by N. M. Silber
“I don’t know what you mean.” I even managed to sound vaguely offended.
“Even though I’m sure I should explore that subject further, I’m feeling pretty amorous at the moment,” he said, pulling me to him again. “Maybe you should…” My cell started to ring then, “…answer your phone,” he finished with a sigh, releasing me.
Speak of the devil, it was Jess herself, wanting to know what had happened at the police station. I filled her in quickly and then let her know I would be over shortly to grab some more clothes. We had been spending more and more time at Braden’s place and slowly but surely my possessions were making their way there. I also wanted to have a chance to talk to Jess alone about Cam, but as soon as I hung up with her, Braden was offering to escort me. He could be pretty protective too. Actually, he and my dad were a lot alike in general.
“Braden, it’s only two blocks.” Silence. “In daylight.” He continued to stare. “In a major city.” No response. “The guys are going to be here soon?” We had a winner, folks!
“Fine. Take Bruno then and invite Jessica to come back with you.”
“Yes, dear.” I smiled sweetly and leaned up to kiss him goodbye. Bruno and I headed out, hopped into the elevator and descended to the opulent Art Deco style lobby of the luxury high-rise where Braden lived. I waved to the concierge, and let the doorman know we would be right back. Braden had made it clear to everyone in his building that I was a permanently welcome guest and future resident. I was barely outside when I started to get a funny feeling. The back of my neck felt prickly and I got goosebumps, even though it was very warm outside. I paused to try to process it and realized that it felt like somebody was watching me. I looked around me in every direction, and while there were plenty of people out and about, everyone seemed to be going about their own business. I told myself that it was just my imagination and Bruno and I headed off down the sidewalk. As we walked, the little hamster on the wheel inside my head starting running faster. What if it wasn’t my imagination? What if whoever wrote the notes was following me? That would explain how they knew I was in New York. Great, just what I needed; more weird things going on. Then that thought sunk in and I stopped in my tracks, nearly causing Bruno to do a back flip as his leash became taut. It must be difficult to be that small. He turned around to give me an inquisitive look.
“That is what we need Bruno, more weird stuff! Jess and Cameron got to know each other and spend time together when they were helping Mommy. If they help her more, they’ll spend more time together.” Hey, maybe there was an upside to being stalked by some wacko. Who knew?
CHAPTER TWO
The apartment that Jess and I shared was also in a very nice building, although not nearly as luxurious as Braden’s. I greeted our own front desk guy, Carl, who I thought was a little afraid of me. I really couldn’t blame him. This was a building filled with nice upper middle class people and I had shown up in our lobby covered in garbage and dressed like a dominatrix.
I took the elevator to our floor and dug my keys out of my purse. Opening the door, I called out to Jess, who called back from her bedroom to let me know that she would be right out. Then I took Bruno off his leash, and as per his custom, he took off to go check the place out. Bruno was always the point man. Mommy wasn’t allowed past the front room until he gave the all clear. I took out my cell and quickly alerted Braden to our safe arrival before he had the National Guard out looking for us, and then I went into the living room and plopped down in my favorite comfy chair. We had spent many an evening in this living room drinking wine and sharing gossip. I was going to miss it. Jess came out a minute later, escorted by Bruno.
“Braden let you out on your own?” she asked, taking a seat across from me and putting her feet up on an ottoman.
“I have my attack dog.” I looked down at my teeny tiny Chihuahua who I was sure would yip his ass off for me if I were in danger. The fact that nobody might care was another issue. Bruno placed two tiny front paws on my leg and gave me an imploring look not unlike the one I frequently gave Judge Channing. Bruno and Mommy both knew how to beg. I picked him up and settled him into my lap, rubbing him behind his ginormous ears. He made the doggie equivalent of a sigh. Bruno loved to be rubbed. He and Mommy had that in common too. “He asked if you would come back with me though,” I added.
“For Game Night?” She didn’t look thrilled.
“Yeah, I know, pizza, beer, and sports we don’t fully comprehend may not sound like a magical evening, but Cameron will be there,” I said with a big suggestive smile.
“And?” she asked, brushing some imaginary lint off of her sleeve. Ah - the imaginary lint brush - a classic evasive maneuver. I had used it myself on many an occasion. Lawyers knew all about this stuff because juries watched our body language very carefully. Two could play at that game though. I went to law school too.
“And so, you guys are getting along really well. Maybe it’s time to explore something more than friendship.” I gave her the earnest sincere look. She countered with the dismissive eye roll but I didn’t buy it. I knew what she was thinking about exploring.
“He was here alone with me for hours last night. He could have explored a whole continent if he had wanted to. We talked; we laughed. There was some sexual tension but he didn’t do anything.” She shot me a raised eyebrow – a direct challenge. I sidestepped it with the thoughtful look, complete with the lean forward, to demonstrate my sincerity.
“I suspect he overthinks it with women he’s interested in for more than a night.”
“Great. Just what I need.” She sighed. “An over-thinker. That’s usually the same thing as an under-committer.” I needed to make her understand that this was well within her power.
“I know that he wants to explore more but he may need a little nudge.”
“What kind of nudge?” she asked suspiciously. Why did everyone seem to distrust me?
“I don’t know. Maybe you should just kiss him. He wouldn’t refuse that and then you could talk about the details before doing anything else.” I paused as the irony sunk in. “That last step was the one that I forgot myself before our wonderful college encounter, incidentally.”
“Kiss him! That’s your plan, General MacArthur? Okay, Should I do that in the office with our two hundred colleagues or in open court? Maybe I’ll just do it at Game Night so that Adam and Mark can cheer me on. I can’t count on even being alone with him unless we go on a date, let alone kissing him out of the blue.”
“So maybe you should ask him out, then.”
“No. I’m not making the first move and I’m not asking him out. I want him to do it because I need to know that he’s worked through whatever he feels about you and Braden being together. Besides, I may be a shameless hussy but I’m kind of an old-fashioned shameless hussy in some ways. Braden asked you out.”
“He asked me to hook up with him and when I demanded dinner first, he challenged me to a round of Beer Sex Trivia and then we negotiated a settlement that included pre-sex dating.”
“So it wasn’t the Notebook …”
“Look, I know that Cam’s interested in you. He said so. And I know that he’s happy for me and Braden too, even if it was weird at first. You just need to spend more time together. Braden’s parents are out of town this weekend and it’s just his younger brother at their place. His mom invited us to stay over. They have a pool and there’s a music festival going on near there on Saturday. Mark, Adam, and Cam are invited. You should come too.”
“I told Lily that I would hang around with her this weekend and I don’t want to ditch her. Now that her parents are living in Florida she doesn’t have anywhere to go on weekends and I think she needs more socialization. She works in a law library and she spends every night in her apartment writing her books. She’s going to start hoarding stuff and having deep conversations with the neighbor’s cat if she doesn’t get out more.”
Bruno yipped. He didn’t like cats. Whenever he saw one he would follow it arou
nd and give it what I’m sure he imagined were very intimidating looks. Wait - he followed it around. Okay, time to test out my new idea.
“The thing is, Jess, I may need some help anyway. I think somebody may be following me. It could be the person who left the notes.”
“Following you?” She sat up straighter and looked concerned and I hoped that I wasn’t getting her all worked up for nothing.
“Yeah, it could be nothing but I just got this weird feeling. Anyway, I was thinking that I shouldn’t keep this stuff to myself anymore after what happened last night and so maybe we could all discuss it or something over the weekend. In fact, why don’t we invite Lily along too?”
“You know that she and Adam don’t get along?”
“Oh that’s right.” I paused. “Definitely invite her then.”
“You don’t think anyone would mind that you’re inviting all these people to Senator Pierce’s house while he’s away?” she asked with a laugh.
“Of course not,” I replied. Probably not. I stood up and tucked Bruno under my arm. “Now, I’ve got to grab some more clothes.” I headed down a short hallway to my room and Jess followed me in and sat down on my bed. I put Bruno down and grabbed my suit bag, tossing it on a chair. I would kind of miss this room too when I moved. It was small and cozy and crammed with books just like my room in my parents’ brownstone in New York.
“So, what was Cam like in college anyway?” Jess asked as I moved around my room figuring out what I needed. I paused and thought about her question for a minute, remembering our days together at Yale. What was Cam like then?
“He had lots of friends and he got involved in all kinds of activities. He was very intelligent, but not intellectual, more the cute, fun, easy-going kind of guy. He was in a fraternity and he was very popular.”
“You were close?” she asked and I hesitated. We hadn’t really gotten into a lot of detail about Cameron’s and my former relationship.
“We hung out together a lot,” I replied, hoping that maybe we were done talking about it.
“What did you do when you hung out?” Okay, we weren’t done talking about it. What, was she cross-examining me? I quickly started grabbing toiletries and tossing them into an overnight bag like I had sixty seconds to evacuate the building.
“Um, sometimes we went out to eat or to the movies. Sometimes we just talked,” I said while digging around frantically in my closet. Obviously, I still felt a little uncomfortable talking about this, for some reason.
“But you weren’t dating? I only ask because you did the same stuff with the gay guy you supposedly were dating. The only difference was that you actually had sex with Cam.”
“We were friends,” I answered as I shredded a few garments in my haste. “And I told you, we only had sex that one night.” I rifled through my blouses, grabbed one and tossed it in the general direction of my suit bag. If one considered five feet away the general direction.
“But never anything other than that? Not even a little fooling around?”
“No. Just that one night.” I came barreling out of the closet and started frantically digging through my underwear drawer. For something. Not really sure what.
“Gabrielle, stop! Step away from the dresser! You do not need your bathing suit to spend the night at Braden’s apartment! And for the record, you probably don’t need the shoe polish that you packed either.” I stopped digging, put the bathing suit down, turned and slowly walked over to sit next to her on my bed in defeat. The Grand freaking Inquisitor over here wasn’t giving up. What in the hell difference did it make now anyway?
“There was sexual tension between us but nothing happened other than that one night.”
“So, what happened that night?”
“There was one of those moments, the kind where you look at somebody and think, ‘wow I really want to kiss him.’ So I kissed him. And he kissed me back and he just kind of took it from there. I was planning to tell him that I was a virgin, but I really liked what we were doing, and I seemed to be holding my own pretty well,” I said defensively.
“I think you should have mentioned it, honey.”
“Ug! I know,” I admitted, banging my head a few times against the bedpost. “Anyway, he freaked out when he realized the next day that he had deflowered one of his closest friends. I said that I wanted to date him and then he freaked out more. In retrospect, I probably should have mentioned that before I kissed him.”
“And he should have handled it better, even at nineteen. There were more sensitive ways to tell a good friend that you didn’t want a romantic relationship.”
“He said that he was confused, and that he did want to be involved with me romantically but he couldn’t deal with those feelings at that moment, because he was really down on himself at the time. Afterward, when I wouldn’t talk to him, he figured he had damaged our relationship beyond repair, so he just decided to leave me alone.”
“This is like a bad movie,” she said, shaking her head.
“Everything seems more dramatic when you’re a teenager. It’s hormones and chemicals from all the Clearasil and Axe body spray. At least that’s my hypothesis.”
“You really should tell Braden, you know.”
“What? That I made him negotiate an international treaty to take me out to dinner, but I let his cousin take my virginity on a whim? He already knows.”
“I mean that you should tell him that Cam said that he cared about you but that he just couldn’t deal with it. At least Braden will know that he wasn’t just using you as a convenient place to come.”
“You’ve got such a way with words.”
“I know, honey. Now, getting back to the point …”
“He’s already guessed that it was more than just a casual hook up for both of us. He’s still a little jealous about Cam having gone where no man had gone before, so I don’t want to rock the boat when they just made up.” We both sat there quietly for a minute, lost in our own thoughts, while Bruno chewed on a pair of my stockings.
“He really said he was interested in me?” she asked finally.
“Yeah! Last night when we were waiting, and he said he found you really attractive too.” She nodded her head silently. I knew she was thinking about it!
“Does he have nice boy parts?” she asked after another minute of silent contemplation.
“That’s what you want to know?! Does that matter so much?”
“I already know that he’s cute and funny and smart! I even know what kind of food and books and music he likes,” she said defensively. “We had a lot of time to talk while we were staking out Braden’s crazy call girl ex-girlfriend for you.” Okay, she had a point there. He had nothing to be ashamed of anyway in that department.
“He’s a healthy boy,” I replied. “Not quite as healthy as Braden, but Mother Nature was generous to the men of their line. Stamina and the ability to recover quickly also seem to run in their family. Both he and Braden are like Energizer Bunnies.”
“Did you do it more than once?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Five times,” I answered, blushing a little with the memory of our one wild night together. In some ways I had actually lucked out as far as first-time experiences went. Even at nineteen Cam was good in bed. Must have been something in the genes.
“Five times! Mary, Joseph and a fucking donkey! This was the first time you had sex? Did they carry you out of there on a stretcher?”
“I was a bit sore the next day. I was too busy having an emotional breakdown to really notice much, though.”
“You’ve had very interesting experiences,” she said, shaking her head again. “Come on Mrs. Pierce. We had better get going before your very healthy husband comes looking for you.”
“That sounds so weird! I’ll have to get used to that.”
“Is Braden acting any differently now that you’re engaged?”
“Well, first of all, we’re not officially engaged. He wants to propose to me in a more romantic
way.”
“I can’t imagine why,” she said dryly.
“Secondly, it’s been less than twenty-four hours, so it’s kind of early to tell.”
I called Bruno who came scurrying over with a yip, and when I had him leashed again, we headed out. It happened again as soon as we cleared the front door! I looked around in confusion.
“What’s the matter, honey?” she asked.
“I have that weird feeling again, like somebody is watching me.”
“Right now?” she asked, suddenly stopping and looking around frantically in every direction. She gave some folks some suspicious looks that probably made them think that we were stalking them. A little kid ran away from us. We weren’t really good at the whole spy game thing. We would probably have to work on subtlety a bit.
“I don’t see anybody, Gabrielle. It’s probably just nerves because of everything that’s happened. Don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right, but we should still mention and talk about it as a group this weekend,” I said as we headed back toward Rittenhouse Square.
CHAPTER THREE
I had my own key now and I let us in to Braden’s apartment. Bruno went off to check things out as usual and I heard male voices from inside acknowledge our presence. The gang was all there. I hung up Bruno’s leash and headed toward the TV area behind Jess, who greeted everyone and sat down next to Cam with a smile. She was much cooler around guys she was attracted to than I had ever been.
“Hi, Gabrielle! I understand that I dressed up like an ass for no reason last night!” Mark said in a falsely cheerful voice.
“You looked very cute,” I replied sincerely. It was the truth. Mark always looked cute, in a carefully disheveled way. He knew how to pull it off so that he looked like a sexy hipster rather than a messy derelict. That took skill.
“You’re lucky that you’re sleeping with one of my best friends,” he said, not looking terribly overwhelmed by the compliment.
“I’m sorry,” I replied, and he raised his eyebrows at me. “That I made you dress up like a naughty schoolboy and go to an underground sex party.” He cleared his throat.
