by Mia Ford
“Fuck, more,” I groan.
But my tired body is beginning to falter. My hips move clumsily and I’m gasping sobs at the overwhelming pressure of the heat around us. Ethan’s thrusts, too, are becoming more erratic. We’re reaching the end, chasing the orgasm that is fast approaching.
Then, finally, it hits me so hard that I black out for a second. My chest heaving, I ride it out, barely aware of Ethan shuddering over me, crying out from the force of it. When I come too, Ethan is pulling out of me and collapsing onto the bed beside me, breathing heavily. He’s closing his eyes a lot now, but he rolls onto his side, feeling around for the blankets.
“Stay?” he asks.
I shouldn’t stay. As the pleasure slowly recedes and the enormity of what just happened crashes down on me, I know it would be stupid to stay. But Ethan is looking at me so pleadingly. He’s drunk and he’s tired, and he’s had a huge emotional shock. And, like always, I’m the one that he needs by his side. Not Polly, not some other woman, but me. I’m the one he’s always needed.
I smile softly at him.
“Of course,” I say quietly.
Ethan’s body relaxes and he pulls the blankets over us both. Then he passes out, falling instantly into a deep sleep from both exhaustion and the alcohol. I’m not surprised; between how much he drank, the shock of the letter from Polly and what just happened between us, it’s only natural that he would fall unconscious.
It makes me jealous. I wish I could so easily drop into sleep and pretend that this didn’t happen until the morning.
But I’m wide awake. I stare up at the ceiling. I still can’t believe that that just happened. It feels like déjà vu; just like ten years ago, Ethan initiated a kiss that went way further than either of us had originally intended. And, just like ten years ago, I had gone along with it instead of pushing him away, like I should have, too caught up in the sensation of Ethan being the one who was touching me.
Really, I’m such an idiot.
I turn my head and look at Ethan. His features have smoothed out in sleep. He’s peaceful and I know that this will be one of the last times, in the coming weeks, that he’ll look like that. Polly’s arrival will put lines of stress on his face as he struggles to deal with her presence and all the things he didn’t deal with ten years ago.
Then there’s me, who is meant to be leaving, on top of all that.
I snort quietly, making Ethan shift in his sleep. Leave? Despite what just happened between us, and how awkward it will no doubt be, there’s no way I can leave just yet. The appearance of Polly has changed everything.
Or maybe, a voice that sounds a little like Susie says in the back of my mind, you were just looking for an excuse to put the decision off.
I can’t deny that possibility. As much as I want to go, I’ve also jumped at the first opportunity to not go.
The point still stands, though. How can I possibly run off and leave Ethan behind when his ex-wife is about to show up? At the very least, I need to stick around for just a little longer and see this through.
“You have a life to live. You’re not Lily’s mother. You need to live your life without chaining yourself to us!”
“But you need to do less so you can do you stuff, okay?”
“So go do that, okay? We’ll live. We’ll figure it out.”
I choke on a wet laugh as I remember what Ethan said right before he kissed me. It had been so beautiful. Of course, Ethan isn’t stupid. He’s probably noticed that something is up with me. He’s also noticed how much he and Lily rely on me. And, apparently, he’s been thinking about it and come to the realization that he wants me in his life, but he wants me to be happy more.
Yet, it’s also this that firms my decision to put off the job for just a little longer. All Ethan wants is for me to be happy. I can’t leave until I know that he’s happy.
I sigh. I know that our sleeping together for the second time isn’t going to change anything. We’ll talk a little about it in the morning, and we’ll make the decision, once more, to forget all about it. We’re still friends, we can still talk with each other without remembering how it felt to have sex. Nothing is going to change, and I have no hope, this time, that it will.
I spy my phone on the floor, half out of the pocket of my jeans. Carefully, I lean over the bed and grab it. Ethan grumbles in his sleep and turns over, and I can’t help but giggle at the sight.
Then I open my messages. I hesitate before composing one and sending it to Albert.
I’m still thinking about the job. Sorry it’s taking so long. Can I please just have a little longer? I’ve had a family emergency, and I need to deal with that. I understand if you want to offer the job to someone else.
I don’t expect to get a message back, because it’s almost ten at night. As such, I’m surprised when my phone vibrates barely a minute later.
I understand. Please take the time you need. The job does not officially start for another three months, so you do have a little longer. I just need an answer in the next few weeks. Please don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything.
I feel a surge of affection for my boss. I’ve no doubt that the main office is putting pressure on him for an answer from me, despite how far away the job opening is, but this is Albert’s promise to run interference for me for a little longer. It almost makes me want to message back and tell him to forget about it, because I’m far happier working at our smaller office with him and my other coworkers.
I shake my head. No, I said I would think properly about it, and I will.
When Polly is out of the picture, anyway.
Chapter Nine
Ethan
It takes a moment, when I wake, to remember why I’m naked.
I remember drinking last night. In fact, I remember drinking heavily. I kick myself for it now as my head starts pounding. God, I’m such an idiot. Why the fuck did I think that was a good idea? If I remember rightly, I had intended to have just a few drinks before I went to bed.
But it seems that I spiraled out of control, instead. I feel like Georgia is involved in this somehow. Or did I just imagine that? I remember wanting her to visit, but not wanting to actually ask her to. Then, suddenly, she walked through the door. I think that definitely happened.
I groan. Damn, I didn’t want Georgia to see me like that. I remember showing her the letter, so she’s going to know that I got in that mess all because of Polly, as though I haven’t made any progress at all since she left me.
Then I frown. It feels like there’s something else I’m forgetting. Why am I naked, anyway? Did I strip before bed? I hope I didn’t do that in front of Georgia…
An image comes to mind. Of gasps and naked bodies pressed together, of kissing Georgia’s dark skin and feeling her mouth on me…
Oh. Shit.
I shoot bolt upright in bed. My head spins but I don’t care as I fumble out of the blankets. My boxers are beside the bed and I grab them before hunting for a clean pair of pants and a shirt. Is Georgia still here? She’ll be able to confirm if I was just dreaming, or if we actually did sleep together last night.
And if it is real…then this time I need to get on bended fucking knee to apologize for taking advantage of Georgia again.
I grab my phone to look at the time. My heart sinks a second time. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon. Wasn’t I supposed to pick Georgia up at eleven?
Double fuck.
I throw open my door. Then I pause. There’s the sound of soft giggles and chatter in the kitchen. Trying to ignore my woozy head, I make my way there and stumble through the door.
“Dad!” Lily cries, and the shrill sound sends a spike of pain through my skull. I give my daughter a strained smile. She’s sitting at the table, eating some pancakes that Georgia must have made her for lunch. “Do you feel better? Georgia said you were sick!”
I look into the kitchen. Georgia is fussing with the kettle and, as I watch, she pulls down another coffee mug. She shoots me a grin over he
r shoulder.
“Coffee?” she offers.
“Yes, please,” I groan, collapsing into a seat at the table. “Georgia, did you pick Lily up?”
“Yeah… I remember you telling me yesterday morning that you were picking her up at eleven today,” Georgia explains. “So, since you were sick, I decided to pick her up instead.”
I grimace. I certainly feel sick from this hangover. I glance at Georgia again. I want to talk to her about what happened, but Lily is in the room and there’s no way I’m going to bring it up right now.
“How do you feel?” Georgia asks as she carries two cups of coffee to the table.
“Horrible,” I say bluntly.
For multiple reasons, too. First, obviously, because of my hangover. I drank way too much last night. Secondly, because I forgot about needing to pick up Lily when I decided to get that drunk.
And, thirdly, because it feels like something has happened between Georgia and me yet again, something that shouldn’t have happened.. I know, from the way Georgia is avoiding my eyes, that we really had sex last night. I don’t know what possessed me to do this to her again.
“Georgia,” I try. “Can we…?”
“We need to talk to Lily,” Georgia says firmly. “About that letter.”
I swallow, clearly hearing what she wasn’t saying. She doesn’t want to talk about this right now. I can’t blame her.
“What letter?” Lily asks, looking up from her lunch.
I draw in a deep breath. Right, let’s focus on this for now.
“Lily, yesterday I got a letter…a letter from your mother,” I say.
Lily’s spoon freezes on its way to her mouth. Her green eyes, which she inherited from Polly, go wide.
“From Mom?” she asks breathlessly.
Just like that, the tiny bit of hope I had had that Lily wouldn’t want to see Polly is dashed. I close my eyes briefly and put on a smile. This is for Lily.
“Yes,” I say. “She says she’s very sorry for leaving us for so long. She wants to meet you.”
Amazement crosses Lily’s face, followed by excitement. But then her smile falls and she looks at me anxiously.
“Is that okay?” she asks, biting her lower lip.
My beautiful, perceptive daughter. My smile becomes more genuine.
“It’s okay, whatever you want to do,” I assure her.
Lily looks at me, then at Georgia. She draws a deep breath.
“I…I want to see mom,” she says.
“Then I’ll make it happen,” I promise.
Lily scoops up the last bite of her pancakes, deep in thought. I pull out my phone and, despite not wanting to, tug the letter that I left on the table last night (Georgia has cleared up the rest of the table, thankfully, likely before Lily got home and saw the mess her stupid father got into last night) toward me, and type in the number Polly gave me. Then I send a quick message.
“Lily wants to meet you. Choose a day and time. A weekend, if possible.”
My phone buzzes with a message back almost immediately.
“Next Saturday at 2? And, if you’re free, can you and I talk tomorrow at 1?”
Tomorrow, which is a Monday, and Lily will be at school. That doesn’t give me much time to prepare. But then I glance at Lily and I sigh. I really should meet with Polly before she takes my daughter for a day.
“Fine.”
She doesn’t reply. She probably knows that would be pushing her luck. I put my phone down, ignoring the other message I can see waiting there for now.
“She’s coming next weekend, on Saturday,” I say. “Is that okay?”
“Saturday?” Lily asks. A brilliant smile crosses her face and she shoots out of her chair to throw her arms around me. “Thanks, Dad!”
Then she runs off. This is all for Lily, I remind myself. I can do this for Lily. I glance at Georgia.
“She’s coming here to talk to me tomorrow, too,” I murmur, and Georgia gasps.
“Tomorrow is awfully soon,” Georgia says worriedly.
“Better than putting it off until next weekend, and then stressing about it all week, I guess,” I say, shrugging. “This way, I only have one sleepless night before she arrives. Also…I think we need to clear the air a little before Polly meets Lily.”
“True,” Georgia says, grimacing. “Not that it’s really fair either way.”
“Not really,” I murmur.
I’m not ready to see Polly again. I already know it. Part of me has hoped, for years, that she would show up and give me some answers. But now that she’s actually coming to see us? Yeah, I’m not ready for it.
I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for it, though, so I’ll just have to do what I can.
“I hope she leaves her new husband at home,” Georgia comments. “It would be disgusting if she brought him along.”
Crap, I hadn’t even thought of that possibility.
“You don’t think she will, do you?” I ask.
The last thing I need right now is to see the man she married after she left me. And if she’s been together with him for three years, then she stayed married to him far longer than she was married to me.
“I doubt even she would have the nerve,” Georgia assures me. “Besides…it’s been ten years. People change. I guess we can give her the benefit of the doubt.”
I relax slightly. Yes, Georgia’s right. People do change. I’ve changed a lot in the last ten years. Where I was once young, foolish and a bit of a daredevil, now I’m more careful, more prone to thinking things through before I act. I have a daughter and I had to learn very fast to be responsible.
How has Polly changed? She and I had been together since I was nineteen, marrying quite young when we were both twenty-two, and having Lily, unexpectedly, at twenty-three. We were both young and stupid and not ready for the world. We should never have married, and having a child had just shown us the cracks that were already forming.
But now, ten years later, Polly has been married for three years, obviously having settled down. She, like me, is thirty-three, almost thirty-four. We’re older, more mature and more certain of what we want in life.
That doesn’t make any of this easier, though. Somehow, seeing how much Polly has changed is probably going to make me feel even worse.
“Are you nervous?” Georgia asks.
“Yeah,” I admit. I look at her. “I know I have no right to ask this…but will you be there tomorrow?”
“What?” Georgia asks, taken aback. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I say tiredly. “Please? I don’t think I can face Polly alone, not the first time.”
“She’s going to be upset, especially if she comes alone,” Georgia warns.
“Let her be upset, then,” I snap, suddenly angry. I glance at the door, but I can hear Lily in her bedroom now, unaware of our conversation. “She has no right to be. She can either let me be comfortable or she can get out and leave us all alone.”
Georgia smiled. “I completely agree with you. I just want to warn you that it isn’t going to go down very well, because Polly and I didn’t get along very well.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” I say, frowning at her. “I never figured out why. Then Polly left and I just didn’t care.”
“There…were a few reasons,” Georgia says. She hesitates. “For me, you were my best friend and she felt like an intruder. Remember, I was only a teenager when you married her, and it felt like she took you away. For her, I think she was jealous at how close the two of us were. I was even your best man, or best woman.” She gives a short laugh. “We were very close, and I don’t think she liked it.”
It’s like there’s something she’s not telling me. But I don’t push, because she has a right to her secrets, and if she doesn’t want to tell me, then that’s fine.
“So, pretty much, you were both jealous for different reasons,” I say.
Georgia laughs.
“That about sums it up,” she agrees. “Either way, we never got alo
ng, and that might make things awkward tomorrow. Especially since I’m still by your side, and she isn’t.”
“She’s the one that left,” I point out.
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Georgia says wryly. “I’m just telling you what’s going to be going through her head.”
“Well, at least you know what’s going through her head, I was completely lost on that even before she left,” I joke.
Georgia grins at me.
“That’s because you’re oblivious,” she says with a wink, and it feels like there’s an odd amount of weight in that statement. Then her smile softens and I wonder if I imagined it. “Anyway, as long as you don’t mind the bitch fight that might erupt, I’ll meet her with you tomorrow.”
“Might take the pressure off me,” I say. “Thank you, Georgia.”
“What are friends for?” she replies.
I smile. But then, abruptly, I remember last night. Yes, Georgia and I are friends, very good friends. Which makes what I did inexcusable.
“Georgia, last night… Did we…?”
Georgia turns to look at me. Her expression is unreadable now. I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat.
“Are you asking if we had sex?” she asks bluntly.
I wince.
“Yeah,” I say.
She snorts.
“I’m surprised you remember it,” she grins.
She’s laughing and smiling as though it’s all a big joke. It should make me feel more comfortable, because she’s obviously not angry at me. In fact, she’s smiling more today than she has in a while. But, instead, I just feel worse. I think part of me wants her to blame me.
“Bits and pieces,” I admit. “It’s all a little blurry. But I think I was the one that kissed you first.”
