This Changes Everything (21 page)

I
t was Thursday night
. One that would’ve been a TV-and-beer-with-Sly Thursday.

Cleo had been playing the piano for two hours straight. Her frozen curry dinner from Trader Joe’s sat uneaten in the microwave. Her wineglass was empty. The bottle of two-dollar Chardonnay next to it, also empty.

The two female Chihuahuas, sensing trouble, huddled in a pile on the sofa. Zeus, sensing an uneaten meal in the kitchen, waited at her feet.

She played “Ode to Joy” because she was masochistic and Joplin because she wasn’t. She made her way through the sheet music she used for beginner’s lessons. She played her own compositions.

When she was too drunk to play with both hands, she called Ashley.

“Cleo?” Ashley’s voice was faint, incredulous.

“Hello, Ash.” She ran her finger over the corner of a chipped G key.

“I—hi. How are you?”

“Great, totally great,” Cleo said. She burped into her hand. “Wonderful. Awesome. And you?”

A pause. “Have you been drinking?”

“Why, yes, I have. Would you like to join me? I’m in Oakland. Nice view up here.”

Ashley paused again. “Actually, I’m at my grandmother’s funeral.”

Cleo slapped her forehead. Sometimes hitting the right notes wasn’t as important as the timing. “Shit. Sorry. Really sorry. I’ll let you go.”

“No, no. It’s all right. We’ve been here all day. I was just about to go back to the hotel.”

“Where are you?” Cleo asked.

“Santa Barbara. She was my mom’s mom.”

“I remember her. That sucks.”

Ashley sighed. “Yeah.”

“Give my love to your mom.”

“I will. Thanks.” Ashley’s voice turned weary. “She’ll like that. She asks about you, you know.”

“She was always really nice to me.”

Ashley fell silent. Cleo heard a delicate nose-blowing. “Unlike me,” she said finally.

“Yeah.” Cleo picked up the empty bottle of Chardonnay and peered through the glass at Zeus, further distorting his already-distorted features. “Well, that’s life.”

“You’re not mad anymore?”

Cleo laughed. As if. She didn’t say anything.

“Dumb question,” Ashley said. “But I’m glad you called. Why did you?”

“Impulse. Alcohol. Depression. Felt like feeling worse.”

“Great. And I’m at a funeral.”

“It’s kind of a jackpot,” Cleo said.

“You looked great in Vegas. Are you serious about that guy?”

“Nope. Just sleeping around. As one does.”

“Oh,” Ashley said. “Too bad. He looked nice.”

“If you liked him, it’s a good thing I dumped him,” Cleo said. “We’ve got terrible taste, you and me.”

“God, isn’t that the truth. Dylan cheated on me. Did you hear that?”

“How would I hear that?”

“I don’t know,” Ashley said. “Bad news gets around.”

Cleo rolled her knuckles over the black keys like a seven-year-old. “What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean? I told him to move out.”

When Dylan had cheated on Cleo, she’d asked him to go into counseling with her. “Just like that?”

“He’d already packed a bag,” Ashley said. “I was hardly going to beg him to stay.”

Cleo had done just that. But she’d been so young and didn’t have Dylan’s track record to give her perspective. “Good for you.” Cleo’s head was spinning. Was she really talking to Ashley, or was she passed out next to the piano having a bad dream? “Well, gotta go. Sorry about your grandmother.”

“Thanks.”

“And your marriage.”

“Right. Good-bye, Cleo.”

“Bye, Ash.”

Tempted by the idea of resting next to the piano, Cleo slid to the floor and rolled onto her back. The underside of a grand piano was a beautiful thing. Too bad this was an upright.

While Zeus licked her face, Cleo thought about how she was a better person than Ashley. She hadn’t walked away from
her
marriage without a fight. She’d tried to talk it through, work at it, go to counseling, see what she could do to salvage a relationship that had been so important to her.

Because she was a good person.

But Ashley, who’d ruined her best friend’s marriage and started one of her own,
she
throws up her hands and calls it quits at the first sign of trouble.

Nyah-nyah, I’m better than you, Ash.

Well, she used to be. She hadn’t been very patient with Sly, and Sly hadn’t ever promised to love her forever in front of God and everyone the way Dylan had.

“But he didn’t even text,” she said to Zeus, rolling on to her hands and knees. “Not even an emoticon.”

Excited that she was staggering to her feet, which might propel her into the kitchen, Zeus danced in a circle around her. Swaying, Cleo caressed Sly’s face on her phone. He had such a yummy face.

She closed her eyes and tapped the screen, then lifted it to her ear.

It rang and rang.

And rang.

On the eighth ring, Zeus gave up, collapsed on the floor, and fell asleep.

Cleo threw the phone, still ringing, into a wastebasket. Then, following Zeus’s wise example, she went to bed.

Maybe it was too late to make a social call. But Sly had been thinking all day, had gone to bed still thinking, gotten out of bed and into his car, still thinking, and driven over to Trixie’s house in the misty night—not thinking anymore. Just feeling.

He didn’t have a plan. If he’d known what he was doing, he would’ve arranged for Mouse to go to Bella or the clinic. Since he hadn’t known, his new dog was at that moment drooling down his neck from his spot in the backseat of the new, red Volvo V60 wagon he’d purchased that afternoon. The Audi hadn’t been big enough for a dog bigger than most fifth graders. And the Volvo had all those safety features.

He turned into Trixie’s driveway, parked next to Cleo’s little Honda, and stroked Mouse’s loose jowls, dislodging a handful of drool onto his shoulder. “Lots of room back there. Next time, go ahead and stretch out.”

The house was dark. Well, no surprise there. It was past midnight.

Sucking in a deep breath, Sly got out of the car. “You coming?”

Mouse ducked his head and stared at him, the car dome light gleaming in his round brown eyes.

“No problem. Like I said, make yourself comfortable.” Sly opened all the windows before closing up the car and walking to the front door. Once he’d talked to Cleo, they could use opera to compel Mouse to exit the vehicle.

He hit the doorbell and waited. Hit it again. And again. Finally a light went on upstairs. Then he saw glow flicker through the downstairs windows.

Figuring she was looking at him through the peephole, he smiled and held up a hand. “It’s me.”

The pause that followed was longer than he’d expected, long enough to make him uneasy, but eventually she opened the door.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.” The sight of her, sleepy and tousled-haired, adorably sexy in an old heather-gray T-shirt and polka-dot boxer shorts, made him forget what few words he’d rehearsed during the drive over.

His meager plan had been to tell her he cared about her and wasn’t going to let her sabotage things between them just because she was scared of repeating the past. That she wasn’t in a hurry to get married any more than he was, that to bring it up now was a clumsy attempt to drive him away. He’d planned to say that they should take it slow because that was the best way to make it last.

And if that didn’t work, he’d try the nuclear option and tell her he loved her.

Of course he did. He’d said so a few times already, like on her birthday, or when she’d made him cookies. But this time he’d say it while he kissed her. While he held her in his arms and heard her sigh in his ear.

“Is that your car?” she asked.

Grabbing onto a neutral subject, he grinned at her. “Just bought it today. Guess why?”

Her face froze. Her eyes widened. He thought she looked like she might throw up.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She shook her head, stared at him.

To stop himself from grabbing her prematurely, he pointed at the car. “See who’s inside?”

Slowly, she looked away from Sly and peered at the car. “Hugo’s dog?”

“My dog.”

“Your dog?”

“I told Hugo I couldn’t live without him. He agreed. It was a setup all along.”

Something changed in her face. She wrapped her arms around herself. “You bought the car for the dog.”

“I couldn’t resist. He seemed to like it, so I traded in the A4 and drove it home this afternoon. He’s already drooled over most of the leather.” He laughed, trying to get her to smile. “You wouldn’t believe how much that animal can drool.”

“Lots of drool,” she said.

“Yeah. But it’s no problem really. I just mop it up with a rag.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“They gave him a bath at PetZone this morning. Did wonders for his aroma. They clipped his toenails too. He hated that.” He didn’t like that she wasn’t smiling, didn’t look interested at all. “I felt so bad I bought him a new dried bull penis. Still in its shrink-wrap.”

She rubbed her temple, looking pained.

“Are you sure you’re OK?”

“Had a little bit too much Two Buck Chuck tonight,” she said. “And it’s cold out here.”

He cleared his throat. “How about we go inside?”

“I’m not—you didn’t—” She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. “You didn’t even call.”

“My phone broke.”

“It broke?” She blinked. “When? How?”

“It fell off a table this morning when Mouse knocked me out of bed.”

“This morning.” She raised an eyebrow. He realized then she’d wanted him to call her any of the days previous to this one, not just before he’d come over tonight.

“I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me,” he said.

She was looking at her fingernails. “You’re sleeping with him?”

“He was so needy. It makes him feel good.”

Her mouth tightened. “You couldn’t resist that, could you?”

“Please, let me come in. I won’t—we won’t do anything. We can watch TV.” He smiled. “It’s Thursday.”

“That’s what you want to do? Watch TV?”

“I’d be happy just being with you.”

“Just like old times,” she said.

“Just like.” His heart jumped. She was going to let him stay. “I’ll try to get Mouse out of the car.”

“Wait.”

He turned, holding his breath.

“I can’t do this,” she said.

“It’s late,” he said. “I know. I should’ve tried earlier.”

“Yeah. Much.”

“Let’s get together tomorrow. Not TV. Breakfast. Or lunch, so you can sleep in. Royal Café?”

Shaking her head, she took a step back into the house and began to close the door. “I can’t do this,” she said again.

“It’s late. I understand.” He put a hand on the doorframe, right where it would get crushed in a moment if the door continued moving. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning, late.”

“On what? Your broken phone?”

“It’s easy to get a new one.”

“That’s so true. Too bad you didn’t think of that earlier.” She gave his hand on the doorframe a pointed look. “Good night, Sly.”

“You’re angry.”

“I wish,” she said.

“You wish you were angry?”

“It would make it easier to say good-bye.”

Good-bye
. Feeling the blood draining out of him, he withdrew his hand.

The door closed in his face.

S
ly knew
he’d screwed up. Bad.

He needed help, and had a crazy idea where to get it.

Your average thirtysomething guy might not be at home on a Friday morning, but Mark wasn’t average. The reclusive software engineer had always preferred working from home. In the past, Sly would call before dropping by and warn Mark to put on some pants. But today he’d risk seeing Mark’s tighty-whities.

He brought Mouse with him. When he had the thought to leave him alone in the apartment, he imagined Mouse’s sad face and reached for the leash.

Mark and Rose’s driveway was gated but open, and he was able to park near the front door. Making soothing yet slightly operatic noises, he led Mouse out of the back of the Volvo and walked him to the door of the modern house perched in the hills that had once been his own. He’d never lived there; it had been just an investment. Mark had bought it from him as part of his Rose-wooing process a couple of years earlier. Because the wooing had been so successful, Sly decided he was just the guy he needed to talk to.

He banged the knocker and scratched the top of Mouse’s skull while he waited. He knew his world had changed forever if he was seeking romantic counsel from Mark Johnson.

To his surprise, it was Rose who answered the door. She looked as beautiful as always. A large, curvy blonde, Rose had a natural sex appeal that bowled over most men who saw her. But not him. He’d thought he’d always been immune to her charms because of Mark’s feelings for her, but now he wondered. Would it have been so easy to resist Rose if he hadn’t had Cleo in his life already?

In fact, he hadn’t been seriously involved with any woman since he’d met Cleo, but he’d attributed that to his break with Teresa.

What if it had been something else?

What if his affection for Cleo had been serious for a lot longer than he thought?

“Sylly! This is a nice surp—” Rose began. Her eyes rounded. “Oh my God, is that a bear?”

“It’s a Mouse. Can we come in? I was hoping to talk to Mark.”

“Please. He’s taken apart my laptop and swears he knows how to put it back together.” She looked at her watch. Long blond hair tumbled down around her face. Her hair was a little darker than Cleo’s, and longer and wavier. Stunning, really. So model perfect, it was hard to believe it was real.

But it wasn’t as beautiful as Cleo’s.

“He took it apart last night,” Rose continued. “I’m going to have to go to work without it.”

Sly stepped into the foyer. Mouse lumbered in and collapsed next to a hall table that held a vase of arching blue and white flowers. Sly’s own image reflected back at him from a gilt mirror on the wall over the vase. “You’ve kept the decorating from the sale.”

When he’d put the house on the market, Rose had lived in the house while it was artificially staged to look irresistible to buyers.

“We have fond memories of those days,” Rose said, “so we replicated some of the decorating.”

“Like the pillows?” The bed in the master suite had been piled high with dozens of them. Mark had admitted to him (or bragged) that repatriating them to their assigned positions after his and Rose’s first night together had been a challenge.

Rose’s smooth skin flushed pink all over. “Actually…”

Mark popped out from the doorway to the kitchen and put his arms around her waist. “Especially the pillows,” he said, burying his face in her neck. “We enjoy knocking them to the floor every night. You know, while we—”

“Hey,” Sly said, holding up his hands. “Please. I don’t need to know any more.” Once, while Mark and Rose were working at WellyNelly, Sly had interrupted them at the very wrong time. On top of Mark’s desk in their Berkeley offices.

Mark laughed and tightened his arms around Rose. “Does Cleo mind you’re such a prude?”

“She minds about a lot of things,” Sly said. “Which is why I’m here. She hates me.”

Mark’s smile fell. He loosened his hold on Rose. “Oh, man. Sorry.”

“I want your advice,” Sly said.

“Good idea,” Mark said. “Rose is really good with people.”

Rose turned to her husband. “I think he meant you, sweetie.”

“Yeah, right,” Mark said with a snort. “Because I’m so good with women.”

Lowering her voice, Rose put a hand on Mark’s jaw. “Oh, you’re good, baby.”

Mark flushed as pink as a highlighter. Sly looked away, wondering if he could bear to watch another second of these two loving each other when he was dying inside.

“Wow, it’s really late,” Rose said, pushing away from Mark. “I have to get going. If you can’t fix my laptop by tonight, you’d better buy me a new one. Target’s open late. Nothing fancy—”

Mark rose to his full height, which was considerable. “
If
I can’t fix the thing, which of course I can, I’m not going to buy some off-the-shelf POS at Target. Give me some credit.”

Going up on tiptoes, Rose kissed him on the chin. “I credit you with the sense to make sure I have a working laptop by the time I have to write that proposal tonight.” She turned to go, catching Sly’s eye on her way across the room. “I’m sure Cleo will give you another chance, Sylly. You’re a great guy.”

“Thanks.”

She slung a red purse and a floral laptop bag over her shoulder. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do in the campaign.”

“Campaign?” Mark asked.

“To win Cleo back, of course,” she said.

Sly smiled appreciatively at her. She was a hell of a woman. “Will do,” he said. “Thanks.”

With a wave, she went out the door and let it slam behind her.

Mark turned to him. “Is that really why you’re here?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Yes. How about coffee?”

“Here?”

“If you don’t mind,” Sly said.

“You know me. I like staying home. Come on.” Mark wandered into the kitchen, a gleaming showcase in marble and stainless steel that had cost Sly more than the sum total of every car he’d ever owned. As an investment, however, it had worked. Mark had paid him more for the house than Sly had put into it.

While Sly watched in silence, Mark ground the beans, measured them into a French press, then went over to an electric Japanese hot-water kettle and, after checking the temperature with an instant-read thermometer, poured the water and pushed down the plunger.

The entire process was slow, deliberate, and exact—with impeccable results. Very Mark-ish. Sly accepted his mug with genuine eagerness and found a perch on a barstool at the counter.

“You make a damn good cup of coffee,” Sly said, sipping it. “It’s like watching a Nobel chemist in a laboratory.”

Mark reached under a low cabinet and pulled out a bag of Cheetos. “Don’t tell Rose about these,” he said as he ripped them open. “She says they’re bad for me.”

“Lips are sealed.”

Mark held up a puffy morsel and rolled it between his fingers. After a moment, he popped it into his mouth. “You were just kidding about wanting my romantic advice, right?”

“Not at all. Who better to ask than the man who married Rose? I mean, come on. That was quite a score.”

Eyes narrowing, Mark stopped chewing. “Admit it. You’ve always had a thing for her.”

“Amazingly enough, no. I was just thinking about how I should have stolen her out from under you when I had the chance, but didn’t want to because—I’m just figuring this out now—I’d already met Cleo.”

“Thank God,” Mark said, looking mournfully into the Cheetos bag. “I shudder to think what would’ve happened to me if you’d stolen Rose.”

Sly felt like he had some idea. It was what was happening to him right now. “Dude. It was you she wanted. From the start.”

“Only because you were too obsessed with work to make any moves.”

“No, because she was too obsessed with you to ever look at me twice, even if I’d tried,” Sly said. “Which is why I’m here. You’re the genius. Tell me how I get Cleo to feel that way about me.”

“How could I possibly know that?”

“You’ve got to know something I don’t.”

Mark smiled. “I know a crap-ton more than you. But not about women.”

“I think you know more than you think you know.”

Licking his fingers, Mark pondered the ceiling, the smile clinging to his lips along with the orange dust. “I like this. The famously hot Sylly Minguez seeking my sexual counsel.”

“Hey. Not sexual. Got that covered. The other stuff.”

“There’s other stuff?”

Sly waved his hands around the house. “The part where you end up like this together.”

Mark’s mouth fell open. “You want to settle down?”

He hadn’t thought so until a few hours ago. “Maybe.”

“Is that how you portrayed your feelings to the object of your affections?”

Sly flinched. “Maybe.”

“You dumbass.”

“Don’t rub it in.”

“You’re really hurting right now, aren’t you?” Mark asked.

“I’m dying.”

“You don’t look like it. You look the same as you always do, kind of cheerfully smug and invincible.”

Sly looked around. “Is it too late to call Rose back home so I can talk to her instead?”

“My point is, you need to show her how you feel.”

“She won’t see me.”

“Maybe I can help you with that,” Mark said. “But you have to have a plan. Go at this like you do with work.”

“Got it. Like work. Good idea.” Sly took out his phone. “I’ll start an Evernote notebook.”

“Christ. If you must.”

Typing with his thumbs, Sly recorded his first few ideas. “I thought I’d take her to dinner. That worked in Vegas.”

“Too late. Sounds like she hates you too much for eating right now.”

“Then what?”

“When I was in the shits with Rose, I had to trap her at my cabin in Tahoe during a blizzard.”

Sly looked out the window. It hadn’t snowed in the Sierra for over a year. “Fucking drought.”

“How about—” Mark’s phone began chiming in his pocket. He held up a finger and looked at the screen. “Hold on, it’s my mother. Hello?”

Sly took advantage of the break to gulp down the perfect coffee and type a note into his phone:
1. Trap.

“You’re what?” Mark asked.

Looking up from his phone, Sly saw an arrested expression on his friend’s face.

“Yes, he told me,” Mark went on. “But—”

Sly watched him, wondering what Trixie was saying.

Suddenly Mark’s gaze landed on Sly. “He’s right here, actually. In my kitchen.”

They stared at each other, one of them having no idea what the phone conversation was about.

“Tomorrow?” Mark pointed at Sly. “You free tomorrow?”

“For what?”

“He’s free,” Mark said into the phone.

Presumably, Trixie continued to say something, because Mark stared off into space with the phone at his ear.

“Let me talk to her,” Sly said. If Trixie was scheming again, he wanted in on it.

“We’ll come over at six,” Mark said. “Should we bring something? Beer or food or whatever?… Sure, she’ll love that… Yes, he’s here too.”

“Who?” Sly ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

Mark pointed at Mouse, then looked away, listening again. “I’ll tell him. Tell your husband I look forward to meeting him.” Shaking his head, he put his phone in his pocket.

“Tell me,” Sly said.

“Liam and Bev’s house, tomorrow at six. Cleo thinks it’s a piano lesson. You can talk to her then.”

“How—”

“I don’t know how she does it,” Mark said. “But we might as well be glad that she does.”