“This is perfect,” he whispers, so quietly that I think I’ve imagined it. When I tilt my face toward his, he’s already asleep.
I shift slightly so that I can look at him in the dark. He’s slumbering soundly, his chest rising and falling with the slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep. I’m exhausted too, but in spite of my body’s complaints, I can’t seem to drift off. In fact, the longer I lie here, the more awake I feel. My thoughts keep drifting back to Lou and what I heard through the door.
I know I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. It’s long been a fault of mine—making assumptions and acting on them before taking the time to investigate or at least consider all options. It was this very recklessness that led to my original poor opinion of Calder; I let my prejudice color my perception of events, and the misunderstandings that followed caused a lot of heartache for both of us. I won’t make that mistake again.
But for the life of me, I can’t imagine any interpretation of Lou’s words that isn’t completely sketchy. I don’t want to get involved, but at the same time it feels like betraying Calder to know that something is wrong and willfully hide it from him.
No, I tell myself. You promised yourself you’d stay out of this. Give Lou the benefit of the doubt.
No matter how many times I tell myself that, though, it does little to settle my mind. And sleep continues to evade me. Finally, desperate, I remember the bottle of red wine in the kitchen. If I chug the rest of that, it should knock me out in no time.
Slowly, I slide out of Calder’s arms and rise from the mattress. I pull on my tank top and sleep shorts before heading out to the kitchen.
The wine is, thankfully, just where we left it. I grab it and drink straight from the bottle. It settles heavily in my stomach, but I know that it won’t be long before my eyelids start to droop. Wine has either one of two effects on me: either it revs my libido into overdrive or knocks me out cold. Since over the course of this evening Calder’s managed to satisfy my body in every physical capacity, the second result seems inevitable.
I stand there in the kitchen for a few minutes, sipping at the wine and looking around. I’m already considering how we might organize things in here: the glasses in that cabinet, the plates in the other. The silverware in the drawer by the dishwasher, the spices in the nook in the corner. It’s not solely my decision, of course. Calder and I will have to make these choices together, and I can’t help but smile at the image of us arguing over where to put the pots and pans. It’s just so… normal. So amazingly domestic. Knowing us, of course, it will probably turn into a bet or a game—and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’m thinking up the perfect challenge when I hear a door open, and for a minute I think Calder’s woken and come to find me. But when I step out into the living room, I instead find myself face-to-face with Lou.
She looks like she’s as startled as I am to meet like this in the middle of the night. I’m glad I had the foresight to put on some clothes, but that doesn’t mean I’m exactly pleased to see her.
Lou, I notice, has her backpack with her and is fully dressed. She’s even wearing her shoes. This isn’t a late-night trip to the kitchen for water, then. She’s leaving.
“What—where are you going?” I ask. I still have the bottle of wine in my hand, and I hold it against my stomach as if it might somehow calm the sudden churning in my gut. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.
But Lou just smiles and shrugs. “I thought I’d get out of your hair.”
She steps around me, continuing toward the door, and I call after her before I can stop myself.
“What are you planning?”
She freezes, then looks back at me. For a moment, I sense something in her eyes—guilt? Distrust?—but in the limited light coming from the open kitchen door, I can’t quite decipher it. But then she smiles again and shakes her head.
“What are you talking about?” She says it so lightly, so sweetly, that if I didn’t know any better I’d believe in her innocence utterly.
I step closer to her. There’s still time to let it go, to pretend I never heard her phone conversation.
But then I think of Calder, sleeping peacefully in the other room, and of all the heartbreak she’s put him through already. I won’t let her cause him any more trouble. Not if I can help it.
“Calder’s your brother,” I say lamely. I’m not sure how to broach the topic directly; the last thing I want is to sound like I’m lecturing her.
But apparently I don’t have to say anything more than that.
“Are you insinuating that I don’t know that?” she says. There’s still an airiness to her voice, but she’s no longer smiling. “I know you think you’re trying to help, but this really isn’t any of your business.”
“I love him. If I think someone’s hurting him, then I make it my business.”
Lou actually rolls her eyes at me. “Just because you’ve been banging him for six months doesn’t mean you know anything about how things work between him and me.”
My fingers tighten on the wine bottle. “But you think lying to him is going to help?”
“Look,” she says. “I can’t really explain what’s going on right now. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
But that’s the problem—I don’t trust her. I don’t know anything about her—except that she left Calder alone for a year and then decided to show up on a whim with a trail of trouble behind her.
“Are you coming back?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “It’s easier this way.”
I can’t believe she’s trying to sneak out without saying a word to him. He thought this was going to be a second chance for the two of them, and now she wants to slip away into the night without any sort of warning?
“Won’t you at least tell him goodbye?” I say when she turns back toward the door.
She doesn’t even look back at me. “Goodbyes have never been our thing.”
“Bullshit.”
That seems to get her attention. But instead of getting pissed or insulted at my language, she actually looks… impressed?
“It was good to meet you, Lily.” Before I can stop her, she’s at the door. “Take care of him.”
And then she’s gone—out the door before I even realize the conversation is over.
No. It’s not going to end like this.