Chapter 38Annie
Chapter 38
Annie
MARCH | Balance: $45,397
I was on my way to Nick’s from the office on a Friday evening, leaving yet another voicemail for Paxton Marshall.
“Hey, Paxton. It’s Annie Markham. Just wanted to check in with you. I got some good feedback from the Princes’ staff, and I wanted to touch base with what might be on the table. Give me a call back when you get a chance.”
As I was hanging up, my phone rang. Kitty. I answered.
And all I heard was sobbing.
“Kitty, what’s wrong? What happened?”
Through a deep, weepy gasp, she cried, “Can you come over?”
“Of course. On my way. Did someone die?”
“No. Guy’s—” more sobs, “I think he’s cheating on me, Annie.”
Fuck.
“I’ll be right there, Kitty Cat. Just hang on. Have you called Jessie yet?”
“She’s here. Guy sent her down when he went to Mikey’s. I told him to leave because I can’t even look at him right now.”
I sucked a breath through my nose. “I’m sure there’s an explanation for everything.”
Her nose honked into a tissue. “I don’t know, Annie. It looks pretty bad.”
I called Nick, who had just gotten off the phone with Mikey. The guys were assembling at Mikey’s house, and the girls at Guy and Kitty’s. It was almost farcical. It seemed surreal. They were the most in-love couple I knew, almost star-crossed lovers. How could Guy? Did he really? It felt impossible.
When I walked in at Kitty’s, Jessie looked up from the couch with worried eyes, her arm around Kitty. I took over, Jessie slipping out to the bathroom while I held Kitty. She struggled to pull herself together enough to give me the details.
“So,” she bawled, “after work, I was cleaning out my planters to get them ready for spring, and I found . . .” she held up a wadded-up pair of dirt-covered underwear, “these! At our house, Annie! He brought someone to our house. My house! That I paid for with my Hollywood money! He had the nerve to bring some tramp back to my house!”
My jaw fell open, until I noticed the lacy edge on the underwear looked very familiar. “Hang on, Kitty.”
I fished out my phone, firing off a text to Nick.
What did you do with my thanksgiving underwear
Nick Oberbeck
I know. I just put it together
We have to come clean. Bring the boys down here
and we’ll do it together?
On our way.
It’ll be okay, angel. They love us.
“Um, Kitty, don’t kill me, but I have something to tell you. The boys are coming here so we can tell you all at once.”
“What?” Her eyes were round and scared. “What would you have to do with this?” Then her stare turned murderous. “Annabelle Jane Markham, I opened my fucking house to you. You’ve been sleeping with my husband?”
“Kitty, no—”
“The maid of honor at my goddamn wedding and after all these years, you stole him from me?”
It hurt to have my best friend accusing me of fucking her husband, but why wouldn’t she have a reason to be suspicious? I’d been involved with a married man before.
“That’s not the news, if you can just wait—”
Mikey and Jessie lived down the street from Guy and Kitty, so I expected them to arrive quickly. Thankfully, the front door opened at that moment, Nick, Mikey, and Guy coming in looking like absolute hell. Mikey probably because he worried about everyone else. Guy because the love of his life thought he was cheating on her. And Nick because we were about to be exposed.
Greg followed on their heels, running straight for me and jumping in my lap.
Mikey sat next to Jessie, and Guy tried to put his arm around Kitty. She shot him a death glare. Guilty until proven innocent, that was how Kitty had always been. It’s great when she’s hating someone on your behalf, but not so great when you’re on the receiving end. I shot Guy a sympathetic glance.
“ Ma puce , please,” he begged.
Nick settled in next to me, looking at me cautiously.
“We can put an end to this misunderstanding right now,” I said, swallowing hard. “So the underwear are mine. They’re from Thanksgiving—”
“You didn’t have underwear on Thanksgiving because you fucked my husband?!” Kitty shrieked.
“Sweetheart,” Guy said, putting a hand on her leg. “Let her talk.”
“Because Nick and I . . . had a moment in your backyard.”
Nick took my hand and squeezed it as we waited through the silence. Then everything happened at once. Mikey, forever the loudest, was heard first.
“I fucking TOLD YOU, Jessalyn!” Mikey shouted. “Boom! Oh! I told you so hard! Weeks ago!”
Jessie gave a reluctant nod, raising her eyebrows with a laugh. “Yep. You did.”
“Fifty bucks, Miss Welsh,” he said. “You owe me! Oh! God, it feels good. Stelle, I told you, too! I knew it wasn’t some random chick.”
Guy paid zero attention to Mikey, holding Kitty’s hands and looking into her eyes. “I told you I’d never, Kitty Bird. Never.”
She crumpled into tears, throwing herself into his arms. “I’m so sorry, Guy-Guy. I jumped to the worst conclusions.”
“It’s alright,” Guy said, holding her and looking relieved. She peppered him with kisses, practically groveling. Then she turned to me.
“Annie, honey, you too,” Kitty said, standing and coming at me with her arms open. “I’m sorry I accused you of something so awful.”
“I mean, it didn’t look good,” I admitted as we fell into a hug.
“I’m so embarrassed,” Kitty moaned. “I feel terrible about this.”
“Your husband and your best friend wouldn’t do that to you, babe. But I get why you freaked out,” I said. “We’re okay.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, giving me a last squeeze and stepping back, settling on Guy’s lap. “But Annie . . . you’ve been keeping this from me. You’re my best friend. You and Nick are . . . well, what are you?”
Nick took my hand as I sat again, and he gave me a reassuring nod. “We’ve been in an arrangement of sorts since October. It started as no-strings, but you know. He’s pretty great.”
Nick’s gaze locked with mine, a boyish grin broadening his face. And then, we kissed. There, in front of our friends.
“My little boy’s growing up!” Jessie gasped. “Look how cute they are, Ben!”
“What do you mean, arrangement?” Kitty was still disgruntled. “Annie, your job. You can’t do this.”
The little high I was riding of sharing our joy with our closest friends faded. Nick gulped in a breath and squeezed my knee.
“So, I went to Annie after she moved to town. As you know, we had a not-so-great time together at the wedding, which was my fault. So, I told Annie the truth. And the truth is—”
I lowered my voice and turned into him. “You don’t have to, Nick. If you’re not ready, you don’t have to.”
“I’m ready,” he said with a deep sigh. “Um, well, I’m pansexual, and I’d never been with a woman. I wanted Annie to help me get better at pleasing women so I didn’t make the same mistakes with someone else.”
I put my arm around his back, snuggling him to me. “And I’m bi, so I get the struggle and all the ways people misunderstand you, so I agreed.”
Guy stuck his bottom lip out and nodded. Mikey’s mouth hung open, eyes wide. Jessie just nodded. Kitty had a soft smile.
“We stunned them,” Nick stage whispered.
Kitty laughed. “You know I love you, Annie. And I think it’s cool that you found each other. My second favorite person and one of my favorite people.” Kitty had long known about me being bi, but since my first coming out, I didn’t broadcast my bi status all over the place. It’s kind of inconvenient. Every time you meet someone new, what are you supposed to do? Say hello, my name is Annie, and you didn’t ask but I like penises and vaginas and everything in between?
Jessie broke the awkwardness. “Congratulations! Thank you for trusting us. So pan means men, women, non-binary, and trans, right? Is bi just men and women?”
“For me, they’re kind of two sides of the same coin,” I explained. “Bi generally means two or more genders. I could probably also be called pan, but I’m more comfortable with the terms bi or queer.”
“Got it,” Jessie nodded.
“My mom is gay,” Mikey said, and Jessie laughed, putting her head in her hands.
“That’s Ben’s way of saying he’s supportive, y’all,” Jessie said, doing that ever-confusing thing of referring to someone who goes by their hockey nickname, by their actual government name.
“What? She is! I have a mom, a dad, and two stepmoms. It’s cool.”
“Well, we won’t tell anyone if you don’t want us to,” Guy said. “It’s your news to share. Both about your sexuality and your relationship. We’ll keep it to ourselves. Even Mikey. Right, Mikey?”
Mikey threw a hand out. “Why is everyone looking at me? I’m good at keeping secrets.”
Everyone laughed, and Jessie patted his back. “You’re not, but we still love you.”
Nick spoke over the chatter. “I’d appreciate you not telling. I don’t tell people at work about me, because yeah, sports. But Annie could lose her job. I’m lucky she was willing to stay private, because I wasn’t willing to let her go.”
How could I not be a googly-eyed fool over him?
Like a car through a fresh plate-glass window on a new business, Kitty brought the reality crashing back in. “But you two are what, in love?”
Nick looked at me again, pain in his eyes. We’d hinted at love all the time, but we stuck with our “XO” routine. I did love him, of course, but I knew us saying it would just make things messier in the worst-case scenario where my job found out about us.
“We’re being careful,” I said. “As you know, he’s my client and we can’t be public. We get together when we won’t be seen.”
Mikey puffed out his lip. “Like Romeo and Juliet! Do you throw pebbles at her window?”
Nick chuckled. “I do not. And I hope we don’t die in the end. But yeah, we decided we didn’t want our arrangement to end because we really like each other. If sneaking around is what we have to do to be together, so be it.”
Jessie was clutching Mikey, swooning. “That’s so sweet and sad.”
“Okay, Obi, who’s hotter, me or Guy?”
Kitty and Jessie shouted at Mikey simultaneously, a “MICHAEL!” and a “BENNY!” coming out at once. “That is not an okay question to ask,” Jessie clarified, shaking her head. “You don’t ask Annie which of you is hotter.”
“Annie doesn’t see me naked!” he objected.
Jessie glared at him. “You’re making it worse.”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Mikey backpedaled. “I’m sorry, Obi. I just want to be hotter than Stelle.”
“Can I hug you guys?” Kitty asked. “I’m so happy for you both. And worried, but mostly happy.”
We all stood and exchanged hugs and congratulations.
“And next time you’re fucking on my patio, at least take the souvenir with you. Jesus,” Kitty said. “Almost ruined my marriage.”
“I owe you guys big time for that one,” Nick said. “I can’t say I’m sorry enough.”
Then everyone piled on, revealing the breadcrumbs and things that suddenly made sense about Nick’s and my behavior.
“That blonde hair on his sweatshirt that day, Stelle!”
“All those mysterious dates with no follow-up.”
“The dog in the background!”
“The way Greg is obsessed with her!”
“Both of them disappearing at Thanksgiving.”
“When he said his new girl took care of him when he was sick.”
I finally got to show Jessie and Kitty the fun pictures from our skateboarding date.
Mikey gave Jessie a look and said, “While we’re sharing news . . .”
“Ben,” Jessie whined.
“They’re our best friends, Jessalyn,” he whined back.
Jessie smirked. “Fine.”
“Jessie’s pregnant,” Mikey said with an ear-to-ear grin. “Due on Halloween.”
Kitty and I both squealed and swarmed Jessie, making a little circle and skipping around. It was truly one of the more ridiculous things I’ve done in my life.
“No skipping, I feel like ass,” Jessie moaned with a laugh.
“Wait, October? You’ll be pregnant at your wedding?” Kitty asked.
Jessie scrunched her nose. “Yeah. This wasn’t the plan, but we’re happy anyway.”
“Mommy, that’s great news!” Nick said, attacking her in a hug.
“I told you guys I can keep secrets,” Mikey beamed. “I’ve waited a whole damn month.”
Guy broke out some drinks to toast to our friend group of couples and Mikey and Jessie’s big news. Though the evening had started in crisis, I ended the night feeling like maybe my life was no longer falling apart.