by Eden Butler
“Mom…”
One head shake, a quick raised hand and my questions were dismissed. If my mother didn’t want you prying into her business, no matter who you were, you weren’t going to get in there. She switched gears quickly, pulling her phone from her purse before she walked around the living room, picking up my siblings’ mess as I followed behind her. “Why were you fighting with Aly?”
“It’s…it was nothing.” I scratched my chin, suddenly feeling drained from my run and the cluster fuck that had been Aly’s visit.
“You need to fix this. I told you, son.” She tossed a pair of Koa’s shoes and several of Mack’s books in my arms as she picked up a miniature pair of youth shoulder pads and lead me up the stairs and into my kid brother’s room. All around us was an assortment of young teenage crap—posters on the wall of the Hawaiisn Kahuku High School’s Red Raiders football team, shots of Dad and me that the NFL still sold, autographed footballs from my Dolphins teammates and the Steamers, New Orleans’ pro team, walls of books from Minecraft to Star Wars novels. The walls were gray, but CPU blue accented the room in the bedspread, on the windows, even the small Blue Devils figurines that covered his desk. “You can’t get in her way,” Mom said, straightening Koa’s half-made bed. “You’ve got to show her that she matters without pressuring her. Let her see what she’s missing.”
“I know that,” I said, tossing the shoes into his closet. We moved into Mack’s girly pink accented room with her dance posters on the light gray walls and a Hogwarts map over her white metal framed bed. I set the books on the shelf above her desk as Mom made the rumpled bed. “I just forgot.”
“Forgot?” she said, nodding for me to take the other side of the comforter.
“I was an asshole.” Again I rubbed my neck, frustrated that my mother’s small advice could unravel the good vibe I’d drummed up for myself with Aly’s visit, before our fight. Mom stopped tucking in the cover, holding one of the fluffy pink pillows over her chest as she adjusted its case. “I’ll go talk to her,” I promised. Mom’s expression darkened like she didn’t believe me and I shook my head, dismissing her worry. “I’ll be nice, I promise.”
“Be sure that you are.” She dismissed me with a kiss on the cheek, flaring her nostrils when she got too close. “Go get a shower,” she said, starting out of the room and down the stairs, stopping at the hallway entrance toward the studio. “And get my door fixed.”
She left me alone, stuck in that room with the echoes of some stranger’s laughter and the stinging memory of Aly’s touch, her scent filling up my head. It wasn’t the white noise I wanted to hear when the day had begun, but it still shifted my world on its axis. It still made me feel that whatever my world had become, I was still able to make it drift from me. Only this time, I didn’t want to lose hold of it.
I touched my cheek where Aly had slapped it, and was surprised to find it no longer hurt. Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, I headed down the hall to take my shower.
You show yourself
Slowly.
Like layers pulled back.
A dandelion in a storm.
Each soft, gossamer petal
That hides, conceals
Plucked free.
One
By
One
Until there is only the hard stem.
Until there is nothing beautiful left.
Six
There were only five people waiting in the lobby—still quite a few for such a small law office. Fine marble floors shined so sharply that I caught a glimpse of my reflection as I moved around the people waiting, not noticing much but the heavy scent of coffee coming from the break room beyond the lobby and the almost overwhelming scent of perfume that the legal secretary Rosie wore.
It was nearing noon and Rosie, manning the receptionist’s desk, was talking to one of the associates, while those clients already waiting either poked at their phones or stared off into space, looking lost and bored at the same time. I ignored them all as I marched across the lobby towards the inner offices.
I was there to prove a point, determined in fact, and when I moved into the main hallway I paid scant attention to Rosie who stood from the desk, calling after me as I headed straight for the office at the end of the corridor. “Miss King. Wait, you can’t go in there…”
She was several feet behind me, but the echo of her heels was sharp, like the crack of a whip and they came to an abrupt stop as I walked right into Ethan’s office unannounced.
“Mr. Willis, I’m so sorry,” Rosie was saying, attempting to pull on my elbow to get me out. Ethan, though, glanced up from his desk which was piled with stacks of opened folders covering almost every inch of the warm wood surface. When he saw me, though, he stood, the slightest of smiles overcoming his initial look of irritation at being interrupted.
I only noticed being the center of attention when Ethan cleared his throat, shooting his gaze behind me to the small table in the corner and the three suits that sat around it.
“Aly,” he said, greeting me with a smile that twitched just the tiniest bit. “We’re kind of in the middle of something.”
But I couldn’t move, caught up as I was in the spontaneous decision to fly across the Causeway and get here to prove Ransom wrong, that I could feel crazy alive with someone else. That urge had only grown stronger, the need for it heightened as I moved through Metairie, then into the Business District. It seemed I could only breath after I had parked on the street, then when I saw Ethan’s surprised expression as I barged into his office.
He was always doing things without thought, had often encouraged me to act with the same free impulsivity. Now that I had, I couldn’t help but worry that I’d chosen the wrong day, the wrong time, the wrong reason to be impulsive.
“Ethan,” I started, hoping he could see the quiet frenzy that had my hands shaking. I needed him and I was a woman that didn’t like needing anyone. But Ransom… Non. Fuck Ransom. This was his fault, all of it. Winding me up until thought became secondary, until I acted as careless as he did. “Ethan, I’m sorry,” I tried again, pushing back my shoulders.
Ethan seemed to see something in my features that told him I couldn’t wait. “It’s lunchtime anyway,” he said, nodding Rosie out of his office before he walked away from his desk and glanced at his team sitting around the table. He stood next to me, fingers slipping on my wrist as he spoke to them. “One hour, guys and then we’ve got to get this done. I’ve only got a few days before I head to New York.”
That rich coffee aroma was fainter in the office—or at least that's what my distracted mind seized upon as the staff gathered their things and left to take their own break. I stood in front of the large, pristine window watching Camp Street bustle in front of me. There was so much traffic that people were evacuating cabs, hurrying down Girod or toward Canal to get to wherever they were going. To my right Saint Patrick’s stood tall, looming, and three kids with patches on their knees and backpacks used the angled bases of smooth stone on the church columns to skateboard off and onto the sidewalk.
“Baby, are you okay?” Ethan said, shutting the door behind the last of his clerks as they left the office. There were small lines in between his eyebrows and I wondered if a kiss would make them disappear. He had such a handsome face—striking features that belong on the cover of GQ, not in some small but growing law office in New Orleans. When he stepped closer, when that rich, smooth scent that I always loved came off his skin, I closed my eyes, letting him hold me, resting my cheek against his chest because it was warm. I hadn’t been able to shake the chill that had set inside my bones since I left Ransom.
“You interrupted me so I’d hold you?” There was a satisfied, almost amused inflection in Ethan’s voice and I smiled at the sound, liking how easy it was to please him. There was no pressure with him.
Not like…
Modi.
“I’m sorry,” I said, stepping back to look at him. The frown had left, but those lines
remained and I pushed my thumbs over his face, my fingers tickling when he closed his eyes, breathing me in.
He seemed to enjoy how I touched him, the slow, sure stroke of my nails against his scalp, along his temples, the press of my thumbs massaging his shoulders. For a minute, Ethan relaxed against me, head back, a smile ghosting around his mouth.
Then I kissed his neck because it was exposed. I kissed it because he was beautiful and kind and generous, because I wanted to prove to him that I could be spontaneous. That I really did want to change for him. I kissed him, nibbling the skin between my teeth because I could, because Ethan had given me something I hadn’t had in years and I wanted to return the favor.
I wanted to silence that niggling voice in my mind, the repeat of Ransom’s curse that promised that we could never stay in the past.
“Aly, baby…” Ethan panted when I moved my lips, my tongue up his throat, tugging him closer to get at his mouth. He stopped protesting for a minute, giving back to me all the attention I demanded, kissing me with the same desperate strength I’d come to expect from him. “Baby…” he said again when I closed my eyes tight, trying so damn hard to clear away Ransom’s voice.
“Ethan…” Another kiss, longer, slower this time and he walked backward, stumbling when his legs hit the desk.
“Aly…wait.” Ethan fell on top of the desk, still clinging to me, but cautious, hesitant. He stopped my hands when I went for his tie. “What’s going on here?”
“I wanted to see you,” I said, moving closer, nibbling up his neck again, pulling his earlobe in my mouth. “I needed to taste you.”
“Christ.” And then Ethan let me play—my hands clawed and tugged, untucking his shirt, succeeding in getting that tie loose and nearly off. When my hands weren’t busy, my mouth was. Teeth against that smooth, pale skin, the low, barely audible sound of his groans, the flustered, frantic way Ethan responded to my touch. “God, baby, what are you…”
We’re it. We’re always.
Damn him. He was wrong. He had no clue what I could have with Ethan and here was my moment to prove it.
“Ethan, I want you.”
Those words hung in the air—like the slow descent of feathers from a plume moving silently to the ground. I couldn’t take them back. I wouldn’t and Ethan’s reaction was immediate. His kisses became harried, eager and though he’d never asserted himself, though he’d always made me move his hand, direct him closer, kisses deeper, now he took over. That one sentence from me seemed to be all the consent he needed and I reacted to him, enjoying the feel of his warm mouth on my neck and the brush of his thumb against my nipple.
It may have gone on that way. We may have continued to move, point and counterpoint until we were naked, until the folders and documents on his desk were brushed away, lost in the fray to be together, completely together, but then Ethan’s attentions slowed, his kisses weren’t as aggressive and when my mind replayed the touch of Ransom’s hand and the smell of his skin filling my senses, I fought back with my body, pushing Ethan against the desk, disturbing the computer monitor and the collection of neatly organized files as I straddled him.
“Woah…wait a sec.” He tried sitting up, but I went at his neck again, lifting only far enough to unbuckle his belt before he grabbed my hand. “Aly, stop.” He pushed me up, helping me stand as he slipped off the desk. “Jesus.” He looked at me as though I was strange and unusual and he didn’t know what to make of me at all. “What the hell are you doing?”
I blinked back as he adjusted his clothes, the muscles around my brows tightening. “I…I just thought…” My voice sounded weak, pathetic and I cleared my throat, ignoring Ethan as he watched me, pulling himself back together as though we hadn’t been just about to move things along quickly.
“Aly, you can’t just come to my office and expect…”
“Why not?” It was an honest question. My motivation might have been less than honorable, but the intent wasn’t. If we were married, I’d have no problem visiting him at work and inventing reasons for keeping his door locked. Isn’t that what people in love do? Isn’t it impossible for them to keep their hands off each other?
“Why not?” He laughed, the sound was incredulous and mildly scandalized. “Because I work here.” He bent to pick up a couple of files that had landed on the floor during our deluge. “My God, Aly, I’m all for being spontaneous, but this is just…” Ethan slid his fingers through his hair, tightening his tie with that same stunned expression on his face.
“You seemed to enjoy it.”
“Of course I did!” His voice was a fierce whisper. When I only stared back at him, Ethan stepped closer, the tight muscles around his mouth relaxing. “There isn’t anything in this world that I enjoy more than making love to you, but not here. Not with my staff and clients just on the other side of that door.”
He continued to straighten himself while glancing at me as though I were a bomb he expected to explode. But I didn’t go off, not like I could have. Instead I walked over to the outer windows, looking into the blue sky, scanning the street below, a little embarrassed that I’d acted so common. I closed my eyes, head shaking at my stupidity.
As much as I resented recalling it, a memory came to me, several in fact. Habits that Ransom and I had, places we’d find when the moment was never right. We’d spent the first year of our relationship fucking on every conceivable surface of my tiny apartment, in his Mustang, in the pool house at his folks’ place. That didn’t change. It was supposed to. As we got older and matured, we were supposed to learn self-control. We were supposed to maintain some semblance of couth. We weren’t supposed to have sex in the Dolphins locker room or on a beach in Maui just behind a black cliff rock. But, God we did. Years we were together and up until that last year before I left him, we still hadn’t been able to keep our hands from each other. But that wasn’t enough, was it? And it wasn’t something rational adults did either.
Ethan stepped behind me, not touching me but I saw his expression, the wrinkle deepening in the corner of his eyes as he watched me. He was confused, a little taken aback by my behavior, I was sure.
“Aly. Talk to me,” he prompted, holding me against his chest.
“I honestly was just trying to be spontaneous.”
I felt him nod as he rested his chin on the top of my head. “Well, I appreciate the gesture, baby.” Ethan kissed my neck, his mouth lingering a little on my shoulder. “But in the office? Aly, I can’t have that, much as I may want it.”
“Do you though?” The question just came to me, was likely some afterthought that settled in my mind when I thought of all the times Ransom and I found even a half way private spot to be together.
“What? Of course I do.” He held my face then, keeping me perfectly still as he gave me a chaste kiss. “Just not in the middle of the day in my office.” The slip of one side of his mouth and Ethan’s smile shook. “I’ve worked so hard to build a reputation. I can’t have anything jeopardizing that. No matter how beautiful the temptation is.” His smile then was dazzling and he took a moment to watch my face, his gaze moving to my forehead, across my cheeks until it came back to my eyes. “Besides, from that mind blowing, one-time experience, I know that sex with you should never be quick.” Ethan pulled me close, holding me at the waist as he leaned me against the window. “I’m the lucky bastard that gets to be with you and I don’t take that lightly.” He kissed me, rubbing his mouth along my jaw. “Every time I’m with you, I want to take my time. I want to taste all of your skin and fill you up with everything I have.” He kissed me, patting my ass as though the discussion was over. “We can finish this up tonight…shit. No we can’t either.”
Ethan stepped back, going to his desk to grab his phone and I followed him, waiting for him to continue. But that phone caught his attention and wouldn’t let go. “You were saying?”
He managed a quick glance at me, but that’s all I got. “I was going to let you know, I have to work late tonight. Client meeting tha
t might go on for a while and then Friday I’ll be off to New York.”
“When are you leaving on Friday?”
Another glance and his fingers moved quickly over the keys. “Not til late that afternoon. Why?”
“Just…going to miss you.”
He leaned over his desk, giving me a kiss that lingered for as long as his cell was silent, but then another chirp sounded and Ethan nodded at me. “I’m sorry, baby, but I really am swamped.”
“No problem,” I told him, squeezing his hand before I headed for his door. I’d barely managed to walk through the threshold when two of his impatient clerks bee-lined for Ethan’s desk. One glance over my shoulder and I caught the smallest glimpse of him before the door closed completely. Ethan hadn’t even looked up from his phone.
The Cowboys had beaten the Dolphins on their own field. It was one more loss that had Ransom retreating to his small media room in our three-bedroom condo to review his tapes and figure out, yet again, what he’d been doing wrong during the game.
He completely ignored the concussion he’d gotten when the Cowboys offense blocked his tackle. He’d gotten hit so hard this time that he hadn't moved a muscle for the longest time, lay sprawled on that field looking up, not seeing his teammates or the physicians as they examined him. He’d been unresponsive for the longest three minutes of my life.
