Portia Moore - He Lived Next Door

by Unknown

  I look through my phone again, going into the bathroom, and I dial Bryce’s number, but it goes straight to voicemail. I chuckle bitterly and hang up.

  As I walk back out to the kitchen, where Davien has set out dinner, I picture Bryce and Kira together, laughing, talking, kissing, and it gets progressively worse. I force the thoughts out of my head. I sit down across from Davien, who has poured wine instead of vodka, and I’m grateful. He ordered Thai food—noodles and some chicken dish and rice.

  “This smells great,” I say with a weak smile.

  He looks as if he’s waiting for me to try it. “It tastes even better.”

  I happily eat a swirl of noodles with my chopsticks. It’s amazing. “You’re right.”

  He beams. “I usually am. Let’s make a toast.”

  “To what?” I ask, trying to catch the earlier feeling.

  “To living life for ourselves,” he announces, his eyes locking on to mine. “To not being controlled by anyone or anything, to making our own decisions and living this life, enjoying every single second of it, until the very last drop.”

  His eyes hold mine captive. I can’t believe how relevant his words are, and I nod before toasting with him. The wine is amazing, going down smooth and light and pairing perfectly with the spiciness of the noodles. I concentrate on the taste of the food, the sound of the music, the sight of Davien. I focus on the moment, this moment.

  I try to, as he said, take advantage of every second. I eat until I’m past full, and I have a second glass of wine. He cleans up, and soon we’re back on the couch as he tells me stories of his travels. He’s been to every single continent. I ask if he speaks any other languages, and he begins to speak in Italian. I only recognize a few words from the two years I took classes in high school, and of course his Italian sounds nothing like the choppy, tangled sentences I’d say if I tried. He’s clearly fluent, his pronunciation smooth and beautiful.

  “What did you say?” I ask quietly.

  “It’s getting harder…” A smile spreads across his illegally handsome face, and it’s wicked. “To be next to you and not touch you, to look at your lips and not kiss them, to sense how much you want me to but not be allowed to touch. It’s torture, the definition of being in hell.”

  I swallow hard. He’s no longer smiling, and the air that was light is full of tension and lust, thick and intoxicating.

  “I-is that a poem or a line one of your authors have written?” My voice is a little above a whisper.

  “No.”

  We’re no longer teasing each other. There’s no hint of playfulness, no more thinly veiled innuendos. We’re just two people who are dangerously attracted to one another, sitting only a few inches apart. I think of my questions from not even an hour earlier. Asking for an answer, a sign. I think of how Bryce didn’t pick up when I called. I guess that was my answer. I have no one to answer to or for, and Bryce doesn’t care what I’m doing or who I’m with, and I can’t say who my own husband is with.

  “Then why haven’t you?” I ask.

  He bites his lip and lets out a breath that he seems to have been holding forever. “Because I need permission.” His voice is full of hunger, and it’s me he wants to devour.

  I look into his eyes. They’re deep, no longer pale but a dark storm-colored grey, intense and demanding. He moves closer to me and I don’t move away, our lips, no more than a finger’s width apart.

  “You don’t seem like a man who asks for permission.”

  “I’m not exactly what I seem,” he says with a barely there grin.

  I want this.

  I really do.

  I want Davien—my body does, at least. It doesn’t discriminate between what’s right or wrong, what’s fair or not fair. It’s screaming that it wants this man, even if temporarily, regardless of the consequences or the damage. My mind is telling me that I’m not entirely wrong if I do this, Bryce is possibly doing the same thing right now. If for some reason I’m completely incorrect about him and Kira, then he never has to know…

  My heart is broken. It can’t speak right now.

  “Kiss me.”

  My words are barely above a whisper, but he hears. His lips press against mine, and words slip away. I melt into him, and it’s easier than I ever thought it could be to kiss someone I don’t love.

  His arms wrap around my waist, pulling me close as the kiss deepens. I’m breathless as my thoughts and sensations crash against one another. We’re no longer orbiting each other—I’m in his atmosphere. I sense everything slipping away, my reservations, guilt, anger, sadness. His hands move between my thighs, making way for his body to slide between them. Then he’s on top of me, and our mouths don’t separate for one moment.

  His hands leave my body, and I can hear him undoing his pants. I hear my breath, the music, and my phone.

  I think it’s my phone.

  I try to ignore it as he takes his shirt off a body chiseled to perfection, not one ounce of fat hiding any of his muscles. I touch them, my hand trailing down each etched ab. He pulls me to him as his hands slide under my shorts, tugging them down, and I feel light. My body longs for what’s about to come, but I keep hearing my phone ring.

  He sees my gaze turning toward it. I watch the phone moving on the island, lighting up, and he grips my chin, turning it back toward him before delving into my mouth. His tongue moves expertly as his fingers trail down my back, pulling my underwear below the swell of my butt. I try to focus on his touch, which doesn’t feel foreign or intrusive.

  He feels like Bryce.

  His movements are so much like his, even his kisses, that if I closed my eyes and pretended I was dreaming, it’d be Bryce. I picture his face, and in an instant, he has Bryce’s face. But then he’s Davien again, sucking my neck, sliding his fingers to places that make me moan. I should revel in this, but I feel panic instead…

  My phone rings again. It’s louder and more intrusive, and I can’t focus on anything else.

  “Davien, stop. I have to get the phone,” I say, grateful for an excuse to break away from his embrace. I can’t tell him I keep seeing flashes of my husband. That’d make me sound insane.

  “Ignore it,” he mumbles against my lips.

  “No, stop, I’ve got to get it.” I pull away from him and run over to my phone. It’s the same unknown number from earlier. “Hello?” My voice is shaky and comes out too loud.

  “Chassidy?” a woman says. It sounds familiar but I can’t place it. “This is Annette.”

  My stepmom.

  “Um, hi. This is sort of a bad time,” I tell her, looking back at Davien apologetically.

  He’s sitting up now, his arms crossed and wearing just his boxers and an irritated glare. He could be the model for an edgy Calvin Klein commercial. I try to suppress the smile spreading across my face.

  “Chassidy, your father’s in the hospital.”

  That kills the smile that was about to creep across my face.

  “I-is he okay? What happened?” I ask, gripping my phone tighter. I already know from the long pause that he isn’t.

  “We’ve been trying to reach you all day. I wanted Bryce to tell you in person.” Her voice breaks.

  My heart is pounding so hard it almost hurts, fear creeping up from the pit of my stomach. “Just tell me!”

  “He’s been in a car accident.” I must be silent for too long, because she asks, “Did you hear me?”

  I nod before realizing she can’t see me. “Yeah… so… how bad is it?” There’s another pause, and I grip the island to prepare myself. When I hear her burst into tears, I lower myself to the floor.

  “Hey, Chassidy.” It’s my little sister’s voice. She sounds tired and broken too.

  “Hi, Stephanie.”

  “It’s not good, but we’re hoping for the best.” Her voice is strained and I can tell she’s doing her best to hold in her own tears.

  The phone call only lasts a few minutes, but it changes everything. By the time I hang up,
I realize I’m on the floor, tears falling, with just a T-shirt on. I look up and Davien is standing next to me, his face unreadable as he sits down next to me. I tell him what I just found out, and I like that he doesn’t say he’s sorry or that everything will be fine.

  “That’s terrible, Chassidy,” he says after a few seconds, his face blank.

  “I’ve got to go.” I don’t know if there’s regret in my voice, because the only thing I feel is numb.

  After sitting in a daze for I’m not sure how long, I grab my laptop and look for flights to California. There’s one leaving in three hours, and I book it without a second thought. I tell Davien about the flight and he offers to take me to the airport, but it’d be easier for me to take an Uber. I float through the next hour.

  Davien gives me space because I’m not sure what else he could give me. Finding out your dad has been in a car accident kills the mood completely, and Davien’s not the most sensitive guy in the world. I think he gives me space partly because he’s afraid of saying something that would make things worse, not that I can think of anything that could make this worse.

  I don’t remember getting in the shower, but I’m in here. I keep waiting for tears to come, but they don’t. I just have this weight that seems to sit on my chest, so heavy that everything preceding the phone call seems irrelevant or unimportant. I try not to think about any of it: Bryce and me, my lost little angels, the possibly real hallucination angel, what just happened between Davien and me. I put it into a box that’s too small to fit it all. The slightest shift will make everything explode out of it.

  When I get out of the shower, I put on another Pink sweat suit and tennis shoes, my designated plane wear. I look at the bags of things I bought that won’t fit into the carry-on bag I brought with me. I thought I’d have more time to buy a bigger suitcase. I ask Davien if I can borrow one of his, and less than a minute later, he’s appeared with a big black one. He’s fully dressed now, so I assume he’s going to go meet with someone who can give this night a better finish than I did. I can’t blame him.

  As if reading my mind, he gives me an apologetic smirk. I just place the bags in the suitcase he gave me. When I’m done, I roll both cases out of the room I didn’t even have a chance to sleep in, but then I realize that if what almost happened had happened tonight, I wouldn’t have slept in it anyway. I request my Uber, and it’s only six minutes away.

  He stands and grabs the bags from me. “I’m going to walk you down.”

  “Thank you.”

  There’s an awkward tension between us, but not as bad as it could be. We leave the apartment and press the elevator button. As we go down, I glance at him.

  “You know, this could make a pretty good premise for a story,” he says, and I chuckle.

  “I’m sorry about all of this.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Chassidy.”

  We reach the ground floor, and I hold the elevator door open for him. “I just hate I brought all of this to your doorstep.”

  “Chassidy?”

  When I hear my name, almost as if from a ghost, my body stiffens. When I turn and see him, I’m confused and speechless. “Bryce?”

  My poor heart is on a treadmill that’s just gone from one to ten on an incline. My eyes are wide, my mouth wider, and I don’t know what to say. He walks toward me, his expression somewhere between confused and hurt. That little box I packed everything in is opening, and I’m trembling. I glance at Davien, whose expression is blank as he looks between us, then for some idiotic reason, he grins. I’m trying to think of something to say or what to do, but it’s as if all my systems have shut down.

  “What are you doing here?” is all I can manage to say.

  But Bryce isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at us, his expression changed from perplexed to furious.

  “This is my agent!” I say quickly, and I realize that still doesn’t explain why I’m coming out of an apartment building with a man—not just any man, but a man who looks like Davien—in another state, with overnight bags, at almost ten thirty at night. All the blood drains from my face.

  “Nice to meet you,” Davien says, his voice not giving away a bit of guilt, nervousness, or fear.

  Bryce glances at his hand, then his eyes rip a hole through me. “Agent? The one you didn’t tell me about?”

  Davien takes back his hand, apparently realizing it’s not going to be shaken. I feel sick when I think about where his hands just were on my body.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Chassidy?” Bryce’s voice is now not only sharp but louder, and we’re drawing attention from the lobby attendant and a group of people dressed up for a night out.

  “Bryce, can we not talk about this now?” I plead, even though guilt and shame are pouring off of me.

  He laughs bitterly. “This isn’t an office building. This is an apartment complex. You think I’m stupid?”

  Seeing tears in his eyes, I look away. I can feel his rage. Bryce doesn’t get angry often, but when he does, it’s a disaster.

  “Look, guy, I know you’re upset, but don’t do this here,” Davien says.

  “You don’t tell me what the hell to do,” Bryce says angrily. “Are you sleeping with my wife?”

  The lobby’s gone quiet, all attention on us.

  “Is everything okay, Mr. Marx?” the attendant asks.

  “It’s fine, Thomas,” Davien says calmly, but I’m about to faint.

  “We didn’t sleep together!” I whisper loudly to Bryce, never more thankful to tell the truth.

  His eyes whip across my face, searching for a lie. I do my best to let him know it’s the truth, but Bryce isn’t stupid. He knows me, he used to be my best friend, and he knows something isn’t right about this.

  “Bryce, please. Can we just go? I just found out my dad was in an accident.” I feel like dirt using my dad as an excuse, but if I don’t, things are going to go really badly.

  His expression softens just a bit, but it’s something. “I know. That’s why I came here.”

  His voice is colder than ice, but I’d rather him run cold than hot, and I feel even more like crap when I realize that after everything, he’s here for me. His eyes go from me to Davien and back to me. I dare not look at Davien, but I hope he’s not wearing his signature amused, smug grin.

  “Please, Bryce, my flight leaves in less than an hour. Can we just go? We can talk in the car, I promise,” I beg, taking his hands.

  He looks down at me, and all I see is confusion, hurt, and disappointment. He nods and grabs my bags from behind Davien. “Yeah, we can go.”

  As we walk toward the front entrance, I slink behind Bryce, not knowing what to say. We’re almost at the door when I glance back, hoping Davien can see how sorry I am for all of this, and my stomach drops when I see his smug grin. I instantly regret looking back.

  “See you soon, Chassidy,” he says loudly.

  Bryce stops, and I grab his arms, pleading with my eyes before the words reach my mouth. But before I can say anything, he’s run back to Davien and knocked him onto the floor.

  “Bryce, stop!” I scream, running toward them.

  Bryce is punching Davien, who does his best to protect his face. They’re are about the same height and build, Davien having maybe an inch or two on Bryce, but Bryce is powered by pure anger. The lobby attendant, along with a few guys who were standing by the door, rushes to break them up, and they manage to pull Bryce off of him. But Davien runs toward Bryce and punches him. The men holding Bryce scramble to grab both of them. Fists and elbows fly, and I’m crying, feeling completely helpless. I can’t even look at them.

  Before long, the attendant has them separated. “Do you want us to call the police, Mr. Marx?”

  “Please don’t!” I exclaim.

  “No, no, it’s fine. We’re good,” Davien says, catching his breath.

  “What about you, sir?” he asks Bryce.

  I silently beg him to say it’s okay.

  “I’m good,”
he says after a few moments. He’s purposely not looking at me.

  I glance around and see the group from earlier seems to have multiplied. They’re all staring at us—or at me. I’m the whore who caused this mess, and it sucks because I don’t have any defense.

  “How about you go back upstairs, Mr. Marx?” the attendant suggests before letting Bryce go.

  “That’s a good idea.” Davien’s voice sounds completely unaffected, and he’s back to wearing his signature smile.

  The attendant hits the elevator button for Davien, and Davien winks at me before the doors close. Bryce attempts to lunge at him again, but the group of men hold him.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” I cry.

  The men look at me as if I’m wearing a scarlet letter. Most of them didn’t hear what was going on, but after that display, I’m pretty sure they’ve put two and two together. They give Bryce sympathetic looks before dispersing. I attempt to make eye contact with Bryce again, but he turns away from me and walks toward the door.

  My phone rings. It’s my Uber driver, and I tell him I’m on my way out.

  “Are you okay, miss?” the lobby attendant asks.

  Bryce is still visibly upset, and he shakes his head at me before he hurries through the door. I grab my bags and follow him, shouting a thanks to the attendant over my shoulder.

  When I leave the lobby, I expect Bryce to be gone, but he’s just outside the door, hands in his pocket, eyes on the ground. I stand in front of him, not knowing what to say. God, how the tables have turned since the last time I saw him—that thought gives me more confidence at least.

  “Did you sleep with him?” His voice is low and seems broken.

  “No. I swear to you.”

  When he finally looks at me, his eyes scour my face, his own crinkled at the corners and full of hurt. “Is that who you’ve been pushing me away for? I-I thought it was about Logan.” His voice breaks.

  “No, I promise you. I just met him last month,” I say, dodging people that are coming down the street. My phone rings again, and I see it’s the Uber driver. I pick up and say, “Can you just give me a few more minutes, please?”

  “No, you don’t need any more time. You should go,” Bryce spits, his voice void of all emotion.