Eye Candy (9 page)

“Who were you with?”

“Nobody. I was masturbating in my bedroom.”

“Oh.”

“Did you come?”

“Couldn’t you tell?”

“I can never tell. I mean, sometimes I can. Did you?”

“Five times.”

“Five? Is that a record?”

“Hardly.”

Rory surveyed Harley’s nude body. Her breasts and stomach and arms were slick with a light sheen of sweat. “I love making love with you. Especially after the Niners win.”

Harley swung her long legs sideways and rose from the bed. She seized a bottle of water from the nightstand and unscrewed the cap. “We don’t make love, Rory. We have sex.” She upended the bottle.

Rory considered Harley’s response while she drank. He also considered her lithe, nude body. Harley liked to ride motorcycles, she liked to go hiking and rock-climbing. She ran marathons and triathlons and went to the gym six days a week. And it showed. Not only in her muscular legs and shoulders, but in her demeanor. She was wild. A lot more wild than Melinda had ever been. “Whatever. Call it what you like. It’s still the best sex I’ve ever had.”

Harley finished the bottle of water, exhaled, and burped quietly. “Excuse me.” She turned to Rory. “It’s the only sex you’ve ever had.”

“That’s not true. How do you think I got two kids?”

“Melinda raped you in your sleep.”

“I wish.”

“When’s the last time you spoke with her?”

“Directly? About four months ago. Since then it’s only through her attorney, whom I’m convinced she’s sleeping with.”

“Good for her. She’s a single woman now. It’s none of your business who she sleeps with.”

Rory stared at the cedar ceiling, tracing the black whirls and whorls of the knots. Some of the knots looked like breasts. “That’s true.”

Harley set on the edge of the bed and looked at Rory. “Was it ever any good with her?”

“The sex?”

“Yes, but everything else, too.”

Rory took a deep breath and sighed. “I guess. In the beginning. I think all relationships are exciting in the beginning. Everything is new and fun, and just being together feels like enough. With Melinda it was sex, sex, sex. But a few months after we were married it was, ‘No, no, no.’ She lost interest. The only time she wanted to do it was when she was ovulating. Once she was pregnant with Rose, she said no sex during pregnancy. Period. So I figured it was a hormonal thing. Or that maybe she was worried about the baby. I figured once Rose was born, having a baby together would help us feel more connected, and would renew our passion. But it didn’t. Then, two months after Rose was born, she said we should have another child, so the kids will be close together in age. Otherwise they’ll be less inclined to be friends when they grow up. I agreed. So we did it once and she got pregnant with Ruby. Bam – just like that.”

“Did you have sex during that pregnancy? A lot of women are really nervous during their first pregnancy, so it’s not that they don’t want to have sex, but they’re afraid to, like you said. Once they’ve been through it, a lot of times things are a little easier.”

“Not for us. We didn’t do it for a year. Again I thought having Ruby would make things different. That once we got into a routine and were on some kind of a normal sleep schedule and weren’t exhausted all the time, that we could begin dating again, that we could renew our passion. But every time I suggested we get a sitter for the evening or take the girls to my sister’s for the weekend so we could go away for a couple days, she never wanted to. She always said she was too tired, or she was too worried about the girls, or she had work to do over the weekend. She’s an attorney who specializes in contract law, so it wasn’t unusual that she would have work to do on the weekends. I even suggested she suspend her practice for a few years, until the girls were a little older. We could have easily gotten by on my salary, so it wasn’t about the money.”

“What was it about?”

Rory sighed. “I’m not sure. I think . . . I think she got tired of me.”

Harley crawled across the bed and knelt beside Rory in the moonlight. “She got tired of you? What kind of fucked-up shit is that? She married you. She took a vow. If you take a vow, you should goddamn well live by it.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Harls.”

“Did you guys go to counseling?”

“I did. She refused. But after a couple of months, my therapist and I agreed we weren’t going to get anywhere without Melinda. Melinda had to participate. But she wouldn’t. So I stopped going. And then I met you.”

“And then you met me.”

“You were fun and happy all the time. Not to mention being drop-dead gorgeous and built like a brick shit house.”

“A what?”

“A brick shit house.”

“What the hell is a brick shit house?”

“I don’t know. It’s an old expression. Tim used it one day when we were having lunch and we had this really attractive waitress. I think it’s one of those things they used to say seventy-five years ago.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means you’ve got an amazing body. Which you do. Look at your legs. And your shoulders are huge. And you have the nicest breasts I’ve ever seen anywhere ever.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m sorry about Melinda. I didn’t know it was like that. Still, you should’ve told me you were married when we met. I never would have slept with you if I’d known you were married.”

“It was for the best. Being with you helped me realize that there was life after Melinda. Plus I knew it was the only way to get closure with her. I knew she’d find out I was having an affair and that would offend her self-righteous sensibilities, which would then prompt the divorce. Even though she was having an affair, too.”

“She was?”

“She never admitted it. Probably because she knew her alimony suit would be damaged if she did. But I suspected she was after Rose was born. She worked late and traveled quite a bit, usually with her law partner Preston Elroy. And they were on the phone constantly. Mr. All-American running back. Asshole. He always wears pink.”

“Pink?”

“Pink shirt with a black tie. Black shirt with a pink tie. Pink polo shirt. I only saw him a few times, but I’m fairly certain that each time I saw him, he was wearing pink. Probably because Melinda likes pink. She even bought a pink shirt for me once. I never wore it.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I sold it on an Internet auction site.”

Harley laughed. “How much did you get for it?”

“A hundred and thirty bucks.”

“A hundred and thirty bucks? It must’ve been a nice shirt.”

“It was. It was a hydrophobic silk and polyester blend with UV-40 sun protection. For golf, she said. I don’t golf. Preston does. But I don’t. I haven’t golfed since that time we all went to Pebble Beach. You’ve seen me golf. I’m terrible.”

“Yeah, but your play on the back nine was superb. We did it in the bunker, remember?”

“I remember. But I was pretty wasted. Tim was, too. If I recall correctly, we drank two bottles of champagne, smoked an eighth of Maui Waui, and had done several grams each of Columbian Snow. I could hardly see straight let alone golf, but, man, was my dick hard.”

“It certainly was.”

“It was exactly what I needed after all those months of feeling like a stranger in my own house, feeling abandoned and alone. I keep hoping I’ll bump into her when I’m out with you, and she’ll see us together. But that probably won’t ever happen. And even if it did, she wouldn’t remember me. I’m not very memorable.”

Harley lay down beside Rory and draped one arm and one leg over him. “You are so memorable. You’re young, good looking, and you’re rich.”

“That’s what Tim said.”

“He’s right.” Harley propped herself up on one elbow so she could see Rory’s face. “Look, you got the shit end of the stick with Melinda. You tried to make it work. She’s the one who chose to withdraw from the relationship and from the marriage. If not physically then certainly emotionally. Which is probably even more painful. But she made her choice. So it’s time for you to move on. When was the last time you were on a date?”

“Tonight doesn’t count?”

“This is sex between friends. Which isn’t quite the same thing.”

“A real date?” Rory squinted up at the ceiling. “Gosh, it’s been awhile. I’d say my last date was with Melinda, before we were married.”

“Okay, we need to change that. You need to go on a date as soon as possible. Who do you want to ask out? Is there anyone you like? A nice girl you’ve got your eye on?”

Rory smiled. “There is one girl. She’s a therapist. But I don’t think it can work out.”

“Why not? If you like her, you should ask her out. You like her?”

“I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Harley sat up and punched Rory in the arm. “You love her! You definitely need to ask her out. Even if she shoots you down, you need to know. So you can move forward, with or without her.”

“It’s complicated, Harls.”

“Love always is.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“If I have to jump back into the dating scene, so do you. Who do you like?”

“Nobody.”

“Bullshit. You could have any guy you want. Riding around on that bright red motorcycle in your little black skirt. I bet you’ve got guys driving off cliffs because they’re too busy staring at your ass to watch where they’re going. I bet you’ve got guys lined up, ready to eat a mile of your shit just to see where it came from.”

“That’s disgusting, Rory.”

“But it’s true. Come on, who do you like? Tell me and I’ll set you up with him.”

“I can get my own dates.”

“I know you can. But this will make it fun. Tell me who he is and I’ll set you up with him.”

Harley cast her eyes down at the sheets, bashful. Finally she met Rory’s gaze. “Danny.”

“Danny who? My Danny? That you met tonight?”

Harley shrugged, grinned, looked out at the window at the moon, and finally nodded.

“Wow, Harls, you’ve got it bad. I’ve never seen you so sheepish.”

“It’s dumb, huh?”

“No, it’s kinda cute, actually.”

“Do you think he likes me?”

“How could he not?”

Harley flopped down onto the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. “God, when he walked into the pub, I saw him and thought to myself, ‘Who is
THAT
?’ When he walked over to our table, I got so nervous. And then he started talking to you and he sat down and suddenly we were alone and I had no idea what to do. I shook his hand far too long. And I couldn’t stop staring at him. I was grinning like an idiot.”

Now Rory was propped up on an elbow, smiling down at Harley. “Harley lost her cool. I can’t believe it.”

“I did. Completely. The next thing I knew, I was asking him to take me flying. That’s so presumptuous.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he would. He asked where I wanted to go.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I wanted to say, ‘Back to my place’ but I blurted out ‘The Blue Bar’.”

“Isn’t that on Catalina Island?”

Harley nodded. She stared at the ceiling, lost in thought. “God, I wanted to kiss him.”

Rory noticed Harley absently caressing her breast with one hand, her fingers slowly massaging her nipple, while the fingers of her other hand lightly stroked the tuft of her pubic hair. Melinda had always kept herself clean-shaven and meticulously smooth down there. But Harley maintained a v-shaped patch. The hair was long and soft. Beautiful. Womanly. It was one of the many things about Harley that Rory adored.

“He has such a . . .  presence,” Harley said softly, mostly to herself, bringing Rory back to the present. “I can’t stop thinking about him.”

“Were you thinking about him tonight? When you were screwing me?”

Harley didn’t respond. Finally, she looked at Rory.

“You were, weren’t you,” Rory stated. “Jesus, Harley.” He turned away and rolled out of bed. “If you want to masturbate yourself into a coma thinking about him while you’re alone, that’s fine. But if you’re going to be with me, then it would be nice if you were mentally here. I put up with enough of that shit with Melinda.”

“I know. You’re right.” Harley sat up and crawled across the bed to Rory. He stood with his hands on his hips, awash in moonlight. Harley knelt on the bed, with her hands on Rory’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, Ror. It’s got nothing to do with you. You know I think you’re sexy. And I do enjoy being with you. But it’s like you said: I’ve got it bad.”

“So bad that you came five times. While thinking about him.”

“Rory, please don’t be that way.”

Rory removed Harley’s hands from his shoulders and began to gather his clothing.

Harley sat back on her heels, watching him. “Are you leaving?”

“Forgive me if I don’t feel like staying.”

“Please don’t go. We’re having a nice evening.”