Brick by Brick

by Maryn Blackburn

  Did he know how little we had in checking?

  “I don’t want your money. Hell, I’m good enough to buy you a fancy dinner. Good enough to clean your house, since you stranded me here. Good enough to wipe your piss off the rim. Not good enough to meet your family, though. I have to hide in the bathroom, and when I get shifted to the bedroom, where it’s hot as a fucking crematorium, you just leave me in there!”

  “What, you wanted introductions? ‘Mom, this is Gage. I fuck his ass, since he won’t blow me without a snoot full of cocaine.’”

  “Try, ‘This is our friend, Gage.’ If that’s true. Probably not. I’ve never had a friend scare me and humiliate me like you did the other night.”

  “That wasn’t my point.”

  “Screw your point. You may be able to turn me over your knee and hide me from your family, but you know what I can do? I can fucking leave!”

  Gage whirled toward the bedroom and his keys. As he strode past me, I grabbed the front of his shirt, just as James had two nights before. This time it was a dress shirt, its collar open and the sleeves rolled up, but I got a good fistful and held my grip when he jerked to one side.

  “Shut up!” I slapped Gage’s face with my right hand, as hard as I could. His narrow eyes widened in pained surprise.

  I raised my hand to do it again.

  Gage could have blocked my hand, could have leaned back well out of my reach, could have wrenched free and continued toward the bedroom and his keys. Instead he stood still, giving tacit permission. I slapped him again, and he still didn’t move away. Something came down behind his eyes, a flinty wall that closed him off from everything and everyone.

  I bet Stuart saw it all the time. I could imagine it further enraging him, the man hitting harder, longer, trying to get past that wall to savor teenage Gage’s pain. The realization sliced the legs out from under my anger, which collapsed.

  “Jesus, Natalie,” James said. “Knock it off. Gage, come be mad at the table so I can eat. I’m starving.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t even remember the last time I hit someone. Let’s eat, and we’ll talk afterward.” My voice made it clear I wouldn’t tolerate argument.

  James put three skewers of broiled chicken and pineapple on his plate, then passed the rest to Gage with a grin, as if the man hadn’t just tried to walk out on us. “Now you know. You don’t fuck with Natalie during her period.”

  He served himself a generous portion of wild rice from the casserole dish his mother had left.

  Gage took some chicken and put the plate near me. With his fingertips, he explored the rising pink welts on his cheek. He hadn’t looked in my direction since I hit him, or shared a guys-only grin at James’s dig over my behavior on my period.

  “I really am sorry. I’m ashamed of myself and wish I could take it back.”

  Still Gage said nothing.

  James filled his salad bowl. “I’d like it entered into the record that I’ve never hit you but Natalie has.” He started eating, fast, with the genuine appetite borne of physical labor.

  Watching James eat made my stomach uneasy, but I served myself a tablespoon of rice and ignored the salad with its homemade dressing, which I ordinarily liked even though it rankled that James’s mother wouldn’t share the recipe.

  For a couple of minutes nobody talked. I tried not to hear James eating. I slid a bite-sized piece of chicken off the bamboo skewer and cut it into quarters, but even the tiny piece of meat didn’t want to go down. I had to force a painful swallow.

  Gage wasn’t doing much better, more rearranging his food than eating it. Finally he pushed his plate back several inches. “I can’t eat.”

  “What, you’re on the rag too?”

  “The tension in here is practically lethal.”

  “We could start in on what the fuck’s going on with you, then.”

  “A little tact and courtesy would be nice, James. Gage is our guest.”

  “No, you’ve made it clear I’m your dirty little secret.”

  “You’re not. That wasn’t why I hid you.”

  “Then why?”

  “I don’t know about your mother, but my mom can see right through me. She’d know something was up between us, right away.”

  “So?”

  “So nothing. So none of her business. So hungry, that’s what it came down to. I didn’t want the delay of explaining and justifying or telling her to butt out. I could smell the food, and all I wanted was to eat.” He took a big bite of salad.

  We watched him chew and swallow.

  “Besides that, she’d recognize you. Want to talk to you. Make a big deal out of you being here, and want to know all about how we met you and all the movie stars you know and what they’re like and have you been to their houses and God knows what else.”

  “Better to leave me in the sweatbox than let me talk to your mother?”

  “How was I to know you stayed in the bedroom?”

  “How was I to know when it was safe to go back to the bathroom? I couldn’t hear a thing over the fan.”

  “You’re right.” James set down his fork. “I don’t know what either of us could have done different, though. Do you?”

  Gage shook his head. “Not really. Eventually I’m going to meet your family?”

  “Of course, but not when I’m so hungry my stomach hurts.”

  “Tell me about it.” I let myself bend forward in my chair, my arms folded over my swollen tummy.

  “I’m sorry you feel so bad,” Gage said, looking at me at last. “Is that why you slapped me? Lashing out because you hurt?”

  “If that was it, I’d have been smacking you all day.” Idiot. “Where do you get off threatening to leave without even trying to make things right?”

  “Hollywood?” James said, even though he knew damned well that I hated attempts to jolly me out of being angry.

  Gage rewarded him with a little smirk.

  “Right, your little joke really helps. I’m mad at Gage, and at myself for losing my temper.”

  “And at me too, now.” James took another big bite and talked around it. “We’ll apologize and the only person she’ll still be mad at is herself.” He circled his fork in Gage’s direction. “Eat.”

  “She’s right to be mad at me.” Gage took a bite. “This is good.” He swallowed. “Thank your mom for me, James. Once she knows I exist.” He turned toward me again and inhaled to speak. I waited, but he broke eye contact and quickly took another bite.

  Seeing them eat sickened me. I had to look away, but that made it easier to speak my mind. “We went too fast, that first night with you. I’m not usually adventurous, not like that, but I knew James wouldn’t let anything bad happen. It was just a one-night stand, but then you came back and insisted it wasn’t just for more sex.”

  “In Romania, I daydreamed I was in your living room, not the bedroom.”

  “That turns it from a one-night stand into a two-way street. Letting you into our lives like this was a big deal to both of us. You walking out without even trying to fix what isn’t working says maybe it’s not all that important to you.” I hated the way my voice tried to crack, and the moisture gathering in my eyes embarrassed me further. One tear spilled, then another.

  Gage took my hand and placed it over the pink welt on his face. It simmered. “Look at me, Natalie.”

  I must have hit the same spot both times; the single handprint fit me precisely.

  “I don’t think anybody’s ever slapped me before. It hurt, more than you’d think. Tell you something, though.” He moved my hand to my face and awkwardly wiped my tears with my fingers. “This hurts worse. I’m so sorry.” He freed my hand.

  “Your poor face.” I wiped my fingers on my napkin.

  “It’s nothing.” He took a bite and chewed, his eyes focused on a distant nonentity. “In case it’s not obvious, I have no idea how relationships work, not ones that last. I’ll probably screw up lots more.” Now he looked at me with a half smile. “It’s
okay if you have to slap me once in a while.”

  “It’s not okay,” I said. “And it’s not going to happen. But you take off without trying to fix whatever’s wrong, you’re going to wish all you got was a couple of slaps.”

  “What, you can make little jokes but I can’t?” James said. His smile said it was fine.

  Gage’s exhaled breath shook. “Okay. Okay. I didn’t even know I was screwing up so bad. That’s how clueless I am.”

  James served himself seconds and pushed plates and serving dishes toward Gage and me. “More?”

  “You guys go ahead. I’m sick.”

  Sick of these little crises with Gage.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Once they believed that I was all right despite not eating, they left me alone with the heating pad and a book while they finished. Afterward, James and Gage retreated from my crabby mood to the patio, even though it was still too warm.

  So I wasn’t surprised when they came back in only a few minutes later.

  “I’m taking Gage to the airport,” James announced. “Want to come for the ride?”

  “Why?”

  “Just to get out of the house. You can stay in the car.”

  “I mean why are you going to the airport?” I knew, and I swore to myself that I would not cry or even show it hurt.

  He’d only pretended everything had been smoothed over. Gage was returning to the beautiful plastic people who expected nothing of him. People who wouldn’t slap him for leaving at the first sign of trouble, because everybody knew there was another Beautiful Person already in line, and not one of them demanded a relationship.

  The people he knew there probably laughed about people like us, with our provincial ideas about caring tied up with our sex.

  “I wanted to stay until you were feeling better, but I’m making myself crazy worrying about Rowan. I know, she’s a grown woman who doesn’t report to me, but still.” He shrugged.

  He’d kept his concern to himself all day. How could I be so self-involved and forget? “We understand. What can you do there that you can’t do here?”

  “Let myself in and see if it looks like she’s using again. Look for a note or something written on the calendar that says where she is. Talk to the rehab people, see who her friends were, talk to them. Talk to her sponsor at the meetings. Talk to the people who go out for coffee with her.”

  “Don’t forget your cell phone’s charger,” I said.

  “Yeah, thanks. I’m going to need it, all the people I need to talk to.”

  “Talk to your mom?” James’s tone was carefully neutral.

  “I hope not, but if I come up empty, maybe.” The wall dropped behind his eyes again. “If I have to. Where could she be?”

  “She’s probably fine,” I said. “Call us when you get there, all right?”

  “What, from the airport?”

  “Or home or her house, wherever you’re going first. Otherwise we’ll worry.”

  “I wasn’t going to worry,” James objected.

  “Well, I will.”

  “Really?” Gage squatted by the sofa so he could kiss my cheek. “Nobody ever asked me to call when I got there before, except for business. Nobody who cared about me.”

  I fit my hand to the pink mark where I’d slapped him, fainter now but still visible. “I care. Call.” I sat up, scribbled our number on the edge of the newspaper, tore it off, and handed it to him. “Put this in your wallet.”

  “It’ll be late.”

  “I know. I’ll be out here, awake, and if he’s as smart as I think he is, James will unplug the phone.”

  “Nah, I’m just not that smart. Come on, Gage. If we’re stopping at your hotel, we need to get going.”

  James returned within the hour. “I just dropped him off,” he said.

  “Think he’ll be back?”

  “Are we going to do this every time you’re on your period, or only every time he leaves town? Because that’s going to be all the damned time once his agent gets his shit together.”

  “I hit him, and you hid him. And that’s just today. What if he decides he doesn’t need the hassle?”

  James smiled, the bemused, superior one that annoys me. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Obviously you think I don’t.”

  “Come on, Nat; let me be the smart one once in a while.”

  “Okay. Impress me, Einstein.”

  “Think about it, Miss Smarty-pants.” He grinned, lopsided. “He gets more out of it than we do. When he’s not with us, he’s alone.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Not alone-alone. Maybe he gets laid, maybe fans love him, but nobody asks him to call when he gets there or wants to know how his day was, because they don’t really give a damn. That kind of alone.”

  “I hate it when you’re right.”

  “Funny, I feel exactly the opposite. He’ll be back. And we’ll work harder to make it so good he’ll never want to leave again. Whatever shall we do in the meantime?”

  “I still have cramps.”

  “I stopped at the liquor store. They had a lot of whites in the refrigerator case. Let’s get you a glass of wine and watch TV.”

  “Will you cuddle even though it’s hot and I’m grumpy?”

  “Of course. Just don’t think you’re getting the remote.”

  * * * *

  I still lay awake on the sofa when the phone rang. I snatched it up, even though James wasn’t likely to wake up if he’d unplugged it.

  “She’s not here, but I’m not as worried,” Gage said. “The place is clean, and there’s a suitcase on the bed, like she was packing and changed her mind which one to take. I can’t find a toothbrush anywhere. And the air’s off, like you do when you’re going to be away.”

  “So she went on a little trip.”

  “Yeah, I think so. Now I’m not sure what to do.”

  “Leave her a note that you’re in town, stopped by, saw she was away, and to call when she comes back?”

  “Yeah, but what do I do?”

  “With your time? Talk to your agent about—”

  A clatter in my ear announced James had picked up the extension in the bedroom. “Hi,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you up,” Gage said.

  “You didn’t. I left the phone plugged in on purpose. She home?”

  “No, but it looks like she packed a suitcase, so I’m not as worried.”

  “But still worried some,” James said.

  “Yeah. Things will look better in the morning if I can get some sleep. Cross your fingers for me.”

  “Know what you need?” James said.

  “Besides sleep? What?”

  “Some phone sex.”

  Hissing silence, then Gage said, “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. What’s your room like?”

  “I’m still at Rowan’s.”

  “Worried about her walking in on you?”

  “Well, it’d be pretty freaky to come home and find your brother beating it in your kitchen.”

  “E-e-ew,” I said. “Not in the kitchen.”

  “Go into the bathroom and lock the door,” James said.

  “You sure this isn’t too weird?” We heard his footsteps, softer when the floor covering changed, and a door closing. “Now what?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Are you still wearing the suit?” James said.

  “Except the jacket. I should have taken a later flight. Then I’d have had time to catch another shower and change.”

  “The suit is good, for this. Put your phone on speaker and set it someplace.”

  “Just a second, I forget how. Oh, there. Got it. Can you still hear me?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but you sound different. Hollow and echoing, like you were in a bathroom or something.”

  “Ha-ha,” Gage said.

  “Turn off the light,” James said, “and undo your belt.”

  I held my breath, listening to the metallic clinks that meant obe
dience.

  “Good,” I said, “now—”

  “—unbutton, unzip, and let the pants drop. Keep your underwear on. Boxers?” Did James realize he’d interrupted? Probably not.

  “Yeah,” Gage said. “Better with a suit.”

  “Whatever. Stroke through the cloth, nice and light.”

  “Uh-huh. Nice and light.”

  “That’s my hand,” I said, hoping I sounded sexier than I felt.

  “It’s Natalie touching me. Light, real light,” Gage agreed. “It gets my attention, like whispering instead of yelling.”

  “My hand’s in back.” James’s tone had gone gruff. “I’m petting that nice ass, but not as light as Nat. I’m just not that gentle. Going all over it, everywhere but your little asshole. Are you doing it?”

  “Yeah.” Gage’s voice had become a little breathy.

  “No, you’re not. I’m doing it. Me and Natalie. My hand’s all over your ass, again and again, mostly the lowest part, coming closer and closer to your asshole but not touching it yet.”

  “Please,” Gage said.

  “Are you hard?”

  “God, yes.”

  “Natalie’s grabbing you through the cloth. Her whole hand’s wrapped around your cock.”

  Shouldn’t Natalie dictate that? I inhaled to add to it, but James started up again.

  “My hand might’ve found the missing asshole. One finger’s rubbing around and around it. Still not touching it, though.”

  “Uh-huh.” Gage sounded drugged and dopey.

  “Round and round, and now right on it, exploring, only the outside. Finally, huh? You like that?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Show me you do. Offer it up.”

  “I’m lifting it up. Presenting it to you,” Gage said.

  “You only present your ass when it’s bare. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir. Please, can I lose the shorts?”

  “Soon,” James promised. “Natalie’s got her hand inside them now.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “She gives a good handjob, doesn’t she?”

  “Yeah.” Gage emitted a small laugh. “It’s like she knows exactly what I want.”

  “Are you still sore in back, from the other night?” James asked.