Mister West

by R. J. Lewis

  A.W.: Thanks, Ivy. I’m going to sleep. Have a good night and try not to dream about me. ;)

  Ivy Montcalm: If you only knew.

  A.W. : Wait, wait. What’s that supposed to mean?

  Ivy Montcalm: Good night, Aidan.

  Ten

  Ivy

  I’m grateful Ana’s buying this meal in such a good restaurant. I’m hungry, broke, and tired of Suimin noodles. I dig into my calamari like a starved fiend as my best friend sits across from me, in front of her barely eaten salad, and watches me with a look of disgust in those big hazel eyes.

  “You know,” she then says, “I hate dieting, but I think I’ve figured out an answer to skinniness. All I have to do is eat with you and you’ll disgust me enough to never eat again.”

  I burst out laughing and some of my food falls out of my mouth. She visibly shudders as she puts a leaf between her lips and chews it slowly.

  I give her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I’ve barely eaten anything lately.”

  “I know. You’re fading into nothing. Soon I’ll look like a porker next to you.”

  “Impossible.” It truly is impossible. Ana reminds me of a fucking gazelle, all feminine-like and slender. She looks like she was made for some exotic tropical beach with that sun-kissed skin and wavy elbow length dirty blonde hair.

  “So how was your Friday night?” I ask her. “Did you get laid by Franco or whatever the hell he’s called?”

  “Fernando,” she corrects me, dryly. “And no. Until I get my IUD in, I’m being a responsible twenty-four-year-old and embracing abstinence – and yes, it’s as lame as it sounds. I just can’t trust these hunks to cover their dicks when the time is right.”

  “They get too lost in the moment?”

  “Yeah, and then it’s good-bye when the pregnancy line shows up, and suddenly it isn’t their baby.”

  “You’re being bitter. They’re not all like that.”

  She doesn’t look like she believes me.

  Ana recently had a pregnancy scare. She’s been on the pill for the last four years and has always been punctual with it, up until a small vacation she took to Cuba where she forgot her pills. So, when she was late with her period, she jokingly took a pregnancy test. It came up positive. But when she got her blood tests done at the doctors, he confirmed she had a chemical pregnancy, and her latest tests were negative. She spent a week wondering why she felt sad about that.

  She’s weird talking to me about it. Probably because of what happened to me regarding my loss. I think she feels like she can’t curse about pregnancy without upsetting me. As if I’d care… I’ve long buried that emotional turmoil deep into the ground in my mind, and I’ll never think about it again. You know, self-preservation and all that (because when you don’t think about it, it’s not really there). Welcome to being numb.

  “It was good, though,” she continues. “Went out with him. Had some drinks. A bit slow for a Friday night, but it was probably insane compared to yours.”

  I smile flatly. “Yep.”

  “You should come out with me.”

  “Not interested in getting drunk anymore, Ana. I’ve got some online courses coming up next month. My head’s not on straight.”

  “You don’t have to drink.”

  I look at her skeptically. “Ana…”

  She doesn’t budge. “Really, I would never push for that! I promise. I’m just trying to get you away from Derek. I thought when you got back things would have improved, like maybe he’d be more respectful of the boundaries, but it seems like you guys have gotten worse.”

  My stomach’s full and aching, so I pick at the remainder of my plate.

  “Ivy?”

  I meet her eye. “What?”

  She looks about my face and frowns. “I’ve never seen you so deflated in my life. Everything about you is all wrong. You’re… different. And I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t tell you this, but… you have to hurry up and serve him those papers.”

  I think about what he said the other day, about trying again. Then I think what a jerk he was the very next morning. I look away from her. I’ve had the divorce papers for some time now. They’ve been tucked in my clothing drawer for the last five months. I’m stalling.

  I clear my throat and hoarsely say, “He told me he wants to change –”

  “He’s said that how many times now?”

  I shakily sigh. “It’s hard, Ana. I can’t… I can’t just willingly break someone’s heart.”

  She purses her lips. “So, you’re going to just let yours break instead? He’s sucking the life out of you. And since he put you in that apartment, you’ve been paying out of your ears. You’re barely eating. Your skin’s gone all yellowy, Ivy. You used to be curvy. Now you’re sick looking.”

  “Well, Derek and I have been talking about it. We’ll probably work a little more overtime to up our food budget –”

  “He’s going to spend it on alcohol!” she seethes, cutting into my sentence. “Then he’s going to party it up again and fuck some girl behind your back. And once again you won’t discover it until weeks later when the bitch is posting pictures of her and him on Facebook, making you look like a fool! Then, like clockwork, you’ll both fight and he’ll punch holes in the wall or break your shit because he has a horrible anger problem. I can’t have that happen again. I refuse to let my best friend be taken advantage of by a fucking cheating manwhore of a man that makes lame excuses for cheating. Enough is enough!”

  I’ve never seen her so pent up before. She’s trying to drill it into my head, and I know I should listen, but the heartbreaking sound of his voice… It’s so hard to think of myself when for the last eight years it’s always been about him and worrying over his feelings first.

  How do I untrain that part of my brain that automatically empathizes with him?

  I’m not in love him, we’re not together technically, yet I’m still behaving like I’m his. What is wrong with me?

  “To be fair, I was destructive too,” I reply, defeatedly. “I pushed him away when I got depressed. He was practically alone all the time –”

  “Stop defending him!”

  “I’m not. I’m telling you how it was, Ana. I know I’m that infuriating friend everyone shakes their head at. But it’s not as black and white as you make it out to be, and it’s one thing to say you want to leave someone and it’s another thing to actually do it. It’s…hard, Ana. I can’t explain the conflict you go through on the inside. It’s that feeling of aloneness. Of…facing the unknown. Of starting all over again. I know why people who leave need courage. I…don’t know where mine is.”

  She takes a moment to think about my words. I start to think maybe she understands.

  “Answer me a question,” she then tells me with a set of challenging eyes. “One simple question. Are you happy?” Before I answer, she adds, “And don’t tell me you are because you feel happy every now and then. I’m talking about you, as a human being, is your heart happy?”

  I already know the answer but saying it out loud would confirm the awful reality.

  “And what if he drags his feet in the sand and makes the entire divorce process a nightmare?”

  “I’ll be right there with you, Ivy. You know that. You have to get out of there. Being under the same roof is slowing the process down. You can’t keep delaying this.”

  “I’m not trying to delay anything.”

  “You say that now, but then you’ll lag and take a millennia. Slowest person in the world. God help us if you ever run a workplace. How many people are going to die under your slow watchful eye?”

  I laugh again. “I’m not that slow.”

  Her thin lips curve upwards. “Just think of the freedom when you’re out of there, hon. A new start. Hell, I’m excited for you.”

  “You’re assuming I’m going to do it.”

  “Because I know you are. You take a little longer to get there, but when a thought enters your head, it eventually plays o
ut. And I know you’ll be lonely in the beginning, but it’ll get easier. Especially when you don’t have to hide checking out hotties. We’ll be a team. We haven’t been a team since we were sixteen. Don’t you miss those days?”

  Just as I open my mouth to respond, my phone chimes. Without thinking, I grab my purse and open it, crazed and quick, sifting through the bag of shit – why do I have that much shit – inside it. I don’t stop to think Ana is looking shocked as I find it and turn it on. I just think of Aidan, knowing for certain it’s him messaging me (the only other person that messages me is sitting across the table from me).

  My heart blossoms when I see his name in my inbox. My thumb hovers over his name. I’m dying to see what he wrote, but at the same time, I’m painfully aware of the scene I just made in front of Ana. She’s peering at me now with suspicious eyes.

  I clear my throat and look at her innocently. “What?”

  She glances down at the phone and then back at me. “Give me your fucking phone, Ivy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know who’s messaging you on Facebook.”

  “Facebook?”

  “I recognize the sound of a Facebook message.”

  Immediately, I shove the phone back into my purse. “It’s just my mom.”

  Her mouth parts, and she looks beyond disgusted. “Do I have Idiot written on my forehead?”

  “No.”

  “I’m offended you’d think I’d believe in that garbage. You would not leap into your bag if your mother was telling you she was being shot at by a plane in the middle of a fucking corn field.”

  “That’s happened to someone before, you know. It’s not funny.”

  She glares. “It’s a guy, isn’t it?”

  I try to pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about. “Ana, I spoke to my mother. You know, she took me in when shit fell apart with Derek.”

  “She tried to exorcize you in front of her church peers.”

  “I think she got the demons out.”

  Ana leans across the table, getting closer to me, eyeing me like I’ve just committed murder. “We’ve been best friends since the second grade. Since Miranda Gerbert stole your orange juice in Art class before Lunch and I cut her pig tails off for you.”

  “I never asked you to do that.”

  “You cried for hours.”

  “I was really looking forward to my juice.”

  “Point is, you tell me everything. And I want to know…everything…or I swear to god, I will fuck you up.”

  I’m silent because I’m afraid to tell her, and she’s silent because she knows I will. I know she’s right to demand it. I would be pissed if she kept things from me, but…how do I explain what’s been happening when my mind is hardly able to process it?

  She’s waiting patiently, but I know it’s a façade. Crazy wench will grab my bag like a ninja and sift through my phone if it’s the last thing she’ll do. Boundaries don’t really exist between Ana and I. We go through each other’s shit like no one else’s business.

  Which means, I have to tell her.

  “On the flight back home,” I slowly start, taking small breaths, “I sat next to a guy.” Her shoulders immediately relax, delighted I’m talking. “He wasn’t your ordinary guy, Ana. He was…God, he was the most cocky, vulgar, sexy man I’ve ever met.”

  Ana’s already enraptured. Her eyes go distant as I explain in painstaking detail everything. I don’t hold back, either. I tell her how I felt, how close I could have been to dangerously crossing the line. There’s nothing I omit, and damn, it feels good to say it out loud. Because it didn’t feel real up until now.

  It’s cathartic reliving those moments and then verbally hearing them come out of my mouth because, God, it happened. This beautiful man sat next to me and this beautiful man wanted me. For the first time in years, I felt parts that I thought were dead inside me awaken. Nobody had tried to get to know me like he did. Nobody looked at me with the want in their eyes like he did.

  “You should have let him take you to his place and fuck your brains out,” she says at the end, breathless. “I can’t believe you passed that up because of what's going on between you and Derek. I mean, no offense to Derek or anything, but he cheated on you, right? He’s lost brownie points for life. You guys aren't together. Just because you’re co-existing, it doesn’t mean you can't think about yourself. You're not chained to him. Get your mom’s words out of your head. She’s brainwashed you.”

  I frown. “There’s no talking to Derek about our separation. When he doesn’t want to listen, he’ll bury his head in the sand, and even if we’re only co-existing it still makes this wrong.”

  “But why?”

  “Because it’s too soon, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?”

  I look at her pointedly. “You’re supposed to be the good angel on my shoulder.”

  “You know I’m the red devil.”

  “Ana.”

  She sighs, considering my words. “Okay, so you did the right thing. It would have been too fast, and you’re not in the right place mentally. Honestly, though, I’m not sure I would have done the same. This guy sounds like walking sex.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Ana thinks for some time, and her face starts to screw up. “What’s his name again?”

  “Aidan.”

  “And you don’t know his last name?”

  I shrug, digging deep for any hint he might have given me. “I mean, on the chat his initials are A and then W. But I doubt that means anything. Like the W could just be a filler.”

  I can tell Ana doesn’t think so. “You sure he was rich?”

  “He looked like the definition of luxury.”

  “And he didn’t want to tell you his identity?”

  “No.”

  “On purpose?”

  “Yes, definitely on purpose.”

  She looks anxious. “Tell me exactly what he looked like.”

  I tell her in depth how fucking delectable this god of a man looked, and I see this strange look in her eye growing. I explain what his suit looked like, how he smirked when I assumed he was wearing a Rolex. I tell her he was away on a business venture, but he was established here, and that he lost a bet and was sentenced to six hours in economy class.

  Without responding, she grabs her phone on the table and starts to type things in. I’m curious more than ever. My anxiety levels are shooting through the roof.

  After she finishes, she looks from her phone to me and then slides it across the table to me. “Is this him, Ivy?”

  I look down at a photo on her phone, and the second I do, my body goes rigid.

  Oh. My. God.

  There’s a picture of Aidan in a charcoal-colored suit posing beside a bunch of stuffy men in equally impressive clothing. He isn’t smiling. He’s poker-faced. The smirk he’d been giving me on the plane was absent. But still, the cocky look is all there.

  Slowly, I look up at Ana, my mouth wide open. Her face goes into shock too. “You’re not serious!” she squeals, awed. “You sat beside Aidan fucking West on a passenger jet for six fucking hours? And it took you all these weeks to tell me?”

  Aidan West.

  I can’t stop looking down at his picture. I grab her phone and bring it closer to me. It’s him. Oh, my God, it’s really him. I feel tightness between my legs. A surge of tingles already flowing through me. I’m drawn in by a photograph. So captivated, I hardly breathe.

  “Who is he exactly?” I ask, quietly.

  “Easily the richest man in the city. Easily the richest man you will ever meet.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I don’t know. High tech stuff. Who cares? All anyone talks about is how fucking beautiful he is and the lucky bitches he has on his arm. You’ve lived under a boulder, babe.”

  I’m offended. “How am I supposed to know this shit? I stalked actors my whole life, not businessmen.”

  When you have people like Chris Hemsworth in
this world, would you really find it necessary to expand your horizons?

  “Look, I understand, you have to know who he is first. Like, you would turn your head to look at him not because he’s Aidan West, but because he’s the hottest guy in town. I get you, but…he’d been making rounds in the papers a couple years ago. Apparently, he’s a cunt to work for, and he got out of a nasty relationship. He went underground after and we haven’t heard much from him at all. You were going through your own thing at the time, but this shit was like juicy gossip. You have no idea how bad it got.”

  “I don’t want to know,” I quickly tell her, shaking my head.

  “But –”

  “Let me digest the fact I know his name first.”

  My head is swimming with endorphins as I look at his photo once more. He’s been such a mystery to me. I don’t want to dive into his history just because it’s plastered on the internet. He didn’t want me to know who he was for a reason. I have to respect that, even if it kills me. I would hate it if he were able to leaf through my life and see my dirty laundry.

  Yes, I tell myself. This is the honorable thing to do. The right thing to do.

  It’s also the one thing that’s going to drive me bonkers.

  I slide the phone back. “Well, there you go then. He’s not a crazed serial killer after all.”

  Ana laughs lightly, her eyes glowing with excitement. “I’m literally speechless, Ivy. This is the coolest thing ever, and he messaged you first. I’m so jealous.”

  My cheeks heat up. “You have Fernando.”

  “Fuck Fernando.”

  We both laugh and then stare at each other in awe. My fingers are twitchy. God, I want to see his message, and God, I want to look him up. I resist doing both.

  “You have that waiting for you after you leave Derek,” she tells me after a while. “That will be a rebound bang that’ll go down in the history books.”

  I disagree. “You’re thinking way ahead. At this point, if I do this, I don’t think I’ll ever bother with a guy again.”

  “Swing to the other side, huh?” She wags her brows.