Risk and Reward

by Rachael Duncan

  WORK IS GOING by so slow today. It’s not that I haven’t been busy, but I just don’t want to be here. When I started, I had no problems paying my dues and climbing the professional ladder, but I’m not sure now. It’s not that this isn’t the position I want, it leads to one that doesn’t seem more appealing either. When I graduated, I thought being an office manager would be kind of fun. Of course, a lot has changed since then, as have my goals. I let out a small sigh. I guess I can’t worry about that right now. Bills have to be paid and being unemployed doesn’t cut it.

  It’s late afternoon and a sudden lull in customers has me sitting around with nothing to do. From the corner of my eye, I see Ethan walking toward me. Dressed in black slacks and a button-down shirt that looks tailored to his body, he exudes confidence. He’s very self-assured in the way he presents himself. He reminds me of a peacock, always wanting you to know when he’s in the room. It’s odd that I’m attracted to him because he’s the exact opposite of who I’m usually drawn to. I like a guy with quiet confidence, one that doesn’t teeter on cocky. My type of guy is comfortable in himself and doesn’t feel the need to flaunt it. To me, that’s sexy. That was Nate.

  The thought comes uninvited into my mind as Ethan reaches my desk. I smile up at him hoping he can’t tell that I was comparing him to my husband. Again.

  “How’s my girl?” he asks as he leans against my desk.

  Every time he calls me that, I hear another man’s words in my head.

  My love.

  My phone rings, and as soon as I see who it is, a smile stretches across my face. “Hey!” I say as I answer.

  “Hey, my love.”

  My insides flip at the term of endearment. It’s two simple words, but they make me feel alive while making me weak all at once.

  “You there?” he asks when I don’t respond.

  “Yeah, I’m just smiling,” I admit.

  “Why?” I love the humor in his voice and can picture his perfect grin.

  “Because of what you just called me.” I bite my lip, feeling silly for making a big deal out of this.

  “What? My love?”

  I nod even though he can’t see me. “Yeah.”

  “Well, you are. You’re my heart. It beats for you.”

  Toward the end, his name for me lost some of its luster. Where it used to warm my heart and make me feel cherished, it started to make me cold and bitter. Once again, it was a reminder of the way we used to be, but with distance comes clarity. And clarity is beating down on my remaining anger and resentment is giving way to something I never thought I’d feel.

  Regret.

  “Earth to Charlotte,” Ethan says as he waves his hand in front of my face.

  I blink a few times to bring myself back to the here and now. “Sorry, I zoned out for a second.”

  “I can see that. So, I wanted to see if you wanted to go out to dinner after work.”

  “I already made plans with the girls for tonight,” I respond with an apologetic grimace.

  “You could always cancel.” I wait for him to smile or say he’s kidding, but he doesn’t.

  My eyebrow arches. “Or I could keep my plans and go out with you some other time.”

  He blinks a couple times before responding. “Okay, what about tomorrow?”

  “That works.”

  Before turning around and walking off, he raps his knuckles on the top of my desk. I keep trying to dismiss this weird vibe I have with Ethan, but the more I ignore it, the more it makes its presence known.

  When Ethan refers to me as his girl, it’s a term of possession, showing that I’m his. I might smile, but I don’t get butterflies or weak in the knees. When Nate called me his love, it showed he belonged to me. I realize each elicits a much different reaction and emotion. Nate made me feel like I was the only one on this planet for him. I was his love, his heart. And he was mine.

  It crawls up my spine, scratching the back of my mind, telling me something isn’t quite right. Just as quickly as the feeling appears, it shifts. With a flash of his smile, I’m reassured I’m overreacting and attribute it to being out of the dating scene for so long.

  A knock on my door has me getting up off the couch. Choco lifts his head up and looks that way but makes no attempt to move before laying his head back down. “Don’t get up,” I say sarcastically. A guard dog he is not.

  Opening the door, Lydia stands before me with Ella strapped in her carrier that hangs from her arm. “Hey! Come on in.” I step aside so she can pass. “How are you?”

  A puff of air leaves her lips. “Exhausted. I went back to work recently and there are not enough hours in a day to get everything done.”

  “Well, you look great,” I tell her. “Now give me that baby.” I hold my arms out as she unstraps her from her car seat. “She’s getting so big.”

  “You’re telling me. I can’t believe she’s already two months old.” She shakes her head as she stares down at her baby, a look of utter love and contentment in her eyes.

  A pang of envy hits me as I hold Ella in my arms. I thought I’d have at least one baby by now with Nate. Now that we’re not together anymore, maybe it was a blessing in disguise. It’s hard enough going through this on my own. I don’t know how I’d handle it if there was a child involved.

  It’s not long before Paige and Scarlett join us. “I hope Chinese is okay. I didn’t feel like cooking.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Paige says as the rest of them agree.

  We all catch up on the latest in our lives. Scarlett is glad the semester is finally over and Paige still hates her job. Lydia is figuring out how to balance work and family and just started a new design for a client. When they ask how it’s going with Ethan, I’m not sure how to respond.

  “It’s . . . good.” I hesitate.

  “What’s wrong?” Lydia asks.

  “I keep comparing Ethan to Nate and it’s messing with my head.” It’s not the complete truth, but I don’t want to bring attention to my recent hang ups in case I’m overanalyzing.

  “That’s normal. You’d been with Nate for so long, I think it’s natural to compare and contrast,” Lydia says.

  “When you do that, is it positive or negative?” Scarlett asks.

  “What do you mean?” My brow furrows, waiting for her to explain.

  “When you compare the two, does it make you view Ethan in a negative light or positive? Like do you wish he was more like Nate?”

  I pause for a second. Is that what I want? If it is, then I wouldn’t have left Nate in the first place, right? “It’s not that I wish Ethan was more like him, but I find myself noticing how my reaction to his words and actions are different than they were with Nate.”

  “How?” Paige presses.

  I shrug and look down as I pick at my nails. I explain my internal thoughts on the whole my girl versus my love thing. There’s no judgment in their expressions as they listen, which makes me feel better. “I guess I’m just confused. I left Nate for good reasons, yet I find myself thinking about him constantly now and I want it to stop. I just want to move on.”

  “It’s okay, Charlotte. You’re transitioning from being with this man for what, eight years now, to suddenly being single. Nate wasn’t a bad guy, right?” Lydia asks. I shake my head in response. “Now that you’ve had some time away from him, I think it’s normal to remember the good times. It’s easy to dwell on what makes you miserable when you’re stuck in the moment. Those issues don’t consume your life now, so of course you’re going to reflect on the moments you enjoyed. You just have to decide if you’re ready to walk away from all the good because of the bad, or see if there’s still something there worth saving.”

  She said exactly what I’ve been thinking lately. “He hasn’t even tried to come for me though. Even if I wanted to work it out, it’s clear he doesn’t.” I mean, wouldn’t he have tried to contact me if he didn’t want me to go? But that’s the root of our problem; I’m not worth fighting for anymore.


  Lydia holds my hand. “I know he loves you. Marcus has talked to him here and there and said the guy sounds miserable.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat and shake my head. “Next topic. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  At that moment, there’s a knock on the door. I spring up, thankful for the reprieve and grab my wallet to pay for the food. I swing open the door, but freeze when it’s not the delivery guy, but Ethan.

  “Hey?” I don’t mean for it to come out as a question, but he knows I have company over, so I’m a little taken aback that he’s here.

  “Hey, I know you said you couldn’t go to dinner with me, but I thought, why don’t I bring you guys food instead?” It’s just now that I realize he’s holding a couple of boxes of pizza. My mouth opens to respond, but no words come out.

  “Is that the food, Charlotte?” Paige yells from the living room around the corner.

  “Uh . . .”

  “Yes,” he answers for me. All I can do is stare at him.

  Scarlett rounds the corner and stops when she sees us. “Well, hello there,” she flirts.

  Ethan chuckles, flashing his perfect smile. “Hi, I’m Ethan.” He reaches out his hand to shake hers, and I watch as realization crosses her face.

  “Oh! You’re Charlotte’s Ethan!” She’s way more excited than she needs to be.

  “That would be me,” he responds.

  “Well why are you standing out there? Come on in. We could use a little eye candy while we eat.”

  He walks in, his chest pushed out clearly enjoying the compliment, but I’m frozen in my spot. He disregarded everything I said to him at work earlier and just crashed my girls’ night. What the hell? More than that, he’s overstepping boundaries again.

  Closing the door, I follow in behind them as Scarlett introduces him to the rest of the gang. I catch Paige’s watchful eye as she examines my expression. She looks back and forth between Ethan and me as she silently asks if I’m okay. I shake my head discreetly and walk into the kitchen to pour myself a drink.

  He’s crowding me and it’s suffocating. I had no intentions of introducing him to my friends, at least not yet. That should have been done at my pace when I was ready. He took that choice away from me and barged into this part of my life. He’s too pushy. If he can’t back off, I’m not sure I can keep seeing him.

  THIS MORNING I’M on a mission. With my cup of coffee sitting next to me, I turn on my computer and try to find a needle in a haystack. I don’t have much to go off of, but I have to at least try.

  Ethan has been really clingy ever since he dropped by unannounced two weeks ago when the girls were over. I’m not sure what has caused the sudden shift in his behavior, but we went from casual and relaxed, to feeling suffocated and strained almost overnight. The problem is it’s as if he hasn’t noticed the change. I’m no psychologist, but I vaguely remember discussing coping mechanisms when I took a couple of psychology courses in school. I’m wondering if his need to latch on to me has anything to do with the lack of family he’s had for some time.

  “I don’t even know their names,” I mutter. All I know is his parents died in an accident in California.

  I begin by typing California accident kills Pecks. Next I search Mr. and Mrs. Peck die in car crash in California. I mix up the phrasing and search all kinds of keywords, but come up empty each time. After an hour and a half, I’m no closer to finding Ethan’s sister than I was when I started.

  Rocking my head from side to side, I stretch out my neck and decide I need a break. As I get up off the couch, my phone rings.

  “Hey, Paige,” I answer.

  “Hey, girl. Whatcha doing?”

  “Nothing much,” I say on a sigh. “What are you up to?”

  “Just hanging out and being lazy. What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “I’m trying to find someone online without much luck.”

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “Ethan’s sister,” I reply.

  “Why?”

  “He hasn’t seen her since they were kids after their parents passed away. They got separated by the system and he has no one else.”

  “Wow, that must have been hard on him.”

  “Yeah, he was reluctant to talk about it and I didn’t press the issue, but his whole body gets tense and he’s real short when the topic of family gets brought up. I’ve been thinking about it since he told me, so I thought I’d try to find her. I’m wondering if it’ll help some other issues that have started to come up too.”

  “What issues? I thought you guys were doing good?”

  I let out another sigh. “I don’t know. I think I’m ignoring things that should bother me in an effort to convince myself I should keep seeing him.”

  “Why would you force yourself to see him?”

  That’s a good question and one I don’t have the answer for. I was looking forward to being on my own and I jumped into a relationship with the first guy who paid attention to me. Granted, it’s casual, but still. Maybe the problem isn’t Ethan, it’s me.

  When I don’t respond, Paige switches tactics. “Well, what is he doing that’s bothering you?”

  “You know how he dropped by while you guys were all over?”

  “Yeah, he seems really nice. We all like him,” she responds.

  “He is a nice guy, but the problem is he’s crowding me. I told him earlier that day I couldn’t go to dinner with him because I had already made plans. He didn’t seem thrilled I wouldn’t cancel on you guys, but agreed to take a raincheck. Then he shows up anyway. I blew him off the next day because I was still pissed. Since then, he’s been calling constantly and wanting to hang out every minute of the day. I had to lie and tell him I didn’t feel good this morning because he wanted to get coffee together.”

  “Are you really not into him? I remember when you first started seeing Nate you two were attached at the hip almost instantly.”

  My posture sags in disappointment because I know she’s right. I couldn’t get enough of Nate when we started dating. Hell, even when we got married I loved spending all my free time with him.

  “I like Ethan, I do, but I can’t jump into anything serious. I’m not even legally divorced yet and am in this constant back and forth with my feelings when it comes to him. I don’t know if I’m looking for problems to give myself an out to keep from getting hurt again, or if I should listen to my gut and run for the hills.”

  I don’t want to dissect my feelings for Ethan anymore, so I bring the conversation back to the original topic. “I’m thinking maybe the reason he’s becoming so attached is because he doesn’t have anyone else. I never hear him talk about his friends, and as far as I know he goes to work and comes home. I’m hoping if I find her, he’ll let loose a little. Like maybe the reason he’s acting this way is because he’s afraid of losing someone else. I don’t know.” I start second-guessing my thought process on the whole situation.

  “Okay, Dr. Phil,” she says with a laugh.

  “Shut it.” I roll my eyes, but know she’s joking.

  “I’m just playing. What do you know about her?”

  “Not much. I don’t even know her first name or when their parents died exactly. He said the accident happened in California and I’m only assuming it was a car wreck. It had to have been before he was eighteen years old since they ended up in foster care. I’ve been trying to find information on the wreck, hoping it’ll lead me to some names, but I can’t find a damn thing on anyone with the last name Peck involved in a wreck in California.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. I severely underestimated how difficult this would be, figuring modern technology would make my search easy.

  “Have you tried searching news archives? You might find a hit there.”

  “The problem is I don’t know where in California the accident occurred. So unless it made statewide news, I’d have to search through each local news source.”

  “That’ll take forever,” she points out the obvious.

>   “I know.” I plop back down on the couch and stare blankly at my computer screen.

  “You need Nev and Max to help you.”

  My brow furrows in confusion. “Who?”

  “Nev and Max. You know, from that show Catfish? They’re geniuses at tracking down people.”

  I let out a laugh. Paige and her TV shows, I think as I shake my head. “I’ll be sure to reach out to them,” I reply sarcastically.

  “Oh!” she says, excitement in her voice. “Have you thought about asking Marcus if he knows anyone that could help? Maybe a detective or someone?”

  “I don’t want to bother him with something like this. I think I’ll just go county by county and see if a name pops up.”

  “Speaking of Marcus, I had lunch over there yesterday and the ass didn’t tell me he invited his brother. And Lydia had the audacity to laugh when she saw the look on my face.”

  “I don’t know why you’re still in denial. You two definitely have a thing going on.”

  “If this thing involves me kicking him in the balls, then yes, we do.”

  “Why don’t you like him? He’s a good looking guy, smart, successful.”

  “And a complete idiot. He told me I remind him of his big toe because he’s going to bang me on every piece of furniture in his house.” Judging by her tone, she’s clearly not amused, but I find it funny. My head goes back as I let out a laugh.

  “Okay, so he’s not as smooth as Marcus and he’s a little on the gross side, but you’ve got to give the guy credit. You shut him down time after time and he keeps coming back for more abuse.”

  That gets a small laugh out of her. “He’s persistent, that’s for sure.”

  “It’s those Riley men. Marcus didn’t back off of Lydia either, so you’re either going to cave in and let him bang your brains out, or you need to deal with the horrible lines and endless pursuit.”