Tempted (17 page)

I waited my turn for the sink behind two women loudly discussing something they called packing, and which I was pretty sure didn’t apply to suitcases. The three guys behind me were gossiping about someone named Candy, who apparently didn’t understand the difference between vegan and vegetarian, which didn’t matter anyway because “we all know that bitch eats meat!” A straight couple had taken N.E.’s place on the sofa, and if they weren’t actually going to fuck right there, they were going to do their best to make it seem like they were.

When I finally made it to the sink I felt a bit like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. I washed my hands and dried them and followed a surge of people abandoning the pleasures of the lavatory for more drinking and dancing…and, I suspected, groping in dark corners.

At the bar I paid for my water and gulped down half the bottle before making my way back to where I’d left Alex and James. It took me a couple minutes to find them, as the crowd had changed again and I didn’t have a clear view. My gaze glanced over them twice before I realized I was looking at them. I’d been searching for two men in white shirts. From where I stood, I could see only one.

Alex stood in front of James, who leaned against the wall. Alex had one hand planted up high, fingers splayed, next to James’s head. His other hand held his drink, which I was close enough to see glimmering red. As I watched, he leaned in to say something into James’s ear that tipped his head back in laughter.

Two men, hands in each other’s back pockets, pushed past me. James laughed again, his eyes gleaming. I’d seen him look like that before, mouth slightly parted and eyes half-closed. He’d looked that way at me the first time we went to bed. Alex turned his head, his profile clear to me, and drank. His throat worked as he swallowed. When he put his hand down and turned back to James, I could no longer see either of their faces.

I froze, water bottle forgotten in one hand until someone else pushed by me and tipped it enough to splash on my hand. The drops felt electric, sizzling, like my skin had been a griddle.

I waited for them to touch, but they didn’t. I waited for them to move apart, but they didn’t do that, either. They stayed there, two men standing too close to be just friends and not quite close enough to be lovers.

I must have moved, because I was in front of them, though I didn’t remember putting myself in motion. Alex turned to look at the dancers. Blue-and-green flashes from the laser lights glittered in his eyes that looked alternately light and dark. Sweat had wet his hair, spiking the part at the front and making the longish bits over his ears feather forward the tiniest bit on his cheeks. Around the back of his neck, sweat-damp hair clung to his skin.

He turned, catching me looking. He smiled, a man used to being watched. I could have turned away and pretended I wasn’t staring. I think he would have laughed but said nothing. I didn’t look away.

Shadows suited him. On James they skittered and fled, even in the dark, leaving him bright and shining. On Alex they clung and caressed, dressing him in mystery.

I looked at him, and he looked at me, and when he put down his empty glass and reached for my hand, I reached for his without hesitating. Only for a second, though, before I looked at James, who was smiling and looking also at Alex. Too late, Alex took my hand, his palm warm and slightly sweaty against mine. He pulled. I moved. Looking over my shoulder at James, who did nothing more than give a little wave, I let Alex pull me out onto the dance floor.

He wasn’t a better dancer than James, just different. Smoother. He was a little taller and at first I didn’t know where to put my hands. We shuffled with an awkwardness that hadn’t been there when we’d been three, but one-two step and we’d picked up the rhythm once more.

The song was bouncier, our dance not quite such a sensual onslaught. I was glad. Though we were still touching, he was grinning, not spearing me with an intense glare. I relaxed a bit, until he pulled me close and turned me, my back against his front. He jerked his chin toward James, watching from the sidelines.

“He looks lonely. Should we take pity on him and invite him back?”

My hands had fallen into perfect place on top of his, crossed over my belly. “No.”

“No?” He turned me to face him. His hands settled just above my ass, in territory that could not be misconstrued as innocent but wasn’t outright lechery, either. He was good at that. Walking the line.

I’m not blind to the effect I can have on men. Just because it had been a long time since I’d bothered flirting didn’t mean I didn’t remember how to do it. Flirting was a game, like any other. There were rules.

I slid my hands around the back of his neck and linked my fingers together. He smiled at this and hitched me closer. I didn’t hear the music anymore, though I still felt the pound-pound-pulse of it in my stomach. It was the same as my heartbeat. He put one hand between my shoulder blades, in exactly the place James would have, had he been the one holding me, instead.

“No,” I repeated, looking into his eyes.

“Should I be flattered?” His mouth tilted on one side, a half smile.

I glanced over my shoulder. James still stood against the wall, one leg straight and one bent, sipping his drink. If he noticed me looking, he gave no sign of it. I thought I might see him looking at people as they passed, but he didn’t let that distract him. He stared at us, but I couldn’t really be sure who’d so captured his attention. I looked back at Alex.

“Are you gay?”

His gaze flickered, but his smile didn’t change. “No.”

“Then why are you trying to seduce my husband?” I demanded, blunt and forthright and making it very clear I expected an answer.

“Is that what I’m doing?” He looked neither offended nor surprised, and his gaze never left my face.

“Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Alex leaned in to say into my ear, his breath sending a quiver through me. “I thought I was trying to seduce you.”

Three heads swiveled to stare at me when I dropped the little bomb of what Alex had said. Patricia was the only one to look horrified. Mary looked distracted. Claire, typically, was laughing.

“You told him that was never going to happen,” said Patricia as though there could be no other answer.

After a moment, when I said nothing, Claire snorted. “Of course she didn’t. Did you fuck him, Anne? I bet he’s got a nice prick.”

“She didn’t have sex with him,” Mary said with a small shake of her head.

“But she wants to.” Claire sipped from her iced tea, a regular one for once, not a Long Island. “Who wouldn’t? I’m not surprised James wants a piece of it, either.”

“I didn’t say he did.” I sipped my own drink. These three women, as much as we might sometimes clash, were my most trusted mirror. We reflected each other, flaws and all.

“Of course he doesn’t.” Patricia tore open a package of sweetener and added it to her tea. “James isn’t one of them.”

This time, the three of us turned to stare at her. Patricia didn’t look perplexed. She shrugged. “Well, is he?”

“Gosh, Pats,” said Mary, disgusted. “One of ‘them’? What the heck does that mean?”

“She means a fag.” Claire lolled back in her chair and exchanged grimaces with Patricia.

“James isn’t gay.” The remains of my meal had lodged in my gut, heavy like a stone. “Alex says he’s not, either.”

“So he’s bi.” Claire shrugged. “Plays for both sides, doubles his chances of getting laid.”

Mary frowned. “That makes it sound like something you’d choose.”

“Isn’t it? You can’t tell me they don’t want to do it.” Patricia’s tone grew haughtier, and I turned to look at her again. She’d always been the prim and proper one, but lately…

“What bug has crawled up your ass?” Mary snapped. “Who on earth would choose to be different than everyone else? Who would choose not to be what everyone else considers normal? God, Patricia, you can be such a stuck-up bitch sometimes!”

Silence in the aftermath. Patricia folded her arms across her chest, face set in a glare from which Mary didn’t back down. Claire and I exchanged glances about the showdown.

“I don’t know what you’re getting so upset about,” said Patricia at last. “We’re not talking about you, for God’s sakes, Mary.”

“So,” Claire said brightly. “Shrimp cocktail or caviar?”

She’d pasted on a bright and shiny smile quite unlike her usual grin. It was a doll’s smile. Plastic. She added a head-tilt and blank gaze.

“For Mom and Dad’s party,” she added when we all lacked an answer. “Shrimp cocktail or caviar?”

“As if Dad would eat caviar.” I laughed at the thought and admired Claire’s clever manipulation of the sisterly dynamics to avoid a fight. “We can get bulk shrimp from the seafood market.”

“And see if the beef people will steam them. They have to have a pot big enough to handle quantities that large.” Patricia the practical.

I clicked my pen and made a note. “I’ll call about it.”

The conversation continued, discussing the merits of kaiser rolls versus plain burger buns and different sizes of napkins. This party was growing into an epic pain in my ass, a gut-clenching, nail-biting, tension-headache maker. The guest list alone had taken a couple hours of wrangling. Our father had a lot of friends, most of whom I didn’t really want as guests in my house.

That thought brought me back to thinking of my current houseguest, the place my thoughts hadn’t strayed far from since last night. I hadn’t told Alex to fuck off, but I hadn’t taken him up on the offer, either. Mary and Patricia had both been right.

Claire, however, had been right, too. I wanted to let Alex seduce me. I wanted him to put his hands on me again, to feel his mouth on me. I wanted his face between my legs. I wanted him to fuck me. What disturbed me wasn’t that I wanted him to fuck me. What had my mind racing like a hamster on a wheel was that I didn’t feel guilty about it. Or that it no longer seemed a question of if, but when.

“Anne?”

I’d been drifting on daydreams of cunnilingus, but now snapped back to reality. Again, three faces stared at me, waiting. I looked down, pretending to study my notes.

“Music,” prompted Mary. “Do we want to hire a DJ or just have music on the stereo?”

Claire laughed. “Hey, maybe you can get Alex’s friend to come do the party. I bet that would liven things up. Get old Arch Howard grooving with Stan Peters. Oh, man, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.”

“Alex’s friend is a club DJ. I doubt he’s available for parties, anyway.” Still, I took down the suggestion.

Patricia leaned over to look at my list. Childishly, I wanted to shield what I was writing from her, but my better nature won over. “Well, if we did go with a DJ, I’d want to hear him, first.”

“Field trip! Let’s all go to Wonderland!” Claire nudged Mary. “You up for it? Hot girls, hot guys…hell, maybe I’ll get lucky and find myself a nice little Neo look-alike for some bullet-time action.”

Mary let Claire’s nudging rock her a bit in the chair, but she smiled. “I think my vinyl’s at the cleaners.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Claire said, looking around. “It’s been ages since we all went out together. It would be fun.”

“I’ve been to Wonderland.” Mary said it like she was revealing a secret. “Last summer. Betts came up for a visit and we went.”

“And you didn’t take me?” Claire popped Mary on the shoulder. “Bitch.”

Mary shrugged. “You go plenty of places without me.”

“Well, I don’t think it sounds like my sort of place, even if I could go, which I can’t.” Patricia stirred her tea like she’d rather be stabbing it.

“You’d have fun,” I told her. “Maybe Sean would watch the kids?”

Patricia kept her gaze on the swirling tea. “I don’t want to go to Wonderland. If you all want to go, fine, but I don’t really want to go to a place like that. Gross.”

“What’s gross about it?” Mary challenged.

“The way Anne described it was gross!”

“Never mind,” Mary muttered.

The talk steered back to the party details, though by this time I was as sick of the party plans as I was of the drama between Patricia and Mary. Claire kept the conversation moving with a fewer than usual number of wisecracks, which was as disturbing in its own way as the animosity between my other sisters.

We were at a table full of secrets. I knew mine. I could guess at Patricia’s—trouble with Sean. Of Mary and Claire I had no idea, but it was easy enough to guess their minds were as far from planning the party as mine was.

“How are we going to divvy up?” said Mary at last when the bills for dinner came. “I think we should all put our shares into a fund and draw from that. Patricia penny-pincher can take care of the details.”

“I’m not a penny-pincher!” Patricia’s voice was louder than I expected, and I flinched. So did Claire. Mary only looked smug.

“Why don’t we divide up the different things we need to buy and just turn in the receipts at the end,” I suggested. “Divvy it up then.”

“Because Claire will never remember to keep receipts,” Claire said. “Don’t bother saying it, Pats. We know.”

Patricia tossed her napkin onto her plate. Her voice quivered. “Why don’t you all just back off? Why are you all riding me?”