Mostly My Girlfriend

by Doyle, S.

  “Lauren,” Jules said to her. “I’m sorry, but I wasn’t kidding about that flight. We really have to go.”

  “Yeah, sure. I can always come back. This place seems like a really super awesome place to work.”

  “Super awesome,” Jules repeated. She stood and offered her hand again. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “I’ll show her out,” Daniel said.

  As soon as the door shut behind them, Jules glared at me. “Are you serious?”

  “She was the first candidate,” I replied. “Give me a break.”

  “She was supposed to have been phone-screened by HR. We need to tell Eileen that any more than one use of the word awesome or super in a conversation and that person is immediately disqualified.”

  “You have to give people a chance,” I pointed out.

  “Why?”

  I sighed. Finding her an assistant was going to be next to impossible. “Fine. But this doesn’t end here. The minute we get back after the holidays we’re interviewing again.”

  “Okay, but just saying, whoever we hire, he or she has to find you equally as dorky as I do or it’s never going to work.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Now can we go see your parents, you big coward?”

  I checked my watch. Damn. We were totally going to make the flight.

  * * *

  New York

  Christmas Day

  Ethan

  “I ordered a hundred copies of Time.”

  “That seems excessive, Mom.” I told her, reaching for the glass of wine in front of me. I remembered the last time I’d been here with Julia and the stink my father had made about my drinking. I glanced in his direction, but he was focused on the tenderloin on his plate.

  “I don’t think so at all. Julia, what do you think? Maybe I should order more.”

  My mother was beaming at me and it made me shift in my chair. I’d clearly made her happy by coming back for the holiday, which reminded me, again, of the years when I’d cut myself off from them and what it had done to her.

  We were sitting around the formal dining room table, stuffing ourselves with more food than any four people could eat. Jules was filling in the gaps of conversation whenever things got too close to being awkward.

  And my dad…well, we were both trying.

  “Enough with the magazine cover, Rachel,” he said. “You’re going to give Ethan a bigger head than he already has.”

  “Oh please don’t!” Jules pounced on the easy joke. We all chuckled, and I thought this wasn’t so bad. This felt almost close to normal.

  “And son, you’ve been feeling well?”

  “Yes. Feeling fine.”

  “Getting enough sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  My father nodded. Then he looked at my mother and she nodded, too. We’d crossed that hurdle. No more talk of prescriptions, drugs or my condition.

  “So you two are running the company together,” my mom said.

  “Well, he’s mostly my boss. Mostly.” Julia smiled.

  My mother nodded, but I could see there was another question. “What, Mom?”

  “I just…well, it’s been years since you two have known each other. Last year you spent the holidays with her family. This year with us. I guess…well, wouldn’t you call her mostly your girlfriend?”

  My mother laughed and my dad chuckled, too, until they could see neither of us was laughing.

  Jules reached for her wine and I tried to think about how to answer that.

  “Jules and I aren’t together like that. You both know this. We’re friends.”

  My mother lifted a shoulder, her fingers playing with the pearls at her neck. A Christmas gift from my father.

  “I just thought…working together like you are…maybe that changed. Julia’s like family to us now, after all.”

  “Really?” I quipped. “Because when I first brought her here, you and Dad called her Julie the whole night.”

  “Ethan,” Jules snapped at me. “That was a long time ago. Rachel, I appreciate your feelings, but it’s really never been like that between Ethan and me. We’re just friends and coworkers. Makes things less complicated and it helps to keep us focused on the work.”

  That wasn’t the truth. I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what the truth was, but it wasn’t that. I also knew I had been the one to strike first with a dig at the past and we were all trying to get over that.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to be flip.”

  She reached out as if she wanted to pat my hand but, of course, the table was far too large for that.

  “So are you two seeing any other people?” my father asked as a natural segue.

  “Not me,” Jules said, shaking her head. Of course she wasn’t seeing anyone. She was working too hard. It was one of the reasons I needed to force her to hire an assistant.

  “I am,” I announced.

  “You are?” Jules asked, clearly stunned. Of course it would be a surprise to her. Why wouldn’t it have been? There would have been no reason for her to know about Kari.

  “Her name is Kari Webb. The name might sound familiar because—”

  “Kari Webb the Victoria’s Secret model?” Jules asked, her voice rising perhaps an octave too high.

  “Yes. She does some modeling work for them. We met at a charity event a few weeks ago.”

  “The Westfield Ball,” Jules correctly guessed. She looked to my parents as if offering some context. “Lots of Seattle bigwigs. I couldn’t go. There was an emergency that night I needed to handle. I didn’t realize you had so much…fun. When I asked you about it, you said it was rather dull.”

  “It was,” I said, then realized my mistake. “Except for meeting Kari, of course. She’s a sweetheart.”

  I had no idea if she was a sweetheart or not. She was, however, hot as fuck and decent in bed and she didn’t make me feel any emotion other than desire, which was perfectly safe. But by telling my parents about her they would see that Jules and I were never going to be a thing.

  Not like that.

  Jules was too important to me to risk that. She always had been.

  The conversation pretty much died at that point. My parents focused on their food and Jules concentrated on making it look like she was eating but she didn’t take another bite all night. Not even when Esmeralda brought out the dessert.

  Which bothered me. Jules loved anything chocolate.

  * * *

  Later that evening

  Ethan

  I tapped on the door to the guest room and heard a faint “Yes?” from inside.

  Not a come in. Just a yes.

  Tough. I opened the door. Jules was in bed with her laptop open. No doubt doing something work related. “I wanted to see if you needed anything.”

  “I’m fine. I’m good. I don’t need anything.”

  Yeah.

  I closed the door behind me, then went to sit on the bed. As soon as I did, she moved toward the center.

  “Please tell me you’re catching up on your Christmas porn,” I said with a smirk.

  “Yes, Ethan. I’m watching porn then plan to jack off in your parents’ apartment. I hope your dad doesn’t hear me when I come. I’m really super loud.”

  I snorted and tried not to feel anything related to her talking about her orgasms.

  “Did I say something wrong earlier? At dinner?” When she gave me a blank look, I added, “About seeing Kari.”

  “No. You didn’t say anything wrong. You used to tell me about your conquests all the time when we were writing to each other. Why should this be any different? I was just surprised…because, you know, you said how boring the event was.”

  It was true. I did used to write to Jules about everything. But this was different than telling her about other women when we’d been apart. This was the first person I’d fucked since I’d hired her. Someone she might see me with at events or around town if Kari and I continued to date each other.

  This
felt different. Like I had something to feel guilty about it. And it did to her, too, which is why it had been fake smiles and no chocolate dessert since I’d mentioned Kari.

  “You’ve seen people, too,” I pointed out. “Remember what’s his name? Greg, Gerald…”

  “Gary,” she supplied.

  Stupid name. “Right. Him.”

  “Ethan, I’m not upset that you’re seeing Kari. It’s fine. You date. I date. We know this about each other. Remember?”

  Yeah. We were different than people who dated. We were way more important to each other than that.

  “But…” she said as if she’d been giving it a lot of thought. “I do realize that maybe I am working too hard. I mean, if I’m going to meet someone, get married someday—”

  “Who said anything about getting married?” I barked.

  “Some day!” she retorted. “I’m just saying that I’m agreeing with you! I need an assistant. Someone to help free up some of my time so I can have a life. A life outside of work.”

  Which made perfect sense. She deserved that. That’s what I wanted for her. That’s why I was shoving an assistant at her in the first place. So she could have a life. Outside of work. Outside of me.

  “Good,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt. “Awesome!”

  She laughed then and something eased in my chest.

  I leaned in and nudged her shoulder with mine. “Let’s go sneak into the kitchen and get some dessert. You didn’t touch it earlier.”

  I watched as it dawned on her that she was no less than a hundred feet from a decadent chocolate soufflé. But then I watched, too, as she shut her desire down. Because sometimes, that’s how it was with Jules. She didn’t always take what she wanted as if to prove to herself she was stronger than most people.

  “I can’t eat another bite. I’m stuffed. But you go. Have some for me.”

  I nodded. She was right. Sometimes you had to prove to yourself you were strong enough to walk away from what you really wanted.

  “Good night, Jules. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  7

  Therapy

  Ethan

  “So was it common for you to spend holidays with each other’s families?” Carol asked us.

  I nodded. “We alternated between my family and hers. Except for two years. This past Christmas, obviously, and once, when I took her to Paris—”

  “You didn’t take me to Paris,” Jules corrected. She told Carol. “It was a business trip. We were trying to expand our airline overseas and we were in talks to develop a high-speed jet that could make international flights shorter. The Concord, only significantly more fuel efficient.”

  I glanced at her and considered what our life together had been for the past eight years. The last twelve, actually.

  Lies.

  I could see that now. Our life together was nothing more than a series of lies. Hers and mine. That scared me. What it meant. If we could recover from them.

  “There were no talks about a high-speed jet,” I confessed. “That afternoon I told you I would be in technical meetings you didn’t need to attend…it was because I knew you wanted to see Paris. You were with…him at the time. So it’s not like I could just invite you to Paris for Christmas. The whole thing was a setup.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Why?”

  “I knew you always wanted to go. And I wanted to be the one to give you that. I wanted your Paris cherry. Not him.”

  “Ethan,” she whispered, shaking her head.

  “Do you remember that trip, Julia?” Carol asked her.

  “Remember it?” she huffed. “It was Paris!”

  * * *

  Two years ago

  Paris

  Julia

  “You promise you didn’t need me?” I called out. Ethan was in his room but the door to the suite was open so I knew he could hear me.

  I dropped my bags in front of my chair, kicked off my shoes, and put my beautifully sore feet on the ottoman. I had refused to wear sneakers like some uncouth American, but my flats were more about style than support.

  It didn’t matter. I would have endured the pain for hours longer if I hadn’t gotten famished and Ethan hadn’t texted me that he was done with his meetings. As it was, I got to spend the entire day sightseeing and, now, we were going to take a dinner cruise on the Seine.

  The perfect end to the perfect day.

  “I told you I could handle it,” Ethan said, leaning against the door that led to his room. He was freshly showered and his shirt was open, exposing his chest. A year ago, for one night, his body had been mine. His chest, his mouth, his dick.

  But I didn’t think about that night. It was locked in a vault of memories I didn’t touch, ever. The same place I’d stuffed the night I’d lost my virginity to Ethan.

  Besides, there was no reason to think about Ethan like that. I was dating CJ now. Perfectly nice CJ. Perfectly handsome, perfectly considerate.

  Perfect CJ.

  I was so lucky. I was trying really hard, and after three months, things were definitely going well. It probably helped that Ethan had been spending most of his time in Europe trying to lock down cities that would let him land his airline jets at a gateway.

  No last-minute meeting requests that would sabotage dinner plans. No sudden trips that would land me at the Nebraska plant for weeks while the person I was dating inevitably moved on to someone else.

  CJ and I could actually have potential. And after the emotional mess I’d been following Daniel’s wedding, I decided this was good for me. This might really get me back on my feet so that I could finally stop thinking about—

  “Did you hear me?” Ethan asked..

  “Would you button your shirt?” I asked him as he walked toward me.

  He shrugged and started buttoning his shirt. I had to be imagining the fact he looked as if he was intentionally doing it slowly.

  “Did I hear what?”

  “I asked you, how was your day.”

  Yes. That’s right. I hadn’t needed to sit in on this technical meeting so I got to have the perfect day in the most beautiful city in the world. I was officially the luckiest woman in the world.

  Well, almost perfect. It might have been better if Ethan had been able to spend it with me—

  No, not Ethan. CJ. It would have been better if CJ had been here.

  I really needed to concentrate on that.

  “It was wonderful,” I told him, leaning back in the chair and stretching out my body. “The Musée D’Orsay and the Impressionists. I mean, the Water Lilies…they almost made me cry. Then across to the Louvre. I saw the Mona Lisa and Venus De Milo. Rodin and Michelangelo sculptures…it was almost too much. Too much beauty. Too much history. And the shopping! You know me, I don’t even like shopping, but I couldn’t stop myself. Who knew a single city could hold so much?”

  “Then I’m glad I didn’t need you.”

  That had me lifting my head. “Why did you bring me here, then, if you didn’t need me?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t know who was going to be there. Wasn’t sure if they were going to bring the number wonks or not. I wanted to be prepared.”

  Okay. That sounded legitimate.

  “Are your parents upset you’re not going to be with them this year for Christmas?”

  Technically, it would have been our year to spend with them instead of with my mom in Iowa. Although that would have ended after this year anyway. I wouldn’t have been able to explain to CJ why I had to spend Christmas with Ethan and his parents.

  CJ was pretty understanding when it came to the role Ethan had in my life, but no one was that understanding. This trip had spared me from having to have that conversation with Ethan. Which was probably a cowardly way out.

  “I told them we had to be here,” he said. “They understood. What about your mom?”

  “She’s good. She started a knitting club, which has been helping her keep her mind off John.”

&n
bsp; “He’s in a good program. You spared no expense.”

  I knew that. The rehab facility was one of the best in the country. Working for Ethan made that an option. It wasn’t just about affording the facility, it was about having the clout to get him admitted to the program that would give John a real chance at a life of sobriety.

  Time’s Man of the Year, again, had a lot of clout.

  “It’s his second go-around,” I said, feeling the pressure of it. “He’s got to make it work this time.”

  Ethan picked up my feet, sat on the ottoman, then dropped my feet into his lap. I was about to pull them back when he took hold of one and started to massage it. I had a certain amount of strength when it came to Ethan, but no one had enough strength to resist having their arches rubbed by his thumb.

  “Oooohhh yeah, right there. A little harder. A little deeper.”

  “You can’t control John’s sobriety.”

  “I know that.” Mostly.

  “I don’t think you do,” Ethan said even as he swapped feet and started on the other one.

  “God that feels good,” I moaned.

  I didn’t want to think about John in that moment. I didn’t want to think about anything other than the amazing pieces of art I’d seen and the dinner I was going to have as we cruised on the Seine.

  Suddenly his touch was gone, and he was standing. Did I see him adjust his pants around his crotch? No, I didn’t. I did not see that.

  “Are you changing for dinner?” he asked even as he walked toward the door. “Our reservations are for nine.”

  I picked up one of the bags at my feet. It had been silly and whimsical and cost entirely too much money, which was always how I felt when I made these purchases. Even when I had the money to afford them. Guess that poor girl from Iowa was still buried deep in my psyche. Which hopefully was a good thing, as it would serve to keep me grounded.

  But I’d seen the dress and it made me think of all those old Audrey Hepburn movies my mom used to make me watch with her. So I went with my gut.