by Holley Trent
“We have no way of knowing.”
“Yes we do!” Bruce snapped. “You know. I know. I wanted you to stay because I was so fucking tired of being lonely. You expected me to do a hard sell on you. Thought I was going to use you for access—thought I was going to use my body to influence you.”
“You’d be surprised at how many times that has happened.”
“How many?”
“I stopped counting by the time I turned twenty-two. I can spot a political operative at ten paces now, by the way. Not a trick I ever expected to have in my skill set. I was once in a committed relationship with a woman I thought cared about me, but in the end, she cared more about her career aspirations. She exploited my private calendars and pictures and databases for personal gain. And then after all that, she told me that she wished things could have been different. She told me that she did truly like me, you see, but she hadn’t expected things to go that far. She didn’t expect to keep a toothbrush at my place or spare clothes to change into after spending the night.”
There was no inflection in Raleigh’s voice. He didn’t really feel anything about the situation anymore, except shame for being so fucking gullible in the first place. If it weren’t for what she’d done, she would have been utterly forgettable.
She wasn’t like Bruce.
She wasn’t like Everley.
“What did she do?” Bruce asked. Worry creased his brow. He’d evidently forgotten just that quickly that he was the wounded party.
“The same as so many others. Tried to turn me into a package of harm to be used either against my father or for him. Trust me, there are plenty who would put me up on some kind of twisted pedestal to say that things are better some other way, but they dehumanize me in the process. I’m not a person. I’m a pawn that becomes evidence when convenient.”
They sat in silence for a minute. Maybe two.
Raleigh had nothing left to say. Bruce didn’t seem to want to go, and Raleigh evidently couldn’t make him.
“I’m...offended that you’d put me into that category,” Bruce finally said. “I am. I’m not going to lie.”
“I’m sorry you’re offended.”
“But you can’t be sorry you did it.”
“No. I can’t be sorry for doing what I have to do to keep myself from becoming someone’s fool again.”
“I see. Then are you a fool for helping me now?”
“No. That’s different. Helping you in ways that don’t require me to leverage my position or my family attachments is just...normal human cooperation.”
“So, you’ll willingly cooperate with me and pursue my woman?”
“We’re going in circles on this.”
“Because the logic is tenuous.”
“It isn’t for me. You don’t get to call dibs and then drift away. If only life were that easy. You could hold someone aside until you’ve made up your mind or gotten your wild urges out of your system and then come back to decide if they’re worth the effort.”
“Of course she’s worth the effort. I wish we could call dibs, as you put it. Maybe you’d have slapped a ‘maybe’ sticker on me and came back ’round, hmm? After you had a chance to think about it and decide I wasn’t a complete fuckin’ punter.”
“I probably would have.”
Bruce’s spine snapped straight and head whipped around toward Raleigh. He opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, there was a cautious rapping on the door.
Thank you, whoever you are.
He’d said too much. Way too much, and he couldn’t take it back because that would be lying.
He would have kept him, and it was too late to fix the fact that he couldn’t.
They both sat in silence, staring at the source of the sound.
The knock came again, followed by the feminine clearing of a throat.
“Um,” Everley called out. “Lisa needs her phone. Could you maybe hand it out to me?”
Bruce hurried to the door with the cell and undid the locks. “Sorry! Sorry.” He gave her the phone, clasping both of her hands inside of his, and stared at her.
Raleigh wondered what was going through his head, or if anything was at all. He may have just been looking. Raleigh could certainly understand the compulsion. Everley in bright lipstick and slicked-back dominatrix hair was irresistible, but the scrubbed-clean Everley who had visible freckles and bags under her eyes was beautiful, too. And different. It was nearly impossible not to stare at things that were different. Nearly, as Raleigh had managed not to for years at his own personal expense.
She was someone else he wouldn’t have turned away from if he’d known better—if he’d been able to trust sooner.
“I’ll just take this to her,” she said.
“I’ll walk you over,” Bruce said. “I should thank Lisa. Actually, will you hand it back, please? I’ll give it to her.”
“Of course.”
Bruce hustled toward the main building with his usual reserve of energy.
Everley watched him through the open doorway until he was no longer visible, and then turned to Raleigh.
Saying nothing, she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth and gave him one of those platonic little waves.
He waved back. Waving was easy. Emotions were hard.
So he tamped his down as far as he could.
“So...” she said softly. There was a question in the word, or many, but if she wanted answers, she’d need to be direct.
“Yeah.”
“Was I easy to find?” Her volume tapered off so quickly that by the end of the sentence, he was leaning forward, straining to hear, fearing the words would drop.
“You shouldn’t have to ask,” he said. “Part of my job is searching bad spellings of author names on the Internet to see what people are saying about them.”
“Well. Here I am.”
“Yes. You look well,” Raleigh said at the same time Everley said, “I’m glad you came.”
Apparently, neither of them knew what to do with those words because all they could do was stare.
He wasn’t used to staring at her. In the past, he’d made it his business to evacuate her presence in the most expeditious means possible. But back then, he’d had a grudge, and probably, so had she. They were adrift from those old connections, and yet ensnared by other ones.
She had Bruce, and Raleigh...
Raleigh had Athena.
“Do you...have anything for me to read in your car?” she asked haltingly. Gone was the forthright woman who would walk up to bestsellers, actors, and dignitaries and boldly introduce herself as a publicist at Athena, and in her place was the impersonator who sometimes forgot to hold on to subway poles. Perhaps they were aspects of the same person, and she wore whatever face she had to stay afloat. He hated that he’d contributed to her being that way, and wished he could turn every slight, every snub back on himself if she’d be better off for it.
“I left my e-reader in the city,” she said. “Can’t fall asleep without reading something.”
“There might be a couple of reptile mysteries in the trunk along with Stacia’s books.”
“I haven’t read those. The reptile books, I mean.”
“They’re an acquired taste.”
“Will they make me laugh?”
“Groan, more like. The humor is unsophisticated, but I suppose people need that sometimes.”
“Good enough.” The words drifted in the quiet, spoken almost like an afterthought. She wasn’t even looking at him anymore.
He wondered what was in her head.
Wondered if he was allowed to ask.
But what came out of his mouth instead was, “I think the doors are unlocked. You can look around. See what’s in there.”
“Should I lock up when I’m done?”
“Yeah. T
hanks.”
“Do you—”
He’d sat up and leaned into the oncoming words, but they’d vanished and her mouth had closed.
She did that wave again and backed to the door. “Okay. Thanks.”
She was gone, and Raleigh couldn’t help but feel like someone hadn’t said enough.
He simply wasn’t sure whom.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Well, that’s it,” Lisa said with a mournful sigh. “The only other reservation I had for today just called to cancel. They can’t get in. I guess you can have their bungalow, Bruce. Hope you weren’t supposed to be anywhere important this morning.”
Bruce, standing near the coffee bar, barefooted in too-short sweatpants he’d borrowed from Lisa and an Ithaca is Gorges T-shirt, looked over with sudden interest. He pulled out the earbuds Everley hadn’t noticed he was wearing. “What’s that?”
“The snow.” Everley crooked her thumb toward the front windows and the nasty weather beyond it. “I hadn’t looked at the forecast for days because I hadn’t planned on going anywhere. I didn’t know there was a big storm on the way in.”
“So, we can’t get out? Is that what you’re saying?”
“We could probably get into town if we tried really hard,” Lisa said. “The road has been plowed, but I guarantee that visibility is going to be poor and nothing interesting is going to be open, anyway.”
“I’ve never been snowed in before,” Bruce mused and turned back to the coffee.
Lisa cut Everley a “Well?” look.
Everley shrugged. She didn’t know what to tell her. Just before bed the previous night, Lisa had tried to wheedle some details from her about Everley’s feelings about Raleigh and Bruce’s unannounced visit. Everley had deflected the conversation. She didn’t want to hear her friend’s judgment about how Everley hadn’t known what to say to Raleigh when she’d had the chance and the privacy to talk to him. Suddenly, the man she’d worked with for half a decade, and who she’d even slept with once, had become a stranger. Circumstances were different, and perhaps, so were they.
She cleared her throat and called over to Bruce, “What are you listening to?”
“Show tunes. Stuff I want to tinker with as soon as I’m in front of a piano again.”
“I have a piano.” Lisa gestured to the bulky upright unit obscured by several layers of dust and drop cloths. “Hasn’t been tuned since I bought the place, and probably not for many years before that, but feel free to plonk away on it.”
“I will. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Lisa stuffed her feet into her boots and shuffled to the door, eying Everley discourteously as she went. “I’m going to trudge down to the road and see if I can find the newspapers. Call search and rescue if I’m not back in five minutes.”
“You assume we won’t look for you ourselves?” Bruce asked.
“I like you Bruce.”
He grinned. “I like being liked.”
Lisa cut Everley another look and then left, chilling the lodge with a subarctic gust before the door shut.
Everley knew Lisa, and she also had been in that little town enough weeks to know that Lisa never bothered to bring in the papers unless she was hoping there were pizza coupons inside. No one was delivering pizza in that snow.
Everley got the jig, though. She was trying to give Everley space to get a reading on Bruce. She couldn’t help but to wonder what was going on with him and Raleigh. As she’d read herself to sleep, she had checked in with herself and pondered how she would feel if the two men really did have a past.
She’d tried to froth up some emotion about it, but couldn’t.
She was just curious about the circumstances and why the affair might have petered out.
She needed to know.
“Bruce.”
While sipping his coffee, he lifted a corner of drop cloth covering the piano. “Hmm?”
“I want to ask you something rather personal.”
He laughed. “Can we possibly get any more personal than we already have? If so, I’m willing to try. I live for new experiences.”
“I might have to hold you to that,” she said in an undertone. At his raised brow, she shook her head and, smiling, said gently, “I want to ask you about your past lovers.”
He dropped the cloth and slowly set the coffee atop the piano’s shelf.
Perhaps she hadn’t been quite as gentle as she thought.
“Is this...about something you read in the book? I didn’t take part in any questionably legal trysts with those guys as witnesses. Whatever they said, it wasn’t about me.”
“The book?” Everley could feel her nose scrunching in the way that always made her mother warn her about the plastic surgery she’d need one day to fix all the wrinkles she was making. She made a concerted effort to smooth her features, not because she cared so much about a few creases, but because she didn’t want Bruce to think she hadn’t been following along. She never wanted him to think she wasn’t listening.
“The Outward Reaction book.”
“Oh.” Relieved, she scoffed. “I have no idea what’s in that book. I steered clear of it when I was at Athena.”
“Thank God. Nothing could be as bad as all that, then.”
“Well. We’ll see.” Everley patted the space on the sofa beside her and warily beckoned him over. They were about to either prove or disprove his assertion. “Come here. It’s kind of awkward having this conversation from the other side of a room.”
Bruce twined the earbud cord around his fingers and tucked the mass of wire into a sweatpants pocket. He plopped beside her and immediately slung an arm around her shoulders.
Her body’s immediate response was to go soft and to melt into his side. She’d missed that when he was gone. “I could get used to this,” she whispered as his fingers cupped her chin and stroked along her jaw.
“To me?”
“Yes.”
“Then get as used to it as you’d like.”
“I plan to. But...maybe I should ask you this before we make any promises to each other we might regret.”
“Oh, hell.” Bruce put his back against the sofa’s armrest and folded his arms over his chest. “I know that voice. That’s the let-down voice.”
That made her laugh outright. It was the same voice he’d used when he’d informed her he’d be engaging in weeks-long bureaucratic adventures across South Africa. “Not at all. It’s a curiosity voice, and a worry voice, because I have to ask but don’t know how and don’t want to offend you.”
“I’m the master of offending people without trying.”
“But you’re also sensitive and I’m respectful of that.” And she loved him. Just...loved him, and that meant everything required carefulness, because new love was fragile and emotional, and she was already those things without the added layer of worry that came with belonging to someone. She took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m just going to ask and I hope you understand I’m not asking from a place of disdain.”
He gave her a go-ahead nod.
“Have you...and Raleigh...”
“Have we what?”
“Were you lovers?” she spat and immediately looked away out of embarrassment because in a million years, she would have never have imagined she’d be in such a situation. There was no rulebook for asking a boyfriend if he’d slept with another boyfriend candidate, and certainly not when she was more than willing to entertain them both simultaneously.
And why not? I deserve it.
She was sick of not having anything or anyone, especially knowing that her fail was a self-inflicted one.
When Bruce didn’t immediately respond, Everley looked at him. He was dragging his tongue along the edges of his top teeth. She could practically see the gears turning in his head. He was thinking up an excuse�
��something to keep him out of hot water.
Oh, Bruce. You don’t need to, honey.
“If you’re going to say yes,” she said, “Say yes. Not yes but. If I want to know more, I’ll tell you. If I want excuses, I’ll tell you that, too.”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“Lisa was right, then.”
“Lisa?”
“She has a radar for it, I guess. She can tell when people have hooked up.”
“You’re angry with me.”
“No.” She gave her head a hard shake, because who was she to judge someone for needing someone? “Why would you think that?”
“It was...not too long before I’d met you. My brother Arnold said you were a rebound, but you weren’t. I wanted you anyway. Do you believe me?”
“Of course I do, but help me understand. Why are you two so angry at each other?”
Bruce twined his fingers and peered at the door as it swung open. Lisa marched in, stomping snow off her boots. She tossed the papers on the welcome mat and groaned. “It’s coming down even harder. I’m going to check the weather report again.”
“Can I do anything to help?” Bruce asked.
“Maybe? I’ve got to make sure the animals around here are warm enough and have food. Give me a few minutes, though. Let me see how big this thing is.” She disappeared into the bedroom.
Everley gave his hand an affectionate squeeze. “Thank you.”
His brow creased. “For what?”
“Just offering.”
“Sometimes I have to offer because people aren’t bold enough to ask.”
She pondered that and pondered him as he stared back in that hyperfocused Bruce way of his.
“So, it’s over between the two of you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want it to be?”
She would never know what response would have accompanied that panicked expression on his face, because at that precise moment, Raleigh stomped in through the back door, jangling his keys.
“Fuck. A foot in an hour? I don’t think I’m going to be able to get out of here.”
Foiled, Everley springed to her feet. “You were leaving? You can’t leave yet.”
