by Susan Ward
I am pulsing. Swallowing him hard, faster and faster, more urgent with each thrust. The force of my climax takes command from my body and Alan’s fingers close on my hips, guiding me through it as he pumps his body in me and lets go.
I’m still straddling Alan. I am quiet in my flesh. I am not quiet inside me. My senses note that Alan isn’t quiet inside either. And I hate that that contradiction should surface now when I want us only to be peaceful and loving with each other.
I lift my face from his shoulder to look at him. His expression makes me want to cry. I fight back the tears.
His long fingers stroke my back in a calming way. Then Alan takes my face in his hands, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Don’t leave.”
I lower my gaze. There is too much to see in his eyes that I’m not ready for yet. After a minute or two, he lets me sink down onto his chest. I rub my cheek against his warm skin, drinking in the feel and scent of him, and, with a fingertip, I lightly trace the ink of the infinity band on his wrist. I love him so.
“I have to go, Alan.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I pull into the driveway and park in front of the house. I stare. It looks exactly the same. Beautiful Spanish white walls and red tile roof, with clear blue sky above and a stunning expanse of the ocean beyond. Peaceful in a forest of comfortable quiet, but I am anything but quiet inside today.
Fuck, it looks exactly the same. But of course it would be the same, I remind myself. I’ve only been gone two weeks. The world hasn’t changed. Only I have. Internally I am different. And I will be different, yet again, when I leave here.
I feel that familiar blend of anxiousness, sadness and dread I used to feel as a little girl whenever I first came home collide in my veins as I stare at the door.
I grab my mobile phone from the dash, flip it open and dial. Not even a whole ring and it’s answered.
“I’m here,” I blurt out before Neil can say anything.
“I know, Chrissie. I heard you pull in. I can see your car in the driveway.” I hear a long pause. “You can come inside. Andy is gone. I had him move out last week.”
Emotions surge upward and roil faster. I’m not sure what I’m feeling. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did. For all of us.”
All of us? What all? Me, Neil and Kaley. Or me, Neil and Andy. I push that thought quickly away.
“I don’t want to talk in the house.” Crap, why does my voice have to sound so little-girl frightened? I take in a gulp of air. “I’ll meet you on the side patio. We can talk there.”
I snap shut my phone, toss it onto the passenger seat, and climb from my Range Rover. I try to focus on anything but what lies ahead as I make my way down the drive. My plants need watering. The flowers are still pretty in June, even with the heat. It’s going to be a hot summer up here if today is any indication.
Then tears burn my eyes as I realize it doesn’t matter because I won’t be here. I won’t ever be in this house again.
Neil is leaning against a wall, smoking, as I enter the patio. He looks good, better than I expected today—or wanted, I admit peevishly to myself. His long chestnut waves are in a ponytail, his face clean shaven, his features rested, and he’s dressed in his comfy, casually messy attire that looks so sexy and wonderful on him.
“Hi,” I say.
His face snaps up. He looks at me and immediately stomps out the cigarette. Close to him now I can pick out details of his face. He’s tired, anxious and afraid, but his sweet shy smile flashes and everything readjusts inside me again.
I sink down on a chair a safe distance from him and he settles in one facing me, close but not too close.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says.
I nod. He slouches forward, elbows on knees, his posture bringing us to even eye level. How strange it feels between us. Familiar and yet distant, and both of us uneasy and tense.
“I’m sorry, Chrissie.”
I try to maintain my composure. “Don’t apologize, Neil. I can’t stay if you do that. No apology is going to fix this.”
His eyes flash. That hurt him. His head does an almost imperceptible move. “Fine. Are you OK?”
“I’m trying to be.”
“Me, too.”
I stare at him. I don’t know how to do this, where to start, and I don’t know why I want to start here, but I can’t stop myself. “How long?” He pretends not to understand me and my temper flares. “How long have you been having an affair with Andy?”
Neil looks away, his jaw clenching and unclenching several times. His gaze shifts back to mine, direct. “In an emotional sense, since we were fifteen. In a physical way, only a month, this time, before you caught me.”
The angry woman inside me warns not to believe or trust him, but something in his voice tells me I’m with honest Neil on the patio and he isn’t going to lie to me about anything. He knows, like I do, that the answers don’t matter anymore. They won’t change where this is heading.
I fight to stop my heart’s reaction to that.
“What do you mean this time?” I ask, anguished.
He stares at me, blinks, and then says, “My relationship with Andy ended before we started seeing each other in Berkeley. I’ve not had a physical relationship outside of you with anyone other than this past month with Andy. I didn’t cheat, not with anyone, during our marriage. It’s the truth, Chrissie. I wanted our marriage to work. I tried. I didn’t want this.”
Tried? That word lands like a knife in my heart. “Why did you do this? Why marry me? Why lie to everyone?”
“I love you, Chrissie,” he says on a barely audible whisper.
My emotions spin out of control again. “Not in the right way and it could never be in the right way. Fuck, Neil. Did you think I didn’t feel it? I blamed myself. All these years, and it wasn’t me. I could never be what you wanted completely. Do you have any idea how much it hurt me?”
“I know how much it hurt me to know I was failing you. When I married you I thought we would be OK. We loved each other.” His eyes lock on mine. “You’re my best friend. I wanted to be with you and I wanted us to be OK.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “By living a lie with me?”
He pushes up from his chair, his movements agitated. “Do you think I could have done anything different than I did? I did what they told me, what they expected, what everyone wanted.”
I push my fingertips into my eyelids, trying to will myself into calm. “I don’t understand.”
I can feel the heavy pressure of his eyes on me. “Do you think the band would be where it is if people knew I was gay?”
My face shoots up. Oh no. I spring to my feet. “You married me for the band? As a front so no one would figure out you’re gay. Who cares if you’re gay?” The part of me who is his wife is reeling again. “No one cares anymore, Neil, and certainly not enough to have put us both through a sham of a marriage.”
His gaze burns into mine. “People may not care in your world, Chrissie, but they fucking do in mine. My family. The band. The label. The fans.”
I stare at Neil, trying to break free of the raging emotion consuming me. The rational portion of my brain understands, even feels empathy for him. Because he’s right, there are people out there who would reject him, never listen to his music, even as brilliant as he is, if they knew the truth. But the woman who feels lied to and betrayed doesn’t want to budge an inch.
We stare at each other, ragged and intense, breathing heavily, and then very slowly both seem to quiet.
He says, “You’re right. In a perfect world I should have been truthful, but I don’t live in a perfect world, Chrissie. And neither do you. We both have made mistakes. Decisions we probably shouldn’t have made. Be honest with yourself. We have both just tried to do the best we can do for each other and everyone we love.”
There’s a lot to those words I don’t want to hear, but I hear it anyway—the subtle manner he points out my sins and omissions
in the marriage.
I sink down on a chaise, realizing that I don’t want to fight about this. Besides, it’s too late to fight it out between us. Fighting won’t get us anywhere except where we already are. That’s not why I’m here, and if we keep this up I’ll go to pieces again and we will both end needlessly bloodied.
I look up at him, seeing on his face what I’m feeling, and I remind myself I did love him, just not enough or in the right way.
We were both guilty of that, it seems.
Finally steady, I ask, “How much of our life together was a lie? Was it all a lie?”
His eyes grow glassy, and I regret the words. A direct hit and, crap, I don’t want to hurt him and I don’t want to hurt me. It’s time we stop hurting each other.
I let out a shuddering breath and struggle to keep the tears from my eyes. He sinks down beside me on the chaise and I let him because I want him close to me as we finish this last interlude of our life together.
He runs his fingers through his hair. “None of it was a lie, Chrissie. We loved each other. We’ve been through a lot together. That should tell you everything. And we can get through this.”
Moments of my life with Neil tick like flash cards in my head. Berkeley. Kaley. Our life here. He’s right. We loved each other. We’ve been through a lot, but this?
I swallow the lump in my throat. “We can’t get through this, Neil. I think Andy is pretty much a deal-breaker for our marriage.”
His gentle green eyes soften. He touches my cheek. “I mean divorce. We can get through divorce without making it ugly.”
“Oh.”
How strange that word sounds when someone else says it. I rummage through my internal junk trying to figure out what it is I’m feeling, and strangely, it’s relief unfurling through me, taking the edge from my emotions.
“What do we do now?” I ask. “I should probably move out.”
“No, Chrissie. The house is yours. I’ll leave.”
Inwardly I shudder and outwardly I shake my head. “No. Kaley and I are leaving.”
“Fine.” He exhales slowly. He rakes a hand through his hair. “Whatever you want, that’s what I’ll do. I don’t want to fight in court. However you want to settle the marriage is what I’ll do. Just have your lawyers send the papers. I’ll sign them. I owe you that. I don’t want to hurt you again. Not ever.”
I look away. I can tell by his voice this isn’t bullshit and he means it. Neil is a great guy, in all moments, even this.
After I sit for what feels like forever saying nothing, because I don’t know what to say, I whisper, “I should probably hate you, you know. But I don’t. A part of me still loves you and I think always will.”
I make a tired laugh, shaking my head. It shocks the hell out of me, but it’s the truth. I don’t hate Neil. In this horrible moment, what I feel most is relief that our marriage is over and sadness that Neil won’t be a part of my life anymore.
I can feel him staring at me. “I’ll always love you, Chrissie. I never meant for any of this to happen. I wanted to make you happy. I wanted us to be happy together. I wanted our marriage to work. I wanted to be what everyone wanted me to be. I tried, really tried, because I love you and I wanted us.”
I smile sadly. I understand that last part because it’s how I’ve felt, too, deep down inside in that place I never let myself go before today.
I stare at him. “You can’t help who you are in love with, Neil.”
His eyes lock on me, tender and amused and sympathetic. “Neither can you, Chrissie.”
That makes the tears give way. Before I can stop myself, my face is in my hands and I’m sobbing, every part of the last two weeks draining out of me in unrelenting waves.
Neil takes me in his arms, holding me close to him. I bury my face against him, melting into his chest, and it feels good in a way it hasn’t felt for too many years. It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. But it feels right. Really, really right to let Neil hold me at this moment when we are both ready to let go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I park my car behind Jack’s and enter the house. It’s quiet and I find my dad in the kitchen carefully cutting cheese and fruit and setting it on a plate the way Kaley likes for her before-dinner snack.
I check my watch. It’s only 2:30 p.m. Was I really only on the mountain an hour? It felt so much longer, more significant than sixty minutes of my life.
I step into the kitchen.
Jack looks up. “I’m glad you’re back. I’ve been worrying about you since you called this morning. How are you?”
I sink down on a stool at the center island. “Where’s Kaley?”
“In the yard playing with Maria. She’s fine. Now tell me how my baby girl is.”
I shake my head, trying to organize where to begin. So much has happen. I’m in a good place. Neil and I parted on good terms, but I don’t know if I can explain it yet or even talk about it.
“You saw Neil,” Jack prods.
I nod. “We’re getting divorced.”
“Oh.” He searches my face in that way he has when he expects me to tell him more and is waiting for me to do it. “Are you going to tell me why?”
I shrug. “Maybe someday. Not now. I don’t know when.”
Jacks nods as if digesting that one. I push up from my chair and go to the cabinet. I grab a wineglass and study the half-finished bottles on the counter—pricy Napa reds. I remember all the times as a child I found the half bottles and worried about my dad, his sobriety, when it had only been Linda.
The half-finished bottles of wine. All these years. They had frightened me so much. I wonder if I’d asked, if I’d told Jack my fears, if he would have told me about Linda a long time ago.
I pop off a cork and fill my glass. Shit, I still can’t get my head around that one: Jack and Linda. I wonder if Jack wants that discussion today, since we haven’t talked about that recent development yet either.
I turn to face my father, leaning back against the counter, sipping my wine as I watch him pretend to focus on finishing Kaley’s plate. Fuck, who am I to judge my dad? Who is Jack to judge me? We are all just doing the best we can, and he’s a wonderful dad. An amazing grandfather. He doesn’t deserve shit from me, especially considering the amount of mess I’ve made in my own life.
“Manny called this afternoon while you were with Neil,” he says quietly, not looking up from his task.
I tense and then flush, which is a totally stupid response. Jack has to know where I’ve been, the entire tabloid-reading world knows where I’ve been, since my lost week with Alan in Malibu has gotten quite a bit of ink in the press.
I take a sip of my wine, trying to decide how far into this topic I want to go today. Another stupid reaction. Debating with myself how much I tell my father about my affairs.
I frown. Am I even having an affair with Alan? Or did we end again when I left him?
I’m not exactly sure what happened between us this morning and what it means to where we’re going, if anywhere. I am as unclear about that as I am about all things Alan.
I decide to be direct, but non-informative.
“Was there a message?” I ask.
Jack’s bright blue eyes lock on mine. “No message. We just talked for a while. He seemed to want to talk. To put things right between us. I think it was long overdue. It was nice catching up with him today.”
He studies me as if waiting to see how that one hits me and I keep my face deliberately expressionless. Nope, don’t want to know what they talked about. Not going there.
Jack starts to laugh. “He talked to Kaley for a while. He didn’t have much of a choice. You know how she is. Grabs the phone, thinking every call is for her. But they conversed surprisingly well together.”
His chuckles grow louder, more amused, and I don’t know what to make of that. Harmless observation or sneak attack into those topics, unspoken, but there between us?
“Was that it?” I ask.
�
�Did you expect more?” The look Jack gives me this time is pointed with meaning, packed with the things he won’t say, but then, he doesn’t have to. The color on my cheeks darkens. “He wants you to call, and I quote, ‘when it is convenient for you.’”
My nerves unexpectedly start to prickle. Convenient? What the hell does that mean?
I refill my wineglass. “Kaley and I are going to be living here with you for a while if that’s OK.”
His eyes widen. “More than OK. Any reason why you’re the one moving out of the house?”
“No reason. Just ready for a fresh start.”
“You can stay as long as you like.”
“It won’t be that long, Daddy. I promise.”
His expression changes into surprise and an I get it sort of thing. Shit, what made me say that last part about not being here that long? I can tell what he’s thinking and it is definitely a mistake for me to give him an opening in that direction.
“I’m going to lie down for a while,” I say. “I’m exhausted. Thanks for watching Kaley for me.”
I start to move toward the door.
“Is Alan Manzone Kaley’s father?”
The earth falls away beneath me. I almost didn’t hear Jack. I can pretend I didn’t and walk away. His voice was that quiet of a thing, but the words are in the room like an exploded nuclear bomb. We both know that I heard him.
I turn back to face him, my blue eyes locking with blue. “Is that what you think? Or are you wondering if that is the cause of my marriage to Neil ending? Is that why you’re finally asking me when I can tell you’ve always wondered? You think it’s my fault that my marriage is over? That Neil is divorcing me because Kaley isn’t his daughter? Is that what you think?”
Jack’s brows pucker in that way when he’s carefully searching for the right words to say. “I don’t think it. I worried it. There is a difference.”
“No, there isn’t, Daddy. Not to me.”
Before he can say anything else, I leave the room.
I hurry down the hall and into my bedroom. I close the door, lock it, and sink down on the bed. I stare at the phone. I should call Alan, but I’m still on emotional overload from my hour with Neil and that scene in the kitchen with Jack didn’t help any.
