The Boyfriend

by Abigail Barnette

  Neil’s arm tightened around my back, and he turned to kiss El-Mudad’s forehead. “You’re right. Our honesty is one of my favorite parts of our relationship.”

  Yikes. Considering I had yet to talk to him about what had happened with Laurence…

  That’s not dishonesty. That’s protecting him from unnecessary stress until we can actually do something about it.

  I supposed time would tell if that was just a hollow justification or an actual good deed. Either way, there wasn’t much that could be done about it at the moment.

  * * * *

  In terms of cuddling, El-Mudad was...forceful. He tended to hang on to the nearest body as though he were afraid of dropping us in his sleep or something. He had a steel grip even when fully unconscious, which was nice and felt protective and amazing with his body curled around my back. The shrill squeaking of his teeth grinding, however, was not as relaxing, and it really impeded my ability to snooze.

  I managed to extricate myself and rose from the bed. I waited for my eyes to adjust, but when they didn’t, I had to settle for tiptoeing through the total darkness; after years of living in New York and London and with all of our landscape lighting in Sagaponack, I’d gotten used to artificially illuminated nights. A sliver of light showed under the door, and I made my way unsteadily toward it.

  The glass wall was still open, letting in the warm sea breeze and scent of the open ocean. Neil sat in one of the armchairs, a book in his hand and only a single overhead light on. He looked up at my approach. “Did I disturb you?”

  I shook my head. “No. El-Mudad is grinding his teeth. And crushing me to death.”

  Neil laughed and set his book aside. “Come here.”

  I went to him and sank onto his lap sideways, draping my legs over one arm and leaning back on the other.

  He combed his fingers through my hair. “Thank you. This is a lovely present.”

  “I really hope you do like it. I worked super hard on it, and I spent a lot of extra money to get it done so fast.” Probably more than I would have had to if I’d had a shrewd, savvy person who knew a lot about yachts helping me. But next time, I reasoned, I would know a lot more.

  Next time. Like there would be a next time?

  “Why that face?” Neil asked quietly. “Was it what happened with Laurence this morning?”

  “Was that this morning?” That shocked the hell out of me. “It seems like it was days ago. But no. It’s more...”

  “The money?” he finished for me.

  I winced. “Am I that obvious?”

  “Only to me.” He threaded his fingers through mine and lifted my hand. “I’d thought you had gotten over your discomfort with our wealth. Perhaps this magnificent sea-faring vessel lulled me into a false sense of certainty on that score?”

  I sighed and snuggled my face against his shoulder. “I’m never going to get over feeling guilty about the amount of money we have. And I’ve been thinking...I just can’t throw money at things that bother me anymore, you know? I need to...get my hands dirty. I mean, metaphorically. I hope metaphorically. I don’t want actually dirty hands. Maybe I could file paperwork for free or something somewhere.”

  He made a thoughtful noise. “If you feel like you need to donate your time to feel complete about all of this, then absolutely, you should do so. And it must be boring for you to sit at home. Even if you do plan to write another book.”

  “To be honest, I haven’t totally decided on that,” I admitted. “I know I made it sound like I was all in, but then I tried to actually write, and it was a lot more work than I remembered.”

  “I believe that’s something most writers have in common.” He stroked my hair back from my face. “Whatever you decide, you know you have my full support. Unless it’s something that will get you imprisoned for life. Although I can afford excellent lawyers.”

  I laughed quietly then gave myself some silence to just listen to his pulse beating beneath my ear.

  Finally, he said, “Sophie, please tell me what you and Laurence talked about today. I promise, there won’t be a big reaction on my part.”

  “I don’t think you can promise that,” I whispered. I sat up, blinking back tears. “I should have told you before we left. I’m going to tell you now, and you’re going just to assume...you’re going to think I put off telling you so it wouldn’t ruin our trip. I swear that wasn’t the case.”

  “Sophie, do give me some credit. You know I already have suspicions. I’m simply asking you to confirm them.” His eyes were so full of tender sympathy they left no room for doubt.

  I took a deep breath. “All right. He called us sexual deviants. He openly shamed me for being with the two of you and said we treat Olivia like an inconvenience. And he said we should lawyer up.”

  Neil’s expression never changed. He nodded thoughtfully and said, “Well, that certainly does confirm my suspicions. And a few more.”

  “Please...don’t do anything drastic,” I said softly. “I know you’re probably furious—“

  “No.” He shook his head as though he were refusing something he’d been offered. “No. I was furious when I confronted Valerie over this after Christmas.”

  My jaw dropped. “What?”

  “I didn’t like the way he spoke to us at Langhurst, and I brought it up with Valerie. I wanted to handle it while you and El-Mudad were enjoying Venice, without worrying the two of you. I had the opportunity when I was at the lodge with my brothers.”

  “Neil...why didn’t you tell me?” My chest ached with sympathy for him. I’d been carrying around the weight of my worry for a day. He’d already been doing it since Christmas?

  He shrugged. “What would the point have been? It would have simply upset you and created more tension. I thought I’d made it very clear to Valerie that any discussion about my private life was closed, but clearly, she didn’t relay that message to Laurence.”

  “So...wait. Does Valerie know...”

  “About the three of us?” Neil nodded. “Absolutely. I didn’t see the point in lying to her with a three-year-old between us. You know how good Olivia is at hiding things.”

  Right, like Valerie and Laurence’s elopement. A spark touched off a wildfire of understanding in my brain. “Oh my god. That’s why you reacted the way you did when you found out they’d gotten married?”

  He didn’t answer. Which gave me the answer.

  “You dick! Why didn’t you tell us?” I demanded, pushing myself to my feet.

  “As I said, I didn’t want the two of you to worry unnecessarily. And I didn’t want to make El-Mudad feel as though he needed to leave us for our own good or some other chivalrous notion he might get into his head.”

  “So, you would rather we thought you were still hung up on your ex? Especially after the history I have with her?” I demanded, then cursed internally for letting my voice raise so shrilly while El-Mudad slept.

  Neil stood, too, and ran a hand through his hair. “I thought it was better than worrying you over possibly losing Olivia. Which isn’t going to happen. I’ve already covered that with Valerie.”

  “Laurence seems pretty certain, though,” I wrapped my arms around myself; it was a little chilly now, standing there in just my silk nightgown on the open ocean. The subject matter didn’t help.

  After a long moment, Neil said, “I trust Valerie. You may not like to hear that, but it’s the truth. She is one of my oldest friends, and we had a relationship as parents that went beyond physical intimacy. She never tried to use Emma to hurt me. She’s not that kind of person.”

  “I...” I shook my head because there was so much in those statements to dissect that my brain’s processing power ground to a total halt.

  “You can trust her, Sophie,” he said, coming to me to take my hands. “I promise.”

  I thought about the way he’d described his relationship with Valerie. He was right; the bond co-parenting their daughter after all they had been through was unique and intimate beyond anything
I could ever experience with him. And that destroyed me at a very base level. Just like with his marriage to Elizabeth, I wanted to erase his life with Valerie from his mind. Both of them came before me. Both of them threatened me with the specter of their memories living in Neil’s mind. As nonsensical and unrealistic as it was, I wanted to be the only woman who’d ever known Neil. I wanted to be the one who knew him best. It was bizarre, but at that moment, it did help me believe that Valerie wouldn’t hurt us. And she wouldn’t let Laurence hurt us.

  “If you trust her,” I began, swallowing against the sudden dryness in my throat. “If you trust her, don’t mention this incident to her.”

  “Oh, I will most certainly mention it to her,” he said with a disbelieving laugh. “Sophie, he openly threatened us. He degraded you. I won’t let that stand.”

  I held his gaze firmly. “No. Listen to me. Valerie will always be in love with you. I accepted that a while ago. If you tell her about this, she will leave Laurence. And she deserves to be happy.”

  “To be happy with a man who would threaten us?” Neil asked. “Who would...shame you the way he did? I won’t let that stand.”

  While my heart swelled and I almost swooned at the idea of Neil defending my honor, we weren’t in a Jane Austen book or something. “There’s a lot more at stake here than whether or not Laurence thinks I’m a slut. It’s not like I respect him enough that his opinion would hurt me, anyway. If something’s going to happen to end their relationship it has to be between them. I don’t want us to be involved.”

  Neil considered me silently for a moment. Then his shoulders slumped in defeat. “All right. I see your point.”

  “Good.” I was usually very sensible. I didn’t know why he couldn’t just listen to me all the time.

  He stroked his thumb over the back of my fingers and lifted my hand to his mouth. He kissed my knuckles and said, “But I still want to punch him for being so crude.”

  “We’ve had the punching discussion,” I reminded him. “I don’t think you could do it.”

  He grimaced. “I am a bit of a wimp, aren’t I?”

  “You are.” I laughed and sighed, gazing up into those desperately beautiful green eyes of his. “Let’s hope El-Mudad is tougher than you.”

  A blood-curdling squeak came to us through the open bedroom door, and we both flinched.

  “It isn’t as though he’ll have teeth to lose in a fight if he keeps that up,” Neil said, one eye still squinted shut.

  I motioned to the bedroom. “Yeah. I’m going to wake him up before he grinds his jaw into powder. Think you’re up for a late night skinny dip?”

  He grinned at me, despite the dark circles beneath his tired eyes. “Darling, I’m ready for anything.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  In late May, Mom and Tony moved out of the guesthouse. I’d gone down to see them before they left, while the movers loaded everything into the truck. Mom had barely managed to look me in the eye. Our hug had been far too brief. And then they were gone.

  I hadn’t expected it to hit me so hard. I spent the rest of that night lying on the couch in the den, alternating whose lap I put my head in, whose shoulder I snottily cried on between Neil and El-Mudad. And though they were very supportive, they were problem solvers.

  “I think if we all sat down with your mother and she could see that we love each other, that you’re respected in this relationship, things would be much better between the two of you,” El-Mudad suggested, passing me a tissue. I rested my head on his knee and miserably blew my nose.

  “As...uncomfortable as that would be, he does have a point,” Neil agreed. “Look how long it took her to accept me.”

  “This is a lot more than just an age difference,” I protested. “This is like, my own mother constantly imagining me getting spit-roasted by the two of you every time she sees all of us in the same place together.”

  “Spit-roasted?” El-Mudad asked in the very specific tone he adopted when he hit a language barrier. It was a cute mix of uncertainty at the term being used and bewilderment that something existed which he did not understand.

  “Sophie’s being disgusting,” Neil half-explained. To me, he said, “We can’t control what might go on inside of your mother’s head. But as long as our secret is out with her, honesty looks like our best—our only—option.”

  “You don’t want this to interfere with her wedding,” El-Mudad added. “Not just for her benefit, but yours, as well. If you’re angry with each other on one of the most important days of her life, on the day when you welcome your stepfather into your family, you can’t fix that later.”

  “I hate when you have good points.” Especially when I wanted to be hopeless for a little while. The biggest problem with being in a relationship with two men was the male propensity to try to approach problems reasonably and fix them, rather than allowing room for irrational, but very valid and real, emotional responses, first.

  “Will you be going to your mother’s dress fitting on Saturday?” Neil asked.

  “As far as I know, I’m still invited. She mentioned it to me before they left.” It hadn’t been the warmest reminder of an invitation. She’d said, “I guess I’ll see you Saturday.” That didn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

  “Why don’t you suggest she and Tony come to Sunday dinner?” Neil suggested. “We can drop the pretense of El-Mudad as our houseguest and have her over as a family.”

  “I don’t foresee her going for that.” It wasn’t pessimistic of me. It was realistic. “She’s got an excuse not to. ‘We just moved, we haven’t gotten settled in,’ blah blah blah. Do you think she won’t deploy that as a counter strike?”

  “You could invite your stepfather-to-be,” El-Mudad suggested. “He already knows about all of this.”

  “That could be part of the problem.” I should never have told Mom that Tony already knew about the relationship. Though neither of them had mentioned it, there was no way that remark hadn’t caused a fight. “She hates feeling like she’s the last one to know about something.”

  “Would it help if you told her she isn’t the last to know?” For a moment, it seemed like Neil was making a very badly timed joke. Then he went on. “Be honest with her. Tell her that she’s one of a very few people who know anything about this at all. That you trust her. Speaking as a parent, that would probably go much further than you expect.”

  “But I didn’t trust her enough to tell her. She had to bust in and find out on her own,” I reminded him.

  “Yes, and she was very protective of me, which I appreciate,” he pointed out with some amusement.

  “I think Neil’s right,” El-Mudad said. “You can’t change how she feels about our relationship, but you can reframe it.”

  I made a face. “You know ‘reframe’ but not ‘spit roasted’?”

  “English is difficult!” he protested.

  “Fine.” I sat up and wiped my eyes. “Fine. I’ll try to invite her to family dinner. But what then? What happens when they actually get here and we have to sit before her in the judgment of the Lord?”

  “I’m an atheist,” El-Mudad said, shrugging one shoulder. “I’m fucked, anyway.”

  “And I haven’t spoken to God in quite a long time, but I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t be a fan of your mother’s judgment,” Neil put in. “That’s supposed to be his job.”

  Neither of those things would convince her to show up for an uncomfortable meal, but I’d already promised I would try.

  “Sophie, we just moved. We haven’t even had time to settle in yet,” Mom said as we pulled up outside of the bridal boutique. I’d so dreaded asking her, I’d held onto the question for the whole, long ride. Now, she’d answered as though she were reading from a script. “Are you mouthing along with what I’m saying?”

  “Yes,” I admitted freely. “Because I knew exactly what you were going to say. I knew you were going to use moving as an excuse when Neil told me to invite you.”

  Her mouth dropped
open. “It’s not an excuse! It’s a reason. We did just move. I’ve still got stuff in the garage.”

  “And you can pick it up when you come to dinner. It’ll be super convenient,” I argued.

  She made a face and pushed the door open before Andrea could get it for her.

  I slid out after her and followed wordlessly into the building. The lobby of Belle Rose was as light and minimalist as an Instagram photo. The bare wood floors were an ash-gray, unpolished neutral. The walls were baby pink. Succulents hung in gold hexagonal pots on chains at perfectly measured intervals in the front window. The whole place smelled like lavender.

  In the seating area, Holli and Deja waited for us, glasses of ice water garnished with freshly crushed mint in their hands. Deja spotted us first and waved. “Hi! Are you going to be late for your own wedding?”

  Mom laughed like we hadn’t just had a super uncomfortable ride from Queens. “The traffic! I don’t know why you bother to have speed limits here if nobody ever moves faster than ten miles an hour.”

  Holli got up and came to her for a hug, saying, “What’s this ‘you’? You’re a New Yorker now, baby!”

  “Ugh, don’t remind me,” Mom said, moving on to embrace Deja. While they were preoccupied, Holli shot me a look that, while silent, clearly asked what the fuck was going on with us and expressed her support for me.

  I’d already briefed Holli and Deja on the disastrous events, so they knew what was up. And, damn them, they were going to try to help.

  “How’s Neil? How’s El-Mudad?” Deja asked casually, loud enough that Mom would have to overhear. And maybe that was good. Maybe it would help for her to hear people she respected talk about it as though it were totally normal.

  So, I answered. “Fine. I think they’re taking Olivia to the aquarium today.”

  “I wish I was going to the aquarium,” Holli blurted then looked at Mom. “I mean, you know. After this. I want to be here for you, Becky. But you don’t have a touch tank.”