by Chloe Liese
“What do you want, Dad?”
“I want you to get help, Lucas. I want you to stop making jokes and playing it off. I want you to quit holding in your grief and pretending you’re fine when you’re not. I want you to prepare yourself better, not go on like this, dragging your feet in misery.”
“I just went to the bloody therapist, all right? Just like I promised.” Strolling past him, I threw open the fridge. This conversation absolutely called for a beer. I tipped a bottle over my shoulder in offering to him.
“Thank you, no,” he dismissed irritably. “You mean to tell me you actually went and talked to someone? Today?”
When I turn around, I was met with a deeply incredulous face.
“Yes, Dad. I did.”
I knocked off the bottle top and drank half of it. It hit my empty stomach perfectly—cold and heady.
“Ah, drinking away your problems with not a stich of food in your stomach, excellent. You’ve had nothing to eat, I’m sure, since Elodie’s not home making sure you nourish yourself. Another obvious example of the fact that you’re depressed and not taking it well. Well-adjusted, happy people don’t forget to eat.”
I scowled at him as I plopped down on a stool, because he was right. I’d been horribly lazy about food lately, and but for Elodie I’d be subsisting on beer and the occasional apple.
“I eat,” I grumbled.
“When you’re reminded, Lucas. It’s not good. You need to take it seriously.”
I groaned and took another deep drink of my beer. “Thus the shrink, Dad.”
“Right, well, tell me, then, how was it?”
I stared into the bottle and sighed heavily. “It was about as pleasant as Aunt Georgia’s seventieth birthday.”
Dad shuddered, swiped the bottle from my hands and took a long drink. “I told you never to mention that event ever again.”
“You asked.” I took the bottle back, drained it, then stood. “Another.”
As I walked to the fridge for the next bottle on my way to oblivion, I caught my toe on the corner of the lower cabinet, tripped and nearly fell straight into the range. I caught myself, but the rush of panic-induced adrenaline flooded my system.
“You all right, Luc?” Dad’s voice was concerned, but even in my heightened state of embarrassed alarm, I heard no pity. A mercy, that. I couldn’t handle pity.
“Yes, fine. Just cut it a bit close.” Soon I had another bottle popped open and pouring down my throat.
“Slow down, Lucas, and sit. I want to talk.”
My eyebrows lifted as I cautiously rounded the counter. “You? Talk?”
“I talk plenty,” Dad muttered. “I just don’t always say much.”
“Elodie teases me about that.” I laughed sadly into my beer. “That poor bird. She’s got to be regretting this. It’s all love and nothing-shall-part-us when you first fall, but she can’t possibly…She just can’t…”
The weight of my words hit me hard and I couldn’t even finish.
“Son, you’ve got to stop talking like that. Elodie loves you, and she’s no fool. She understood what a relationship with you meant.”
“I’m glad someone did, because I clearly did not.” Another long pull of my beer and numbness took over. God, was it blissful—not to be on edge, sad, or worried.
“Lucas.” Dad sighed. “I failed you and Sarah and Kai miserably.”
I glanced up, frowning. “What on earth are you talking about? We had an idyllic childhood. I lacked for nothing.”
Dad shrugged. “Perhaps not materially, no. You had stability—a mother and father who loved each other, siblings who weren’t too insufferable, a good education, a swarm of neighbors and friends, but, Lucas…” Dad leaned back, looking me over. “I never taught you or modeled talking about emotions, being communicative about feelings and trying times. It just wasn’t the way things were done, but now that I look back on it, I harbor immense regret. It’s not healthy, the way we bottled things up and buttoned our mouths.”
I took another drink before glancing over at him. “As you said, it’s not how things were done. It’s still not, largely.” This conversation was heavier than I wanted. I wanted Elodie. Her sweet perfume, her quick French dinners, a bath with her golden body slipping against mine, making me forget.
“Yes, well, I think you’re wrong there. Many people see therapists now. Especially people who are negotiating what you are, Lucas.”
I stood, trying to convey I was tired, and I wanted the old man to head out. “I know, Dad, that’s why I’m doing it.”
He frowned at me, still resolutely seated. “Yes, but are you doing it, or are you doing it?”
I dropped my elbows on the breakfast bar, rubbing my face. “Are you listening to yourself? Yes, I’m doing it, Dad.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Are you really willing to go there—dig deep, Lucas, and face this?”
My hackles rose. Once again I was being cornered and pushed. Everyone was pushing me all the time. “For fuck’s sake, Dad, get off my back!” I rounded on him, fuming. “Who are you to bloody talk? Have you ever tried sitting in front of a stranger, telling him your greatest humiliations? Your deepest fears? It doesn’t just roll off the tongue trippingly, okay?”
Dad stood slowly, swiping his keys off the counter. “I have, in fact. Since we found out about your diagnosis. Between that and preparing to retire, trying to figure out what to do with myself and all this bloody free time...”
I stood there, dumbfounded.
He smirked at my astonishment. “It isn’t easy at first, but, Lucas, it’s been monumental for me. I’m better with your mum, more loving and open. I wish I’d done it decades ago. She and I have missed out on so much because of me, how locked down I tend to get.”
Dad stepped my way slowly, placing a hand on each shoulder. “Elodie won’t have that though, and you know it.” His eyes searched mine, serious and concerned. “When she came here, she was wounded, Lucas. You know better than all of us. So beaten down by the very people who were supposed to love her best. She ran away from that, after all those years, which took immense bravery and a willingness to uphold healthy emotional boundaries. Now she wants to make a life with you that defies these horrible conventions of repression and stoicism. Elodie doesn’t just want your good days and your bright side, Lucas. She wants all of you.”
His hand patted my cheek gently. “Let her have it. But know that until you acknowledge and seek to better understand it yourself—your darkness and pain, your soul in its totality, which includes the sharp, frightened, angry corners of your existence, mate—it’s not yours to give her. You must go there first yourself. It’s the only way.”
Then without another word, my father left me, much as I seemed to be left these days—daunted by all that those who loved me believed was necessary for me to do. One of these days, perhaps I should start figuring out what I thought myself.
Ah, but then you’d really have to face it.
Indeed. And therein, as the old Bard wrote, lay the rub.
Poker night at Zeddy’s was rare and always eventful. Last night Elodie came home after Dad left and found me crashed on the sofa. She’d taken my hand and led me upstairs in silence. We’d made love wordlessly, then collapsed into each other.
An unspoken détente held that day, and when I’d ventured to make a date of the night, try to make up for what an insufferable wanker I’d been, she’d begged off.
“Nairne and I are having dinner, just the two of us. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
Guilt filled me when I realized how long it had been since they’d had a night to themselves, those two women who were sisters not by blood but in every other way. When did Elodie have time for such pleasantries? Being in a relationship with me was a full-time job. It was despicable.
Thus, when Zed sent a message shortly after, demanding my presence for poker with him and his brother, I had no reason to say no.
“All in,” Zed muttere
d. Eyes fixed on his hand, his face was maddeningly unreadable.
“Why must you have such an exceptional poker face? I can’t for the life of me tell what’s going on up there.” I mussed his hair before Zed slapped my hand away.
“Jesus, get off of me. You didn’t use to be this touchy feely.”
“That’s the Elodie Effect.” Directing myself to Zed’s younger brother, Teo, I explained myself. “Ask Nairne. Elodie’s hugs are contagious. It’s an epidemic in London now. But alas, not even her affectionate pathogen can breach the fortress that is Zed’s granite heart.”
Zed took a drink of his beer and set it down. “It’s true. We all know I don’t have a soul. Which is obviously why I have a good poker face, and that’s why I’m good at poker, so let’s just move along, shall we? I’ve got pockets to clean out.”
“Like you don’t have enough money to roll around in already,” Teo muttered from his side of the table. The fellow had grown enormously muscular; I was a little worried one sudden move and he’d crack the chair he was sitting on. Teo studied Zed’s face carefully before peering back at his cards.
Zed, forever impatient, sighed and set his cards down. “It’s not about the money. Winning’s fun. And I’m good at it, fratu”—I’d learned since meeting Zed and then Teo that this was some kind of slang for brother in Italian—"So either fold or cough it up, big guy.”
“You sound like such an asshole, Zed,” Teo grumbled, tossing in his money.
“He is an arsehole.” I threw in mine as well. Then I tossed a chip right into Zed’s beer glass.
Zed glared at me, glancing down to his glass where the chip floated among the foam. “Thanks a lot, fuckface.”
“You’re not allowed to be angry, Zeddy.” I grinned, twirling another chip between my fingers. “We should celebrate every accuracy of my vision while I still have it.”
He shook his head, eyes narrowing as he fished out the poker chip and dropped it on the table. “Uh-uh, no pity parties here.”
“You’re heartless, Zed. Truly heartless.”
When he peered down at his cards, I lobbed another chip straight into his beer.
“Knock it off!” he yelled, fishing out the new chip and glaring at Teo, who was thoroughly enjoying his brother’s torture. “Talk about sore losers.” With a satanic grin, he laid down a bloody full house.
Teo and I groaned.
Zed hoisted the chips and loot his way, still grinning as Nairne entered the room. She yanked him by the neck and kissed him hard. “I’m running late, got to go.”
“Not so fast.” Zed pulled her back to him and kissed her deeper.
“Blech,” Teo said. “Stop.”
Nairne pulled away from Zed with a smack of lips, then spun her wheels and ruffled Teo’s hair playfully. “Poor Teo.”
She sent herself flying forward, then popped a wheelie, which had the delightful effect of making Zed swear colorfully and also look like he was about to shit himself.
“Be back in a few hours,” she said. “I’ll be safe.”
Zed exhaled shakily and scrubbed his face. “Seriously, please drive like Jamie’s in the back, and text me when you get there?”
Nairne laughed and it echoed in the foyer. “I’m meeting Elodie, Zed, not going for a joy ride.”
“Wouldn’t know it by your damn wheelie moves. Evel Fucking Knievel,” he muttered.
“Make him relax, would you?” she said to us. “And have fun. I’ll be back by nine.”
Zed smiled at her like the poor besotted man he was. I’d give him hell for it, if it weren’t for the fact that I was in the same bloody boat with Elodie. Elodie, who’d left work early on the plea of having a headache and needing a nap, saying she was having dinner with Nairne and then calling it a night. No offer to stop by, no ride home. Something was up.
“Innamorata?” Zed called. “Love you.”
Nairne smiled from the foyer. “Love you. Night, lads!”
Zed leaned back, tipping the legs of his seat so he could watch Nairne the whole way out, before dropping down on a sigh. “God, that woman has turned me into a lovesick mess.”
“Yup,” Teo laughed, setting down his beer. “You became a bigger softie than I ever thought you would.”
Zed shrugged. “Yeah, well, before her, I’d never met someone who was worth softening up for.” He took a drink of his beer, gazing off to where Nairne had just shut the door. “I’d do anything for her, anything it takes to keep her in my life. Knock it all you want, but you just wait, Teo.”
Teo shook his head. “I’ve heard it before—just you wait! I don’t see it happening any time soon. I know I’m a little tight on time with med school, so maybe I have high expectations for my dates, but why is every woman I’ve gone out with either juvenile or insanely passive aggressive? Gives me a headache. Show me a mature woman who speaks her mind, who’s got her own life and isn’t a drama llama, then we’re talking.”
“Wow,” Zed said. “Tell us how you really feel.”
Teo sighed, missing Zed’s sarcasm. “I’m just an Arthur Weasley, waiting for his Molly. Is that too much to ask for? A pairing of practical, devoted, like minds—”
Zed snorted into his beer.
“Perhaps minus the overwhelming brood of children,” I offered.
Teo shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind a big family one day. Kids are awesome. I mean, shit, I like Jamie better than Zed.”
Zed stopped laughing abruptly and scowled at Teo.
“I guess I’m just saying dating is a big hassle,” Teo continued. “Isn’t there like a…low-key version of it?”
“No,” Zed and I said unanimously.
Teo blinked as he glanced between us. “Okay, then. And yet you both think it’s worth it, obviously. So maybe I just haven’t found my person. I guess I could see that kind of work being worth it if she…I don’t know, changed my life. If I felt completely different when I was with her, if the sex was absolutely earthshattering, amazing.”
“Ohhhh, it is, my friend.” Zed stacked his chips and grinned. Teo made a gagging sound.
I kept my reflections on the unparalleled brilliance of Elodie’s and my sex life to myself, but I had a ridiculous smile on my face—I felt it. Who wouldn’t, when thinking about all the amazing things Elodie Bertrand could do with her body, the little noises she made when she was close, the vise grip of her thighs when I savored that sweet—
Teo shifted his chair, and its ominous creak broke my thoughts. “At least you left those earplugs on my nightstand.”
“Wait, you slept here?” I glanced at Teo. “Didn’t you and Brando let a flat this past winter?”
Teo scowled as he shuffled, then dealt our cards. “Dad drives me nuts. I needed a breather.”
“Understatement of the century,” Zed said distractedly as he peered around the table. “Wait, where the hell are all my earnings?”
“Zeddy, Zeddy, Zeddy.” I sighed, pulling my cards that Teo had dealt. “You were conned, my friend.”
“By who?” he yelled. “Which one of you took it?”
“It’s whom,” I said. “And neither, mate. Your woman played you like a well-tuned instrument.”
Zed sighed, pulling out his wallet and procuring fresh pounds. “I swear, she’s freakishly stealthy. It’s kind of worth it, I guess. I’ll make her pay for it later.”
Teo laughed. “What the hell do you care? Besides your pride, you didn’t lose anything that’s not both of yours.”
Zed smirked as he swiped up his cards and fanned them out. “I mean payback of a different variety, Theodore.”
“Okay, Zed. I really, really don’t want to know about your kinky times.” Teo abruptly turned, leveling me with a conniving grin. “But speaking of kink, Mr. Edwards—”
“Whaaat?” Zed gasped.
I took a drink of my beer and feigned interest in my cards. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Zed slapped the table. “How’d you peg him?”
“W
ell, when you find a pair of high-quality leather handcuffs in the guest room you’re staying in, and your sister-in-law’s best friend, who also happens to be this guy’s lady, comes barging in looking for said handcuffs, it doesn’t take a lot to put two and two together.”
Zed hooted. “Oh, this is fantastic. I bet she was bright red.”
“As a tomahto, like you Brits say.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, repressing a grin. “All right, moving on, then.”
“What? No, no, no, no,” Zed said. “Details.”
“I’m not talking about my sex life,” I said flatly.
Zed grimaced. “Yeah, I don’t want those kinds of details, just…what gives with the kink? You can explain that without a play by play.”
Teo sat back in his seat, arms crossed expectantly.
I shrugged and fiddled with my chips. “She’s a wiggle worm. Sometimes I like her stuck in one place.”
“So it’s because of your vision, then,” Teo said matter-of-factly. No surprise coming from the physician in training. Kai was equally blunt. “When she moves a lot you can’t see her. If she’s in one place when you’re together, you experience your sight loss less.”
Zed’s eyes widened. “Teo, shut the fuck up.”
“It’s okay, Zeddy. And, yes, Teo. But it isn’t all the time. You know how sometimes you just need to get lost in the perfection of a woman’s body, have a good shag so you can forget everything?”
They both nodded knowingly.
“That’s when we do it. So I can forget for a little while.”
“That makes sense,” Teo said.
“It’s still pretty kinkyyy,” Zed sang.
I sighed. “If you’re quite done psychoanalyzing my proclivities, Freud, then I’m going to raise you twenty.”
“Twenty, right out of the gate?” Zed shook his head. “Fold.”
Teo glanced between us both. “Yeah, fold.”
Smiling, I scooped the little pot my way, gratified to have derailed that conversation.
“What’d you have?” Teo’s voice reverberated in his beer glass as he took a drink.
I slapped my hands over my cards as Zed reached for them. “A gentleman never tells, mates.” Smirking, I gathered the cards into a pile and started to shuffle.
