Good. Busy at work. Saw your name pop up and took a chance on saying hello.
Stella typed, Glad you did.
She meant it, she realized. Sure, things with them had been weird and awkward, and she supposed there would always be some residual emotional tie between them—how could there not be? But though she’d been angry at him for a long time, she wasn’t anymore.
He sent her a smiley face without words. Then, a few minutes later as she toyed with fixing a shadow on a picture that the client hadn’t ordered just so she could practice and also look as if she was keeping busy, the IM window bounced again. Craig again.
So, two chips were on the playground, and one chip punched the other one in the face.
Stella paused in what she was doing, watching the little pencil icon blink in the box, telling her Craig was still typing. It was a joke. He’d always been able to make her laugh.
I’m NACHO friend! the chip said.
Stella burst into stifled laughter, but he wasn’t finished.
That’s not fair, the other chip cried. Can’t we TACO ‘bout it?
Funny, she typed.
Glad we had the chance to chat. Got to go, talk to you another time?
Yes, she answered, but he’d already signed off.
The joke kept making her laugh, so much that she sent it to Matthew. It was his night to have the girls, so she didn’t expect an answer until after they went to bed, but when hours passed and she was getting ready for bed herself, he still hadn’t replied.
“I hate it when you don’t answer me,” Stella said aloud to her phone.
Her house was silent. Tristan had gone to his dad’s house tonight because he didn’t have school the next day and Jeff had promised to take him for his driver’s license, finally. She’d thought about asking them to wait for her. It seemed like something they should do together, something she wanted to be a part of, anyway. But they weren’t a family anymore, and Tristan had been so excited at the prospect of getting his license that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to be so selfish as to deny him that just because she wanted to go see Matthew.
And she would see him, tomorrow afternoon. Heat washed over her, as it always did. In her bed, Stella stretched out, almost too wired for sleep. She didn’t have to get up superearly, and it wasn’t even late.
The house was too quiet.
She sat up, considering pulling out her book to read a chapter. Or going downstairs to her computer and surfing the internet for a while. Maybe even watching a movie. But all of that stuff smacked of effort, and though she wasn’t quite tired enough for sleep, she wasn’t awake enough for any of that other stuff.
She was lonely, Stella thought. And bored. With a frown, she burrowed into her pillows and forced her eyes to close. Other nights she’d have been yawning her way through a conversation with Matthew that stretched on too late, wrecking her for the morning. But on the night she could’ve easily spent an hour chatting with him, he was nowhere to be found.
His girls were in bed by now, tucked into the cute twin beds in the room he hadn’t had to tell her Caroline had helped decorate. His apartment was only two bedrooms, so they shared a room while in their mother’s house they each had their own bedrooms. The house he’d shared with her. Stella hadn’t met Matthew’s daughters or his ex-wife yet, but she’d seen plenty of pictures on his phone. She pictured the house they’d shared in the suburbs pretty much the way Caroline looked—sort of bland, everything matching. Decorative balls on the coffee tables. That sort of thing. Matthew’s apartment, in comparison, was still so bare of anything but the most basic of furniture and decor that if Stella hadn’t known he’d lived there for almost two years, she’d have thought he’d just moved in.
She checked her phone, but there was no message. She’d see him tomorrow, she reminded herself. There’d be time enough for conversation then. If they bothered to talk, she thought with a small smile, already imagining all the ways they’d use their mouths for other things.
And then, just before she drifted into sleep, came the ping.
GNS.
GNM, she replied and got no reply, but this time it didn’t bother her as much because a good-night from him was what she’d been waiting for. Now she could sleep. Now she could dream.
But she didn’t dream of him.
* * *
“Maybe you’d just be happier if I moved out.” This is Jeff, mouth twisted. Arms crossed. He looks mad enough to punch a hole in the wall, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he did. He has before.
They’ve been arguing about laundry. Something stupid. He tossed his filthy clothes into the basket without paying attention, ruining the clean clothes Stella hasn’t mustered the energy to put away.
“Yes. That’s what I want.” She imagined herself shouting the words, but they whisper out. Defeated. She looks him in the eye when she answers, though. “Yes. Go. Please.”
“Why? You have someone lined up to take my place already?”
Guilt should stab her, but she refuses to let it. Stella lifts her chin. “No. That’s not what this is about.”
She could ask the same of him, after all. She knows that when he stays out late and comes home smelling of smoke and perfume, it’s very likely her husband has been fooling around, if not outright fucking other women. It’s been months since they had sex, and the last time was horrific. Jeff turned from her scars and lost his erection, and Stella stumbled to the bathroom to dry-heave with grief.
“Then what?” he demands.
“I don’t love you anymore.” There. She’s said it out loud, what she’s been thinking for close to a year. “I don’t want to be married to you. I want you to move out. I want a divorce.”
The truth of what her husband feels for her is evident in the way he doesn’t sag or protest or try to change her mind. Jeff only nods. Once, sharply. They stare at each other across the laundry, and Stella knows she will never be able to forget this moment.
And later, weeks later, when she is tired and sad and the house is quiet because Jeff has taken Tristan for the night, she stumbles down the hall and sits outside the closed bedroom door she’s been unable to open. She puts her hand on the knob but does not turn it. And then she dials Craig, whispering fiercely for him to meet her somewhere. Anywhere. Just meet her so they can talk.
The rain started before she got in the car, and it makes her late. It’s normal rain, not icy, nothing that needs anything more than normal precaution, but in this state of mind, she can’t deal with it. She pulls into the parking lot of the diner where they agreed to meet twenty minutes later than she said she’d be, expecting him not to be there.
But he’s there.
And instead of eggs and hash browns, which is what she thought she wanted, even instead of pie and coffee, Stella sits in the front seat of Craig’s car and shakes. And shakes. And shakes.
“I lost him,” she says over and over again, unable to explain that she doesn’t mean Jeff.
She means her boy.
Her Gage. Her firstborn, her mini-me. She lost him, and nothing that has come after could possibly compare to this pain she can’t bring herself to share.
There aren’t even any tears. Just dry, staring eyes and chattering teeth. Her hair is wet and sticks to her face. The rain falls outside, heavier. Shielding them. Craig could reach for her over the center console, but he doesn’t, and Stella’s not sure if she’s grateful or angry that he doesn’t offer her that comfort.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he tells her finally, when she falls silent.
Blinking, Stella can finally focus on him. “You don’t have to say anything, Craig. Just kiss me. Please.”
But when she leans to kiss him, he recoils. Just enough to wound her. Just enough to sting.
“Look. Stella. You know I like yo
u a lot. And I was really surprised you called me, after... Well.”
She knows what he’s referring to, what he means. The day they’d walked along the river. “Things have changed. Jeff moved out. I asked him to.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Craig says.
“You don’t have to say anything. Just kiss me.”
But he doesn’t. He can’t; she sees it on his face, and the rejection is too much for her. Stella withdraws, hand on the door, ready to flee into the rain. She can’t look at him. What had she been thinking? That he would still want her when he could finally have her? That wasn’t how things like this worked.
“I feel like I can tell you everything,” Stella says as the rain pours outside, battering the roof of the car and turning the windows blank. She can’t see through the window; the fog of their breath has made it impossible.
“You can. You know that.” Craig’s hand pushes her wet hair off her shoulder. His fingers linger, brushing down her arm to take her hand. Linking their fingers. He squeezes gently.
But she can’t tell him everything. She wants to, but she can’t. Not like this, after months and years of their friendship have become something else even when they didn’t want them to. How can she tell him what happened now, after all this time of keeping it a secret?
She finally pushes her way out of the car, slamming the door behind her. She’s halfway to her car when he catches her. Turns her. Takes her in his arms. The rain batters them both now, hard and stinging, and she opens her mouth to it because he still will not kiss her.
“But I want to be a choice, not something you fall into,” Craig says. “Maybe you can patch up your marriage—”
“No.” She shakes her head violently. “No. That’s not going to happen.”
Now, she thinks. Tell him now how you lost your son. How you blame your husband, and he won’t take any responsibility for any of it. Tell Craig how you wake in the night listening for the sound of Gage’s breathing and in those few moments before your brain is fully conscious, sometimes you still hear it.
“What do you want from me?” he asks her.
“I want you to kiss me,” she says one more time. Aching for it. “And take me somewhere. Take off my clothes. Fuck me, Craig. I want you to fuck me until I forget.”
How can he say no to her yet one more time? But he steps back, letting her go. Shaking his head. “I don’t think that would be right.”
“Goddammit, Craig,” Stella cries into the night, the rain, in a diner parking lot like something out of an episode of bad reality TV, “any other man wouldn’t have to think twice about it!”
“Then find yourself another man!” Craig shouts. “I don’t want to just fuck you, Stella! Because what happens after that?”
She has no answer. Can’t know the future, wouldn’t try to guess it, anyway. This is Craig. Her friend. The man for whom she’s yearned for so long she can’t remember a time before she wanted him, and now she’s offering herself to him.
And he won’t take her.
“I know you think all guys are just a hard-on waiting for pussy,” Craig says. “But if I just wanted to get laid, I’d find someone else. I don’t want that with you, Stella.”
“You don’t want me?” She’s shaking again. Teeth chattering. She thinks she will fly apart with the force of her shudders.
“I want you. But not like this. Stella...I love you.”
No. No, no, she can’t have this. Not now. Not like this. Because the moment he says it, Stella thinks of waking up next to him. Going to bed beside him. She thinks of standing with him, holding his hand, of making a brand-new life. It all spreads out in front of her, all the opportunities. New chances. New life.
And how can she do this? How can she put the past away, when the past is the only place where she can be with her son? How can she move forward without leaving him behind?
“I...I have a great emotional attachment to you,” Stella says. The words are bitter and clog her throat.
Craig nods, face shuttering. “I get it. Right. Well, listen, Stella, I’m glad I was the one you called when you were desperate for an empty fuck, but maybe next time, just lose my number. Okay?”
She should tell him to wait. Call after him. She ought to explain, but all she does is watch him walk away.
The letter comes a few days later. She’s never had a letter from him before, and she doesn’t know his handwriting, but the moment she sees the way her name is written on the envelope, she knows it’s from Craig. It isn’t very long, but it is very brutal. Honest. Unflinching. Stella knows she deserves all of it, every word.
There’s not much she can do to make it right except call him to explain, but Craig never answers the phone. She leaves messages he never returns. When she tries to email him, she gets no reply, and the fact that she no longer sees him on her instant message list tells her he’s blocked her.
Craig shuts her out of his life, and Stella can’t forgive him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“You look tired.” Matthew kissed her mouth, then each cheek. He took her bag from her so she didn’t have to carry it.
“I didn’t sleep very well,” Stella admitted. “Bad dreams.”
She’d tossed and turned, dreaming of the past and mistakes she’d made. Some would never be fixed. Some no longer mattered. Still, reliving those memories had left her with a headache this morning. Puffy eyes. Sore throat. Or maybe she was coming down with something, which would be just her luck, to be sick during her weekend with Matthew.
She was quiet on the drive to his apartment. About halfway there, Matthew reached for her hand and held it the rest of the way. That felt right, Stella thought, looking at him when he focused on the road. Watching him when he wasn’t watching her. Her hand in his, no need to force conversation.
“It’s nice to just be with you,” she said when he had to let go of her hand to pull into his spot.
Matthew shut off the ignition and turned toward her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She smiled. He smiled back.
He leaned to kiss her. “Welcome to Chicago, by the way. What do you want to do today?”
They’d spent so much time talking since that it felt impossible they hadn’t spent more time in person. “I’d like for you to light a fire and make me breakfast foods. Then I’d like to lie around all day and watch movies and read. Oh. And you can make out with me, in between.”
Matthew’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, I can, huh?”
“Yep.” Stella brushed her mouth against his and shivered at the contact. “Maybe, if you’re good, I’ll let you touch my tits.”
“Awwww, yeah!” Matthew punched the air a little before kissing her again. Harder, with a slip of tongue. “Missed you.”
It always warmed her when he said stuff like that. Suddenly, strangely melancholy, she clung to him for a long moment, her cheek pressed to his. Breathing him in. His hand cupped the back of her head, but he didn’t say anything, and it was perfect.
“You don’t want to go anywhere?” he murmured when they pulled apart. “You sure?”
“I just want to be with you. Hanging out. I’m tired. It was a kind of rough flight, and I’d like to just...be. With you. Is that okay?”
“Sure. Of course.” He gave her a curious look. “Are you okay?”
She was, and she wasn’t. By the time they got upstairs and she’d dropped her bag in his bedroom, used the bathroom and freshened up, Matthew had turned on the gas fireplace and set up a small tray with a bowl of strawberries and two glasses of what she assumed was champagne. He handed her one as she sat next to him on the rug.
“It’s early,” she said, but sipped it.
“Never too early for champagne. Besides, we’re not going anywhere. Right? We have all day to indulge ourselves.” He stretched out h
is long legs and plucked a strawberry from the bowl, offering it to her mouth.
Stella leaned to take it, mouthing his fingertips. She watched his face, his pupils dilating, the press of his tongue on his lower lip for a second or so. The champagne was smooth and bubbly at the same time, tickling as she swallowed it. The strawberry’s sweetness lingered.
Somehow they were kissing, and he’d pulled her next to him. Aligning her body with his, Matthew cradled the back of her head and slipped a knee between her thighs. He was slow and thorough in his attentions to her mouth. Relentless, even. Every time she tried to move or shift, he kept her still with a gentle but steady pressure, until at last she gave up and let him have his way with her.
His tongue slid along hers, and he gently sucked it. Nibbled along her lips. Then her chin, and down her throat to nibble and suck there as his hand slid between her legs to press upward. She’d worn jeans, and the denim was too thick to feel much except the steady press and release of his knuckles, but that teasing sensation built and built until she had to break the kiss with a gasp and the murmur of his name.
“Let go,” Matthew whispered into her mouth. “Come for me, Stella.”
It was more of a request than a command, and it sent her, trembling, over the edge. Her orgasm rippled through her as relentlessly as his kisses had and left her just as breathless. Stella’s eyelids fluttered as her body arched, shuddering, into the pleasure. The aftershocks continued for a minute or so as she pressed her face against his neck and breathed in his scent.
When she’d quieted, Matthew said into her hair, “I love it when you come. It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?”
“Not always.” Stella nestled closer, using the tip of her tongue to taste him briefly. She didn’t want to move.