“No,” I groan. “It doesn’t. Entertain me verbally.”
“Your French store is killing it. We should open a second location over there.”
“No work talk.” I sit up a little, inspiration hitting in the midst of sushi digestion. “Let’s trade secrets. You tell me one of yours, and I’ll tell you one of mine.”
“You want me to tell you a secret?” He shrugs. “That’s pretty open.”
“No,” I decide. “I don’t want to know some stupid arrest you had in college. You have to answer a question.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Truthfully.”
“Oh please.” He leans back, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not doing that. You’ll ask about Mira.”
“I promise I won’t ask about Mira.” I cross my fingers over my chest, and he rolls his eyes.
“You don’t even have anything worth sharing. What’s your biggest sin—borrowing a piece of gum without asking?”
I make a face at him. “You think you know everything, but you don’t. I have all sorts of dark secrets.” I wave my hands in a giant sweep, encompassing all of my many juicy secrets.
“Name one.”
“If I do, then you’ll answer my question?”
“As long as it’s not a question about Mira. Or about us.”
I turn my head and meet his stare. Or about us. We could sum up our entire relationship in those three words. Attraction. Avoidance. There is an “us”. My heart quickens, that familiar race where I consider the what ifs that I typically try to ignore. “It won’t be a question about Mira.” I say slowly. “Or about us.” I shrug, like I have no idea what I will ask, like the question isn’t sitting, hot and ready, on my tongue. “I’ll find something else to ask.”
“And your secret has to be worthy.” He leans forward. “Something scandalous.”
I frown. “I’m not entering one of my secrets in some sort of Olympics. I’ll pick a good secret. You’ll have to trust me.”
“One of your secrets?” He chuckles. “Kate. Please.”
I glare at him, buying a moment while my mind frantically tries to find something scandalous in my history. I come up blank. My best secret is that I want my boss to strip me naked and pound me into next Tuesday. And I certainly can’t share that secret. I think back to my college days and work forward, searching for something … my mind zeros in on the time I gave Victor Parken a blow job in the basement of his fraternity house. I search desperately for something, anything else.
“What is it?” Trey cocks a brow. “You think of something?”
“Not really.” I pull at my lip. “It’s personal.” But look at what I’m about to ask him. That’s personal. This—this was just a stupid night with too much Miller Lite and not enough common sense.
“Secret sex tape?” he guesses. “You strip in college to make extra money? Or maybe a secret baby somewhere? A—”
“STOP,” I interrupt. “You’re ruining my delivery.”
“I’m sorry.” He holds up his hands in surrender. “Confess away.”
“When I was a sophomore in college,” I begin. “There was a party—at a fraternity house.” He straightens slightly, and I have his full attention. “I was drinking, and there was this guy I was kind of dating.” His eyes change, growing wary, and I watch his jaw clench, almost imperceptibly. I speak quickly, before he thinks the wrong thing. “The party was getting crazy, and so Victor and I moved downstairs, to the basement.” I pick at the edge of my sleeve. “We started kissing, and … I went down on him.” I can feel the blush, hot on my cheeks, and I reluctantly look up to Trey.
“And…?” he all but demands.
“And what?”
“What happened?”
“Afterward?” I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess we just went back upstairs.”
There is a slow change to his face, a resettling of features, his handsome profile returning, and he rubs his fingers along his brow. “That’s your secret? You gave a guy a blowjob?”
“In a fraternity house. And during a party,” I explain. “Anyone could have come downstairs and interrupted—could have seen me.” I flush, embarrassed at the thought. Me, my skirt riding up around my thighs, crouched and low on that sticky floor, one hand holding onto his hairy leg for balance. God, what if someone had come in and seen me, my lips wrapped around his—I clamp down the thought.
“But no one did come in.” His lips flutter in the ghost of a smile.
“Oh my God. We were practically exhibitionists. If you can’t see how stupid I was to do that, then you’re—”
“Normal? Reasonable?”
“An idiot,” I finish. “You’re an idiot.”
“That’s not a secret.”
“Are you kidding me?” I slam my hand down on the couch pillow. “That was a great secret.”
“It’s really sad if that is your best secret. Seriously. Tell me you have an orgy you’re hiding behind that blush.”
“Ew.” I shudder. “No.” I lift my chin and stare at him. “And don’t belittle it. Just because I’m not a Trey-Marks-worthy-slut, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a big deal to me.”
“Oh, you’re Trey-Marks-worthy.” He grins, and we are back to that place, the one where he flirts, and I deflect, and later that night I spend twenty minutes with my vibrator.
“But not a slut.”
He tilts his head as if considering the possibility. “In my mind, you are wildly promiscuous once out of those clothes.”
“You’re trying to distract me from my question.”
“Oh yes. The dreaded question. Am I required to tell the truth?”
I give him a look, and he chuckles. “Fine. Go forth with this mysterious question.”
“Who was that girl who mugged you? Why was she meeting you there?”
He grimaces, and I can tell he had forgotten that night, forgotten my tentative questions he had evaded. Back then, I hadn’t felt comfortable enough to push for the truth, and had never brought it up again. But now, he has to tell me.
“That’s not what you want to ask, Kate. Ask me something else.”
“No,” I insist. “This is what I want. I told you my embarrassing secret. You tell me this.”
“I can’t believe you even remember that.”
“My boss stepped into my car in a bathrobe,” I say dryly. “Your dick was practically hanging out of it.”
Any other moment, he’d laugh. Now, he just runs his palms over his face. “Come on.”
I wait, and he looks at me, his face so filled with dejection that I almost drop it all. I almost give him a free pass.
But I don’t. I hold his eyes and wait for him to start.
“The woman in the hotel room…” he pauses. “She wasn’t alone. A man was with her. I had scheduled to meet both of them.” He looks up at me. “For sex.”
I attempt to school my features, to contain the thoughts that come. “Both of them?”
“Yes. I wasn’t going to fuck him; it wasn’t about that. Both of us were going to please her.”
“At the same time?”
He lifts one shoulder. “Possibly. Depending on how it went. Sometimes they just like to watch.”
Sometimes they just like to watch. Will I ever forget how that sounds, the easy way it rolls off his tongue? I suddenly feel dirty, my desire to exit this conversation as strong as it had been to start it. This isn’t what I wanted to hear. This isn’t what I wanted to envision, not from him. I’ve known that Trey Marks has an active sex life. I’ve heard rumors, seen Mira and Chelsea, certainly never expected celibacy. But I also never expected this. Sometimes they just like to watch. My hands feel clammy, and I pinch the underside of my wrist in an attempt to fend off a sudden wave of lightheadedness.
“Kate?” He’s watching me, and I look away, trying to hide my disgust. I run my fingers through my hair, everything suddenly hot. He swears and pushes off the wall, coming toward my chair. “Talk to me
.”
“Just a sec.” I try to cough, to clear my throat and speak, but something like a sob comes out. I press my fingers to the edge of my eyes, attempting to stop the weak leak of tears. I regain some control and straighten, inhaling a deep breath. “I’m sorry.” I exhale and feel a semblance of control. “I’m just emotional today. I don’t know why I reacted that way.”
But I do. This is major. Maybe this is the real reason why Trey has never moved past casual flirtation with me. Because he likes that, which I will never do. Sometimes they just like to watch. I meet his eyes, and the emotions in them are a combination I’ve never seen from him. Embarrassment. Sadness. Fear. He reaches for me and I flinch. He stops and stands, tucking his hands into his pockets and turning away, toward the window.
“So that’s why you didn’t know her. Or them,” I correct. “They were just some random people off … like Craigslist?” This is getting worse by the minute.
He doesn’t turn to face me. “Christ, Kate. I’m not meeting people off Craigslist. I’m part of a club, one that pairs like-minded people and couples. There’s a website where profiles are listed. I was in a bad mood that day and went off the rails, taking a risk on a new profile. It was a mistake, one that burned me.” I can see the tension in his shoulders, the rigidity of his stance.
A club. Probably an expensive one, as if a membership fee and fancy website make it any less sleazy. Sometimes they just like to watch. I should leave. Walk away from this conversation, cross Trey Marks off of my heart forever, and move on. Never mind that I’ve spent almost three years pining over him. Never mind that when he breathes, I can feel it in my heart. He should have told me this. He should have told me this years ago, before I fell in love with him, before he injected his soul into my veins and I became addicted. Can I even work for him after this? Can I be around him without falling deeper in love? Before, I always thought there would be a time—once the company is kicking ass, once he is ready to step away from management and retire—when we would be able to date, when we could try a relationship. But now, with my one stupid question, with his one stupid confession, it all dies. I can’t date a man who—I don’t even understand what he does. I rub my temple. “Tell me exactly what happens.”
“Kate.” Just a single syllable, but I can hear so much in it. He turns away from the window and rests his back against the glass, his face hanging, as if he is a child being punished.
“Tell me Trey.” I wait. “I need to know.” I have to know how bad it is. He won’t lie to me. He won’t sugarcoat it.
“I enjoy pleasing women.” His eyes lift and meet mine. “So that’s what I do. With my hands and my mouth, and my cock. Sometimes the guy joins in, sometimes he doesn’t.”
“’Joins in.’ Define it.” My mouth is cottony. I swallow. It doesn’t help.
“Sometimes double-penetration. Sometimes she sucks him while I fuck her. Or she jacks us both off at the same time.”
“But you’re not gay.”
“No.” He holds my eyes. “I’m definitely not gay.”
Little difference that makes right now. I want to close my eyes, to look away, to yank at my hair and scream at him. I don’t. I wait, and it’s almost painful to do so.
“The woman is always the focus. That’s the extent of my interaction with the men.”
“Oh, that’s it?” I laugh, a hard hack of a sound, one I’ve never heard from myself before, one that I instantly hate. His eyes harden, but he says nothing.
In that silence, I almost hear our future crackle and burn.
Him
I’ve lost her. I can see it in her eyes, in the tremble of her voice, in the questions that she asks. Maybe I should have lied. Maybe I should have muted the truth. Maybe then, she wouldn’t be looking at me as if I am a monster, as if we don’t have years between us, as if she doesn’t love me at all.
I can’t be surprised, not after that conversation so long ago, over beers and burgers, the disgusted look on her face when she told me about the threesome that her boyfriend had tried to have.
“Just because you don’t understand it,” I say, “don’t judge me for it. We are all aroused in different ways. This is something I’ve done, something I liked.”
She looks down, as if searching for a response. When she finally lifts her head, she blinks quickly, her face growing red. This stupid thing of mine is bringing her to tears. “You should have told me,” she says tightly. “This changes everything between us.”
The words are a hammer to the center of my chest. In them, there is everything that we’ve never said aloud, never put anywhere close to words. Is there an “us”? Us is more than I’ve ever hoped for. Between the risk to the company, and my sexual past, I’ve spent years avoiding any thought of Us. I always understood that we would, at some point, come to this. Her glaring at me, distrust thick in her eyes. Her flinching when I reach out to touch her.
Us. In a way, the word is almost freeing. The crack of the protective wall. Our rules gone, the battlefield wide open. “Us?” I tilt my head at her. “What us?” I step forward, ignoring her start, the way she peels away from me. “There is no us.”
“You know what I mean,” she whispers. “Our friendship.”
“No, I don’t think that’s what you meant.” I watch her mouth, the nervous way she licks her lips, her eyes darting from my mouth to my eyes. She’s done it a hundred times before, the tensing for my kiss, the kiss that I have never delivered, but this time it is all wrong. It isn’t breathless or hopeful. It is panicked and frustrated. It is … I straighten, stepping back, away from her. It is filled with disgust.
Incredible how quickly a world can change. How my entire person, our friendship, can be reduced to nothing, with just one confession. I’ve worried for years about her judging me for this. And now that it’s happening, I’m as disappointed in her as I am mad at myself.
Is this who I fell in love with? A woman who would toss me aside so easily? Is she that judgmental, that close-minded? She isn’t even asking the right questions. She isn’t even giving me, giving us, a chance.
I turn away, my words tight and controlled when I allow them out.
“I love you, Kate. I am in love with you. I’m sorry that you don’t like this. Or that you don’t understand it. But it doesn’t change who I am.”
Her words stop me, their edges as sharp as broken glass. “Don’t do that. Don’t use those words right now, as you are walking away, you fucking coward.”
I turn and regard her. My beautiful woman, the smartest woman I’ve ever known, the only person on Earth with the capacity to hurt me like this. “You’re right, I should have told you a long time ago. But that wouldn’t have changed this.”
She swallows, her eyes wet, and says nothing. And this time, when I turn and walk away, she doesn’t say anything to stop me.
I step into my bedroom and shut the door with a trembling hand. When she leaves, slamming the front door behind her, I can almost feel the vibration in my soul.
chapter 18
Her
We’ve fought before. We’ve screamed, we’ve sworn, we’ve said things that neither of us meant. But it’s never been like this. It’s never been this somber, this quiet. When he looks at me, all I see is sadness and disappointment in his eyes. When I look at him, all I can hear are his words.
Sometimes they just like to watch.
It doesn’t change who I am.
He walks by, and I wait for him to turn his head, to glance in my office, but he doesn’t.
“Harrods placed a new order.”
“I saw it in your email this morning. It looks good.”
“Trey, it’s better than good. It’s twice what they sold last month.”
“I can do the math. I’m happy about it. Do you want a fucking gold star?”
“Don’t be an asshole about it. I just thought it was worth mentioning.”
“Is there anything else we need to discuss?” br />
Yeah. This. Us. Why we’re suddenly strangers. I swallow. “No. That’s it.”
He stands, leaving his chair out, and pushes through the conference room door.
I don’t understand why he is mad at me. I’m the one who is supposed to be mad, I’m the one who has been lied to for almost three years. I’m the one who fell in love with an unattainable man. I’m the one whose heart is breaking.
Part of me believes that. Part of me feels that I’m being a bitch right now.
Me: I’m sorry. I’m sorry for judging you.
Trey: I’m not accepting your apology via text. That’s beneath us.
Me: Well I’m not accepting your lack of apology at all.
Trey: That doesn’t even make sense.
Me: You know what I mean.
Trey: Come over.
Come over. It’s been eight days since I walked out of his house. I stare at the phone for a long moment, then stand up and grab my purse.
Fifteen minutes later, when he opens his front door, I launch myself into his arms.
His chest is stiff, his body wooden, and I wrap my arms him, hugging my face to his chest, willing his stance to soften, his arms to move. When they do, when one hand settles gently on my hair, his other on my back, I almost cry in relief. He exhales, his breath warm against my neck, and he squeezes me tightly. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Me too.” He pulls me inside and shuts the door.
It’s barely cold enough outside, but he still builds a fire, and I make hot chocolate. We both finish and sit on the couch, our shoulders touching as we watch the fire. Trey peers into his coffee cup. “No marshmallows?”
“You were out.” I rest my head on his shoulder. “I don’t ever want to fight like that again.”
“Deal.” He holds out his mug and I clink my own against it. There is a moment of silence, his body shifting on the couch, before he speaks. “Talk to me.”
“What do you want? Another apology?”
“I’m assuming you have questions.”