by Bromberg, K
I sat on his desk, and he lowered himself onto his creaky rescued chair.
“I’ve been busy,” he said. “And I’ve been neglecting my supertaster.”
“Your supertaster doesn’t need upkeep. I see you in here, running around, and I think, ‘He’s getting his dreams.’ I’ll never begrudge you.”
“But your dreams?”
The concrete floor was cracked in the shape of Ohio.
“They’re a little busted up, but they’ll get over it.”
“You need me to give you more of what I got?”
“I don’t know if I want to put you through that.”
“I’m going to jerk off anyway. Might as well be for a good cause.”
“I don’t know what I want right now.”
“That’s not like you.” There was a light rap on the door. “What?”
A muffled voice came from the other side. “Floor staff wants you to look at the table setting.”
“Five!” he shouted before addressing me more gently. “I want to spend five minutes not talking about this opening. I make a hundred decisions a day, and I can’t tell if they’re good anymore. People are going to show up to the opening, and I’m going to be running around with googly eyes and my tongue lolling out. I’m leaving here in a straitjacket if I don’t get five. Fucking. Minutes.”
“You should…” I stopped myself from saying relax or adding the usuals.
Meditate.
Try yoga.
Get your mind off it.
I was becoming that person.
“I hear not thinking about problems solves them,” I said snidely. “You could take a bath.”
“I don’t like getting prune fingers.” He took an envelope from his desk drawer and rapped it on the heel of his hand. “Tell me about not knowing what you want for five minutes. Please.”
“I had this idea that it would all be so easy if there was a man. A daddy. A husband even. We could order a family, three kids and a dog, like it was on GrubHub or something. And when I knew the guy part was never going to happen, I figured, okay, so I don’t get to do it the easy way. I still need to eat… and I can figure it out. It’s still not impossible.”
“Like ordering for pickup.”
“Or making it my damn self. Right? But I keep burning dinner, and I’m at the end of my rope when Byron shows up. He’s handsome and terrible, and he’s got this soft underside that’s really appealing. He wants kids, and when I was over the shock of the condom breaking… a voice inside me said, ‘Maybe I’ll get a shot at the easy way.’ I pretended I didn’t hear it, but it was there.” I shook my head, looking at my palms in my lap “I hate admitting I thought that.”
“It’s normal to want things to be easy.”
“And now, I feel shitty that I’m not pregnant, but add to it that I feel like I got dumped.”
His brows twisted into a knot at the top of his nose. “What did he say to you?”
“He wants me.”
“Why do you have a puss on? I thought you liked him.”
“I do. I did. I don’t know. He just hit us with a ton of motions and new drawings. Now I think I couldn’t tell up from down when it was wall-to-wall baby junk. He’s the same. I’m the same. I should just leave it like it should have been in the first place.”
“You just have to stop thinking about it,” he joked.
I laughed a little at the impossibility and ubiquity of the advice.
Emilio gave me the envelope. The restaurant logo was embossed on the back with pinkish gold leaf. My name was written on the front with quill and India ink.
“You know I’m coming,” I said without opening the invitation.
“But you don’t know what I wrote in yours.”
“Fine.” I peeled back the seal and slid out the white card. A thin slice of camphor wood with foil lettering detailed the event. It was beautifully designed, sparse, thoughtful, and modern. “How much did these cost?”
“More than the menus.”
“Worth it.”
On the top flap of the paper card, Emilio had written a note in felt-tip pen.
Supertaster,
I’ll never forget those nights I blindfolded you and made you taste different pear hybrids.
Or the times you brought me lunch at La Ragazza Bella because I couldn’t stand eating my own food.
Or when you got your mother to front me ten grand for that food truck.
Never forget that you’re my best friend and muse. You’ve got the Einstein of palates.
I’ve never been alone, even when we didn’t hang out for months… You were always there. Everything that’s ever gone right for me has been because you helped me.
—Chef Emilio Spaghetti-O
PS: If our baby has your talent, I’m hiring them before kindergarten ruins their taste buds with cheese sticks and bagged carrots.
“You earned everything you’re getting,” I said, closing the card.
“You—”
A knock on the door interrupted. “Emilio?”
“All right!” He stood and took my chin in his tapered fingers. “No matter what happens, you’re not alone.”
“Thank you.” I was cut off by insistent knocking.
“I’m coming already!” he shouted.
“Try to relax,” I said, knowing it was dumb advice he didn’t know how to take any more than I did.
“Sure.” He opened the door. “If you can’t take a bath for you, take one for me.”
Chapter 19
BYRON
I wouldn’t insult Olivia by pulling punches. That would imply she couldn’t handle my best effort or didn’t want to. It was no better than letting a child win a game of chess because they were too fragile to lose, and she wasn’t fragile. Not even a little. She needed the fight.
Had she smiled at the slew of offenses I’d lobbed? Nodded in recognition? Was she angry? And did that make her wet?
It was late. The office was quiet. I was going through the architectural drawings, looking for ways to make the Bel-Air house even more ambitious, when Clarissa rapped softly on the doorjamb.
“Mr. Crowne?”
“You’re here late.”
“I had to take care of some invoicing. This came for you.”
She handed me a small manila envelope with my name written below the seal. I recognized the handwriting.
“Thank you. You should go home. The invoices can wait.”
“I will. You should go home too.”
“Close the door behind you.” I went behind my desk.
She nodded and left, clicking the glass door closed. When she disappeared down the hall, I opened my father’s envelope, pressed the sides, and slid the contents onto my glass desk.
The check. My inheritance. The One Big Thing every Crowne heir was entitled to.
It came with a note.
Dear Byron,
Wiring this seemed impersonal. I wanted you to have something you could hold in your hands.
Logan has already expressed my concerns to you. In case he waxed dramatic about my thoughts, my apprehension is minor. You’ve made your own way. You’ve built a solid, separate business. I trust you know what you need.
I understand the six of you call my gift the OBT. One Big Thing.
The fact that you are only the second of the six to call in this chit makes me think OBT stands for Offer Blocked Today. Your mother thinks it speaks to your ability to discern a need from a want. Optimism Bides Time is what she calls it.
Frost wrote about two roads diverging and the choice between them. By waiting, you choose the road less taken. I am proud of you for this and a long list of things. Enumerating them will embarrass you, so I won’t, but suffice to say your boldness with this project takes up a space, and the way you’ve handled yourself after Samantha is another.
I stopped reading for a moment. He had no idea how I’d handled myself. I hadn’t told him or anyone except Olivia about my guilt or my fear that I’d push someon
e to suicide again. He and Mom had seen an appropriate measure of grief. They’d seen Samantha’s mother blame me and had countered it so stridently I had to pretend I believed them.
Which brings me to the next embarrassing point of pride on the list. Thank you for bringing Olivia around this past weekend.
That explained it. He was proud that I was moving on.
Was I? And was I moving on with Olivia? We’d been cornered, so we’d made the best of it for the weekend. Until the sun shone through her hair as we rode to Dead Man’s Grove, she had been a practical consideration.
Grief and guilt were mine. One fed the other. Letting go of grief made the guilt scream over my inhuman ability to do so. Forgiving myself made grief remind me, steadily and quietly, that I was a dangerous man who could hurt someone again.
It was good to see you interested in someone, especially someone so lovely. She reminded me of your mother when we first met. I had her completely charmed—in the bag, if we’re talking man-to-man. But she made it clear she wasn’t taking any of my shit. A rare combination not every man wants. A partner like that is worth it. Trust me. My marriage was the kindest decision your mother ever made.
I wish you the very best, son.
—Dad
Dropping the note, I picked up the check. Eight figures. Enough to build a palace. I was pouring the foundation of a fortune with my name on it. Something of my own to leave for my children.
I laughed softly at myself and dropped into my chair.
The office was too quiet this late. No one was buzzing me with a distraction. Only the breathy hum of the air conditioning kept me company.
Two roads diverged in a wood… And I’d tried to pave a new one down the middle.
It had all seemed so easy. Have a child without the lie of a wife I couldn’t love. That ripped condom had been a gift. All I’d had to do was convince Olivia that my lucky break was hers too.
Why couldn’t a lucky break be planned?
We liked fucking each other. Why not save her the humiliation of the turkey-baster treatments?
The air conditioner shut down, exhaling for a few seconds before falling to silence. I couldn’t move. If I got up, something precious would break. Something I’d earned. A gift I hadn’t asked for, hidden inside a modest box and wrapped in a satin bow.
What was it? If I moved, what would I lose but a moment of peace? The singular contentment of a path cut down the center?
All I needed was Olivia to walk the road with me, which meant breaking through the wall between us. What if I took my brother’s advice and knocked on the door?
The calm of the room shifted around me and formed itself into action.
I called her from the office phone.
“Hello?” she answered with a question as if she didn’t know who it was.
“It’s Byron.”
Her breath. Water dripping. The air whipping around the chasm between us.
“I didn’t recognize the number,” she said.
“I’m calling from my office.”
“Nice play.”
“It wasn’t a play. It was just the closest phone.”
“I believe you.”
“Would you have picked up if you’d known it was me?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can hang up and call again from my cell. You’ll see my name and decide yes or no.”
“No, it’s okay.” The sound of rippling water came through. “We’ll pretend I decided yes.”
That made me unreasonably, disproportionately happy. “Are you taking a bath?”
“Yeah. It’s supposed to be relaxing, but—”
“But then I called?”
I gave her an opportunity to tell me to fuck off. I had to know if she’d answered my knock or if she was looking through the peephole before she chased me away.
“But it’s never as relaxing as it is wet and boring,” she said.
Didn’t express regret that I’d reached out to her. She didn’t take the bait. She’d opened the door when I’d knocked, but there was another door behind it.
Might as well knock on that one too.
“You know what I hear is relaxing?” I said.
“Meditation?”
“Me driving over there and making you come until you collapse.”
“For a guy named after a poet, you have an unpoetic way with words.”
“It’s modernist verse.”
She laughed. “I’m sorry about how I acted. I think I put a lot into that pregnancy, and it was like…” She sighed. Water sloshed when she moved. “It was like pin the tail on the donkey. They blindfold you and spin you around, and you’re so disoriented and dizzy you pin the tail on the birthday cake.”
“That really happened, didn’t it?” I put my feet on the desk.
“Totally. It was a mess.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight. I was convinced I was going to nail it. But I had chocolate frosting up to my elbow. Anthony Rubino said I looked like I’d had my arm up the dog’s butt. Everyone laughed. I was so mad I cried. And we didn’t even have a dog.”
“I’m trying hard not to laugh.”
“You’re doing a shitty job. I can hear your brain.”
“At least I know what to expect. If you’re disoriented now, next step is you’ll be angry enough to cry.”
“I did that already,” she said softly, falling into a heavy pause.
She had. On the bathroom floor at my parents’ house, she’d expelled more tears than I’d thought the human body could hold. I let her own the silence.
“What do you need, Olivia?”
“I just… I need some time to be normal. Like, doing what I know how to do. The usual. Eating. Sleeping. Accessorizing. Taking on assholes like you.”
“You don’t know how to take on an asshole like me.”
“You definitely are an original,” she replied. “You made me stay in here until I got pruney.” The water lapped on the sides of the tub, protesting her perfection stepping out of it. “I must like you.”
“It’s taking every effort in my body to stay in this chair.”
“Don’t chase. Please.”
I heard the bar rattle as she removed the towel, then the rustle of terrycloth running over every inch of her skin. My dick swelled thinking about it.
“I don’t want to chase you,” I said. “I want to catch you. There’s a difference.”
“If you caught me, what would you do with me?”
“Get you pregnant.” I waited for the suggestion to land.
“You’re a scary guy sometimes,” she replied finally.
“What scares you? That you’re naked right now and I have a hard-on?”
“No, that you might actually be a devoted person.” The bed creaked. “With a really big, hot hard-on.”
“You’re on the bed.”
“You.” She elongated the last vowel as if she needed a moment to think. “You’re at the office.”
“You’re on your back.”
She paused, then the mattress springs squeaked as if she’d rolled onto her back.
Was compliance consent?
“Olivia?”
“Go ahead. I just… I may be confused about what I want, but my body isn’t.”
“No?”
“It wants you, and it won’t shut up about it.”
Lazily, I pulled my belt from the loop. “You pull your knees up and wide, exposing your pretty cunt.”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Yes. You pull your dick out. It’s huge, Byron. It’s so hard you can barely get it free.”
Getting it free was the easy part. Keeping it from exploding was a different matter. “You pinch your nipple.”
“There’s a drop on your tip. You rub it off.”
Using my precum as lubricant, I rubbed the head.
“You’re touching yourself,” I said, giving her a moment before continuing. “You’re wet and swollen. Two f
ingers slide right inside you. You pull them out because you want to add another. Three fingers. Deep, Beauty. You can’t get them deep enough, but you try.”
She groaned.
“Put me on speaker,” I commanded. The sound changed. Her obedience increased the throb in my dick. I almost came in my hand. “Crouch. Get on the balls of your feet. God, I want to be there. I’m so hard for you.”
“You’re here. Between my feet.”
She had me talking right up to her cunt.
“Three fingers. Fuck yourself with them. Hard. Like I’m pounding you. Bury me in you. Let me see your dirty fucking soul.”
“God, Byron. I—” Her sentence disappeared into a grunt.
“Push deep and use your thumb on your clit.” I slowed down before I unloaded. “Do you want to come?”
“Yes.”
“You want things to be normal. Fucking you is what I want to be normal. My cock deep inside your throat, your cunt, your ass. Your screams when you beg me to stop because you can’t take coming anymore. My mark all over your body. Inside and out.”
“Can I come?”
I didn’t answer. The thought of writing on her inside and out nearly pushed me over the edge, and she must have heard it.
“Byron,” she said. “Lord Byron. Come in me. Stain me.”
“With me now…” was all the permission I could get out.
I knew from her groans that we came together. I was so focused on the aural connection I didn’t realize my eyes had been closed until I opened them.
“Hey?” she said. “You there?”
“Still here.” I snapped a couple of tissues out of the box and cleaned up.
“What are we doing?”
We were having phone sex, but I knew what she meant.
“I have a proposal.” I went into the bathroom to wash my hands. The mirror was kind. Handsome enough guy. Well put together. Business. I could do some business here.
“Go on.”
“I think we’re sexually compatible.”
“What clued you in?”