Chapter 21 Marsh
Marsh
When I wake up, there’s only one thing on my mind: Lucy Reid.
I think it’s the first time in years my mind doesn’t immediately go to my outstanding deadlines, my unread emails, or whatever fucked-up thing is happening in the world today.
Instead of feeling inundated with the who, what, when, where, and whys of everyone else’s life, I just think about myself for a second.
Wiping a palm over my face, I catch the sun only just rising, the reflection of the rays rippling off Richardson Bay through the open window. While it’s beautiful, what’s breathtaking is the long, dark hair swept over the pillow beside me.
I can’t help but stare at Lucy sleeping peacefully. My gaze follows her tiny frame, covered by an oversize band tee, her long lashes and full lips in their most natural state. I can’t believe she’s in front of me like this.
Last night really happened.
Last night felt like a fever dream that I completely surrendered myself to.
Because why would Lucy Reid want me? To kiss me the way she did, hold me, say my name over and over again.
Surely, that was my imagination. If someone who was with me when I was still a glass-half-full kind of person felt like I wasn’t enough… why would someone want me now?
Yet, Lucy is in front of me—her shallow breathing, flushed cheeks, and soft skin all in front of me.
I don’t even know how it happened. I thought I had more self-control.
But there’s something about Lucy’s eyes: the way they look into mine, the way they’ve been looking into mine, that makes me feel comfortable enough to open up.
Lucy looks at me like maybe she actually cares about what I have to say.
I fight the urge to give Lucy a kiss and do everything we did last night all over again and then some. Instead, I carefully get out of bed, put on my glasses, and find a T-shirt. I take a final glance at Lucy, who hasn’t moved an inch, and then sneak out.
Pulling out my phone, I search for the closest café and walk out into the brisk summer air. Sausalito is stunning. It’s the kind of town that makes you realize just how great it is to be alive. Maybe that sentiment is more the effects of last night and not the town itself.
I end up ordering an iced oat latte for Lucy, a bacon and a veggie breakfast burrito, a pistachio croissant, a banana bread muffin, and a chocolate chip cookie.
I don’t have the ability to decipher a perfect order right now, so I just get everything to be safe.
When I come back to the hotel room, I carefully shut the door trying not to make a noise.
I’m unsuccessful because Lucy lets out the cutest sound I’ve ever heard and stretches. “Marsh?” She yawns.
“Hey.” I take off my shoes and walk over to the bed.
She looks up at me, her eyes looking like I just bought her a diamond ring. “Did you get breakfast?”
“Uh, yeah…” I hand her the paper bag with far too much food. She probably thinks I’m insane. “Is that okay?”
She opens the bag, her eyes scanning all the contents. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I figured you’d be hungry,” I say, and she looks at me, a hint of a smile on her face. “That came out wrong.”
“No,” she laughs. “You’re right. You kind of tired me out there.”
“I think you’re the one that tired me out,” I correct.
“I don’t know.” She reaches for the bacon burrito. “I was on my knees there for a while.”
“Yeah, but I was the one doing the work.”
She smiles. “That you were.”
She sits back against the pillows and unwraps her burrito. I open the French doors to the terrace and let the fresh air in. I sit on the foot of the bed and take the veggie burrito, and as we eat, everything just feels so natural.
I pass her the iced latte I got. “So—”
“Oat milk?” she asks.
“I’m offended you even have to ask at this point.”
“Thank you.” She takes a sip.
“So,” I continue, “can we talk about what happened last night?”
“What do you want to talk about?” Lucy asks through a mouthful of food.
“We said we wouldn’t sleep together, and we did.”
She takes a second to chew another mouthful of her burrito and swallow. I can see in real time her mustering up the courage to say whatever she’s about to.
“Look,” Lucy starts, “last night was amazing. The sex was incredible…and you look upsettingly good without a shirt on.” I let out a small laugh.
“But we probably shouldn’t do it again,” she says matter-of-factly, and I feel like maybe I misheard.
“We got swept away being in a different city…the views, the water, the bed.” Lucy smiles.
“I think we just needed to get it out of our systems, right?”
I look down, suddenly feeling like I was punched in the stomach. Clearly whatever happened last night was a completely different experience for Lucy than it was for me.
I nod, not really sure what to say in response to that.
I don’t necessarily know how I feel. Should I be hurt?
Should I be relieved? Maybe I should be relieved.
I never wanted to do the whole dating and relationship dance all over again.
That was the whole point of doing this with Lucy and not another woman.
There’s also the undeniable fact that we work together and this couldn’t happen even if we wanted it to.
Maybe this is the best reaction I could have asked for. Maybe this is good.
“Right,” I say.
“We’re adults who are clearly attracted to each other and we deserved to explore that,” Lucy says. “This doesn’t mean anything has to change.”
“So, last night didn’t change anything for you?”
“No.” She shrugs, taking another huge bite of burrito, and frankly I’m kind of thrown off by how flippant she’s being. “We just had sex.”
We just had sex.
The words echo in my head until I become numb to them.
“We just had sex,” I repeat, seeing if it rolls off my tongue the way it does hers.
“This doesn’t have to affect our arrangement unless we let it,” she states.
“Right,” I say again, and I’m aware I need to expand my vocabulary during this conversation.
Maybe that’s all this was. Maybe I completely misread the signs because I don’t know how to do any of this.
I’m not the kind of person who casually sleeps with women and can just shut my emotions off completely after.
This is exactly why I didn’t want to casually date in the first place.
I don’t know how to have sex with someone and have it not mean something, and maybe that’s my problem.
Clearly Lucy can do that. Clearly Julia can too.
I remember the cries from Julia, the pounding of her fists on my chest, the way she insisted that she made a mistake with Chad.
The words it didn’t mean anything, Marsh, ring in my ear.
I never understood it…How sex can just not mean anything to someone.
Perhaps that’s my own personal flaw. Maybe I don’t realize that sex can just be an act—as simple as hugging or laughing.
But I’ve gone through these feelings already. I couldn’t convince myself that sex doesn’t mean anything then, and I’m struggling to now. But if that’s how Lucy sees it, I’ll force myself to understand it. I have to.
After we eat our burritos, Lucy and I take showers, pack, and start our six-hour drive back to Los Angeles.
There’s nothing awkward about our time together.
We joke, we chat, we even talk more about the story that I’m working on.
It’s all exactly the same. It really is like last night never happened.
Not just the sex, but the birthday party, the hand holding, the conversation over ice cream, all of it.
And that fucks with me.
It fucks with me as we talk more about my family and her family. It fucks with me when she laughs at something I say and unconsciously touches my arm. It fucks with me the entire car ride and right until we’re parked in front of Lucy’s apartment.
“I had fun this weekend.” She turns to me. “Thanks for bringing me to meet everyone. Really.”
“Yeah, well, that was the whole plan, right?” I say sharply. “For you to pretend to be my girlfriend in front of Julia.”
There’s a look on Lucy’s face that I can’t quite read. It’s a look I haven’t seen before in our time together, but I hate it.
“Right,” she says. “Okay, well, have a good night.”
She awkwardly opens the door and gets out.
I would get out and help with her bag in the trunk, but my fists are gripping the wheel so firmly I can’t.
She pops the trunk open herself, and it’s not until I hear it closing that I snap back to reality.
She’s walking toward the front door, not even looking back, and I’m just in shock.
I’m in shock that this was so easy for her.
“You’re really leaving?” I call out through the open window.
Lucy stops in her tracks, turning around. “What?”
“You’re really leaving,” I say now like a statement. I open the car door and step out. It’s dark now and dead silent. There’s only the sound of traffic up the street, but I don’t care.
“Yeah…” she says, confused. “I live here?”
“Last night meant nothing to you?” I ask because I need her to say it to me. Not whatever self-righteous bullshit monologue she gave me this morning that left me speechless.
She closes her eyes. “Marsh…”
“I just”—I lift my glasses and pinch the bridge of my nose—“I’m not good at this, okay?”
“You’re not good at what?”
“This.” I point between us. “The idea of fake dating is something I could barely wrap my head around. It’s been three weeks and I still don’t know how to do this,” I say, not hiding my frustration very well.
“And you think I do?” she says.
“Well, clearly.” I gesture. “You’re totally fine with just spending every day together, getting to know each other?
” I say. “Talking about our hypothetical future, meeting my family, sharing stories we haven’t told anyone else before?
Sleeping together and then just acting like this is normal?
Like all of this means literally nothing to you? ”
“That’s the whole point, Marsh,” she says, now sounding as frustrated as I am. “We knew what we were signing up for when we did this, so it has to mean nothing.”
“Why does it have to mean nothing?”
“Because it does!” She drops her bag on the ground. “Because if it starts to mean something then what the fuck are we even doing?”
“Well, call me old-fashioned or whatever label you want to slap on, but I can’t just sleep with someone and have it mean nothing.”
“Marsh, that’s the easy part.” She looks at me like I’ve somehow disappointed her. “That’s the part that’s supposed to mean nothing for men.”
“Well, I guess I’m not like other men,” I say.
“Yeah, no shit,” she scoffs.
“What the hell does that mean, Lucy?” I make a face. “You’re mad that it meant something to me?”
“It means that you’re not like other men, Marshall,” she spits out. “And do you know how hard that is for me? Sometimes I wish I asked literally anyone else to do this instead of you, because it would be so much easier to pretend to date someone if they were an asshole to me, if they didn’t care.”
Lucy’s words feel like another swing to my gut.
Like I’ve been a wet towel all day. Like she’s taken the most vulnerable part of me, pulled it out, and wrung it to dry.
What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just be another guy?
Why can’t I just take what happened last night and see it as a win and continue to do what we’re doing?
Things would be so much easier for me if I didn’t care… but I do.
“I don’t think this is working,” I say.
Lucy looks at me, stunned. “Yeah…I guess not.”
It feels like that point in a conversation where it’s still okay to say, I’m sorry, I take it back, but maybe I have too much pride. Or maybe I just frankly can’t go through this again.
“I’m sorry—” I start.
“Don’t be,” Lucy says dismissively, lips pursed. “We had fun. I was able to get a few articles out and you were able to get the point across to Julia and your family.”
Julia and my family are the furthest thing from my mind.
“Right,” I say.
“It was a stupid idea anyway, right?” Lucy says.
“Yeah,” I say. “It was.” We stay in place, looking anywhere but at each other. “This won’t change anything with the story,” I say. “You can still be an expert on it—”
“Marsh, it’s fine.” Lucy cuts me off. “I think it’s better if you find someone else.”
I don’t really have anything else to say or have the effort to convince her to keep working together. “Okay.”
“So, I guess this is it.” She extends her hand to me. “Good luck.”
I stare at her hand like it’s a grenade but shake it anyway.
“Good luck to you too, Lucy.”