Two
“Speak.”
“I’m not a dog, Sam.”
He muttered something under his breath.
“I’m sorry?” I asked and realized my voice was much too sharp.
“I said,” he began, and when I glanced over at him, only then did I realize that his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. He was holding on tight. “I know you’re pissed, but I wish you would just talk to me already.”
“Why should I be pissed? It was a long time ago, right?”
“Yeah, it was a long time ago,” he growled, raking his fingers through his thick copper-colored hair.
As he got older, it was getting darker, which I found interesting.
“But you’re thinking about it, and you’re thinking really hard, and if you would just come out with whatever the hell is going on in your head, that would be good. ”
I wasn’t ready to put my thoughts into words yet.
“Jory,” Sam said softly.
But anything I said or asked would sound like an accusation, and I needed it to not be. So, I stayed quiet.
“I lied, yeah?”
He had.
“Why would I do that?”
I could remember the discussion so clearly. I’d questioned him in a diner about how many guys he had slept with while we were apart. The inquiry began with me asking about women and then, when he replied that there had been none, moved on to men. That had been six years ago.
“Jory?”
I looked out the window instead of at him.
“What would you have done if I’d told you that night that I had slept with three guys, all completely forgettable, but the fourth guy … that one I’d liked, at least for a while?”
I closed my eyes. Hearing it now was painful. Hearing it then … I would have run.
“It only lasted three months, and we never lived together. That part is bullshit; I just stayed at his place a lot.”
Part of me really wanted to hear the whole story, and part of me didn’t.
“I was hurt, and he took a bullet out of me and stitched me up and gave me a shot. When I saw him in a bar a week later, I bought him a drink to say thank you.”
I could see how that would have progressed.
“I was really drunk, things weren’t going well … a year had rolled by already, and we weren’t any closer …” He trailed off.
The rain was sluicing down the glass in rivulets.
“It got late, and he offered to let me sleep it off at his place because it was close by.”
My body flushed hot and then went cold.
“When we got there, when the door closed, he wanted something more, and I … you get it. I don’t need to tell you.”
I did.
“It was nice to have the normalcy in the middle of all the crazy, to have a small place where I could go to just breathe.”
“It was a sanctuary,” I said, holding my breath.
“No,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “It was just not blood on the pavement, and ten-year-old boys killing each other in the streets, and girls who should have been planning sleepovers instead turning tricks and shooting up … it was just not horrible.”
“I thought you were in the jungle.”
“I was everywhere, J.”
“I see.”
He pulled over, put the SUV in park, hit the hazards, and turned to face me. Not that I saw him, but I could hear the leather seat creak.
“We should get home, Sam.”
“Look at me.”
I rolled my head sideways.
He reached out and took hold of my chin; his fingers slid over my skin, his thumb tracing my bottom lip.
“Our home, yours and mine, that’s my sanctuary.
What I had with Kevin … I mean, I was in the middle of a big fuckin’ mess in a foreign country, and I was tired and lonely, but still, it’s no excuse for what I did. ”
“What did you do?”
“For just a minute—just, like, a second—I stopped thinking.”
I didn’t understand. “Sam?”
He brought his left hand up to join the right, framing my face, smoothing his thumbs over my cheekbones. “I used him, and I felt like shit for doing it. I was such a dick to him. I fucked him, I ate his food, I slept in his bed, and I treated him like a whore.”
I leaned out of his hands, and he let them drop away.
“That was how it went, and then when I realized what I was doing, I tried to apologize to him and end it, and—”
“He didn’t want to,” I cut him off.
“No.” His voice rumbled out of his chest. “He didn’t.”
“Because what you thought was bad was his wet dream.”
“I wouldn’t go—”
“He liked you in pieces that he got to put back together. He liked being the guy who submitted to you, liked being the one you held down and ordered around. He wanted you to stay in his bed.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat.
“And?”
“And what?”
“I want to hear the end, Sam.”
“And I want you in my lap.”
It took me a second because he had changed topics so quickly.
“What?”
“If I’m baring my soul any more, I want you in my lap.”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t do—”
“Fine, it ended,” he said and turned to grab hold of his seat belt.
I opened my door.
“What’re you doing?” he barked, lunging fast, but not quick enough as the door swung wide.
I turned to look at him. “I’m not sitting in your lap.
This is not a tantrum I’m throwing, and you don’t get to treat me like a drama queen or a petulant child.
This is you caught in a lie of your own making.
Finish the story, or I will get out and walk home, and you can go back to work and pick me up later when it’s time to go to your mother’s. ”
His eyes locked on mine.
“Your choice.”
“You’re madder than I thought.”
“I’m not mad,” I assured him.
“Hurt, then.”
He wasn’t getting an answer. I just waited.
“Close the door,” he breathed.
Leaning out, I grabbed the handle and pulled it shut before turning back to him. I was startled by the look on his face.
“You don’t get to leave me,” he whispered, and his eyes were cold and dark, like water under ice. The transformation was scary.
“Sam?”
His eyes were narrow slits. “I forbid it.”
Forbid?
“Sam, what’re you—”
“We weren’t together, you were fucking any guy who asked, and—”
“Sam, don’t get all defensive and shitty, all right? I’m not hurt because you slept with someone. I’m hurt because you lied about being in a relationship with—”
“It was not a relationship! It was nothing! It was shit!” he yelled at me, and I heard the pain and the frustration and, most of all, his fear. “You—it meant … I only ever wanted—”
“Stop.” I put up my hands before I moved quickly, unbuckling my belt, climbing over the console between us, and scrambling onto his lap, my knees on either side of his hips.
“Christ,” he growled, hands on my thighs, grabbing hold, fingers digging into my muscles as he jerked me forward so my ass settled over his groin, the bulge in his dress pants sliding over my crease. “Don’t leave me.”
I pushed forward, against him, rubbing, grinding. “Why? Because you want to keep fucking me?”
“Well, yeah, that too.” He scowled, taking my face in his hands and pushing my hair out of my eyes. “I knew the difference then; I know the difference now. You’re it; you’re home for me. If it’s not you, it won’t be anybody. I can’t settle; it’s all or nothing.”
I sighed, looking at him. “I know.”
He brightened, and I saw it, and it was really so dear.
“I love you so much; it hurts.”
And I knew that too. There were too many years between us for me to have doubts about that. But he had lied, and that wasn’t like him.
“Why were you so scared that night that you would lie?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. It was brand-new—you trusting me again—and if I fucked it up and you sent me away … what the hell was I supposed to do, J?”
I stared into his eyes. “So, I’m to blame for your lie?”
He shook his head. “It was more of an omission, yeah?”
“A lie is a lie,” I clarified, holding his gaze. “The result is the same.”
“Yeah.”
“You can’t blame me.”
“I know. I just … there was no way I was losing you then, and there’s no way I’m letting this come between us now.
I’m sorry I lied about Kevin Dwyer. It was stupid.
I should have just said. But you were a scared rabbit back then, and nothing I could say or do was going to change your mind.
And I get why; my track record—ours together—was total shit. ”
“I was scared.”
“Not anymore, right?”
“You know that’s not me anymore. I believe in us.”
“But you didn’t then. And I knew who I was. I knew I’d changed, and I was certain I could be your husband, be your forever, but you had to trust me to see us long term, and we weren’t there yet. You’d just started being hopeful again.”
“And you thought telling me about Kevin Dwyer would end us.”
“I don’t know if it would have ended us, but I sure as hell wasn’t taking any chances.”
I nodded.
“But again, that’s not us anymore.”
“No?”
“No,” he sighed. “You don’t run, and I don’t give up. We haven’t been those people in a long time. We work hard to keep our life together.”
Yes, we did. Both of us. All the time.
I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging tight, shoving my nose against the side of his neck, inhaling him.
“Oh, please,” he murmured, one hand cradling the back of my head, gently knotting in my hair, and the other on the small of my back, holding me close. “I am sorry for never telling you about Kevin Dwyer, but it was a long time ago, and it didn’t mean shit, I swear to God.”
“No?”
“Jory, honey, I’ve never loved anyone but you, and you know that.”
I was savoring his closeness.
“Don’t you know that?”
“I do,” I said and felt the truth in my gut. There was no doubt in my mind.
“That’s why I had to come home and get you back.”
“It took you a minute,” I grumbled.
“That’s because I was scared that I’d messed everything up, but I knew then, like I do now, that my life doesn’t work without you.”
I tightened my arms, pressed closer, and heard him exhale into my shoulder. He needed to know everything was okay; it was imperative that his home was in order. He needed it so he could do his job out in the world.
“He’s a very handsome man.”
He grunted, not paying attention, tipping my head back to kiss the base of my throat. “There’s this one freckle right here that drives me crazy.”
“I said,” I repeated, “he’s a very handsome man.”
“We both know you’re the only thing I see.”
And it was true. I had been surprised, and that was all.