by Liz Durano
“Yes, please.” She lowers her head so her ear is in line with my mouth.
“The better to fuck you with, my dear,” I murmur and I feel her ragged breath against my neck. “Would you like that?”
She lifts her head so she’s looking at me. “You love to torture me, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“How long are you going to make me wait?”
I let go of her hands, resting one along the back of her head and the other to cup her breast, my thumb and index finger rubbing her nipple. She glides her hips over me, tormenting me with every movement. She likes it when I take charge, her body responding to my touch like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Her body seems made just for me.
“Not too long.” I pull her head down toward me, beginning my exploration of her with a kiss that’s all need and want all rolled into one. I need Addison like the air I breathe and I want her more than I’ve wanted any woman before. It’s a want that starts with her kiss, before rising from deep inside my belly, raging throughout my whole body before settling inside my chest, through skin, muscle and bone… before turning into a need that goes straight to my heart.
The apartment is quiet when I hear my phone buzzing in the other room. I crawl out of bed and retrieve it from the coffee table where I'd left it last night and sit on the edge of the sofa bed. There are five text messages from Rachel, all sent in succession from midnight until one in the morning, and one from Dad.
Dad: Meet me at the Corner Diner ASAP
I rub my eyes and peer at the time he sent it. Shit. It's only seven in the morning. I frown. Didn't he say I didn't have to come into work until after lunch?
Jordan: Can this wait till later?
Dad: No.
Jordan: Give me 30 minutes.
I take a quick shower and get dressed. I put the sofa bed back into place, fold the linens and gather my things before returning to the bedroom where Addison is still sleeping. Buried under the covers, she looks so peaceful and I hate to wake her. So I write a note and leave it on her bedside table, telling her I have an emergency meeting and that I’ll be back. Then I check in on Piper who’s also still sleeping, smiling as she dreams. There’s a strange feeling inside my chest as I watch my daughter sleep, awe at the tiny being I helped bring into this world and pride at how beautiful and healthy she is complete with lungs of steel that can shatter a grown man’s eardrums.
Setting my backpack by the couch, I quietly make my way out of the apartment and shut the door behind me. Although the rain has stopped, the roads are still slick and traffic is, as usual, for Manhattan on a weekday, horrible. I catch a cab and get to the Corner Diner five minutes late. It’s one of Dad’s favorite places to catch a bite to eat whenever we’re working in the city.
Dad is already in a booth, dressed in his usual checkered shirt and jeans and sipping his coffee. “The baby doing better?” he asks as I slide into the booth in front of him.
“Yeah, she is, thank goodness. Took awhile,” I reply as a server approaches and pours coffee into the cup in front of me and refills Dad’s. “So what’s up? What happened?”
“Rachel’s at the hospital,” he replies. “Her roommate found her passed out on the couch last night and couldn’t wake her up. She panicked and called 911. They think she tried to kill herself.”
I curse under my breath, pulling out my phone and opening her text messages. They’d all been sent around midnight.
–I need to talk to you. I need to ask you a question.
–Did you cheat on me? Were you cheating on me the whole time?
–I know where she lives and where she works. I’ll ruin her. The bitch stole you from me.
–Call me. Please.
–CHEATER!
I set my phone down, unable to believe what I’m seeing. Rachel had always been a bit crazy, but in a good way that didn’t cause harm to her or anyone else. She was wacky, funny, sometimes wild. That’s the way I saw it at eighteen when I finally asked her out for our senior prom after she joked that I only dated the hot girls in school. Hot? She was just as hot as they were but I’d grown up with her. Our families were close. Along with Campbell, she hung out at the house almost every day. She was always welcome at the table. She’d blossomed from this gawky childhood friend I’d always hung out with to this stunning woman who made me laugh with her crazy antics—until they weren’t funny anymore.
And this latest one definitely isn’t.
“How?” I ask, as I close my messaging app and put my phone away. Rachel had probably sent the texts around the time she’d taken the pills.
“Sleeping pills and vodka, I think. That’s what Lauren said,” Dad replies. Lauren is one of Rachel’s good friends and her roommate. “They’re keeping her under observation but Rachel insists that it was an accident. She didn’t realize she’d taken more than she thought.”
“How can you not know that you’ve taken more pills than is good for you?”
“When you take it every day,” Dad says. “But I thought you knew that already, Jory.”
I’m familiar with the pills Rachel took every day when we were together. Besides her vitamin supplements, there was one to help her sleep, another for her anxiety and depression, and then other pills for whatever else ailed her whether it was for a shoulder injury from playing volleyball in high school or chronic neck and back pain from always sitting in front of a computer for work. I’d also asked her to seek help to help her deal with her mood swings. One minute she was happy and the next, she’d be sobbing in my arms. But I’m far from perfect. I’m a guy who likes things black and white… simple. Measure twice, cut once. I’m practical. And I can only understand a woman’s emotions so much though God knows I tried. But five years of having to deal with her mood swings, I was done.
But at the same time, I’ve never heard Rachel say anything about hurting herself. She’s impulsive, yes, and she has her ups and downs, but to purposely hurt herself? No, that’s not the Rachel I’ve known since we were kids.
“It’s been over a year since Rachel and I have been together, Dad. We split up, remember? I’ve moved on. I can’t be responsible for her forever,” I say, rubbing my jaw, aware that I badly need a shave—and sleep.
“Rachel is convinced that you cheated on her, Jory,” he replies. “She’s been working on the dates when you broke up with her and when you could have slept with this doctor. She thinks you’ve been cheating with Addison the whole time you were with her, and that those nights you hung out with Campbell after work were really spent with Addison.”
I almost laugh out loud. “She told you all this?”
“No, she told Gus, so we’re not on good terms right now, not when he believes his daughter is in the hospital because of you.” Dad raises his hand as I’m about to protest. “And I know she’s not your responsibility. I’m just telling you what he said. She’s his daughter and of course, he’ll believe her. But you’re my son–”
“I didn’t cheat on her, Dad. I swear.”
“–and I believe you,” he adds. “You going off to the other side of the world makes complete sense now. I couldn’t understand it then, especially not when we had jobs scheduled for a full year, and you ended up leaving the workshop shorthanded. But I get it now. You said you needed time away to think, and the space. After that stunt she pulled in Westchester, it’s a miracle Mrs. Carnavon still recommends our business to her friends. That’s how we won this new project on the Upper West Side and I don’t want to mess it up in any way. It’s our biggest account so far.”
“And the other jobs you and Gus are working on? What about those?” I ask. Last I looked, there were three other projects on the books that he and Gus were handling for the following year. I hate that all this is splintering their friendship but I can’t be responsible for Rachel’s actions.
Dad shrugs. “I don’t know about those but the ones we have now are gonna have to go on without him until this dies down.”
�
��And how is this supposed to die down? I’m not going back to Rachel, Dad. Addison and Piper are my priority right now.”
He nods and takes a sip of his coffee. “And no one’s asking you to go back to her, not anymore. Back then, I truly believed you two were perfect together and so your Mom and I advised you to make it work. We just figured you were too young and maybe needed a nudge in the right direction. But I don’t want to see you go back to Rachel for all the wrong reasons,” Dad replies. “Besides, like you just said, you’ve got a baby now, and there’s a woman you need to get along with so you two can, at least, be good parents to your daughter even if you may not work out as a couple. Which reminds me; your mother would like you to bring her over for dinner. Her and the baby, of course, when she’s ready. You’ve got the results already, right?”
I nod. “I’m waiting for it to come in the mail but I have the email confirmation.”
Dad smiles. “And that’s good, isn’t it? She’s yours?” When I nod, he breathes a sigh of relief. “Your mother will definitely want to meet them soon.”
“I’ll let Addy know.”
We don’t speak for a few minutes. The server returns to refill our coffee cups and asks us if we’re ready to order. I no longer have an appetite but Dad orders for both of us anyway, insisting that I’ll only be hungry later if I don’t eat. He’s practical even with the world falling apart around us. But it’s not just my world that’s affected. Even though he doesn’t say it, Rachel’s actions have affected his world, too.
Gus Calloway has been Dad’s business partner for over twenty-five years. They’re best friends and our families have always been close. When Rachel and I officially started dating after college, our families grew even closer. Everyone thought we’d get married soon after but I wasn’t ready. Five years into our relationship, I still wasn’t ready even though Rachel had already decided on the ring, and she even had her dress picked out. After all, she’d waited five years and she’d grown tired of waiting. If I wasn’t asking her, then she figured she’d drop as many hints as she could.
But I never asked her. Instead, I told her that I was thinking of joining a group build schools and clinics in Southeast Asia for a year. I’d saved enough money to pay for the trip and one of our clients, Connie Carnavon, happened to be a member of the board and she’d expedite the whole process for me—permits and extended visas. Rachel lost it, confronted Connie in Westchester in front of the guys and me, and I said, fuck it, and left the country. I didn’t care if it looked like I was running away but I figured that maybe we needed to be apart for awhile before I’d decide to pop the question. Maybe it would clear up my mind about what I really wanted to do with my life.
I’d never felt so much relief the moment my flight left JFK bound for LAX and then to Manila, our first stop. On my third day, I turned off my phone after receiving dozens of texts from Rachel asking me to come back, and apologizing for harassing Connie. Roaming charges weren’t cheap and I couldn’t justify having to sift through her messages just to hear from my family and friends. So I turned it off and bought a local phone just as the trip’s project team leader advised all of us to. A new number meant no roaming charges and in my case, no texts from Rachel begging me to come back.
It also meant no texts from Addison who would end up going through her pregnancy alone.
Chapter Fifteen
I wake up just in time to hear the front door close and see Jordan’s note on the bedside table as I sit up, rubbing my eyes.
I have an emergency meeting. Will be back as soon as I can. - Jordan
I have to admit. I panicked a bit, thinking he’d just gotten up and left. But his backpack is still by the couch, the sofa bed put away and the pillows and sheets neatly folded. He’s neat and I like it. I just hope he doesn’t mind that I have to hire outside help to make my apartment decent. I may have gotten straight A’s all throughout school and breezed through rotation, internship, and a Fellowship, but if there’s one shortcoming to Dr. Addison Rowe, it’s clutter. I never said I was perfect although right now, Jordan is close to perfection. Sexy as hell, handy with his hands, and possibly a neat freak.
Oh well, no one’s perfect.
With Piper still asleep, I take a shower and finish dressing when I see and hear her waking up on the baby monitor. She usually babbles to herself for a few minutes as I stand next to her crib. Already she tries to have a conversation with me, making her sweet baby sounds while moving her arms and legs. She still has that tuft of red hair at the top of her head and nowhere else but I don’t care. She’s the most beautiful girl in the world as far as I’m concerned.
Finally I lift her from her crib and get her ready for the day. Minutes later, as I nurse her in silence, I’m in full-on bliss mode. The endorphins are flowing a bit too freely and I’m feeling sore in places I haven’t felt sore in awhile—or since the last time I had sex which was with Jordan a year earlier. I’m also feeling giddy. It’s the type of giddy that has my heart racing and my lady bits on overdrive, my thighs clenching with every thought of Jordan and everything we did last night. And oh, did we do a lot of things…
Oh, stop it, Addy. You’re acting like a teenager. Get a hold of yourself.
But how can I? I’m in lust and right now, I want to indulge in my fantasies before I have to get up and ‘adult’ for the rest of the day. I can barely even think in grammatical English. But who the hell cares?
Mama just got laid.
Piper gurgles at me and I smile, stroking her cheek with the back of my finger.
Oh, baby cakes, one day you’ll understand. Maybe when you’re thirty and your dad will allow you to see boys.
My phone rings a few minutes later. It’s Ma. As I click Answer, I’m relieved to know that at least, she’s still talking to me.
“Hi, Dee, I need to know a date for Piper’s baptism,” she says sternly. “We can’t delay this any longer.”
“Ma, she’s only ten weeks old. It’s also too early in the morning. It’s not even nine.” I pause. “Wait, does that mean you’re not angry with me anymore?”
“How can I be angry with you?” she asks. “You’re my only daughter and I love you too much. You’re also old enough to make your own decisions.”
“Did Dad talk to you?”
“Does it matter?” She bristles and I know that Dad talked to her. Sometimes people think he’s too easygoing, letting Ma get her own way every time but he actually isn’t. He’s a quiet man and has always known how to calm Ma down. “Anyway, just give me a date or I’ll really be angry with you if you don’t.”
I chuckle, imagining Ma almost breaking into a laugh on the other end of the line. “Ma, why don’t you just get the church calendar and we can figure it out then? Are you there right now?”
“I just got out of mass and since I’m here, I might as well.”
“Okay, just don’t set a date by yourself, okay? Jordan has to make the decision with me, too.”
“I know that. But just don’t wait too long,” she says. “Piper already has three ninangs and ninongs waiting for the day.”
I sigh. I should really be the one to make the decision as to who are going to be Piper’s godparents but the list among Ma’s relatives and friends is long. I have ten of them myself; chalk it up to culture even if it’s only symbolic. And it means a lot to my mother.
“Just get the calendar and we’ll figure it out then,” I repeat, my blissed-out state completely gone and I hate that it’s over so soon. But I also know what she means about Piper getting baptized; I was raised Catholic after all and even if I’m not exactly practicing, I still remember everything that’s required of me to do. But even if I would have wanted to do it, life has changed since Jordan showed up. Last month, I would have readily picked a date, but now with Jordan in the picture, he needs to be there, too.
“Okay, I’m going to talk to the church secretary so we can at least get this started,” she says before reminding me that it’s my turn to bring Piper
over to their house on Saturday before hanging up.
Leave it to Ma to give me a reality check, I mutter to myself as I set the phone on the coffee table. Like a carnival ride that ends too soon, I’m back to the real world again. But as I gaze at Piper’s beautiful face and her sweet smile, it’s all worth it.
When Jordan returns fifteen minutes later, Piper is in her rocker, dressed for the day in a white pinafore dress dotted with red hearts and matching bloomers. He brings breakfast from the Corner Diner, a spinach, ham and cheese omelet with a side of sliced strawberries for me and chicken fried steak with biscuits and gravy for him. But although Jordan tries to be upbeat the moment he walks in and helps me set the table, I can tell that something is bothering him.
“Is everything okay?” I ask as he lifts Piper’s rocker with her in it and positions it next to the table. She gurgles happily as she holds one of her favorite toys, a purple octopus that makes different sounds when you press each tentacle.
“I had to meet my dad,” he replies. “Rachel’s in the hospital.”
“Oh my God. Is she okay?”
He sits down across from me. “She is now. She may have tried to kill herself, I don’t know yet for sure because she never once showed any signs of wanting to hurt herself when we were together. But she took sleeping pills last night and chased them with vodka. Not enough to kill herself but enough for her roommate to freak out and call 911.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“Not yet. In fact, I don’t even know if I should, not when she’s convinced that I cheated on her with you.”
“Now that’s crazy. I thought you guys were already broken up when we met.”
“We were. But somehow, she’s now convinced that I did,” he says.
“So what are you going to do?”
