”
My chest rises, and I tense a little.
It’s a shit statement to make.
If I agree, we’ll start wedding planning, crazy talk and spending money on what’s supposed to be the best day of our life.
If I don’t, I’ll get dumped right in the middle of the night without anywhere to go.
If I don’t say anything, I’m fucked the same.
I haven’t thought once about marrying him.
I never thought once about marriage in general.
He’s the first boyfriend I’ve had since I was a teenager, and even if Luke Gritt and I were nothing more than two horny teenage boys experimenting, he was the first man I felt a somewhat of something for. When I left, he didn’t ask to follow and didn’t reach out once. We had a great time together, but we were done, and life went on.
So the boyfriend thing is pretty new and marrying someone is a commitment for life in my book.
Do I want that with Jordan or with anybody? I don’t know, and I wish I had pretended to be asleep. Reluctantly, I sigh, knowing there is only one acceptable answer.
“Okay…” I whisper into the night. It’s the logical next step to take in our relationship anyway.
“Really?” He rises on his elbow. “We’re getting married?” I nod, an inexplicable emotion invading me.
“We could get married this summer, have a destination wedding, pay for everybody’s plane ticket, fly to Paris or the Caribbean. Or would you prefer a winter wedding in Alaska? I mean…” I tune him out, his craziness is making me regret my decision.
But who backtracks a few seconds after agreeing to marry someone?
I let him get senselessly happy about the wedding, the date, and the guests.
There is an elephant in the room I want to address. I wait for him to calm down, but he doesn’t.
“I know! Why don’t we have a country chic wedding in Springs Falls?” That’s the opening I was waiting for because Springs Falls is the place where I hung out the most with Snot, and I won’t get married without her there.
I can’t envision my wedding without her.
Furthermore, if I don’t invite her, the Gritts will never forgive me. It’s one thing to be in a c
old war; it’s another to exclude her, especially if Jordan wants to get married where we grew up. So I take my courage into my own hands and whisper her name.
“What do you mean, Salomé?” he hisses between his teeth.
“I mean, if we get married, I want her to be there. If we get married in Springs Falls, surrounded by her family and friends, she has to be there.”
Jordan sits up in our bed, leaving me cold and uneasy. Maybe saying I didn’t want to get married would have been easier than bringing the Salomé issue up after all.
Jordan clears his throat. I understand he doesn’t want to talk about it, but I won’t let him have it so easy. I can’t imagine my life without him, but I can’t grasp my life without her either.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on? For five months now, you’ve been avoiding her and forbidding me to contact her. Which I did, and whatever is going on, I have your back. But if we get married, she’ll be there. She’s my best friend’s sister; she has been a sister to me, someone I’ve loved since she was a little girl. I won’t get married without her attending.” Jordan shakes his head and turns his back to me, sitting on the edge of the bed. By the way his body is shaking, he’s crying. I scoot behind him, resting my head on his shoulder. “Jor, I’m sorry, I just don’t understand why you don’t want her around. She was your best friend.” He’s sobbing now, and I can’t understand why. “Talk to me, Jordan,” I try to appease him, to have him open up to me. Pulling him back to bed, I position him into my chest and let him cry on me while stroking his hair. “Talk to me,” I whisper into the night when I hear him quieting down. He sighs, big and deep, swallowing a couple of times, snot falling on my skin.
It makes me think of Salomé, all the snot she spread on me when she was five, and then six, and then older, year after year, always crying on me, mostly because of Barnabas, sometimes because of Luke, rarely because of a boy.
The girl couldn’t stop crying.
That’s why I call her Snot. Barn used to call her ‘cry baby.’ I thought Snot was more charming. She hated loving it. But it’s something special between us, so I continued calling her so. I smile in the dark, thinking of her, absently caressing the man in my arms, wishing in a way that his snot was somebody else’s.
“The night you moved in.” Jordan breaks the silence he imposed around Sal. “I was in the corridor when you two were talking. I heard you getting, once again, jealous over her boyfriend. I heard her telling you it was none of your concern. It felt like you two were fighting like exes do. I got jealous. I still am. I can’t stand you being around her. I‘m afraid you’ll decide I’m not enough and go be with her once you get bored with men. I know you like women, too, and I can’t stop thinking that one day you’ll miss pussy, walk out on me and choose her.”
This is precisely why being bisexual is difficult in a relationship.
Most people don’t understand that it’s not that we miss dick or pussy or that we switch when we’re bored with one gender. It’s not that one day I like to have my dick in a mouth and another day a pussy in mine. I just fall into lust with a man or woman; it doesn’t matter to me as long as the person is sexy and my dick has an interest. I don’t cheat. I don’t have days for each gender. I don’t get bored with one or the other. I just love both...
I thought Jordan got that.
He told me about his bisexual friend, the long conversation he had with her about the sexuality scale and his acceptance of the spectrum. That’s why I fell in love with him because I thought he understood and accepted who I was. It hurts.
“I’ve never seen Sal that way. I’m not jealous of her boyfriends. I just don’t get why a great girl like her keeps dating douchebags. As for missing pussy, I don’t, ever. I fell in love with you, I just decided to spend my life with you, and I froze out your best friend for months over some kind of jealousy I wasn’t even aware you were feeling. You, thinking I want her, is ridiculous. Don’t you think if I wanted her it would have already happened? You, thinking that hurts, Jor. You kept her out of our life because of insecurities, and instead of talking to me about it, you just went on in the craziness. So, I will marry you, but not now, not until you become friends with Sal again and see there is nothing to worry about. Deal?”
I kiss the top of his head while he nods, but deep inside, I know I’m about to marry someone who would never understand me and will always be afraid I’ll walk away or cheat on him with his best friend. And as happy as I am that he promised to repair his relationship with Snot, he broke my heart at the same time, and I’m not sure he can ever mend it.
6
Salomé
“Oh shit, Sal, you’re a fucking goddess. I love being inside you.”
Calvin is in town for a few weeks, and he’s deep inside me as I straddle him. He’s about to come, and I’m almost there myself, as he rubs my clit with his thumb and thrusts again and again. “Come, Sal. Let go.” For a quiet guy, he’s very vocal during sex. I moan when he takes my breast in his mouth.
I’m just about there, the pleasure building inside me when my phone rings.
“Let it go to voicemail,” he mumbles into my breasts, and of course I do. I have a chiseled hot guy under me, and I need to come. I know that ringtone, and it won’t be quick.
It’s Jordan, calling me again about the hundredth idea he has for his upcoming wedding. I don’t organize weddings anymore, but when you rekindle with your best friend, and he begs you to plan the reception of the century, you say yes.
Chris said money wasn’t an issue, and whatever Jordan wanted, Jordan should have. So we’re spending a crazy amount of money on stupid shit, such as snow and ice sculptures in June, or the most expensive photographer in the country. It would be cheaper for them to get married in southern Chile, but Jordan wants the ceremony in Springs Falls, where he met Chris, where it all started, where they fell in love.
I puked a little at the idea.
In the last year, I came to the conclusion that love is a shitty, stupid illusion. Because if I could fall out of love as fast as I fell in love with Chris when I was six, it means that, in fact, love doesn’t exist. My romantic heart made room for my hungry vagina, and Calv has been a delicious snack.
We’re having the time of our lives.
My relationship status is still single, at least for when Calv is not around. When we’re in the same city, we’re very much together and exclusive.
“You’re doing it again.” Calvin’s voice brings me back to what we were doing. His long black hair covers his face, and I swipe the strands from his eyes to see how pissed he is at me.
“Shit,” I wince, “I’m sorry, Calv. I just...” I move my hips, but he stills me.
“We spoke about it, Sal. You can’t just stop moving while we’re fucking. I know this wedding is taking a lot of your time, and they’re paying you more than the CEO of a small company, but seriously, your friend is cockblocking us every time. I’m wondering if the guy has a camera in your bedroom, and when he sees I’m balls deep inside you, he calls.”
My phone rings again, and I look at Calvin apologetically, waiting for his reaction.
“Go!” he says, pointing at my phone charging on my commode. “But we’re starting back where you stopped when you’re done, and tell him to give us a freaking hour!” I kiss his lips quickly and hand him his glasses before dismounting him and rushing to my phone.
“Jordan, hey,” I breathe into the phone, “what’s up?”
“We’re downstairs, let us in!” Jordan orders.
“Well… hmm… is it urgent?”
“No, but I need to talk to you.”
“Well… Can you go to the coffee shop around the corner for an hour, and I’ll join you then?”
“An hour?” I look at Calvin, who’s slowly stroking himself while he’s checking me out. I walk toward him and replace his hand with mine.
“Calvin is in town,” I tell Jordan, winking at the man in my bed.
“Awww.” He chuckl
es. “Calvin is in town… That’s cute… Thirty minutes, bring him with you.”
I hang up and jump where my sexy nerdy tattoo artist is waiting for me, ready for some action.
“We have thirty minutes to finish what we started and shower before meeting the happy couple.” I tongue fuck him. He pushes me away and raises an eyebrow.
“Thirty minutes?” he brings his tattooed arms around my waist and turns me around. “You’d better sit on my face and suck me in the meantime then, because if I get inside you, I’ll need an hour!”
Thirty minutes later, we’re satisfied, showered, dressed and meeting Jordan and Chris at the coffee shop around the corner.
“Thirty-five minutes and twenty-seconds,” Jordan says when we sit before them. “You’re five minutes late.” He shakes his head laughing.
“Wow, J, cockblocker and rude?”
Chris is engrossed in his phone, not taking part in the conversation. He hasn’t looked at me much since Jordan allowed me back into their life. J gave me some bullshit reason about being busy and blinded by new love, but I know that’s not it. I don’t know what it is, but seeing as Jordan is still keeping me at arms’ length, Chris can’t meet my eyes for more than two seconds and hasn’t called me Snot once, it’s something bigger.
Maybe it had been Chris all along who didn’t want to see me anymore.
Maybe I was an inconvenience, and the friendship we once had was a fluke.
Maybe he didn’t like the way I told him to mind his own business.
There are a lot of maybes in my head and not many certainties.
I focus back on Calvin, who hasn’t allowed Jordan’s impoliteness to bother him. He’s pretty much as laid-back as Luke. I go to answer, but Calv beats me to it.