The Space Between Us (33 page)

It was so hard to resist her, and the truth was, I didn’t want to. I let her push her fingers inside my panties to pinch my clit. She bit at my neck as she pushed her fingers lower, inside me.

“Let’s go find Charlie,” she said. “I think he needs to eat this pussy.”

What, was I going to argue? But after, when they’d both fallen asleep, I went to my own bed and lay awake for a very long time.

Chapter 35

I
t was going to be the first Christmas since Simone and Max were born that I wouldn’t be there when they woke up to see what Santa had brought them. Elaine had told me I was welcome to spend the night, in my old room, but since things with me and Vic were still cold, I didn’t want to. Whatever had been broken between us was taking an extra long time to fix. I didn’t like it, but wasn’t sure I was ready to change it.

Cap, to my surprise, was spending Christmas with Missy.

“But what about Lynds?” I handed him the wrench he’d pointed at.

He shrugged and bent over the engine he was working on. Since Vic had taken up undercover detecting again, Cap had been spending more time at the garage. Well, when he wasn’t fucking Missy, apparently. It was weird to think of it, not that I spent a lot of time on the details or anything because…gross. Just that he was with someone other than Lyndsay. I’d always assumed he’d end up with her, if both of them could get their heads out of their butts about how they felt.

“What about her?”

“You’ve spent Christmas morning with her the past two years.”

“Not this year.” Cap straightened. “What about you?”

“I’ll go over to Vic and Elaine’s for dinner, I guess. She wants me. You coming?”

“Vic wants you, too, you know.”

I shrugged. Cap rolled his eyes. I sighed.

“Anyway,” I said. “I’ll be with Meredith and Charlie for the morning, and then they’re going to her mother’s house. I can’t exactly tag along. So.”

Cap put the wrench down and wiped his hands on a rag. “So. How long are you going to keep doing this?”

“What? Helping you? I have to be at work by three.”

“Not this,” Cap said. “What you’re doing with them.”

My jaw tightened, though it was a question I’d certainly asked myself often enough. “As long as I do it. And it’s not a ‘this’ or a ‘what.’ It’s a relationship. Just like the one you have with what’s-her-face.”

“Uh, no. Not like the one I have with what’s-her-face. There’s only one of her and one of me.”

“Missy,” I said. “Her name’s Missy.”

“I know what her name is.” My brother frowned. “Don’t play dumb with me, Tesla. You know what I mean. How long are you going to be the side piece?”

“I’m not the side piece. I’m a part… I’m… We have an agreement. We’re… It’s not like that.” I paused. “It’s not like Mom and Dad, either.”

“They’re married to each other, not you.”

I swallowed bitterness, hating that I couldn’t argue, hating that I felt like I wanted to lie. “Yeah. Well. Who says I want to get married?”

“You don’t ever want to get married?” Cap shook his head. “Shit, Tesla, that’s a bunch of crap. I know you do. And you want kids, don’t you? Someday?”

“Someday isn’t today.”

Cap’s mouth twisted. “It could be tomorrow. You never know.”

“What about you?” I challenged. “You ready to pop the question to Missy? Knock her up? All you really want’s a front door?”

Cap, unlike Darek, didn’t fail when it came to quoting Adam Ant. “All I really want’s a place in the country. Right.”

“With Missy?”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t really have to. I patted his shoulder.

“So,” I asked, “how long are you going to do this?”

“Ahhh, fuck,” Cap said.

That about summed it up.

Chapter 36

E
verything looks prettier in the light from a Christmas tree. I didn’t shake any of the boxes under the tree, but did slip a couple beneath it, surprises in addition to the few I’d put there when Meredith and Charlie placed theirs. Opening gifts on Christmas Eve felt like cheating, but if that’s what Meredith wanted…well, Charlie and I were again along for the ride.

“We go in age order,” she explained, after our expansive and delicious dinner of roast ham with all the trimmings. “Charlie, then me, and you go last.”

I didn’t care. It was as much fun to watch them opening their gifts as it would be to get mine. Charlie looked incredibly sexy in the sweater I’d picked out for him, and Meredith oohed and ahhed over the handmade glass jewelry I’d bought her. She said nothing about the milk frother, which Charlie loved, but she had bought him a travel mug set along with some specialty coffee, so our gifts went together really well.

“Your turn, your turn!” Meredith grinned as she handed me a heavy package. “Can’t wait to see you open it.”

I hefted it. It felt weighty enough to be books. Or tools. Not light enough for clothes. It could’ve been a pair of new boots…maybe ski boots. Maybe she was going to surprise me, after all. Maybe she’d found a way to make the trip work.

“Open it,” Meredith ordered. “The suspense is killing me.”

I picked at the tape. They were both rippers, but I liked to ease open a package and save the paper for later, though I never ended up using it. Laughing, Meredith lunged at me until I tore the paper away from the box.

There’s always that moment before you open a gift when the possibilities are endless, when it could be anything and you hope it’s just what you wanted—no matter what it is. Especially, sometimes, if it’s something you’re expecting not to get, but desperately want, anyway. Those few seconds when the paper falls away and before you open the box can last forever, and when you finally get the package open and see someone knew you well enough and cared about you enough to get you just the right thing…it’s magic.

Or in this case, not.

I stared down at an array of thick, hot pink and purple dildos and vibrators. One was shaped like a butterfly, with a complicated-looking set of straps and a cord running to a remote. A set of metal Ben Wa balls. Some tubes of lube. Some of the items had an unfamiliar logo with a name I recognized—Under Where?

I couldn’t speak. Not because I had nothing to say—there were plenty of words working their way up my throat like vomit. Meredith didn’t seem to notice, rattling on about the different toys and their uses. This was worse than that episode of
The Simpsons
where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball because he wants one. Worse than getting a dictionary instead of a video game system. Worse even than clothes in the wrong sizes, meant to encourage a diet.

“With all of that, you won’t need me anymore,” I murmured.

I looked at Charlie, whose smile took away the sharpest part of the edge from Meredith’s gift. “Plastic and batteries can’t replace you,” he stated.

“You don’t like it.” Meredith’s smile soured. She pushed the tissue paper over the toys and sat back. “I thought really hard about which you’d like best, Tesla.”

In weeks past I’d have soothed her, told her I loved what she’d picked. Probably even pulled one out to use right there to prove it. I didn’t have it in me to do that now. “I know you did.”

That was the worst part. I believed she had thought hard about what I’d like…and been wrong. Not just a little wrong, but fantastically, momentously and egregiously wrong.

She put the lid on the box. “Well. I guess it’s a good thing I can return everything for credit.”

The joke fell flat, but at least it was a joke. I leaned to kiss her, catching her cheek. “Don’t do that. They’ll be fun.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. You can exchange the earrings you got me, right? For a different color?”

Now she was just being a bitch, but that was okay. I could handle that. “Sure. No problem. I can just return them altogether.”

Her gaze flickered. She didn’t want me to return the earrings; she liked them, I knew. But she shrugged and gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Great. Good.”

“I have something for you,” Charlie told me, and we both turned to look at him. He held out a small box wrapped in pretty blue-and-silver paper. “Here, honey.”

The box was the size of my palm, but had the weight of a promise. I curled my fingers over the top. Something inside shifted.

“Open it,” Charlie said.

I did. Nestled inside on a bed of white cotton was a bracelet, a simple band of polished silver in a curving shape, like waves. It was beautiful. It was perfect.

I loved it.

“Thank you!” I took it from the box and slipped it onto my wrist. The metal warmed to my skin within seconds. It was tight enough that it wouldn’t get in the way at work, and I twisted my arm back and forth, admiring it.

I shouldn’t have thought twice about kissing Charlie for that present, but I did. Meredith had watched him make me come with his tongue, had seen him fuck me until we both collapsed. But having her watch me kiss him now felt somehow wrong.

I kissed him, anyway.

“Jangle Bangles has a matching necklace,” she said, even as the kiss lingered. “I’ll show it to you in the catalog.”

I sat back. I’d never buy something from Jangle Bangles, and I had no doubt the necklace wouldn’t really match. “Sure. That would be great.”

She stood, looking down at both of us. “I have something else for the two of you. It’s a surprise.”

Charlie glanced around at the mess we’d made in the living room, paper and ribbons and bows all over, then up at his wife. “What is it?”

“It’s not a what, it’s a where.”

I knew her smile and the gleam in her eyes. I knew the way she slid her tongue across her lips. I could see she was up to something, but I couldn’t begin to imagine what it might be.

“C’mon. Let’s go.” Meredith held out her hands, one to each of us.

Charlie and I each took one, and we followed her.

Chapter 37

“W
here are we going, exactly?” Charlie was driving, but Meredith had plugged an address into the GPS, and the monotone voice kept barking out orders.

In the light from the dashboard, her eyes gleamed. She twisted to look at me in the backseat. “It’s a club. A special party, for Christmas Eve.”

“Dancing?” Charlie made a face. “You know I don’t like to dance.”

“You don’t have to dance. Tesla and I can dance. You can watch.” She snuggled up close to him and ran a finger down the buttons of his shirt, then cast me a flirtatious glance. “Or do other stuff.”

Charlie laughed. “What other kind of stuff could I do in a club?”

“At this club I want to go to, just about anything you like.”

Charlie seemed confused. “Are you talking about something like Spanky’s?”

It was a strip club, but not a classy one like Samantha’s. Spanky’s had peep-show booths and an adult toy store, along with what I’d heard was a pretty skanky club section in the back with dark and private areas and sticky seats. Bleah.

Meredith made a face. “Ew. No. This club is private. You need an invitation.”

Charlie still didn’t get it. “Like a country club?”

She laughed, low. “Sort of. But not for golf.”

“What’s it for, then?”

I knew before she said it. “She means for swingers.”

“Swingers…” Charlie’s brows rose. “What?”

“She wants to go to a sex club.” I was talking to him, but looking at her. “Probably at something like a private home, though it’s set up like a club. You need an invitation to get in because technically it’s a private party. Right?”

“It’ll be fun,” Meredith said. “I promise.”

* * *

Even in a swingers’ club, there was no real provision for three. Charlie and Meredith would get in without a problem as a couple, something that would’ve been hard or impossible for him to do as a single guy. And me?

I was a unicorn.

Single, bisexual female available to pair with couples. I was what everyone was looking for, but most people couldn’t find. When I told Charlie this in the parking lot, just before we went inside, he laughed in disbelief.

“It’s true,” Meredith told him. She linked an arm through mine. We’d both changed, dressed to impress, and in my high heels I was finally almost her height. She pressed her chin to my shoulder, holding me close to her side. “Our Tesla’s going to be a very popular girl.”

“I don’t want her to be popular,” Charlie said. “And are you sure—”

Meredith kissed him to stop him from speaking. “I know you’re worried, but look at it this way. Nobody’s going to call the school board. Anyone who sees you here would have to explain what they were doing here, too.”

Charlie wasn’t totally convinced, I could tell, but I knew she was right. “People keep their sex lives private and secret for a reason, Charlie.”

“C’mon. Don’t be a spoilsport,” Meredith said. “It’ll be fun.”

“That’s what you said.” Charlie linked an arm through mine on the other side. “But we don’t have to do anything, right? We can just watch.”

“Nothing you don’t want to,” she promised. “C’mon, I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

The club was indeed at a private house, a long, low rancher set on a nicely landscaped plot of land surrounded by a fence, and only accessible down a long country road. There was a pool out back, closed for the winter, though three or four hot tubs bubbled and steamed. A couple trailers had also been set up along the open breezeway between the house and what had been a garage, but now looked like a game room. Everything glowed with strings of festive, multicolored lights. A waving Santa and sleigh were on the roof.

“It’s an entire complex,” Charlie said, as we went up the front steps.

The man who answered the door wore a pair of jeans with no shirt and didn’t seem bothered by the cold. With nipples pierced, he gave new meaning to the term “muffin top,” and when I caught Charlie’s eye I had to fight back laughter at his expression.

“Hi. I called earlier and spoke to Len,” Meredith said, as if she did this sort of thing all the time. “Three under the name Smith.”

“Sure, c’mon in! I’m Harve. Get in out of the cold.” Harve welcomed us into a small living room decorated in early seventies porn chic. Leather couches, tiger-striped carpets, lava lamps. Mud flap silhouettes as art on the wall.