Lauren Blakely - Every Second With You

But I have no problem saying the name. “Memoirs of a Teenage Sex Addict.”

She winces, her nose crinkling. “Yes. That one.”

“So, you’re going to do what? An article on how she blackmailed a former call girl? Expose her?”

“What would you like me to do, darling? What would make you happy?”

Erasing one of those two pink lines would make me happy. We’re talking erupt into a tap-dancing, heel-clicking fool kind of delight. But while I used to care deeply about hiding her secrets and closeting all of my own, this book isn’t important anymore.

“You know would what would make me happy, Barb?”

She straightens her spine, sits up taller, a puppy dog wagging its tail for a treat. “What would make you happy, darling? Anything. Name it.”

“I would like to use your fax machine and send this in.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders fall, but she gestures to her office, and I head into it. I position the paper in the fax machine to send, but the light is flashing red. It needs ink. Typical. The woman can expose wrongdoings of any high-ranking public official, but god forbid she actually maintain the technology in her office.

I grab some toner from the cabinet, open the machine, remove the used toner, drop the old toner into the recycling box, and slide in the new one. I set the box on her desk, next to her laptop, but the box knocks the corner of the computer askew, exposing a vintage card the color of eggshell.

I quirk my eyebrows. It looks like a birthday card. My mom hasn’t had a birthday recently. But I have.

I don’t think twice about snooping. I want to know why there’s a card hidden under her laptop. I grab it, open it, and gasp when I see my name on the inside. Then I cover my mouth so I don’t make a sound as my eyes roam the words.

There’s no envelope. No return address. But this is a card from my grandparents, who had promised to send me a birthday card every year.

Who never did.

Who always did?

My hands shake as I slip the card inside my purse, tucking it into the inside pocket. I check it once, twice, three times, and then zip it up. I slide the form through the fax machine, tapping my foot, urging it along, waiting for the sent notice. Once it’s there I rip it out, leave my mom’s office, and nearly run for the door.

“Thanks for the fax machine,” I say.

“Darling, do you want to talk more about next steps? How I can make this right for you? Can I take you out to dinner? Chat over sushi?”

Her voice is static, a late-night radio background blur to the noise and chatter of the last twenty-four hours.

“Another time,” I say, and leave her behind.

Harley

The first words on the card are like a headline, in big, thick letters: The Stories We Promised to Tell You.

Then, under them:

And the city girl returned to the sand, and the sea, where the sun warmed her shoulders and the sky rained silver and gold sparkles . . .

And that’s all. It’s signed Nan and Pop.

I read the words again on the muggy subway platform, waiting for the downtown train. I read it on the subway car as it slaloms through underground New York, its lights flickering once around a bend, blasting us with darkness for a few seconds. I read it once more as I walk the few blocks to my apartment, weaving in and out of the early evening crowds who are returning home from work, their earbuds or their phones keeping them company.

The card is odd, too, on some sort of vintage letterpress paper, with a raised drawing of a red aardvark in the sand. Something you don’t find in the Hallmark section of Duane Reade, that’s for sure.

But the more I repeat the words, the less I understand them. They feel like a code, and I don’t have the key to decipher this strange sort of story from my grandparents, made stranger because I thought I was persona non grata to them.

I don’t know where they live, or if they’re still in San Diego. I don’t even have the same last name as my dad’s parents. When my parents split, my mom returned to her maiden name, and changed my name, too. A neat, clean break, severing me from his side of the family.

The two of us against the world.

Now, I am untethered from her, but tied to someone I don’t even know who is using my body to build limbs and lungs and nails and eyes, all from the DNA of mine that clung wildly, and unexpectedly, to Trey’s.

* * *

The air conditioner in the window chugs loudly, then spews a thick blast of icy air into the living room. As I deliver my news to Kristen, I welcome the chill. It suctions the day off me.

“I’m a train wreck, don’t you think?”

Kristen shakes her head. “No. You’re not. I swear I don’t think that.”

I don’t know if she’s more shocked now than when I told her I used to be a call girl in high school. “That’s because you expect me to be a fuck-up.”

“You keep my life interesting, that’s for sure,” Kristen says sweetly, petting my hair as I flop down on the couch and rest my head in her lap.

“What am I going to do? I want to finish college. I want to get my degree. I don’t want to be one of those girls on a reality TV show.”

“So don’t be.”

I scoff. “How?”

“Don’t be,” she repeats. “Be different. You don’t have to be messed up. You don’t have to quit school. You somehow found a way to be a call girl and get good grades in high school,” she says, and if anyone but Kristen said it I’d punch them. But she says it admiringly.

“Like that’s an impressive accomplishment?”

“In a way, it is. You balanced crazy-ass shit. You’ll do that here, too. You don’t have to quit school to have a baby. There are a million ways to deal with this. And you’re not alone. I will help however I can.”

I reach for her hand and squeeze it. “How did I get so lucky to have you as my bestie?”

“I could say the same. And you know, there is a father involved to help, too,” she says, looking at me pointedly. “And you need to tell Trey.”

“Obviously.”

“When are you going to tell him?”

“He’s at the gym right now. He texted earlier that he wanted to see me when he was done.”

“You need to tell him soon,” Kristen adds.

But telling him feels like dropping the blade on my own neck. Insert head in guillotine. Pull the rope. Watch head roll. “I’m so scared to tell him,” I say, a thick sob lodging in my throat.

“I know, sweetie. But he’s stronger than you think.”

I don’t know if he is, though. I don’t know if he can handle this.

A few minutes later, the phone rings. Trey’s name flashes on the screen. It’s past nine, now.

“Kristen, can you tell him I have another headache and I went to sleep?”

She shoots me a sharp stare from above her red glasses. “Really?”

I sigh heavily, and another tear roadblocks my throat. “I get a pass right now. Don’t I?”

She huffs. “Fine. But this is your one and only I-haven’t-told-my-boyfriend-I’m-preggers-so-I’m-asking-my-roomie-to-lie-for-me pass. Got it?”

I’d like to laugh. Really, I would. “Let’s hope I don’t have to use it again.”

Trey

Headache? What the fucking fuck?

I know she’s lying. I know it. Harley doesn’t get headaches. Something is up, and if she’s back with Cam and is dicking me around I want to know sooner rather than later. Actually, fuck sooner. I want to know now.

I clench my fists as I walk home from the gym, trying to quell this treacherous ball of anger that’s building inside me. When I reach my apartment and turn on the shower, my hands are shaking. Only, it’s not anger that’s won squatting rights in my heart. It’s fear of the unknown. Of the absolutely terrifying uncertainty of something I never thought I’d know.

Love, and losing it.

Because this isn’t like the others. This isn’t Sloan McKay, where she could walk off and I’d hook up with someone else the next day.

Harley is my whole fucking heart, and then some.

I step out of the shower, dry off and pull on fresh jeans and a T-shirt.

Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I’m scared for nothing. Maybe she’s truly suffering from the mother of all headaches. If she is, I need to do something for her.

Fifteen sweaty minutes later, my T-shirt is sticking to me, thanks to the hottest August on record. I call her when I reach the stoop of her building, but there’s no answer.

I inhale deeply, and hold my breath, count to ten, remembering what my shrink Michele told me. Don’t jump to conclusions. Speak only your truth.

But I don’t feel like speaking.

I slam a fist against the railing of her building. The metal rattles against my hand, which now hurts like a motherfucker. I shake it a few times.

Where is she, and why is she lying to me?

My head is muddy, and I can’t tell up from down or left from right, and I definitely can’t tell if what I feel is normal or just plain wrong. This is all so foreign to me. I wish someone would diagnose this state of my mind right now—declare it one way, or the other. I don’t know if this is new or old. I have never known true consequences for my feelings, and maybe this makes me seem naive or just plain fucking dumb, but I never thought I could get hurt.

Because I’ve never been in love before.

I try her one more time. It rings and rings, but then someone picks up.

“Hey, it’s Kristen.”

“What’s going on? Where’s Harley?”

“She’s asleep,” Kristen says in a quiet voice.

“I don’t believe that,” I fire back.

Kristen laughs, a sharp sarcastic sound. “You don’t believe she’s asleep?”

“You’re covering for her, aren’t you?”

“Oh my fucking god. I want to strangle you sometimes. Come up and see for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Then the buzzer sounds, and I push open the door.

Once I reach the fifth floor, Kristen is standing in the hallway, one hand on her hip, the other on the open door. She shakes her head at me, tsk-tsking under her breath. “Oh ye of little faith, prepare to be strangled when you set eyes upon your sleeping Harley. And do not wake her up. She has a massive migraine.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, holding my hands out wide. “I’m an ass.”

She nods. “You can be.”

“Is she okay?”

She swallows, looks away then back at me. “She’s fine. I mean, she’s not. But,” Kristen says, stumbling on her words. Fuck, maybe something’s going around causing all the women to act weird. “But anyway. You can see her, or whatever you need to verify she’s asleep.”

“It’s not that I want to verify it,” I say, with a heavy sigh. “I just want to see her.”

“Go.” She points down the hall.

My knuckles sting from pounding my hand against the metal, but I deserve it.

Gingerly, I push open the door to Harley’s room, and I melt when I see her. All the sharp metal edges in me turn liquid. She’s sound asleep, curled up on her side, the blanket kicked down to her waist even though her apartment is doubling as a refrigerator showroom right now. Harley is my kind of girl in every way. She loves to blast the AC. The room is dark and silent, except for the hum of the cooling air. I pad quietly to her, bend down and kiss her forehead.

She stirs, and murmurs something unintelligible. The sound of her sweet, sleepy voice is all the evidence I need that I’m an idiot, and that I should start trusting this strange and unusual feeling of loving her, that I can survive even when I don’t know what happens the next day.

That’s life and there are zero guarantees, and I need to get used to it.

Then her eyes flutter open. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“What time is it?”

“Late. How are you feeling?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk.” She stops all conversation when she reaches for me, ropes her hands around my neck and kisses me.

A quiet, goodnight kiss. A come-join-me-in-bed kiss, so I answer its invitation. I untie my boots, kick them off, and slide under the covers with her. The kiss starts to fade out, her lips barely touching mine, just the faint trace of her softness on me. Then I taste something salty on her lips, and she hitches in a breath, a small stifled gulp. I break the kiss to look at her, arch an eyebrow.

She shakes her head, and silences me once more with her mouth. This time, it’s not a goodnight kiss. She is fevered and frenzied, and she kisses me like she wants to devour me, to render me useless to anything but the power of her kiss. My mind goes hazy, and my body takes over, and all that uncertainty has packed up and rocketed off to Pluto. Because nothing is unclear between the two of us now. Her frantic hands tug at my shirt, and in seconds she’s yanked it over my head. Then her nimble little fingers find the button on my jeans, and the whole time she kisses me like she owns me.