Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Ashley was pointing to his camera. She was very calm. He pointed to me. She cocked her head to the side and laughed. He shook his head. She shook her head. He pointed to me again, and then lifted his camera to take a picture.
Shrugging her shoulders she sauntered back to our bench, her expression a mixture of quizzical amusement and befuddlement.
“That guy has his horse switched with a raccoon.” She reclaimed her seat.
“Horse?”
“He’s plain nutters.”
I cleared my throat; it still ached from the large swallow. “What did you talk about?”
“Remember last week when I told you all about that celebrity in the hospital—Nico Moretti?”
I nodded slowly, and the queasiness that accompanies dread gripped my stomach. I turned sideways on the bench to keep the man with the camera from getting a clear shot of my face.
“Well, that guy over there thinks that you’re Nico’s secret luvah.” Ashley waved her eyebrows at me and grinned, emphasizing her mispronunciation of the word lover in a way that made me think of sweat, labored breathing, and porno mustaches from the seventies. “I told him he was nuts.”
I wasn’t hungry anymore. I wrapped up my uneaten sandwich and put it back in my lunch sack along with my untouched mango soda. “Oh, my God….”
Ashley’s grin waned. Her hand holding the carrot hovered in the air, halfway to her mouth; “Hey. Elizabeth? Are you ok, hon?”
I fanned my fingers at my temple, trying to hide my face. “Oh, Ashley. I have to tell you something.”
I motioned for her to pack up her lunch and then I stood abruptly. She stared at me for a long moment, hesitated, but eventually complied.
I gripped her hand and pulled her back into the hospital, through the corridors, and into the doctor’s lounge. It was lunchtime, and most people opted to eat in the cafeteria or offsite. We basically had the space to ourselves, other than a few dozing docs on the couches.
We sat at a table in the corner and I kept my voice low. “Ok, so, here’s the deal.” I squeezed my lids shut to work up my nerve. “I know Nico Moretti.”
“You what?” Ashley shook me slightly; when I met her gaze, her blue eyes were open so wide that they nearly popped from their sockets.
“Shhh.” I covered her mouth with my hand. “I’ll tell you, but you have to be quiet about it.”
She nodded without a word, her face serious and eager. She traced a cross over her heart then brought her fingers to her lips for the universal sign of my lips are sealed.
I left most of the personal, sentimental, touchy-feely emotional stuff out, but even so, halfway through my story about the reunion and Nico and our shared past, Ashley pulled out her cell phone and searched YouTube for the video.
She gasped, covered her mouth, and stared at me with wide, shocked eyes.
“You had a love child with Nico Moretti?”
“Shhh.” I glanced over my shoulder. No one was paying attention to us. “No. I did not have his love child.”
“But you still know him? You’re involved with him?”
“No. Yes. I mean….” I twisted my fingers. “Yes, I know him. We went to school together. He was best friends with my boyfriend, Garrett. He helped me after Garrett died.” I gritted my teeth. “We slept together once. But there was no baby.”
“This is inconceivable.” She shook her head slowly as she hit the replay button on the video and watched it again, mesmerized. “I can’t believe this.”
“It’s over. He never wants to see me again.”
“He said that?”
“No—not precisely, but I’m pretty sure it’s true.”
“After you rescued him from those dance floor hoochies? You’d think he’d be grateful you stepped in, even if you did tell the whole world that you and he made a baby.”
“I didn’t tell the whole world; it was never meant to be recorded. I couldn’t think of anything else to distract them.”
Ashley pursed her lips. “Why didn’t you yell fire?”
“Because it’s illegal and dangerous to yell fire in a crowded room. Besides, he wasn’t angry about that.” My scalp was suddenly itchy.
“What was he mad about?”
“He told me that he loved me, and I….”
“He said he loves you?” Ashley covered her mouth with her hand after shouting the sentence. We both glanced at the couches but found the inhabitants still slumbering.
“Sorry.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and said, “When…how…ok, just tell me what happened. When did Nico Moretti tell you he loved you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I told him how I indiscriminately sleep with men, then stop returning their phone calls.”
Ashley placed her hand on my knee. “Hon, you don’t indiscriminately sleep with men. I have known you for going on two years, and I’ve never seen you whore it up.”
“I do. I have.”
“So you go up to random men on the street and request sex?”
“No. It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like? How many guys have you slept with?” Ashley crossed her arms under her chest. Her eyebrows were disbelieving umbrellas over skeptical blue eyes.
“Four.”
“Four?”
“Yes. Four.”
“Including Nico Moretti?”
“Yes. Four including Nico.”
She chuckled and shook her head. “Four a whore does not you make.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Sorry, sometimes when I try to rhyme I end up sounding like Yoda.” She cleared her throat. “Sleeping with four guys is hardly loose goose territory.”
“But it’s how I do it; my intentions are selfish. I use them, I have sex with them, and then I stop taking their calls.”
“And how long have these relationships—”
“They weren’t relationships.”
Ashley held up her hands. “Fine, how long do these meaningless orgies last? How long have you been with each of your four sexual partners?”
“With Nico it was just the once but with the others….” I shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know—maybe a couple months each.”
“And have you been with more than one guy at the same time?”
“You mean like a three-way? Or do you mean two guys, different days?”
“Either.”
“Well, actually, it’s neither. I’ve only been with one guy at a time.”
“Oh, dear.” She shook her head and clasped my hands in hers. “Elizabeth, I don’t know how to break this to you, but you’ve been having relationships with men.”
“No, no I haven’t. I’ve been using them.”
“Yes, yes you have. You have been in exclusive relationships with these men.”
“I haven’t.”
“You have. You’ve been dating them.”
“I paid for all my own meals.”
Ashley’s eyes danced as she laughed again.
“It doesn’t matter who pays for dinner, dear.
A date is a date. You’ve dated four guys, engaged in relations, then ended the relationship when you no longer wanted to pursue it.
” She tightened her grip on my hand when I tried to pull away. “It’s called breaking up.”
“No, you’re wrong. I never had any intention of dating them. I didn’t want a relationship with any of them. I didn’t even like them.”
“But you like Nico.”
I hesitated then decided to be honest. “Yes.” I breathed the word out, finally allowing myself to hold her hand in return. “Yes. I do like him. But I’m so different now, and he—he’s some famous comedian. It doesn’t matter anyway because I told him that I use men that I don’t like for sex.”
She glared at me through narrowed eyes. “You were purposefully trying to scare him away.”
“No…” I narrowed my eyes at her, mirroring her expression. “I was trying to be honest. And if my honesty makes him realize that he is wrong about me, then so be it.”
Ashley’s mouth was curved in a frown of plain disgust. “You are pushing the poor guy away.”
“He doesn’t love me, Ashley. He doesn’t even know me.”
“Do you want a relationship with Nico?”
I hesitated again. I didn’t know the answer to her question because I’d never considered the possibility, not even that summer when we were teenagers and he held me as I slept.
The idea that Nico Manganiello would want a relationship with me—then or now—was beyond my comprehension.
More than that, the idea of dating him felt wrong because I liked him and cared about him.
I’d already experienced my one great love. It wouldn’t be fair to Nico if I led him on and made him hope for a future that wasn’t possible, that I didn’t want, and that I wasn’t capable of.
I decided to deflect rather than discuss these thoughts with Ashley. “You don’t understand what he was like in high school. He was the guy. Everyone had a crush on him. He was hot and smart, and he oozed charisma. There was much swooning whenever he walked into a room.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“He’s a celebrity. And he has a terrible security firm. He needs better security.”
“Again, what does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ve already had my great love.”
Ashley blinked at me, waited to see if I had more to reveal, then she shook her head slightly. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve already been in love.” I glanced at my watch. Much to my annoyance, I still had another fifteen minutes before lunchtime was over.
“It’s like you and I are having two different conversations. I asked you if you wanted a relationship with Nico, and you didn’t answer the question.”
“Because I don’t know how to answer it.”
“Well, that’s an answer. You could have just said, ‘I don’t know, Ashley.
I don’t know if I want to have a relationship with dreamy Nico Moretti, even though I like him and he’s a great guy and he loves me and over half the population of the United States wants to get in his pants’.
” She mocked me in a high-pitched North Dakota accent, which was surprisingly good considering she was from Tennessee.
My mouth pulled to the side. “I do not sound like that, and, really—over half the population?”
“More like three-quarters. I know some straight men who would switch teams to take a bite out of that apple arse.”
“Oh, my God.” I hit her thigh. “Ashley!”
“What? It’s true. I know I’d like to take a look at his knackwurst.”
“What are you two talking about?”
Ashley and I stiffened and automatically turned toward the owner of the voice. I met the dreamy—yet dull—gaze of Dr. Ken Miles with an expression that I was sure looked guilty.