Anywhere With You (5 page)

“Jack?” she whispered.

“Hm?”

“Aren’t you, though? Technically…sleeping with a drunken woman?” she remarked as she pushed her finger into my chest.

I smile and I pulled her in a little closer.

“No,” I said. “I’m wide awake.”

With the morning light came clarity and soberness, and there we were—tangled up in each other. I opened my eyes and checked the time on the clock opposite the bed. 7:30 AM. She said she would call him early. Not that I cared. What I did care about, however, was her keeping her word. So I shook her gently until she stirred. When she didn’t immediately open her eyes, I nudged her again. “What time are we supposed to meet what’s-his-name?” Admittedly, I liked the way ‘we’ sounded.

She opened her eyes then and squinted to see the clock. Her face twisted, and she went from waking up slowly to waking all at once. Then, the next thing I knew, her mouth was on mine. I pulled away slightly. This isn’t like her. No, wait…this is exactly like her. “We need to get this over with,” she said, breathless.

“That’s very presumptuous of you,” I replied, appearing confused even though I wasn’t.

“So what.” She grinned and then added a slight shrug for good measure. Next, she was climbing on top of me and tugging my shirt over my head. You know how people say, ‘it just happened.’ Well, this was sort of like that. Only it didn’t just happen. We’d both—clearly or not so clearly—made the decision that it was what we wanted, although neither of us wanted to discuss it. All of a sudden, I was kissing her from head to toe, and I was slipping off her clothes, and then she was pulling me inside of her, and oh, fuck, this was really happening.

And, happen, it did. But it was rushed sex. The kind that’s full of passion, sloppy, and still decent—but not as good as it could’ve been had we taken our time. I’d wanted to take my time, but a part of me was afraid she’d change her mind. And for that, I knew I’d hate myself a little in the end.

I realize I probably shouldn’t have had sex with her. But this time she was sober. Also, I’m a guy, not an idiot, and when you’re a guy and there’s a beautiful woman in your bed offering herself up to you, you don’t say no. That’s just not the way guys work—even those of us with self-control.

Women, on the other hand, act with their emotions. They go through with things if they feel the moment is right and regret it later. Men, we almost never regret sex. We regret other things. But rarely the sex.

Amelie dug her nails into my back as I finished, just shortly after she had, and we both lay there, out of breath, neither of us willing to break the silence.

Although, this time, it would be Amelie who spoke first. Just as it should have been. After all, she’s the one who started this. I simply finished it. “You know, Jack…” she said, her voice surprisingly playful, “that really wasn’t your best.”

I turned to face her. She grinned and I took her chin in my hand. “Then I guess we’ll just have to do it again…” I said, partly testing her.

She understood it was more of a question than a statement.

“We’ll see,” she answered in a non-committal tone. Then she smiled.

Only that smile was quickly wiped right off her face by a knock at the door. She bolted straight up, covering herself, her face losing all of its color.

“It’s just housekeeping,” I tried to assure her.

Her eyes trailed to the clock. There was another knock. She jumped out of bed and looked at me. Her eyes grew wider. “Shit, I think it’s Ian,” she whispered through gritted teeth.

“I got that,” I said as I stood and pulled on my pajama pants.

“Oh, my God,” she cried, her hand flying to her mouth.

I took her by the shoulders. “Go get in the shower. I’ve got this.”

She considered what I was proposing for a second, connecting the dots. Finally, she nodded. And then she turned, walked to the bathroom and closed the door. I picked my t-shirt up, slid it over my head, giving her enough time to run the shower before I went to the door and opened it.

Standing there before me was none other than one pissed off looking man. “I’ve been calling all morning,” he said hurriedly, which seemed to be all he could get out. And that’s what he led with.

I ran my fingers through my hair and tried out my best sleepy, gay voice. “I’m sorry, brother,” I told him sleepily as I rubbed at my eyes. “I just woke up.”

His anger dissipated but only a little. I could tell he wasn’t sold so I stepped aside and ushered him inside. “I got in late,” I added with a decent fake yawn. “Turns out Boston’s a playground for boys like me.”

He eyed me up and down, looking quite perplexed and unsure of what to say. “Jack,” I said, extending my hand as flamboyantly as I could muster.

“Ian.” He nodded. But he didn’t shake my hand.

The trouble was this could only mean one of two things. Either he bought my story. Or he didn’t.

Amelie

Being backed against the wall only gets you screwed…

I honestly didn’t know what to make of my current situation. I was in a low mood. That’s about as much as I knew. Very, very low. But I was hiding it well. That was the good news.

The bad news was sleeping with Jack. It was a mistake—a gigantic fucking mistake of epic proportions. That’s the best way I can think to describe it. And the worst part was I didn’t even have the drinking or being hungover to blame. There was nothing but my poor decision-making to blame. The truth was, these days I don’t even get hungover anymore. They say that can be a sign of alcoholism. But I’m not an alcoholic. I know this because I took one of those ‘am I an alcoholic tests’ you can find online, and sure enough, it confirmed what I already knew—that I’m just a girl who likes to have fun. Which is exactly what I thought I was doing with Jack Harrison—until I realized what I was actually doing was giving him an in.

To add to the bitter taste of regret, there was also the fact that Ian was acting incredibly strange. Then again, Ian always acted strange. But this time, I was worried. It’s been exactly sixty-seven days—if my count was correct—since he had slept with the twenty-year-old intern down in marketing. I know this because Ian is the sort of guy who marks his affairs on his calendar. And every so often, I like to take a peek—just to ensure that I’m not wrong.

Although I use the term ‘affair’ loosely because, the truth is—I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me in the least that he sleeps around on occasion. I know that sounds bad—made even worse by the fact that he thinks we’re exclusive when he’s so obviously getting his on the side. As for me, I’ve very carefully dabbled here and there—but just once or twice. For the most part, I simply pour myself into my work. I don’t really care what Ian does with the girl from marketing or the other one who lives in his building down the hall—because the truth of the matter is, I don’t see much of a future with Ian. Why I’m still with him, when I know this, well—that is a very good question. One with a very complex answer. The answer being something I’ve thought about over and over during my darker days. For one, there’s the fact that as long as I am ‘with him,’ I don’t have to be with anyone else. Ian is a safety net. He’s a safe bet, and with him, I know exactly what I’m getting. Each and every time, I might add.

Mainly, though, there’s the issue of the ‘the very bad thing.’ This is what Ian likes to remind me of when I pull away. This is also another reason—one of many, I don’t care about the girl in marketing. Not really, anyway. That girl does me a favor, truthfully. She gives me an out. Or rather—Ian gives me an out.

He knows I know and this buys me space and the right to be indifferent toward him. It’s the one reason I’m ‘allowed’ to be angry. Sleeping around, or the other women I should say gives him the validation he needs to believe that I actually do care about him. It’s a twisted game we play. I know this.

Still, there’s the issue of ‘the very bad thing.’ ‘The very bad thing,’ as Ian likes to call it, is something I did in South America about two months after Jack left me asleep, without warning. The truth is I was kind of a mess after that. I’d sunk to a low of which depths I hadn’t known before. Both creatively and personally, I was a wreck. This was all pre-Ian. I wasn’t getting the shots I needed—and yet the trip had already been extended by sixty days, and I was quickly running out of time. If I turned up empty handed, I knew my job was on the chopping block. That’s the thing about being a photographer. There’s always someone with more gumption and drive willing to take your job for less pay in a heartbeat. I knew this and yet it only contributed to the unending list of excuses I had for not getting out of bed. Until, day-by-day, the self-loathing became worse and worse until I’d pretty much run out of options. And in that kind of low, I couldn’t seem to talk myself out of the nagging feeling that I’d already lost a dear friend and lover. Next up was the only thing I really had left—my career—and what did it all really matter anyhow.

Eventually, out of options and out of time, I made a split-second decision that would seal my fate for years to come—if not forever. This was when I did the ‘very bad thing.’ Ironically enough, it was so easy to put into motion, yet impossible to stop once I’d gone through with it.

One day, I was out in the market, attempting to photograph the locals. This hadn’t been why I’d come to South America nor was it really what I should have been spending my time shooting. A chance encounter month’s prior led me to meet the girl that would forever alter the course of my life. Perhaps the saddest part of it all was that I couldn’t even remember what her name was. I like to pretend it was Isabel—although I can’t be sure. ‘Isabel’ was a local photographer who I’d interacted with on several occasions during my time there. The moment I saw her, standing there in the market, I knew. I’d ask her advice on the shots I needed. In the end, I hired her to take them. The ‘very bad’ part was that I’d submitted them to the magazine as my own. ‘Isabel’ was a Venezuelan girl who was just happy to have the eight hundred bucks I paid her. She took the most amazing photos and had no qualms about how, or why, she was doing so. Everything would have been fine if my assistant at the time hadn’t known about the entire thing.

Two months after the photos went to publication said assistant went to my boss. I’ll probably never know why she did it—other than the fact that she wanted my job, but it was what it was.

In the end, however, I wound up mostly unscathed, with a slap on the wrist. It turned out to be a very lucky break—nothing more than undeserved grace, really. Also, that assistant was promoted and transferred, and now I have Erica. It was win-win, thankfully. And so, the very bad thing pretty much stopped there.

That was until Ian came on the scene. We’d been sleeping together for about six weeks when he brought it up out of the blue one night after we’d just had sex. I’d gone all out in my performance—so much so that I was still a bit shaky while he wore the afterglow of time well spent. That’s when the shoe dropped, so to speak.

He’d suggested that we make a pot of coffee and go over the photographs I’d taken which I had not so secretly been hoping he would feature in the upcoming issue. The photographs were the premise of why he had called me over to his place at ten p.m. on a Tuesday. Even though that wasn’t actually why at all.

As he stirred his coffee, I watched him study my work, and I could tell while he wasn’t in love with them, I knew he was in love with me. Although the joke turned out to be on me. At the time, I hadn’t yet learned the whole truth about the kind of man Ian was and his unique ability to draw lines where he thought they ought to be drawn.

“So you think you’ll include them, then?” I asked, hopeful. I remember the way he looked up at me quizzically. I thought I saw fondness in his expression and then all at once, I saw it fade.

He inhaled slowly and let it out. “You know, I’m not sure. These photos…” I watched him pick them up one by one and then shove them aside. “They remind me of the ones you took in Venezuela to be frank.”

I cocked my head. He continued. “And I’m not sure that’s the style we’re going for here.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I replied, caught completely off guard.

“This just doesn’t look like your work, that’s all.”

“It is my work.”

He stood and walked over to the coffee pot. “But how can I be sure?” he remarked, adding to his mug, yet not taking his eyes off mine.

“Because I’m telling you they are,” I said my voice coming out more high pitched than I’d hoped.

“Amelie… my darling… if there’s one thing you must know about me, it’s that I don’t simply trust people because they tell me I should. And now that I’m running things in our department—well, things are going to be a little different around the magazine. So, if you want your work featured—you’re going to have to work for it just like anyone else.” He took a sip of coffee and then blew on his cup. “I don’t play favorites, my dear—” I watched him walk around the counter and back over to the table, stopping just in front of me. He pointed to the bedroom and then let his hand drop. “No matter what just happened in there.”

“I never asked you to.” I frowned.

He came closer and placed his hand on my shoulder. “I’m a businessman, Amelie. You want something—then you’re going to have to earn it. And I sure won’t have a lying hack on my team.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Do I make myself clear?”

I nodded, and then stood, scanning the living room for my clothes. “You’re not going to rush off now, are you?” he asked watching me.

“I really need to get home,” I called out, not slowing down.

Ian cornered me in his living room and took me by both shoulders, forcing me to look at him. “No,” he said, his expression serious. “What you need is to come to bed.”

“No. I—I think I’m gonna go…Clearly you have the wrong idea about me.”

“Amelie. Oh, Amelie.” He shook his head. “And here I was thinking that we had something here—that we could make this little thing between us work. I’m sad to see that you’re trying to prove me wrong. A little criticism and you bail…”

I backed away. “I’m not bailing. I’m tired.”

Ian locked his eyes on mine. “Tell me, do you value your job?”

“Of course, I do.” I snapped.

“Well, then, you’ll come to bed. You’ll show me that a tad bit of criticism won’t turn you off.” He sighed, paused and let this voice linger. “If you want that promotion, then these are all things you’re going to have to work on. Not just the quality of your work—but your ability to remain neutral.”

By this point, I was gathering my clothes, trying to piece them together. “I’m feeling pretty neutral,” I assured him.

“About Venezuela…” he chimed in, “you’re lucky you have kept your job, you know? Plagiarism is a very serious offense. In fact, I was shocked when I heard. It just didn’t seem like you.” He waved his hands dramatically as he continued. “It was a little hiccup, I get it—but it’s a hiccup that could cause you to never be able to land another job in this industry. I mean, if word were to get out…”

I threw on my blouse not even bothering to button it. “And why would it?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “You know how people talk.”

I stepped into my jeans, pulling them up as quickly as I could, still nearly tripping over myself. “And what would people say if they knew you were sleeping with a subordinate,” I demanded.

“There aren’t rules against that.”

I grabbed my clutch from the entry table. “If you say so,” I huffed as I turned away from him and started toward the door. “I’m going…” I called over my shoulder.

Suddenly, his hand gripped my wrist. “Sweetheart,” he said his voice lower, “don’t go. Not like this. I want to see you succeed. I do! But you can’t think you can just waltz in here, fuck my brains out, and get what you want. I’m not that kind of man. I’ve known many girls like you, you see.”

“Fuck you, Ian.” I tried to pull away from his grip to no avail.

He leaned forward and attempted to kiss my cheek. “I know you’re angry—but in time, you’ll come to see that I was right.”

“I doubt that.”

He released my wrist and I opened the door.

“Well, if nothing else, you’ll understand that I’m simply trying to make you better.”

I shook my head, slammed the door, and didn’t look back.

The following day, I consulted an attorney about my predicament. I wanted to see what my options were, and unfortunately, what I learned was pretty much what I’d assumed. There was nothing I could do if Ian fired me. According to HR, he was right in that he wasn’t breaking any rules by sleeping with me. He was also likely correct, according to the attorney, that if I were fired for plagiarism, I would probably not be able to find gainful employment within the industry. Basically, the attorney informed me within ten short minutes, for the price of one hundred and eighty dollars, that I was in one hell of a pickle.

I returned back from my meeting with the attorney to find a dozen white roses sitting atop my desk with a note that read:

Don’t do anything rash. This is me raising my white flag by way of flowers. This is me saying I’m sorry. Yours, Ian

I didn’t care that he was sorry. I was done. I figured I might end up getting canned—but at least I’d have my dignity intact.