Naked (22 page)

“Can I help?”

She stood, surprised, then shook her head. “My mother will say she told me to put the potatoes in an hour earlier. And she was right. I’ll just turn up the heat and they’ll be ready in
another ten minutes. We’ll still be eating the rest of the food. It’s fine.”

“Are you trying to convince me? Or yourself?”

She laughed. “Myself. I’m glad you could make it tonight, Olivia. Are you enjoying it?”

“Yes, very much. Thanks for having me.”

She didn’t seem to be much for small talk, which left an awkward silence between us as I struggled for something chatty to say so we weren’t just staring. Elle didn’t seem to mind. She pulled out a bowl of what looked like guacamole from the fridge and held it out.

“You could take this in while I fight these potatoes.”

I took the heavy cut-glass bowl. “Sure.”

She tilted her head to look at me. “It’s moving, isn’t it? The story?”

“Am I that transparent?”

She shook her head and nudged the dial on the oven higher, then leaned against the counter. “I don’t think so. I just remember feeling so lost and overwhelmed the first few times I tried to do anything with Dan’s family. I wanted very much to fit in. They all had this secret language, these…traditions. Stories they told about what they’d done on vacation as children. My family doesn’t really have that, so it sort of freaked me out at first.”

I set the bowl on the kitchen table to listen to her. From the dining room I heard laughter. “I can imagine.”

Elle laughed gently. “Well, anyway, a Christmas ham I could do, but how do you brag about that to your boyfriend’s parents when they’re Jewish? I needed something to impress them. They’re not terribly religious, but they’d invited me for Passover, and I decided I was going to make matzo ball soup.
Well, let me tell you something, Olivia, in the vast world of matzo balls, you have what’s called floaters and sinkers. And I made sinkers.”

We laughed together. “What happened then?”

“Oh, they ate them. Nobody complained. I was mortified, obviously, but Dan’s family just took me in and made it all part of their joke. Not in a bad way. They made me feel at home. It was just after that I decided I really could marry him, after all. So Passover’s special to me for that reason, even though I never have learned to make floaters.”

“That’s a nice story. Now you have one of your own,” I told her.

Elle looked surprised for a second before smiling again. “Yes. I guess we do! C’mon, these potatoes are as finished as they’ll get without burning. Ready to go in?”

I got the guacamole and followed her into the dining room full of family and friends.

Everything about me was buzzing, and it had nothing to do with the wine I’d had as part of dinner. I’d stayed much later than I’d planned, laughing and talking with my new friends. I’d asked to borrow a Haggadah to read at home, and Elle had given me a few books to read, too. I’d driven home humming “Dayenu.”

Alex’s car was in the parking lot when I pulled in, but with my hands full of books and leftovers packaged in aluminum foil, I didn’t knock at his door on my way past. I tucked the food into my fridge and stacked the books by my bed, where I did most of my reading.

My life had tilted and gone off balance. Everything about tonight had felt right in a way nothing had for a long time.
The prayers had made sense. The story had spoken to me. I wasn’t sure what to make of any of it, just that suddenly a door had opened inside me the way we’d opened it to welcome the prophet Elijah.

Something had shifted inside me, and for the first time, I thought I might have started to find my way.

I drifted into the shower to let the steam and heat unkink the knots in my shoulders and neck as I thought about the evening. I was very glad I’d gone tonight.

Mascara came away on my fingertips when I rubbed at my eyes, suddenly more tired now that I realized I had to get up in the morning to put a few hours of work in before I went to Foto Folks. I tipped my face to the spray and let it wash me clean. I didn’t bother to shave, just rinsed off the soap and got out to wrap a towel around me.

I came out of the bathroom and screamed at the top of my lungs as a figure whirled to face me. “Shit! Alex!”

His pink button-down lay open at his throat; his khaki pants were neatly pressed and belted at his waist. He’d slicked back his hair or had it cut, I couldn’t quite tell which. I saw his jacket slung over the back of my couch. I could smell the sharp tang of pot.

I took a step back from it.

“You’re home.” Alex didn’t sound high; he didn’t move like he was slow and dopey. He jittered, as a matter of fact.

“What the hell are you doing?” I pressed a hand over my chest to feel the thunder of my heart inside. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry.” He moved forward to kiss me. “I let myself in, heard the shower running. Figured I’d stay out here so you didn’t think I was getting all Norman Bates on you.”

This close, all I could smell was cologne, and I wondered if I’d imagined the odor of marijuana. I looked into his eyes, which searched mine, but weren’t red-rimmed. His tongue slid over his lips and he kissed me again, and I tasted mint. Nothing more.

“You scared me,” I repeated lamely.

“Sorry.” He flicked the hem of the towel. “Sexy.”

I clamped my arms tight to my sides to keep the towel from sliding down my breasts. I was waterlogged, exhausted, still spinning from the night and aware at the same time that Alex looked as if he’d stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. “Let me go put something on.”

“I like you like this.” He pulled me closer to search my mouth with his. His hand slid beneath the towel to find my skin warm and wet from the shower.

I kissed him and could do nothing about his roaming fingers unless I wanted to risk dropping the towel. I squirmed, laughing. “Stop it! I have to go put something on!”

“Why?”

“Because…just because.”

His smile seduced me. Opened my thighs. Made me let the towel slip down so the curves of my breasts showed, the hint of nipple. His hand drifted under the towel, up and down, moving so slowly and softly I couldn’t find it within me to protest.

“Come have a glass of wine,” he murmured into my ear.

“Alex, I have to work in the morning. And I’ve already had wine tonight.”

“Me, too, but so what?” We moved in a small circle, dancing, my head on his shoulder. In my bare feet I had to
stand on my toes to reach it. Now I pulled away to look at his face.

“You did?”

Something like a shadow flickered in his gaze. “Yeah. Couple of glasses.”

“I thought you didn’t drink.”

A crevasse a whole inch wide yawned between us. His hands had come to rest on my hips, and his fingers tightened there, bunching my towel. “I never said I didn’t drink.”

“But you never…Forget it,” I told him. I scanned his face, the set of his mouth. “I thought you were at a meeting, that’s all.”

“I was. A dinner meeting. And then I met up with some friends. We had drinks. Is that all right?”

I wanted to step away, but his grip held me just tightly enough I’d have had to make it obvious I wanted out of his embrace. “It’s fine. I’m just surprised, that’s all. You hadn’t mentioned seeing friends in Philly.”

“I didn’t know I needed your permission to have a couple of drinks or to have friends, Olivia.”

I leaned in again to take a long, deep sniff. Then I did step away. “I thought I smelled pot, before.”

Alex didn’t look guilty, but he sure as hell looked something. “I smoked a joint.”

“You drank and smoked pot and drove all the way home?”

“I smoked the joint downstairs while I was waiting for you,” he said too casually.

I thought of New Year’s Eve, the night I’d come home to find him holding a cigarette. The first time we’d kissed. “I didn’t think you smoked.”

“I quit cigarettes, but a joint’s not…Hey, hey,” he said as
I stepped away. “One small joint, and only half of it. It was some old shit I had floating around, not even any good.”

I clutched the towel, hitching it higher, and shook my head. “Wow. Just…wow.”

I turned and headed for my bedroom to pull on a T-shirt and pair of sleep pants. Alex followed, too close on my heels. I wouldn’t look at him.

“I didn’t know you cared,” he said when I didn’t turn.

I used my towel to squeeze the water from my hair, gently, so as not to fray the locks. Then I grabbed up a bottle of oil from my dresser to rub through them. I wasn’t sure how I meant to answer him, only that whatever words were lying in wait down deep in my throat tasted bitter on the back of my tongue.

“I’m sorry,” he said, but didn’t sound it.

I turned then. “It’s not that I care, exactly. Lots of people drink, Alex. Lots of them smoke pot now and then. But you never have. And I have to wonder, why now? Why tonight? I have to wonder what the hell is going on with you lately?”

This struck him hard enough to make him flinch. “Olivia—”

I held up a hand. “No. Don’t even give me a bunch of bullshit for an answer. I’m not hearing it.”

“How do you know it’s bullshit, if you won’t let me tell you?” His quirked smile wasn’t warming me this time. I couldn’t read his eyes. We were back to the beginning of things, and I hated it.

I stared him down, and he didn’t falter. The buzz from earlier had faded and left behind foolishness. How could I have thought one dinner, a few hours, could change me? How could I have thought I might know who I am?

“I don’t want to fight with you,” I told him quietly, and busied myself with the array of pots and jars of creams on top of my dresser. I opened one and rubbed a dollop into my skin.

“I don’t want to fight with you, either.”

“It’s late, and I’m tired. I think maybe you should go home.”

A balloon of silence inflated between us.

“Shit. This isn’t how I wanted this to go. I thought you’d come home, we’d have a glass of wine…”

I sniffed and kept my attention on the cream I was rubbing into my skin. “I told you, I don’t want to fight with you.”

“I’m not fighting!” He sounded exasperated.

I breathed deep to find the smell of marijuana, not sure if I was imagining it. It wasn’t the drugs or the booze that had come between us, but the difference in him. Maybe the difference in me.

“Olivia. Would you look at me? Please?”

I didn’t get it, at first. The small velvet box, the hopeful look. Alex sank to one knee in front of me, the box held in one palm while he opened it. Something shiny glittered inside, bright enough to send me back against the dresser, so hard I rattled everything on top of it.

“Olivia Mackey, will you marry me?”

“What?”

He got up, moved closer. The ring flashed so brilliantly in my bedroom’s dim lighting I knew it had to be a diamond. Of course it was—who got engaged with something different? Alex was offering me a diamond ring and the chance to become his wife, and all I could do was stare.

“Will you marry me?” he asked again.

I looked at his face, thinking I would say no. That no
matter how fast this had happened or how deep into him I’d fallen, marriage was not the next step. That I’d taken a ring once before, and the promise along with it, and it had ended very badly.

But things were different with Alex.

“I don’t know what to say…”

“Say yes, Olivia.” Alex pulled the ring from its velvet cushion and held my hand. “Say yes.”

I looked into his eyes and saw everything inside his gaze. Fear. Hope. Pride and love. Heat there, too, familiar and welcome. He smiled and held the ring over my fingertip, but didn’t push it down.

I thought of all the reasons to say no, and none of them were any good. So I let him slide that gorgeous band of platinum and diamond to the base of my finger, where the metal warmed quickly to the temperature of my skin.

And I said yes.

A
lex let out a breath and kissed me, hard. I’d seen the look in his eyes before I closed mine for the kiss; he was relieved. I pushed him back gently so I could get a better look at the ring.

“You thought I’d say no?” I asked quietly as I tilted my hand back and forth to make the diamond sparkle. I glanced at him.

Alex rumpled his hair, then stuck his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”

I had to hug and kiss him again for that honesty. “But you asked me anyway!”

He put his arms around me and we rocked back and forth in our usual slow dance. “Of course I did.”

“Why did you think I’d say no?”

He looked down into my face. “Because I figured there was no way in hell I would ever be so lucky as to have you say yes.”

“Oh, Alex.” I wanted to scoff, but his gaze told me he was dead serious. “Why would you ever think that?”

He didn’t answer, just kissed me again. I opened my mouth and waited for him to feel different, taste new. I could feel the ring on my finger, a weight where there’d been none. The stone slid to the side and pressed against my other finger, not hurting. Just there. Unable to be ignored.

“I love you,” I told him, and meant it.

However it had happened, it was the truth. And, overwhelmed by too much discovery in one night, I started to cry. Alex didn’t look alarmed. He used his thumbs to brush away the tears slipping down my cheeks. He kissed the corner of my mouth where they’d accumulated. Licked them away. He didn’t ask me why I wept, and I didn’t feel I had to explain.

I took a deep breath and blinked away the blur so I could focus on his shirt buttons. One, two, three. He stood patiently as I opened his shirt and slid my hands up and over his warm, bare flesh. He shivered, though my hands weren’t cold. His nipples tightened and tempted my mouth. I licked each one and listened to him sigh.

I undid his belt and the zipper. I got on my knees in front of him and slid his trousers over his hips. The front of his briefs bulged, and I pushed them down, too. His cock came free of the soft fabric and I took it at the base to hold it still while I slid my mouth over it. When he groaned, I smiled and twisted to look up at him.

He was gazing down at me. His hand caressed my hair. When I opened myself to take him in deeper, Alex’s eyes fluttered closed for a second before opening again. He licked his mouth. I sucked gently and felt the throb and pulse of his cock on my tongue.

It wasn’t the first time I’d sucked him, but it felt different this time. The floor beneath my knees, the weight of his balls in my palm, even the length and girth of him were all different, like a photo that’s been cropped to emphasize a different aspect.

I stroked him with my hand a few times, then got up and took him to my bed, where I laid him back and straddled him. He still wore his shirt, open all the way, and I still had on my T-shirt. It rode up my thighs as I brushed my clit over his erection. I hadn’t trimmed my bush in a few days, and the thick, springy curls tickled us both, adding to the pleasure. He put his hands on my hips.

I reached over and past him to my nightstand, where I’d left my orgasm-worthy new camera. “I think we should take a photo to commemorate the event.”

He laughed as his hands stroked up my thighs and over my ass. “Of course.”

I angled the camera, holding up my arm, as I lay my head next to his on the pillow, our bodies still aligned. Out of focus, our heads chopped off, our mouths fused, one shot after another. I didn’t bother to look at them as I took them. I held the hand with the ring over my face, and the flash glared off the diamond like lightning. I held it beneath the glare of my bedside lamp and it shot rainbows onto the ceiling. I took pictures of that, too, or tried.

I gave him the camera and it became his eyes as I rode him, his cock deep inside me. I pulled my shirt over my head to be totally naked with him. I put my hand over the lens, then, and pushed the camera aside so I could see him, and Alex could see me with nothing between us.

He pushed inside me and his hands moved over me to find
all the places he already knew, but as with everything else tonight, his touch skating over my nakedness felt different. His palms on my nipples made me cry out when they never had; his thumb’s sweet pressure on my clit sent new tension through my every muscle.

It took me a long time to come, but not too long. Seconds became minutes, strung together until I lost track of them. On top of him, I moved slowly, my head bent so my hair fell over my face. My palms were on his chest, and his heart throbbed under my palm.

I rocked on his cock and his hands helped me move, but didn’t urge me to go faster or hold me to slow down. Light caught the diamond on my finger and that’s what I was looking at when the first trembling spasm of pleasure swept over me. My fingers clutched, and he moaned at the slight gouge of my nails into his flesh.

The sound tipped me harder. My orgasm rippled through me so I shook with it. My thighs clenched his sides and my pussy clutched at his cock. His hips lifted then, pounding into me harder, and sweet pleasure rose again until I had to fall forward, exhausted.

Later, when I rolled off him and we lay side by side, staring at the dancing colors my ring made on my ceiling, I took up the camera and scrolled through the pictures we’d taken.

“Oh, God,” I said. “This is so not how I’d like to remember I looked.”

Face stripped of makeup, hair all over the place. My only consolation was that in most of the shots my face was blurred, or turned. Alex looked perfect, of course. He always did.

“You’re beautiful,” he said without even glancing at the
photos. “And it worked out okay. Believe me, I’d pictured it all going a little bit…smoother.”

I turned on my side to look at him, tucking a hand beneath my cheek on the pillow. I put the other hand, the one with the ring, on his chest and watched it rise and fall with his breath. “You had it all planned out, huh?”

He nodded. “I was going to give you a glass of wine first. And flowers. I have flowers out there for you.”

He shifted to look at me. “Best laid plans, huh?”

I thought of that picture-perfect proposal, but didn’t regret missing out on it. Good sex and all the excitement were pressing my eyes to close, but I struggled to keep them open. “I never guessed this was coming.”

He reached to brush my hair from my face, and let his fingertip linger on my forehead, then slide down the curve of my temple to my cheek and jaw before dropping it to my hip. “I know.”

A yawn split my laugh. “The ring is so beautiful.”

“I bought it in Philadelphia from a jeweler friend I know.”

I blinked and traced a heart on his chest. “So you didn’t have a business meeting tonight?”

“Nope.”

I narrowed my eyes a little, thinking that a lie could sometimes be forgiven. I touched his face, and he kissed my palm. I thought I had something more to say, something profound, but I was asleep before I could say it.

We were engaged.

For the second time in my life, I called my parents, my brothers, my grandparents, to tell them all I was getting married. My voice shook and I dissolved into semihysterical
laughter with every one of them. Sarah greeted the news with a predictable shriek and demands for a bachelorette party, though we hadn’t even set the date. By the time I got off the phone with her, I had less than an hour to shower and get dressed for work.

Hastily, I logged onto my Connex account, which had languished in past months. I’d been spending so much time with Alex in real time I hadn’t put much effort into my virtual relationships. I hadn’t, in fact, even added him to my page. Hadn’t even asked him if he had something as silly as a Connex account. I quickly uploaded one of the decent shots from the night before, one in which the ring and my hand obscured most of our faces, and no private parts were showing. Then I switched my relationship status from “single” to “engaged.”

I stared at my updated profile page for a few minutes with a giddy grin. Somehow, even more than the ring, putting it out there like that for the entire world to see somehow made it all more official.

The girls at Foto Folks all squealed over the ring, which was twice the size of any they had. If they had envy, they hid it well, or I chose not to see it. I walked around the entire day with a silly grin plastered on my face, showed the ring off to every customer, and took some of the best damned shots I ever had there. I cooed over babies in a way I’d never done. Babies seemed more real than they ever had before. I complimented even the most garish choices for the boudoir pictures, happy for the women who’d never have thought of taking shots like this for themselves, but would do it for someone they loved.

I floated through that day, each sight of my ring sending another thrill fluttering through me. I was engaged! I was getting married!

I worked until closing and declined an offer to go out for drinks to celebrate; I endured the good-natured ribbing about how now that I was engaged I had to rush home to placate my man instead of hanging with the girls, even though it was mostly true. I promised them another time, and thought they all got it—that rushing home to be with Alex was still new and fresh and desirable. And again, if they had envy, I didn’t choose to see it.

The day had been so warm it was easy to imagine summer on the way, and I slung my jacket over my arm as I went to my car in the mall’s back parking lot. I tensed at the sight of a figure waiting there, but relaxed when I saw it was Patrick. I wasn’t even really that surprised.

“Hi.” My voice still held that floaty, giddy, silly tone I’d been using all day. I was way up there, and nobody was going to make me come down, not even Patrick.

“Can we talk?” He had turned up his collar and he hunched his shoulders, his hands jammed deep into his pockets. He rocked on the balls of his feet. He looked pale and rumpled, unlike himself.

I unlocked my car but didn’t get in. “About?”

I waited for anger and got only a frown. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me yourself.”

I had no reason to feel caught out and didn’t like feeling that way. I tossed my purse and jacket into the backseat but kept my keys jingling in my hand. “We haven’t been exactly chit-chatting every day lately, Patrick.”

“I can’t believe I had to find out from your Connex page.”
His voice was thick with grief I thought with some surprise might be genuine. “Me and five hundred of your closest friends. Jesus, Liv. I thought…Shit. I thought I meant more to you than that.”

I remembered once that had been true. I stopped myself from taking a step toward him by digging my keys into my hand. “We haven’t been close for a long time.”

“A few months!” he retorted. “We had a fight, that’s it! And suddenly I’m not on your must-call list? What the hell happened to all those years?”

“I didn’t think you’d care,” I said, but knew it to be a lie. I’d known Patrick would care.

“Not care?” He yanked his hands from his pockets to toss them in the air. “Not care? Dammit, Liv, how can you say that? When I have to find out you’re
marrying
that asshole—”

“Hey! Don’t you call him that!”

Patrick’s handsome face turned angular. Eyes narrowed, mouth thinned. “You’re making a mistake, that’s all.”

“Like the one I almost made with you, is that it?” I didn’t care if my words stung. I wanted them to gouge and slice.

Patrick flinched. “He will hurt you. I don’t want to see you hurt. I love you, Liv—”

“You,” I said with venom in my voice, “shut the fuck up.”

Patrick took a step back. In the spring, night still falls early. It had been dark when I came out, and the parking lot lamps cast pools of yellow-white light that didn’t flatter him. The breeze came up, chilling me, and I wished I’d put on my jacket, but didn’t bend to reach inside the car for it.

“I’ve always loved you. You know that.” He was brave enough to try again, and though I could still taste my anger, it dissolved under the force of nostalgia.

I did not want to hate him.

“Oh, Patrick. Can’t you just be happy for me, the way I’ve always been happy for you and Teddy?”

He flinched again and cast down his gaze. He scuffed the ground with his toe and shoved his hands back into his pockets. His voice went low and shamed.

“We broke up.”

“Oh, no.” Once I’d have hugged him, but now the ring on my finger made my hand too heavy to lift. “What happened?”

Patrick shot me a twisted, strangled grin. “I fucked up, that’s what happened. I fucked around. Teddy found out. I was tired of lying, of being that person who lied. And I thought he’d forgive me, because Teddy always forgave me.”

I wasn’t sure Patrick deserved compassion, but I was able to find some pity. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.” He snorted and kicked at the ground again. “Sorry doesn’t start to cover how I feel.”

He looked up at me, gaze bleak. “And then I find you’re marrying that…Alex Kennedy…Oh, Liv. I promise you, he’s not—”

“Shut up, Patrick,” I said, but more softly this time and without heat. “I love him.”

“You used to love me,” he countered. “What happened to that?”

I almost wanted to look around for hidden cameras, sure I was being punked. “You know what happened.”

“At New Year’s you still loved me. That was only a few months ago. You don’t stop loving someone that fast. Do you?”

“You can stop loving someone in a second,” I told him.

His hand dropped, but he still stood much too close. “I’m sorry I ever hurt you, Liv. I really am. I’d do anything to take it back.”

I backed up and pressed against the car’s chilly metal. “Are you fucking kidding me, Patrick?”

“No. I’m not.” He shook his head, sorrow stamped in every line of his face, the shift and sag of his body. “I know I’ve messed up. And I’m sorry…”

I put my hand on his shoulder because putting it over his mouth would’ve been too intimate. “I will always care about you, Patrick. You know that. I’m sorry about you and Teddy, and I know you’re hurting. And what happened between us…it’s the past. I’m not holding a grudge, okay?”