Roomies with Benefits

by Amy Brent

  “You’ve got it bad for her.”

  “But Monday was different. With the passing of her husband a few years back, she’s been unwilling to entertain the idea of physical intimacy with someone else. The first couple of times we inched toward things like this, it threw her into mild panic attacks. Monday, nothing like that happened.”

  “Well, that’s good. Both physical and mental progress.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “That’s a good thing, right?”

  “It’s a very good thing. What’s she doing to combat her depression?” he asked.

  “Vitamin D, a hobby, and yoga,” I said.

  “Ah, so you guys are still at the non-medicative stage. Shit, that’s good. If you want my opinion, I think it has something to do with you. The chemical discharge that happens for a person after sex can act as an antidepressant. Just make sure she’s okay without it. If something happens between the two of you, her backsliding could be detrimental,” he said.

  “I know, it’s why I’m trying to tread lightly. But fuck, it’s hard,” I said.

  “Have the two of you talked since your so-called appointment?” he asked, grinning.

  “Not really. Work got busy with clients rescheduling, and she’s got her own career and a daughter. Who I met, by the way.”

  “Wait. You met her daughter?” he asked.

  “And she met Max, yeah. The day after our date. I took us all out for lunch.”

  Michael gawked at me as I finished the rest of my beer. He was no longer attempting to hide his shock for the situation, and it caused me to chuckle a bit.

  “You good?” I asked.

  “Holy shit, you’re really in this thing, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

  The truth was, I loved her. My heart soared whenever I saw her just like it had all those years ago. Her body still made my hands tingle just like it had all those years ago. My cock throbbed for her and my mind raced with thoughts about her just like they had all those years ago. She had hooked me onto her fishing line, and I had no intentions of attempting to unhook myself.

  But now I needed to tell her that.

  “All right. I gotta go,” I said.

  “I think you need to sit here and wait off some of that alcohol,” Michael said.

  “Cabs and shit. I’m good. See you tomorrow.”

  I threw down a twenty and wobbled off outside. I raised my hand to find a cab and quickly rattled off Melissa’s address. She needed to know how I felt. She needed to know I was in this to win it and that I wasn’t going to let her go a second time. I wasn’t going to be that fucking idiot I had been in college.

  I told the cab driver to leave, knowing we’d fall happily into bed with one another. I was ready to hold her close to me and mark every inch of her skin with my beer-tainted lips. I’d pick her daughter up and swing her around in my arms. I’d read her stories and tuck her in. I’d show Melissa that I wanted this. All of it. For us to be the family we should’ve been so very long ago.

  I knocked on her door, and she promptly answered, her lips smiling as I leaned up against her doorframe.

  “Hey there,” she said. “Been out having fun?”

  “I love you.”

  All right, so I didn’t have much tact to it. But I said it. I threw it out there, and there was no mistaking how I felt. I pushed myself off the doorframe as her eyes studied me intently, but then she had a reaction I didn’t expect her to have.

  She took a slight step back.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I love you, Melissa. From the moment you stepped into my office two and a half weeks ago, I knew I’d never stopped loving you. I was an idiot back in college for taking the money to marry that awful fucking woman. I never should’ve done it. But I’m telling you right here and now that I promise you I’m going nowhere. I love you. I always have, and I always will.”

  Her lips parted as tears rose to her eyes. Happiness. She just needed clarification on how I was feeling. I smiled at her as I watched a lonely tear drip down her cheek, but the words that flew from her mouth once again didn’t match my expectations.

  “I don’t know how I feel, Brandon.”

  In that very moment, a chunk of my heart broke off and fell to the concrete. I took a step back like I’d been slapped in the face as she bowed her head. I loved Melissa, and she didn’t know if she felt anything for me. This was the nightmare I’d been petrified of since the moment she first called. This was the issue Michael was trying to bring up over drinks.

  The idea that I was nothing more than a tool to help her heal.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Please, don’t be sorry,” she said, crying.

  “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Why don’t you come inside? Let me get you a cup of coffee before you get on your way,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Please, Brandon.”

  “I said no!”

  My fiery eyes looked up at her as tears poured from her eyes. She stepped out onto the porch as I stumbled backward, my hands fumbling with my phone as I tried to call that taxi back. If I went inside, I would want her. If I went inside, her magnetic thighs would draw my helpless hands to them. If I went inside, I could convince myself that none of this had just happened. That it was only a bad, drunken dream.

  I could keep convincing myself that Melissa was in love with me.

  “Brandon, please don’t go,” she said.

  “See you later.”

  I stumbled to the taxi cab and simply went home. I’d get my car in the morning, whenever I decided to wake up. I didn’t have any early morning appointments, which was wonderful considering the alcohol and pain I’d have to sleep off. I relieved the nanny, though she was hesitant to go home. She knew I was drunk, and she thought it would be better if she stayed. I told her I didn’t fucking care what she did.

  Because the truth was, I didn’t.

  I stumbled up to my room as the sounds of Max lightly snoring hit my ears. Tears filled my eyes as I thought back to that lunch. How I had exposed my son to a woman who had no intention of staying. All I’d done was wreak more damage on his life, because now if he ever asked about her, I’d have to tell him she was gone, too. Just like his mother.

  I poured myself into bed and buried my face into my pillow. My eyes fluttered closed as the room began to spin, and I swallowed hard to keep from vomiting up any of the alcohol left in my system. All I wanted to do was sleep this off, get a decent shower, and throw myself into my work. I had a book tour coming up soon that would greatly distract me from the bullshit that had just rained down on my life, but I knew there was one specific thing I had to do.

  I had to transfer her as my patient.

  Chapter 22

  Melissa

  “So, let me get this straight. This man you can’t get out of your mind stumbles up to your porch, professes his love for you, and you don’t even let him in?”

  “I’m not sure how I feel about him, Ava. Seriously,” I said.

  “That why you called out of work and wanted me to do the same?” she asked.

  “Can you blame me?”

  “I think your boss was a bit too keen on giving you a day off. You never take vacation time to yourself. He’d probably give you the next month off if you asked,” she said, grinning.

  “I’m being serious, Ava. He told me he loved me. He told me he had never stopped loving me,” I said.

  “And that shit’s romantic. Why didn’t you hop on that bus again?”

  “Besides the fact that he was drunk? Because I couldn’t tell him I felt the same way.”

  “Well, you better make up your mind before you lose him again. He’s a rich fucking doctor who can have any slice of pussy he wants.”

  “Then why doesn’t he go get it?” I asked.

  “Because he wants you, you idiot,” she said.

  “You’re not making me feel any better, you know,” I said as I sipped m
y coffee.

  “That’s not my job right now. My job is to tell you that you’re being an idiot.”

  “I don’t know if I love him, Ava.”

  “And we both know that’s bullshit,” she exclaimed.

  “I don’t love him.”

  “You don’t love what he did to you all those years ago, and you’re scared. Just like you were scared the first time he fingered you and just like you were scared when you realized how much of a help he was going to be to you.”

  “I’m not fucking scared,” I said.

  “You’re petrified, terrified that he’ll leave you again for another woman. You’re terrified that if you open yourself up again, you’ll lose him but not just lose him. Lose him for good. With Carl, you lost him, and there was no chance of getting him back. It was permanent.”

  “I’ve fucking got that, Ava,” I said heatedly.

  “You’re slightly scared of the fact that he had a bad track record with you, but you’re even more scared of all the terrible possibilities you open yourself up to by admitting you love him.”

  “Well, good thing I don’t.”

  “If you take him in, you open yourself up to getting attached to someone you could lose. And after what you’ve been through, there isn’t a soul on this planet who blames you. But you can’t let it hold you back,” she said. “You just can’t.”

  “I. Don’t. Love. Him,” I said.

  “Yes, you do. And it’s okay to love again after Carl. Just don’t do yourself harm simply because you’re afraid.”

  I felt her curl her hand around mine and suddenly the waterworks began again. I was a teenage girl trapped in a woman’s body. I was alone and scared, fearful of the pain Brandon could drop into my lap and fearful of losing him. I could end up with a phone call in the middle of the night telling me something terrible had happened to him.

  I was afraid of burying him.

  “You should talk to him,” Ava urged.

  “He leaves for a book tour on Monday. What good will it do me?” I asked.

  “All the good in the world if you just allow yourself to try.”

  I sighed as my eyes flickered over to my phone. I set down my coffee mug while Ava’s thumb traced circles on my skin, and I flipped over to his number. I called him, allowing the phone to ring in my ear, and for a second, I didn’t think he was going to pick up.

  But then, I heard his voice over the speaker of the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey there, Brandon. It’s, uh, it’s me. Melissa.”

  “I know.”

  “Um, how are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said.

  I closed my eyes and tried to digest his curt tone. I’d pissed him off, that much was for sure. But I could hear a bit of how wounded he was, too.

  A bit of hurt I’d never meant to cause him.

  “I was wondering if you and Max wanted to come over for dinner tonight. You know, so we could talk. The kids seemed to have fun at lunch, and I’ve got a playroom full of toys they could destroy.”

  The silence that hung between us was pregnant with unspoken words. There was so much I wanted to say to him. So much I wanted to blurt out. I knew he would turn me down. In the back of my mind, I’d convinced myself he would. I’d given myself permission to be hurt by him again, even though I was the one who started this train the first place.

  “I think Max would enjoy that. See you around seven?” he asked.

  “Seven sounds perfect. See you then.”

  Ava left me to my thoughts as I stewed in them the entire day. Around six o’clock, I began prepping dinner, making sure I had cooked enough for all of us. The small chicken pot pies were cooking in the oven while the macaroni and cheese sat on the stove, and I had hot dogs and chips ready just in case the kids didn’t want what I had cooked.

  Then, a knock came at the door.

  I opened the door and Max automatically pushed passed me. Brandon tried to scold him, but I simply giggled, watching him and Sarah scurry upstairs. The two of them were precious with one another and Max was so careful around her, but the moment was short-lived when I turned my gaze back to Brandon.

  “Care to come in?” I asked.

  He stepped through, and I took the liberty of pouring us a couple glasses of wine. The food was still cooking so I sat us down at the table, but he had yet to meet my eyes.

  “Would you like me to start?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Brandon, I’m not sure how I feel. Your arrival and your admission took me by surprise, and part of me wonders how much of it was you talking and how much of it was the alcohol.”

  “Alcohol lowers inhibitions. That’s about it,” he said.

  “But it also does make us do stupid things,” I said.

  “You think me admitting that I love you was stupid?” he asked.

  “No. Not at all. Not even kind of,” I said.

  “Then what are you saying?”

  He was on the defensive, and he had every right to be. But I wished he would just drop the attitude and talk to me like an adult.

  “Look, I want to be with you. Every moment I spend with you is special. I haven’t felt this way since, well, since we were together in high school. But my emotions are still all over the place. I’m working through a lot, and you’re helping me both professionally and personally. I don’t know how I feel about this yet, like, in the long term.”

  “I’m leaving for a book tour Monday,” he said.

  “I know. It’s been on the news a bit,” I said.

  “You could use that time to see how you feel if you’d like. In the meantime, I’ve transferred your case file to Dr. Michael Smith.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, and I almost choked on my wine.

  “Huh?” I asked

  “I won’t be here for a couple of weeks, and you still need your sessions. Dr. Smith is a fabulous doctor, and he’ll take care of you while I’m gone,” he said.

  “But I’ll come back to you once you’re finished. Right?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I think the time apart will give us both time to think.”

  Ava was right. He was going to be gone for two weeks, bouncing around cities that housed beautiful women. I’d lost him as a doctor at least for the next couple of sessions, and he was probably going to indulge in the local delicacies while I was here trying to figure out why the fuck it was so hard for me to do this with him again.

  I was going to lose him for a second time, only this time it would be my fault.

  “I’ll definitely use that time to think, Brandon. I promise,” I said.

  “And keep up with your yoga and vitamin D. I’ve prepped Dr. Smith on all the things we’ve been working on. He’ll take good care of you.”

  “Not as good as you, I’m sure.”

  I was trying to lighten the mood, but all Brandon did was flicker his stern gaze my way. I could hear the kids giggling upstairs, but I was no longer hungry. The oven beeped with the done pies, and I walked over to pull them out. The kids came running down the stairs. I made them both a plate of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese while they sat at the table, but Brandon didn’t make a move.

  He simply stared out my kitchen window and took in my backyard.

  Neither of us ate that night, and when the kids were finished, they left without another word. I hunkered down with Sarah on the couch while we watched a movie, but all I could think about was Brandon and how hurt he looked and how angry his eyes were. I couldn’t help thinking about the wall he’d thrown up between us, pushing me away instead of trying to understand. He’d seen me in all my vulnerability and helped me through the guilty moments when I thought I had been betraying Carl.

  Now I was back to standing alone against my raging mind as the voices in my head began to pick up.

  We knew you’d fuck it up.

  Of course, you let him get away again.

  You don’t deserve him.r />
  Did you forget about Carl that quickly?

  I cried silent tears as my child fell asleep on my chest. The animated movie roared in the background as my phone began to vibrate on the couch. I knew it was Ava calling to see how things went, but I didn’t want to talk to her. I didn’t want to tell her she was right or that I had a new doctor or that I wasn’t even sure if I’d continue my sessions anymore.