“I appreciate you trying to do the honorable thing here, Jess, but I know what I want, and I’m not so drunk that I don’t know what I’m doing.” Goddammit, I hate how my voice quavers.
“Imogen—please don’t think this is easy for me. I want you more than I can say—”
“So don’t tell me—show me. Please,” I say, my voice breaking into a whisper on the last word.
“God, I fucking want to. But you’re only just out of a ten-year marriage, Imogen. You’ve been through a lot, and I just cannot and will not let you jump into something half-drunk. I will not be something you regret rushing into.”
“I’m not rushing, I just—”
He cups my face in one hand. “Imogen, please understand. This is honestly the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, but I know it’s the right thing.”
My raging hormones don’t agree. I rub my core against him. “Jesse, again—I appreciate what you’re doing, and I really respect you taking the honorable route, here, but…” I choke on my words. “But I need this. You don’t understand.”
He snarls wordlessly when I rub against him, and all but throws me off of him onto the couch, shooting to his feet and pacing away, fists clenching and releasing. “Fuck, Imogen. I can tell exactly how much you need this, and I’m right there with you. But I won’t start it with you when we’re both like this.” He digs in his pocket and tosses his keys on the coffee table. “For fuck’s sake, I’m not even in any condition to drive home. It wouldn’t be the way it’s supposed to be, if we go there now. It won’t be what I want it to be, for you and for myself.”
“Dammit,” I hiss. “Fine. Whatever. Go ahead and do the right thing, then, Sir Galahad.”
“Imogen, I’m just—”
I shake my head, refusing to cry about this in front of him—it’s a losing battle right now, and I’m clamping down hard on the tears, on the lump in my throat. “Don’t. Just…go.”
He scrapes his hand through his hair again, growling. He glances at me, mouth opening as if to say something, but then closes it again and he stomps angrily for the door. I want to stop him, but I don’t.
I want to pin him against the door and kiss him and jump into his arms and beg him to make love to me, but I don’t.
I’ve already embarrassed myself enough, throwing myself at him, begging, pleading, and now crying. So no, I won’t go that last step. I sit on the couch, barely stifling the tears, as he tromps down the steps he built, across the lawn, and vanishes into the midnight shadows of my neighborhood, on foot.
I wait until I’m sure he’s gone, and then I rise to my feet.
A wave of dizziness washes over me, and I have to sit back down and try to stand up again, more slowly and carefully this time. I go up the stairs, holding the rail, pulling myself up. The stairs waver and multiply, and then somehow I’m in my room, falling into my bed.
I feel warm wetness on my cheeks, staining the pillow even as I drift and spin.
I fucked it all up.
Threw myself at him, but got too drunk and he rejected me.
He’ll never want me now.
Just like Nicholas.
I fall asleep in a cold wet spot made by my own tears.
Chapter 11
I wake up with a pounding head, my mouth dry as a desert, sun blazing into my room, making me sweat like a pig. My sheets are tangled and soaked in sweat. I’m still in my romper; at some point in the night I tried to take off my bra, apparently, but only partially succeeded—the cups are pushed up over my breasts, one arm is pulled out of the strap, but it’s still hooked around my back.
Images from last night blast through me, each moment vivid—right up until the point that Jesse refused to have sex with me.
I remember getting angry, feeling rejected, and—
Now I know why I feel so crappy: I’m hungover. I barely remember coming up the stairs last night. Which means I was a lot more drunk than I’d thought.
And Jesse had been right. He’d done the most honorable, moral, decent, ethical thing possible, and I’d gotten mad at him for it. I know he’d wanted me—I’d felt the evidence of it.
I’d begged him. Thrown myself at him with all the desperation of a woman long-scorned.
And he’d still had the strength and honor to do the right thing.
If I’d had sex with him last night, I don’t think I’d regret it this morning, but I do think it wouldn’t have been what it could be and should be—exactly what he’d said.
I fall back asleep berating myself.
A couple hours later I wake up again. I still have a raging thirst and my head is still pounding, but I feel marginally better.
God, how did I do this almost every night of the week in college, and then still wake up for morning classes? It boggles my mind, now.
Slowly, painfully, I work myself upright, and then pause to let my head stop pounding before I get out of bed and remove my clothes and put on my pajamas.
I trudge listlessly downstairs, make coffee, and drink several glasses of water while the coffee is brewing. My stomach roils, but I know I need to eat, so I scramble some eggs and nuke some frozen sausages. It’s hard to get anything down at first, but after a few bites I become ravenous and devour it, washing it down with several cups of coffee. I take my last mug of coffee out onto my front porch.
As I open the front door it’s then that I remember that I have a new front porch to enjoy my coffee—thanks to Jesse. I see that his truck is gone; I remember him walking out and leaving his keys on my coffee table, so he must have come by earlier this morning when I was sleeping. Now I feel worse than ever.
My house faces east, so I get the morning sun over the tops of the houses across the street. My neighbor is trimming her shrubs. She waves, and I wave back. The movement hurts my head.
I think about Jesse as I sit down on the top step.
Did I ruin things with him? Probably. That’d be my luck.
I need to talk to him, fix things. Try to make amends, and hope that I didn’t totally mess everything up.
I need to get past the worst of the hangover though.
I go back inside and have to hunt for my phone—I find it wedged between the cushions of the couch. With another glass of water in hand, I call Audra.
“Hey,” she answers, on the second ring. “Don’t tell me—you need my advice again.”
I groan. “Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Audra laughs. “Well that covers all the possibilities.” She speaks again, but she’s shouting, and not at me. Her voice is muffled as if she’s half covered the microphone with her hand. “Keep your back straight, Sarah! Good! Now squat lower this time, as far as you can go. Good! Now push up—push the bar up with your whole body, not just your legs. Great! Two more.”
I moan. “Please don’t shout, Audra.”
She laughs again. “Aha—you got drunk last night, didn’t you?”
“Uh huh,” I murmur.
“And you had sloppy sex instead of earth-shaking sex, and now you’re mad at yourself?”
I whimper, a sound that was meant to be a laugh but didn’t quite make it all the way there. “Worse. Or better, I don’t know. He came over, installed a beautiful antique farmhouse sink for me, and then I made him dinner and we ate together. It was the best date I’ve ever had. We talked for hours, about literally everything. And we drank, like, three bottles of wine. And I threw myself at him.”
“Atta girl.”
“No, not atta girl. I was drunk, but much more than I realized.”
“So you feel like he took advantage of you?” she conjectures, anger starting to tinge her voice.
“No!” I protest. “He wouldn’t have sex with me. He stopped us—stopped me. Said he wouldn’t start something with me when we were both half-drunk. And I—I got mad. I was so horny, Audra, you don’t even know! But I didn’t realize how drunk I really was until I woke up this morning. He left mad last night because I was a bitch about it. And now I’m hung
over and I’m scared I ruined things.”
“First, did he drive home?”
“Nuh-uh. He left his truck here and walked home.”
“Honestly, Imogen, I’m impressed. It takes a man with serious integrity and fortitude to turn down a girl who’s throwing herself at him when he’s as in the bag as she is. I think a lot of guys would have gone with it. It’s not like you were wasted and he was sober. It would have been informed consent, right?”
“Absolutely. But it wouldn’t have been what it should be, and that’s exactly what he said to me.” I sniffle. “And I was such a bitch about it.”
“Okay, a couple things, here. One, stop beating yourself up. He’ll understand. If he was willing and able to stop you both while under the influence, that means he’s really into you. So he’ll understand. Second, you need to sober up before you try to talk to him about it.”
“I’m trying. I ate, and I’ve had a boatload of coffee, and a lot of water.”
“You do know what the best cure for a hangover is, don’t you?”
I groan. “Don’t say it.”
“You need to sweat it out.”
“That sounds like a special circle of hell.”
She laughs. “I know, but trust me, it works.”
“I hate you.”
“Can you drive, or are you still too fucked up?” she asks.
“I don’t think I should. I’m still a little unsteady.”
“Okay, then just wait for me. I’m working at the gym across town today. I’m done with this client, and I have some time before my next one, so I’ll come over and kick your ass.”
“I don’t wanna,” I whine, only partially joking.
“I know, but it’ll do you good, and you’ll feel better when I’m done with you.”
“Fine,” I grumble. “But I’m gonna hate it.”
“You’ll thank me later. Now get that big beautiful ass of yours into workout gear. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Big?” I squeal. “You think my ass is big?”
Audra sighs. “Imogen. This is not news to you. And it’s a good thing—I guarantee you your sexy Mr. Tighty Blackies harbors a deep and eternal appreciation for the size and shape of your derrière.” I hear gym noises, and then parking lot noises, and then her car door open and close and the dinging as she starts the car. “But, if you’re really feeling self-conscious about it, come into the gym with me a few times a week and we can work on toning it up.”
“It’s not just my butt that needs toning, unfortunately,” I lament.
A laugh. “No, it never is. But fortunately for you, your best friend is a master personal trainer. Commit the time and effort to me, and I’ll have you in killer shape in no time.”
“If by killer you mean kill me, then yes,” I say, in a droll tone. “Love you,” I intone in a nasally drawl.
“What would you do without me?”
“Let’s not find out,” I say.
Audra arrives ten minutes later. She’s decked out in workout gear—hot pink Lycra capris, a thin white hoodie zipped less than halfway up, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, nothing on beneath it but a royal blue sports bra, and cross trainer shoes that look like Jackson Pollock got hold of them—an explosion of colors in drips and stripes and dots and smears. She pops her trunk and pulls out two black kettlebells, closes her trunk with her elbow, and carries the weight to the middle of my front yard. I’m in all black—full-length yoga pants, black sports bra, black tank top, and my trusty old New Balance running shoes.
For the next forty-five minutes, Audra tortures me to within an inch of my life, all with a single 25lb kettlebell—she makes me swing it, hold it and do squats, press it over my head, bend over and row it, sit and do twists with it, stand and just hold it as long as I can. She doesn’t allow me any rest, either, or very little. Just enough to catch my breath, and then she’s slave-driving me on to the next movement, until I’m whimpering from exhaustion and sweat is dripping in buckets from every pore.
When she finally tells me we’re done, I collapse onto my back in the grass, gasping raggedly.
She sits down beside me, barely breathing hard and with a dainty sheen of sweat on her forehead. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I rip a handful of grass out and toss it at her. “You suck.”
She just laughs and tickles my nose with a blade of grass. “You secretly love it, don’t you? That feeling of exhaustion after a hard workout is addicting, isn’t it?”
I laugh. “I don’t know about that, Audra. I mean, yeah, I do feel better now, so it works as a hangover cure, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be addicted to working out.”
She just pats my thigh. “We’ll get you there.”
I sit up, groaning a laugh at the soreness in all my muscles. “I can’t believe I got that drunk,” I say, grimacing at Audra. “It was so not cool of me.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Imogen. You were excited and nervous, and it’s been over ten years since you’ve had to worry about how to figure out a relationship with a new guy. Overindulging a little in response is perfectly normal.”
“So should I just, like, call him? Or have him come over so I can apologize in person?”
“Definitely don’t call him,” she says, weaving blades of grass together. “Or rather, don’t have that conversation over the phone. But don’t apologize, either. Just make it clear you haven’t changed your mind about what you want, that it wasn’t the booze talking.”
I frown, disagreeing with my friend—and not for the first time. “I overindulged by a lot, and was a super bitch when he was being the amazing gentleman he is. I’m apologizing. I owe him that much at least.” I feel my cheeks heating. “But I’ll definitely be making it clear that I haven’t changed my mind about what I want, and that it wasn’t the booze making me so horny.”
Audra grins and wiggles her butt with her arms over her head, doing a seated version of an erotic dance. “Get—it—on, girlfriend!”
I slap her on the arm, but I’m laughing with her, because that’s exactly what I plan on doing. After I make amends for my idiotic behavior.
Putting her kettlebells back in the trunk of her car, Audra leaves, after eliciting a BFF-double-pinkie-promise from me that I’ll start working out with her at least twice a week, if not three times.
With Audra gone, I head back inside and clean up from last night, and spend the afternoon on additional house chores—deep cleaning the baseboards and dusting in weird places and scrubbing the shower. When my house is as clean as it can be, I finally take a long, leisurely, scalding hot bubble bath in my clawfoot tub; the tub was one of the main selling points of this house for me, along with the backyard and the plentiful windows. When I’m clean, shaved, and trimmed, I do something I haven’t done in quite a long time: I brush out and curl my hair into loose spirals, put on makeup, and zip myself into my favorite going-out dress, a little red dress with a mid-thigh hemline, a plunging neckline, a low back, and plenty of cling on my generous curves. My gold heels and some understated jewelry completes the outfit, along with a little clutch containing my wallet, phone, lip gloss, and the other essentials.
By this time it’s past eight in the evening, and I opt to text Jesse instead of calling him: Are you and your friend at Billy Bar?
He answers a few minutes later: Yep. You feeling okay? ;-)
The winking face makes me think he may not be too mad at me, which lifts my spirits a little.
Me: I was pretty rough this morning, but my best friend is a personal trainer, so she came over and helped me sweat it out. I’m feeling much better now. I was thinking I would come out and meet the rest of your friends.
Jesse: Cool to have friends like that. A good workout after a big night is always a good way to get past a hangover. I did the same thing this morning myself.
Jesse: I’d love it if you came out. It’s just me, Ryder, Franco, and James.
Jesse: I can’t say I’m sticking to water, but I’m defin
itely taking it easy tonight.
Me: Yeah, I will be too.
Jesse: So I’ll see you soon?
Me: In just a few minutes. Leaving now.
Instead of typing a reply, he merely sends a looped gif of Carlton from Fresh Prince of Belair doing the Carlton Dance, which makes me snort in laughter as I get into my car.
I park in the middle of the Billy Bar lot, next to Jesse’s truck—which is the fourth in a lineup of big, masculine trucks decked out with racks and lights and toolboxes and, in Franco’s case, a bed cap. I assume the one truck I’m not familiar with is Ryder’s. Instead of a big, rugged pickup, Ryder’s is a classic 1940s Chevy box truck, heavily customized and beautifully restored. I remember Jesse saying Ryder is an electrician, so it makes sense he’d need a special truck to hold all the special equipment.
Next to their big butch man-mobiles, my little red 1998 Toyota Camry looks like a Matchbox toy.
I’ve driven past Billy Bar a zillion times, having been born and raised in this area, but I’ve never been inside—it’s just not the sort of place I, or anyone I know, would typically go. When you think of a local dive, Billy Bar is the kind of place you think of. It’s an old Pizza Hut building that was converted and renovated into a bar when I was in high school. It will forever be a Pizza Hut building—there’s no disguising that unmistakable roof. I’m not sure what to expect inside, but my Judgy McJudgerson instincts have me expecting the worst—dank, dark, sticky, smoky, and possibly featuring a stripper pole in the back, with lots of neon everywhere.
Inside, it’s well-lit, clean, smoke-free, stripper pole-free, with zero neon. Instead, the walls feature a lot of huge beer company mirrors, posters of classic motorcycles and hot rods, posters for car parts and oil and transmission fluids, and even an antique gas pump mounted on the wall. On another wall is what looks like a deconstructed transmission or something, with each piece mounted in place a few inches from the adjoining parts. The bar stretches along most of the length of one side of the building; the bar top itself is a single enormous piece of polished and stained hardwood, mounted on a long series of truck bed gates. The stools are motorcycle seats complete with old license plates and tail lights, mounted on giant springs. The owners left the windows in place, so there’s actually natural light coming in, as well as plenty of warm, soft incandescent lighting; they got rid of the original can lighting and replaced it with hanging light fixtures made from old steering wheels strung with loose, dangling Edison bulbs. There are booths lining the walls, each made from the benches of old cars and trucks, complete with seat belts and buckles, and there are a dozen or so high-top tables in the middle, also crafted from car parts and other industrial materials. The whole effect is rugged and masculine and inviting and cool. In a back corner by the entrance to the kitchen there’s a pair of pool tables, a handful of coin-op arcade games, and a dartboard, which is where I find Jesse and his crew.
Hammered Page 14
