Within Reach

by Sarah Mayberry

  A tear traced down Angie’s cheek and Michael caught it on his thumb. He hated the thought that he’d made her unhappy. They had both had more than enough of that over the past year.

  “I’m okay,” she reassured him.

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Thanks for dropping by.”

  “Thanks for listening.”

  She gestured with her chin. “Go. You don’t want to be late for your thing.”

  He took a step backward. A part of him wanted to go, wanted to walk away from all of this and put it behind him, chalking it up as a foolish, reckless one-off. The other part of him wanted to stay. To keep talking to Angie. To assure himself that she was okay, that they were okay.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Yeah, you will.” Her smile was faint but unmistakable and it did a lot to ease the remaining tension from his chest.

  He headed into the house, relieved beyond measure that they had had this conversation and that they were both on the same page. A thought occurred as he was about to close the French doors. He pivoted to face her. The words he’d been about to say stalled in his throat as he watched Angie bend to collect her cup from the deck. Her jeans tightened across her ass and thighs. He tried to remember what he’d been about to say but he was too busy watching the long, elegant lines of her body as she straightened and remembering how goddamned good she’d felt beneath him.

  Her skin had been soft and warm and salty from the sea and when she’d come, her whole body had arched against his and she’d sobbed his name, her knees tightening around his body….

  Without saying a word he left, heading for his car, away from Angie and all the feelings and memories that he didn’t want to have. Somehow, through a minor miracle, they had managed to navigate the treacherous waters of having slept with each other and still been able to look each other in the eye and like one another.

  There was no place for continuing lust and desire in their recent conversation. None at all.

  * * *

  ANGIE WALKED INTO THE kitchen to rinse her coffee cup after Michael left. She felt oddly shaky, as though she might cry at any second. Which was…unnecessary. After forty-eight hours of feeling like crap, marinating in her own guilt and confusion, she’d finally looked him in the eye and listened to him talk and said her own piece.

  They were going to be okay. She wasn’t sure how she knew that—it was still very early days—but she did. The worst had happened and they had survived and now they were cleaning up the aftermath and moving on, concentrating on the important stuff—the kids and their friendship.

  The fact that they’d had fierce, desperate, deeply intense sex on his study floor was now a historical artifact—one they would wrap in tissue paper and pack safely away for the rest of their lives, never again to see the light of day.

  A fitting end for a wildly reckless act—and a hugely fortunate one. Because this conversation could very easily have gone another way. He could have told her he didn’t want her hanging around as much, that he thought it would be best for all of them if they took a break from each other. He could have been angry with her for the way she’d taken him by the hand and stripped her clothes for him. He was more honest than that, a far better man, but it could have happened.

  Even though she’d just had coffee, she made herself a cup of tea, taking comfort from the simple act of wrapping her hands around the warm mug. She took it to the studio and sat at her desk and stared unseeingly at the wall, reviewing their conversation again, reassuring herself that the crisis really was over. She’d been living on adrenaline for the past two days, freaking out, lashing herself with guilt and regret—but they had survived.

  Which was why she steadfastly refused to dwell on the moment when Michael’s shoulder had brushed hers while they were sitting on the step. And why she would not allow herself to even contemplate sniffing the neck of her shirt to see if any of his aftershave had transferred to her during their embrace. And why she was not going to sit staring into space for another second.

  That night in the study was going to remain there—safely under lock and key.

  She finished her tea in a couple of big gulps, then picked up her flexi-drill and resumed the task of cutting out reveals from what would eventually become a three-layered wedding ring. She worked on it until it was time to pick up Eva from school, then she did some long overdue banking and tax paperwork on her laptop, sitting at the kitchen counter while Eva watched one of her after-school shows.

  Angie was aware of a certain tension inside herself as it drew closer and closer to Michael’s usual time to get home from work. Then she heard his car in the driveway, followed by the telltale rumble of the roller door on the garage. A minute later his footsteps sounded in the hall and her heart did a strange little shimmy in her chest. He walked into the room, rumpled and worn out by the day, his curly hair tousled. He was holding Charlie under one arm, his son wriggling and protesting, and something warm and hot and primitive thumped in the pit of Angie’s stomach.

  “Hey,” he said, offering her a faint smile.

  She nodded an acknowledgment, appalled by the wash of sexual heat that was flushing through her body, flooding through her torso, up into her chest and neck, making her breasts tingle and triggering a faint, needy ache between her thighs. She’d been so miserable and confused all weekend. All she’d wanted was to know that Michael was still talking to her, that they were going to be okay. She’d had that assurance this afternoon—and now her body was ambushing her, reminding her in no uncertain terms that she had slept with the tall, dark-haired man standing not four feet away from her.

  He’d been inside her body. He’d kissed and licked and bitten her breasts and slid his hand into her pants. He’d made her come, his name on her lips. She’d slid her hand along the silken steel of his erection and gripped the firm, rounded muscle of his ass as he thrust into her. She’d—

  Angie shut her laptop with a snap. “I should get going,” she said, sliding off the stool so quickly she knocked it off balance.

  “You don’t want to stay for dinner?”

  She knew he was simply being polite, trying to get things back onto an even keel, but right now she needed to be someplace he was not.

  “I’ve got yoga,” she lied.

  Michael frowned. She waited for him to point out that she usually had yoga on Tuesday nights, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he put Charlie down and walked across to kiss Eva hello.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said. “You want to turn that off for a second?”

  Eva muted the TV but kept both eyes on the screen in a blatant attempt to have her cake and eat it, too. “Yeah…?”

  “Grandma Faye is coming to town. She’s arriving tomorrow morning and she wants to make sure she gets a chance to see you.”

  That got Eva’s attention. Angie’s, too. He hadn’t mentioned that his mother was coming to town.

  “Is she staying with us?” Eva asked, bouncing on the couch. “Because she can have my bedroom if you like and I can sleep in with Charlie.”

  “I was thinking she could have my room and I would crash on the couch,” Michael said.

  “Oh. Okay. That sounds good, too,” Eva said, her gaze drifting to the television.

  Angie was hovering, halfway to the door, caught mid-exit by Michael’s news. “Did you know she was coming?”

  His expression was wry. “Nope. Mum won a mystery flight in a raffle at bingo night and it turned out it was to Melbourne. She’s got two nights in town.”

  “It’s a long way to come for only two nights,” Angie said, frowning. Michael’s parents lived in Perth, a three-and-a-half-hour flight away.

  “I know. But apparently the tickets are non-transferable and Dad won’t spring for a one-way ticket home because he sa
ys it’s highway robbery and Mum never argues with him when it comes to money, so…”

  Angie knew he wasn’t hugely close to his parents, but she couldn’t help thinking it was a shame his mother wouldn’t be staying longer. Still, it was none of her business.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, you will,” Michael said.

  She smiled, recognizing the echo of her earlier words. The smile held until she was in her car.

  She didn’t understand how she could feel sick with regret all weekend and yet still want to do it all over again the moment he walked in the door. It was crazy, absolutely counterintuitive and more than a little self-destructive.

  She scrubbed her face with her hands. She didn’t know what to do. What move to make next. She’d tried business-as-usual and failed spectacularly. She’d tried keeping her distance, which had not exactly been a big winner, either. She was all out of strategies.

  How about you stop being an idiot? Michael is not some hot guy you had great sex with. He’s Michael, and right now you’re the biggest regret on his horizon. The sex doesn’t matter. He matters. Get with the program.

  Such good advice. So sane and rational.

  She started her car, throwing it into gear with a little too much punch before heading home to yet another night of giving herself a hard time for feelings that she couldn’t seem to control.

  * * *

  “MICHAEL. YOU’RE SO SKINNY. Haven’t you been eating?”

  Michael kissed his mother’s cheek. If he’d thought about it, he could have guessed this would be her opening gambit. Even before Billie’s death she’d always been on about him putting some “meat on his bones,” something he’d always found ironic since both she and his father were lean and tall.

  “I’ve been eating.”

  “More than frozen meals, I hope,” his mother said, her gaze scanning the kitchen as though searching for giveaway cardboard boxes and plastic containers. She was dressed neatly in a pair of tailored trousers and a peacock-blue twinset, her steel-gray hair sitting in a smooth chin-length bob.

  “I can cook, you know, Mum.”

  “Yeah, Daddy cooks all the time. Spaghetti and more spaghetti. Luckily Auntie Angie cooks for us on Wednesday nights or me and Charlie would be spaghetti-shaped by now,” Eva piped up.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Eva. I know I can always count on you,” he said.

  “No worries, Daddy,” Eva said, the heavy irony in his tone going over her head.

  “Angie. She’s Billie’s friend, isn’t she?” his mother asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “The tall, dark-haired one. The pretty one.”

  His mother’s gaze remained fixed to his face as she waited for his confirmation.

  Michael picked up her overnight bag. “That’s her. I’ve put you in my room.” He headed for his bedroom, very aware that his stilted response had made his mother curious, but he hadn’t trusted himself to say anything else. He wasn’t ready to talk about Angie, even in the most innocuous way.

  He dropped his mother’s bag beside the bed. “There’s a fresh towel for you there. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

  “You don’t have to give up your bed for me, Michael. Don’t be silly. I can bunk in with Eva or sleep on the couch.”

  Michael’s shoulders relaxed as he realized his mother wasn’t going to pursue more talk of Angie.

  “You’re not sleeping on the couch,” he said firmly. “Now, do you want to eat in or go out?”

  “Which would you prefer? What’s easiest?”

  They went out, back to the family bistro where he’d used Angie as a shield to protect himself from Gerry and her friend. He listened to his mother detailing the cruise to Canada and Alaska they had planned for next year and answered her questions about being back at work and the children.

  “And what about you?” she asked when Eva took Charlie to inspect the dessert bar. “How are you?”

  He slid his empty drink coaster half an inch to the right. “I’m getting there.”

  “Are you going out? Doing anything?”

  He was uncomfortable with the conversation for more than one reason. He’d never had a confiding-type relationship with either of his parents, and he wasn’t about to start now. Plus the only thing he’d “done” lately was Angie. He could barely let himself think about it, let alone talk about it. He could imagine how shocked his mother would be if she learned he’d slept with another woman already, and that that woman was Billie’s best friend.

  He shifted in his seat. “The kids keep me busy. And work.”

  To his surprise, his mother reached out and rested one of her hands on his. She gave his hand a squeeze, her eyes sympathetic.

  “I think you’re a wonderful father, Michael. But don’t let that become everything for you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you’re allowed to have a life, too.”

  “I have a life.”

  His mother simply patted his hand again. They went home not long after, and once the kids were in bed and he’d won yet another tussle with his mother over who was sleeping on the couch, he stretched out across the cushions and stared at the darkened TV screen. For the first time since Billie’s death, he tried to think about the future in terms of what he wanted and not what he had to simply endure.

  Some of it was easy. No-brainer stuff, really. He wanted Eva and Charlie to be happy and healthy and safe. He wanted to be enough for them. Despite the fact that his interest in the firm had died to next to nothing in the early days of his grief, there was still a tickle of professional ambition itching at him. There were things he wanted to achieve, projects he’d like to land.

  Which left only his personal life—the empty side of the bed. Not so long ago, he’d honestly believed he could spend the rest of his life living off memories of Billie. The incident with Angie was proof positive that that had been nothing but a noble, naive fantasy. He was a man. He enjoyed sex, and he enjoyed women—apparently that part of him hadn’t died with Billie.

  But that didn’t mean he wanted to do the whole falling-in-love-and-marriage thing again. He was almost certain he didn’t have it in him to love like that a second time. More important, he didn’t want to. He wasn’t sure he could survive the loss of someone who meant so much to him again. Maybe that made him a coward, but so be it. It was too much, the hurt too profound.

  No, he was done with that kind of love.

  He rolled onto his side, yanking the quilt with him. A faint waft of perfume drifted to him and he inhaled, chasing the scent. Citrus and flowers.

  Angie. She was the last person who’d used this quilt, of course.

  He tucked a hand beneath his head and closed his eyes, refusing to think about Angie or the other night in any detail. It had been a mistake. Something he wanted to put behind him. Something he would regret till his dying day.

  Except for the part where you slid inside her. Except for the fact that you now know how soft and firm her breasts are. What her nipples taste like. How tight she feels. What she sounds like when she comes. Be honest and admit you don’t regret knowing any and all of the above.

  He swore, the sound muffled by the couch. He rolled onto his back again. The quilt was a tangle around his legs and guilt an acid burn in his gut, a perfect counterpoint to the throbbing of his hard-on.

  Could you be any more messed up?

  He didn’t think so. The truth was, he had no idea what he wanted anymore. He needed his friendship with Angie, relied on it to get him through, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about the other night. Couldn’t stop the guilt, either, that accompanied those thoughts—it was too early for him to want what he wanted from Angie, especially because of who she was and what she’d been t
o Billie.

  It took him a long time to fall asleep.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, HIS mother insisted on taking Charlie for the day, something Michael was more than happy to agree to. Angie arrived as he was leaving and he realized from his mother’s baffled expression that he hadn’t explained about Angie taking over the studio, an oversight he honestly couldn’t explain.

  There was nothing to feel ashamed about there, after all. Just one friend helping out another.

  “It sounds like an excellent arrangement,” his mother said crisply when he’d finished outlining Angie’s problems with the Stradbroke and his difficulty finding someone to collect Eva from school.

  “It’s worked out well,” Angie said with a small smile.

  She was uncomfortable. He could see it in her eyes and the way she held her body.

  “I’ve always admired your work, Angie. Billie was always wearing one of your pieces,” his mother said.

  “She was my biggest fan,” Angie said.

  “I think Eva’s your second biggest. She’s been raving about you. Apparently you make a terrific chicken curry.”

  “Oh. Yes. It’s not my curry, as such. I got the recipe from the paper. But the kids seem to like it.” Angie was blushing now. She took a step toward the French doors. “It was nice to see you again, Mrs. Robinson.”

  “It’s Faye. And it’s lovely to see you, too, Angie.”

  Michael busied himself gathering his things as Angie exited to the deck.

  “I’d forgotten how warm she is. Quiet, but she has a lovely presence, doesn’t she?” his mother said.

  “Yes. I’ll see you later, okay? Call if you need anything.”

  Like last night, his words sounded stiff and unnatural, and, like last night, his mother didn’t comment on it, simply tilting her cheek for his kiss. “Have a nice day.”