KNOT: A Wake Family Novel (9 page)

I reminded myself to have a little more patience and to think about meeting new people as an opportunity—not the burden that I’d treated him as.

Who knew? Maybe Reagan and I could be friends in some capacity.

Maybe under that ego was a good guy.

I watched as a yellow car pulled up, and he turned back to the door to get my attention, smiling as he waved me out to the taxi he’d hailed for us to share.

Despite myself, I gave him a little smile in return. It was a nice thing to do, and when I stepped out into the perfectly brisk night air, I really appreciated the gesture.

Reagan held the door open for me, and I climbed in. When he was inside, he clapped and rubbed his hands together to warm them up.

It was February, and despite the deceptive sun that day, it was frigid outside of the warm taxi.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” he said politely. I liked the way his voice sounded when he was being kind.

The car took off slowly into traffic.

“Don’t you need to tell him where you’re going?” I finally asked, lost in my thoughts.

He sat back and got more comfortable, then replied, “I already did.”

“Oh. Well, you were right, it’s colder out than I thought.”

As the street lights blinked across his face, I saw again something rise to the surface in his eyes.

“I like it when you agree with me.”

I quietly laughed. He was something else.

“I’m sure you do,” I attempted to joke back.

“So you’re not from the city?”

“No. Just in town for a few days, helping with the event. Visiting friends.”

“I see. Where are you from?”

Where was I from?

“I live in Los Angeles, but I’m hopefully moving.”

At times, I’d look over at him, but mostly I looked forward at where we were going and tried to commit the landmarks to memory.

At the mention of moving, he turned his head to face mine, “Relocating here?”

“Possibly,” I answered.

He sort of pivoted in his seat to get a better look at me. I looked at my hands and fidgeted in response.

“What does it depend on?”

“Well, you know how I was working the party tonight for the hotel?”

I tipped my head to sneak a look at him. He nodded.

“Well, I’m hoping that it turns into a permanent position.”

“I’m sure it will. Everyone had a great time.”

That was nice of him to say.

“Thanks.” I shifted, crossing and uncrossing my legs in the seat while I tried my best not to think naughty thoughts of him joining us in the tub. Nothing helped because I still thought of it.

He enquired, “Wouldn’t it have been more convenient to stay at the hotel?”

“I am. I’m just not staying there tonight.”

He sat back and tipped his chin up. “That’s right. Your friends.”

The way he said
friends
was telling.

“Yes, I’m staying the night with them.”

He propped his arm up on the ledge of the window. “They didn’t wait for you?” His tone suggested they’d wronged me.

He was only going to see it the way he wanted to, but I tried to defend them anyway. “No. It was getting late. They were ready to go home.”

“In that case, we should go get coffee or something.”

I looked at my watch. He looked at his.

“At one in the morning? No. They’re waiting up for me.”

He asked under his breath, “Like parents?”

I needed to set him straight. I knew how he was trying to turn it, trying to spin it into something that it wasn’t.

I didn’t raise my voice, but I was firm. “No. Like my lovers.”

He caught and held my gaze.

“You really sleep with both of them?” He was more inquisitive than accusing like before.

“I do,” I admitted, hoping to come across as honest. I think he took it that way because his next question surprised me.

“What’s that like?”

Was he talking about positions? The mechanics of plural partners? Who does what when? What goes where? Because that wasn’t a straight forward answer. Sometimes it meant one thing, sometimes it was something else altogether.

Being with a man and a woman was worlds apart from being with two men.

“What do you mean?” We were stopped in front of a red light, and I looked out the window, noticing it felt like we’d already passed some of the buildings. The digital machine tallying the fare read thirty-one dollars.

“I mean, what is your relationship like with them?”

That was much simpler.

“Oh, well Janel is my best friend, and I’ve known Ives since I was in high school.
They
have a relationship. I’m only visiting them tonight.”

“Visiting?” He lightly tapped his hand against his thigh.

“Yes, I’m going over there to
be
with them.”

He shook his head like he still couldn’t grasp it. I’m sure he hadn’t ever encountered someone who wasn’t interested in him.
And just him.

“Are they married?”

“They are now.” As we drove on, I was surer that we had been down the same street. “Where are we going? I think we’re driving in circles.”

He dismissively answered, “I gave him my address and told him to drive around until it hit one hundred first.”

He what?

“Why would you do that?” My voice was shrill even to my ear, but his audacity set me off.

“I wanted to talk to you a little more.” He waved his hand like it was not a big deal, then he asked in much the same way, “So, you introduced them, they got married, and you fuck them?”

I eyed him with warning as my temper flared. His dark eyebrows rose, but he didn’t appear too worried. I wasn’t answering anything else.

“You tricked me. They’re waiting on me.” I could feel my pulse pound in my fingers as I sat there with my hands tightly clutching the strap of my purse across my chest.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, you do now,” I huffed. Leaning forward, I spoke to the driver. “Can you please take him home now, or let me out?”

We pulled up to another light, and the man at the wheel turned to see what Reagan wanted to do. That only stoked my anger. Of course he would, he wasn’t quite at the fucking hundred-dollar mark.

I gave Reagan the side eye. What a weasel.

Mercifully, my con-artist cab companion told the driver, “You can drop me off. The money is yours.”

I sat back and crossed my arms, praying we were close to his building.

Heaven smiled, and not even a block later we were pulling over in front of a high rise we’d already passed
three damn times
.

The clock still ran, and he didn’t move.

“Get out, Reagan. I’m tired.” I refused to look at him. New city or not, I didn’t need to be friends with an asshole who manipulated me into talking with him.

He faced me once again, and in my periphery, I saw his hand on the door handle. I huffed when he didn’t get out.

“Please, look at me,” he said, his voice gentle and apologetic. It was a little too coaxing, too familiar, for my liking. As if he’d known me for years.

He doesn’t know shit about me.

Still, I wanted him out of the car so I could get on with my night. The sooner, the better. I didn’t want to do what he said, but I did it anyway with a mocking leer.

“You’re interesting. Here’s my card. If you happen to get the job, or if there’s anything I can do to help with that, give me a call or shoot me an email. I haven’t been myself tonight, and I apologize.”

He placed the card on the seat between us, and my hand reached out to pick it up. As soon as my fingers touched the paper, he had my hand in his, lifting it to his mouth. I should have yanked it away, but I was on a mistake streak and evidently couldn’t break it.

“It was a pleasure meeting you.” His lips kissed the top of my hand. “I hope you get the job.”

He calls this pleasure?

Then, he got out of the car.

The driver pulled away before he was even through the doors.

“I’m going to 2923 North Racine Avenue,” I instructed the driver so that he would reset the time clock for my trip.

“He already told me the street and paid me an extra hundred to get you there. I’m supposed to make sure you’re inside before I leave.”

I sat back.

Some men really were control freaks. I laughed to myself at the lunacy of it all.

A handsome, infuriating control freak he was. Who’d made sure I was warm and paid for my cab ride. The sexy prick.

Janel and Ives were still up. I knew they would be. He had his head between her legs when I walked into their bedroom, something I was no stranger to seeing.

It had been a long time since I’d been with a man and a woman. In Los Angeles, I usually found myself in the arms of two men, David and Clint, another couple I knew, but even that had been a while ago.

I loved having sex with two men. I enjoyed being something they shared.

Although, when I’d first waded into the poly lifestyle it had been with Janel. We’d find a man and share him. Something about it clicked for me, and the more I learned about it, the more I finally fit somewhere.

I made eye contact with Ives as he pleasured his wife. The visual was so erotic. Half the reason I loved having multiple sexual partners at a time was that I loved observing so much.

It was different than porn. It was
real
sex—right in front of you.

Janel, naked and bared to him, in her own world with a man who knew his way around with his fingers and tongue. She didn’t even know I’d come in.

I stripped bare in their bathroom with the door open and slipped into the warm bath they’d drawn for me, no doubt before they got started in my absence.

I watched them make love as I touched myself, and although it wasn’t uncommon for me to fantasize about other lovers even while I was with two, I thought about someone new.

Someone who pretended to have the world wrapped around his little finger.

As Janel rolled on top of her husband, and she finally noticed I was there, she gave me a delighted smile from the bed as she started riding him.

I didn’t end up joining them that night, I was content with my fingers under the warm water and my fantasies. Pretending as I watched them, that I was Janel and Ives was Reagan Warren as I listened to their ecstasy, I found my own. Dreaming about what could never be.

Reggie—Saturday, September 18, 2010

I
t could never work. Why did it always feel like we’d been doomed from the start?

How could I tell her I’d like to go back to the very moment we met?

I would have kissed her there in front of the whole fucking party. I would have palmed her ass so everyone saw, but mostly because she liked it.

I would have never given in.

“I’d go back to the beginning and do everything I second guessed.” So many times, I avoided my instincts so I wouldn’t scare her away, but there we were anyway. Both losing. Regardless, there was no time machine, no magic pill to let me rewrite history. All I had was that moment. Possibly that night.

And this time, it was my way.

I looked at her pink skin, trembling before me. I considered telling her to move, to get into a more comfortable position. Covering her up. Coddling her.