“Hey, Elle.”
“Hey. Look, I’m about to meet Chelsea for lunch.”
“All right.”
I picked at a loose thread on my steering wheel. “Have, you…uh, seen her Instagram?”
“I’m not on Instagram.”
Right. Of course he wasn’t. Up until last year, he’d still had a flip phone because he “didn’t need all that garbage.” Garbage like the Internet and the ability to type a letter without hitting the 5 button multiple times. “Well, there are a lot of photos of you on her feed.”
“You know Chelsea. She likes to take photos.”
This was like talking to a child. A dense, stubborn child. “Yes, but her entire feed is basically you. You’ve topped idiotic memes and inspirational quotes.”
“Okay.”
I sighed. “Has anything happened between you two?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing?” I stressed. “Not a kiss, a grope, a flirt?”
“Flirting is a loose concept. It’s hard for me to say if we’ve flirted.”
I eased my car up a half-length and hit the brakes, then switched tactics. “Have you told her anything about what we did?”
“You mean, that night at your house?”
I sighed in exasperation. “Yes.”
“I told E I wouldn’t. He made me swear to it on my baby niece.”
I sank against the car seat in relief and sent a mental I love you over to E. Aaron was romantically dense and technologically inept, but he was loyal and he kept his promises as if he had a death pact behind them. “Okay. I’m on my way to lunch with her now. I just needed to know.”
I was preparing to hang up when he spoke.
“Elle.”
“Yeah?”
“I just got divorced. I’m not emotionally ready to move into anything right now. Especially with all of the games Becca’s trying to play.”
Games? I suddenly realized that, ever since he had moved out of our house, I’d pretty much abandoned him as a friend. If Becca had been playing games with him, I wasn’t aware of them. My innate instinct to protect him reared its head.
“But there is something with Chelsea. Something I don’t want to mess up.”
“Uh-huh.” I opened a text to Chelsea. Just heard that Becca is screwing with Aaron? Tell me everything at lunch.
She immediately replied. Ugh. I hate that bitch so much. I’m ten minutes away. Are you close?
“And I don’t know how she’d react, if she did find out what happened.”
“Fuck her,” I snapped. “It’s not her business what you’re doing.” I couldn’t believe Becca had the gall to say shit to Aaron—to even have an opinion with Aaron—after everything she’s put him through.
“It just feels wrong, keeping it from her.”
Oh my God. “LISTEN TO ME, Aaron.” I slammed on my brakes to avoid a car that pulled out on the left. Blowing the horn again, I swerved around him and increased my speed, trying to find an opening in the right-hand lane. “You don’t need to feel guilty for shit. You’re a grown man and she’s a total slut. I hate to say it, Aaron, but she is.”
“She’s not a slut.” His voice gained an edge of steel, and I couldn’t believe he was defending Becca, who left him for her supervisor, like this.
“Are you kidding me? You’re jaded by love. We all think she’s a slut. Look at what she’s done.”
“I didn’t say I was in love with her. There’s just… something there. Something I haven’t felt before. A connection.”
Like I said, romantically dense. This was what happened when I abandoned him. He’s over there, pining away for Becca like a lost fucking puppy. And I had been worried about him and Chelsea? At least that concern could be squashed. “Aaron,” I said quietly. “Listen to me very carefully. You are the only one feeling a connection. She doesn’t love you, and I don’t think she ever did. I don’t even think she likes you, despite how she might act.”
“What? Did she tell you that?”
“She doesn’t have to tell me. Look at her actions. Look at what she’s done to you.”
“She hasn’t done anything to me.”
Chelsea’s Mercedes shot past me, her convertible top down, her hair whipping in the wind. She darted into the right lane as if it were easy, then whipped into the strip center and slid into a front spot. I flipped on my blinker, forced to come to a complete stop in the middle lane as I begged the cars on the right to let me in. “Fucking Chelsea,” I muttered. “Aaron, I have to go. If Becca calls or texts you, ignore her.”
“Whatever.” He sounded pissed, and I still couldn’t wrap my head around why he was defending Becca’s honor.
Yo bitch, I’m here. Getting a table.
Chelsea’s text pinged through just as an elderly man in a Ford truck waved me over. Giving him a dozen thank-you waves, I inched through the opening he provided and into the parking lot, finding a spot a hundred yards away from Chelsea’s.
I peeled myself off the seat and grabbed my bag, running a quick hand through my hair as I got out of the car. Rolling back my shoulders, I strolled toward the restaurant and forced a smile.
Fucking Becca.
24
I found Chelsea at the back of the restaurant, embroiled in a heated conversation with a Cuban woman. Sinking into the seat across from her, I gave a friendly smile to the stranger, who ignored me.
“Tell your father the ads need to go. I know the man. He wouldn’t support this. Tell him Julian Pozo said so.”
“I’ll tell him,” Chelsea promised, then half-rose out of the booth, accepting the fierce hug that the woman offered.
I pulled the menu off the side display and flipped it over, waiting for the woman to leave before speaking. “Trouble in advertising?”
“Meh. Display ads on entertainment pages. Nothing major.” She pushed a blue cup of sweet tea toward me. “They didn’t have Splenda so this has got Equal in it.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s with the curiosity with Becca?”
“Aaron said she was playing games. I didn’t know what he was talking about.”
She perked up. “Oh, you talked to him? Did he say anything?”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. Anything.”
“Yeah, we talked about Becca.” I swallowed the comments he had made—the obvious protectiveness and affection he still felt toward her. “But I didn’t get details. I figured you’d tell me what was going on.”
“Just bullshit.” She pulled her necklace free of her shirt and drug the diamond pendant on it to the left and right. “She’s calling him in the middle of the night. Saying she made a mistake, then giving him the cold shoulder the next day. Posting pictures of her and the new guy on social media. Trying to make him jealous, then freaking out on him if he says anything. You know.” She shrugged. “Girl bullshit.”
I thought of Aaron’s defensive tone. What had he said they had? That they had a connection? I hesitated, unsure of whether to share that part with Chelsea. I decided not to, anxious to get to Nicole and what had happened on their trip. “So, on Easton’s trip back from Los Angeles—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell me about your dinner with the swingers.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Please tell me they have sex shit all over their house.”
I studied the menu. “Sorry to disappoint you. No sex shit anywhere.”
“Ugh.” She slumped in the booth. “They probably got rid of it before they listed the house. Regina says their main home is in the Bahamas. Maybe they shipped it all there.” She grinned at me and I set down the menu.
“It seems a little hypocritical for you to judge them for their sex lives, given the fact that you’ve always been sexually… free.”
She stiffened. “You say free like it’s a bad thing.”
“You’re calling them swingers like it’s a bad thing. Why are you allowed to sleep around and they aren’t?”
“Ummm… because they’
re MARRIED?” She cocked one brow at me as if I was dense. “Monogamy, Elle. It’s what is supposed to happen when two people agree to spend their lives together. And besides, didn’t you hear? I’m celibate.”
I swallowed my response to that, saved by the waitress, who took my order for fajitas and Chelsea’s for tacos. As soon as she left, Chelsea dove back in.
“But seriously, how would you react if Easton wanted to start banging side pussy?”
“If he wanted to start banging side pussy”—I said carefully, watching the volume of my words—“I would not be okay with that. But is that what Brad’s doing? I thought you said they were swingers. That’s different than being in an open marriage.”
And let me just say that in this arena, thanks to lengthy Internet research and soul-searching, I knew my shit. Open marriages were when married individuals were given permission to date and/or have sex with people other than their spouse. It allows them to live a separate life, often under a different persona, with the full permission of their spouse. And some open marriages were one-sided. The wife, for instance, was allowed to do her own thing, while the husband remained faithful.
Easton and I had discussed open marriage and agreed, with complete certainty, that it was something neither of us was interested in.
On the flip side, swinging was swapping or sharing that was done together. The premise was that of a shared and honest experience, which I was one hundred percent on board with.
“They’re the same thing,” Chelsea bulldozed on. “And who knows the lines they do or don’t cross. I don’t know why you’re arguing with me on this. You just said you wouldn’t be okay with it.”
“I wouldn’t be okay with Easton fucking another girl on the side. I didn’t say I wouldn’t be okay with something that I was a part of.”
She gawked at me in the sort of overblown manner of someone attempting to make a point, then laughed loudly and hysterically. I sipped my tea and waited for her idiotic show to be over.
“A threesome?” she sputtered. “Please. You’re the biggest prude I know. You could never have a threesome.”
“Okay.” I unrolled the napkin and placed it on my lap, then lined up the silverware on either side.
“Oh, you think you could? Elle, I’ve had a threesome. You don’t understand what it entails. Just, trust me on this.” She got a look on her face, as if she knew everything and I knew nothing, and I struggled not to reach across the table and slap her.
“You’ve had a threesome?” I confirmed. At her nod, I raised my brow, not certain I believed her. “When?”
“At Florida State. A Pike party. With that hot guy. Hunter whatshisface. A bitch from KD and I gave him head. No biggie.” She shrugged.
“I’m not sure that I’d consider that a threesome.” Though, two months ago, I would have. Two months ago, I would have been slack-jawed and shocked at the thought. Also, slightly turned on, the arousal taken care of in the shower, right before I had pleasing and mostly vanilla sex with my husband.
“Oh please… it was a threesome.” She rolled her eyes and pulled her giant Dior sunglasses off the top of her head. “And trust me, you would never ever, ever do it.”
It was the second ever that got me, looping its four letters around my tongue and yanking it into action. “I’ve already done it. So don’t never ever, ever this shit with me.”
She let out a strangled laugh. “No, you didn’t.”
I held her gaze, my face stiff, my lips beginning to pinch in the way that always clued E in that I was about to lose my shit. “I did.”
“With who? E?”
“Yeah.” Beneath the table, my fingers began to drum insistently at my thigh.
“When?”
Careful... “In the past.”
“At Florida State?”
“No. After that.”
“After you got married?”
“Yes. It’s called ethical non-monogamy, so please don’t pull out your soapbox and spout shit at me.”
Chelsea’s eyes widened and I tried to remember the last time I had spoken to her like that. Or the last time we’d had a fight of any kind. Sophomore year. Someone had been stealing items from the sorority house, and I saw Kelly Snyder pick a pair of forgotten Manolo Blahniks up from the foot of the staircase and stick them in her bag. Kelly, who could never afford a pair of Manolo’s and was in on scholarship. Kelly, who was kicked out of the sorority after I told Chelsea and Chelsea told Brandi Hodgkins, even though I had sworn her to secrecy. Kelly, who had found me a week later and screamed at me in the middle of the library, and called me a bitch, and made me feel like absolute shit, all because Chelsea made the executive decision that the secret I told her wasn’t worth keeping.
“Let’s take a big step back.” She held up her palms as if to prove they were empty. “I was talking about your clients. If you and Easton did something back in the day, that’s your business. I’m not trying to judge you.”
My nails scraped against my linen-covered thighs.
“Okay?” she asked. “Are we okay?”
“We’re fine,” I said stiffly, regretting meeting her for lunch at all. It didn’t matter if I missed her or if I needed her advice on Nicole. With her newfound celibacy and judgmental opinions, it wasn’t a good time for our friendship. I needed to focus on Easton and me. I needed to focus on my new listing. I didn’t have time to stuff my face with food and listen to Chelsea bitch over whatever wrinkle was currently occurring in her diamond-studded life.
“Okay,” she said again, picking up her glass and taking a long sip of it. Over the rim of the glass, she studied me. “I must say,” she said carefully. “It surprises me. I just never thought you were open to being with Easton and another girl.”
How stereotypical. Was that always the assumption? That everything was about the man? That we pushed aside our own needs and took care of his fantasies first? The distaste must have shown on my face, because her thick eyebrows pinched together. “It was a girl, right? I mean, you didn’t…”
I didn’t say anything and her eyes widened, her cleavage squishing on the linoleum edge of the table as she leaned forward. “Nooooo,” she crowed in hushed disbelief. “A guy? No way. No fucking way.” She let out a giggle. “I have seriously underestimated you this entire time. Elle!”
Despite myself, I felt a bubble of pride forming at the admiration in her tone. In her astonished and gleeful reaction, I felt the swell of desire to tell her everything. How it had felt. How nervous I had been. The fear that, after these hits, I was addicted.
“Where did you find him? Was he one of E’s teammates? Oh my God.” She stiffened. “Do I know him?”
Every bubble of goodness stilled and congealed, all at once, like hot-glue batter hitting the air, seizing my ability to talk. Her eyes sharpened and she leaned even farther forward, the edge of the table cutting into her midsection. “I do. Wait, don’t tell me. I can figure this out.”
No. No. No. Nonononononono. “You don’t know him,” I said quickly.
“Shut up, I do. I can see it in your face.” She closed her eyes and put the forefingers of each hand on her temples, as if she was telepathically pulling it from my head. “Easton’s boss at work—Don? Is that his name? The hot redheaded one?”
I didn’t respond, looking over my shoulder for our waitress, desperate for our food to hurry up and get here.
“No.” She rejected the idea. “Too risky. Oh! That shortstop groomsman. The one who brought the girl with the back tattoo?” She opened one eye and sneaked a peek at me, then shook her head. “Never mind. This has to be someone closer. Someone you are as comfortable with as E is. Someone who won’t fuck up your jobs. The problem is that you guys don’t know like anyone. Other than me and Aaron, you’re basically loners. And he’s been with Becca up until—”
“Chelsea,” I said urgently. “Listen. I think—”
“Oh my God.” She stilled, the smile dropping from her face, her eyes snapping open and catching me fl
ush-faced and panicked. “It was Aaron. That’s why he moved out. That’s why you’ve been acting so strange around him.”
“It wasn’t…” I paused, not fully able to complete the lie. “It’s not important who it was with.”
If she could have taken a step back from me, she would have. Instead, she leaned back against the black plastic booth, her hands pushing at the table, which was affixed to the floor. “Tell me it wasn’t Aaron.”
“It wasn’t Aaron,” I whispered, not trusting my voice at full volume. I had to lie. I had to. I looked in her face and saw the plummet of emotion and there was no other option.
“You’re lying.”
“Alrighty, we’ve got an order of chicken fajitas with an extra side of cheese!” From somewhere to the right, a steaming platter waved through the air. I lifted my hand numbly, holding Chelsea’s eye contact as the giant frying pan was set before me. Steam curdled the air, dotting my face with perspiration as the loud crackle of sizzling meat sounded.
“And three steak tacos with extra sour cream!”
Chelsea didn’t move and the man set the plate down in front of her.
“Anything you guys are missing? Hot sauce?”
“We’re fine,” I said quietly.
“You’re LYING,” she said, louder this time, her eyes burning into me. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”
The man took that as his cue and left.
“Okay,” I moved the fajitas to the side so I could see her clearly. “Okay. It was with Aaron.” This was fine. This would be fine. This mini-eruption of emotion would pass and we would be back to having lunch, laughing over the insanity of it all.
“When?”
“Ummm,” I place a tortilla on my plate in an attempt to buy time. “After his divorce.”
“After the divorce that just happened?” She spoke in very precise tones, like a trial attorney who was laying a trap.
I looked through the words for any bombshells, then answered truthfully. “Yes.”
Twisted Marriage: Filthy Vows Sequel Page 15
