by Lisa Suzanne
This morning, I turned and left. It was on my terms.
Now, though, it’s on his.
He turns and walks out of my kitchen, out the front door, and out of my life with his singular word echoing in my head.
*
“Tell me about what happened with Kendra.” I blurt out the words after I’ve barely said hello. I haven’t spoken to him all day—not even a text message, so I know he’s been busy, and now he’s calling to say goodnight.
“It’s late, Reese.” Brian’s voice is tired, but I don’t miss the frustration there.
I glance at the clock. It’s almost midnight, but I guess that’s two o’clock in the morning in his time zone. “Says the man who flew halfway across the country after getting a call at one in the morning.”
“Says the man who worked his ass off for twelve hours today and then entertained clients at a business dinner before entertaining them at a bar. Says the man who has to be up in—fuck, in four hours after getting no sleep last night.”
“Then tell me quick.”
I hear his sigh before he says the words. “I was with her for a year and then she fucked my asshole brother.” His tone is so blunt, so full of pain that I feel it in my own chest.
“Oh,” I say. More guilt spreads over me as I realize how hard it must be for him to make this confession—a confession I forced out of him. I think back to Mark’s words: No matter what I say, I’m going to look like the bad guy even though I’m not. How could he not be the bad guy when he slept with Brian’s girlfriend? “Thanks for telling me.”
“You didn’t give me much of a choice. I have to go.”
“Can we just talk for a few more minutes?”
“About what? About how women always use me to get to him?”
“No,” I murmur. Pain stabs my stomach for making him talk about something that still clearly hurts him. “Sorry I brought it up. Sleep well.”
“Bye.”
He ends the call and I sit in my bed for a few beats with the phone still held to my ear feeling like a royal asshole.
So I finally know the big secret—something I’d all but guessed on my own anyway, but now it’s confirmed. He and his ex broke up when she slept with his brother. No wonder he’s insecure when it comes to his brother. I don’t blame him for not wanting me around Mark.
Brian can’t ever find out. If he did, it wouldn’t just destroy us.
It would destroy him.
twenty-four
Three days.
It’s been three days since I saw Mark.
Three days since I saw Brian, too, now that I think about it.
I’m not sure who I miss more. I’m not sure where my heart lies.
With Brian out of town and Mark on my mind constantly, the days are slow and tedious. Jill took a couple of days off work to accompany Becker on a work trip to San Francisco. Tess is in Mexico with some friends for a few days, and I’m alone with my thoughts. It’s the constant barrage of wondering whether I’m doing the right thing that finally drives me to decide I need to get out of town. So, after texting my mom to make sure they’ll be around, I pack an overnight bag and head home.
Five hours in the car on the way to Phoenix gives me plenty of thinking time. Sometimes I turn the volume up on the radio until my ears hurt and my head starts to pound, but in some ways the headache is more comforting than my thoughts. And then a Vail song comes on, and the cycle starts over.
I should’ve deleted their music off my playlist before I got in the damn car.
I skip past their songs, the songs that’ve comforted me in hard times, been with me in good times. It’s hard skipping past them. They’re still my favorite band despite everything, and I miss their music. I miss his voice. I miss the sound of his deft fingers plucking guitar strings. But it’s too hard, too fresh, too close to my heart.
Brian’s calls have been short and curt since his confession about his ex. I don’t blame him for being a little mad at me for forcing the truth out of him when he wasn’t ready, but if we have any chance at surviving a future together, it starts with honesty.
God, I’m such a fucking hypocrite.
It’s probably better if I just let Brian go. Start over, find someone else, someone whose brother I don’t have such an emotional attachment to.
But my feelings for Brian are strong, too, and the selfish side of me can’t let him go.
A tiny piece of me can’t help but wonder if I don’t want to let Brian go because he’s my connection to Mark. He’s my guarantee I’ll see Mark again. Whatever happened between them must be in the past now if Brian is staying with him. Brian’s heart might be bigger than I’m giving him credit for and he might’ve already forgiven his brother.
I don’t know because I don’t have any real details about what happened—what led up to it, what caused it, what the aftermath was, how it changed a relationship between brothers.
When I finally pull into the driveway of my parents’ house, a sense of relief washes over me. I’m twenty-seven, but Mom and Dad’s house is still comforting.
My mom throws the door open and grabs me up into a hug. She hasn’t changed. She has the same short hair, the same brown eyes she gave my sister. “Reese!” she exclaims as she holds me tightly. Heat prickles behind my eyes. Am I really about to cry just because my mother is hugging me?
I look up at the ceiling to ward off the tears, and then I pull back. She kisses my cheek. “You’re beautiful. Glowing. Is it this new boy you texted your sister about?”
I roll my eyes, the threat of tears subsiding. “She has the biggest mouth ever,” I whine.
My mom laughs. “Come on in and tell me all about him.”
I came here to get away from thoughts of him. I don’t tell her that, and I’m certainly not about to rehash my love life with my mother, but I hope to have a big gab session with my sister later.
“Is Rachel coming by for dinner?”
“She said she’s going to try to stop by after dinner. She has some work thing with Ben tonight.”
I miss my younger sister and her adorable boyfriend, Ben. They’ve been together since she was in college. I’m certain they’ll get married someday. Sometimes I wish I had it all figured out the way she does.
My mom’s arm is around my shoulders as she ushers me into the family room.
“I’m just gonna run upstairs and drop off my bag,” I say.
“Take your time and I’ll get a snack together.”
I head up to my childhood room. I haven’t visited home since spring break. I feel like a jerk. I know my mom loves when I come home, and I need to do it more. It’s a long drive, though, and when I’m in the middle of the school year, it’s hard to find the time. Plus, who sees Phoenix as a vacation destination in July? Not that Vegas is much better, but the heat can be crippling. I should know since I grew up here.
I glance around my bedroom. Nothing has changed since I left this place almost a decade ago. A few framed photos still litter my dresser, and all of them are from high school. I pick one up and look at four friends with arms linked around one another. I remember this picture—it was at Jill’s house before we left for a concert. It was our senior year, and Vail was opening for some other band I can’t even remember now. Jill and I were obsessed with Mark Ashton, as were our friends.
Out of the three faces in the photo aside from mine, I only still talk to Jill. One of the other girls and I aren’t even Facebook friends.
I toss the photo—frame and all—into the trashcan. Life goes on. I have plenty of newer pictures and memories with Jill. She’ll always be my best friend, but Becky and Holly are from another lifetime. I wonder what they’d think of my predicament, of the fact that I slept with Mark and now I’m sleeping with his brother.
It doesn’t matter what they think. I don’t even know what I think.
I clear some more high school memories off the top of my dresser as I think about Brian’s empty dresser in his bedroom. Is he that detached fro
m mementos, or is everything just packed away, waiting for their permanent spots in his new home?
Even as I think to myself that these memories are from another lifetime, I don’t throw away the picture of Jill and me in the Best Friends Forever frame. I don’t throw away my class ring or the trinket box filled with notes—different ones from friends or boys I had crushes on. Someday I’ll let those things go, but right now these mementos offer a calming oasis in the arid desert where I’ve been residing for the past two months.
I sit on my bed, the same twin my parents bought me when I outgrew my toddler bed. The springs squeak when I sit, and I giggle to myself as I think about the time Eric, the boy I was dating in high school, came over and we made out. My parents were just downstairs. We were in my room “studying,” and we were supposed to keep the door open—which we did, desperately listening for footsteps so we could jump apart. We were trying to be as quiet as possible, and then the bed let out a huge squeal, totally giving us away. Eric froze, and I giggled hysterically because I was so nervous to be making out with a boy in my bed, but we were never caught. He jumped up and then we got some real studying done. We didn’t make out in my bed again—well, we didn’t make out in my bed again when my parents were home to hear us.
I lost my virginity in this bed, to a different high school boyfriend a year later, this one named Zach. The bed moaned under our weight. It wasn’t traumatic as some first times go, but I’ve definitely learned a lot since then.
The last boy I had in this bed was Justin, my ex. I brought him home with me to meet my parents, and when they went out to dinner, we had a fuck fest. I smile as I remember each of us tearing our clothes off the second the garage closed behind my parents, as soon as we were sure they were gone. We’d been teasing each other mercilessly behind my parents’ backs, and it was like some sort of hot foreplay. We attacked each other, and it was the best sex during our entire relationship—probably because it was naughty and illicit.
I’m just about to leave the memories behind me and head back down to my eager mother when my phone buzzes with a text notification—and a new memory that’ll burn into my reflections of this room.
Jill: Don’t be mad at me, but I gave Mark your number.
My heart races with those words.
Me: Why would you do that?
Jill: Because when he looks at me with those green eyes of his, I’d pretty much do anything he asked me to do.
I giggle.
Me: I get it. Can you give me more details?
Jill: He got my number from Becker and texted me.
Me: So he didn’t actually look at you with those eyes of his?
Jill: You’d be good at investigative journalism.
Me: So is he going to call me?
Jill: He didn’t say.
Me: When did you give him my number?
Jill: I texted it to him and then texted you to let you know.
My phone starts ringing with a number I don’t recognize with a 310 area code and the words Los Angeles, California.
Holy fucking shit. Mark Ashton is calling me.
I have Mark fucking Ashton’s phone number.
What is this life?
My heart pounds and my stomach drops out all the way to my toes.
Another text flashes from Jill, but I answer the call instead of checking it. “Hello?” I say tentatively, my heartbeat rushing up to my ears.
“Reese,” he says softly, and even if I hadn’t gotten Jill’s warning, I would recognize that voice anywhere.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.”
We’re both quiet as I wait for him to say why he’s calling me. Nerves knot my stomach.
“I came by your place again today but no one was home.”
“I drove home to Phoenix.”
“Phoenix? Isn’t it hot there now?”
“Incredibly, but I’m in the air conditioning. And it’s not that much hotter than Vegas right now. Did you get my phone number from my best friend to ask me about the weather?”
He chuckles. “No.”
I let silence settle clumsily between us for a few beats as I wait for him to talk.
“I just…I don’t know, Reese. I’m a fucking disaster right now and it’s your fault.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That one night with you. Goddammit, I can’t get you out of my head. And now you’re with Brian and it’s all so fucking wrong.” His voice is laden with passion and my heart breaks in my chest. I want this—I want this so, so badly, and I want it to be real and true. I want him to want to be with me. I want to believe what he’s saying because I felt it, too.
But Brian’s words are stuck in my mind, haunting me as they twist around the grey matter.
This is what Mark does. He manipulates women, sleeps with them, steals them from his brother.
“I made him tell me about Kendra.” I avoid saying his name.
Mark bites out a laugh. “What did he tell you?”
“That she cheated on him. With you.” I pause. “Is this some sort of pattern?”
“No, it’s not. Is it serious with you two?”
“Why don’t you ask your brother that?”
“I don’t want to hear it from him. I want to hear it from you.”
I pick at a loose thread on a fifteen-year-old pink comforter. “I don’t know.”
“If he wasn’t in the picture, would you give me a chance?”
“You’re Mark Ashton. That’s not a fair question.”
“Something’s there, Reese. Something is between us. This shit doesn’t happen to me. I lost my shit during the middle of our opening song last night. I stared out at that crowd, scanning every face there for yours. You weren’t there, and I lost the words. Fucking Steve had to step in and finish the second verse while I acted like I was focused on a guitar solo.”
His anger and confusion are palpable even over the phone. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if he’s throwing more lines at me or if this is real.
“Come back, Reese. Let me see you again. Come to my place and we’ll talk like we did that night we met. I just…I need to talk to you, to figure out what the hell it is that’s got me so fucked in the head. Please give me a chance.”
Tears heat behind my eyes. If I didn’t know his voice so well, I’d have a hard time believing the womanizing Mark Ashton I read about in the magazines is the same man as the sweet, almost desperate Mark Ashton on the phone.
He nearly has me convinced. Like Jill, I’d do pretty much anything just because he asked me to.
I have to decide which brother to trust. Mark’s public image precedes him, and Brian doesn’t have a reason to lie to me.
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” he says, his voice broken. “When will you be back?”
“It’s sort of open-ended for now. Probably before the weekend.”
“Can I see you when you get back?”
“I don’t know, Mark. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He sighs.
“Why me?” I whisper.
“I wish I knew,” he whispers back.
He ends the call with that, and I’m left a fucking disaster as he so eloquently put it.
twenty-five
Rachel doesn’t make it over after her dinner, and I slip into bed a little after eleven, spent from the emotional conversation with Mark. I managed to fend off my mom’s incessant grilling about the new boy in my life, instead getting her to talk about my aunt and my cousins. She can go on a bender when I get her started, so I faked listening while I continued to sort through my very confusing feelings for two men who happen to be brothers.
I text Brian to say goodnight, and my phone tells me he’s calling a minute later.
“Hey,” I answer.
“Hi.”
“How has your day been?”
“Busy. I’m coming home tomorrow.”
“You are?”
“Ye
ah. I miss you.”
My heart ripples with some mixture of excitement and fear.
I shouldn’t fear seeing the guy I’m dating, but things have been weird between us since I asked him about his ex. Oh, and I kissed his brother while he was out of town.
The guilt I’d easily pushed away with the old cliché out of sight, out of mind pours back over me.
“I miss you, too,” I say automatically. I do. I’m just not sure how much.
“I can’t wait to hold you in my arms, to kiss you…to fuck you.” His voice slurs a little on the s sound in the word kiss, and I realize he’s a little drunk. In the fairly short span of time we’ve been together, I’ve never seen him drunk.
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask.
“Mm,” he moans, and a jolt of lust spears my stomach. “I’m going to make up for lost time.”
I giggle. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re gonna be walking funny for a few days.”
I don’t doubt it. I try to brush away the sinking feeling that I can’t quite identify in the pit of my stomach.
“I’m…uh…in Phoenix right now.”
“You are? Why?”
“I came home to visit my family.”
“I get in at five tomorrow. Go back to Vegas.”
“I want to, but I just got here today. I haven’t even seen my sister yet.”
“Invite her to Vegas, then. I need to see you.”
The rasp in his voice is pretty damn convincing. I have all this pent-up sexual energy, and my boyfriend seems like the right person to be the recipient of it.
“Fine. I’ll head home after lunch.”
“Come straight to my place.”
Mark’s place, you mean? “Are you sure?”
He’s never willingly invited me to his place knowing his brother might be around.
“Yeah. I miss being home, you know? Sleeping in my own bed. I need to unpack and get some work done, anyway.”
“Okay. I’ll text you when I’m on my way. Fly safe and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait.”
