by Harper Steen
Without acknowledging, or even seeming to notice, the brothers’ exchange of glances, Liz helped herself to Jeff’s lighter, pulled a cigarette out of the box, then put the box back in Jeff’s back pocket. She then went into the yard, apparently to enjoy the pilfered cigarette in quiet. But Jennifer didn’t give her any peace. She followed right on Liz’s heels, talking insistently and gesticulating wildly. When she got to the point of ticking off the side effects of smoking on her fingers, it got to be too much for Liz. She held out the glowing cigarette, which she’d only smoked half way, to Jennifer. “Here. Take it. Satisfied?”
“Yes. Very, actually.” Jennifer snatched it from Liz’s fingers and ground it out on a rock in the grass.
“What a waste!”
“Phew!” Jeff said. He, Chris and his brother were looking out the window curiously, watching the little confrontation in the yard. “For a minute, I thought you were going to push my face into the hot pan, Gray.”
“The thought did occur to me.” Gray ran one hand through his hair, tore his gaze away from Liz and Jennifer and gave his brother a frank look. “In all honesty, not just a minute, either.”
Chris held a hand over his mouth and chuckled while Jeff swallowed visibly, his eyes wide. “Then it’s a good thing all she wanted was a cigarette,” he mumbled in relief, turning back to the pan on the stove.
***
Almost four weeks had passed since Liz and Jennifer had been recovering from their injuries and had surrendered to the passionate coupling with Gray and Chris. And nothing, nothing at all during that time indicated that Jennifer’s misgivings would come true.
“What’s wrong?” Gray asked with raised eyebrows as he handed Chris a glass of ice tea and sat down in a chair next to his friend. The ice cubes clinked gently against one another. “I can tell something’s bothering you.”
“Do you really have to ask?” Meaningfully Chris looked over at the two women who were reclining in the sun on lounge chairs on the other side of the pool.
“Did you have a fight with Jennifer?”
“No.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“They’ll be going to the doctor in four days.”
“I know. So?” Gray looked at him without understanding.
“Don’t tell me Liz has agreed to something more long-term? I asked Jennifer again this morning if she could picture having a relationship with me and not just this fling she’d planned. But she said no again and used the job as an excuse, even though I told her, like I have a bunch of times, that I can handle her job.” Chris’s head drooped; he stared darkly at the ground and kicked a pebble off the patio onto the adjacent grass.
Why had this happened to him of all people? He had always hoped that when he really and truly fell in love, that the feelings would be mutual. Jennifer had been honest with him from the beginning and yet he still felt caught completely off guard. She wasn’t looking for a committed relationship—those were her words. She said she would only have him as a temporary lover.
Temporary lover! Now, that was harsh. At first he’d reluctantly accepted her position. But in less than two days he’d realized that he wasn’t prepared to ever be separated from Jennifer. Chris didn’t want her to leave him—to dump him—as if everything that had happened between them meant nothing.
He loved a woman who wanted him only in a very limited way, and who, in all probability, would be leaving him within the next few days—and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. His feelings of helplessness were driving him crazy. For the first time in a long time, Chris had no idea how he should behave, or what he could do to turn this no-win situation around.
Gray gave him a smile of encouragement, even though Chris knew he was worried about the same thing. “I’ve heard something like that from Liz,” Gray admitted. “But the fat lady hasn’t sung yet.”
“Do you know what the worst part is?” Chris said. “I love her.” He swallowed hard. “If I didn’t, her rejection wouldn’t hurt so much.”
“You were caught off guard, too? And I thought it was just me.” Gray laughed softly, but it wasn’t a happy laugh.
The problem wasn’t going to be solved as easily as Gray had thought. Four weeks ago, when he’d admitted to himself that he loved Liz, he’d had no idea how hard it would be to get her to stay with him. Trying to chip away at her resolve, he brought the situation up whenever he was alone with her. But she always either switched topics or pulled away from him, so there had been no opportunity for him to bring the subject to a satisfying conclusion. And the only conclusion that would satisfy him, in his opinion, was for Liz to stay with him and give their future together a real chance.
“You love Liz, huh? Oh well…” Chris sighed heavily. “Misery loves company, and it looks like we’re in this together.”
Gloomily the two men stared into the glasses in their hands and watched the ice melt. Before long, Jeff joined them. His good mood dissolved when he saw the two men’s grumpy faces.
“What’s wrong with you two? Did you have a fight with your women?” he asked in a low voice. He nodded toward Jennifer and Liz. Both men shook their heads. “Don’t make me squeeze it out of you! What’s wrong?” he demanded as he sat down next to his brother.
After a brief hesitation, they poured their hearts as he listened attentively. Once they had again fallen into a gloomy silence, Jeff shook his head, grinning. Love really did make people blind. Neither one of them recognized the obvious solution. Jeff decided it was time for him to give them some coaching in matters of love. “So, as I understand it, you both want them to stay with you—preferably forever. Is that right?”
“Yes,” the other two told him.
“And you really love them?”
“Yes.” They answered simultaneously again.
“Then why don’t you just ask them if they’ll marry you?” Jeff suggested quietly. “Women respond well to that, I’ve heard.”
“Weren’t you listening? They don’t want committed relationships with us. They won’t even consider it,” murmured Chris. Gray nodded in agreement. “There’s no way they’d say yes if we dropped to our knees and asked them to marry us.”
“But you can imagine being married to them?” Without having to even think about it, both men nodded affirmatively. “Well then, it’s settled!”
“Nothing is settled,” Gray objected.
“Sure it is! Sometimes women fail to recognize what’s best for them.” Jeff felt quite confident in his experience with the opposite sex. He nodded toward Jennifer and Liz. “Especially those two. They wouldn’t have gotten involved with you if they hadn’t felt something for you. You can count on that. You know the saying: All’s fair in love and war? You two are pretty smart. You’ll think of something. If you have to, fight dirty. I know I would. They might scream at you, throw dishes or lock you out of the bedroom for a while. But sooner or later, they’ll admit how much you mean to them and let you back in. What’s important right now is that they’re not able to give you the slip." Grinning, Jeff looked from one to the other for approval.
“What you’re suggesting sounds like macho blackmail.” Gray didn’t like the idea of having to resort to sneaky ploys to get Liz to commit. But what choice did he have if he didn’t want to lose her?
“It’s not really different from what we’ve been doing this whole time,” Chris pointed out. “There’ve already been fireworks; think about Gray’s dishes, not to mention his Mercedes. Where did any of that get us? Isn’t this whole thing a little asinine?”
“Yes. And?” Jeff leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “If I want to act macho, I will.” He looked from Gray to Chris, who was already deep in thought, and back again. A broad grin spread across his face. “My advice wasn’t free, by the way.” Gray and Chris looked at Jeff as if he’d suddenly grown another head. “If your first child is a boy, Gray,” he said, “you can name him after me. That’ll be thanks enough.”
“Liz?”
“Hm?”
“Do you get the weird feeling those three are up to something?”
“What are they going to do? Throw us in the water again? God yes, they probably are—those jerks.”
“I don’t mean something like that.” Jennifer took off her sunglasses and looked at Liz. “Chris asked if I could picture having a relationship with him. And the way he said it, I got the feeling he had something more long term in mind, not just a short fling like you and I talked about having with these guys.”
“So what did you tell him?” Liz sat up on her lounge chair and tucked her legs under her so that she sat cross-legged.
“I told him it wouldn’t work because of my job. I know that if we stay together, at some point he’s going to try to get me to quit, even though he swears he doesn’t have any problems with it. And even though it’s hard for me to say it out loud—and even harder for me to admit it to myself—I have to confess, I really like him a lot. Chris doesn’t make me as nervous anymore and I like being with him. But it wouldn’t be good over the long haul.”
“Gray asked me something similar. Several times! My answer was pretty much the same as yours, but he still keeps bringing it up. It doesn’t matter how often I say no, he simply can’t accept it. It’s like he’s trying to wear me down.”
They watched the men in silence for a while and tried to read from their expressions what they were discussing. But they couldn’t detect anything suspicious.
“I owe you an apology.” Liz looked at her friend and grinned.
“For what?”
“You were right when you said that Gray didn’t just want a fling with me, and you were right when you said they’d try to talk us into more. Sorry! I should have taken your warning more seriously.”
“Forget it. We shouldn’t stress out about it so much. Our doctor appointments are in four days and then we can go back to work and get back to our old lives.” She added with a mischievous grin: “A life that doesn’t involve getting constantly bossed and ordered around.”
“You know what?” said Liz. “I can’t wait. Woo-hoo!” The women broke out into peals of laughter.
After Jeff had given them his take on things, Gray and Chris spent the next hour working on an airtight “battle plan.” They knew what they wanted and they weren’t going to let anything get in their way. But they hadn’t accounted for the possibility of getting a call from Townsend that evening.
After Gray had taken the unexpected call, he hung up and told Chris that they’d just gotten a new assignment. Extremely bad timing, considering what they had planned. Unfortunately, another team wasn’t available, so they had no choice but to run the new mission.
“So now what do we do with Jennifer and Liz?” Chris furrowed his brows.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jeff said. “I’ll keep an eye on them while you’re gone. And if that’s longer than three days, I’ll call the doctor with some excuse about why their appointments have to be postponed.” Jeff gave them a conspiratorial wink.
Gratefully Gray and Chris accepted the offer and went to tell the women the news. Fifteen minutes later they were already on their way to their new assignment.
***
When they returned late in the evening three days later Liz and Jennifer had already packed their bags and begun to get ready to return to their old lives.
Gray leaned in the door frame with his arms crossed and watched Liz. He’d been in such a hurry to get back from the assignment, he hadn’t even taken the time to swap his uniform for civilian clothes. It had felt as if his future depended on getting back to Liz as quickly as possible, and making sure she didn’t slip through his fingers.
Jeff might be able to stall with regard to the doctor appointment, but it wouldn’t take the women long to see through his brother’s excuses. That meant haste was necessary. The speeding ticket he had gotten on the way back was a price he was more than willing to pay if it meant being able to thwart Liz’s potential disappearance.
It took all of Gray’s will power to keep from storming across the space between Liz and him, ripping her things out of her hands, and cramming them back into the dresser drawers. Back, in his opinion, where they belonged. “What’s all this? You haven’t even been to the doctor yet and you’re already packing your bags?”
Liz turned and looked at him. “He’s only going to confirm the obvious. We’re completely healthy and fit for duty again. And I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to my apartment and my own life.” Then she went on packing her things into the bag.
“And what about us?” he asked softly.
“What about us? I told you several times, we don’t have a future together because of our jobs—and because I’m not a person who has relationships. Nothing’s going to change that. Just accept it, Gray.”
“Have you ever tried? To have a committed relationship, I mean?”
“No. Why would I? I know it wouldn’t work.”
“Then what we have between us doesn’t mean anything to you? I don’t mean anything to you?” Gray held his breath. If she gave him any reason to think that he wasn’t important to her, he would let her go. But if she didn’t, he would see his plan through.
“I never said that! Of course you mean something to me. But I’d rather end it now before our feelings go too far. If I don’t, we’ll just be miserable when we break up. And it’s guaranteed that that would happen. We would break up.”
Slowly he exhaled, feeling pleased, even though no emotion showed on his face. So Jeff had been right all along. This was something he could build on.
“Liz?” Again she paused in her work and gave him a questioning look. “If you think you can dump me that easily, you’re fooling yourself. I would never let you throw me away like a pair of old tennis shoes.” As he spoke, he kept as cool as a cucumber.
“Stop it! I’m an adult and an independent woman. I’m going back to my apartment. How are you going to stop me? And why should I try committing to a relationship instead of staying independent?”
Tolerance wasn’t one of Gray’s well-developed traits. He believed that everyone had to dance to his own tune, but he didn’t have any patience for her objection. He knew of only one answer to her question, but he didn’t dare voice it. That would trigger an argument that Gray couldn’t win. Instead, he turned on his heels and left a confused looking woman behind him.
***
The next morning after a thorough examination, the doctor pronounced Liz and Jennifer completely recovered. Gray and Chris stayed in the waiting room during the exam, awaiting the confirmation that the women were healthy again and fit for duty.
“I told you we should have just taken our things with us! Now we have to make the trip twice, and that’s ridiculous.” Liz pinched her brows together and shook her head at the stupidity of that decision. Gray forced himself not to get worked up and threw a quick glance at Chris who sat next to him in the passenger seat. Chris was smiling secretively to himself, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the traffic flowing down the highway with feigned interest.
Liz looked at her friend, who shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. She didn’t have any clue what was wrong with Gray and Chris, either. With an exasperated sigh, Liz leaned back, deciding it would probably be better if she didn’t complain anymore. Gray and Chris were obviously sulking, presumably because of the impending separation. She was sure that was the reason for their behavior.
Liz looked out the side window, but she didn’t notice the passing scenery. She was busy thinking about the past few weeks.
After she’d finally accepted the no-win situation of having Gray as her babysitter for an extended period, Liz had hurled herself into a passionate adventure with him. Their time together had been fantastic: indescribably carnal, and marvelously uninhibited. She didn’t regret anything! But these four weeks weren’t Liz’s real life; they were an exception, a vacation from her everyday existence.
Regardless of
how beautiful their time together had been, the time had come for them to go their separate ways. It was better this way. A well-timed separation would minimize the pain for them both. Liz liked Gray, despite his authoritarian and possessive manner, and she enjoyed having sex with him. But she didn’t want to fall in love with him, and the longer they stayed together the greater the chances were that this is exactly what it would all come to.
That was one of the reasons why she had agreed only to have a brief, sexual fling. She’d known from the start that this problem could occur.
There weren’t many things that Liz was afraid of, but after her mother’s death, any form of love terrified her. At the same time, love made her feel helpless because she didn’t know how to deal with it—didn’t want to deal with it. What benefits did love bring anyway, she wondered. Extended periods of disappointment, pain, loneliness and self-doubt always followed much too brief periods of bliss. Why should she suffer the foreseeable consequences of love when she could avoid them?
She admitted to herself that at some point, the time would come when she would fall in love, easily and without conditions. But no one could force her into that. She was certain of one thing: love was like fire. It needed air in order to burn, just like people needed air to breathe. Love required freedom in order to grow.
Liz turned her gaze to the back of Gray’s distinctive head. Did this man mean something to her? Yes, she admitted to herself with a twinge of panic. He meant a lot to her, in fact. Already much too much for her to allow the relationship to continue and escape its inevitable end unscathed. She didn’t want to love him, so it had to end. Today she would return to her old life and finally put an end to the adventurous time she’d spent with Gray.
The moment she made her decision, Liz sighed in relief. The fear subsided, and a familiar emptiness moved into its place—an emptiness she recognized, and that gave her a sense of security she welcomed. Feeling at peace with herself, Liz looked out of the window again and was surprised to see that they were already in the driveway at Gray’s house. Her freedom was nearly within reach.
