Olive Oil and White Bread (34 page)

Angie sat in one of the two wooden-armed chairs across from Muldoon's desk and placed a closed manila folder in front of her. He sset down his pen, folded his hands on the papers, and gave her his full attention. She took a deep, fortifying breath and plunged in.

“I don't think you're happy here since Jeremy took over.”

Muldoon neither confirmed nor denied her statement. He simply waited for her to continue.

“Neither am I. I've been doing a lot of research and a lot of studying.”
She told him about all the reading and exploration she'd done over the past months, poured it all out. She told him some of the ideas she'd had for the company, how she'd presented them to Guelli, only to have him turn them over to Jeremy, who'd pretty much taken them on as his own. She talked and talked for what felt like hours. Muldoon sat quietly, listened intently, never interrupting. “The bottom line here, Keith, is that you're the most amazing salesperson I know. We've been in this business for a long time; I don't know that either of us feels like we can change horses this late in the race. However.” She stopped, leaned forward with her forearms on his desk, and looked him dead in the eye. “I think we'd make a great team.”

Muldoon cocked his head, the first sign at all that his interest was piqued by her words. He looked at her for what felt like a very long while before he made a rolling motion with his hand and sat back more comfortably in his big leather chair. “Tell me more.”

Trying to keep her grin tempered, she opened the manila folder and began to outline her idea.

2006

SexyBack

Thirty

Angie and Jillian had spent the last eighteen hours at the hospital while Angie's father underwent a series of tests to pinpoint what might be causing his weird symptoms—lethargy, confusion, slightly slurred speech. Of course, neither Angie nor any of her siblings knew of these symptoms until their mother called them from the emergency room where the doctor had sent them. Angie and her siblings—except for Tony, who was god-knows-where with god-knows-who—had all raced to the hospital from their jobs. Their spouses had all shown up over the next hour or two. The raised voices in the waiting room had stemmed more from worry than anger, though there was some of that too. They were asked to quiet down three times by the staff.

Bottom line: Joe'd had a mild stroke. A very mild stroke. So mild, in fact, that this type almost always went undetected. If it hadn't been for Alice's insistence that they talk to the doctor “just to humor me,” as she'd put it, Joe's would also have remained undetected. As it was, no real treatment was forthcoming. Joe had to watch what he ate, keep track of his body, and stay vigilant. They were holding him for the rest of the night and sending him home tomorrow.

“Oh my god, I'm exhausted.” Finally home, Angie tossed her keys to the counter and immediately bent into the fridge. “And starving.”

“I told you to go with your brother to the cafeteria at the hospital,” Jillian scolded, a gentle hand on Angie's back taking away anything sharp in her voice.

Angie stood up, a slice of American cheese in her hand. She tore through the plastic like she hadn't eaten in days. “I know,” she said around the first bite.

Jillian shook her head with a grin and gestured to the table with her chin. “Sit down. I'll make grilled cheese sandwiches.”

Angie did as she was told, then went so far as to make a pillow of her arms and lay her head down on them, watching Jillian as she worked. “Thanks,” she said.

Jillian glanced at her, the same grin still on her face. “Welcome.” Angie squinted at the kitchen clock and had trouble registering the actual time.

Jillian slid a plate in front of her. She poured two glasses of milk, and sat down with her own plate.

“I'm so tired it feels like a Herculean effort just to lift this sandwich off the plate,” Angie said. The sentence made her chuckle. The chuckle morphed into a weird half-giggle.

Jillian laughed, too. “You're punchy.”

“I so am.”

“We're going right up to bed as soon as we finish.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

They ate in silence for several more moments before Angie spoke again.

“It was weird today.”

Jillian studied Angie's face, took note of her barely whispered voice. “Yeah? In what way?”

“It was the first time in a long time that I thought, ‘Wow, my dad's getting old.' You know? I've never seen him look so small. So frail. My dad's always been this cinder block of a man, not tall, but solid. He could lift anything. Move anything. Fix anything. And today in that hospital bed, he just looked . . . old. Weak and frail and old.” Her dark eyes filled with tears as Jillian closed her hand over Angie's.

“It's hard to watch your parents age,” Jillian said. Her own father was still healthy, but weaker than he used to be.

“And it's just as hard not to, huh?” Angie added, thinking about Jillian's mother.

With a sad grimace, Jillian agreed. “Yup.”

Feeling the need to change the subject, Angie said, “I'm sorry you missed your softball game.”

Jillian shrugged. “I'm sure they got along just fine without me. I'd much rather be with you anyway.”

Angie squeezed her hand. Pushing her empty plate away, she said, “Let's get some sleep.”

They barely stepped out of their clothes before falling into bed and sleeping for almost ten straight hours. When Jillian opened her eyes, sunlight was streaming cheerfully through the blinds and the clock radio said it was 12:45 p.m. A split-second of panic sliced through her before she relaxed. Thank god they'd both had the good sense to call in sick from the hospital today, before they'd had an idea of what was going on and how long they'd be. Instead of springing from the bed and bee-lining to the shower, she snuggled down into the soft bedding, pushed her backside into the solid warmth of Angie's body spooning her from behind, snuggled into the arm stretched out beneath her neck.

Her body ached from being in bed too long, but she was loath to get up, to leave the closeness of her partner.

Her partner
.

That's what Angie was. In every way. Sometimes, when Jillian stopped to think how badly she'd messed up last year, how close she'd come to throwing it all away, she wanted to kick herself. But it turned out maybe that old saying was true:
everything happens for a reason
. She'd never believed it before, had always thought of the line as some sort of spiritual bunk that people used for situations they couldn't control or explain. You got laid off from your job of twenty years: everything happens for a reason. A drunk driver causes an accident that kills somebody else, but he walks away without a scratch: everything happens for a reason. The guilty murderer is found not guilty: everything happens for a reason.
Oh, please
, she always thought.
What a load of bullshit
.

The past year had caused her to look at things differently, though, and she realized that if she hadn't wandered down the wrong path when she did, if the mess with Lindsey had never happened, then she and Angie would never have talked about the state of their relationship,
about what each of them was feeling, what each of them was missing, what each of them wanted. And things wouldn't have ended up the way they were now.

They were stronger. Solid. Sure.

It hadn't been easy. It had been a slow process that had taken months. They went to therapy, individually and together. Angie had been understandably reserved for a long time. She was gun-shy, and she didn't fully trust Jillian. Jillian knew that, understood it, but still found it almost unbearably hurtful. Angie had spent her first couple of weeks back home in the guest bed, not yet ready to share such close quarters with the person who'd sliced her so deeply. Again, Jillian understood. That didn't keep her from crying herself to sleep most nights.

Eating crow was exhausting.

Jillian smiled now as she thought about that. She'd been determined to eat as much as necessary to get her life back. Thank god Angie wasn't the kind of person who would enjoy torturing her. She didn't take pleasure in holding Jillian's mistake over her head. In fact, she seemed almost uncomfortable during those times when her lack of trust hung over them, especially since she told Jillian she accepted some of the blame for running their relationship off the rails. They dealt with those painful moments as best they could, and finally—unexpectedly—things changed. Angie came into the bedroom one night with a magazine and said simply, “I miss sleeping with you. Can I come in?”

Jillian had looked up from her book, blinked once, and thrown back the covers to let Angie in. Then they'd each gone back to reading, deliberately casual, Jillian trying not to let the enormous grin cover her entire face.

Another two months went by before they made love for the first time.

It was tentative at best, each of them exploring one another as if they'd never been together before. They started slowly with hesitant kisses that took long moments to deepen. They moved slowly, seemingly almost afraid to touch each other's bodies. But they paid attention to one another, actually
talked
as they moved, were surprised when they found their groove. With blessed release, Jillian's orgasm also brought
an onslaught of tears, of apologies, of
I love you
s. Angie's eyes were not dry, and she held onto Jillian as if she'd never let go. And it was that grip, that embrace much more so than the climax itself that made Jillian certain they were going to be okay.

There's a difference between sex and intimacy
, she remembered saying to Angie. But she understood that they were not mutually exclusive, either.

To Angie's credit, she made more effort, paid more attention to Jillian's sexual needs. It wasn't something they'd ever worried about in the past, but Jillian knew that was exactly why they'd ended up in the pickle they had. Angie's libido was not as strong as Jillian's. It never had been, and it never would be, and that was okay. They talked about it; that was the difference. Instead of making a move, getting rebuffed, and resenting it, Jillian actually
talked
to Angie. They set up date nights. They planned to have sex. No, it wasn't necessarily romantic, but it worked. It kept them connected in a way that they wouldn't be if they continued to neglect the sexual aspect of their relationship. And the open communication meant they enjoyed it more, which surprised them both.

Now Angie stirred behind her. Jillian felt her slowly wake up, gauged the change in her breathing. The arm draped over Jillian's side shifted as Angie's hand snaked up and closed gently over Jillian's bare breast, pulling her body back more tightly against Angie's. Warm lips moved across the side of her neck, nuzzled her ear as Angie's fingers toyed with a nipple.

Jillian's body went from zero to sixty in mere seconds, another strange side effect of their reconnection. It took almost nothing for Angie to turn her on. Not that she'd ever been difficult, but she felt like a teenager again. All Angie had to do was give her a certain look and Jillian's underwear dampened in anticipation. Now she moved to turn onto her back, but Angie held fast.

“No, stay,” she whispered in Jillian's ear. “Just like this.” She continued her mouth's assault on Jillian's neck, ear, shoulder. The arm under Jillian's neck shifted, and that hand took over with Jillian's breasts, kneading and pumping, while Angie's other hand slid slowly down her torso, over her stomach, and into the thatch of hair at the apex of Jillian's thighs.
Both women were already breathing raggedly, and Jillian was once again amazed at how quickly they were ready for one another. Without preamble, Angie's fingers slicked through Jillian's wetness, gently yet firmly, pressing and stroking in exactly the right way.

“You're so sexy,” Angie said in her ear, causing Jillian to gasp a breath and do what she could to separate her legs and give Angie better access. “So sexy and so beautiful and so
mine
.”

The possessiveness was also new, and hot, and it only served to push Jillian's arousal higher as she reached behind her to clamp her hand around the nape of Angie's neck. Then Jillian's climax overtook her and forced a strained groan from her throat, every muscle in her body seeming to pull taut like an overstretched rubber band. She gripped Angie's hair and rode out the orgasm, came down slowly, laid her hand over Angie's between her legs to stop her movements.