Chapter 12 Ransom
Ransom
“Do you think I try to control the women in my life?” I ask Aksel.
We’re outside in the gazebo, bundled under thick blankets, boots up on the wooden railing. A fire pit crackles between us, making the pine logs hiss and throw shadows. Snowflakes drift lazily into the flames.
Aksel takes a sip of the small glass in his hand and groans, “What is this—paint stripper?”
“Bob says it’s chacha. Georgian moonshine.”
“And it’s safe?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Aksel gives me a withering look. “I thought you were a neurosurgeon.”
“I am. So, if this makes your brain bleed, I can help you out.”
He takes another sip. “It tastes like regret.”
“Yeah. I think we’ll have epic hangovers tomorrow.”
He looks at the fire and releases a deep breath, then glances sideways. “You want to tell me why you’re drowning in self-analysis?”
I laugh, a low thing that doesn’t quite reach my chest. “Today, after the whole thing that went down in the cable car—”
“Hey, we’re sorry, okay? If you love her, we’re all—”
“I don’t love her,” I cut him off.
Now, he turns to stare at me. “Then…does she give good head?”
I all but choke on the chacha. “What?” I ask hoarsely.
“Well, that was Freja’s analysis…and Jonathan’s, that she must be good in bed, but because, between you and me, Ransom, she’s….” He trails off.
“She’s what?”
“She’s like someone who’s still in her teenage years. She’s spoiled. She’s disrespectful. She can’t fucking read the room.”
I want to defend Calypso, but I agree with Aksel, and we’re honest with each other, no bullshit, so I don’t. “I’ve never seen her this way.”
“Are you guys serious about each other?”
I shake my head. “We’re friends who fuck. She’s decent company. She doesn’t have close family, and I thought she’d fit in, have a good time. But she’s…I don’t know…moody. Margot seems to like her.”
Aksel chuckles. “Mama talks to warlords to create safe passages for refugees. She can talk to anyone. I don’t know if she likes her, but you’ll never know if she doesn’t.”
“Today, Calypso said that I don’t let her be herself.”
The accusation still stings. Olivia had said something similar.
Did I do that to Ember as well?
Aksel sets his empty glass down, and I place mine on the bench in front of us. He pours us another round.
We both grimace before downing it like a shot.
“You know, it doesn’t taste too bad now,” Aksel admits.
“I think it’s because we’ve lost all feeling in our tongues.”
“True.” Aksel leans back and exhales slowly, his breath curling into pale rings in the cold air. “You’re steady. Always. I remember how Freja would get flustered, and she’d be yelling at you. You’d be calm as a lake. That’s your charm. The steady, solid man. It’s also your flaw.”
I furrow my brows, trying to read between the lines. “Thanks…I think?”
Aksel glances at me, the corners of his mouth tugging up in pure amusement. “I can lose my temper and get into a screaming match, you know that. You don’t blow in the wind like some of us. Women like that at first. Then they wonder why you’re not flinging yourself into rivers for them.”
I swirl what’s left of the liquor in my glass, watching the firelight catch in my drink. “You’re saying they think I’m cold.”
“Not cold, Ransom, but those who know you can see who you let in and who you don’t. If Calypso is throwing tantrums, it’s because right now, she sees that you’ve not let her in. Back home, she didn’t see you with family, didn’t see you with people in your inner circle. She knows she’s not.”
Fuck, but he makes sense, for a geeky banker.
“Olivia said that’s why she had an affair, because I was closed off.”
“Olivia was…is a bitch. I ran into her in Paris a while ago, at some U.S. Embassy thing.” Aksel tops off his glass. “She’s on her third engagement, working toward her third divorce.”
“So, you’re saying she was to blame for the debacle that was our marriage?”
Aksel laughs. “No, you were definitely equally to blame. Relationships take two people. In any case, you both were so fucking unsuited.”
I tilt my head back and let the cold air slap my cheeks. “And Calypso and I are also unsuited.”
“Is that a question?”
“No.”
I take a breath.
“You know, Olivia told me that living with me was like living in a beautiful house with no doors.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I got no fucking idea.” The alcohol is working through my system and warming me from the inside. “Then, I thought it was poetic and painful, and that she meant that I was a beautiful house but not a home.”
“Olivia was…is insecure as hell.” Aksel thumps a hand on my shoulder. “She made your life miserable with her constant need to be fucking adored.”
I groan as I remember, and then groan again because the feeling that’s been tightening in my chest when I’m with Calypso reminds me of how it had been with Olivia.
“Calypso, I thought, made sense,” I explain. “We get along. She’s smart. Well-connected. Fun when she lets herself be. But….”
Aksel leans back, watching me carefully. “But?”
“She wants more than I can give her. Or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe I’m the one who’s holding back. Either way, I don’t know if it’s fair to keep going the way we are.”
He gives me a long look. “You’re not twenty-five anymore, Ransom. You’re not supposed to know exactly what you want, but by now you should know what you don’t.”
“I don’t want drama.”
“That’s a stupid answer, and you know it. No one wants drama. We just have it in our lives, and we deal with it,” Aksel throws back at me.
That’s the thing with good friends, they don’t put up with your bullshit.
“I don’t know how you feel, but I’ll tell you what I see.
” Aksel’s voice is quiet but firm. “When you were with Olivia, you were miserable. From the start. That was a toxic fucking relationship. Then after that, you shut yourself off—didn’t get involved emotionally—and you were… fine. Content, maybe.”
He turns to look at me, holding my gaze. “But the only time I’ve seen you genuinely happy about being with a woman—really lit up about it—was a few years ago. We met in New York, remember? You were relaxed, grinning like an idiot. You said you were seeing someone, but that she was younger.”
My heart stops.
“I thought, there, he’s fallen in love,” he adds.
I start breathing again, slowly, though my chest is tight. “I…I wasn’t in love.”
“I’m telling you what I saw. I don’t know what was actually happening in your head. How much younger was she?”
I lick my lips, down the chacha. If Aksel knew it was Ember I was talking about, he’d take the bottle of Georgian moonshine and hammer it on my head.
“Doesn’t matter. It was…it’s in the past.”
“Well, your present is with a woman who I think is…. You are welcome to tell me it’s none of my business, and if you do end up with her, I’ll make it work with her, but I feel you should know what I see.”
I remember when he introduced me to Latika, and I told him that he should put a ring on that and close the deal. I’d never seen him that happy.
But I remember the women before her. Like the one who kept hitting on me, and he didn’t believe me until he saw it for himself. The one who was nasty to all his friends. The one who made him feel like he was constantly failing some invisible test.
I told him the truth and didn’t sugarcoat it. He listened to me…ultimately.
Now, the tables have turned.
“What do you see?” I urge.
He gives me a measured look. “Do you know that Calypso told Mama you’re going to propose soon?”
My jaw falls open.
Aksel tosses up his shoulders. “Mama told everyone. I asked Mama about it today. Calypso announced it when Mama asked how long you’ve been together. I asked her if she may have misunderstood, she told me she wouldn’t dignify that with a response.”
I close my mouth.
The fuck?
She tells Ember that I told her about our affair, and now she’s told Margot that I’m marrying her? Is that what Ember thinks? Is that why she kept saying I was serious about Calypso?
I run a hand through my hair. “She’s nuts.”
Aksel throws a small twig into the fire. It sparks, sizzles. “That she is.”
We lapse into silence. The fire pops.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confess.
“It’ll come to you. Until then, have another drink.” Aksel refills my shot glass and hands it to me.
I look at the amber liquid, shrug, and down it. At least, this way I won’t be able to use my brain until sometime later tomorrow.