Arm Candy

by Jessica Lemmon

  That memory leads to another—the way Hanna used to leave her shoes scattered around the house.

  And another—her voice echoing through the foyer as she spoke to her mother for an hour each Saturday morning.

  I finally get the bite down, deeply in need of a wet drink to coax it to my stomach. At the fridge I overlook the pitcher of water and a container of orange juice and focus on the line of Sam Adams bottles staring back at me.

  Every year I get through this day with relatively few flashbacks. On rare occasions, thoughts of Hanna and our life together assault me. The last time it happened was four years ago—I thought I was over it. Guess not.

  This is going to suck.

  I swipe a bottle from the shelf and decide to start drinking sooner than I originally planned…like now.

  Now seems good.

  Grace

  Margo comes in at five o’clock. She’s my bartending and managerial relief. I’m so glad she’s back, I could kiss her. I refrain, but I do thank her for not leaving me forever.

  “How were tango lessons?” I ask.

  “Good.” Her eyes brighten. “My husband and I try and do things together to keep the love alive.” She’s never shared anything personal with me since I met her, but I try not to overreact. “He can’t dance a single step, but he tries, and that means something.”

  I chime in with my agreement, though I can’t think of a time when a boyfriend has gone out of his way to do something nice for me that didn’t also benefit him. Then I think of the champagne tasting, and the way Davis was going to leave my house without sex, and wonder if that counts.

  It does and I know it.

  I pocket my tips and do some light cleaning. I’m about to leave when—no kidding—a gaggle of skirts and suits pour in through the doors. They’re all carrying briefcases or large handbags and using very office-y words. It’s rare on a Thursday to see this sort of rush early, so I offer to stay and help Margo get them settled. There’s only one other server on the floor, and since Margo is chained to the bar, there’s no way can she handle everyone at once.

  I grab a pen and pad of paper and start toward the group, who are shoving tables together and arranging their seats, when the door swings open and Vince and Jackie rush in.

  “Grace. Thank God.” Davis’s best friend looks alarmed. I’ve never seen Vince’s expression anything short of playful. A dart of dread ricochets through me as I glance over at his girlfriend. Jackie’s brown eyes are wide with alarm as well.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, business gaggle forgotten.

  Vince does a quick survey of McGreevy’s. “Davis isn’t here?”

  “No. He said he had a thing today.”

  “Yeah. He does. He’s not at home.” Vince says this as if thinking to himself, his focus elsewhere in the room. His piercing blue eyes return to me. “When is the last time you saw him?”

  I hesitate a moment before admitting, “He left my house just before midnight.”

  Jackie’s alarm fades to a soft look of surprise, and even Vince forgets his immediate concerns to give me a lopsided smile.

  “Nice,” he says approvingly. “When did this happen?”

  “It’s pretty new,” I hedge. And pretty temporary, I decide not to add.

  “If he comes in here, text me. Have your phone on you?” His cell is in his hand and he asks me for my phone number. I rattle it off, pulling my iPhone from my back pocket. Davis’s last text—a round peach that looks more like a lady’s derriere than a piece of fruit—sits on my screen with my follow-up texts. A new text pops up on my screen reading Vince.

  “Got it.” Before I chicken out, I ask, “Is he okay?”

  “He’ll be okay,” Vince assures me, but when he presses his lips together, I wonder if he means it. He grasps Jackie’s hand and asks if she wants to stay here while he goes and looks for Davis, and Jackie immediately turns to me.

  “Grace, are you all right alone?” she asks. “I’ll stay here with you if you want me to.”

  “I’m fine.” Gosh. That was nice. Jackie and I don’t know each other very well, but she’s genuinely offering to sit with me. I force a smile. “I have to get these customers settled, and then I’m done for the day.”

  “You’re sure?” Jackie takes a step forward and tilts her pretty face.

  “Totally sure. Thank you.” I don’t want to take her away from Vince, who looks like he might need her more than I do. I include him in my next statement. “Will you let me know he’s all right?”

  “Will do, Gracie.” Vince uses Davis’s nickname for me, but it’s more brotherly coming from him.

  I try not to worry about Davis as I take orders and make drinks. Vince and Jackie are on the case. After a bit of debate, I decide not to text Davis. I don’t want to bother him if he’s trying to be alone and deal with whatever “thing” he had last night.

  On the drive back to my house, my evil imagination suggests he’s visiting an ex-girlfriend for some sex therapy or that he’s drunk himself into a stupor of mourning or rage, or maybe he wrecked his Mercedes and he’s lying in a ditch. I quickly dismiss the doom-filled thoughts. Davis isn’t the reckless type.

  At seven o’clock I receive the text I’ve been waiting for from Vince.

  Davis is at home. Fine but wants to be alone. Sorry to worry you.

  I text back a simple Thanks, but my worries aren’t allayed.

  I understand Davis wanting to be alone. Whenever something goes awry in my life, I prefer to suffer in silence too. I thumb through the memories of my past—those times I spent enduring by myself. Whether I was holed up in my teenage bedroom while my parents screamed at each other, sobbing in the stadium’s bathroom at the site of my college graduation because my father stood me up yet again, or soaking in a cooling tub of bathwater with a glass of wine after my stupid boyfriend of two years broke my stupid heart, being alone has been a horrible way to get through hard times.

  What I wouldn’t have given for my mother to come into my bedroom and apologize for making me endure her and my father’s mutual hatred. Or for one of my friends to notice I was missing and come check on me in that stadium bathroom. I wish I’d called up Roxanne the time my stupid boyfriend broke my stupid heart. She would have listened. Sobbing on her shoulder would have helped.

  I was too stubborn to admit that until now.

  Davis doesn’t have to spend the evening enduring whatever tough time he’s going through alone. He has me.

  I’m going over there. At the very least, he’s my friend and I have as much of a right to check on his well-being as Vince and Jackie.

  With conviction, I button my coat and grab my purse and march out to my car. I arrive at his place in less than ten minutes and decide at his doorstep that I’m going to knock until he lets me in. If he doesn’t let me in, I’m going to knock until one of his neighbors lets me in.

  I rap my knuckles on the door exactly five times before it opens. Davis is standing in the foyer, keys in hand.

  “You’re wearing jeans,” I say, surprised to see him in denim and a button-down shirt. In anything other than a pressed suit and jacket. I eye the keys in his hand. “I hope you weren’t about to drive somewhere in your condition.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Where were you going?”

  His gray eyes narrow. “Out.”

  I cross the threshold and shut us inside. I worried on the way over here that Davis was sitting with whiskey bottle in hand, his tie and shirt askew, belting out show tunes. Instead he’s bright-eyed and smells of his crisp, pine-y cologne. “You don’t look drunk.”

  “I’m not drunk.” His eyebrows crash over his nose. “What the hell are you doing here?” It’s not exactly a yell, but his voice has lost that calm, warm quality he exudes around me. The question stings, but I stand my ground.

  “Vince came into McGreevy’s looking for you. He was worried.” I finger the button on my coat and admit, “He made me worry.”

  Dav
is takes an intimidating step toward me, his voice a low warning. “What did he tell you?”

  “Not much. That you were home and wanted to be alone.” I lick my lips nervously as I peer up at him. I ignored Vince’s advice, and now that I’m standing in front of Davis, I wonder if we’re friends after all. Did he give Vince and Jackie the same hard time? With no other explanation, I sort of repeat, “I was worried about you.”

  “Worried I’d be drunk,” he states, his expression downgrading from enraged to peeved. “When have you ever seen me drunk, Gracie?”

  I think back to all the times he’s sat at my bar and shake my head. “I haven’t.”

  “Right. I drink. I don’t get drunk. I had a buzz earlier. Then I had a nap. Then I had a surprise visit from Vince and Jackie. And then I changed to come out and see you.”

  That takes me a moment to digest.

  “You were coming to see me?” I ask to be sure I heard him right.

  “Yeah.”

  “But you said this weekend.”

  “I did.”

  “Were you going to McGreevy’s?”

  “I was going to start there.”

  “I’m not there,” I whisper.

  He smiles and catches my hand, tugging me close. His arm braces my back and his fingers slide into my hair. I’m rewarded with a soft, slow, deep Davis kiss. I sigh into his mouth and kiss him back.

  When he pulls away, his fingers are massaging my scalp and his forehead is resting on mine. The arm at my back tightens and I wrap my arms around his shoulders and we hug.

  We hug for a long while.

  His heart thumps heavily against my breasts and he breathes out long and slow. I bet it’s the deepest breath he’s taken since he left my house last night.

  “Don’t go” is all he says.

  “I wasn’t planning on it.” I stroke his cheek and look into his eyes, seeing pain there.

  He kisses me again before leading me up two sets of stairs to his bedroom. In front of his bed, he palms my hands and weaves our fingers together. We stand like that for a few beats before he lets go and starts on his shirt buttons. He bares his golden chest before he strips off my shirt. Together we unbutton and unzip our jeans, mirroring each other as we bend to slip off our shoes.

  In a matter of seconds, Davis is in boxers, and I’m in my pale pink satin bra and panties.

  He crooks a finger for me beckoning me to him. I still want to know what’s wrong with him. If anything is wrong with him. I don’t think I’m part of what’s wrong, considering he’s tossing my bra aside and plunging his hand into my panties to stroke my wetness. It further confirms he wants me here when he says those very words into my ear, his breath hot as I massage his thick cock with one hand.

  “I want you, Gracie,” he breathes.

  “You can have me, Davis,” I answer.

  We make love in a different way from the first two times. Davis has always been respectful of my needs, but his kisses are more reverent tonight. He holds me tighter than before. His kisses linger, and his eyes don’t leave mine as we move together.

  I experience that same planet-shifting sensation when we come together.

  When we’ve recovered, Davis returns to bed and lies beside me, snuggling me close. I rest my head on his chest and stroke his chest with my fingers. I decided not to bring it up—to let Davis have his secret.

  Evidently he has other plans.

  His chest lifts and on a quiet sigh, he announces, “Today’s my wedding day.”

  My hand stills its exploration. I prop myself on one elbow and regard him.

  “You were…supposed to get married today?” My whisper is hollow, because—honestly?—I’m not sure what he’s confessing. That he’s had a fiancée the whole time he’s been offering “packages” to every blonde—and me—in Columbus? Or that he used to be married? That seems more likely. He doesn’t strike me as having a double life.

  “Six years ago today, my life changed forever,” he says.

  “I didn’t know you were married.”

  Davis’s eyes are warm and relaxed. “I wasn’t.”

  Chapter 11

  Davis

  I’ve never been in bed with a woman on my wedding day. Since I stood sweating through my tuxedo jacket six years ago, I’ve held this day in some sort of bizarre limbo. I was supposed to spend the night undressing my bride and making love in the cabana we’d reserved for our on-site honeymoon. Instead I spent that night and the six that followed it in a rum-infused stupor.

  When Grace showed up at my door this evening, I was on my way out to find her. I wasn’t lying. I decided earlier that I’d no longer revere this day like a depraved holiday. It’s way past time to move on.

  My hand runs over Grace’s bare shoulder. She waits for me to say more, her bright eyes trained on me. What do I have to lose? I’ve already shared more with her than I have with anyone—anyone outside of mine and Hanna’s failed destination wedding. But then I didn’t have to share with them because they witnessed every agonizing moment.

  “I had a runaway bride,” I state. It sounds cuter than it was. “Her name was Hanna and we scheduled a destination wedding in the Bahamas. She flew in with me the day before, slept next to me in our honeymoon suite the night before, and then in the morning, she went with her sisters to get her hair and makeup done.”

  That was the last I saw of her.

  “Her mother confirmed that Hanna was there when the photographer was snapping photos of her in her wedding dress. I was told she was in the white tent at the back of the beach when my two best friends, Vince and her brother Roger, lined up next to me. A justice of the peace nodded and the procession music started.”

  The moment the music started, my heart hit my throat and the sting of tears pricked the backs of my eyes. I was about to be married and I was ready. Ready to start my life with Hanna and learn what the future held for us.

  Not much, as it turned out.

  “Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Two.” I take a breath and force myself to continue. “Hanna and her sisters didn’t emerge from the tent. Finally, Hanna’s mother stood from her seat to walk back and check on them. She emerged a moment later to say they were gone.”

  I swallow past a very thick throat. I’ve come this far. May as well tell it all.

  “After the initial panic passed, we learned from the front desk at the resort that she and her sisters had run through the lobby and climbed into a cab. They were laughing.” I shake my head, recalling the hot burn of embarrassment along my collar. “Vince was there—him and his now-ex-wife. Everyone else—Hanna’s mother and father, her brother—took Hanna’s side.”

  Sympathy bends Grace’s eyebrows, but she doesn’t interrupt.

  “Vince had to get back home to work. Understandable. I stayed on the island. That week was the last time I remember being really drunk. I pickled myself in tropical drinks day in and day out. I returned home a week later sunburned, hungover, and delirious from dehydration. Not my finest hour.” I quirk the side of my mouth but can’t manage even the smallest smile. “Hanna had emptied our apartment of our things—including the wedding gifts we received. And she was gone.”

  “Did she contact you again?” Grace asks after a few beats.

  “She called me a few weeks after that to tell me she’d changed her mind about getting married.” I manage a dry laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “No shit, right?”

  “Wow,” Grace mumbles.

  What else is there to say?

  “Since then, I haven’t spent today with anyone but myself.” Questions brew in Grace’s narrowed eyes. I wonder what she’ll say next.

  “So…after you were stranded at the altar,” she starts, “you came home and started serial dating?”

  “Later that year I ventured out, yes.”

  “Was Hanna…blond?” Grace asks, drawing a conclusion that would’ve made sense if I were pining or after revenge on the woman who broke my heart.

  “No.” I win
d a piece of Grace’s hair around my finger and tug. “She had red hair.”

  Understanding dawns on Grace’s face, but her auburn brows close in over her pert nose a second later. She wants to know why her, but she doesn’t ask. I answer her unasked question.

  “You’re different, Gracie. I didn’t want to be attracted to you. The moment I laid eyes on you, I couldn’t tear them away from you. I tried to get Vince to ask you out.”

  “Vince?” Her tone is disbelieving and shocked in a way that tells me she would’ve told him no. That’s good to hear. “By way of what logic?”

  “If you were taken, you’d be the woman who serves me beer, not the hot, delicious, fiery, sassy redhead turning my brains into chopped veal.”

  “Charming.” She smiles.

  I smile. It feels good to smile.

  “Davis?” Grace wrinkles her nose.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you fucked up?”

  I bark a laugh, which surprises me more than the smile did. “On whose scale?”

  “It’s just…I can understand how your fiancée humiliating you and leaving you with no explanation might really fuck you up.”

  “I guess that’s up to the shrinks to decide, isn’t it?” I joke, but sober quickly. “I loved her. I wanted to have a family and settle down and do the whole nine yards. She pulled that rug out from under me and I…”

  I pause to think of the phrase that would describe how I felt afterward.

  “I scrambled to make sense of my life for a while. Then I realized that life doesn’t make any sense and you can only do your best each day. So I dusted off my bruised ego and my sprained pride and put myself back in the game.”

  “With rules.”

  “A few.” I thought they’d protect me. “It’s not about the hair color. Not really. I didn’t want the reminder of a time when my life was spiraling out of control.”

  Wow. That was honest.

  “That makes total sense.”

  The knot in my chest loosens. It means a lot that she understands.

  “You were going to be a family man, and now you spend several nights a week at a bar.” She shakes her head. “I have a lot of regulars, but you are the most attractive. The youngest. The most successful. Why do you do it? Why do you sit alone and sip Sam Adams at McGreevy’s?”