by S. Ann Cole
Mick also cut bread and cheese for his invisible wife, whom he constantly included into the conversation with “You remember that night, love?” or “I didn’t leave anything out, did I?” or “That is why I love you so.”
The man was a full-blown American, living in France, to remain in the past with his dead wife who committed suicide to be with her dead son, with a world-famous, rotten rich rock star son enabling him, along with a daughter who was holding out for a broken man who was holding out for a woman who was married and with child.
Oh, the wonders of the world.
“Did young Xander tell you the story of how his mother and I met?”
Feeling full, relaxed, a little buzzed from the wine I’d indulged in, I fixed my elbows up on the table, chin in my hands as I replied, “Nope. But I’d love to hear it.”
“Dad,” Xavier said in a warning tone.
But Mick’s gaze was fixed on me. “I can understand why he didn’t tell you. The beginnings of mine and Aline’s forever is not exactly one to brag about. It was messy. Reckless.” He slid a quick glance to his son, and then back to me. “Aline came to seek me out herself. She needed a new manager. Someone who could help her crossover. She heard I was one of the best in my time and she wanted me. To manage her, that is. I’d never heard of the French sensation Aline Acy before then, but I knew from the very second she sauntered into my office I would hand her my balls if she asked me for them. She was mine. I knew it. And no one could tell me different.”
A snort from Xavier had both of us glaring at him for interrupting, and he held his hands up in defense and gestured for Mick to carry on.
“But you see, I had a challenge cut out for me: Alina Acy was engaged to another man. Her first love. Her high school and college sweetheart. A man she swore to all gods was her soul mate, and couldn’t ever see herself without him. So she fought, continuously, what she felt for me, refusing to give in to me…until she did.
“The first time she cried until I swore her eyes bled. She told me it was my fault and made it clear that it would never happen again, because she already had her soul mate. That she would marry him and be happy with him, because I was nothing but the devil, temptation, leading her to destruction.”
Relaxing back in his chair, Mick smirked at his invisible wife and took a sip of his wine.
I peeked over at Xavier. He had a fat grape trapped between his fingers, poking it over and over again with a toothpick like it was voodoo doll, ignoring both of us.
“But despite what she kept telling herself,” Mick continued, “I knew what I felt. What I felt with her was the most genuine feeling I’d ever had in my entire life. Aline Acy was a star in the sky leading me to redemption. No way, no way could my heart have been that raw and vulnerable for a woman who was fatefully meant for another man. So, I loved her silently when she denied me, and I loved fiercely each time she came back for more, and more, and more of what she couldn’t and wouldn’t ever feel with her betrothed.
“I knew she was mine. I was biding my time. The deeper she fell in love with me, the more confused and unknowingly selfish she became. She wanted both of us. She began questioning whether a person could have more than one soul mate. But my patience ran out. I didn’t want to share her anymore. I was ready to migrate here and give her the life she dreamed of. I was ready to have her barefoot and pregnant in my kitchen. I was ready for love. I was ready for forever. I was ready.”
Pausing, he snaked a hand near to the still full plate at his “wife’s” chair, and his fingers curled into themselves, as though he was envisioning squeezing his wife’s hand.
“I told her to choose, Alina,” he said, voice round and lucid and strong, like he was obliquely telling me he saw right through me, knew my secret, and I needed to choose and stop dicking around his son. “I was confident in us. Forced to make a decision, she had to choose between what was real, and what was just a palatable idea.
“The trickiest, yet most crucially significant part of life is making the right choices, Alina. And those choices determine our happiness and longevity. Right choices, wrong choices. Good choices, bad choices.
“But stuck in a love triangle, how did she know which one was right or wrong? Good or bad? What would last or what would fail?” He pressed a palm over his heart. “This. Not your emotions. Not the lust burning inside you. Not what your mind tells you will look ‘right’ in the eyes of judgmental human beings. But this. You trust this above all else. Because this is never wrong. This is what determines the course of your life. Whatever you feel in here, that’s what’s real.”
So caught up in his words, I found myself speaking before I could stop myself, before I could think. “But sometimes it’s so hard to distinguish what’s from the heart and what’s from the mind. It’s not as easy as you make it sound. Especially if there’s history. How do you choose something new over history? Really good history? Even if that something new makes you feel so much more alive?”
When Mick’s eyes shifted to Xavier, I snapped my mouth shut, my blunder immediately realized. Straightening, I dragged my hands away from the table and dropped them in my lap, afraid to even look in Xavier’s direction.
If he hadn’t suspected anything before, he definitely did now.
Eyes still on Xavier instead of me, Mick simply reiterated, “If it’s not in the heart, it isn’t real.”
Xavier’s mood did alter after our little tete-a-tete with Mick, but only for the worse.
Now, he was a brick wall. I could feel him slipping further and further away from me. He walked around with this faraway look in his eyes, and whenever he looked at me, it wasn’t at me, but through me.
He refused to shave his growing beard, hadn’t kissed me even once, touched or held me with any kind of intimacy. On occasion he would—I assumed unconsciously—get as close as wrapping an arm around me, relaxing, then out of the blue he would just leave me bereft with such sudden abruptness, it felt as though he was caught doing something forbidden—like I wasn’t his to touch. And each time I tried to talk to him about what was bothering him, he would shut me down.
Each and every time it broke me a little, and I found myself thinking more about Davian, wishing I’d spent the weekend with him instead, longing for his cuddles and warm whispers of a forever love.
Davian’s cuddles made the world and all its troubles disappear. He’d told me one night that Jessica wasn’t the cuddling type, she liked her space on the bed and insisted on taking a shower immediately after sex because she didn’t like the idea of sweat drying on her skin. And that was a huge buzz kill for Davian because he was a cuddling guy. He loved the scent of sex lingering in the air, in my hair. He loved the taste of salt on my skin, loved to nuzzle the dampness on my neck, and brush his thumb over the pouty swelling of my lips after steamy, passionate sex…
These were the thoughts I was left to dwell on each time Xavier pushed me away. Sucked that I flew twelve hours to France to be with him, yet all my thoughts were now dedicated to another man.
We slept in the same bed but he didn’t hold me. He took me sightseeing and to dinners at cute restaurants, but he was only there physically; mentally, he was elsewhere. Felt almost as though he was begrudgingly doing me a favor.
I spent more time chitchatting with his delusional father than with him, listening to old tales, then Skyping with Jacob in the evenings. I no longer cared whether Xavier was off screwing the pretty housemaid in secret somewhere.
For every time he didn’t kiss me, I thought of Davian’s thick lips, the top a little bit bigger than the bottom, which I loved to bite on each time he drove hard inside me. For every time he didn’t get hard for me, I thought of Davian’s instant and noticeable bulge whenever I walked into a room he was in. For every time he didn’t touch me, I thought of Davian’s long, big-knuckle fingers, lightly brushing over my skin the way they would over his guitar strings.
I simply couldn’t fathom why Xavier made me tr
avel all the way here if he knew whatever he’d felt for me before was dead.
Nevertheless, I was somewhat glad I made the trip; it helped me realize there truly was no hope left for us. Helped solidify my decision. The “spark” was gone.
This trip could’ve been beautiful. Perfect place, perfect location, perfect man. But he’d pull down his pants and shit all over it.
By Sunday night I was overly impatient for it all to be over, so I could go home and apologize to Davian for letting him plan a weekend for us then skip town without telling him. He was probably mad as hell at me, but my phone had been off since I arrived here, so I didn’t know for sure.
Come Monday morning, I was up, dressed and ready by 5:36 am, a whole three hours before my flight time. Xavier wasn’t in bed when I woke up, perhaps in Chloe’s. But by that point, I didn’t care. Didn’t care to go searching for him. I’d mechanically showered, got dressed, packed, and wheeled my suitcase out of the room, parking it by the front door, ready to go.
At that hour of the morning, the sun was merely yawning into dawn, coloring outside a dusty yellow. The house was quiet, asleep, save for the snores coming from Mick’s room.
Perhaps Xavier had forgotten to set his alarm or something—even though I was hours too early—but I was itching, impatient for him to dump me off at the airport with the same callous treatment as when he’d picked me up—that way, I could go back home and have no guilt about being with Davian.
I paced in the living room for a while, waiting, before deciding to go find him myself. Without a guess or thought, I went straight to Chloe’s room, knocking twice on the door. When no answer came, I turned the knob with a shaky hand and poked my head in.
As much as I claimed I didn’t care if Xavier was screwing her, the giant sigh of relief that whooshed out of me when I saw Chloe curled up in her bed alone couldn’t be ignored.
Backing out, I quietly closed the door. After searching every room except Mick’s and turning up short a blond-haired guitarist, I extended my search outside.
Braking amidst the flourishing rose garden out the back, I took a minute to appreciate the broad-shouldered, long-haired, bulwark of a man sitting at the edge of the cliff. Because after today, it would be the end of us. No more tall, blond and beautiful in my life.
I resumed the jaunt toward the cliff, and as I got closer, I noticed he was looking down at something in his hand.
As if he sensed my approach, he swiftly shoved whatever it was in his hoodie pocket, and his torso twisted slightly as he cocked his head over his shoulder, squinting at me through the light fog.
A gust of biting wind whipped around us, diffusing the inky scent of the roses, and I pulled my coat tighter around me, hugging myself.
Something glinted, catching my eye. A golden flask. Son of a… He saw the second I spotted it in the patchy grass beside him. He reached for it, but I beat him to it, snatching it off the ground and stepping back.
The weight of it surprised me, so I flipped open the top, peeked inside. Flipping it shut, I frowned down at him, confused. “It’s…full.”
Discharging a sigh, he languidly raised his wrist with the bracelet I’d bought him. He’d worn it the whole time I was here, even while he slept. “Been walking around with that flask for weeks now. Never take this bracelet off. Every time I raised it to take a sip, the bracelet reminds me of what I have—well, could have—and would ruin if I took that sip.” He twisted back around to face the ocean. “Works. Never had a drop.”
I thought about it for a second, then drifted to the edge and sat down beside him. “Reminds you of what you could have?”
“Band has a big act in Paris this week,” he said. “Gonna meet them there, do what I do, and go back to my life in L.A.”
Stuffing the flask in my coat pocket, I glanced down at our feet dangling over the edge. “What do you mean by ‘could have’, Xavi? Do you feel like you don’t have me? Do you feel like I’m not yours?”
“You’re not.”
I looked over at him. “What are you talking about? I came here to be with you. You’re the one who’s been acting like a melancholic Hamlet all weekend!”
Gaze fixed out at the rising sun burning through the morning fog, he whispered so softly I almost missed it, “You gave me a key card, Chino.”
“Wha—” I started to say, but then stopped as understanding dawned.
OhGodOhGodOhGod. He knew!
Now it was all starting to make sense. Why else would he have run off to France when he was the supposed offender?
“Packed a duffel to come spend the night, grovel, make you listen to the truth. That I didn’t stab that chick. Didn’t know her or how she got in my bed. Got up to your penthouse. Heard music. Saw his shit on the floor. Figured you were doing it out of anger. Revenge. Went to your room to stop it, ‘cause not even a revenge stab would’ve made me give you up.
“But when I looked inside and saw you with him, saw your face, knew it had nothing to do with me or what you thought I did. He was important. He meant more to you.”
Picking up a pebble from between his thighs, he stretched out his arm, then flipped his wrist and watched the pebble fall, a long silent journey down, until it hit the water with an almost inaudible plop. “He saw me. You didn’t. And to make a statement, to have you return the sentiment loud enough for me to hear, he told you he loved you.”
My insides felt hollow, and a nauseating feeling rocked me from the bones outward. Davian saw him? And said…nothing?
“Thought it was ironic to have Jess calling me as I walked outta your building. She wanted to meet. To talk. Never told her, though. ‘Cause she had better news for me…”
A slight tremble washed over me, even though it was growing warmer with the sun’s slow ascent. Jessica had told him. That stupid bitch. What was her logic behind telling Xavier and not Davian?
All this time, he knew. He wouldn’t kiss me, he wouldn’t get aroused, because there was nothing left. Then, why was I here?
I looked down at the long distance from the cliff to the ocean. At the scraggy, jagged rocks jutting up out of the shallow end of the water. And suddenly, I didn’t feel safe sitting on a cliff, in a country nearly nine thousand miles from home, with a melancholic, recovering alcoholic who knew I cheated on him and was no longer attracted to me.
Sucking in a deep breath, I did a mental countdown. Five, four, three, two, and at one, I scooted back, shot up from the ground and began sprinting back through the rose garden.
“What the…?”
Halfway down the narrow path between the rows of roses, he tackled me to the grass.
Effortlessly subduing my wriggling body, he flipped me over onto my back. “Tell you I know you’re a lying, cheating, selfish bitch and you run?!”
His whole weight was on top of me, pinning me to the grass, and real fear coursed through me as I tried in vain to get out from under him. “W-why did you call me here? If you k-knew, all this time…why am I h-here?”
“Why do you think?!” he barked in my face, his breath hot and reeking of rage.
I turned my face to the side, hiding from his scathing glare, as twin tears escaped my fear-filled eyes.
He froze. And then his weight was gone as he pushed up to his knees, watching me with a horrified expression. “Wait, you’re afraid of me? You think I’m gonna…Jesus Christ, hurt you?”
When I said nothing, he shook his head in shock, transferring his weight from his knees to his ass, legs stretched out. “Might be a drunk with anger issues, but I’d never hurt you like that, Chino. Can’t believe you…Jesus.” His fingers combed back through his long waves, pausing halfway down and gripping hard.
Feeling disgusted with myself, I slowly eased up onto my elbows. “I’m sorry. I just thought…I couldn’t understand why you would ask me here if you knew the whole truth. I panicked.”
“You moved to L.A. because of me, or because of him?”
Honestly… “I don’t know.”
He nodded once, as though, as crazy as it sounded, he understood. “You haven’t told him about the boy, why?”
“I don’t—”
“Know,” he finished, eyes lifting to the sky. “This is good. There’s hope.” He nodded to himself, repeating, “There’s hope.”
I sat up straight, facing him. “What?”
When his eyes moved from the morning sky to me, I saw my Xavier inside them. The distance and detachment was gone, and now hope and determination were radiant in their depths. “Chino, you got his son. His son. He might love Jess, but I saw him with you that night. He made me see that it wasn’t just some meaningless shit. Was challenging me. Letting me know it was you and him against me, and I’d never win. That’s why I left. If he knows about the boy, there ain’t a doubt in my mind he’d leave Jess. Jess knows this and she’s pissing. You know this, too. Know you do. Yet you haven’t used your strongest weapon to win. Why is that, Alina?”
I was out of words, thoughts, cognition. My head spun in confusion, big, fat question signs swirling around, and I just wanted to start running again. From both of them.
Xavier returned to his knees, leaning in to me. “If you were in L.A. for him, if you really wanted him back from Jess, if you believed, with all your heart, that he was it for you, you would’ve told Davi about the boy the second you saw him. But you don’t know if he’s the reason you moved to L.A. You don’t know if you really want him back from Jess. You don’t now, with all your heart, if he’s it for you. You. Don’t. Know.”
“Xavi—”
“I’m the reason you don’t know, Chino.” His voice dropped to a rusty whisper. “There’s hope.”
Tears brimmed, hot and blurry. “Xavi—”
“Ran to Dad, ‘cause it felt like history repeating itself, ‘cept with a slight twist,” he rambled on. “Her name was Aline, yours is Alina. Was in love with someone old, Dad was new. You’re in love with someone old, I’m new. Dad had known undoubtedly who Mom would choose. Wish I had that much confidence in us, but I don’t. Wanted you here so he could look into your eyes and tell me if there’s hope. ‘Cause God knows I couldn’t do it myself. Couldn’t even look at you without feeling like being stabbed repeatedly in the chest. You hurt, Chino. Wanting you is like wanting to die. Still can’t seem to let you go. It’s hard.”
