Homecoming (35 page)

Lizzie sat up, no longer calm and serene. “Her husband was fighting for his country while you were screwing her?”

“That’s not…” She swallowed. “Yes. That sounds horrible, but I guess it’s accurate. He came home after eighteen months and she couldn’t tell him the truth. So when I heard about the job in Burlington, I jumped at the chance to get out of town. I guess it was a combination of guilt and anger at Jess for leading me on—but I couldn’t leave fast enough.”

Lizzie held up two fingers. “Two relationships. Two escapes. And you were how old?”

“Almost thirty when I came back to Burlington.”

“That’s too old for that kind of bullshit, Jill. About five years too old.”

“I was immature,” she admitted. “But I was in love with Jess. Really in love. We were a great pair—”

“She was already part of a pair,” Lizzie snapped.

“I know that. Cheating sucks in a big way. I’ll
never
do it again.”

“Did she ever leave her husband?”

“The last time I checked, which has been a few years, they were still together, and they had two kids.”

Lizzie lay back down, contorting her body into the kind of loose, elegant pose Goliath often made, all graceful angles and curves. “At least you didn’t screw things up for her husband. Maybe she got cheating out of her system.”

“I hope so,” Jill said. “That’s much better than thinking she’s unhappy with him.”

“You’re over her?” Lizzie asked, her chin tilting as she gave Jill a skeptical look.

“Yeah. I have been for a long, long time. I feel mostly guilt and regret when I think of her.”

“Good. You should feel guilty when you screw around behind someone’s back.”

“I tried to learn from my mistakes, Lizzie. I went out of my way to avoid even a friendship with women who were committed to someone else. Hell, I avoided women much older than me, too, just to not have another Jennifer fiasco. I was super careful.”

“Next on the list?”

“Katrina. A drummer in an indie rock band that toured around the northeast.”

Lizzie finally laughed, the first hint of lightness since she’d come in the door, what seemed like hours earlier. “You don’t stick to the same type, I’ll give you that.”

“No,” Jill admitted, smiling at the memory. “She was much cooler than I was used to. And clearly much cooler than I was. We dated for about two years, and I finally called it quits when I couldn’t get her to make a commitment to be monogamous.”

“Wow. You gave her two years?”

“Yeah. We never saw each other on the weekends, and she was gone for a couple of months when they opened for a more famous band. I thought it was better to give her space than be mad when she cheated.”

“But you broke it off?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Katrina liked having someone to come home to, but that’s about all she wanted. I wanted security. Some commitment.”

“You didn’t move away, did you?” Lizzie asked, eyes narrowing.

“Kinda. I bought the house just to change things up. I doubt she’ll ever show up, in case you’re worried. She moved to Portland a few years ago. She manages a club now.”

“There’s one mystery woman left. Give it to me.”

“I’ve never had to plow through my history like this. It’s unsettling.”

Lizzie gave what she probably intended as an encouraging smile, but it came off with a little bit of menace to it. “Get it over with, and you won’t be unsettled for long.”

Tackling things head on was clearly going to be the new normal. Probably for the best. “I met Hannah when I was shopping for furniture. She was an interior designer, and a hell of a nice woman.”

Lizzie looked around ostentatiously. “But she’s not here either.”

“No, she’s not. She lived with me for two and a half years though.”

“Long time. For you,” she added, pointedly.

“Uh-huh. Hannah was just what I thought I wanted. Creative, inspired, able to commit, not bossy, not obsessed with anything. Actually,” she said thoughtfully, “she was the easiest person in the world to get along with—except for her jealousy.”

“And that was the kiss of death?”

“Kinda. Plus, I didn’t feel challenged by her. I guess… I guess it was more that she didn’t feel passionately about anything. She liked her job, but if I told her to quit, she would have. She liked Burlington, but if I said we were moving to Saigon, she would have gone to pack.” She shook her head. “I know it sounds awful, but she bored me.”

“That’s not awful,” Lizzie said. “You can’t stay with someone if they don’t give you any spark.”

“I know. But she was stunned when I broke up with her. I never told her the whole truth.”

“Why not?”

Jill looked at her for a few seconds. “How do you tell someone they bore you? Especially someone so nice, so kind, so eager to please. Damn, she would have run to take assertiveness training.”

“I don’t think you can change your personality,” Lizzie said.

“No, you can’t. And I couldn’t change my need to have some spark in my life. So I made up a bunch of excuses. All of them lame. I felt like a louse, but I had to do it.”

“How’d it work out for her?”

“Excellent,” Jill said, starting to chuckle. “She’s with Jennifer—I assume playing golf until their hands bleed.”

“You’re shitting me!”

“Nope. Burlington’s not that big a town. We had some mutual friends who knew Jennifer, and they hooked them up. They’re an ideal pair, to be honest. Jennifer just wants someone to go along and let her be the boss, and Hannah wants someone to lead her. I bet they’re together until the end.”

“And if they’re ever bored, they can talk about you and what a shit you are.”

“That’s probably happened more than I care to think about.”

“Then Becca showed up.”

“No, first I got the boys. If Becca had come into my life just a little bit earlier, I would have been happy with just her dog. But I was lonely, and a pair of cats seemed ideal.”

On cue, they sauntered into the den, looked at each person before deciding on Lizzie. As she smiled smugly, they climbed on top of her, David on a hip, Goliath pressed against her chest. “Don’t mind me. I’m just over here, alienating their affections.”

“I think you’re more than halfway there.” Jill drained her beer, then went to get fresh ones. When she came back, she put Lizzie’s on the table, then bent to kiss her head. David let out an unhappy mew when Lizzie shifted to receive her kiss. “Knock it off,” Jill grumbled. “You get to lie on her. The least I can have is a kiss.” She sat down and took a drink. “I thought I had it all figured out with Becca. Not controlling, not boring, not obsessive, not married. We even got along really well in bed. But over time, she started lecturing me when I did something wrong. Wrong meant not how she’d do it, by the way. In retrospect, I wonder if she might have been going through early menopause. Her moods were
so
unpredictable.”

“And you broke up with her for being moody? Remind me to keep my distance when I have PMS.”

“No,” she said, annoyed. “This was a longstanding problem. We fought about everything and nothing. She wanted Boomer to have the run of the house, but that meant locking the boys up in the spare bedroom. That fight lasted the entire time we were together. She wanted me to redo the kitchen rather than the bath. But it was my house, and I wanted a nice bath more than a new kitchen.”

“Oh, come on! You broke up over a kitchen?”

“No, Lizzie. I’m just telling you some of the big, longstanding things we fought over. The point is that we fought. The only way to avoid having a fight was for me to give in and let her lecture me like a child. But being treated like a child made me not want to sleep with her any more. You can’t get hot when you feel like you’re in trouble.”

“So you stood up for yourself over the bathroom.”

“Not really,” she admitted. “I hired a contractor and had the old bathroom ripped out while she was at work. Not the most mature thing I’ve ever done, but I was at the end of my rope.”

“Damn, Jill,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve got a lot of strikes against you here. I’m not sure I’d be jumping in with both feet if I’d heard all of this before.”

“What?” Jill jumped to her feet. “That’s ridiculous! Every couple breaks up for reasons that don’t necessarily make sense to an outsider. Damn, do you think I like having you break up with a guy because you couldn’t agree on having three-ways just
once
in a while?”

“That’s not fair,” she said quietly. “I was trying to make our relationship work.”

Hotly, she snapped, “Well, I’m sorry. But I was trying to find someone I wanted to spend my life with. I made some bad choices, but I tried to be honorable.”

“You broke up with every one of them,” Lizzie stressed. “And for reasons that should have been obvious from the start. No one starts lecturing you and demanding things be done her way after three years. And you can tell if someone’s jealous in a couple of weeks! You just didn’t see it.”

“That’s probably true,” Jill admitted.

“It sounds like you’re not able to judge your own needs and desires until you’ve been beaten over the head by something you don’t like. What will it be with me? Clearly, you don’t know!” Her voice had risen and cats came flying off her when she sat up. Beside herself, she started to pace across the den. “Maybe you’ll think I’m too controlling, or too argumentative. Or I’ll bore you.”

Jill got to her feet and tried to calm her, but Lizzie shrugged her off. She stopped and glared at Jill, eyes filled with anger. “I’ve told my mom about you and I can’t take that back! For the rest of my life, even if I leave right this minute and never see you again, my mom’s always going to know I’m bi.” She gave Jill a push to clear the way. “I wasn’t ready to tell her, god damn it! And if we can’t make this work, it will screw up everything! Why did you have to be so damned rigid about telling everyone? It’s wrong to make someone come out before they’re ready. You’re as controlling as Jennifer and Becca put together!”

“God damn it, Lizzie. I’m so fucking sorry.”

That broke the tension and Lizzie let herself be enfolded in Jill’s embrace, her body losing its stiffness to become loose and pliable. Then her arms tightened around Jill, holding on as if someone was trying to pull them apart. “I wasn’t ready,” she sobbed, her tears breaking Jill’s heart.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It was wrong of me to push things. It was wrong to go to Boston together. We should have kept our distance from your family and worked on our relationship at our own pace. I screwed up.”

“I’m the one who wanted you to go with us. And I’m the idiot who left the door unlocked. But”—she sucked in a gasp of air—“I can’t tell my dad yet. I’m just not ready.”

“It’s okay,” Jill soothed, kissing her forehead and her cheeks. They held each other for a long time, until Jill felt Lizzie let out a big yawn. “Let’s go to bed.”

They walked up the stairs together, hand in hand, but Jill paused at the landing. “I don’t think we should sleep together tonight.”

Lizzie stepped back and glared at her, immediately angry. “So you’re the soul of understanding, but you’re still going to get your way. I tell my family, or we don’t sleep together.”

“I’m not trying to just get my way,” Jill insisted. “I want to take this slowly, Lizzie. I want to avoid the pitfalls.”

“How is sleeping together a pitfall?”

“It is for me. I’m not going to have sex with you until you’re sure you’re committed to making this work.”

“I
am.
Why won’t you believe me?”

“Because you aren’t ready to tell your parents the truth about your identity.”

Lizzie grasped Jill by the shoulders and squeezed. “They know me better than any two people on this earth.” With a rough shake, she added, “My
identity
doesn’t change when I have sex with someone new.”

“This isn’t about sex, Lizzie. It’s just not.”

“It is,” she insisted. “And I don’t want to have to tell my dad we’re having sex.” Her voice rose as the color in her cheeks did. “What if we don’t have any chemistry? Then I’m supposed to go back and say, ‘Hey, you know what? I couldn’t get Jill off, Dad, so we’re not doing it any more.’ My sex life is none of his business!”

“Fine.” Jill was developing a headache from hell. She peeled Lizzie’s fingers from her arms and turned for her bedroom. “We can talk about this later. I’m just not into arguing about it anymore.”

“Don’t leave!”

The tone in her voice was one Jill had never heard from her. Fear, definitely, maybe even panic. Turning, she looked to see Lizzie holding herself, arms wrapped around her body as her eyes closed against the tears that fell down her cheeks.

“Don’t give up on me,” she whimpered plaintively.

“I’m not.” Jill rushed to take Lizzie in her arms and gently stroke her back. “That’s never crossed my mind. I just want to get this right.”

“By not making love?
That’s
how to do it right?”

“No, no,” Jill murmured as she caressed her angel-soft cheek. “I know myself, Lizzie. Once we’re intimate I won’t be able to back off. And if you’re not able to commit to being a full time lesbian…”

“How is telling my dad going to convince you of that? It makes no sense.”

“Maybe you’re right. But if you’re willing to risk a little, that’ll give me some assurance that you’re committed. You’ll have some skin in the game.”

“I’ll have
all
of my skin in the game,” she insisted, her gaze now heated. “Given how you feel about my family, and how they feel about you—once we tell them, we’re as good as married. And we haven’t touched each other!”

“That’s not true. It’s just not. If we don’t get along well…” She sucked in a breath, not having any idea of how to finish that sentence. “I guess it’ll be pretty sticky.”

“I want to go home,” Lizzie said, her voice shaky and thin. “I don’t want to sleep in your damn guest room.”

“If you want to go home, I’ll pay for a cab. I don’t want you driving after you’ve had a couple of drinks.”

“Great. Just great.” She stormed off, stomping down the stairs like she was going to break through the boards. A few seconds later, she was back, with her backpack in her hand. “I’ll be the hostage in the guest room.” She brushed past Jill and must have hurled her bag onto the bed, given the sound it made.