Chapter Ten Apart
H e left on Sunday morning. Manny Finklestein drove him back to the airport in the Land Rover. I know, because Manny and his wife, Rhea, came in for Sunday lunch.
Was I working the day after my brother’s wedding?
Yep.
Why?
Because we’re a business. No open, no money.
And if you’re busy, it’s harder to wallow in confusion and misery.
I’m telling you, high school did not prepare me for this. My crushes were more like... squeezes. There was no “crush,” no all-consuming hunger, no stupid Douglas-shaped fog clouding my brain or invading my thoughts every few minutes.
I can’t even tell anyone about our conversation when he asked me what I wanted in a husband. How he opened up about his late wife. I’m sure my parents are still passed out asleep while the rest of my relatives wander around their house and the grounds, probably hunting the game hens and raiding the fridge. This is a comfort to me. It means my father won’t have to figure out I have the hots for a man a decade and change older than me. I don’t know how he’d take that.
I picture him punting Douglas a few hundred yards or using him as a caber while he accuses him of robbing the cradle.
But he didn’t rob the cradle. I’m thirty! And he’s not that old. It’s not like I’m busting a guy out of the old folks’ home.
Why is this complicated? How can I feel something so strong while he feels nothing? Or at least, nothing worth mentioning? Douglas didn’t just walk away from me. He flew away from me—across a whole damn ocean.
All my confusion, heartache, and emotional stew come out in one harsh curse as I pour myself a second cup of coffee. “ Fuck .”
“Burn yourself?” Diana asks over a jaw-breaking yawn.
If this is being in love, it’s horrible. “Yeah. Just a little.”
BEING HOME IS GRAND .
My own familiar woods and waters.
Pine Ridge had woods. New woods to explore. And a river, a bonny little river perfect for picnics or fishing...You could explore them with your woman on your arm.
Not my woman. Hush.
I haven’t left home for so long in years. Walking through it feels comforting. Easy to know where to drop the post on the counter, familiar to open the cupboards and switch on the telly. Sink into my chair. Peaceful.
Empty.
Alien.
Jet lag, that’s what it is.
I sit down Sunday night and try to wrap my head around the fact that this morning I was a world away.
And of course the house seems empty, you twit. You wanted it that way. Took out everything that reminded you of Nicola, slowly pruning all traces of her away until all you have is photographs, memories, and the wedding china. Never quite knew how to shift that.
Weddings. My mind stumbles into slumber, a hazy dream that merges my wedding with Georgie’s. Mine feels... wrong. It’s like I’m in my head, but also hovering over myself to watch the wedding.
I want to step in and ask questions. Wait, Douglas. Why? Why are you doing this? Can’t you feel that something’s off? It’s like the happiness is about ticking off a long overdue task, not about the joy of being in love.
I wake up with a sudden snore, smacking my lips and pushing away the packaged biscuits I put beside my chair.
I’d never get biscuits like that at The Pine Loft.
Damn it all, even the contents of the kitchen remind me of Pine Ridge. Of her.
No. I’m not going to fight sleep. I’m away to bed.
Going to bed alone has always felt wrong, ever since Nicola died. A few months after the funeral, I got a new mattress and gave the bed frame to Nicola’s niece who was getting married. It was a big, beautiful thing my father carved when he married my mother. Wasn’t worthy of it anymore.
As I trudge through my routine and fall heavily onto the bed, the half-awake, foggy thoughts that turn into dreams come back.
It’s a wedding night. Mine. Nicola’s. We know the right moves. I tell her how beautiful she is, and she preens. She’s no blushing thing, but an eager, mature woman. We fit together smoothly enough, and I do my best to make her come, eager to hear my bride whispering my name or moaning as I fill her.
But with one, carless, sleep-heavy flick of my consciousness, my blood heats up. I can feel my cock hardening even though I’m practically comatose.
The dream woman isn’t Nicola now. And we’re not in some fancy bridal bed.
It’s Georgia, and we’re in the cheap hotel room I had in Pine Ridge.
I don’t even have to talk, to ask if I’m pleasing her. With a little cry, she plasters herself to me, leaping into my arms, our naked (thank you, dream) bodies molding together.
Sexual heat soaks through me. Peaches and sex. Her scent. Blue eyes staring into mine as I pull her close, filling her, stretching her. There’s no thought. It fits. We fit.
I don’t want this dream to end.
It does, of course. Hours later I wake up to the cool, grayish light of sunrise behind drapes, covered in soaked sheets and a cock that’s still hard, despite the sheets bearing ample evidence that I’ve already had one release in the night.
With a muffled cry of disgust, I’m up, stripping off the bedclothes and storming to the shower.
I don’t like this. I want Georgia out of my brain. It’d be nice if she could find the bloody exit to get out of my heart, too.