Conditional Offer

by Liz Crowe

  She jumped a mile when Evan touched her arm. "Hey." He seemed to want to say more. But didn't.

  "You look like shit," she muttered, taking in the dark circles under his eyes, the exhaustion etched into the lines on his face.

  He shrugged. "The baby is having a growth spurt. Up all night, eating all the time. You know."

  She stared at him, her brain registering that he assumed she would know. She looked away, realizing that he hadn't meant anything by it. Craig was right. She had to stop being so sensitive. She squeezed her eyes shut. Craig. God she missed him.

  She fiddled with her phone avoiding Evan's gaze. She scrolled back through a recent text conversation they'd shared, essentially an information exchange about Sara and Jack's collective frame of mind a year after the tragedy.

  "She seems ok." Craig answered when she had asked.

  "He doesn't." She was sincerely worried about her friend. He seemed to have withdrawn from everyone. Focused on his stupid soccer project, she knew. Otherwise, absent but for his physical presence.

  "Yeah. I know. She's sort of in denial, I think. Not really dealing with it other than helping everyone else. A departure for her."

  "Well, maybe that's his problem," she'd written. "He is used to being the strong one. If she doesn't need him to be or is in denial about it. Then he may feel …" She'd stopped unsure what to say and hit send.

  She stared at the words, willing the man back to her, but realizing her final rejection of him had been just that – final. She had no one to blame but herself for the result. He was so infernally logical and calm. His wild, nearly irrational proposal that terrible day had scared her, but she'd sleepwalked through the next couple of weeks and never answered him. Together they observed the excruciating aftermath. Saw Rob a day after he woke and got the news. Then relived the whole thing all over again with him. It had been a gut-churning exercise for everyone concerned.

  She sighed, kept reading the conversation, happy at least to have these written words of his.

  "He feels useless." Craig had observed. "And a guy like Jack can't feel that way without taking action. I guess his action in this case is to back away from her. Let her handle it however she will."

  "But surely with the baby. Brandis. He must love having him around." Suzanne had forced herself to type that out.

  "Sara thinks he's having some kind of freak-out relative to having a son. Because his father was such a shit, or something."

  "Well, Gordon Senior was a shit. That is certain. Damn. Poor guy."

  "Yeah. Poor all of them." He had written to her. Then, about a second later these words had popped up on her screen in the little blue chat bubble. "Poor me. Poor us."

  She'd been truly taken aback by that. Hadn't known how to respond.

  Later that night he'd found her on Skype. She cursed herself for leaving the thing live, but smiled in spite of herself at his message. "You didn't like my pity party?"

  She answered quickly, hoping to sound brisk and matter of fact. "Well, I know how I must have sounded now, I guess. Point taken."

  His response was swift. "Good. About the point, I mean."

  "Yeah. Is there anything else? I need to get to bed."

  She stared at the blinky "Craig is writing" message. Wishing she had the intestinal fortitude to just cut the man off. To let him go. But she couldn't. His answer made her face split into a huge grin. "So. What are you wearing?"

  "Are you flirting with me?" She'd typed, unsuccessfully holding back the longing that rose. Memories of his extraordinary talents at pleasing her made her breathless.

  "No. Was hoping to cut straight to the phone sex."

  "Well, forget that."

  "You are crueler than I thought."

  She bit her lip, tried to decide how to respond. He pre-empted her. "Sara is a mess, actually. I talked to her today. How's Jack, really?"

  She frowned, made her brain flip a switch from horny enough to actually have phone sex to contemplating her friend's rapidly deteriorating home life. "Worse, I'm willing to bet. He was at the bar last night. Drunk off his ass. I put him in a taxi. Made all sorts of threatening noises about not jeopardizing what he had. About not falling back into his bad habits."

  "He won't cheat on her." Suzanne was startled when Craig wrote this.

  "Is that a question or a statement?" She typed out quickly.

  "A statement. She isn't worried about that. Believe it or not."

  "I believe it. They've reached common ground on the trust thing, I think. But this other thing he's doing…withdrawing from her and the kids. That's almost worse at this point." She sighed, remembering her friend's harsh laughter, his unwillingness to really talk to her the other night.

  "So. What are you wearing?"

  She laughed and responded. "Wow. That was fast."

  "Sorry. Well?"

  "We don't need to be doing this Craig."

  "What? Flirting? Why not? I mean, it's innocent. We know it's not going anywhere."

  Her heart sank. "Well, in that case….I have on dirty sweat pants, a too-big tee shirt and my hair hasn't been washed for two days."

  "Oh baby. You know how to make me hard."

  "Shut up. I'm going to bed." But she didn't want to. She wanted more than anything to keep talking. She forced herself not to pick up the phone and call him, let his low, lovely, singer's voice fill her ears.

  "What? Tell me more about how nasty you look. I love it."

  She grinned, her fingers hovering over the keys. "I love you." She hit send. Then wished it back. She white knuckled her own hands for a solid five minutes. Then six, seven and almost eight more minutes passed before he answered.

  "Well, you know how I feel about you. I told you enough."

  "Yes. I do." Tears blurred her vision. "Is it too late? Can I take it all back?"

  The response was immediate, and final. "Good night my lovely ginger girl. Sleep tight."

  His Skype icon blinked out and was dark.

  Craig sat straight up, his reflexes honed after years of medical school, internships and residencies to function at a fairly high level from a dead sleep. The dark room wouldn't reveal what noise had caused him to wake. He put his hand down, automatically reaching for Suzanne. When he found a distinctly female form beside him, his brain clicked in, causing buckets of guilt and remorse to pour over his psyche. No, it wasn't Suzanne. Not the woman he wanted.

  Lynn stirred, rolled over and tugged him back down. Her sleepy exhalations and warm naked presence made his body go on autopilot. Anger shut out logic. Bright, blinding fury at himself for pulling this innocent, perfectly nice woman into the middle of his mess, misleading her into thinking their near constant fuck sessions meant anything more to him than that. But he yanked her to him, kissed with a ferocity born of frustration, and dove into her body with an enthusiasm he hoped would dispel his memories of Suzanne – her intense gaze, sleek auburn hair, and her infernal stubborn insistence that she was too damaged for him.

  His brain fuzzed over. Lynn's welcoming body soothed him, but even as he came, her own near operatic climax deafening him, he whispered Suzanne's name.

  Later, he sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee, staring into the middle distance. When Lynn wandered in, fresh from a shower, she didn't say anything. Just filled her travel mug and leaned on the sink a minute. As if in slow motion he rose and pulled her to him. She was even more petite than Suzanne. Her Asian heritage showing in her dark skin and eyes and her small frame fitting into his, her head just under his chin. He sighed and held her close. She didn't move. "I'm sorry." He muttered. "Don't go."

  She pulled away, smiled at him, her eyes resigned as she tugged her long black hair into a pony tail. "Gotta go save some lives."

  Craig felt like the worst sort of shithead. He'd rushed straight to her after that horrific weekend of Blake's accident, unable to bear the thought of being alone. After he'd made an idiot of himself begging Suzanne to marry him. And she'd rejected him, again — for the last
time, he'd resolved. If something as bad as losing such an important member of their odd, yet close-knit circle, didn't make her realize they owed it to themselves to be together – to be happy – well, then, screw her.

  So he had. Well, he'd screwed Lynn. That very night. A lot. He closed his eyes a split second. She claimed she understood. That she wanted nothing more from him than what he was giving her. But he was just not That Guy. He felt terrible about his own inability to stop channeling his grief over the loss of Suzanne by continuously diving between his colleague's thighs.

  "Hey, Craig," She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. Then slid into the seat across from him, perched there as if about to launch into the atmosphere – like she always did. "I think that we should, um, cool it a while."

  He looked away from her, the yawning empty nights without her to distract him from his misery a sudden, terrifying concept. He reached out and grabbed her hand, words falling from his lips he knew he'd regret. "No. I don't want to cool it. I want…I need you. Move in with me."

  She bit her lip. A single tear slid down her cheek. "Craig. You don't want me. I know it. You know it. It's not fair. So, I'm gonna go."

  He watched her, paralyzed, helpless as she grabbed the few items of clothing she'd managed to leave lying around in the past few months and opened the condo door. She stopped, looked back at him once, her face a mask of sympathy tinged with real unhappiness.

  "I'm sorry, Lynn. Really." He blurted out, started to stand and yank her back. But something made him stop. He realized it was her eyes. They were hard, firm, and set.

  "I know you are. I'm sorry, too. But, I can't live like this. I love you. And you … don't. So, I'm going. Don't call me. Please." And like that, she was gone.

  His vision darkened. Fury boiled in him. A wholly unwelcome and unfamiliar need to punch something really hard made him clench his fists. His heart pounded. For a split second he thought he might be having a heart attack. He sat, clasped his hands together in front of him and forced himself to be calm.

  It took nearly an hour for him to get his head around a single concept: he would never be happy. Could never quite seem to get the timing right, or the woman right, or the combination of the two at the same time. Suzanne had been right about a lot of things, but all the accusations about him wanting or deserving a family, of wanting to be a father had been dead wrong. He honestly did not care. But he'd given up convincing her of that. Now, it appeared, he'd ruined yet another potential relationship by not letting go of the previous one. He put his head down, the cool glass tabletop easing the heat in his face.

  His phone buzzed with a text. Suzanne's name popped up but he grabbed the damn thing and heaved it against the tile backsplash, making a fairly satisfying mess before realizing that he'd left the phone he used to communicate with the busy Michigan emergency room in the glove box of his truck. "Fuck!" He yelled. Then again, for good measure as he hit the elevator button and went down to the cavernous parking garage to retrieve it. Bracing himself on the wood handles all the way down, and berating himself for be a sap, a pushover, and a dumbass the entire way.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was a solid month before he saw Suzanne again. To her credit she'd not called, texted or emailed him either, after the morning of the destroyed phone incident. One rare night off, he sat by the pool after a long workout, chest heaving. The memories kept crashing around in his head, nearly drowning him with their intensity. He'd avoided Lynn completely. Pretty easy since he made the schedule and never had them crossing paths. His body had eased away from its skin-crawling need to fuck all of the time, which had gripped him during the couple of months Lynn had been obliging him by taking the edge off. And, apparently, falling in love with him in the process.

  The bone-deep sorrow remained. His chest ached when he thought about Suzanne, no matter what he did. But he carried on. He did his job; saved lives. He swam like a motherfucker – lap after lap after lap, pushing himself so hard it was all he could do to pull himself out of the pool on trembling arms. Like now, sitting there on the edge, watching the moon cast an eerie glow over the seemingly dark water. Remembering. First Sara, there, with him, but not really.

  Then Suzanne. She'd dropped into his life at such an odd time. The way they had hit it off, her easy, breezy manner at first disguising her inner unhappiness. How he had taken the task of making her happy, with him preferably, to heart. How he had, for a while. Until she'd flip out over the whole family or baby thing. Jesus. He ran a shaking hand down his face, realized he hadn't eaten since the morning. Groaning, he got to his feet, made his wobbly way back to the towel stand and nearly plowed right over her.

  She stood in the shadows, near the small locker room door. Her petite frame seemed even more so, eyes huge, face gaunt. She gripped her elbows, bit her lip. He stumbled, caught himself and stepped away from her. Anger made his jaw ache. "How did you get in here?"

  She sucked in a breath and squared her shoulders. His heart started a slow meltdown that made him shiver, and his cock instantly hard. He wrapped a towel around his waist and put more distance between them.

  "I miss you." Her words spoke volumes. But he was not about to go there again.

  "Really." He crossed his arms over his chest, wincing at the tightness in his swimsuit. "Oh, well." He attempted nonchalance. Her face revealed nothing but unhappiness. He steeled himself against it.

  "Don't, Craig. This is hard enough."

  He couldn't help himself or hold back the derisive snort. "You are telling me how hard this is? Priceless."

  "Listen," she took a step towards him but he stood, nearly tripped as he kept the chair between them. The hand she'd been using to reach for him shook. A wave of forgiving remorse nearly bowled him over. But he hardened himself against it. No. He wouldn't cave. Not again.

  "Leave my condo key on the table on your way out." He growled, turning away. She moved fast, surprising him, darting around the chair as if they were playing tag and wrapping her arms around his neck, going up on her tiptoes to reach his lips. But he turned his head. "I will not be played Suzanne. I can't. Jesus. That poor bastard Blake. Now I know how he felt."

  She jumped back as if he'd struck her. The sadness in her eyes flipped to anger. They stood, fury swirling between them. Then she spoke. "No, Craig. You have no idea how he felt. It's my fault I keep projecting my relationship with him onto us. I…deserved that."

  "Yeah, I know. It's why I said it." His teeth ground together. He forced himself to stop. To settle his face into neutral "who gives a shit" lines. It was harder than it looked.

  She swallowed hard, looked down, then back up into his eyes, nearly making him fall over with the force of emotion in her next words. "I realized something this week." She took a seat, leaving just a few inches between them. As a defensive mechanism he sat, increasing the space. For his own good. The need to sweep her into his arms, to quell the increasing agony in her eyes with one kiss very nearly overwhelmed him.

  "What's that? You're an emotionally stunted grown woman hiding behind the screen of abuse by a guy, who is not me, to keep from realizing that you actually do love me?" He spoke to the ceiling. Not caring if she heard him or not. Then he met her gaze.

  She glared at him then smiled. He mirrored her, unable to stop. "Cut that out," he forced himself to sound pissed.

  "Cut what out?"

  He leaned back, bringing fresh blood to his already aching cock. "I'm righteously indignant. And I'm not taking you back. So just stop trying." He rose, but she put a hand on his knee. He started to push her away. But with a strength he didn't realize she had, she pushed him down onto his back. She straddled him, propping herself on the lounge chair arms. Her eyes were dark. It took everything he had not to yank her down, to fuck her silly. To not communicate, but connect…just once more.

  She thumbed his chin, made him turn and face her. "I need you. Can I get a mulligan? I…." But he pushed her back.

  "No. You can't. Seriously, Suzanne. Jus
t get the hell out."

  She got to her feet and with a couple of quick movements stood before him utterly naked. He groaned, and put a hand over his eyes, tried to force out the image burned into his retinas--the porcelain flawlessness of her skin, the hard peaks of her dark pink nipples, the red hair she'd let grow, curving around her face, and the light dusting of fire covering her sex. He opened his eyes at the splash. She cut through the water with ease, her lithe form moving the way he'd taught her all those hours they'd spent here together. He curled his hands into fists. Got to his feet, his head light from lack of blood and cock aching from an overabundance of it.

  In a daze, he tugged his suit down, stepped out of it and dove in the deep end, loving the way the cool water caressed his nudity. They passed each other again and again. He focused on moving his body, not grabbing her like he wanted to so very badly. After a while, he lost track of time. There was nothing but the water – the sounds in his ears, the smell in his nose, his muscles trembling with lack of protein and too much exertion. He grabbed the side, leaned on his arms and tried to catch his breath.

  Her touch made him shiver but he didn't care. Not anymore. He moved in front of her, braced himself on either side of her, propping her under her arms. "No fair." He exhaled before slanting his mouth over her. Losing himself in her scent, her sounds, hating himself but unable to stop.

  Suzanne's entire body hummed, her ears were fuzzy and still half-full of water. When he faced her, stared into her eyes, she had a glimmer of hope. A small corner of maybe that she nestled into needing it so much she wanted to cry. He blew out a puff of air. Closed his eyes as if denying what he was about to do. "No fair," he sighed into her mouth. The touch of his lips to hers was more perfect than it had ever been. In all the many moments of intimacy they'd shared, this one seemed like destiny.