by Julie Kriss
Plus, she was fucking gorgeous. And I wanted to know what the thing that was bothering her was. And she had that one spot, right below her ear, when I bit it just so she made this sound and rolled her hips up like she couldn’t help it, and I really did have nail marks on my ass.
Right. One time.
Edie hadn’t lied about the bachelorette party. They were stationed in the so-called VIP room, a lame spot in a corner that had soft sofas and cushions. I saw women dancing and brightly colored drinks coming in a steady stream from the bar, and when I crossed the room halfway through my shift to check on Edie, I got catcalled. They really were the type to stuff bills in my pants. Thank God, I thought, I didn’t recognize any of them.
But when I was back on Puke Patrol, while Shark was having a smoke, I heard a woman’s voice in the corridor say, “Jason?”
I turned. This woman, I recognized—short, curvy, her hair cut in a stylish bob. It took me a second to place her face, but a name bubbled out of my memory: “Deanna,” I said. And then I realized: I knew her because she was one of Charlotte’s friends.
I choked into silence, and she gave me a smile, though she obviously felt as uncomfortable as I did. “Yeah, hi,” she said. “I thought it was you when I saw you earlier. I’m with the, ah…” She waved toward the VIP room.
“The bachelorette party?” Oh, shit. Was it Charlotte’s bachelorette party? I couldn’t picture that, but I still prayed instinctively to the slimy gods of Zoot Bar. Please don’t let that be my ex-girlfriend’s bachelorette party.
Deanna nodded. As if she read my mind, she said, “It isn’t Charlotte’s. It’s some girl I know from work. I hate these things. Sort of embarrassing, really, but I can’t get out of it.” Her cheeks were red; she was probably remembering her friends catcalling me. “So, you work here, huh?”
“Yeah, I do,” I said, realizing that all of this—everything about me, how I looked, everything I said—was going to be transmitted back to Charlotte. Including the fading bruise on my cheek. That was just fucking great.
Deanna looked confused. “It’s weird. I thought you worked at the bank.”
I nodded. “I got fired,” I said. There, let her tell Charlotte that. The bank job had always been her idea.
“Oh. That’s too bad.” Deanna didn’t seem to want to leave, which to me was inexplicable. “I was really sorry, you know, about you and Charlotte. You were such a nice couple.”
Why did people always say that? I shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“She’s doing okay,” she said, as if I had asked. “She’s applied for a job at a PR agency, and she thinks she has a good chance.”
“That’s nice.” Deanna looked away, flustered, so I just bit the bullet. “Just tell me, Deanna. What is it?”
Deanna glanced at me again, blushed again, then shook her head. “She’d kill me if she heard me say this,” she said, and she took a breath. “I’ve just been a bit worried about her. She puts on a good show, but she hasn’t been dating anyone, and she spends most of her time alone, and I wonder if maybe she’s having second thoughts, you know? I get the feeling from a few of the things she’s said. And so I was just thinking, maybe you could call her, and—”
“Yeah, that won’t work.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think them. “I have a girlfriend.”
Deanna’s eyes went wide. “You do?”
I hooked my thumbs in my pockets and turned to face her, looking down at her. I let her see my Carsleigh-just-got-spectacularly-laid full-on hotness superpower. I smoldered down at her and let her have it full blast. “Yeah,” I said, my voice gravel. “I do.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she was silent for a second. She might have said “Oh,” but she said it so softly, and the music was so loud, that I saw it in mime. Her eyes went cloudy. Then she mimed “Okay then, see you,” and walked away.
At first, I was elated. Because damn, I still had it. Despite everything, I still had it going on. Eat that, Charlotte.
Then I realized what I’d just done.
Since the day we’d split up, Charlotte hadn’t contacted me. Not once. I hadn’t contacted her, either, so it was fine with me. On my side, it was numbness and relief. But I knew how Charlotte’s mind worked. I’d been a disappointment to her. It was over, she was done with me, there was nothing about me that interested her anymore.
Until now.
Charlotte would not only hear about me, she’d disapprove of everything about my life. She’d disapprove of the bouncer job, the fact I’d left the bank, the fact that I had a bruise on my cheek. And she’d definitely disapprove of the fact that I was fucking someone. Because the one thing Charlotte had to have more than anything, even over the people she didn’t want, was control.
Charlotte wasn’t going to be indifferent to me anymore. She was suddenly going to care.
I couldn’t get out of town fast enough.
Twelve
Megan
By Thursday morning, I could at least say one thing: I had a gorgeous dress for the wedding.
Holly had done her magic, and then some. She’d pulled a vintage dress that she’d bought at an estate sale and reworked it, tailoring it to my measurements, shortening the hem, adding buttons and a sleek belt. She’d accessorized it with earrings, a handbag, and a pair of vintage heels that looked brand new. When I wore all of this, I looked like myself in a pretty outfit; but I felt like Rita Hayworth in Gilda.
It put paid to every hour I’d worked on her website and her pictures. I’d never had a friend like Holly. She was the real deal. I nearly choked up when we stood in front of my mirror on Wednesday night, me in my wedding outfit, Holly in one of her long skirts and a drapey top, her hair loose down her back.
“I’m getting all maudlin,” she said to me. “I feel like you’re getting married.”
“You’re freaking me out,” I said back. “Let’s drink.”
After I’d carefully removed the dress and we’d cracked open our bottle of wine, she gave me a look over her glass. “So, you went from detesting my brother to spending the weekend with him,” she said. “Care to explain?”
I sipped my wine and definitely didn’t glance toward the sofa. “We worked it out,” I said.
It was a little weird, sure. But Jason was twenty-four and I was twenty-three, and Holly was living with her boyfriend. We were all grownups here.
It still didn’t mean I wanted to tell her.
Not that there was anything to tell. What happens right now is done when it’s done. We’d both had had an itch, and now that was over with. No awkwardness at all. We could spend the weekend together, and it would be just fine.
Except for the fact that he kept texting me. And I kept texting him back.
“Well, your ex is going to die of envy, if that’s what you want,” Holly said. “Between you in that dress and Jason in a suit, it’s going to be killer. You should have seen the night he went to the prom.” She rolled her eyes. “I think half the girls there passed out when he walked in.”
I put down my wine. The prom was pre-Charlotte, so he would have gone with some other girl. I didn’t ask. “Don’t tell me Dean went to the prom,” I said to change the subject.
“No,” she replied. “He stayed home that night, I remember. I didn’t go to my own prom, either, because nobody asked me. Isn’t that pathetic?” She shook her head. “Did you go?”
“I went with Casey Banville. Remember him? He was the only other member of the chess club by the time they shut it down.” I wasn’t a chess champion, but I was good enough. Chess had gotten me through the tough times after my mother died—it had a defined set of rules, and you could plan and strategize, and it always made sense. For a few years, it had felt like the only thing in my life that gave me control. I had been chess club president until the club had had to shut down for lack of members.
Holly laughed. “You dated Casey Banville?”
“Briefly.” I grimaced. “It was bad. It’s bad when two chess club
dorks come together.”
“You really know how to pick them,” Holly said.
I did. I had a pattern of picking terrible men. Not mean guys, or even guys who treated me particularly badly—no, I had a pattern of picking chess geeks, guys who were creepily attached to their mothers, guys who smoked pot like it was their vocation in life, and—most memorably—my last boyfriend, who might actually have been bi. I didn’t need a therapist to see that the guys I chose had the same long-term reliability as the jobs I took.
Kyle was the coolest guy I’d ever dated. He’d been good-looking, and he’d played bass, and at seventeen I basically thought he was God. Until he dumped me for my cousin and cracked my confidence in two. I hadn’t loved him, exactly—I knew that now—but the experience, coming so close after losing my mother, had felt like heartbreak.
Still, no guy I’d dated, Kyle included, could kiss like Jason Carsleigh. Or fuck like him, either.
I was going to be cool about it. In control. It was one simple wedding. We could be grownups.
All of that went out the window as soon as he pulled up outside my apartment to pick me up.
I was standing in the front doorway of my building, my bags at my feet and my dress on a hanger hooked over my shoulder. It was a nice morning, dry and clear and slightly cloudy, and I was wearing loose-fitting cargo pants and a snug black t-shirt, leather flip-flops on my feet, my hair tied at the back of my neck. When Jason’s car pulled up, I nearly jumped, I was so nervous. And then he got out of the car.
He had to unfold out of the seat, he was so big. Worn jeans. White t-shirt. Navy blue shirt unbuttoned over top. His hair was tousled, damp from the shower again, and he hadn’t shaved. My knees went a little weak. I hadn’t seen him since that day—the day of the call. The day we’d had sex. He turned his dark brown gaze on me, and I had to refrain from licking my lips. Be a grownup, Megan.
It had thrown me for a serious loop, the first time he’d texted me. If you want a repeat, I’ll consider it. Let me know.
Then: I can go all night.
Then: I still have nail marks on my ass.
I had spent an embarrassing amount of mental energy on those texts. Was he fooling me? Teasing me? Sure, he was a guy who had just gotten laid—he was trying to get laid again. But did that mean he’d actually liked it? Or was I just the closest, easiest possibility?
“Hey,” he said, coming toward me. “You ready?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”
“Hand me your bags.”
I did, keeping my purse and the dress on its covered hanger. He swung my bags easily into the car, next to his own, and I saw that he already had his suit, on a covered hanger like mine, hanging from a hook in the back seat. I hooked my dress there, too. His stuff and my stuff, tossed in together. Just like that.
“I need coffee,” he said as I did up my seat belt and he pulled out of my building’s driveway. “This is too early. Do you have GPS on your phone to navigate?”
“We don’t need GPS,” I said, rummaging through my handbag. “I have a map.”
Jason blinked in surprise. “A map?”
“Yes.” I waved the folded map I’d pulled out of my bag. “You know, a map.”
“Why would we need a map? Are you Christopher Columbus?”
“That’s just it,” I said. “Maps worked for hundreds of years. They work now.”
“People got lost for hundreds of years,” he said.
“A GPS gives a false sense of security,” I argued. “I hate it. The signal can drop out, or your phone can die, or a million things can go wrong. A map always works, 24/7, in thunderstorms and power outages. It works in snow and heat and underground and on back roads. It works everywhere.”
He glanced at me, then back at the road. “You make it sound like we’re driving to the Apocalypse, not Cape Cod.”
“You wear a watch, Mr. Modern Technology,” I said, pointing, deciding not to add that the sight of his watch on his gorgeous wrist practically made me ovulate. “Why don’t you just use your phone?”
“Because I like to know the time without digging in my pocket.”
“Same difference,” I said, smoothing the map over my thighs. “Besides, it isn’t hard. Get on the interstate and head east. If the sign says east, you’re going in the right direction.”
“And then?” he asked.
“When you get to the ocean, you stop.”
He tapped his long, strong fingers on the wheel, thinking, while I tried not to stare in fascination at his hands. Then he made a decision and signaled, pulling out of traffic and into a gravel parking lot in front of a dry cleaner’s that was still closed. He turned off the car.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He turned toward me. “First things first,” he said. Then he put his hand behind my head, leaned down, and kissed me.
He tasted like mint and Jason. He smelled like sun-warmed, freshly washed male. My treacherous body went nuts and I kissed him back, putting my hands on his chest beneath the navy blue shirt. When he felt me give in he leaned in and kissed me even deeper, long and slow and thorough, his shadow of stubble scraping my skin, his tongue exploring me until I could feel a sharp pulse between my legs. Then he broke off, breathing hard, his hand still behind my head.
“What was that for?” My voice was a croak.
He paused, and I could tell he was as worked up as I was. “I feel like there was some tension,” he said. “We should break it up.”
I didn’t say anything. My hands were still on his broad, warm chest through his shirt. I didn’t want him to move.
“We should be straightforward,” Jason said, still not letting me go, his voice still rumbling, barely under control. “I’m going to fuck you later.”
Lust jolted through my veins, and every part of me woke up. My nipples went hard beneath my shirt. “Okay,” I said.
“We’re clear?”
I leaned closer to him, slid my hands up over his pecs toward his collarbones. “Yes.” I ran the tip of my tongue lightly over his lip.
“Fuck,” he said. Then he turned away and started the car again.
Thirteen
Jason
It should have been awkward. Really awkward. We should have sat there in the car together while this heavy silence sat between us, like the air before a thunderstorm. After all, she’d hated me for years, and except for one wicked makeout and one on-call sex session on her couch, I still seemed to drive her nuts.
But it wasn’t like that at all. I’d just kissed her until I was hard in my jeans and told her I was going to fuck her, and she’d agreed—before we’d barely left her driveway—but my tactic seemed to work. Now that we’d cleared the air, we stopped for coffee, and then I got on the interstate, heading for Detroit. And we talked.
It was surprisingly easy with Megan. I didn’t know her very well—except in the physical sense—but we had a lot in common. We talked about Holly, and Dean, and how weird it was that they’d gotten together, and how happy they seemed to be. We talked about high school. We talked about Eden Hills, the places we both knew, the people we both knew. Then the conversation turned to movies, and I discovered she’d never seen an X-Men movie. Not one. So of course I had to explain.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” she said, when we had swung past Detroit and were now in the outskirts of Cleveland. “He has claws that come out of his knuckles?”
“Man, do you live in a cave?” I said. “Yes, he does. And it’s awesome.”
“I don’t live in a cave,” she said. “I just never had a boyfriend who takes me to these kinds of movies.”
“That’s BS,” I said. “The last I heard, it was legal for girls to go to these movies alone. I thought chicks liked his muscles.”
“Are they nicer than yours?” she asked, looking me up and down.
I ignored the burn of pleasure I got from that and shook my head. “It’s not the same thing. He’s Wolverine.”
&nb
sp; “If you say so,” Megan said, looking back down at her map. “Doesn’t it rip his skin?”
“He has healing powers.”
“Oh, well, that’s convenient.”
“It isn’t convenient. It’s the way he’s made.”
Megan looked up at me again. “Jason, you know he’s not real, right?”
“That’s it,” I said. “You are watching these movies if it’s the last thing I do.”
“All of them?”
“All of them. They’re still making new ones, and you have to watch those too. I’ll be chasing you down the hall of your nursing home if I have to, making you watch X-Men movies.”
She was laughing now. “Okay, okay. I just… never got the appeal.”
“It’s better than reality,” I said. “That’s the appeal. When your life is shitty and stressful, you can just imagine what it would be like to have mutant powers. You could do something big like save the world or defeat your enemies. Or you could just kick some ass. Dean and I used to watch them while we were deployed. We’ve seen them all dozens of times. I think those movies saved my sanity.”
She went quiet then, looking out the window, the map in her lap. I could see the perfect line of her neck, her skin where it disappeared into the vee of her snug t-shirt, the slopes of her breasts. I had to fight to keep my eyes on the road.
“So it was hard, then?” she asked, still looking out the window. “Those years in the Marines?”
“It was…” I searched for the words. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I mean, it was brutal. There was the physical part, which was tough and relentless—you just had to push through, endure. And once we were deployed, there was the stress and the boredom and the homesickness and the rest of it.” I shrugged. “If I’d known going in even a fraction of what it would be like, I would have chickened out. But I didn’t. And neither did Dean.”
