Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Fallon
PJ: Did you find the present I got for you?
Fallon: I did, Keeper
PJ: Are you wearing it?
My face gets warm. It wasn’t even anything out of control. No metal or chains. Or maybe it wouldn’t be to some, but to me a temporary tattoo that says “OWNED” is sexy as hell. It feels like a step forward for us.
It feels like a declaration.
Fallon: Not yet. I’m at the faculty mixer, remember?
Fallon: You’re not upset with me, are you?
PJ: I’m not mad. Just wanted to see it on you.
PJ: But I know how you can make it up to me.
Fallon: Anything
PJ: Wear it on Monday. While you’re teaching about The Scarlet Letter up in front of the class. Just for me.
What PJ doesn’t know yet is I might not be there on Monday. I’ve bitten my nails for days waiting for something further after that video. Like a message from my department head letting me know I’ve been fired.
This has Eric written all over it. It’s absolutely the sort of thing he’d do.
So I’ve decided to get ahead of the problem. I scan the room, trying to locate Dean Sutton.
“You know, this is a faculty mixer. You’re supposed to be mixing.”
Wes sidles up next to me. He teaches a part-time class in the hospitality and tourism department.
“You’re schmoozing enough for both of us. Someone needs to hold up the wall.”
I send another text.
Fallon: Yes, Keeper
Suddenly I’m soaked. Something cold splashes across my face. Vodka and lime, maybe.
“What the hell was that?”
“Sorry.” Wes hands over a tiny cocktail napkin, as if that’s going to mop up everything. “There was a dead fly in my drink.”
“So you thought you needed to throw it at me?”
“It was an accident. I was about to take a drink when I saw it, and I was startled. Jesus.”
Was it really a dead fly, though? “You’re slurring a little, Wes. Not really the time or place to soak yourself in booze.”
“If they didn’t want people to drink, they wouldn’t serve cocktails.” He nods toward my wet shirt. “It was vodka and soda. Be fine once it dries.”
Perhaps, but my shirt is far too see-through and unprofessional looking at the moment.
“Well, I was about to go and talk to Dean Sutton, and I’d prefer not to do so looking like a drowned rat.”
Maybe I ought to send him an email. Resigning via faceless electronic means is awfully tempting. It’s easy. Safe. A year ago I might have.
But no. For this, face-to-face is the right way to go.
Wes gestures to where the dean is holding court at a corner table with a gaggle of older men who are all somewhere in age between seventy and they-might-use-witchcraft-to-keep-going.
“I wouldn’t bother. You know how these things go. He only ever sits around and talks shop with his golf buddies.”
“I know. But it’s important I get this over with.” I turn to face Wes head-on. “I’m quitting. The sooner I let him know, the better.”
Thank goodness Wes already spilled his drink, because if not, I think I’d be getting hit with another blast. “Why the fuck would you go and do that? You said this job fucking saved you after Marina died.”
Yeah. I did. “At the time, that was true. I have more things in my life now. Good things. Things you encouraged me to go out and find, I might add. I’ve even started writing again.”
After going to stay at PJ’s apartment, I commandeered a blank notebook and used it to purge all of my thoughts. Somewhere along the way I realized my nightly scrawling was turning itself into a story.
“So, I feel like it’s time for me to move on,” I add.
Better to leave the notes and cameras and the threatening video out of it. Wes is already going off half-cocked.
Wes looks at me as if I’m a toddler he’s tired of scolding. Funny, because my brother is acting like a toddler, and I’m tired of him getting into my business.
“You know that kid is broke as fuck, right? He probably saw that sweet-ass beach house you live in and got dollar signs in his eyes. Probably thought he won the sugar daddy sweepstakes.”
“We’ve been over this, Wes. You’re insulting literally all of us right now, me the most. You’re the one who wanted me to get out and start dating again.
Now that I have, you want me to be alone again?
You’re the one who set us up. I don’t care that you didn’t know him that well. I like him, and I’m happy.”
My brother stares at me, red-faced. At some point his drink cup got crushed in his hand.
“Look, I can’t thank you enough for your support after Marina died.
I needed it. I’m grateful. It’s also time to get the hell out of my personal life.
I’ve been staying at PJ’s place recently, and we’ve gotten a lot closer.
I’m not lonely and angry anymore. I’ve got a puppy to take care of.
I appreciate that you helped me get this job, but I don’t need it like I used to.
If someone finds out about our relationship, I’ll be fired.
PJ could get expelled. There’s too damn much at stake. ”
Never mind that someone already has found out.
I run a hand through my hair, itchy and restless to get this over with. “It’s better to come clean now. Between PJ and the job, I’m choosing him.”
“Fallon.”
“It’s my decision. I know you don’t trust him; I know you think he’s too young.
You didn’t like Marina because you thought she was too controlling.
Except I told you over and over that the control was something I consented to.
So I don’t expect you to understand my relationship with PJ, either.
Lucky for you, you’re not the one dating him. ”
Across the way there’s an opening. Dean Sutton slaps one of his friends on the shoulder and gets up, ambling toward the open bar for another drink.
This is a good chance to grab him. Wet shirt be damned. Before I can second, third, and fourth guess myself, I shove away from the tall cocktail table I’d been standing next to and make my way toward the opposite corner of the ballroom.
“Fallon, wait.” Barely ten feet and Wes catches me by the arm. “Don’t do it, okay? Don’t.”
Likely due to our age difference, my brother and I didn’t squabble the way I’ve heard some siblings do. We didn’t fight, or wrestle. Never punched each other or shoved one another’s faces in the dirt. I’m sorely tempted right now.
“Wes. Stop. Were you not listening to everything I just said, or were you still distracted by that dead fly in your drink?”
“I know. I know. But…” He fidgets for a moment, like a child who can’t think of what to say when caught in a lie.
“Okay, you know what? Tell me later.” Once again I turn to walk away.
“He’s a whore,” Wes blurts. Loudly. Too loudly. “Did you know that? He bones other guys for money.”
I knew, because PJ told me. How did Wes know? The question is a punch to the gut.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Don’t call him that. I know he’s an escort.
He told me. He takes lonely people to weddings and charity events and sometimes, in the case of a guy who says he has trouble dating because of his busy career, out for coffee and bagels one morning a week. He doesn’t have sex with any of them.”
“Y-you actually believe that?” my brother sputters.
“Yes, Wes. I believe him. What’s the alternative, spending the rest of my life not trusting anybody? If I think he’s cheating on me, then I’ll talk to him about that. Him, who I’m in a relationship with, not my interfering older brother who’s manufacturing reasons to break us up.”
“I’m not manufacturing shit, Fallon. He’s lying.” Wes’s chest puffs with the force of a deep inhale. “I know he’s lying because he got paid to have sex with you.”
My brother’s face is red. His chest is heaving. I have only a split second of gloating over the fact that my brother blurted out something he didn’t intend to say before the impact of what he said slaps me across the face.
All at once I’m underwater. Everything is blurry. My brother’s lips are moving, his words are muffled, and I can’t make anything out. This has got to be a sick joke.
“What the hell do you mean he got paid to have sex with me?” The world rushes back to me with the clatter of a waiter dropping a bin of beer and ice, and another bumping me from behind on his way to help.
The dean, nearly forgotten in my confusion, shouts a joke at the waiter about committing alcohol abuse. Funny fucking guy.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask my brother again. It’s so interesting how for the last however many minutes he’s been pestering me with all the subtlety of that fly when it was still alive, and now he’s strangely, eerily silent.
“I didn’t set you up on a blind date,” Wes finally says, his voice low. “I called a guy. A pimp. Thought it would do you some good to get laid. It was only supposed to be one night.”
Someone drops a fork. It’s the last thing I hear before the sound of blood rushing in my head is so loud that I can’t understand anything again.
“What do you mean you called a pimp?”
Brennan’s my pimp.
Wes tugs at his collar. “Elliott, the events coordinator at the hotel, gave me a name and number. He had trouble getting back into the game after his wife died, and he said this nice young woman named Alexis helped him out. I thought…I thought it would be good for you. I didn’t expect you to bring a damn moving van to your first date with the guy. ”
“I didn’t—” I can’t finish the sentence because I can’t say anything. My throat is so tight I can hardly breathe. “You know what? Fuck you, Wes. I have to go.”
My brother reaches for my arm again, and I take a healthy step backward, narrowly missing a collision with the door that leads out to the main hall.
“Don’t. Don’t you dare grab my arm again. Don’t say another word. You’ve done enough.”