“How ’bout I put out some oil so you boys can make this a real fight?” she shouts over the alarm, and then thinks, Wow. That idea sounds a lot hotter than I—Turn off the alarm, Emily.
When the siren dies, she turns to face her dueling suitors. Jonathan is pulling a Linda Blair in his attempt to get an eyeful of the tower of aggression and muscle bearing down on him.
Through gritted teeth, Marcus says, “Didn’t feel like telling him about the alarm, huh?”
“And you didn’t recognize him?” Emily asks.
“I recognize him now,” Marcus says.
“How come yours is hot?” Jonathan whines. “Mine’s not hot.”
Marcus shakes his head and gets to his feet. Emily studies the man’s face for the slightest hint of homophobic disgust. But there isn’t any. He looks bored and detached, as if Jonathan is just a noisy child running in between tables at a fancy restaurant and she’s the negligent mother who set him free.
Then Marcus looks at her. Finally she sees a flicker of anticipation and desire that confirms what Arthur revealed to her during their last meeting.
It’s about time, she thinks. Marcus resisted even polite attempts at conversation when she approached him outside Perry’s yesterday morning after she gave her two weeks’ notice. Same deal outside the drug store that afternoon. Never once looking her in the eye, probably to avoid giving her the look he’s giving her now.
“Actually, I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Jonathan says sharply, sitting up now. “No bruises or anything.”
“Relax,” Emily says. “It’s nothing your clients haven’t done to you ten times over.”
“Emily! Not in front of the boy.”
Marcus says, “The code is 5542. Don’t give it to any of your clients.”
“Where’s your guy?” Emily asks Jonathan.
“Dupuy? He’s outside. Enjoying the hell out of this, I'm sure. He’s got a sick sense of humor. You should see some of the videos on his phone.”
“Sounds like you two are getting along better than…” Emily loses her nerve before she can complete the comment.
“Better than what?” Marcus asks quietly.
Jonathan gives up on the idea of either of them helping him to his feet. He enlists the side of the kitchen table in the task instead.
“Note to file, Rambo,” Jonathan begins. “If y—”
“Rambo?” Marcus snaps. “When was the last time you went to the movies? 1983?”
“I like this guy, Emily,” Jonathan says with a bright smile. “Do you like this guy? What do you say? How ’bout we both…like this guy?”
Before a quiver of desire can finish its dance up her spine, before she too vividly recalls the feel of Jonathan and his flavor of the month pressing their hard bodies against her on that long ago, but oft remembered, night on the dance floor, Emily clears her throat and focuses her attention on the target of Jonathan’s—unwanted, she assumes—antics.
Marcus smiles. “You’re not my type,” he says.
“Oh, yeah. Why’s that?” Jonathan asks.
“Too much balls.”
Well, at least somebody’s sexuality is easy to figure out right now, she thinks.
Jonathan laughs louder than he would if someone who didn’t look like Thor’s hotter younger brother had made the same joke. When he sees Emily’s glare, his cackles come to an abrupt halt. “So what name did they give you?” he asks her.
“I’m not sure we should be discussing everything—”
“Oh, come on. Just tell me so I can be mad. Mine sucks.”
“Lily Conran.”
“Lily Conran?” Jonathan wails. “I’m Leonard Miller. You sound like you should be buying diamonds in South Africa and I sound like some douche who should be selling crap watches at the Esplanade Mall.”
“Are you drunk?”
“A little, yeah.”
“Apparently you had a note for our files,” she says.
“Yeah, so this little test The Exchange is going to spring on us? It’s gonna be a surprise, in every sense of the word. As in it might involve dark shadows that don’t know about burglar alarms. What I’m saying is the thing probably won’t go so well if you’re on a hair trigger, Rambo. So I don’t know. Maybe less Red Bull or something? Unless you want us to fail or get shot or both. I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that sex cults aren’t that interested in people with fresh bullet holes, even if they do have tons of cash on them.”
“Wait,” Emily says. “You spoke to Dugas about this? When?”
“Last night.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“Uhm, I was going to tell you, if you’d bothered to return my calls with anything besides emoticons you haven’t used on me since high school.” Jonathan pops open the refrigerator door and helps himself to a Corona. “And one more thing. Handbells!”
“Handbells?” Emily asks.
“Yeah. Apparently that’s the signal. That the test is about to begin.”
“Handbells,” Emily says again. The last time she ever saw a handbell was when she was dragged to her aunt’s fancy Episcopal church as a little girl. Her memory of white-gloved rich kids waving polished brass handbells through the air in front of them doesn’t quite fit with her depraved imaginings of what The Desire Exchange might turn out to be.
“Oh, and also, since, you know, everything’s out in the open now, I have a strict escort-client privilege policy. Unless you’re in the room with us. And last night, you were not in the room with us, Emily Blaine.” Before she can ask him not to, he punches the cap off the beer bottle using the side of the counter and the side of one fist. “You were probably in this room. With this guy.”
“Marcus, if you could excuse—”
“Or maybe that room,” Jonathan says, gesturing toward her bedroom door with the beer bottle.
“Marcus, could you please give us a moment alone so I can beat Jonathan to death with my shoes.”
“You’re not wearing shoes,” Marcus says quietly. His eyes tally everything else she’s not wearing as he brushes past her and heads for the front door.
Once they’re alone, Emily pulls the bottle from Jonathan’s hand and takes a long slug.
“Cut it out,” she says quietly.
“Cut what out?”
“You’re being weird. And kind of a jerk.” She’s said it as quietly and as casually as she can. But it stung him—that much is clear. And when she gives him back his beer, he tugs it from her grip with just a touch more force than necessary.
“You’re my best friend,” he says, “and for forty-eight hours you’ve been treating me like a mistake. How’s that for weird?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Are you?”
“Am I your best friend?”
“Of course you are.”
“And that’s all?”
“Why aren’t you a lawyer? I swear to God—”
“I’m just saying, ’cause the other night you wanted more. You were offering more. I mean, I think you were. When I tried to interpret your offer, you didn’t like what I said. So if I’m wrong, tell me now. Make your offer.”
“I can’t offer you something I don’t have a name for,” Jonathan whispers.
“Come on, you have a name for it! It’s what you do for a living now.”
“They’re not the same thing and you know it.”
He brushes past her, pulls a chair out from the table, and throws himself into it with enough force to suggest what he’d rather be doing is slamming the back door several times in a row, maybe tossing his beer bottle down the back steps. But that’s not Jonathan Claiborne’s style and never has been. But neither is bearing his heart. Now that he’s about to do it, she’s more frightened than when she fell face-first through the skylight and landed in the middle of his secret assignation.
Does she really know him as well as she thinks she does? If there’s a different Jonathan hiding under the clever one-liners and sexual
bravado, will he surprise her as much as the one who made love to her the other night?
It takes all of her self-control, but Emily forces herself to join him at the tiny kitchen table, forces herself to watch him as he traces one finger around the lip of the beer bottle and gazes at the wall as if it’s collapsed and given way to an expanse of dark memory.
“With me,” Emily finally says. “Did it feel different than being with a guy?”
“Of course it did.”
“Better? Worse?”
“Different. Different from everyone. For the first time in my life, I had good sex with someone I actually cared about. You can’t blame me for being a little messed up, okay?”
Emily’s entire body warms, a stronger heat than the one she felt when George Dugas casually unveiled her naked body. “Come on,” she whispers, because a whisper is the best she can do. “You know that’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” he asks.
“Remy…” she says, and it’s all she has to say. The memory of Jonathan’s first true love fills the space between them—perpetually smiling, cherubic Remy, with his infectious laugh and his wicked sense of humor.
“We were just kids, Emily,” Jonathan mutters, but he pulls hard on his Corona, swallowing so much beer at once his next breath sounds like a startled gasp.
To bring up Remy in this context feels as risky as everything else the two of them have done to their friendship over the past few days. She can’t even mention the guy’s name without remembering the suicide note he left for Jonathan at his bedside. Can’t. Sorry. Love you, always—R.
“I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you used to look at him,” she says.
“We were kids,” he says again. This time, there’s a quaver in his voice.
“Teenagers, not kids. And what matters is you were too young to talk yourselves out of how you really felt about each other.”
“So you think the way I felt about Remy back then is proof that I’m gay? Always and forever?”
“I know you’re gay. I don’t need proof.”
“Gosh. Was I that terrible?”
She’s tempted to play along, to match him joke for joke and steer them back to calmer waters. But there’s a moment here, she’s sure of it. A chance to speak a truth she’s never voiced to him before, and if the frenzy of pleasure they gave each other has made that possible, then maybe this whole episode in their lives, in their friendship, will be worth something more than confused longing.
“You didn’t kill Remy by loving him, Jonathan. Your love has never killed anyone and it never will. Give yourself permission to love people you actually care about. You deserve it.”
He blinks rapidly enough to stop the threat of tears, but there’s a catch in his voice when he speaks again. “People like you?” he asks.
“No. Men with Remy’s laugh, with his eyes. Men who hang on your every word the way he used to. Me? I’d just be this comfortable little corner you’d come back to again and again after you lived out your sexual fantasies with more men who don’t matter to you as much as Remy did. As much as he could have if he hadn’t...”
“Are you giving up on me, Emily Blaine?”
There’s no holding back the tears now. It’s fitting, she thinks, or a cruel irony that when Jonathan Claiborne cries, he looks fourteen again.
Emily gets to her feet and pads barefoot across the linoleum. She wraps her arms around him as best she can without letting her towel fall to the floor. When she feels no resistance from him, when his giant, muscular body melts backward into her embrace, some tension inside of her releases.
“I’d walk through fire for you, Jonathan Claiborne. Even if it was only to get you a beer.”
She can’t tell if he’s shaking with laughter or sobs or a mixture of both. After a while she lets him go, and he spins around in the chair to face her, eyes bloodshot and moist, but a huge smile screwed onto his face, and one pinky extended.
“Friends till the end?” he asks brightly.
“Friends till the end,” she says, then wraps her pinky around his. “With our clothes on.”
“Deal,” he says, but he looks away from her quickly and pushes himself to his feet. “But don’t expect me to drop my clients anytime soon. I’m makin’ a fortune, girlfriend!”
Before she has time to react, he’s sprung into her bathroom. The door is closed and the faucet is running before she can point out to him that she’s actually the one who isn’t dressed.
So far they have passed the test she has set up for them both, but that fact doesn’t make sleep any easier. Emily is wide awake, watching the rise and fall of Jonathan’s back in bed next to her, trying not to recall the feel of its hard ridges beneath her grasping sweaty, palms.
The boxers and T-shirts they’re both wearing don’t match exactly, but they’re pretty close. And in the glow of the bedside clock, Jonathan’s profile is a play of shadows and pale green shapes.
The desire is still there, of course, awake and stirring like a nervous cat at the foot of the bed. But in time it will settle, she’s sure. Maybe after another night or two like this, another night of lying next to him, fully clothed, their bodies inches apart but not touching, the memory of their insane and reckless coupling losing its glisten and luster and dangerous invitation with each passing, sleepless hour.
She should be grateful they’re able to return to this chaste and secure place that calls to mind the sleepovers of their teenage and early college years. But a part of her that’s caught between fear and longing expects Jonathan to roll over at any moment, bring his mouth to her neck and his fingers to her sex, and his whispers to her heart.
Lucky, she tells herself. She can feel her lips move against the pillow. She hopes she hasn’t whispered the words aloud. What we did was stupid, dangerous, and we’re here together in this bed and we’re still okay. And that makes us lucky, any way you look at it.
There’s a buzz and a flash of light next to her, a new text message. From an unfamiliar number. The messages just prior to it, a curt back and forth between her and Marcus about scheduling the burglar alarm install two days before.
he spending the night?
Emily responds:
yes…but not like that.
none of my biz, comes the response. just don’t want him surprising me again.
or vice versa, she writes back.
Where is Marcus? Is he parked outside? Across the street? Perched inside the back door?
true
So now he’s chatting with me, she thinks. The guy who could barely look her in the eye a few hours before is now sharing casual observations with her via text message.
thank you, she writes.
for what?
Good question, she thinks.
for keeping me safe.
A second ticks by, then another, then another, and she figures he will simply ignore this moment of kindness.
no thanks necessary
Oh, you charmer, Marcus Dylan. I bet that line worked on all the Al-Qaeda girls.
do you ever get to sleep? She writes back.
not big on sleep.
I see…
do you?
no. but maybe you’ll tell me.
maybe…maybe not.
why not?
I don’t want you to sleep as badly as I do.
yikes.
yeah, kinda.
Her finger hovers above her phone’s screen, but she’s got no clue what to write next, just a burning urge to say something, anything, that will make Marcus invite her to his late-night post, wherever that might be. But that feels like she'd be cheating at this test she’s set up for the the two of them, her and Jonathan. And God knows, she hates it when men use her as a distraction; she imagines Marcus would feel the same way.
Just then, there’s a stirring beside her. Jonathan’s arm slides across her chest like a giant, drowsy snake, forcing her to set the phone down gently on the nightstand. She rolls over onto one side, all
owing Jonathan to spoon against her back. But the phone’s screen still glows, Marcus’s last message staring out at her. It’s not a question, but it feels unanswered. She reaches for the phone with one arm, doing her best not to wake Jonathan, doing her best not to monitor every stirring, real or imagined, in his groin.
goodnight marcus dylan, she types, slowly, cautiously, with one finger on the hand she’s gripping the side of the phone with.
A few seconds later comes his response.
sweet dreams emily blaine
10
It feels final and she doesn’t want it to.
If Emily hadn’t hopped out of the car, the two of them wouldn’t have ended up standing on the curb together like lovers reluctant to part, the taxis and airport shuttles a steady, bleating river beside them while she fumbled for the best good-bye. But whatever they needed to say to each other, she didn’t want to say it in front of Marcus. So here they are; she in her jeans and polo, and Jonathan in his brand new sage-colored poplin suit and navy blue tie.
Given that he’s only an hour flight away from his temporary home, he’s decided to get into character early by dressing the part of Leonard Miller, dapper trust fund baby and only son of a nonexistent widow who has been living in the south of France for a decade. Emily’s got about five hours in the car with Marcus before she reaches Lily Conran’s beach house. Six, if you add the stop off in Pensacola to pick up the brand new car Arthur just had registered to the nonexistent paper mill heiress.
“So if we pass our little tests,” Emily asks, “what happens then?”
“I don’t know. We regroup? Come back here? Or maybe stay in our fake lives for a while so we don’t arouse suspicion. I figure we’ll get our instructions once we pass…if we pass. Anyway, Dugas says we should be fine.”
“You told him the plan?”
“Well, it’s really his plan, Em. Remember? He’s the one who suggested fake identities. Something in keeping with their usual clientele. Wasn’t that how he put it?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Once we’re settled, Dugas meets with them to see if we’ve been approved.”
“And then how long do we have to wait for our test?”