Chapter 24
chapter twenty-four
winnie
One month later
Brielle and I have been talking mostly through text for the last month, but today is our first meal… with no men. All of our security blankets are at home, and our big girl panties are on.
I nervously bounce my knee beneath the table while I twirl a piece of hair around my finger over and over. It won’t ever be the same between us, that part is true. But I hope that we can have something better, that just because I’m with her dad doesn’t mean that we can’t still be close.
The bell on the door jingles, stealing my focus. Brielle, her long blonde hair wrapped into a delicate bun at the nape of her neck, saunters in, smiling at the hostess while clinging to the purse strap on her shoulder. She’s wearing a camel-colored track suit, and the diamond studs on her ears shine. She’s gorgeous, she always has been. But with our dynamic shifted, seeing her walk up nearly takes my breath away.
“Hi,” she greets as she nears the table. I get to my feet and we share a long hug. It feels good to hug my best friend. I’ve missed her.
“Hi to you too,” I greet as we disband our embrace and sink into the wooden chairs circling our table. “God, you look great,” I tell her as I take her in, not a single strand of hair out of place.
“Thanks. I was actually at work so that’s why I look so put together,” she says, lifting the menu from the table without looking at it yet.
“Work? Today?” It’s Sunday, because Sunday brunch felt like the most non-threatening thing I could ask of her.
She nods. “Yeah. It’s a long story. I’m done now anyway.”
I pick up my menu and nod. “I thought it was just love that looks good on you.” The second I say it, I regret it, because I know she can point the barrel of the gun back at me easily this way. And we didn’t come here to talk about the fact that I love her father.
We came here to work on us.
Brielle looks up at me, her wide blue eyes shining. “I am so happy, Win. And I’ve wanted to gush to you all about it for the last month.” Unexpectedly she reaches over the plastic menus and wraps her slender fingers over mine. “I’ve wanted nothing but to tell you. Lance and Aug are tired of hearing your name, I swear.”
The waitress approaches us, and we quickly order. I’m more focused on Brielle than my Diet Coke and French dip. After she scrawls our orders down, she leaves and I make my move.
“I’m so sorry about everything, and I know I told you at the restaurant that night but… I’ve wanted to say it every day since then. I just… thought baby steps were best.” I nervously spread my paper napkin over my lap. “Thank you for agreeing to this in person thing, finally. But thank you for texting with me, too. The last month has been so great, B.”
Brielle’s smile is slightly different than I remember, but a lot of her is different now. Me too, truthfully. It’s painful growing apart from someone who you wanted to stay close to forever, but life is like that, and some growing pains result in beautiful things. I’m choosing to have hope and believe that we will grow apart, but come together in a better place.
“I understand, you know. I mean, I understand why you didn’t tell me,” she starts, sipping from her straw the moment the waitress delivers our fountain drinks.
I take a drink of mine and wait patiently for her words.
She licks her lips, her eyes on her soda before they finally lift to mine. “If I had fallen in love with your dad accidentally, I wouldn’t have told you either. As much as I’d like to act holier than thou and pretend I’d simply say no to someone who posed a risk to my life, I’d be a liar.”
My ears burn with her honesty. “I feel horrible about it all, regardless.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t though. I mean, I’m hurt and angry, sure, but I’ll get over that shit. I will. I swear. But Aug and Lance, they sat me down and said, ‘ the way your heart chose us, unconventional and unexpected, her heart chose him .’” Her blue eyes move between the table, the window, her glass, and then me. “You love him, and I can’t punish you for that.”
I reach across the table and collect her hands with mine, giving her a squeeze. “I love you too, though, and I don’t want you to think I was willing to let you go for him. I want you both.”
She smiles and a tear slips free, stinging my heart. “You have us both. But like I said at dinner, our friendship will just look a lot different.” She sips her drink. “No more sex talk.”
My cheeks flare. “I know.” I take a sad sip of Diet Coke. “But we can replace that talk with other things.”
Brielle smiles. “Like Quincey and I doing therapy together.”
I smack the table. “He told me that! I never asked how sessions are going, and he doesn’t always share. I don’t push. That’s between the two of you.” I lean in, seriousness and urgency washing over me. “You know, I would never do anything to come between you and your dad. And that’s what you two have, and the therapy and rebuilding—I respect that. I love that. I will never, ever put myself between you or ask him to choose.”
She smiles.
“He will choose you if I ask him to choose between us. As much as he loves me, you’re his daughter,” I tell her, not even because I think she needs to hear it, but because it’s true and I know he’s never said anything quite so honest and bold.
“You’re the reason we’re in therapy. I think you made him realize he’s an asshole,” Brielle smirks.
I shrug, playing off casual nonchalance. “Sometimes it takes an outsider, I guess.”
We laugh, and it’s the first time since all of this happened that Brielle and I have managed to laugh about something organically and it feels so good. My face tingles and my bouncing knee slows as a familiar memory of the two of us moves through the space. We have so many memories together, but I know now we also have so many to make, too.
The waitress delivers our plates and as we pick at our fries and fruit, confusion lifts one of Brielle’s manicured brows. “You said my dad helped you with your depression…” she hedges.
My cheeks flare with embarrassment. I will never be comfortable talking about this, but there is something freeing about telling Brielle exactly how things have transpired.
I let out a long, dramatic sigh. “The day he came to your apartment I had just lost my job,” I start, nervous because this is another unopened box of secrets. No one knew I was doing this, not my roommates, not Brielle. Quincey was the first person I told, and I know that’s going to hurt Brielle even more.
She arches her brow. “At Rise & Grind? You quit that job months ago.” She traces the edge of her soda glass with a finger tip as she sifts through her mental filing cabinet. “The TA gig you had?”
I smile awkwardly. “There was no TA gig. I wasn’t even close to making ends meet at the coffee house and delivering food—or any of the other jobs I had—so I took a different route.” I chew the inside of my mouth as my friend stares at me, silence heavy between us. “I was studying at the coffee shop one day, looking like a total feral racoon, when a man came in and told me I have nice feet.”
Brielle wrinkles her nose. “No offense but… you do?”
I shrug. “None taken because I’ve never known any feet to be good looking but yes, apparently, my feet are quite nice.” To break the awkward tension mounting like Everest between us, I dance my eyebrows playfully. “They get the job done.”
Brielle sucks in a shocked breath crossed with a reactive giggle, and for a split second, it feels like old times when we sat around shit talking to each other, laughing and having fun.
“Anyway, he left me a card and I took it. And I called him almost immediately because… it’s exhausting being broke. And I don’t say it to make you feel bad or guilty, because we have different struggles. But for me, being broke was the underlying stress in my life for a lot of years. And I know I never opened up about it but that’s just… you know, not my style.”
She nods, looking into the cup of ice that was her soda, then says, “I would have helped you.”
We both remain quiet for a moment, because I didn’t choose that path and nothing can rewind the clock. Had I asked her for help, maybe we’d still be besties.
“I was too proud,” I admit. “Anyway, I was on FeetFans for about a year, and I was making good money from one client only. It was perfect.”
Brielle laughs. “I’m hoping there’s an asterisk on that perfect.”
I shrug, gathering my curls to put them in a bun, welcoming the cool air against my neck. “Well, perfect in that I could make my student loan payments and pay all my bills and have money left over. That hadn’t happened to me ever until him.”
Brielle cups a hand to her mouth, eyes wide. “Oh my god, my dad?” she asks right as I take another sip of my drink, which I promptly spit across the table.
“What? No! He came into your apartment after my client dumped me and I was crying, he wasn’t the client. No, no, no,” I amend, though in the back of my mind I can’t help but think about the way Big Daddy loves me to jack him off with my feet, the way he groans seeing his cum roll between my toes, and along the arch of my foot. I clear my throat as my cheeks flame from the steamy memories. “No, he saw me crying and told me I needed therapy, then made me an appointment. Prepaid.”
Brielle studies me for a moment, and I can’t tell if she’s trying to picture how it all played out, or trying to pull apart my story and find lies. She won’t find one. Not anymore.
“I’m never going to lie to you again, Brielle. Okay?” I reach for her hands again and this time she makes it easy for me to embrace her. “I’m sorry I hid things with your dad from the start. I am. It was stupid. I should have trusted you to understand.”
She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t have understood. It took me falling in love with two men to understand.”
I cock a brow. “And all the kinky pet stuff?”
She smirks. “That, too.” We eat a few fries and Brielle finishes her small cup of fruit. “So, he helped you get into therapy.”
“He did and he was so irritating and offensive about it that after I went to my first session, I went down to his office with a wad of cash to repay him and… I know you don’t want to hear this but Brielle, I haven’t had someone truly care for me in a long time. But when he looked at me, when he heard I went and realized how I’d been making money, the emotion was there. The care was there. And he helped me.” I shake my head because I know I sound like someone recanting insta-love on an episode of 60 Minutes where one of us is behind bars because we’re, according to the show, “too passionate.” Still, it’s the truth and I trust her to know me well enough to trust my gut. “You have been an amazing friend. But the way he guided me, the way he jumped in and took action, I needed that. I didn’t know it, but I did.”
“He’s great at taking care of me. He’s always been great at that. The care wasn’t the issue. His personality was.” She sighs. “But that’s why we’re in therapy.”
“I’m happy for the two of you. I think you can have the relationship you wanted, even now with this little wrench in the plan.”
Brielle sinks into the wooden chair, the ironing lines still intact on the arms of her camel sweat suit. “You make him happy in ways he’s never been. At least, in ways he hasn’t been since my mom. And if his happiness is what he needed to gain perspective on our relationship, that’s a good thing. And I realize that.” She rolls her eyes. “Lance and Aug helped me come to that realization, but still, I do realize that.”
“How are things with Lance and Aug, by the way? Your dad said you got a full-time job out of your mentorship. That’s incredible. You’re incredible,” I tell her, meaning every syllable of every word.
Suddenly, she pales. “Things are… good.”
My chest squeezes. “B, what’s wrong?”
She steals another fry from her plate and swirls the end of it around in ketchup without taking a bite. “Nothing is wrong, per say. Just… some things are happening sooner than we’d planned.”
Confusion knits my brows. I’ve been out of the loop regarding Brielle’s life for the last few months, so I’m not sure what she means, and I hate that. “What do you mean?” I ask, a twinge of guilt slithering through me at the fact I even have to ask.
Her eyes come to mine, serious and turbulent all at once. “Don’t tell my dad?”
I want to prove to Brielle I can be her best friend and her dad’s girlfriend. That I have enough in me to be both. That I can have an allegiance to her and him, and they can both be successful. Something in my gut, though, doesn’t want to agree. Still, I look into her eyes and say, “I won’t.” And then I foolishly, eagerly add, “I promise .”