‘It’s not … like that,’ I said, and had to swallow.
‘Then how is it?’
‘Let me put it this way –Marcus’s reaction when I copped to the kiss was so lukewarm, I’d say Nick and I could have traded a few more interesting body fluids than saliva and he would have taken it all in his stride. In fact, it was so lukewarm, it was almost an insult. Seriously, I not only betray him, but do it with one his friends, and that’s not worth even one tiny spurt of temper?’ I sighed. ‘Nope, I can only surmise that somewhere along the way, Marcus lost interest in me emotionally as well as sexually. Galling though it is, that’s the plain, unvarnished truth. So I’ve really got nothing to feel guilty about, have I?’
‘Except that you will feel guilty, sooner or later,’ Drew said, and sighed. ‘Loyalty is your Achilles heel. And that’s why I wish you’d just switched the order. Break up first, then the kiss. No wearing of hair shirt required.’
‘You don’t do it in that order,’ I said. ‘You have affairs all the time.’
‘I’m gay. We’re supposed to have affairs. It’s in the rulebook. In the DNA. In the –’
‘You are so full of it,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘You’re every bit as loyal as me. Or you would be, if you’d commit to someone. But you don’t commit because you haven’t found the one.’
‘And neither have you, my darling, for all your determination.’ He waved a silencing hand at me as I opened my mouth to speak. ‘Yes, yes, yes, I know, you felt like you were committed to Marcus, but if you ask me it’s been heading in the wrong direction for longer than three sexless months. It was all getting a little too conjoined-twin-like with you two. Brother and sister sharing the one brain and personality. Even the same hair colour! Kind of creepy.’
‘We don’t have the same hair colour. His is a deep, rich auburn, not this … this fire engine red.’
He laughed. ‘And that’s the sum total of your response to everything I just said? Well if that doesn’t prove my point. If you were really starry-eyed over Marcus, you wouldn’t be sitting here in ice goddess mode debating your relative shades of red hair. You’d be punching someone, screaming, clawing to get him back, because that is your true nature.’
‘Yes, the passion was definitely missing with Marcus,’ Evie put in, in her new role of pontificator extraordinaire.
Drew nodded. ‘Yeah, but it’s always missing. That’s the way she likes it.’
‘Huh? I mean … huh?’ Me – stunned. ‘He’s right,’ Evie chimed in. ‘You talk a good game, Chloe Masters, but you’ve got the goddesses-don’t-break-a-sweat thing happening. I mean, look at that cream leather couch of yours. Lovely to look at, but there ain’t no misdemeanor happening on it.’
‘Don’t believe us?’ Drew grinned across at me as I sat there like a stunned mullet. ‘Then take a chance and play with the dark thug. I’d lay odds he’ll make you sweat.’
‘I don’t want the dark thug.’
‘Sure you do or you wouldn’t have kissed him. You had to want him plenty to do that to Marcus, no matter what state your sex life was in.’
My head was spinning – and it had nothing to do with the whisky sours. It was all about what I’d done. The situation was really black and white, the way Drew described it. I could have said yes or no to the kiss. It had been a choice between loyalty and betrayal, and I’d chosen betrayal. I’d wanted that kiss more than I’d wanted what I had with Marcus. One spur of the moment decision, a momentary loss of control, and I’d made a choice, the wrong choice: Nick over Marcus. ‘Oh my God,’ I whispered.
Just three little words, but they pushed Drew into a state of high alert. ‘Jesus, don’t start yet,’ he said.
‘Start what?’
‘The conscience attack. Remember – Marcus kissed you on the forehead, Marcus didn’t have sex with you for three months, Marcus let you go. He let you go, Chloe. He deserved for you to fuck Nick’s brains out in front of him.’ He grabbed my hand. ‘A kiss? Pfft! Nothing. At least do something worthy of all the angst before you start torturing yourself.’
‘Like … like what?’
‘Take the thug out for a spin.’
‘A spin?’
‘As in, do the wild thing with him,’ Drew said, as our fresh drinks were delivered, very opportunely.
I took a nice big gulp. ‘I can’t do the wild thing.’
‘Yes you can, if you put your inner control freak out to pasture for a little while.’
‘But he’s Marcus’s teammate. I can’t do that.’
‘Nobody’s asking you to publicly date him, Chloe. Keep him a deep, dark secret. That way, if he doesn’t perform to your satisfaction, you can return him to the manufacturer, and Marcus will never know.’
But I was shaking my head before he’d even finished speaking.
‘Okay, if that’s how we’re playing it.’ Drew tapped the rim of my glass with his. ‘I’ve got the perfect person for you. Someone you can have total control over.’
‘Yes?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘You!’ he said. ‘Orgasm yourself into oblivion, all on your own. No sweat involved.’
‘Been there, done that, not satisfying.’
‘Aha! But I’m talking gadgets,’ he said. ‘Of the battery-operated variety. I’ve heard of one called the Vibrating Rock Chick that sounds awesome – if you’re a girl, at any rate. You won’t even have to step into the sex shop yourself. I’ll buy it for you.’
I drew in a shaky, almost-laughing breath. ‘I neither want nor need a vibrator.’
‘What about a male escort?’ Evie suggested.
‘A male –? What is wrong with you people?’
‘You say you’re sex starved,’ Drew pointed out, his eyes twinkling like a maniacal disco ball.
‘I would rather remain sex starved than buy a vibrator. And don’t even, Evie –’ Because she’d opened her mouth. ‘I am not interested in either a male escort or Nick Savage.’
‘Okaaaay,’ Evie said, pushing her luck.
‘I’m really not liking you at the moment,’ I said.
Drew nudged my drink towards me. ‘Drink up.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s time for break-up hair and I have just the stylist for you.’
Evie perked right up. ‘New lover? Can I come too?’
‘Yes, new lover. Reynold is his name. And yes, you may accompany us. Come on, Chloe – you know it’s de rigeur to change your hairstyle after you’ve visited Splitsville. I’m seeing a pixie cut. You’ve got the cheekbones to carry it off – hell, you could shave a guy’s beard right off with those sharp edges. And I’m a little over all that long, straight hair curtain thing you’ve got going on.’
‘A fringe,’ I said, unbending. ‘That’s as far as I’ll go.’
Drew sighed. ‘Now you see, that’s not really break up hair.’
‘Take it or leave it.’
Another sigh. ‘Okay – taken.’
My phone started ringing.
Evie looked hopeful. Drew, watchful.
I fished my phone out of my bag and checked the caller ID. ‘Relax, guys, it’s Larry,’ I said, and accepted the call. It had to be important for my chief of staff to be calling at this hour.
The one-sided conversation must have sounded very strange to Evie and Drew, but they were certainly on the edge of their seats for it.
‘Hi Larry … Yes, I know him … Yes, through Marcus … Manila, yes I know … No, Anita’s got that … No, not me … Oh, he asked for …? He said what …? Since when is Nick Savage calling the … Oh, I see. But I’ve got … All right … But he’s not … Yes, but I just think … Oh for God’s sake, it’s … Fine … Fine, fine, fine!’
I disconnected, sat looking at my phone for a stunned moment. Blink, blink, breathe, blink. And then I looked at Evie and Drew. ‘Guess who’s going to Manila?’
‘With Nick?’ Evie ventured.
‘You got it,’ I said.
‘Well, well, well,’ Evie said, and blew
out a breath. ‘That’s great. Except …’ She and Drew raised their eyebrows at each other. And then she looked me right in the eye. ‘How are you going to cope? With the … you know …’
‘The children?’ I said, and felt the panic reaching for me, trying to suck me under. ‘I guess we’re going to find out.’
‘Maybe it’s a sign,’ Evie said.
I just looked at her.
‘Nick … kids … things outside your comfort zone …?’ she offered vaguely.
‘What it is, is manipulation,’ I said, cutting off that line of thought. ‘I can’t believe he did this when he knows I don’t like him. Why would he want to be stuck with me for eight days except out of sheer … sheer … perverseness!’
‘Yeaaaah,’ Drew said. ‘Perverseness isn’t the first reason that springs to mind.’
I sucked back my whisky sour and reached for my bag. ‘Right. I’m getting the fringe, and taking six inches off,’ I announced.
‘That’s my girl,’ Drew said, rolling his eyes. ‘Let’s freak the bastard right out with a shoulder length bob. How revolutionary!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Drew was being his usual sarcastic self, but I really was more than happy to freak the bastard out, hairstyle be damned.
I was going to start with a perfectly nuanced performance of unconcern when Nick called to gloat about getting me assigned to the Manila story. He was no doubt expecting me to spit bile and fury; instead, I would be my cool, professional self, ready to talk about what angles we could explore, the way I would with any major interviewee for a story like this. I’d tell him that I’d always wanted to visit the Philippines, that he’d done me a huge favour by twisting Larry’s arm, and that I was looking forward to the experience immensely.
Yes, it was going to be a golden moment, and I could hardly wait for my phone to ring.
All through my haircut, I kept my phone in my hand, too preoccupied to care that six inches of carefully cultivated coiffe were being hacked off. I was so preoccupied, I have no idea what I ate for dinner that night, or what I watched on TV afterwards. I took the phone to the bathroom while I prepared for bed, and then actually to bed with me because I didn’t put it past Nick to call in the wee hours when I least expected it.
Over the next two days, I pulled together a set of my famous red folders, full of research notes and interview questions. General information about the Philippines, and more specifically, Manila; statistics on poverty and homelessness; the history of the orphanage, which was called the Sunshine Children’s Home; details of other comparable charitable institutions in the area. But with every addition to the files, I found myself checking and re-checking my phone. And even when I wasn’t specifically checking for missed calls, I kept one ear cocked for the ring tone I’d allocated to Nick. (Butthole Surfers’ The Annoying Song– a title that seemed appropriate for the most annoying man in the world.) Once I was home from work, I paced and I stewed, waiting for Nick to call, and checking, checking, checking my damn phone.
I knew what he was doing: playing chicken. Who was going to cave in and call first? Well, it was not going to be me. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I preferred to imagine him waiting by the phone, agitated, like me, wondering what was going through my head.
That nice little bit of defiance got me through to Sunday evening, which was when it suddenly occurred to me that Nick might not have been waiting by the phone for my call, agitated, wondering what was going through my head. He might, instead, have been making calls to other women, with whom he’d probably been having sex. One after the other. Or perhaps in groups. While not giving me a single thought.
Somehow the memory of that message he’d left on my voicemail started reverberating alongside the image of him kissing two busty, blonde, biceps-grabbing bimbos.
‘It’s Nick’.
What kind of message was that to leave on a girl’s phone after you’d kissed the bejesus out of her?
It’s Nick.
Two words.
Two freaking words! Like, why bother? Especially if you were going to start indulging in orgies with other women as soon as you hung up.
Well, I was going to delete those words. I didn’t know why I hadn’t deleted them already.
I grabbed my phone, called my message bank, finger poised …
And stopped as my eye caught sight of those red folders, stacked on the dining table, waiting to go into the briefcase I would take on the plane tomorrow.
Out of nowhere, I heard Evie’s voice in my head. Did you call him back? My response, He didn’t ask me to, suddenly seemed lame.
I was a journalist and this was a job that had been assigned to me by my boss, regardless of who was pulling what strings behind the scenes. It therefore wasn’t up to Nick to call me, it was up to me to call him. Did I really intend to land in Manila completely clueless about how we were going to interact on the job because of one stupid kiss?
Dammit, no, I did not! It was going to sting, calling Nick Savage, but – deep breath – I was going to do it.
I scrolled for his number. Finger hovering over the call button, heartrate accelerating, dreading the first contact.
Riiiing.
I looked at the phone, not quite believing it was my phone that was ringing. And then I saw that it was Marcus, and I automatically tapped to accept the call, sliding in a boneless heap onto the couch, flooded with the oddest mixture of relief and guilt. ‘Marcus! Hi there.’
‘How are you, Chloe?
‘Fine. Just … fine,’ I said, and then we both lapsed into an awkward silence. ‘So I guess … I guess you fly out tomorrow, right?’ I ventured. ‘Hawaii.’
‘And you too, I hear.’
‘You know about Manila?’
‘Nick told me.’
Pause. More awkwardness.
‘Chloe, I –’
‘Marcus, I –’
Strained laughter.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to get it together. ‘So you’ve seen Nick, that’s good,’ I said. ‘I was scared you two might … Not that there’s a reason to feel … Nothing to come between …’ Get it together, dammit. ‘I’m glad you’re still friends. Because it was a one-off, just a stupid moment. I’m blaming it on the martinis. Gin, you know. It’s deadly stuff.’
‘It’s fine, Chloe. I … I understand. In fact I …’
I sensed the hesitation, heard the breath he took, and waited, wondering inconsequentially why I’d never noticed before how uncomfortable my leather couch was.
‘I just wanted to check we’re on the same page with the announcement about our split,’ he said at last – and just like in the back of the limo a week ago, I knew there was something else going on under the surface. ‘Did Tom send it over?’ Tom was the Scorpions’ media manager.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve signed off on it. He said it will go out once we’re both in the air. And no further comment from either of us, right?’
‘Right,’ Marcus said – and there was another moment of hesitation. ‘I … I want to stay friends, Chloe.’
‘Me too.’
‘Whatever happens in the future,’ he added.
Alarm bells. ‘What do you mean whatever happens in the future? You’re not dying, are you?’
He laughed. ‘No. Not that I know of, anyway.’
‘Promise?’
‘Cross my heart and hope to –’
‘Do not finish that or I will kill you, Marcus!’
More laughter. ‘Let’s catch up when I’m back from Hawaii.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I love you, Chloe.’
I swallowed. Swallowed again. ‘I love you too,’ I whispered, but Marcus had already disconnected.
It hit me, then. This was it. Flying to different places tomorrow, the announcement would go out, and we were over. Really, truly, irrevocably over.
Blink, blink, breathe, blink, as Nick’s voicemail message started echoing in my head again, like an accusation. It’s Nick. I hadn’t allowed mys
elf to listen to it since that first time. Had I missed something? Something that would indicate that kissing Nick was worth what I’d done to myself, to Marcus?
I stood and started pacing as I called my message bank, straining to hear over the thrum of my too-loud pulse. Okay, there it was. The infinitesimal pause. And … and breathing. I could hear Nick breathing. One. Two. And then, It’s Nick. Absolutely no inflection. Another tiny pause. And, yes, one more breath. Hang up.
It’s Nick. Two words. Nothing else.
I’d decimated my life for two words.
Two words … and one kiss.
One stupid kiss, a two word message, and here I was, whipping myself into a frenzy over a simple phone call I should be making to an interviewee, more like an insecure teenager after an ill-advised make-out session than a journalist from a top-rating television program. Visualising Nick with other women, as though I cared what he did! Unable to do my job the way it deserved to be done, with my undivided attention, because I was too busy obsessing over who should be calling whom.
I don’t know when I’d stated shaking, but shaking I most definitely was. And that was the last straw. Chloe Masters did not shake. Chloe Masters got on with the job. Nick Savage was not important, the job was. Simple as that. It was just a job. A job, job, job, job, goddammit. And not even a difficult job. No hard-hitting exposé of political corruption here, no corporate fraud exclusive. Even a celebrity scandal would have been a bigger deal.
Just a job. And the nine red folders sitting on my dining table proved it.
Just a job. The research for which I’d been through with a fine tooth comb.
Just a job. I knew who to interview, I knew what to ask.
Just a job. A feel-good story about a playground.
Just a job. Which required me to not become a nervous wreck over making one phone call to an interviewee.
I walked over to the dining table to retrieve a notepad from my briefcase in case I needed to jot down a few things when I called Nick.
But as I looked down at the stack of red folders, waiting on the table, I realised I was still shaking.
Just a job. But one of those folders contained details about twenty-six children.
Escaping Mr Right Page 8
