Chapter 23 Easton
EASTON
Ibet you’re giving up more than you’re admitting.
Of course I am. There are plenty of other problems in my relationship, but becoming an adult involves the realization that a certain degree of dissatisfaction is part of the deal.
No job is perfectly happy and no relationship is perfectly happy.
People talk about how much joy their children bring them, but research shows that people with children are significantly less happy than those without.
Which isn’t to say that having children or a job or a spouse is bad, but every responsibility you take on has a weight to be carried.
You can make everyone miserable bitching about it, or you can ignore those moments of irritation and fatigue, that tiny itch of displeasure, and I usually do. But I’ll allow myself some unprecedented honesty just this once.
Thomas is a terrible gift giver, for starters.
His idea of a Christmas present is some huge, confusing book he’s appalled I haven’t read.
Or a class I can take. His gifts are more a burden than anything else.
After a month wading through Ulysses and spending four Thursdays in a row learning how to make tapas, I suggested maybe we just shouldn’t exchange gifts anymore. It seemed easier.
And then there’s the sex.
I’d wanted to laugh when Kelsey said she was worried she’d interrupt post-engagement all-night sex.
We never have sex all night. And it was a Monday.
Unthinkable. Thomas and I have sex twice a week—Wednesday and Saturday—because having sex twice a week is protective against depression and good for relationships, but doing it more than that has no statistically significant benefits.
So we don’t do it more than that. Ever.
It’s not all bad, having it on the calendar.
At least I always know when I need to shave my legs.
But there are times when I’m listening to my roommates talk about tearing some guy’s clothes off or hooking up in an office late at night, and it hits me that I’ll never, for the rest of my life, experience one of those “fuck the consequences, this is happening” moments.
The memory of Elijah’s heavy-lidded gaze as he pulled up my skirt appears before I can stop it.
Not now, Elijah.
I guess I’d also prefer if Thomas wasn’t sleeping with me for its health benefits, but simply out of desire. I want him to send me desperate, eager texts every Wednesday and Saturday because he can’t wait. I want him to suggest a Friday once in a while because Saturday night is too far away.
And I want him to make noise. Thomas doesn’t make a peep, the entire time. Even when he comes, it’s only obvious because he stops.
I once asked him to say something dirty and he said, “Like what?” His wariness was an immediate cold shower. I didn’t want him drily reciting something he didn’t even mean, so I told him not to worry.
So when do you decide you’ve sacrificed too much and when do you decide it doesn’t matter?
If you can never cook anything with mushrooms because he hates them, if he wakes you up at five a.m. every morning, if you can’t get a dog because he’s allergic.
..do you end it over those things? Of course not.
Do you end it because he no longer seems interested in fucking you? I mean...odds are he was going to lose some interest eventually, right?
I’d take what I’ve got over being thrown down the stairs any day, over being forced to help someone conceal a crime, over having a husband who drives drunk every night.
So yes, those concessions—sleeping with someone who never makes a peep, who doesn’t seem to care about sex—are ones I’m willing to make.
Although...I don’t, technically, have to concede to a single fucking thing right now, do I?
“We’re stopping on the panhandle until Monday,” announces Betty when we return from the beach. She and Mrs. Cabot sit side by side at the kitchen counter, doing a puzzle. “An old beau of mine from high school lives there now.”
I turn toward the pot of coffee someone brewed while we were outside.
We are slightly over ten hours from New Orleans so I sort of suspected that we wouldn’t finish this trip today.
The silver lining is that I get some more time at the beach and might finally see a coastal dune lake, which I’ve been obsessed with since I was a kid.
The downside is that I’m stuck that much longer with Mrs. Cabot.
“He wasn’t just your beau,” snipes Mrs. Cabot. “I dated him first.”
“You barely dated Paul for a week,” Betty argues.
“Well, I bet it’s a week he remembers,” says Mrs. Cabot.
Elijah and I share a glance. On my end, this glance says, “What did your grandmother do to make it so memorable for Paul?” and Elijah’s says, “Please don’t go there.”
“Tell us about that memorable week, Mrs. Cabot,” I urge. Elijah releases a quiet groan.
“It’s between me and Paul,” she says primly.
She’s inviting me to creatively fill in the blanks. Aloud. To Elijah.
Elijah shakes his head, warning me not to do what I’m absolutely going to do.
I mouth the word anal in response.
He rolls his eyes, fighting a smile, and turns to Betty. “I assumed that we’d be staying somewhere in the vicinity. Panama City had hotels with plenty of vacancies, but I haven’t booked anything yet.”
“We’ve got it all covered,” Betty assures him. “Paul’s been widowed for a while and invited us to stay with him.”
Oh my God.
I’m picturing a two-bedroom home that has not been cleaned since this guy’s wife died a decade ago.
I’m picturing my dad’s house, only without my intervention.
A decade of newspapers blocking the door, cigarette smoke heavy in the air.
And roaches. If even that sweet place Elijah rented for us in Key West had the occasional cockroach, what kind of bug situation am I looking at tonight?
Elijah starts down the stairs, carrying his grandmother’s suitcase, and I follow to pack my stuff. “Did you notice that both your grandmother and Betty are wearing twice the amount of makeup they normally do?” I ask.
He sighs heavily. “You’re going to have a field day with this, aren’t you?”
I laugh. Because yes, that is, indeed, my plan. “I’m pretty sure it’s Paul who will be having a field day, railing Betty and your grandmother at once.”
His tongue glides over his lip, and his eyes shut as if he is praying for patience. “While the path this conversation is taking was entirely predictable, I’m begging you to stop.”
“And given his age, we can assume it’ll take him forever to finish. Unless your grandmother pulls out the trick that made their week together so memorable, that is. I have some thoughts on that, by the way.”
“I swear to fucking God, Easton,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose, but he is trying not to laugh.
I don’t make Thomas laugh. He isn’t amused when I antagonize him...he’s simply irritated. I guess that’s one more concession I’m making, though maybe it’s Thomas making the concession. How many guys want a wife who enjoys antagonizing them?
I return to the basement and find my bikini neatly folded atop the bed. Once again there’s this clench in my stomach, a delightful swirl of hormones, at the thought of Elijah handling it.
Maybe I should have been nicer to Thomas this morning. In some ways, he’s the lesser of two evils.
It’s a six-hour drive from Siesta Key to Seaside, but it threatens to take a hundred hours instead. I’m pretty sure that walking is faster than traveling by car with these three—I’m including Elijah because he’s almost incapable of telling them no.
We begin, of course, with a full breakfast and multiple cups of coffee, which is followed by that coffee running right through Betty.
She spends an unreasonable amount of time in the Walmart bathroom while Mrs. Cabot does some shopping for Paul.
She assumes he hasn’t purchased a single new thing since his wife died and is “in need of a woman’s touch. ”
This does not inspire confidence about the state of his home, but I manage to bring up the bit about him needing a woman’s touch to Elijah several times.
“This trip is aging me,” he says, “but it sure is turning the clock back on you.”
I don’t think it’s a compliment.
Once we’re on the road again, Betty and Mrs. Cabot argue subtly about which of them Paul liked better, and though they eventually conclude that they were both more attractive than the classmate Paul married—it seems a bit uncharitable given that that woman is now dead—it’s clear there’s going to be a catfight if we ever arrive.
“Your discomfort is the only thing making this drive worthwhile,” I tell Elijah as we walk into Cracker Barrel for lunch. It’s not even noon.
“You’re hiding your delight in this situation so well,” he replies with a grin. “I’d seriously never have guessed.”
We reach Paul’s home many hours later.
It’s a mansion, a massive multi-story contemporary that sits oceanfront atop the whitest sand I’ve ever seen. “At last things are looking up,” I whisper to Elijah.
Paul is not a shriveled old man still mourning his lost wife and desperately in need of a woman’s touch...at least, not the sort of touch Mrs. Cabot anticipated he’d need when she was buying him hand towels at Walmart. He might want the other sort, though.
“Well, aren’t you two the hottest things I’ve seen in a couple decades?” he asks, wrapping his arm around both their waists and kissing them each on the cheek. “Makes me want to move somewhere that allows bigamy.”
Mrs. Cabot giggles as if she’s fourteen. “You’re so bad, Paul.”
“I’m even worse than you remember, Carol,” he says with a roguish waggle of the brows and a bit of a growl, which I might have found sexy if he were a few years younger.
Mrs. Cabot seems to find it sexy right now. There was a startling shift in her the second he came into view, her eyes going wide, her head cocking, a little smile on her mouth that I will definitely refer to as coquettish or seductive later when I discuss it with Elijah.
Elijah is so horrified that he stands frozen for a moment before springing into action, extending a hand, probably so that Paul will have to release at least one of the women. “I’m Elijah, Carol’s grandson, and this is my sister’s best friend, Easton.”
Paul shakes Elijah’s hand, then mine, but he has zero interest in either of us.
“You’ve done very well for yourself, Paul,” Betty coos. “Give us the tour!”
“I’ll show you to your rooms,” he says to them, “but you’re welcome to stay in mine.”
They both giggle and Mrs. Cabot swats his arm. “Oh, Paul.”
Paul then turns his attention to us.
“Thanks for driving them over,” Paul tells Elijah. “I’m going to put you two up in my property right around the corner. Spectacular views. You don’t want to waste your time with us old folks.”
Elijah stiffens and looks to me, something frantic in his gaze. “I, um, Easton? From a medical perspective, don’t you think we should probably stay with them?”
“I mean...we’re just going to be around the corner,” I reply.
“Medical perspective?” Mrs. Cabot asks. “Since when do I need a nursemaid? And she’s not even a real doctor.”
Paul pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket. “Address and lockbox code are right there.”
“Easton?” Elijah prods.
I have no idea what he expects me to say. The truth is she’s better off with EMS than she is with me, and she also shows no sign of ailing health.
“I’ll help you carry in their bags,” I reply.
If looks could kill, I would not be alive for Kelsey’s wedding.
We get their suitcases inside but are only allowed as far as the first-floor elevator. “I’ll, uh, check on you later, Grandma,” Elijah says, but Mrs. Cabot isn’t even looking at him. She flutters her hand in our direction, though I’m sure she was only waving at Elijah, and the doors shut.
“You were extremely helpful there,” Elijah says as we climb into the car.
I click my seat belt in cheerfully. “Forgive me if I didn’t want to help you cockblock three octogenarians, Elijah.”
“I assumed you’d cockblock my grandmother purely out of spite.”
That’s entirely fair. I would. “I decided it would be more fun to watch you fall apart all night. I do hope they’re using protection.”
He plugs the new address into the nav system. “Just stop.”
“STDs are running rampant through that age group, bro. It’s no joke.”
“Easton, I swear to fucking God...” He shakes his head. But he wants to laugh.
I yawn. My jaw doesn’t pop. I don’t really need a nap, either.
I wish I didn’t have to go through life with a guy I can’t antagonize. It really brings me a great deal of joy.