Beautiful Potential

by J. Saman

  Because it’s not at all where he wants to be.

  And as is common with him, I find myself growing tired.

  So I move to step away from his lingering form, just about ready to go inside and shut the door in his face when he latches onto me. I don’t even see him coming, but suddenly I’m glued up against the wall of my hallway and his large warm body is pressed to mine. His hands cup my face, tilting it until I’m forced to meet his steely gaze.

  “This is wrong,” he says and I can’t stand that he led with that. “It is. I want you like I’ve never wanted another woman, but it won’t go beyond tonight. It won’t,” he says fervently and I despise that he’s so adamant with this and yet, I respect his honesty. I appreciate he cares enough about me to make sure I know exactly where we stand and exactly what this is. He doesn’t want me to get hurt with unfulfilled emotional expectations and the irony of that is not lost on me. “And even though I’ll hate myself tomorrow for the position I’m putting you in tonight, I can’t leave unless you tell me to.” His head dips and his nose brushes mine once, twice, before his forehead drops to mine and he holds my gaze captive from mere inches away. “Tell me to go,” he pleads.

  “I can’t,” I admit, hating myself a little for it. “I want this too. Even if just for tonight.”

  He examines me closely. Trying to determine if I’m full of shit or not. I am and I’m also not, but I doubt he can tell.

  His eyes close and a shuttered breath passes his lips. And then his mouth finds mine in what is easily the most desperate and passionate kiss I’ve ever experienced. I detonate. A thousand grenades going off simultaneously. Stars dance behind my eyes and I realize it’s because I’m not taking in enough oxygen. I’m trying so hard to capture every one of his sounds, every pant he lets go of.

  A loud rush of air sucks its way into my chest and he pushes me deeper into the wall. I hold onto him. Beyond unsteady. My knees weak. Our lips move against each other, our tongues dancing sensually, fighting for control. He wins. I want him to win. One hand is threaded through my hair, holding and adjusting my head however he wants it. The other is opening the buttons of my coat, desperate to get at what’s beneath.

  My neighbor’s door clicks, making the telltale sounds of locks unlatching before it begins to open. Finn jars back abruptly. He smiles down on me and I feel that smile in the darkest recesses of my heart. The parts I’m trying to turn off in order to allow this. “Inside?”

  I nod. I wish he would stop trying to give me the out my brain is begging me to take. The rationalizations are much easier to listen to when he stops questioning my motives.

  He opens my door, allows me to pass him, shuts and locks it behind him. His eyes flitter around my apartment, going from space to space before they land on the purple present he gave me earlier. They change then. Growing more of one thing and less of something else. And when they find me again, his smile shows me everything. Everything he keeps hidden. It only lasts for a moment. The briefest of seconds. He quickly tucks it away, but I saw it and that’s what I cling to as I step into him, reaching up on the tiptoes of my high heels and kiss him with everything I’ve got.

  If it is really only one night, I want everything. And if I can change his mind on that position, well, I’m going to give it my all. Pathetic or not. Right or wrong. None of those things matter in this moment. That’s the thing about lust. It blinds. It covers up rational thought with its own brand of logic. It obscures true feelings until they turn into something else entirely.

  Finn growls into my mouth, sighs out my name and then rips my coat from my body. He slams it to the floor, followed by his own. He lifts me, wrapping my legs around his waist, hiking the hem of my short dress up until our bodies are aligned at the most perfect point. I moan, throwing my head back and he takes full advantage of my exposed neck, kissing, nipping and sucking as he goes.

  “Gia,” he breathes against me, making my body erupt in chills as a shiver runs down my spine. He walks us across the dark expanse of my apartment until he reaches the door to my bedroom. But he doesn’t go in. He pauses here and just…stares at me.

  And then something hits me. It hits me so hard and with so much force that I actually feel my eyes welling up and my chest clenching with a tightness which has me gasping for air.

  I can’t do this.

  Finn told me point blank that he doesn’t want intimacy. He doesn’t want a relationship.

  He doesn’t want love.

  And I think I might be falling for him.

  If I sleep with him, where will that leave me?

  “I can’t do this,” I utter before I chicken out and give into something that has the potential to ruin me. Finn nods like he knew it all along. Like he actually agrees with me. I don’t think he can do it either and for some reason, that makes me feel a little better. It makes me feel like maybe I’m not the only one hurting here.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says with so much pain in his voice that some of that wetness which had been pooling in my eyes leaks out. “It’s not you, Gia. It’s not. This is all on me.”

  “I know,” I say because I do. I know it’s not me. I know it’s him. He kisses me on the lips again, this time it’s slow and sweet and filled with so much sorrow it makes me want to wrap my arms around him and hold him close.

  So I do. But I lower my body to the ground, tug the skirt of my dress back down my thighs and then I hug him. And when he’s done kissing me, when the sadness begins to turn back into lust, he draws back, pressing his forehead to mine once more. His anguish in his crystalline eyes cuts me to the quick.

  “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else,” he says quoting Woody Allen and the card he gave me earlier tonight. “At least that’s the case with you. Because if it were ever going to be someone, it would be you.”

  I smother the sob climbing up the back of my throat.

  He presses his lips to mine once more, but this time it’s a goodbye.

  “See you around, Gia.”

  I smile, but it’s not real. He knows that’s it not real so I don’t know why I’m faking it. He’s not even bothering with pretenses. I can see his pain. Feel his heartache.

  “See you around, Finn.”

  He releases me, turns and walks out of my apartment, shutting the door behind him. And as the door makes that clicking sound, and I know it’s good and closed, I collapse to the floor. I acknowledge it was the right thing to do. So does he.

  So why does it hurt so much?

  Why do I feel worse instead of better? Empty instead of gratified? The answer is not something I want to contemplate too closely, so I don’t. It won’t solve anything to come to realizations in this moment. Epiphanies have no place here.

  Tonight should have never happened.

  Because now I have to find a way to get over him.

  Chapter 20

  Gia

  The bar is perfectly loud and jam-packed to the nines. The walls are embellished with creepy orange lights, not-scary-at-all masks, cotton cobwebs and plastic skeletons. Halloween is not even for another two weeks, but it’s the official start of the season and everything around us is illuminated in a holiday festive glow.

  And the worst part about that? It reminds me of Finn because Halloween is his birthday.

  “So your mom actually had this new guy there? Like, waiting to meet you and shit?” Ophelia asks me as she pours me a very safe glass of red wine. Ever since my night of drunken debauchery, Ophelia and I have become friends. I don’t know if it’s the bartender in her, but she likes to ask questions and she’s a sensational listener. I haven’t told her yet, but I think that’s one of her greats in addition to concocting the perfect cocktail.

  “Yeah,” I say, taking a sip of my wine. “She totally ambushed me with him. There was no talk. No, how do you feel about this. She was all, Gia meet my ‘man friend,’ George Santiago.” I put air quotes around the word. I haven’t mentioned Finn came wit
h me or anything that happened–or didn’t happen–after. I’m not ready to share that yet and it’s already been a week since my birthday.

  Chloe lets out a derisive snort. “She actually used the term, man friend?”

  “Yup,” I scoff, vacillating back and forth between them. “Because that’s what happens when you’re over fifty. You no longer have boyfriends, you have man friends.”

  “Is he nice at least?”

  I shrug, running my finger along the stem of my glass. “I guess so. He seemed to make her happy and that’s all that really matters. He’s a retired hedge funder so he’s got plenty of money. They were talking about going on a cruise together over Christmas.”

  “Wow, that’s something,” Chloe says, astonished, and all I can do is nod.

  “What did I miss?” Monique asks, dropping down into the seat next to me.

  “Gia was just telling us about her mom’s new man friend,” Ophelia offers with a shrug.

  “Can I have a glass of whatever she’s drinking, please” Monique points to my wine. “And what the hell is a man friend?”

  “What it sounds like. A boyfriend for cougars.”

  I glare at Chloe. “My mother is not a cougar.”

  “She’s not,” Monique agrees. “A cougar is a woman who wants sex with a younger man. Not someone her own age. This new man friend is her own age, right?”

  “Yes, and holy hell I cannot believe I’m actually having a conversation about my mother’s sex life. That’s the sort of shit that puts people in therapy.”

  “Should I get a tattoo?” Chloe asks out of nowhere, her eyes focused on Ophelia’s colorful arms.

  “That depends on what you would get,” I hedge.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”

  Ophelia snickers. “Then I wouldn’t have something permanently inked on your body until you do. I’ll be right back, I gotta go help those people out down there.”

  Ophelia saunters off and the three of us watch her go for a second. “Is it weird that we have a non-medically related friend?” Chloe asks.

  “No,” Monique says. “I think it’s healthy. All we ever talk about is women’s vaginas and babies. And men. It’s like we have nothing else going on in our lives.”

  “Because we don’t. We work and we go out with men. What the hell else is there?”

  Monique and I both examine Chloe as we consider this. Is that what our lives have become? Work and men. “We need a hobby,” I say with a scowl.

  “No time for one,” Monique yawns.

  “Says the girl having regular sex with the hot ED doc.”

  Monique smiles, her dark eyes twinkling. “Speaking of hot ED docs…” she trails off and I know what’s coming next so I put up my hand, stopping her before she can go there.

  “Nothing’s happening and it never will.”

  “He told her he wasn’t interested even though he clearly is,” Chloe adds unhelpfully. “But they also haven’t seen each other since that night and it’s what, like a week now?”

  My eyes train down to the bar top. I don’t want to tell them about my birthday night and that has me feeling guilty for hiding it from my best friends.

  Monique doesn’t look surprised and I wonder if Finn confided in Mike who then confided in Monique. That thought makes me frown even deeper. I haven’t mentioned the present Finn gave me either. But pretty soon, I’m going to have to secure someone to come with me to the football game. I’m holding out even though I know it’s pointless, and fucking mental, to do so.

  “Well,” Monique says, turning to face us. “Michael says Finn hasn’t had a girlfriend in years, never dates and hardly ever has sex.”

  “What?” That’s Chloe and me together.

  “Yeah,” she nods with big wide eyes. “He wouldn’t tell me why or anything and said he’s not celibate or a monk, but I think he’s–”

  “Vagina phobic,” Chloe once again feels the need to add her two cents in.

  “The only time I’ve ever seen him pick up a woman to bring home, he told her–more than once I think–that it wouldn’t go beyond that night,” Ophelia chimes back in. “She still went home with him because, well, look at him. He’s fucking gorgeous and who wouldn’t want a night with that, but still.” Ophelia leans over, looking directly at me with a smile. Right. Who wouldn’t want a night with him? I’m drowning in irony. “You’re the first woman I’ve seen him show interest in since I met him.”

  “He’s not interested,” I say almost out of habit.

  I feel eyes and looks being thrown all around me, but I choose to focus on my wine instead. Wine doesn’t completely wreck your world with provocative words, earth-shattering kisses and thoughtful presents. In fact, the only thing wine does is make you feel good. And warm.

  As long as you don’t have too much of it. Then it might make you sick and eventually screw up your liver. Okay, I need to stop. None of this is productive.

  “No more about Finn, please. I really don’t want to talk about him. Ever again.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Ophelia says again. “This whole having to work during girl talk is becoming a nuisance.”

  “Michael told me he loves me.” Chloe and I turn in synchrony to Monique who is beaming. “He’s taking me to the Bahamas in February. I think he might propose to me then.”

  “You’re not even living together.”

  She shakes her head with a smile. “No. But in two weeks, we will be. He asked me last night.”

  “Holy shit,” I gasp. “Congratulations. That’s amazing.” I hug my very happy friend who lets out a little squeal of excitement.

  “You bitch,” Chloe says as she gets up and hugs her. “I’m so freaking jealous.” I smack her arm. “What? Mo knows I’m over the moon for her.” She turns to Monique. “You do know that, right?”

  “Yes,” Monique sighs. “You were just…being you.”

  “Exactly.” She glowers at me. “She gets me. Oh god, please tell me you’re moving in with him and he’s not moving into your shoebox apartment.”

  Monique rolls her eyes. “Of course, I’m moving in with him. He’s been an attending for years and has a really nice place not too far from the hospital. Anyway, I expect you ladies to help me move and then once I’m settled in, we’ll throw a party or something.”

  “Is it weird that I don’t feel like we’re grown-up enough for this?”

  “Yes,” Monique, Ophelia and I all say in unison.

  We leave the bar shortly after. Monique is anxious to get home to her new love. Chloe is meeting up with a guy she’s been quietly dating. Ophelia had to work as the bar became increasingly crowded. And me? I’m walking in the direction of my building, but I’m sort of dragging my heels about it.

  That box is still taking up residence on my coffee table. That perfect rose in a small bud vase next to it, even though I wanted to drown the thing in bleach. I couldn’t. It’s not the rose’s fault.

  What I really need is to pull myself out of him.

  What I really need is a distraction.

  What I really need is–to not trip over my feet as I walk. “Shit,” I mutter, finding myself sprawled on the ground in the middle of the sidewalk as a million people walk past me, completely ignoring me. Fucking New York.

  “Hey, you okay?” I glance up into warm brown eyes attached to a very handsome face attached to a very handsome body.

  “Um…” I laugh. “Yes. Apparently walking is a skill I haven’t quite mastered yet.”

  He chuckles, reaching his hand out for me to take. I do and when he hauls me up, he draws me in a little closer than what’s socially acceptable. “I’m Mason,” he says with a broad smile, showcasing his perfect white teeth.

  “Gia.”

  His smile grows and I find myself matching it.

  “How about I walk you wherever you were headed, Gia. Just to make sure you make it there without falling again.”
>
  “Sure,” I say. “I’d like that.”

  Chapter 21

  Finn

  Five years ago

  The sound of the waves crashing against the shore fall in time to our rocking in the free-standing hammock strategically placed between the trees outside of our villa and the water. You’d think we were on some tropical island, but we’re not. Kelly said she’s always wanted to go to Italy so that’s exactly where I took her.

  We never got a honeymoon. She was pregnant with Logan when we got married and we never went anywhere to celebrate it. Logan. That’s what we named our son. After his death, we hit a dark spot. A place where there was no light. We suffered through it together and I like to believe we’ve come out stronger on the other side.

  I can’t describe how it felt. There are no words which can comprise that level of devastation. We may not have gotten to know Logan, but that doesn’t mean we love him any less than parents who get a lifetime with their child. At first, it just got harder instead of easier. The pain didn’t dissipate with the passing of days. It was just too unexpected. Too sudden. Instead of Kelly’s belly continuing to grow, it got smaller.

  It’s been almost nine months. We got married two weeks before he died on Christmas.

  I feel like we’re finally at a point where we can enjoy things again.

  So I took us here, to Italy, during my August break. It’s been ten days of traveling through the country and now we’re relaxing near Tropea, my fingers gliding through her hair. “I love you,” I say.

  “Me too,” Kelly says back. “This has been the best vacation of my life. Thank you for taking me.”

  I smile at that. “I’d do anything for you, baby.”

  “I know you would, Finn.”