Good In Bed

by Bromberg, K

  “Someone else…”

  He froze with a dish in each hand.

  “This cycle… someone else got in, I guess you’d say. It was the night before the IUI appointment, so I was ovulating. I didn’t want any confusion. So.”

  He put down the food. “Don’t tell me who.”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

  “It was Byron Crowne,” he guessed as if he was stating a fact.

  “Confirmed.”

  “Girl.” Hector, the sous chef, delivered two steaming plates into Emilio’s hands and cleared the dirties. “You hate him.”

  “I do, but I think that kind of works in bed. It’s…”

  “Hot.” He put the new dishes on the bar in front of me.

  “So hot the condom broke. Are you mad? You can still be the world’s best uncle.”

  “It’s your body, baby. What did you tell him?”

  “Everything. I had to. Right? I mean, fair is fair. Then I was going to take the morning-after pill and call it a wash, but I couldn’t. I just… I want this too badly.”

  “And what about him?”

  I sighed. It was a short, complicated story he deserved to hear. “He’s down for it, but he wants to be involved.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “He invited me to a family weekend in Santa Barbara. He thinks spending time with him will prove he’d be a decent father. This guy. Do you know what he was doing while we were in bed the other night?”

  “Hopefully not sleeping.”

  “He was backstabbing me. And I’m supposed to believe he’ll be Mr. Honesty from now on? How is a weekend at the beach going to change that?”

  “I hear his parents are nice.”

  “You hear…”

  His parents. He wanted me to meet his parents.

  “Olivia? What’s going on in your head?”

  “He’s so fucked up and so transparent. He’s trying to demonstrate that whatever I think of him, I’ll like his family.”

  “You might.” He pushed a glass of lemon water to me. “Cleanse your palette. The coniglio is subtle, and I don’t want you to miss the surprise.”

  I drank the cold, acidic water to prepare my palette for the rabbit stew.

  If I was ready to like his family, I was ready for just about anything.

  * * *

  A Bentley came for me on Friday evening. He wasn’t in it. His driver, Yusup, whom I remembered from the Eclipse show, handed me a soft, white card in an envelope. “Byron Crowne” was embossed on the back flap. I opened it while he loaded my bag into the trunk.

  Dear Olivia,

  I’m sorry I can’t join you for the ride. I had to come up early to take care of some business. Yusup will do whatever you need to make your trip comfortable.

  I decided not to tell anyone in my family about the possible pregnancy. I don’t want them to get their hopes up. Hope you agree.

  —Byron

  I agreed. For two people who couldn’t stand each other, we saw eye-to-eye on a lot of things.

  “Ms. Monroe.” Yusup stood by the open door. “Do we need to stop anywhere before we go?”

  “No.” I got in, and he closed the door. The inside smelled of new leather and luxury.

  When he was settled in the driver’s seat, he turned to me. “There’s a window between us. Would you like some privacy?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  He nodded and pulled away. “There’s a console to your left if you want to listen to music or the news, water in the pouch in front. You can charge your phone if you like.”

  “What kind of music do you like?” I asked.

  “I’m a classic rock guy myself.”

  That sounded good. I scrolled through the stations until I found one playing Led Zeppelin.

  “What does Byron listen to?” I asked.

  “News, mostly. Stock tickers. Music tends to more lady rock.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Songwriters and their guitars. Liz Phair. Amy Winehouse. That kind of thing.”

  Surprising. I could barely imagine Byron enjoying music at all, much less songs with metaphor-heavy lyrics.

  “How long have you worked for Byron?”

  The car got on the 101 and sped up without a rumble or a change in the engine noise.

  “Going on six years. I sold him his first Bentley, then he hired me. He said he could tell I was ready to leave the dealership. Man oh man, he was right. And couldn’t beat the pay.”

  The tinted windows dimmed the passing night.

  “Did you know his fiancée?” I asked.

  “Nice lady. Terrible what happened.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He was busted up about it.”

  What did “busted up” mean for a man like Byron Crowne? Was he snippy? Angry? More stoic than ever?

  “I bet,” I said. “He’s a sensitive guy.”

  “Sure was.”

  Past tense? Was sensitive? Was the chauffeur referring to a specific incident in the past or his boss as he used to be? Before I could weasel my way into clarification, Yusup changed the subject.

  “You’re going to love the house,” he said. “Great pool. Right on the beach. They have a stable of rescued thoroughbred runts. Do you ride?”

  “A little in high school, but not competitively.”

  “Maybe he won’t try to race you, then.”

  I laughed. Even Byron’s driver knew he wanted to win at everything.

  * * *

  Yusup and I braved the Friday night traffic with small talk and only one bathroom stop. His parents were Muslim Uighurs from Western China, and they had brought him and his sister to the United States when they were small. He wasn’t eager to tell me about the Chinese government’s unwanted attention to his people, but I pressed him. By the time we got to the Santa Barbara coast at nine thirty that night, I knew enough to be angry on his behalf.

  “The Crownes have done everything they could to get my grandmother over here,” Yusup said as the car turned up a small street dotted with houses set far behind wrought iron fences. “But China isn’t impressed with money or lawyers.”

  “What are they impressed with?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing, man. Ted Crowne had a refinery in Ningbo province. He threatened to close it unless China issued visas to her and anyone she wanted to bring. They called his bluff.”

  “So, he didn’t close it?” We drove up into the hills, through an iron gate with a crown in the center that opened as the car approached.

  “No, he closed it. China took it over like that.” He snapped his fingers. “They don’t like to lose. Not for one grandma or a hundred. But the Crownes are honorable. They’re people of their word. Ted apologized to me like he hadn’t lost millions on that refinery.”

  Yusup stopped the car at the top of the circular drive. The Spanish-style house looked modest from the front, lush with crawling, flowering vines and old trees that, come morning, would cast the yard in shade.

  Yusup turned to make eye contact as he put the car in park. “I hope I didn’t bring you down.”

  “Not at all. You made a boring ride very interesting.”

  Byron came out the front door wearing jeans and a deep-green, unbuttoned polo. He opened the back door for me while Yusup got my bag from the trunk.

  “How was your ride?” Byron asked, offering his hand. I took it and let him lift me out.

  “Fine. Yusup’s a great conversationalist.”

  “It’s the car salesman in him,” he announced as if it was a running joke between him and his driver. “Careful or he’ll sell you a Rolls.”

  “It’s the superior drive, if you ask me.” Yusup slammed the trunk closed. “Can I take this upstairs?”

  “I have it.” Byron took the bag. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you!” I called.

  Yusup waved and drove the car around the side of the house.

  “You tired?” Byron asked, leading me to the front door, then into a large ent
ryway with warm stone floors and high ceilings with exposed beams.

  “Not really.”

  “Good. Everyone’s at the pool.”

  “A swim sounds nice.”

  “You can change in your room.” He held out his hand but dropped it before I could take it, as if thinking better of holding my hand. I’d never seen him so unsure of himself.

  I’d have to take it easy on him.

  He led me through a living room with a crackling fireplace and huge, open sliding doors that led to a patio, up a flight of wood stairs, looking back at me to talk. “My mother put you in the room over the pool. If Lyric and her friends stay up late back there, we can switch.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  The upper floor had two short hallways. Byron led me left and into my room, where he placed my bag on a bench at the foot of the bed. The doors opened onto a balcony with two chairs and a table with fresh flowers in the center. The bed was frothy with pure-white linens, the woods were stained clean gray, and the air was thick with ocean salt.

  I heard splashing and talking from below. In the moments of silence, the sound of crashing waves came through.

  He put his hands behind his back. “Will this be all right?”

  “It’s gorgeous.”

  “Good. Good. Bathroom through here.” He reached through an ajar door and flicked a switch, lighting up the pure-white porcelain of the sink. His biceps tensed as if it took all his strength to keep his hands behind him.

  “I should change,” I said.

  “My room is across the hall,” he said.

  “Is that a hint for later?”

  He smirked, and a touch of cockiness came back. “I don’t want to embarrass my family.” He let his hands drop to his sides.

  “Me neither.”

  “So, if I bend you over the bed right now, I can hold my hand over your mouth so they won’t hear you scream.”

  A vision of him holding me down and stifling my screams of pleasure shredded my maturity. I was ready to bend myself over the bed when a peal of young female laughter came from downstairs, saving me from temptation.

  “Byron?”

  “Olivia?” His voice was rough with desire.

  “Get out.”

  Judging from the tightness of his mouth, it took all his strength to leave.

  * * *

  The bikini fit perfectly. If I was pregnant, it was too soon to start showing, but I still checked myself in the mirror to make sure, and I was still disappointed there was no change. I put on a robe and went downstairs, navigating poorly through a library and two living rooms before I found my way around to the back of the house.

  “You must be Olivia,” a woman in her sixties, with a short, gray pixie cut and a sheer robe over her bathing suit, called from the kitchen. She was pouring white wine into two glasses set on the stainless countertop. “I’m Doreen Crowne.”

  “Hi, Mrs.—”

  “Doreen, please.” She jammed the bottle into a bucket of ice to open her arms for me. The embrace was warm but not overly familiar.

  “Nice to meet you, Doreen.”

  “I hope you like Chablis.” She handed me a glass. “Kind of old school, but on a hot night, it’s perfect.”

  A potentially pregnant woman shouldn’t drink. I took the glass anyway. “Thank you.”

  “Come,” she said as she slid open the back door. “Everyone’s so excited to meet you!”

  I followed her out, hoping she was exaggerating.

  The turquoise pool was shaped like a bitmapped comma with a hot tub at the narrowest end. Two men sat at a table by themselves, speaking earnestly and quietly under an overhang of grape vine. The middle-aged man had to be Ted Crowne. Byron had his lips and his intensity. The younger man I recognized as Logan from the Eclipse show. On the left of the pool were empty banks of private couches. To the right were sun chairs occupied by four women in their twenties, huddling together over the glow of their phones. Directly forward there was nothing but blackness on the horizon, but in the morning, there would be an unobstructed view of the ocean.

  There were flowers and plants everywhere. Every corner had a potted mini-tree. Vines wound through the overhung eaves. As I let myself relax into the intimacy and warmth of the foliage and soft lighting, my eyes fell on the reason I was there.

  Byron stood at the edge of the pool, still fully dressed except for his bare toes curling around the curve of the tile. The underwater lights shimmered from beneath him, turning his expression from friendly, to lustful, to powerful, and back again.

  Which one was really him? Or had the rippling water exposed a complex reality?

  “You must be Olivia.” A man’s voice came from my right, but Byron’s lips hadn’t moved.

  “Yes,” I said in that general direction.

  Ted was standing to greet me, and Doreen led me over. A heat lamp flamed above us.

  “Olivia, this is Ted, Byron’s father.”

  We shook hands over the table, which was covered in papers and folders.

  “This is such a beautiful house,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “When I inherited this place, it was falling down. Doreen brought it back to life.” He nodded to his wife with deep admiration.

  “Want to buy it?” Logan asked, closing his laptop before standing.

  “Logan,” Doreen scolded.

  “It’s a ridiculous expense.” He shook my hand. “Except when we have such lovely guests.”

  “We talked about this.” Byron’s voice was right behind me. He’d approached so quickly and quietly I jumped a little.

  “Did we?” Logan smirked, sitting and opening his laptop.

  “My brother’s a world-class flirt. Ignore him.”

  Byron eyed my wine glass suspiciously. I held onto it. He wasn’t the boss of me, and I didn’t have to prove I was keeping healthy. Not to him.

  “He was being friendly,” Doreen objected. “Which he should keep doing.”

  Doreen pushed the laptop closed.

  “Yeah,” Lyric said, walking over in a bikini top and a towel around her waist. Her damp hair hung loose to her waist, curling slightly as it dried. “Put that shit away, dude.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m Lyric. Nice to meet you.”

  Her hand was cool and damp from a recent swim.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  She pointed at her friends. “That’s Corinne, Kristy, and Karla.”

  Two of the three waved. The third didn’t look up from her phone.

  “I’m going in to get some chips. Want anything?” she asked me.

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Refill me, would you?” Logan pushed a short glass with ice on the bottom toward her. “The Macallan. Thanks.”

  “Basics get their own.” She strutted into the house with a defiant sway to her hips.

  “They wanted a girl,” Byron muttered.

  “You boys needed a sister,” Ted replied, then looked at his wife with a smirk that must have been patented for the Crowne gene pool. He pulled out a chair. “Sit, Olivia.”

  “I was thinking of jumping in first.” I put down my glass.

  “Go on,” Doreen said, sitting. “It’s perfect.”

  The diving board was on the side with the couch banks, and Byron followed me there.

  “Sorry about them,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “My family. We have a habit of inter-sibling harassment.”

  “I think it’s cute.” I slid out of the robe and dropped it on a lounger.

  “You’re trying to kill me in that bikini,” he murmured.

  I stepped up onto the diving board. “Death is too good for you.”

  Without hesitation, I dove headfirst into the cool shock of the water, letting the loud whoosh and gurgle turn into placid white noise. I let my mind relax and let my body go limp and passive so the air in my lungs and buoyancy could carry it to the surface. Thoughts floated away, and for a single moment, I didn’t want anythi
ng but the caress of the water.

  An underwater eruption yanked me out of my reverie, then hard hands gripped my arms and I was pulled upward, gasping for air not because I was out of breath, but because I was too stunned to hold it.

  “You’re okay?” Byron held me tightly, as if I’d sink like a stone without him. His brown hair was black with water and flattened to his face, and his lashes were stuck together. The polo was stuck to his chest, and water dripped from his lips. He was struggling to tread water.

  “Me? You could drown wearing jeans in the pool.”

  “Just… don’t do that.” He let go, looking away from me.

  “Do what?”

  I followed his gaze. Doreen was standing. Lyric was at the door with a bowl of chips in her hand. All her friends were on the edges of their chairs, ignoring their phones to stare at us. Logan remained seated, but Ted was on his feet.

  “You guys,” I said. “Really. I’m a California state bronze medalist. Freestyle.”

  Logan laughed and came to the edge closest to me, holding out his hand. The stairs were only halfway across the pool, but Logan’s intention was clear: prove competence. I swam toward him, leaving Byron behind.

  “It’s not you,” Logan said. “They’re worried Byron’s going to sink.”

  I locked wrists with him, and he pulled me out. Doreen brought me a huge striped towel and insisted on wrapping it around my shoulders.

  “He’s jumpy,” she said under her breath.

  Lyric brought the chips to her cohort, and they went back to their phones.

  Byron sloshed up the stairs, taking a few gallons in the heavy weaves of his clothes.

  “You’re a hero looking for a crisis,” Logan said, handing him a towel.

  “You’re the crisis.” Byron grabbed the towel, but Logan didn’t let it go.

  A tug-of-war ensued so quickly I almost missed Logan pulling the towel and ducking to get Byron over his shoulders to throw him back in. But Byron recovered enough to pull Logan in with him, and both of them landed in the water fully clothed.

  I laughed, and Byron seemed to forget himself long enough to lean on his brother’s shoulders to dunk him. Logan got out from under and tried to return the favor. They smiled and splashed, wrestling for dominance like two kittens in the same litter.