Unbreakable (33 page)

Mr. Dooney’s tense smile slipped off his face like the mask that it was.

“Alex,” Jon began, but I moved to the door.

“I’m sorry, I…I…just need time to think. Thank you.”

Dooney shot his partner a dagger glare as if to say
Do something!
Jon only held up a hand. “Take all the time you need, Alex. And we’ll see you Friday? At the party? We’ll have the package for you then. I hope you’ll consider it a worthy gift.” He smiled but it was strained, and his eyes spoke volumes, begging me to show mercy.

For his benefit, I mustered a smile. “I’m sure I…yes. The party.”

The party.

God help me, what am I going to do?

Alex

“What are you doing here?” Lilah Tran demanded. “On the floor? Who let you in? The complex is secure. Or it’s supposed to be.”

I looked up at her from the hallway floor of her condo complex where I’d been sitting for the last hour. It was Thursday evening and I hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours in three days. I had to talk to someone before I went crazy.

“You won’t return my calls,” I said, climbing to my feet, and wincing as tingles shot down the backs of my legs.

“There’s a reason for that,” Lilah said. She set her briefcase down so she could fish her keys from her purse.

“Are you really not going to talk to me?” I demanded, crossing my arms and trying to keep the quaver out of my voice. “Because that’s bullshit, Lilah. I’m sorry but it is. I’m your best friend.”

Lilah rounded on me, her eyes wide. “Are you fucking kidding me? No, no, on second thought, come in. Please. I really want to hear from Alex Gardener how
I’m
the shitty friend. This is going to be good.”

I bit back a retort and followed Lilah into her condo. It was a bright, airy, two-story with high, angled ceilings, lots of natural light and Lilah had elegantly decorated in lots of beige, cream and lilac colors. She had purchased it when her divorce from her philandering husband was finalized, and I realized with a sweep of guilt, that I hadn’t been inside since the sparsely attended housewarming party.

“Oh, Lilah, you’re right. It’s me. I’m the shitty friend. I’m so sorry…”

Lilah put her hands on her hips. “You got all that just from walking in the door?”

“I haven’t been here since the party. Not once. To visit or hang out or just…spend time with you. I’ve just been so busy—” I held up a hand, cutting off my own excuses. “I should have been here for you, after the divorce, and I wasn’t and I’m so sorry.”

Lilah nodded warily. “Go ahead, sit. Do you want some wine?”

“Yes, thanks.” I sat on the white leather couch while Lilah went to the kitchen, which was open to the living area. “It really is a beautiful place, Li.”

Lilah returned with two glasses of cabernet, handed one to me, and kicked off her heels to tuck her legs under her. “I think it turned out rather well. It’s small-ish—to those who think thirteen hundred square feet is small—but I don’t need more. I could have gotten the house.” She smiled over her wine glass. “The lawyer my best friend recommended to me was pretty good.”

I smiled thinly. “Glad to hear Joe did his job.” I sipped my wine, fighting the urge to down it one gulp and ask for a refill. “So how are you?”
“Alex,” Lilah said, laughing lightly. “It’s okay, really. We can catch up on my single-life adventures some other time. But you…you’re having a crisis. Right?”

I nodded miserably. “I just don’t want to dig my hole any deeper.”

“Too late.” Lilah smiled and reached out to give my hand a brief squeeze. “Tell me.”

“I’m a little bit afraid of what you’re going to say given how you reacted to my last little revelation.”

Lilah sighed. “I’m sorry I freaked out. It’s a touchy subject for me, for obvious reasons. But I realize I need to separate my situation from yours. So tell me. Tell me everything and I promise not to judge.”

“I want you to judge,” I said. “Judge me, lecture me, tell me what the hell I’m doing because I…I’m just lost, Li.”

I told Lilah everything that had happened, up through the night of Cory’s birthday.

“It was…unbelievable,” I said, sighing. “It was everything I had been missing for so long. Cory’s the kindest, sweetest man, but turn him loose in the bedroom, and
oh my god.
” I cleared my throat. “Sorry, but it’s important. It was important to me to have that physical connection with a man. But after spending time with his father and his daughter, the baseball game…It was more than physical for him. He let me into his life as if he…he
wants
me in it.”

“Do
you
want to be in his life?” Lilah asked.

I swallowed another sip of wine. A large sip. “You haven’t heard the rest. Drew came over the next morning.”

Lilah’s eyebrows shot up. “Holy shit. Did he know?”

“Yeah, he did. Of course.” I sighed. “He knew. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone Cory was there. At first it was just because I knew what it looked like. Then after we slept together, it
was
what it looked like.”

“Was Drew very upset?” Lilah asked. “He must’ve been. And so the party is off? Is the
wedding
off?”

I shook my head ‘no’ to all of it. “He wasn’t upset like I expected he’d be, and that’s almost the worst part.” I told my friend Drew’s solution to handle our ‘little issue’, and was gratified that Lilah seemed just as appalled.

“An open marriage?”

“Open on my end,” I said. “He has no interest in
me
let alone another woman. Or women.”

“What did you tell him? You didn’t agree, did you?”

“Of course not. But I was too shell-shocked to say anything.” I covered my eyes with my hand. “God, Li, I’m terrible, because as much as what Drew suggested shocked me, that very night I slept with Cory
again
. Only this is where it gets worse. Or better. Or… I don’t know what.”

Lilah sat back in her seat, her expression dark. “What happened?”

“In the bank and on the night of his birthday, Cory was…everything I wanted. Fire. Passion. Heat. He
wanted
me, and I had gone so long without feeling that kind of desire, that I had almost forgotten what it was like to just be held and grabbed, to give and take, to lose myself in his body. But the next night, the last night. Sunday night. He was deliberate and considerate, and…”

I averted my eyes, my voice sinking to a whisper. “He made love to me in the purest sense of the phrase. And I…I made love to him. And God, it was beautiful. I’ve never experienced anything like it.” I looked up at my friend. “That’s when I got really scared.”

“Because you love him,” Lilah said. “You’re
in
love with him and you don’t know what to do.”

I sat back, unable to speak, feeling those words wash over me.

Lilah gave me a look. “Alex?”

“I…I don’t know,” I whispered. “I told myself it was everything else.
Anything
else. That therapist—I practically demanded a diagnosis that explained why I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Why I feel so content when I’m with him. So…happy. And I know what you’re thinking.”

“What am I thinking?” she asked gently.

“That I should have broken up with Drew first, but I didn’t know I wanted to break up with Drew. I still don’t know if that’s the right thing to do.”

“No, you mean you don’t know if you can
despite
the fact it’s the right thing to do.”

I shook my head. “Cory probably hates me. It may be too late for…him and me…if there is such a thing. If I break up with Drew and Cory won’t talk to me, then what do I have?”

“You have you!” Lilah set her glass down as hard as she could without breaking its slender stem. “You don’t call it off with Drew so you can have Cory or vice-versa. You call it off because you can’t marry a man for whom you feel nothing.”

“I don’t feel
nothing,
” I said. “I love Drew—”

“Yeah, and I love my accountant,” Lilah said. “Platonic love does not a marriage make.” She crossed her arms over her blouse. “Is it a money thing? You’re afraid of slumming it with a poor guy?”

“No.
No.
I don’t care about that at all. What Cory’s had to deal with…that’s part of what makes him so incredibly wonderful. He works so hard and he’s accomplished so much despite everything. He just keeps going and working and pushing, never giving up. That’s a different kind of hard work than I’ve ever done, and I admire him so much…”

I heaved a tremulous breath. “No, it’s everything else. I’ve been with Drew forever. Our lives are intertwined in every possible way. We share the same friends, the same colleagues. We’ve been together through college, through graduations, Bar exams...He’s part of the fabric of my life. For six years. Six
years.
The idea of tearing it all apart—the wedding too, don’t forget that—it just…it scares me to death, Lilah. I’ve never felt so scared.” I hung my head in my hands. “Everything is turned upside down.”

“Seems pretty clear from where I’m sitting,” Lilah said gently. “You can’t marry Drew. You know that, right?”

I sat up, pushing my hair out of my eyes. “What happens if I don’t? I could lose everything.”

“Was
everything
so great in the first place?” Lilah poured us more wine. “To be fair, I felt the same as you when I caught Ted with his little intern. I worried that if I divorced him, I’d lose it all: our friends, connections. And guess what? I was right to feel scared because that’s exactly what did happen, to a certain degree. But I know I did the right thing. I’m twenty-seven years old, Alex. I’m too young to settle for Ted’s bullshit, and old enough to know I don’t have to.”

She leaned forward, took my hand again.

“Was it an affair, Alex? Or was it more than that? Is Cory worth fighting for? Because if he is, a fight comes with casualties. That’s unavoidable.”

“Are you one of the casualties, Lilah?” I asked. “Do I lose you if I make the wrong decision?”

“No,” Lilah said. “You don’t lose me. You can’t. I’m in it for the long haul.”

“Me too,” I said. “I want you to know that, Lilah. That no matter what happens…”

Lilah held up her hand. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Alex. I’d rather have you as a ghost than a flake.”

“What do you mean?”

“What about your job?”

“They offered to make me a partner.”

“Uh huh. Exactly. I don’t see you now, I sure as hell won’t see you then. Not even at Monday lunch. I’m done with the Posse. Your engagement party—if you still have one—is probably the last time I’ll see them. The only reason I
kept
going was because it was the only time I could see
you.
But I can’t do it anymore. It’s not good for me. So, if you take that partnership, and go back to working seventy hours per week, I don’t really see how things are going to be better between us. That’s not me being demanding, that’s just a fact. You have no time for me, for you, for anyone.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t have Cory either. He wouldn’t stand for the sort of schedule. He wants a real partnership. Kids and baseball games and handholding and date nights...”

Lilah smirked. “God, what a monster.”

I groaned. “But don’t you see? That’s just another aspect of my life I’d change, and who am I if not the Shark Lady? My father’s daughter. He’d be so disappointed in me…”

“I’ve met your father,” Lilah said, “and I can hardly imagine him so much as frowning in your direction, let alone being disappointed in you. I think you overestimate his desire to see you kill it in the courtroom every day. Your mother on the other hand…”

Lilah pulled a card from her purse. “Two days ago, our best family law attorney quit. Moved to Philly to care for his sick mother, the bastard. This is the HR department chief at my firm. She’s been on the ass of every head hunter in LA, trying to find someone stellar to replace him.”

“I’m not a family lawyer—”

“Do you know what Carl did? Carl helped keep families together when he could, and he helped ease the pain of separation when he couldn’t. He loved his job. And he was home by five every day and never worked a weekend in his life. Why? Because that’s
fair
.”

I took the card, studied it, turned it over and over in my hands.

“You have a lot of decisions to make,” Lilah told me, “but only you can make them. Stop looking at it like you do a case; from every angle, pros and cons…stop trying to convince yourself of what’s best, like you would some jury. Just search your heart.”

“I’m calculated and practical,” I said. “I don’t make decisions with my heart.”

“Maybe it’s time to start.” Lilah smiled gently. “Who do you want to talk to right now? That’s simple enough, right? Call that man and tell him how you feel.”

I nodded. Tears stood out in my eyes, but I blinked them away. I pulled my cell phone from my purse, my thumb hovering over the names in my address book. Finally, I pushed a button and put the phone to my ear.

Voicemail. His low, gravelly voice made my heart ache.

“Cory’s not answering.”

Lilah smiled. “You’re a resourceful gal.”

I thought for a moment, then found Vic Ruiz’s number in my ‘recent calls’ menu. I pushed that button and waited, gnawing on my lip.

Vic picked up and I asked if I could speak to Cory.

“Just missed him,” Vic told me with a sigh. “He went to Georgia’s.”

“Oh.” The blood drained my face. “To watch Callie for a little bit?”

“No,
querida
. He’s gone there to stay. To live with her until they all move to Alaska.”