by Devin Sawyer
I nod my head, too self-conscious to talk about us openly. Too nervous to acknowledge Torren’s experience of us. We hadn’t gone there yet. I hadn’t planned to go there. He would be done at Eventor before we knew it.
“He’s all in. He’s not pulling back if you let him in. Know that, before you go any further.”
I nod my head again, waiting to find my voice. “I promise that this time Torren and I are both making an attempt to be more mature in our encounters. What happened, happened a long time ago. He’s lucky to have had a friend as good as you.”
It was a stupid promise to make. We weren’t being more mature about anything. We were ignoring the past as if it didn’t matter. We were merely pretending that we were above a petty high school break up, but we both knew it was so much more than that.
“Yeah, I know he is,” Grady cockily mumbles. “Asshole doesn’t deserve me.”
I give him a genuine smile. “I’ll have to tell him you think so.”
“I already remind him every day.” Grady pats my knee in a friendly, ‘thanks for talking to me’ kind of way and gets up to leave.
“Be smart, Ari.”
I’m not sure what he means by that. Is “smart” being with Torren or not being with Torren? You don’t get to leave a room on a note that ambiguous. And why the hell was everyone freaking checking in on me and Torren today?
I contemplate what he said and whip out a yellow Post-it note, write out a message, and go to stick it on Torren’s computer just like he had done to me.
I’ll leave the door open.
~
I’m physically exhausted after tonight’s party, but I’ve been flirting with the idea of kissing Torren all day and mentally I’m in knots over him. It’s late and I’m making myself a bowl of cereal when Torren slips in.
“Want some?” I gesture to my bowl.
“Boy, do I ever,” he says, looking me over, not even paying attention to my cereal. I roll my eyes at him. He too looks tired. He wraps his arms around me from behind as I walk to the couch trying not to spill the milk from my bowl.
“Grady talked to me today,” I say.
“Oh yeah?” he queries, dropping kisses on my neck behind my ear.
“Yeah, a friendly warning of sorts.”
“Ah, yes, I got the same one from Evan. I almost knocked his teeth in when he cornered me bright and early, luring me in with the promise of breakfast tacos.”
I laugh at his passive dislike for Evan. I should have known they would never get along. Evan is a good guy, the best, but the truth is that he will always be waiting for an opening when it comes to me.
“So, we got the big brother talks, what a rite of passage.” He kisses my cheek as I slurp a bite of cereal. I finish my bowl and Torren takes it to the sink for me as I hunker down into the couch. When he returns, he pulls me into his side and turns on the TV. Old reruns of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson are on.
“How did you meet Grady?” I ask him despite how enthralled he is in the cheesy jokes. He looks over at me, guarded, the smile slipping just a little from his face.
“Grady was the correctional officer that I told you about. The one at the prison I befriended.”
He had never told me it was Grady, but I figured as much. I gave him a knowing nod.
“I spent more time talking to him than any of the other prisoners and I took my fair share of shit for it from them, quickly becoming known as the rat, even if I wasn’t telling Grady shit about the other guys. I didn’t care if they didn’t like me as long as they didn’t kill me, I had no intentions of making these men my friends. But Grady, on the other hand, hadn’t been so bad. I wouldn’t call him a friend, he was still a guard at the end of the day, but he talked to me like a normal person, not about drug deals, not about tattoos earned, or the number of years and time I’d served. I didn’t want to talk about those things and that’s all prisoners have to talk about. So, when I got out, I got into therapy, and about a year later I found Grady’s number in a phone book. I had told him my idea, but I don’t think he really believed in me at first. He said to call him when I got the idea off the ground. I knew getting a loan would be an obstacle, but Gavin helped with that and we hired a few guys and worked events all over Texas at first just to book jobs, but eventually, we built up a small clientele here in Houston. Grady was there from the beginning.”
“I’m glad you had someone like that during the low moments. Prison must have been scary.” There. The elephant in the room has been addressed. It’s out in the open.
“More sad than scary. It’s just a dark, depressing place.”
He kisses my temple to distract me. “What about you? What were you doing after we were us?”
After we were us. It was such a strange way of referencing the nightmare that we lived.
“I came to Houston, went to school. That’s all really.”
“What was your dark moment? Who was there for you?” The concern in his eyes sears into me. I take a deep breath knowing it would come to this eventually.
“When I returned to school after your sentencing, the rumors were pretty bad. Everyone seemed to know that I had been with you or that there was something going on between us, but like everything in Layton, the rumors eventually died down and I was allowed to be invisible with Emily again. I welcomed it that time, but the lowest moment probably came a year later. I had just moved to Houston and I was living in the dorms on campus. It was everything we had talked about and I couldn’t help but wonder why you weren’t there. It had been a year since your sentencing. It was awful. I hated Layton with every fiber of my being. I didn’t want to go back, but I wasn’t in the right emotional state to be starting over. In my mind, I hadn’t even ended things back home. They had just wrapped themselves up and sent me on my way. So, the first week in my dorm, imagine a girl lying on the floor of her cold and ugly dorm room, dry heaving, body convulsing, as I tried, like a child, to rein in my sobs, knowing I shouldn’t still be broken. But I was. Even more so than before, and it had been an entire year. My roommate made some questionable suggestions. We weren’t close, but I appreciate that she bothered to care at all. I had Chelsea, but we weren’t talking much, both of us going through our own shit. She was dealing with Jeff. I had people in my corner though.”
A silent pause rolls through us as we navigate the old painful memories, unsure of how or if we should even comfort the other. I break the silence first.
“Gavin told you about Jeff? That it was him taking the money?” A deep breath leaves his chest.
“No. Gavin didn’t tell me. Jeff told me. Although I’m pretty sure Gavin had something to do with him owning up to it. He came to the prison two weeks after my court date. Said he planned to pay everything back, but that he just needed to borrow the money. I had known he was selling drugs on the side. I wasn’t happy about it, but I knew he was in some debt. His dad’s funeral, his truck. He made plenty of money at his job, but he was just spending it faster than he could pay off his debt. I was trying to help him before he got into a hole too deep, but it happened faster than I could fix it.”
“Do you still talk to him?” I don’t know why it matters, but it does.
“Fuck no. I haven’t heard from him since that day.”
I nod my head, understanding. “I went to prison for him. He was my best fucking friend and I find out while doing his time that he’s fucking my family over? Nah, he’s dead to me.”
I hadn’t heard from him since either. I wasn’t close to Jeff. He’d always been kind when I was around, but it doesn’t change the fact that he fucked over one of the best people in his life. Chelsea and Torren definitely took the brunt of his repercussions. I get why Chels wants to be Torren’s friend still, they share that loss. I know Chelsea hears from him occasionally although she never wants to talk about it.
“I always wanted to ask how you figured it out. Gavin said it was you. Said you told him after the trial that day.”
“I was hoping i
t might change something. The night you went to jail I went home and couldn’t sleep. I suspected it then but really only pieced the full evidence together a few weeks later after I’d really gone through all the pay stubs by hand.”
He links his fingers in mine. Holding my hand, as if to link our two experiences as well. This feels too personal and I feel the uncomfortable sting pulse through me, begging me to pull away, but I don’t.
“Thanks for that. I wish he hadn’t done it. But Gavin didn’t deserve that. He loves that shop.”
Torren returns to watching the TV and I let Grady’s words from today wash over me. He’s all in and he’s not pulling back if you let him in. Following the talk, I had wanted to clear the air, get it all out in the open, but I feel like now it’s only murkier. The anxiety I feel sits tight in my stomach, the same one I used to get before sex, and I want to run. I don’t want these old reminders of my pain. I continue to let this thing with Torren happen when I don’t know what the hell I want, I only know what I want right now.
Chapter 25
Torren
I really thought talking about our past would draw us closer together, but Ari has only seemed to put more walls up. We didn’t even do anything sexual that night. She just curled up in my arms and laid on me until we both passed out on her couch. She’s kept her distance at work, claiming it’s to protect us both from office gossip circulating but even our few nights together since have been tense. I see her drop the act only for the amount of time I’m between her thighs and I can’t continue to fight this battle with her forever.
The following day she proceeds to torture me with another dress fitted to her petite frame. This dress is knee length with long sleeves. She looks elegant in it. I still want to take it off her, but I also want to take her out in it. I won’t get to see her the next few nights with it being the week of Christmas, and I don’t want to wait until Sunday to see her again. If I give her that much time to keep acting like this, then I’ve got no hope.
“Let’s grab lunch,” I request as I walk by her office in the late afternoon.
“Sorry Torren, I’m swamped today. I need to get the menu finalized with Joyce for tonight’s party.”
“Allison can handle that. Can’t you, Allison?” I ask her assistant playfully. She looks up from her desk across the hall and nods her head emphatically. She’s ambitious and eager to please Ari.
“What about you? Don’t you have work to do?”
I point down the hall to my office where Grady has happily taken the lead today as well.
“Fine. I could go for a warm cup of soup and a sandwich.”
“Panera it is.” She walks past me grabbing her coat and I shut the door behind her.
“What an eager beaver.”
“What?” She snaps her head back around at me, glaring.
“Oh, uh, Allison. She seems quite the go-getter.”
She eyes me warily. “She’s dedicated. That’s what I need in an assistant.”
I nod my head in agreement. We order lunch and take a seat at a table near the window.
“You seem stressed out this past week. Wanna let me know what’s got your panties in a wad? Maybe I can help.”
“Just work. I’m fine.” Her curt response is nothing new in this week of being pushed away. “You’re already doing everything I need you to do to decrease my stress.”
Well, that hurt. “Oh burn. Being reduced to the sole use of sexual favors -- and I thought maybe after eight years we might have missed each other. Next time I’ll come over, service you and leave before you can offer a tip.”
She rolls her eyes at me, underestimating the hurt I feel right now. The pain she’s reduced me to.
“That’s not what I meant. Don’t be a sensitive Sally. Plus, if I recall, you’re the one who’s supposed to offer just the tip.” She lightens the mood with a penis joke. If I weren’t feeling wounded, it might be funny. I just want her to admit that she’s feeling the same damn thing I am.
Ari talks mostly about work-related things over the rest of lunch, unable to pull away and detach. Too afraid to let herself switch out of who she plays at the office. On our walk back the three blocks to the office space I push her, once more, to open up.
“Why did you decide to come to lunch with me?”
“Because I needed to eat,” she balks.
“Is that it? You could have eaten at the office or with any other of our lovely office-mates.”
“Yes, well you asked.”
“Ari, you’re too uptight. Let go a little. I know you. Okay? I know who you were and I see who you are now. Let go and stop acting. If you don’t want to do things with me or aren’t interested, then just say so. But instead, you come up with an excuse every time I push you to spend time with me. I’m not going to beg forever. You either want it, or you don’t.”
Her expression is blank. I can’t read her when she’s like this, void of emotion. I walk off ahead and leave her a few paces behind the entire way back to the office. This game of ours is growing old. After arriving back at the office, I give Gavin a call. I haven’t wanted to bother him much with details of Ari. I’m sure it makes everyone from that time frame a little nervous, but he’s supportive. He doesn’t want to see me hurt. Gavin’s never had any serious relationships. No one he’s been serious enough about to settle down with and I know that’s a lonely life. I don’t think being a mechanic in Layton is conducive to a love life when the clientele you serve sees you as the help. He does encourage me to call Barb, and I know that’s good advice if he has none to offer himself.
The rest of the day is uncomfortable. We prep for the party that evening, avoiding each other and the entire team senses it and thus avoids us. I meet with my team just prior to the start of the party and review all the safety measures for this particular event. I have Grady, Patrick, and Maurice working tonight, giving some of the others a night off for once to see their families. Patrick is from the Boston area and doesn’t have any family down here, while Maurice is from Italy, and neither of them seems to mind the extra hours.
“You sleeping in the dog house tonight, chief?” Patrick asks me in his thick Massachusetts accent, gesturing over to Ari. It’s clear they’ve picked up on our relationship, of sorts.
I shake my head offering a smile at his good-natured teasing. “No Pat, Tonight for once, she’s in the dog house.”
The boys hoot and holler at that. “Boss is laying down the law,” Patrick hoots again. Maurice and Grady laugh along. It’s not much of a secret anymore, even if Ari wants us to be. There’s no hiding our chemistry behind office walls. It’s as evident as ever. It would be a shame if she’s going to throw it all away. If she wants to back out, I’d rather she pipe up now.
Tonight’s event is open to the public and hosted by one of the local hotels downtown. We have to refuse people at the door and this creates a wait list that wraps around the block. I attempt to keep a watch on the line, managing it, so that the guys can continue to watch the inside exits and the crowd. Not to mention, I get tired of Ari shooting daggers at me ever since I smarted off to her this afternoon. The air is brisk, and I don’t mind the cooler air compared to a rocking party where everyone is sweating.
Once everyone has entered, we shut the front doors, and I offer my assistance to Ari, doing whatever she needs to make things run smoothly. Outside of giving me tasks, her fire seems to have faded some, and she seems almost grateful for my help, a big difference from her mood earlier. When the party wraps up a little after midnight, I stay to break down and clean up. A handful of the crew does the same, trying to wind down from the loud music and energetic atmosphere.
She lingers around me during the final tasks. This is unlike her and I question her motive.
“Are you ready to talk yet?” I prompt her. She stares me in the eyes, never afraid or backing down from me.
“No,” is all she responds. But before I can process where to go next, she flings her arms around my neck and plants her pe
rfectly supple lips on mine. She peppers small kisses on my face and I can’t keep a straight face, I want to kiss her for days, but the smile on my face makes it hard.
“The team is pretending not to notice us,” I inform her. “You can probably pretend as well, come tomorrow when you regret it.”
“Let them pretend, then. I made a choice. I choose you. Now choose me too. No going back,” she whispers, her voice shaking with the slight hint of fear.
“I’m always going to choose you, Ace. Always.” I kiss her back and the smile spreads from me to her, like they are contagious and being passed from my mouth to hers. I feel so happy in this moment. It took years for us to overcome, but she finally chose me. Not the past, and not the unknown future, but just me right here in the present.
“So, the last few days, were what?” I ask, needing clarification. Needing to know that every time we take one step forward, she isn’t going to try to run two steps in the other direction.
“Minor setback. That’s all.” She smiles brightly up at me.
“You’re good?” I need her to confirm it. I need to hear her say it again.
“WE’RE good. Now take me home. Our make-outs deserve some privacy.”
I rush her to the car, letting the others finish the cleanup and I hurry her home to show her my appreciation.
Chapter 26
Ari
There’s no going back now. Torren and I are public. A low level of fear sits, stirring in my stomach all the time, waiting for the ball to drop, waiting for this to be just like last time. He comes over most nights, no longer sticking to the three-night rule. A few times he has even stayed over, just holding me. I knew those nights we were crossing a boundary. I knew we were breaking the rules. He would still leave Eventor next week. With Christmas parties completed we really only have New Year’s celebrations to go. Problem was, I didn’t care anymore. I had a lot to tell Torren still, a lot to re-live from all those years between. Some nights we went over it and sometimes I just sank into the comfort of his arms.