Never Have I Ever (34 page)

It was there in the brief stillness between tour groups, when the bathroom was void of all witnesses, that I declared, “You damned foolish girl; you’re completely in love.”

Neither one of us had said the L word; not to one another, at least. It was never discussed. I wasn’t even sure if it was allowed. But there it was, rearing its head for the first time.  When Noah originally approached me about becoming his submissive I never once stopped to ask if it was only a game to him, if lust could be the only thing he felt for me. Were words like “adore” and compliments like “incredible” little nuances of the greater whole of love coming through, I wondered. Could something like this ever mean the same to him as it did to me?

And then my phone rang. It was him.

Bad decisions are something that can’t be avoided. Humans, by the very nature of our humanity, are flawed, selfish and careless. Typically, I was better at devising ingenious ways of problem-solving. If I said that quitting my job wasn’t a big deal to me, I’d be lying. It was a difficult choice, but it was also the only way to ensure the funding remained at the observatory without giving Ethan what he wanted; without walking away from the best experience I ever had. Without walking away from… fuck it; without walking away from the man I loved. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make as long as it continued to deter Ethan from trying to blackmail or threaten me.

The last thing I needed was to escalate the tension by striking back. That went double for letting Noah figure out I just quit my job for him. I considered myself a fairly strong person; smoothing things over as silently and with as little confrontation as possible made sense to me. At least until I found a way to dissuade the most insufferable man I ever met from destroying me further. A person, once painted into a corner, can easily move once the paint dries. The only question: How long will it take for the paint to dry?

Now, however, I needed to get lost. I needed to forget. I needed to drown in any and every sensation I could possibly fathom so I stopped thinking about such heavy things like secrets kept and love I was completely afraid of. Most of all, I needed Noah to be the one who brought me to the singular place in my head where it all happened. His calling me so soon after I walked out of Dr. Fairbanks’ office was either irony at its finest, or kismet. I wasn’t sure which yet.

I stared at my phone. The melody of my ringtone echoed through the bathroom. What made sense ten minutes ago as I resigned from the observatory disintegrated into the overwhelming feeling of frustration at my lack of common sense because of my epiphany of love.

Nevertheless, I answered.

“You, my dear, sound like you’re in a tunnel,” Noah said after my greeting. He sounded happy. That made one of us at least.

I wasn’t unhappy of course, not with the blast of the verbal confession to myself still ringing through my head, but I also wasn’t certain I was ready for him to hear it. Not until I figured out what it was he wanted out of the insanity that was our relationship.

“Ah, yeah, I’m at Mount Wilson. Just a sec,” I told him. I pulled myself from the bathroom floor and walked briskly through the foyer to the double doors in the courtyard outside. “There, that’s better.”

“If I’m interrupting anything I can call back.”

As I sat on a bench away from the prying ears of tourists, I assured him, “No, you’re not, Sir. It’s just been a weird couple of days.”

“Ready for it to get weirder?”

I took a deep breath to clear away the crazy in my head and reached for my cigarettes. “All right, lay it on.”

“Ethan told me he saw you at the café downtown yesterday. He said you invited him to dinner.”

“An invitation which he immediately declined,” I replied. I lit up and inhaled the sweet, calming blast of nicotine.
Another nail in the coffin.
“Apparently, not only am I not good enough for you, but I’m also not even worthy of getting to know in order to change that sentiment.”

“He said something similar.”

“You know what you said before, about wanting him to be the last person to know I’m your sub?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“He figured it out,” I said, wincing a little at my own mental scorning. “Hiding the cuffs you gave me wasn’t exactly feasible at the time. I’m sorry, Sir.”

“That’s not your fault, don’t apologize.”

“Still…”

“No, you shouldn’t feel guilty,” Noah insisted. I could hear the smile on his face. From the sound of it, he had no clue just how extreme our conversation at the café was. I wanted to keep it that way. He added, “If I didn’t want people to recognize the cuffs for the symbol they are then I wouldn’t have given them to you. Besides, that wasn’t the weird part.”

“Then, what is?”

“Ethan had a change of heart after you left.”

“Come again?”

“Provided it’s still on the table, he wants to accept the invitation. Well, we want to accept the invitation. He mentioned you were adamant about the both of us being there.”

I almost stammered, “Of course; it would be awkward and wrong if you weren’t there too. He really decided to accept?”

“Affirmative.”

“And you’re okay with my offering without talking to you about it?”

“Yes, if it means that much to you.”

“It does. Between trying to buy me off and giving me the cold shoulder I think it’s time to show him I’m not the awful person he thinks I am.”

“I don’t expect a miracle, but Ethan still needs to learn not every woman in the world is a conniving bitch. Maybe this will help.”

There
was
that.

I agreed, “All right, how about Wednesday at seven?”

“Didn’t you tell him next week?”

I also expected to be working this week. “My schedule just freed up.”

“Perfect, Wednesday at seven. I’ll bring wine.”

“Semi-casual,” I managed to sneak in before he could say goodbye. My home wouldn’t be turned into anything but a cozy, comfortable place. “That goes for the both of you…
Sir.”

He laughed in concession, “You’re going to be the death of me, sweetness. I’ll let Ethan know.”

The old adage about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer might have proven useful to me after all. If I could get into Ethan’s head then maybe I could convince him once and for all of my lack of being a threat; that I was genuine and even nice when people were nice to me. I was, of course, referring to people. I wasn’t yet persuaded Ethan was anything but a robot with people tendencies.

Still, I had a whole two days to figure out what I would say to him, and what I would fix for dinner. I sort of already had an idea for the latter. I loved creature comforts. One of the greatest of those was comfort food.

Artichoke dip with bread toasted to just the right amount of crisp around the outside would start us off as an appetizer. For the main course, rich, creamy Beef Stroganoff and a side of cinnamon broccoli would do nicely. Not with ground beef, either—it meant my head on a plate courtesy of my father if I sullied our family recipe with mediocre ground beef—but with medium rare strips of sirloin steak positioned artfully atop the pasta dish.

After spending the entirety of Monday and Tuesday cleaning my house from top to bottom—twice, because really, what the hell else did I have to occupy me?—I dug out the old family recipe book and got to work on the meal early Wednesday evening.

How strange that I was working so hard to impress the one person who couldn’t be bothered with me to begin with. By the time the night ended I decided I’d either be able to label myself a saint or a masochist for enduring Ethan’s company for so long.
Possibly both.
And I still didn’t hold one iota of a clue regarding what I should say to him.

I docked my iPod on its external speakers and set my playlist to shuffle. While it rolled through Rise Against,
Nightwish
,
Mutemath
, and The Piano Guys, I got started on dinner. The pasta portion of the meal simmered away, cozy in the cream sauce in its pan. I’d just popped the dip in the oven and started cutting up the thick strips of freshly cooked beef when there was a knock at the door.

After rinsing my hands, I snagged a clean towel from the counter and went for the door. On the other side, Noah greeted me with a smile and three bottles of wine: red, white, and a light in-between of a pinkish hue. He was holding the red and the pinkish bottles together in one hand by the necks.

“You’re punctual. Early, even,” I told him. I took the bottle of white from him to lighten his load.

“I thought I might help out,” he said as I let him in.

“There’s not a whole lot to help with, but I can try to find something to occupy you.”

I was relieved to see he complied with my request to keep the dinner casual for the most part. He wore dark boot cut blue jeans with a bit of fade artfully added to the front of them, a burgundy long-sleeve button down, and Doc Marten boots. I recognized them as Docs only because they happened to be my very favorite brand of shoe. I spotted the comfort of Docs on any given street from three blocks away.

“In that case I’ll settle for keeping you company.” Noah leaned in to kiss me, but stopped short. “Hang on; am I hearing Michael Meets Mozart?”

I glanced at my iPod like I could read the screen from ten feet away. Luckily, it was not so much for reference as is was to give me the second to recognize the song again.

“Uh, yes, Sir?”

“Do you know how sexy it is that you have The Piano Guys on your play list?”

I laughed. “I do now.”

“I listened to them when they first emerged on YouTube. They’ve become pretty popular there since then.”

“Careful,” I cautioned, “Your hipster is showing.”

Noah chuckled and kissed me as he shut the front door with his foot. “And what is that delightful smell?”

“Artichoke dip and
my
version of Stroganoff.”
We set the wine on the kitchen counter. I examined the bottles for a moment before asking, “Three bottles for three people?”

“I don’t expect all three to be empty by the end of the night. Ethan is a light drinker; if he finishes even one glass I’ll be surprised. We should use this one.” He pushed the red wine to the side, then collected the other two bottles and found a disused corner of my kitchen to keep them out of the way.

I personally never understood the importance of wine pairings, so I was glad he did. At one point someone even told me the entire wine and food pairing industry was a complete sham made up just to sell more of it. I for one could never tell the difference between the
impact
a full-bodied red and a flowery white made on my Smoked Salmon or Chicken Kiev. Maybe I was just buying bad wine.

“I’m glad you took the initiative with Ethan, by the way,” Noah said as I returned to cutting the beef. His tone settled somewhere between proud and surprised. “Not many women have the courage to do that.”

“Don’t know if
it’s
courage or insanity yet; the jury’s still out.”

And the jury would be out until after the evening was over and Ethan left either hating me completely or beginning to warm to the idea that I wasn’t going to step on his toes just because I loved his brother.

I was only vaguely aware that Noah was searching the drawers in my kitchen for a wine opener while my thoughts spiraled back into confessing everything to him right there and then. Something stopped me, though; time-constraints, perhaps. Less than fifteen minutes to talk about something as important as my feelings and, if I was lucky, his feelings as well, might not nearly be enough time. Then again, how much time does it really take to say “I love you”? It couldn’t be much more complicated than that.

I came out of my thoughts when a wine glass appeared in front of me. There was about a shot’s worth of red wine in it.

“Try this and tell me what you think.”

I stopped cutting long enough to let him put the glass to my lips so I could take a sip without getting beef all over it. The wine was light and dry and a little bitter, but maybe that was why he chose it; to offset the rich, creamy dish. I wasn’t going to pretend to know. Either way, I didn’t hate it.

“Pretty good,” I said.

As he finished off what remained in the glass, another knock came at the door. Butterflies returned to the pit of my stomach. The instinct to run away from the possible tension of the evening had to be stomped down.

“I’ll get it,” Noah offered. He kissed me on my temple and added, “Just relax, I can tell you’re uneasy.”

I nodded and let him go answer the door.

As forced as it was, I tried to put on a welcoming smile for Ethan when he walked into my home. As he came into view of the kitchen I saw that he, too, had honored my request for a casual dinner. Well, as casual as maybe Ethan could manage. Khaki slacks and a light blue polo suited him. I just thanked the Powers That Be for not persuading him to wear a tie.

“Hello, hello,” I said in greeting, “Dinner should be ready in about ten minutes. Did you find the place all right?”