by Joey Bush
“I thought you might want to see him,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t, Mom, you were married to his father for a while! We did all live together.”
“I’m aware of that, Isla, I don’t need you to recap my personal history for me. But he used to make you miserable. I’m just surprised to see you with him, is all. I don’t want you to get hurt again. I think you should be able to understand that.”
“I’m not going to get hurt, Mom,” I said.
“You know, I thought that, too,” she said. “With Alex. The way everything happened, it just seemed like it was too good to be true, but I wanted to believe that even someone like me could have a happy ending. We all saw how well that worked out, didn’t it?”
“But you’re happy, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “I’m not unhappy, Isla. But has life worked out how I thought it would? Not in the least. If anything, my marriage to Alex showed me that money most certainly cannot buy you happiness, despite what everyone around the world seems to think. And now you’re someone who has more money than you’ll ever need, more money that you even know what to do with. I don’t want to see that change you. People who have come into much smaller sums of money than you, have allowed that to change them, and not for the better.” She let her gaze go to the shopping bags that had been moved from the dining room table onto the floor. “Money changes people. Money changes your relationship with people. People see you differently when they know you’re very well off.”
I reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m not going to let it change me,” I said. “And I know who my friends are.”
“But you already have changed,” she said. “You’re jetting all over the globe, you’re not going to re-open your business, you’re hanging out with Levi. That’s all this is, right? Just the two of you hanging out?”
Her tone indicated that she did not approve of any of these things. Yet I couldn’t tell her that my whole reason for hanging out with Levi was to get back at him; she’d think that was completely immature, which, in a way, it was.
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean . . . it’s . . . we’re just, you know . . . friends. Things have changed since we were teenagers.”
“What about Ella?” Mom asked.
“Ella?” I repeated. Why was she asking about Ella? It was kind of weird that she’d even remember her after all these years; then again, Ella was so beautiful it’s not like she was an easy person to forget about. “What do you mean? I just saw Ella, actually, when I was in New York.”
“Okay,” Mom said. “Aren’t she and Levi . . .?”
I heard the bathroom door open. “No,” I said in a low voice. “She and Levi aren’t together.”
Levi came back then, and I could tell from the look on his face that he’d heard at least part of our conversation. I hoped he wasn’t going to bring any of it up right now.
“So,” he said, “can I offer to take you ladies out to lunch?”
Mom looked at me. “You know,” she said, “I think I might’ve preferred that puppy.”
*****
It felt a little strange bringing Levi to my house, which was modest and nice, but not that impressive. I felt a fleeting moment of fear that he was going to judge me over it, but I pushed that aside. The looks I caught him giving me at Mom’s made me think that he had one thing on his mind, and if I was to be honest, I felt the same way: I just wanted to get back to my place, close the door, and have sex.
I led him down to the bedroom and we both disrobed as quickly as we could. We fell back onto the bed and he ran his hands up and down my thighs before finding my pussy and sliding a finger inside.
“You’re so wet,” he said.
“I can’t help it. I just keep thinking about feeling you inside of me. That’s all that I want.”
“Happy to oblige,” he said. I spread my legs apart as he climbed on top of me, positioning his hips so he could slide himself in.
If I had known sex had felt this good, I would’ve started doing it a whole lot sooner.
*****
I got up early and went for a run, while Levi slumbered on, in my bed. Before I left, I stood there in the doorway and looked at him, the way his eyelashes were thick against his skin, the relaxed expression on his face. Never in a million years did I think that any of this would be happening.
I went outside and stretched as the early morning sun started to rise. I liked getting up early, especially in the summer, because it was before the heat of the day started, when everything was still relatively quiet. Once I was done stretching, I started to walk briskly for a few minutes, and then eased myself into a jog.
As my heart rate accelerated and my breathing quickened, the thoughts that were flitting through my mind began to drain away. That was the thing about exercise, but running especially—it didn’t matter what else was happening in your life, once you started to do it, it required your full attention. And soon it was just me and the road, the sound of the soles of my shoes hitting the ground, my breathing steady, my legs moving under me as though they were controlled by some outside force.
When I felt like that, it was as if I could run forever. It didn’t even feel like separate footfalls; it felt more like flying.
Eventually, though, fatigue would seep in, reminding me that I couldn’t actually go on forever. I liked to walk the last ten or fifteen minutes, to give myself chance to cool down and to enjoy the lingering stillness in my mind. My muscles felt sore, but in a productive way, like I could feel them getting stronger. I lifted my arms up over my head and stretched as I walked, turning to the right, then to the left.
I was about to turn off the main road and down one of the side street back toward my house when I heard someone call my name. I turned. It was Brian, who had been driving by but stopped and pulled over when he saw me. He got out of his car and jogged over.
“Isla!” he said. “I thought that was you.”
He looked as though he were either coming from or going to work. I hadn’t seen him since that night I’d walked in on him with Shannon.
“How have you been?”
“Fine,” I said coolly. “Things have been fine. How is everything with you and Shannon?”
“Me and Shannon? There’s nothing going on between me and Shannon. That night . . . that night was just sort of . . . a fluke, I guess.”
“Is she aware that you’re referring to it like that?”
“I don’t think she’d care,” he said, and I had to admit that he was probably right. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Please, Brian. We both know that’s bullshit.”
“It’s not though!” he said. “I ran into Sophie the other day.”
“Really? And she didn’t tell you to fuck off? That’s surprising.” The way he blanched when I said it made me think that she probably had done exactly that.
“She mentioned that you had been in New York, because you’d inherited some money.”
“Oh,” I said. I crossed my arms across my chest. “I get it. You heard that I’d inherited some money and now you want to be back in the picture. Well, guess what? That’s not going to happen.”
“No,” he said. “That’s not it at all. I’m just glad because I know it’s going to take a decent chunk of change to get the gym up and running again.”
“Who says I’m going to use any of my money for that?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“But you love that gym, Isla. That’s your place.”
“Why do you care what I do? Why does it matter to you whether I re-open the gym or go live out the rest of my days on some tropical island?”
His eyes widened. “You inherited enough money to do that?”
“It’s really none of your business.” I started to walk, hoping he wouldn’t follow me, but he did. “You’re just leaving your car there,” I said, glancing over my shoulder.
&
nbsp; “It’s because you’re walking away from me. Isla, I don’t care about your money, okay? I mean that. But I do care about you. And what happened with Shannon was a big mistake. It was a complete error in judgment on my part, and I shouldn’t have let it happen. I realize that now. And I don’t take you being a virgin lightly, you know. It’s a big deal that you’d want me to be the one to—”
“I’m not a virgin,” I said.
“You’re not?”
“No.”
“Oh.” This seemed to take the wind out of his sails, which pleased me. But still, he kept in stride next. I turned down my road, my house visible. “Well, that doesn’t really surprise me. You’re beautiful, Isla. You know that I’ve always felt that about you.”
“Brian, stop it. It’s starting to sound like you’re groveling. We should just go our separate ways, okay? If that means you go back to Shannon, go for it, I don’t care.”
“But I love you. It took me almost losing you to realize it, but I really and truly love you.”
I laughed. “Seriously? That’s probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. The reason you ‘lost me’ to begin with is because I walked in on you fucking another woman. So you’re saying it took you fucking another woman to make you realize that you loved me? That’s not going to win you any boyfriend of the year awards.”
We’d reached my driveway. I should’ve just walked right in, but I stood there for a moment longer. Maybe there was a part of me that was enjoying hearing him grovel. That liked knowing he realized he’d made a mistake, and that he wanted to do something about it, but it was too late.
“We had some really good times together,” he said. “I can’t believe you’re just going to throw that away. That it’d be so easy for you to walk away from that.”
“Are you forgetting an important detail? That detail being the one where you slept with someone else?”
He waved me off. “Could we just forget that even happened? It was a huge mistake. It wasn’t even that good, okay? It really wasn’t—I’m not just saying that. In fact, I—” He stopped abruptly, his eyes widening, looking at something over my shoulder.
I turned. Levi had strolled out the front door, wearing nothing more than a pair of navy blue boxer shorts, his hair tousled, his muscles flexing and relaxing as he glided down the walkway toward us.
“Hey,” he said. “I thought I heard you out here.” He looked at Brian. “What’s up, bro?”
Brian made little attempt to hide his disbelief, though what he was so surprised about, I wasn’t quite sure. That I had a man over? That I had a man over who looked like Levi?
Levi casually draped an arm over my shoulders.
“This is Brian,” I said. “I don’t think I mentioned him before. But here he is. His car is actually parked down the road. He should probably get it, seeing as he’s leaving it unattended.”
“Nice to meet you, man,” Levi said.
Brian seemed at a complete loss for words. He started to say something, stammered a couple times, and then finally just stopped. He really couldn’t get over the fact that I’d been able to find someone else besides him, and that the person I found was a thousand times hotter than he would ever be.
“I better get back to my car,” he said finally. “Nice to see you again, Isla.”
Levi and I stood there, watching him walk off. “Do men usually follow you home like that?” he asked.
“Uh, no, usually not.”
“Abandoning their cars on the side of the road and shit. You’re just irresistible.”
“He just happened to hear that I might have come into some money, and suddenly I’m the best thing going.” I looked down the road in the direction Brian had just walked off. “What a dick.”
“Come on,” Levi said, taking my hand and leading me back toward the house. “You better get used to it. There’s going to be a lot of people coming around like that once they hear about it. Maybe we should skip town for a while. Assume new identities.”
“Is that an option?”
“It could be.”
We went back inside. I kicked off my shoes and peeled my sweaty running clothes off and then got into the shower. I stood there underneath the stream of hot water, and a second later, heard the shower curtain pull back as Levi got in with me.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked.
I opened my eyes and stepped toward him, pressing the length of my body against his. “I don’t mind at all.”
25.
Levi
I’d never been to Bel Air, where Isla had grown up, and where she’d ended up moving back to after her mother and my father got divorced. I’d never actually spent much time in a small town like this before; I asked Isla what the population was and she said it was around ten thousand people. I rather liked it here, though, I began to discover, after our first two days here. I had thought I’d be itching to get back to Manhattan, or better yet, back to San Antonio, but there was actually something rather calming and . . . well, nice, about being at Isla’s.
It was the exact sort of simple, well-kept home you would’ve expected her to live in. Two bedrooms, one-and-a-half bathrooms, no frills but comfortable and orderly.
“So, I’ve got to go downtown for a little bit and meet up with Kelly,” Isla said. It was morning, and I was stretched out on the couch, drinking a cup of coffee.
“Want me to go?” I asked.
“Only if you want to. It’s not going to be that interesting; we’ve got to talk about the next steps for the gym.”
“What do you think you’re going to do?”
“I don’t know. Part of me would like to re-open; the other part of me just kind of wants to walk away from it all. Whether or not we re-open, it’ll be in a different location, that’s for sure. I don’t want to have to deal with the possibility of mold. And then I’ve got a few errands to run after that, but it shouldn’t take me too long.”
“I can just chill here,” I said. “We can do something when you get back.”
“Okay. That sounds good. Just give me a call or a text or something if you need anything while I’m out.”
“Like a booty call?”
She smiled. “No, not a booty call.”
“That can happen when you get back?”
“Maybe.”
She walked around the couch and gave me a kiss, and then she left. I lay there, thinking that maybe I could get used to this sort of domestic way of life. Which was crazy, because I never thought I’d be the type to settle down. I liked life in the fast lane, with few responsibilities, and even fewer things tying me down. But I felt different with Isla. I felt as though I’d be perfectly content if it were the two of us, and we didn’t sleep with other people. That itself was a bit of a shock. I’d never been in a real relationship; not one that required monogamy, anyway. It just wasn’t my way, it didn’t make sense to commit to just one person, with there being so many people out there.
Yet it felt as though something had changed.
Had my dad known this all along? It almost felt like he had, like he’d orchestrated this, knowing if Isla and I got around each other again, things would happen this way. How would he know such a thing, though? Had he seen something between us when we’d been younger, something that I had missed completely?
I was still considering this when the doorbell rang. I got up and went to answer it. “Oh, hi,” I said. Sharon stood on the front step, carrying what looked to be most of the shopping bags that Isla and I had brought over there when we stopped by to visit. “Isla’s not here right now, but come on in.” I held the door open. “Can I take some of those bags for you?”
“No, I’ve got it,” she said briskly. She stepped in and walked past me, depositing the bags on Isla’s spotless dining room table. After she’d done that, she turned to face me, crossing her arms over chest. “Where’s Isla?”
“She had some stuff she had to take care of.”
“Are you expecting her back soon?”
“No.” Sharon shook her head. “That’s not the problem at all. I don’t need this stuff. While I can certainly appreciate a kind gesture, I don’t need you two showing up on my door step with all of these things that I never asked for. Return them, if you’d like, or give them to someone who needs them.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you want.” I held up my hands. It had always surprised me that my dad had married Sharon; she was really the only person he’d ever dated when I was growing up, and I still couldn’t quite figure out what drew him to her. Yeah, she was attractive, but her demeanor had always been a little prickly. She wasn’t the type to defer, not even to my father, and he was used to that, so maybe that’s what it was. Maybe he liked the idea of a woman who wasn’t completely enamored with his wealth. I did respect that about Sharon; she wasn’t the sort of person who was going to go completely gaga for someone just because they had money.
“And there’s something I’d like to ask you,” Sharon said. “I’d like to know just exactly what it is you think that you’re doing.”
“That I’m doing?”
“Yes.” She uncrossed her arms and put them on her hips. I suddenly felt as though I were back in school, about to get scolded. “What is it you think you’re doing here with my daughter?”
“I’m here because she asked me if I wanted to come back with her. I’ve never been here before.”
“And before that you just skirted her off to some tropical island.”
“Ibiza,” I said. “It’s a lovely place. We’d be more than happy to have you come out there to visit some time, if you wanted. I have a house out there. A villa, is what they call it.”
“I’m not interested in that,” she said. “What I’m interested in is why all of the sudden you’re back on Isla’s radar. No good is going to come of this.”
