by Mia Archer
“Having a pretty good time at the reunion,” I texted. “Catching up with old friends and stuff.”
“Oh yeah? Run into any old boyfriends I should be worrying about?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t believe he was bringing that up, and the answer was more fucked up than he ever could have imagined. Sure I’d run into my old boyfriend, but it’s not like I was interested in my old boyfriend. Any more than I’d been interested in my current boyfriend as anything more than a friend, as harsh as that sounded in a moment of brutal honesty with myself.
No, I knew the spirit of the question he was asking even if he was completely wrong about who he should be worried about. Had I run into anyone who was a threat to our relationship? Had I fucked around on him?
The answer to that was a resounding “fuck yes,” and it had been some of the most incredible sex of my life. I didn’t know it could feel like that even though I’d had my suspicions based on how it’d felt the first time I got with Claire. If just making out with her that night had felt as good as it did then it always seemed like doing more would be that much more incredible, and I’d been totally right.
Still, he hadn’t asked the right question, so I didn’t feel bad about giving him the wrong answer. Okay, I didn’t feel too terribly bad about giving him the wrong answer. Maybe.
“Oh yeah. Ran into my ex. He’s about fifty pounds overweight, lives with his parents, and is married with more kids than he can afford. Talk about a keeper.”
That was the truth! Sort of. Every word I’d just included in that text about Derek was the absolute truth. It’s not my fault that Kyle wasn’t asking about my gorgeous female former-best-friend turned recent lover. It’s not my fault he was giving me conversational loopholes big enough to drive a semi truck through.
That didn’t change how guilty I felt playing these word games with him, but whatever. I tried not to think about that, though I did about as good a job as when I’d tried not thinking about Claire over the years. I knew I should just come clean. I should tell him everything that had happened and that our relationship was over, but it seemed so harsh to do that over a text message.
I’d had a boyfriend who broke up with me over email once. Email! Honestly, who breaks up with someone over email? That had stung, and I was still pissed off about it even if I hadn’t been particularly interested in that guy. I was already doing a super bitchy thing to Kyle that he probably didn’t deserve even if he did annoy me to the point of distraction more often than not.
I figured the least I owed him was a face to face when I ended it. That seemed like the right thing to do even if dumping him right now felt like the right thing to do.
“So what does the rest of your weekend look like?”
Damn it. Why did he have to keep asking those deceptively simple questions that were anything but simple in their answer?
What did the rest of my weekend look like? Well I was probably going to spend the rest of the night in Claire’s arms enjoying the sort of intimacy I’d always hoped for with a guy but never been able to truly enjoy. I was going to wake up in the morning and have breakfast with her, lounge about the house until it came time to go to an afternoon beach party where I’d probably be revealing a truth to the world that I’d been running from for the past five years.
After that, who knows? Even breaking up with Kyle when I got home on Sunday, that seemed like the most likely day for the deed to go down, seemed like small potatoes compared to coming out to everyone I’d known for so many years.
The idea was terrifying, but I knew it was something I needed to do. I’d run from myself, run from Claire, for far too long. After tonight I was certain that I needed her in my life, and if that took risking friendships with people I mostly hadn’t spoken to over the past five years then so be it.
“Oh just a party here and there, catching up with old friends. No big deal.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come down there? We could have a pretty good time. Introduce me to all your old friends, that sort of thing.”
I felt panic welling up inside me. I thought we were done with this conversation. I thought I’d made it clear that I didn’t want him coming out to the reunion. Okay, so maybe I hadn’t made that clear, but I’d sidestepped every attempt he made at getting invited out here and I figured he’d taken the hint.
As with all things with Kyle, though, it seemed he was completely oblivious to how things really were. The poor guy.
The last thing I needed was him coming out here and complicating things. He needed to stay safely back at the apartment long enough for me to go out there and break up with him in person so I could feel better about myself.
Plus I figured it would sound better if I told Claire about my boyfriend within the context of him being my recently ex-boyfriend. I worried how she might react if she found out I was dating a guy while I was having my fun with her here. She might feel taken advantage of. She might bolt, which seemed pretty damn likely considering how on edge she’d been tonight.
That was the last thing I wanted. I had her and I wanted to hold onto her forever, damn it. I knew that was a pretty strong feeling considering we’d only been flirting and fucking for the space of an evening, but I felt how I felt.
“No, I want you to enjoy a weekend on your own babe,” I said. I wanted him to enjoy a last weekend of fun thinking he was still in a happy relationship with me before it all came crashing down around him. “It would be pretty boring for you here. There aren’t that many SOs along for the ride.”
“If you say so. Just remember I’m only a short car ride away though!”
A short car ride away? He was at least a couple of hours away, and that was if he took the speed limit as a low end suggestion rather than a hard and fast rule. That distance was also definitely the way I liked it. If he was a couple of hours away that made it more difficult for him to make the trip out here on the fly. Not that I was going to invite him out here even though he was being pretty damn obvious about fishing for an invitation.
No, I needed Kyle to be as far from here as possible this weekend.
“I’ll keep that in mind, but really I’m fine.”
A pause. Then. “Are you sure there’s nothing I need to be worrying about?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Of course he would ask a direct question like that. Up until now I’d been able to sidestep and evade, but that was something that was going to turn me into a liar no matter how I sliced it. Still, I wasn’t going to open the can of worms about what I was really doing at my reunion. I wasn’t going to tell him that he really did have something to worry about. I didn’t want to get into that right now.
Not with Claire waiting for me out in the pool. Not when getting into an argument with my current boyfriend had the potential to turn me into an emotional train wreck that might derail and send Claire running.
So I lied. I wasn’t proud of myself for doing it, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
“You’re fine babe,” I said. “Can’t wait to see you!”
I couldn’t wait to see him, but probably not for the reasons he was expecting. I couldn’t wait to talk to him and finally be done with this charade of a relationship. Of course I’d been lying to myself when I got with him and didn’t consider it a sham or a charade at the time, but in light of recent events with Claire I’d realized just how unfair I’d been to Kyle when I got together with him, and I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to make it up to him.
But at the same time I needed to be who I was. There was no more buzzing on my phone. No more messages from Kyle. He’d probably gone back to his games. He was probably going to reverse his days and nights and have one hell of a tough time when he went back to work on Monday since I wasn’t around to remind him he needed to go to sleep.
If anything that just steeled my resolve, though. I was so tired of feeling like a mother rather than a girlfriend. No, I only got that girlfriend feeling with Claire, and
I was ready to go back and enjoy some more of that feeling.
When I stepped back out onto the pool deck Claire was facing away from me in the hot tub with phone in hand tapping away at it furiously. As I moved around I saw that she had an intense look of worry and concentration on her face. So intense that she didn’t even seem to realize that I was coming up behind her. As I stepped closer I saw what I thought was a picture of another girl, or other girls, but she was texting so fast that it disappeared.
What was going on here? I cleared my throat and Claire jumped. She very nearly dropped her phone in the water. Now that would’ve been a pain in the butt, losing a phone out in the middle of nowhere. This place was so middle of nowhere that there were no phone stores in the vicinity. It was a half hour drive to the nearest town where she could get a replacement.
Luckily she caught it before it ended up going on a diving expedition. The screen went black and she put it under her towel. I thought it was odd that she was hiding her phone like that, but I dismissed it. The way she smiled up at me was so inviting, so disarming, that I didn’t care what she was texting people about even if my curiosity had been piqued.
It’s not like I could do anything about it anyways. It’s not like I was going to go rummaging through her texts or anything. Especially not with her reclining right there in the hot tub.
“More work stuff?” I asked.
“Something like that,” Claire said. “Now where were we?”
And then all of my suspicions were forgotten as I slid into the hot tub and then into Claire’s arms. Claire’s phone. Kyle waiting back home. All of that melted away as she wrapped her arms around me and leaned in for a kiss.
Yeah, for the moment everything was right with the world as long as I was with Claire, and there was nothing that was going to tear us apart now that I’d finally come to terms with who I truly was!
19: Morning Surprise
I had a moment of confusion as I opened my eyes and blinked in the light streaming through a floor to ceiling window off to the side. Whoever designed Allison’s house, or I guess it would be more accurate to say her parents’ house, really enjoyed those floor to ceiling windows.
Allison’s house. It suddenly hit me where I was. What had happened the night before. I had a hard time believing it wasn’t some sort of drunken fantasy that my mind had concocted, but this definitely wasn’t my room back at my parents’ place. I definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
It didn’t feel like Allison was in Kansas anymore either after everything that had happened last night.
Something warm was pressing against me. I looked down and smiled. Of course. Allison was right there in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts that hugged her body quite nicely thank you very much. I remembered my mouth watering the night before as I saw her changing into those clothes. Of course her eyes had done a little bit of fucking as she watched me changing into one of her old T-shirts, though I elected to just stay in my panties rather than trying to fit into her shorts.
I’d already gotten into her pants in the way I wanted last night anyways.
Allison was still sound asleep. I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. It was amazing how a simple gesture like that could be fraught with so much meaning. I wanted to do a lot more than kiss her on the forehead, but I figured all that would come in good time.
Besides, I’d had enough fun the night before to keep me sated for a little while.
Allison stirred and a smile came to her face as I pulled back. That sent warm fuzzies dancing up and down my spine before they settled in the pit of my stomach and a little lower between my legs.
Damn. Even after all the fun we’d had the night before I was still ready for round… Well to be perfectly honest I’d lost track of which round we’d be on at this point. We’d done a lot of making up for the past five years in a single night, and I was looking forward to doing even more making up as the weekend progressed.
My stomach rumbled. Huh. Food might be good. Maybe I could make breakfast or something if I could scrounge up enough supplies in the kitchen. I really didn’t want to wait for Allison to wake up so we could go into town, and besides, making breakfast sounded like just the ticket. It was a nice homey comfortable girlfriend thing to do, and there was something about the idea of cooking breakfast for two that excited me almost as much as the memory of what we’d done last night.
Almost, but not quite. A girl has to have priorities, after all.
Reluctantly I extricated myself from Allison. I would’ve been happy to stay in bed with her all day long looking at her gorgeous face, feeling her incredible body pressing against mine, if it wasn’t for my traitorous stomach reminding me that we hadn’t had anything but alcohol and finger foods since the night before. As if to punctuate it there was another rumble as I started out of Allison’s room.
Something brought me up short on the way out, though. A shelf that I remembered from her old house. Apparently she’d brought the thing to the new place and hung it up, and I was surprised to see that it was full of knick-knacks from when we were friends way back in middle school. Seeing that sent another wave of warm fuzzies running through me.
If I’d known that shelf existed, if I’d known that physical reminder of our friendship was something Allison had clung to after all these years, maybe things would’ve turned out a little different. Seeing it now certainly made me feel better about the long term prospects for whatever was growing between us.
With that thought keeping me warm I made my way out of her room and towards the kitchen.
The house looked very different in the warm light of morning. And I wasn’t exaggerating when I said the warm light of morning. Whoever designed this place really had a love affair with natural lighting. Windows everywhere. The “hall” outside Allison’s room was actually a raised balcony that ran around the living area down below.
Everything had been shadows and darkness the night before. Admittedly I’d also been a bit distracted considering what we were doing as we stumbled through the darkness giggling, groping, kissing, and generally having a grand old time.
I eyed the balcony railing that came up to about my waist. It was a wonder neither one of us stumbled and pitched over the damn thing the night before considering how buzzed we both were and how much we were stumbling around in one another’s arms by the time we made it up to Allison’s room.
All that natural lighting wasn’t helping my hangover. Yeah, this definitely wasn’t the kind of house that would be very vampire friendly. I held my hand up in a desperate attempt to ward off the headache that was threatening to break free.
I really hoped there was a medicine cabinet or something down in the kitchen. I needed to find some ibuprofen to head off that headache at the pass, because otherwise it was going to be a long day. It didn’t help that there seemed to be a pounding knocking in my head that came and went. I blinked and shook my head to try and clear it away and the pounding seemed to go away.
Good. Damn hangover headaches. I really should’ve drank more water and less of that whiskey we’d broken into when the cheap wine had been exhausted.
The kitchen was massive, and it didn’t look like anyone had ever used the damn thing. Everything was pristine. Either they paid cleaning people a lot of money to keep everything clean in here, definitely a possibility considering how much money they had to throw around for maintaining this massive McMansion, or they never used the stuff.
I figured it was probably a little bit of both, but mostly the latter. I wouldn’t put it past them to waste a bunch of money on having only the best in the kitchen just because it was the best and not because they intended to ever use it. There was a brisk takeout business in town that was funded almost completely by people living out by the lake who’d rather spend a little extra than cook.
Still, I figured a kitchen was a kitchen. All the stuff had to work even if it hadn’t been used before. I opened the fridge looking around to see if there were eggs or something and trie
d to ignore the way that pounding was starting again, damn it.
My suspicions about their cooking habits were confirmed as I looked through the fridge. Not a single bit of food that could be used to cook something was in evidence. Just some takeout that smelled like it had been in there for far too long.
I found myself wondering exactly how long it had been since her parents left for Florida and how long that takeout had been sitting in there, because it was smelling like there was something living in the fridge. I half expected to see it get up and come crawling towards me, but it stayed thankfully still.
Unfortunately there was absolutely nothing else in there aside from a half full soda that I prayed had been left there by Allison yesterday when she got into town, because otherwise it didn’t bear thinking about how long that bottle had been sitting in there.
I moved to the cabinets to see if there was any hope in there. Maybe they had boxed pancakes or something, though I was going to have a hard time making anything with no eggs or milk. Even some old microwave oatmeal would be better than nothing.
I thought about just giving up and seeing if Allison wanted to go into town and get some breakfast, but something held me back from doing that. Going into town for breakfast would mean going into a restaurant where everyone would know who we were. They’d see us together early in the morning and maybe start putting two and two together.
Sure Allison had said she was okay with being open and honest about who she was, but I figured after getting that out of her the least I could do was let her go at her own pace and take the baby steps she wanted to take now that she was ready to actually take them.
Dragging her into the middle of town the morning after we spent a passionate night together might be too much too fast, and I was going to respect her going at whatever speed she needed even if I wanted to drive into the town square with a bullhorn and shout it to the rooftops of the ancient crumbling buildings around the square that Allison and I were an item now.
