Don't Deny Me

  “Alice, please—”

  “Good-bye, Mick.”

  “Alice!”

  But it was too late. She’d disconnected. He’d lost her all over again.

  * * *

  How many times do I let you break me, before I decide I’ve had enough? We spin and spin so much we’ve created our own gravity. Like no matter how hard we try, neither of us can break away. We are in orbit. Caught. How many times do I let you break me?

  I guess the only answer is, every time.

  —Alice to Mick

  * * *

  Dayna’s call hadn’t taken Alice by surprise, not after their conversation at Bernie and Cookie’s. They’d agreed to meet for happy hour drinks at some place Alice wouldn’t have normally gone to, but that Dayna had raved about. It had a tropical decor and fancy drinks that came in specialty glasses, which was about all it had to recommend for it as far as Alice was concerned, but Dayna looked so happy to see her that it didn’t matter about the creepy platoon of business guys ogling her as soon as she walked in.

  “Hey. Good to see you.” Dayna hugged her. “I got us a table over here.”

  Alice followed, careful not to make eye contact with any of the men circling the free buffet. “How’s the food here?”

  “Order from the menu, not that cesspool,” Dayna advised. “The chicken fingers are all right, but not worth having to deal with the bad pickup lines.”

  Alice laughed as she took a seat at the highboy table. “Good to know. Thanks.”

  They ordered drinks and a platter of appetizers. They chitchatted for a few minutes, until Dayna finally took a long, deep breath. Alice waited, but Dayna didn’t say anything.

  “Paul,” Alice said.

  Dayna nodded.

  “We might need more than one drink.”

  Dayna laughed, which was better than crying. “He said he can’t give me what I want. That he can’t go all in, whatever the hell that means.”

  The drinks came, along with the food, and Alice waited to answer until the server left. Then she lifted her glass. Clinked it to Dayna’s.

  “It just means he doesn’t have any idea what else to say that won’t make him sound like a giant douche bag.” Alice sipped cold liquor and picked up a tortilla chip laden with refried beans and salsa. “I mean, did you tell him what it is, exactly, that you want?”

  “I said I wanted him.”

  “And he can’t give you him?”

  “He can give me his dick,” Dayna said sourly. “That, he seems able to manage.”

  Alice laughed, not meaning to make light of what was Dayna’s obvious distress. But there was nothing but laughter to be had in a situation like this, because how else do you react to the absurdity of love? After a second or so, Dayna laughed, too.

  “I told him I didn’t need a marriage proposal. Just that if he was going to come over and fuck me on occasion that he should answer my texts once in a while, too. I didn’t even say we had to be exclusive.” Dayna paused to drink, looking thoughtful. “I mean, it wasn’t so long ago that even the thought of someone else touching me was enough to make me want to puke, but funny how it happens that when someone keeps hurting you in the same way how easy letting go starts to get.”

  “No kidding. Mick called me.” Alice dug into more food.

  Dayna shook her head. “And?”

  “And, nothing. He wanted to see me. I said no.”

  Dayna’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t!”

  “I did.” A strange sense of pride stung her for a second as Alice lifted her chin and shrugged. “There was just no good to come from that. Sure, we’d fuck around, I’d get off, he’d get off, but we’d be back to the same old shit as the first time around. Doors should close, remember?”

  “Maybe, but … how did you manage to do it?” Dayna drained her glass as the server reappeared. “Two more, please.”

  Alice shrugged again. “I don’t know, really. Just that seeing him that weekend was better and worse in a lot of ways than I’d expected, but … there is no more me and Mick. That’s the thing. It ended for a good reason. I mean, what ended it was bad, but it was a good reason to end it.”

  The booze had started tickling her already. Words tangling on her tongue. Memories flooding in. All the feels, filling her up!

  “Why did it end?”

  Alice sat back. “You don’t know?”

  “Nope.” Dayna shook her head and dug into the mozzarella sticks.

  “There were lots of reasons; aren’t there always more than one? But let’s just say that when I needed him, he wasn’t there.” Alice paused. “Nobody talked about it?”

  Dayna grinned. “What, you think we all gossiped about you?”

  “Maybe.” Alice thought about it. “Jay knows. I figured he’d have told Paul.”

  “Jay’s your best friend, he doesn’t talk out of school about you. And Paul and I didn’t exactly have what you’d call a relationship based on sharing and communication,” Dayna said.

  This set them both off into more peals of laughter. More drinks appeared, perfect timing. Also a pair of business guys dressed in identical khakis and polo shirts, even their smiles matching. And somehow, though Alice would’ve said the very last thing on her agenda tonight was going to be getting picked up by a slick-talking salesman in town for a tech convention, she found herself doing just that.

  His name was Bill. His friend, so clearly taken with Dayna that he could barely look away from her face, was Gary. The two of them were staying at the hotel attached to this bar, a fact they’d stated right up front, which made Alice laugh.

  “I’m not going to your hotel,” she told Bill. “You can buy me a drink, but that’s it.”

  Bill grinned. Gary had lured Dayna away to the next table so Bill could take her seat. Whatever he was saying to her was making her laugh. Good for her. Alice lifted her brow at Bill.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know you are. I could tell that about you right away. Serious.” Bill tipped his beer bottle at her and put on a solemn face. “Serious Alice.”

  Alice gave in to a laugh, but shook her head. She made a show of looking around the bar, then back at him. “There’s a bar full of young, single women. You pick the one who’s not interested in hooking up. I have to question your judgment.”

  “I might have poor judgment,” Bill said, “but I have very, very good taste.”

  He got bonus points for being charming, she thought. Dayna seemed to be having a good time with Gary, the two of them leaning close. And Bill was a good-looking guy. Smart and funny, straightforward about what he was going for but, despite that, not actually too pushy. Another time, not so long ago, she would have given him her number. As it was, with the party at Bernie’s still too painfully fresh, Alice couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for the thought of hooking up. Or dating.

  Because let’s face it, Bill was no Mick. Nobody was Mick. Nobody ever would be. But hadn’t she decided just a few nights ago that she was done with Mick McManus and his hold over her? Great sex aside, all the feels aside, no matter how sweet the berries tasted, if you knew they were poison, you left those bitches on the bush.

  Which is why when Bill asked her if she wanted to dance, Alice put down her drink and took his hand.

  * * *

  These are the flowers I cut for you before you told me that pink roses were a waste of a flower. I put them in a vase anyway, because I cut them and what the heck do you do with flowers once they’ve been cut? You put them in a vase with water on the kitchen counter and hope your girlfriend doesn’t sneeze herself into apoplexy over them before you can get her out of the house and take her to her favorite restaurant for a big steak dinner.

  I’m sorry, baby, that I didn’t know you hated pink roses.

  Let me make it up to you.

  —Mick to Alice

  * * *

  “She likes big romantic gestures,” Jay said. “You know. Say Anything type stuff. You’re gonna have to be John Cusack hol
ding up the boom box outside her window. And really, man, it sounds like you need to grovel a little bit. Maybe a lot.”

  Mick took a long draw on the beer Jay had handed him. The other man had been rightfully reluctant to let Mick come over, so Mick had already done some groveling. Jay was one of Alice’s best and longest friends, though. If anyone knew how best to get her to listen to him, it would be Jay.

  “I’ll beg, if I have to.”

  Jay laughed. “Don’t beg. She’d hate that.”

  “You sure?” Mick leaned against the granite counter in Jay’s kitchen. The dude had some kind of kitchen, man. Mick looked around, thinking of his own place. He didn’t even have matching glassware. “I thought women liked it when a man begged.”

  “Groveling is one thing, but not begging. Have some dignity.” Jay rolled his eyes.

  “I already apologized to her.”

  Jay cracked open a tub of dip and put it out on the table, along with some chips. At Mick’s look, he shrugged. “I have someone coming over later. But you can have some, too.”

  “Oh, shit. Didn’t mean to—”

  “Relax. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for Alice. Because that girl is crazy about you, no clue why, and she has been for a decade.” Jay gave Mick a look. “The question is, are you going to fuck it all up again?”

  “Not on purpose.” Mick turned the bottle around in his hands.

  “Well, thank God for that.” Jay snorted and shook his head. “Look, man. I don’t have anything against you.”

  “Other than I broke Alice’s heart,” Mick said.

  Jay grinned. “Yeah. That. She’s my girl.”

  “No,” Mick said quietly. “She’s my girl.”

  “If you hurt her again,” Jay told him, “I will fuck you up. You got it?”

  “Got it.” Mick put the empty bottle in the sink and straightened. “I don’t want to hurt her. Trust me. I’ve never met another woman like her. Beg, grovel, whatever I have to do to get her to give me another chance, I’ll do it.”

  “Tell her that.” Jay set out a small stack of fancy paper plates with matching napkins and gave Mick a glance over his shoulder. “Tell her you still love her. That you never stopped.”

  Mick winced.

  Jay frowned. “Dude. C’mon.”

  “Dude,” Mick mimicked. “You know how it is.”

  “How what is? Being crazy about someone you can’t let go of? Yeah. I know.”

  That wasn’t what he’d meant. “No. I mean about feelings and stuff. It’s hard to say that stuff.”

  “Is it?” Jay narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  “What if she doesn’t feel the same way?”

  Jay stood and gave Mick a pitying look. “At least you told her the truth, then, right? You afraid of getting your wittle feelings hurt?”

  “Who isn’t?”

  “You know the definition of bravery isn’t being unafraid. It’s being afraid and doing whatever that thing is that terrifies you anyway.”

  “You know the definition of crazy, right? Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results,” Mick countered.

  Jay nodded, not smiling. “Fair enough. I guess the question is, man, is you brave? Or is you crazy?”

  “Both,” Mick said. “I guess I’m hoping to be both.”

  “You’d better hurry, then,” Jay said. “She told me last week she met some new guy, and she’s going out to dinner with him tonight.”

  * * *

  There is nothing crueler than the person who doesn’t want you enough to keep you, but who doesn’t love you enough to let you go.

  —Alice to Mick

  * * *

  Alice had stopped drinking two hours ago, which was good, because the way Bill had been nuzzling at her neck and running his hands up and down her back, a better lubricated Alice would’ve been more likely to succumb to the temptation of wiping away the memories of Mick with another man. Instead, she’d bid Bill good-bye on her doorstep, though she had allowed him to kiss her—not chastely, sure, but not making out, either. Now in her comfy pajama bottoms with a carton of ice cream in one hand, a spoon in the other, she was scrolling through the choices in her Interflix account. So she’d be fat, single, and a little lonely for a while, she thought. There was a lot to be said about being unafraid to be alone.

  Dinner with Bill had been fine. Pleasant. He was charming and funny. He tipped well, something that was always important. Were they hitting it off? She supposed so, though nothing about the evening had been particularly memorable. It was nice to go out, though. Have food, some conversation. No pressure, really. No spark, either.

  At the knock on her front door, Alice put down the ice cream. Listening harder, certain she’d imagined it. Who the hell would be pounding on her front door at just past eleven on a Friday night?

  A serial killer.

  Alice, spoon in hand, went to the front door to peek out the curtains in the side panels, but all she could see was a shadow. Shit. Serial killers didn’t knock, did they? What if it was some Ted Bundy type of guy pretending he’d been in a wreck and needed to use her phone? Or that he’d lost his puppy, they did that sort of thing too, didn’t they, to fool people … ?

  Her phone rang.

  Alice screamed.

  The phone, still tucked in her purse, which had been slung over the newel post, let out another few bleats and went silent as the call went to voice mail. It rang again a second or so later. Same ringtone, the standard one she’d assigned as default, which meant it wasn’t someone she talked to often.

  Bill, she thought with a hand over her still pounding heart. It was probably Bill. She dug out the phone, but it was too late. She’d missed this one, too.

  Before she could check the voice mail or even swipe to see if she recognized the number, the person on the front porch pounded the door again.

  “Alice! I know you’re in there! Let me in!”

  “Mick? What the hell?” In her hand, the phone rang again. She’d never put his picture in her contacts, but since he’d called her once before, his name and number did show up.

  She should’ve blocked it.

  “Answer your phone!” he shouted.

  He was going to wake up all the neighbors. Alice swiped her screen, hissing, “Shhhhh!”

  “Open your door.”

  “No way. Are you drunk?”

  “Why not? You have someone in there? Let me in!”

  “Be quiet,” Alice said. “No, I don’t have someone in here with me. Not that it’s any of your business. Go away, it’s late.”

  “I want to talk to you. Let me in, I want to see you.”

  She tweaked aside the curtain and made a face at him through the glass. Mick glowered and gestured for her to open the door. She gave him the finger.

  “Alice. Please.”

  “Why should I let you in here? I told you I don’t want to see you.” She let the curtain fall shut, though through it she could still see his silhouette.

  “I want to see you. Please. I have to. I have to talk to you. Are you sure you don’t have anyone in there? Like the guy you were with earlier?”

  She paused at that. “What the? Stalker! Are you creeping on me?”

  “Jay told me.”

  “What were you doing talking to Jay?”

  Silence. She could hear his breathing, but didn’t give in to the temptation to tweak aside the curtain again. She sat on the stairs, though, in full sight of the door in case he did something insane like try to break in.

  “I wanted him to tell me how to get you to give me another chance.”

  Alice narrowed her eyes. “What did he say?”

  “Let me in, Alice. Please.” Mick’s voice softened. “Just listen to me. If you don’t like what I have to say, you never have to listen to me ever again. I’ll leave you alone, walk out the door. Never bother you. I promise.”

  “Never talk to me again?”

  Mick sighed. “Yeah.”

&nb
sp; “Never … see me again? Not even at Bernie’s?”

  “If I do, I’ll stay on my own side of the table and treat you like my dear, sainted aunt. I swear to you. I’ll never touch you again. Just … let me in. Please.” His voice hitched.

  The thought of that, never seeing or talking to him again, or worse, seeing him but knowing he had no plans to touch her … Alice got to her feet. Phone still pressed to her ear, she opened the front door. Mick stepped through it, kicking it closed behind him. He took her phone out of her hand, ignoring her startled protest, and shoved it into his pocket.

  He took her in his arms.

  He kissed her, long and deep and slow and hard, until gasping, they broke apart.

  “Alice,” Mick said, “there’s never been another woman like you in my life. I’ve wanted you since the first time you turned around and looked at me, and I’ve wanted you all this time, and I think I will want you for the rest of my life, if you’ll only give me the chance to prove it to you. Please, Alice. Let me prove it to you.”

  Part Two

  Alice Clark had no idea how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, but she did know she couldn’t squeeze even a single one into her weekend bag. She’d be lucky if the bag’s zipper didn’t bust open. A weekend at Crane Lake in the summer meant bikini, sunscreen, flip-flops, nightgown, and a couple of cute dresses. A book or four. Minimal toiletries. But at the last minute she’d shoved a pair of jeans and some socks along with an oversized sweatshirt into the bag, which was the tiniest bit too small to hold everything she wanted to bring. Last year she’d been caught chilly when a summer storm hit, and Alice believed in being prepared.

  She didn’t know much about angels, but heaven must’ve been smiling on her because she managed to zip the bag and get it into the trunk of her car without incident. She even made it to work on time. The rest of the day, though, went quickly to crap.

  “I’ll be there,” she promised Jay, phone cradled to her shoulder while she typed as fast as she could. “Have the wine ready.”

  “As if I wouldn’t? Why didn’t you take today off?” Jay’s voice sounded muffled for a second. “You’re going to get there late, and you’ll have to take the crappy bedroom.”