Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cheese and wine night at the Myers residence primarily involved a vast amount of merlot and a lack of one, Morgan Finch.
It was odd, Lee thought, taking a seat upon the couch as she leaned forward to retrieve her first glass of many; somehow she felt an absence in the room for the woman she loved, despite the fact that even when Morgan was her girlfriend, she had never attended these nights with her regardless.
Sipping her merlot, she tried not to focus on what Morgan might have been getting up to every Wednesday whilst Lee was away, eating cheese and crackers.
She could hear it now in her mind, the words that Morgan had relayed to her in their living room those many months back.
I think it’ll be good for you to have a routine and get out of the apartment once a week to spend time with the girls.
Perhaps it was her design to get Lee out of the house, if only so she couldn’t witness Morgan’s own departure from the apartment for activities that didn’t involve wine, or cheese.
Lee Holmes sighed, and despite not being hungry, attempted a bite of a slice of brie wedged between two beetroot crackers, if only to stifle the noise inside her mind with the crunch as she bit down.
When the act was futile, she gazed over towards Kat, and Sienna, whom of which were sitting closer than usual, she observed, sipping wine and having a quiet conversation to themselves.
In an attempt not to disturb them, she instead turned towards Natalie on the opposite side of the room tucked into an armchair beside the fire, who was currently plucking out a piece of cat hair from her glass.
“I love having cheese and wine at Kat’s house.
It’s the animal fur in my drink that really adds a wonderful texture to the wine,” she commented, sarcastically.
Snickering into her own, less hairy wine after finishing her brie and crackers, Lee felt a sense of gratitude at that moment that despite everything changing around her, Natalie was very much still the same audacious woman she always was.
“I’ll have you know, any attack involving Sir Thaddeus Pawcival III is an attack on us all. ”
Lee found herself surprised when Natalie placed her glass down upon the mahogany table and stared at her with a sense of concern. “Pet humor aside, how are you doing? I mean, how are you really doing? I don’t want any of that ‘I’m fine, don’t worry about me’ bullshit.”
Natalie’s way with words, or lack thereof, perhaps, was something Lee had always appreciated about her close friend.
Lee decided a long time ago after being on the receiving end of this question many times that some people upon checking up on others simply craved a lie, sighing in relief when receiving an “I’m fine” in response, as if desperate to escape a conversation they themselves had designed in the first place.
Natalie, however, only craved the truth, and Lee would provide as much truth as she could, without exposing the secrets underneath that were far more sinister.
“I feel like my brain has been run over by a garbage truck, and then that same garbage truck reversed over me again just for good measure. I might sound cheesier than the brie right now, but honestly, it’s weird how distorted everything feels without Morgan.
It’s like I got used to sleeping with the sounds of white noise only for the sound to just…
stop, all of a sudden. And now the silence is deafening. ”
Lee was taken aback by her own words, unsure whether to sigh in relief that it was now out in the open, or to run as far away as possible from everyone she’d ever come into contact with in her lifetime.
She opted for the former, if only so that she could remain in this room with the bottle of merlot that was currently occupying the living room table.
Natalie Thatcher wasn’t one for physical affection, which at present time, Lee was thankful for.
She thought at that moment that if anyone tried to comfort her with a hug she just might combust. “That sounds completely awful, babe. I’m not going to pretend I can resonate with what you’re going through because my longest relationship consists of the flirting going on between me and the guy who works at Hawthorne Hotel behind the salad bar, but what I will say is that you’re young and sexy and any woman, man, or otherwise would be lucky to have you. ”
Whilst Lee Holmes didn’t completely agree with the sentiment, having had only two relationships in her life, including Morgan, she did appreciate who it came from.
“Thanks hon,” she offered back, taking another sip of her wine.
“Although, I think I’ve already had my fill of dating for the foreseeable future.
For now, I’ll live vicariously through you and your man at the salad bar. ”
“Personally, I’d sooner live vicariously through the life of a painter as I watched the walls dry than observe the tragedy of my romantic relationships, or lack thereof, but suit yourself,” Natalie shrugged, grabbing a breadstick from the table as she bit down with a slight crunch.
“At the very least you should buy a sexy new dress that highlights your stunning cleavage and take an appropriate number of selfies to make Morgan weep.”
“Who are we making weep?” Sienna asked from the other side of the room, partaking in the conversation now that Kat had seemingly excused herself, half of the couch newly unoccupied.
“Morgan,” both Natalie and Lee said in unison, with an “apparently,” added to Lee’s own response, more hesitant in relation to the plan than Natalie was.
“Well, fuck,” Kat chimed in, making her presence known as she walked into the room once again with two unopened bottles of merlot. “Perhaps we should at least drink a little more first before we start plotting someone’s emotional downfall.”
Kat’s skinny arms strained against one of the bottles of wine as she sat down, a corkscrew planted firmly inside that was refusing to budge.
After a few grunts Sienna reached over, taking the bottle from her as their hands grazed each other’s for a fraction of a second too long, Lee noticed.
Sienna made little work of the bottle, opening it almost immediately after taking it from Kat.
“Thank goodness you’re pretty,” Sienna commented, pouring a glass for Kat now that the bottle was open before pouring one for herself.
Watching the pair of them fumble around one another flirtatiously was a welcoming change as far as Lee was concerned.
Sienna smiled so effortlessly around Kat now, as if the walls from her past relationship were already coming down.
As the toxicity of her thoughts creeped in, the observation became more bittersweet, pondering over the notion that Lee wished the walls Morgan and herself had built around themselves stayed permanent forever, inside their own toxic bubble where they deserved one another.
When Natalie decided to bring up the latest reality TV show she was watching, Lee was grateful that she had opted not to ask questions about the potentially blossoming romance occurring on the couch, allowing them time to figure things out in their own, less toxic, bubble.
She wouldn’t admit it aloud, but in some ways, she was envious.
There was a sense of normality to it all—something she herself had with Morgan once upon a time, but it had died the second that Edward Beckett did.
And yet, perhaps the worst part of it all was that she only wanted to want the normality, because after receiving a taste of the abnormal, she realized only now that she was missing it, which was a bit like missing a kick in the teeth when she truly thought about it.
“Lee…? Care to share your opinion on the matter?” Kat asked, looking at her as if she had just come out of a five-year coma. Perhaps she had if her relationship with Morgan could be interpreted as such.
Shaking her head, as if she could snap out of her wine-induced thinking in a way that was not unlike a dog shaking out its wet fur, she took a sip of her merlot and attempted to partake in the conversation by throwing a proverbial dart at their potential conversation topics and hoping for the best. “I haven’t seen the show to be able to pass fair judgement on it. It is on my watch list, though.”
When Sienna looked at her with what could only be interpreted as concern, Lee knew she had said the wrong thing.
Natalie placed a hand on Lee’s thigh, which was out of character for her entirely, and adopted her own look of concern which made Lee want to scream, run away, or both.
“Honey, we’re talking about what we think of Sienna potentially moving to that new estate that was built last year, the one by the water. Do you need some air?”
“The only thing I need,” she said, gulping down the last of her merlot, “is more wine.” Truth be told, perhaps the last thing Lee Holmes needed was more wine, her inhibitions falling away with each sip.
Nevertheless, she craved the weightlessness—the idea that tomorrow never had to come and if tomorrow didn’t come she only had to live for right now, and right now wasn’t so bad, so long as she didn’t have to feel much of anything.
Kat stood in order to sit on the left-hand side of the couch beside Lee now, and with Natalie on her right shooting her best worried look in Sienna’s direction at the other end of the room, Lee expected nothing less than an impromptu intervention.
“You know, I have about three bottles of what you’re drinking right now in the cupboard, and as a friend, you are welcome to all of them.
However, as one of my closest friends,” she emphasized, placing an arm around her.
“I think it might be better if you don’t sample any of them.
We can talk about Morgan, if you like, or we could talk about anything but Morgan, like that bitch Trudy at work that’s always stealing my almond milk. ”
The comment took Lee off guard, enough for her to laugh into her glass before setting it on her lap, her fingers still pressed around the stem.
“I told you,” she said, deciding to discard the glass entirely instead, placing it on the table.
“I don’t even think it’s Trudy. I think it’s that new guy, Glenn.
Your milk only started disappearing when he started working with us. ”
“I bet it’s both of them,” Sienna added. “Perhaps they’re both part of some top-secret almond milk stealing organization. For real though, most office dramas lie within who is sleeping with who. If this is what your office drama consists of, your office drama is hot garbage.”
Natalie nodded, seemingly agreeing with Sienna’s comment. “You’re not wrong. If you want real office drama, just spend ten minutes in my building. Shane is sleeping with Kirsty, my manager, but Kirsty is married to Shaun, her assistant.”
“Hold up,” Lee said, emphasizing her words by physically holding up one of her hands. “Kirsty is sleeping with a guy called Shane, and her husband is called Shaun?”
“I suppose it makes things a little easier to explain if she says the wrong name in the bedroom, like, she could just call it a slip of the tongue,” Kat chimed in, a smile tugging at the left side of her mouth as she winked and stuck out her own tongue for emphasis.
“No offense,” Natalie said, putting down her own glass now. “But I don’t want to think about any slipping tongues as far as my manager is concerned.”
As the conversation blossomed, the group switched to water instead of wine, allowing Lee to make an easier decision as to not drinking herself half to death.
A smile tugged at her own mouth now, relishing the fact that even though her romantic relationship had fallen to pieces, her friends always had her back, no matter what.
Despite this, and she hated herself for thinking it, for feeling it, but the emptiness inside her where Morgan had once sat was still just as prominent as ever.