APRIL
Chapter 13
“You still holding the big party at your house for your birthday?” Elias asked, referring to Everett’s traditional celebration.
Everett had always invited all his friends along with all of his employees. This year he’d added the McDonald family to the guest list. Bert and Henny had declined, choosing to take his mother to a play that night instead. They were going to make a special dinner over the weekend so he could have some ‘family time.’ But Mica and Roger were coming.
“Yeah. And it’s going to be interesting this year.” Everett turned the speaker on the car up so he could hear Elias better.
“Oh yeah. Why’s that?”
Everett got onto the freeway and headed back toward Richmond. This conversation with Elias was keeping him company as he made his way back from a meeting in San Jose. He leaned back and rubbed lightly at the steering wheel. “Well, for starters, Carlos is bringing his new girlfriend to the party.”
“Oh. And I suppose his ex will be there, too.”
“The lovely and diabolical Kimberly. Oh, yes. She’ll be there.”
“Carlos can handle her.”
“I think so. She’s chilled out since the divorce anyway.”
“Really?”
Everett shrugged. “I think so. Carlos doesn’t. But, you know. He’s the ex. Anyway, in addition to that drama, Maya’s brother is bringing his boyfriend.”
“So. When was the last time you had a party that didn’t have multiple LGBTQ couples?” Elias’ tone held censure as he misunderstood Everett’s concern.
“That’s not the point. His boyfriend is…shit, I can’t tell you.”
“What do you mean, you can’t tell me?”
“He’s famous. Kind of. Well, pretty much. Certainly in the Bay Area.”
“Oh. And in the closet?”
“Yeah.”
“So, how’s that gonna work?”
“We’re presenting him as my friend, I guess. I don’t know. I feel bad for them. But at the same time I’m doing the same thing with Maya. She doesn’t want anyone to know we’re dating. I had to talk her into telling her parents. Which she did. And, of course, my mom already knew. But she’s crazy about not telling anyone else. It’s…”
“Makes you feel like shit.” Elias understood. While Everett knew that Elias and Rebecca were together when they took off three years ago, it wasn’t public knowledge at first. Even though they were in Florida, all three kept up the ruse that everything was as it had been and they were just on vacations. That had all come apart when the lawsuit hit though.
“I don’t want to push it. I don’t want to push anything with Maya.”
“Dude. You’re a mess.”
Everett’s head kicked back and he forced his gaze to stay on the road, rather than gaping at the radio Elias’s voice was being carried through as he’d wanted to do. “What?”
“You are scared shitless of that woman.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“You’re so afraid she’ll walk away from you that you’re walking around on eggshells. I bet you’ve never once asserted yourself. I bet you’ve never asked her to do something you wanted to do.”
Everett thought back on the two weeks since he and Maya had first slept together. He’d asked for a lot. He’d asked that they tell people. She’d refused and he didn’t push the issue. Even telling her parents was more a matter of logic than her giving into his request. He’d also asked her to come to his house one night, but she’d refused, insisting that they only spend time together at her place. She wouldn’t go out anywhere with him either—dinner, movie, a show, none of it.
But the thing that bothered him the most was his request to be exclusive. He’d thought it was a simple one. He knew that’s what she preferred. It had been a major issue in the past. And he immediately wanted to give that to her this time. But she wouldn’t commit to it. It nearly broke his heart. He’d told all this to Elias on their last call, desperately needing an ear.
“I don’t want to fuck this up.” It was the same argument he’d been making. He’d already let a few things slip to Carlos, which was something Maya could easily discover. So he had to be tight-lipped to his best friend. Elias was his lifeline now, he realized, the only one he could talk openly to.
“Don’t be mad. But after our discussion the other day, I talked to Rebecca.”
“I’m not mad.” Everett no longer held the animosity he’d once had for Rebecca. And he understood that she and Elias were a team now.
“She had some interesting insights. Wanna hear?”
Everett shifted into the slow lane and leaned back, both hands resting loosely on the steering wheel. “Yes. I do.”
“She says she fell in love with you because of your charisma. And I get that. I remember your dad always used to call you ‘the great communicator.’ And I remember watching you convince Carlos, over the course of one lunch, to leave one of the biggest tech companies in San Francisco to come work at our little candle company in Richmond. That’s when I truly understood that title. And I have no doubt you killed it at whatever meeting you just had in San Jose. But…”
It was true. He’d just sealed a deal to get their product into a large regional chain. “But?”
“The exception to that is when you’re scared. Rebecca points to two examples. The first was when you’d taken out all those loans, put your trust fund on the line, and sunk everything you had into the company. You had to be scared shitless. Hell, I was and it wasn’t my money on the line. And that’s when we pressured you into giving the company that stupid name. You wanted to just call it Tranquility, but we asked you to put the initials on it. And you went with it.”
“So. I didn’t want to muscle over you two. What does that have to do with anything?”
“You didn’t even try to reason with us, E. And it would have been easy to do. But you just went along with it. And then when your dad died.” Elias took a shaky breath. “Rebecca has admitted to me that she knew you were vulnerable. You were scared to death. And she took advantage of that to get what she wanted, a proposal.”
Everett pinched his nose between his fingers and took a deep breath. “So you’re saying I’m letting Maya get her way because I’m scared?”
“Yes.”
“So, what am I supposed to do, just be a douche and try to roll right over her without taking what she wants into account?”
“No, asshole. I’m saying you should talk to her. She’s probably just as scared as you are, and now you’re both making stupid decisions because you’re not communicating.”
“I hear you. I’ll think about it.”
“No. No more thinking. Act. Let me tell you something. And maybe after I tell you this, you won’t talk to me anymore. I don’t know. But it’s about time this was said. I’ve been in love with Rebecca since before I introduced you to her.”
Everett had to concentrate on driving to keep from running off the road. “What?... I don’t…Then why the hell did you set me up with her?”
“I was a lanky, dorky dude whose two hobbies were fencing and making candles with my best friend. Girls used to tell me on the regular what a great friend I was. My own mother thought I was gay. I was not in Rebecca’s league and I knew it. But you were, and…I don’t know. Maybe it was a ‘live vicariously’ thing. The bottom line is, I was scared.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“Sorry, dude. I made a mistake. And once I’d written the page I couldn’t take it back. So I had to live with it for six long years. Then things were going bad with you two. Rebecca came to me and told me she knew things were over between you. And that’s when I told her. And about twelve hours later your life went to shit. And I’m truly sorry about that.”
Everett took three deep breaths. “Things might have been so different. I might have been with Maya. You and Rebecca could have had each other from the beginning. Everything…”
“No.” Elias’ voice was forceful. “It wouldn’t have worked. I’m sure of that. Maybe you and Maya would have gotten together, but you might not have been in the right place. And maybe Rebecca and I would have gotten together, but we would have failed. She was in her restless phase, insisting on an open relationship. I couldn’t have done that, man. I’m not built for that. It wouldn’t have worked. None of it. Us. The business. It might suck. But it had to be this way.”
Everett swallowed hard and pushed Elias’ revelations to the back of his brain for rumination later. “Thanks for telling me.”
“I’m glad I finally did. Now you should learn something from my story and talk to your girl. Tell her how you feel. Freaking communicate!”
“Okay. Okay. I hear you. Damn. You are a lot bossier than you used to be.”
“I am. I’m also more confident and happier.” Everett could hear the smile in Elias’ voice and it made him smile as well.
Everett spent the rest of the ride to Richmond talking to Elias about less intense things. They discussed fencing and Carlos’ love life and Everett’s work out routine. They said their goodbyes as Everett was pulling into the parking lot outside Maya’s apartment building.
Everett ran up the stairs to Maya’s place with a million thoughts whirling through his head. But they seemed to all leave him when Maya opened the door and smiled at him.
“I missed you,” she admitted as she pulled him into the living room.
They fell onto her small couch and into a slow, passionate make-out session. One of the greatest things about him and Maya was that sometimes they were into the fast and furious, up against a wall pairings filled with desperation and other times, like this, they could be slow and draw things out like a couple of newbie teenagers just enjoying the ride.
“I just spent the entire drive from San Jose talking to Elias,” he admitted when the kissing slowed and the cuddling started.
Maya lifted her head from his chest and rubbed her palm over his cheek. “How did that go?”
“Really good, actually. We got a lot of our laundry aired.”
She smiled. “I think that’s a good thing. Do you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. And I’m invited to the wedding.”
“Oh. Wow. That could be…”
“Awkward. Yeah. But I might go anyway. Would you go with me?”
Maya cocked her head. “I might.”
Everett tried not to let the knot forming in his stomach from yet another non-committal comment show on his face. As much as he knew Elias was right in his assessment, he hadn’t figured out exactly what to do about it yet. Instead, he decided to see if Maya wanted to order Chinese food and stay on the couch for the rest of the night.
Turned out she was completely on board for that plan.
****
Maya’s feet were frozen on the sidewalk outside Everett’s house. She knew where he lived. Everyone did. And she’d been invited to his birthday before. Everyone was. But she hadn’t gone in. Last year she’d pulled up, stared at the house through the car window, and driven away.
Now she was going to enter the opulent home. And she wasn’t just an employee anymore. She was the woman who was sleeping with the owner of this palace.
Palace was a bit of an overstatement. The house wasn’t any bigger than Trudy’s place. The yard held a pool instead of a garden, or so she’d heard. It was two stories and took up about the same amount of space in the world. But it just looked so much fancier from the outside. Maybe it was the valet parking cars up and down the streets of the neighborhood, or the way people were streaming into it wearing party clothes.
Suddenly, Maya’s soft yellow dress and cute but cheap-as-hell sandals seemed completely inadequate. She watched the VP of sales and her husband climb out of their upscale sedan, toss the keys to a kid in a red vest and walk toward the front door.
Maya glanced down at her phone. Mica’s last text said they were at least twenty minutes out. She could stand here for twenty minutes and wait for them before going in or she could stop being a coward and walk in on her own.
Courage failed and her heel spun. She turned her body back toward the street. Her car was parked—by her, not a valet—about a block away. She could get to it, drive home and call Everett with a fake cough or something. She could tell him how sorry she was she couldn’t make it.
Guilt swamped her. Everett had spent at least three nights a week at her apartment over the past month. He’d held her and kissed her and whispered into her ear. He’d made her feel on top of the world. And she was planning to skip his birthday party.
Shit.
“Maya.”
She whirled around at the sound of her name. He was on the sidewalk a few feet away. His hand held out toward her as if he were in the middle of trying to stop her from running.
“Hi.” Her voice sounded soft and weak. And that’s kind of how she felt with Everett standing in the waning evening light a few feet away from her.
He dropped his hand to his side. “You looked like you were about to leave. You’re not leaving, are you?” His brow furrowed. That insecure, vulnerable side of him that she seemed to bring out was right there in front of her.
She couldn’t deny the vulnerable Everett anything. “No. I’m not leaving.”
Everett let out a breath. His tone changed. “Good. I was hoping you’d come this year.” The statement was meant for anyone overhearing, not her. She’d promised she’d come to the party while lying across his naked chest a few nights ago.
The new tone of voice signaled Mr. Vulnerable was gone. It was exactly what she’d asked for. She wanted to keep them a secret. She wanted to act at the party as though nothing was between them. And he was giving her that. “Of course.”
He didn’t touch her. Instead, he gestured for her to go in front of him. She moved unsteadily up the walk to the front door. As she approached it, she realized it wasn’t any bigger than any other front door. It was wooden and painted dark blue, just like the front door of Mica’s small house in Berkeley.
She followed a woman she didn’t really know, but recognized from the marketing department, into the house, Everett at her heels. They were barely inside the foyer when people started to engage Everett. She could hear the people greeting him, asking where he’d gone, or wishing him a happy birthday.
The sounds grew more muffled as she moved farther into the house, leaving Everett and his public behind. The foyer opened into a great room, not unlike the one at Trudy’s house, except here the sliding glass door leading to the backyard was not behind the staircase, but took up one end of the room. The kitchen sat through a set of swinging bar doors to one side. They were cute and quaint and reminded her of the ones that had adorned her grandparents’ house.
Two regular doors stood at one end of the great room, both open. One was clearly a bathroom and the other appeared to be a den. The staircase stood just beyond that, not a spiral, but an angled set with a square landing. The entire place was covered in beautifully polished hardwood floors and scattered with soft, colorful rugs. The walls were peppered with framed art and painted in subtle tones of beige, light blue, and yellow.
Despite her confident assertions that she would hate the place, Maya liked it.
“Maya. You came!” Julia nearly ran into her and folded her into an enthusiastic hug.
“I told you I would.” Maya pulled back and smiled at her friend.
“Yeah. But you said that last year, too.”
Julia pulled Maya over to a corner by the staircase. From here they could see the room filling up with people but were out of the chaos enough to hold a conversation. “Are our other birthday buddies here yet?”
Julia shook her head and long braids flew around her shoulders. “Nope. And I think we’ll know it when they both get here. Amy’s coming with Carlos.”
“The big reveal!” Amy had told the girls about her and Carlos already, but most of the people at Tranquility, including Carlos’ ex-wife, whom Maya spotted lingering by the patio door, did not know that the two were a couple.
“And Alice is bringing Darius Fleck as her date.”
Maya’s jaw dropped. “What? The hot football player turned model?”
Julia’s smile was coy. “Apparently they knew each other growing up.” Before she could ask Julia more about Alice and the hard body, Julia turned the tables on Maya. “You ready to tell me what’s going on with you and Everett?”