For the first night since I met Brian, I stayed over at his place. Well, his brother’s place.
It’s strange waking up next to him somewhere other than my own bed, especially with the knowledge that Mark is sleeping in another room just on the other side of this condo. I didn’t sleep at all. Instead, I stared up at the ceiling, awake with my thoughts and the guilt that burns everywhere in me. I’m not sure if I feel guilty because I slept with his brother or if I feel guilty because I want to do it again.
I contemplate what to do. I could stay here and wait for Brian to wake up, wait for him to escort me out, and miss my chance at a conversation with Mark. Or I could quietly creep out of bed while Brian sleeps and hope that I run into Mark.
My heart twists as the thought of Mark with another woman crashes into me. Did he have another woman in his bed last night—is she there now? Did he rasp to her in the middle of the night? Did he tell her to come back to bed as she sat in the chair by the window and looked over the glowing lights of the Strip? Did he make love to her in that very chair with those very lights reflecting in her eyes? Did she wrap his cashmere blanket over her naked shoulders?
It’s not just my heart twisting. My stomach lurches violently, and I force those images out of my head.
I get up like I would any other morning. I don’t try to be extra quiet so I don’t have to deal with the guilt if Brian catches me sneaking around his brother’s condo. I head to the bathroom. I gaze at myself in the mirror. I look like a hot mess. Dark circles from the bleeding eyeliner that I didn’t bother to wash off last night shadow my eyes, and my hair is a stringy mess. I dig through my purse and find a hair tie so at least I can get one mess under control, and then I splash some cool water on my face and wipe at the smeared make-up with a towel.
I never expected to see you here. Least of all with my brother.
I can’t get his words out of my head.
They play on repeat, and I dissect every single one as I attempt to make myself look presentable.
I never expected to see you here.
Is that because he wanted us to be one and done? Was that all it was to him?
Least of all with my brother.
Was he upset I was with his brother because it was his brother? Or was it the other way around—he was upset that I was there with his brother because that meant I was with someone who wasn’t Mark?
I want it to be the second one more than I want air to breathe, but all that would do is complicate things.
I think of the way he looked at me when he walked into Brian’s bedroom. His eyes were on me, full of the things I wanted to see there—I think. It could’ve been the vodka or my overactive imagination. It may have been wishful thinking. Either way, he came to find me, and he left as soon as his brother walked in the room. That has to mean something.
I need to see him. Fuck the guilt. I sneak out of Brian’s bathroom as quietly as possible. I creep through the quiet hallway, praying Mark will somehow be sitting at the kitchen table, as if fate stepped in to give us the time together we deserve.
But fate can be a real cruel bitch sometimes.
Mark’s not in the kitchen. The room is empty, just like it was the last time I crept quietly through this same condo the morning after spending it in a man’s arms.
I glance around me, really take in the view. The place is a mess, bottles and empty cups strewn across the counter, crumbs and plates and napkins scattered across table tops and the floor. It looks like there was a great party here last night, and I wish I knew how the night ended for Mark.
My eyes automatically go to the hallway where I know his bedroom is located. It’s the only room down that hallway, the master suite. The thought attacks me again: is some other woman in there with him? I want to know. I’m desperate to know.
A singular sound pierces the quiet when a key slides into the lock of the front door. My head swings that way, and then an older woman walks through it. Her gray eyes fall on me, but she shows no emotion. “Hello, miss. Are you a guest of Mr. Ashton?”
Not last night, I wasn’t. “I’m Brian’s girlfriend.”
She smiles and touches a hand to her gray hair. “Oh, Brian is such a nice boy. I’m happy he found someone.”
Who are you? My mind is begging me to ask, but my lips won’t form the question. She heads straight to the counter and starts gathering the garbage. She gathers the empty bottles in one area and the bottles with liquor still in them in another.
“Do you need some help with that?” I finally ask.
“Oh, no, sweetheart. Thank you. I get paid well to come in and do this.” She smiles at me. “I’m Hazel, by the way. Mr. Ashton’s housekeeper. And, I suppose your boyfriend’s, too, until he finds a place of his own.”
“Nice to meet you, Hazel.”
I wonder what sorts of things Hazel has seen. She seems completely unaffected by the fact that there are cigarettes and joints mingling together in ashtrays as she dumps them into a garbage can.
I stand awkwardly, not sure what to do. No one else is out here. It’s just me and Hazel, and she doesn’t want my help.
“Can I get you anything?” she asks me.
I could use a strong cup of coffee, but I don’t say that. “No, thank you.”
“Don’t mind me. I’ll have this place back in tip top shape in a few hours.”
“How long have you been working for Mark?” I ask.
She glances upward in thought. “I guess he’s been here about three years now.”
“Is this his main residence?”
She shakes her head, mindlessly emptying some beer cans into the sink before tossing them in the recycle bin under the sink. “No. He lives in Los Angeles, but he stays here pretty regularly. More so over the past couple months.”
“Where else does he have houses?”
She glances over at me. “Why don’t you ask him, sweetie?” She says it so nicely and so genuinely that I almost miss the fact that she’s sort of scolding me.
I don’t want her to think I’m with Brian because of his brother. “Brian didn’t tell me he was related to Mark,” I blurt. “I just found out last night. We’ve been together about a month.”
“Ah,” she says knowingly. “So you’re a little fascinated and a little shell shocked?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“He’s a good man. Mr. Ashton, I mean. Brian is, too. You’re a lucky girl. The two of them have such a tumultuous relationship sometimes, so I see why Brian doesn’t tell girls who his brother is.”
“I get it, too.”
“Especially after what happened with that Kendra girl.”
“What happened?” I ask.
She covers her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’ve already said too much.”
“No, not at all.” I think fast. How can I get her to tell me more?
Time runs out on me as I hear footsteps approaching. Brian’s sleepy head appears from the hallway. “There you are,” he says. He walks over to me and kisses the top of my head. “Morning, Hazel.”
“Good morning, Brian,” Hazel says. “How are you this morning?”
“Better now,” he says, wrapping his arms around my waist and leaning down to press his lips to mine.
I wrap my arms around him, too—an automatic response after being with him for a month. He holds me in a hug and I look over his shoulder out the window. The view here is the same as the one from Mark’s bedroom. I think back to last night when he told me he loves me as we looked over a different view. At least this view still belongs to Mark and me.
More footsteps approach, but this time they’re from a different hallway.
My heart squeezes as I try to untangle myself from Brian’s arms, but he doesn’t let me go.
“Morning.” I hear his familiar voice, that sweet sound that’s kept me company for so many hours of my life. I want to turn, want to look at him, want to see what emotions are on his face, but Brian still has me locked in his embrace.
“Good morning, Mark,” Hazel says brightly.
“Morning,” Brian says. He kisses my temple and finally lets me go.
I finally turn and smile over in his direction. He looks tired, dark circles shadowing those green eyes, and he won’t look at me.
“Did you end up with Delilah or Miranda last night?” Brian asks his brother.
“Neither,” Mark mutters, walking past us and toward the refrigerator. He pulls out a bottle of beer, pops the top off, and proceeds to drink down half the bottle with one long pull.
Hazel looks over at him with disappointment in her eyes, but he doesn’t look at her, either.
“Couldn’t close the deal?” Brian asks.
“Fuck off.”
Hazel remains quiet during their exchange, but I can tell she wants to jump in. It’s easy to see she cares about both of them like they’re her boys. I wonder if she has a family, kids and grandkids, a husband. I wonder what her life is like.
Mark takes his bottle and heads back to his bedroom, and I can’t help but wonder if he didn’t end up with Delilah or Miranda last night, who did he end up with?
* * *
I don’t see Mark again that day. Brian takes me home, and I spend the afternoon dissecting his words over and over again. I never expected to see you here. Least of all with my brother.
I go over them with Jill a hundred times, too. Jill claims Mark gave me a smoldering look when he walked in, but what the hell does that even mean? And does it even matter?
Brian has plans all day Saturday, but he comes to my place afterward, which is probably the better route. It’s easier to push Mark out of my mind, to pretend like I didn’t feel an intense heat between us in the three seconds we shared last night. It was awfully convenient that Brian walked in when he did, though.
I don’t get to see Lizzie again before she heads back home to Chicago, which is unfortunate. She’s a breath of fresh air, someone I could see myself being friends with. Brian doesn’t mention her, but surely he got together with her again before she headed home. I feel a little insulted that I wasn’t invited along, but it’s purely me jumping to conclusions. If Brian wants to be dodgy and secretive about his family, that’s his prerogative.
Another week passes, and I’m torn between the feelings for Mark that won’t seem to go away and my blossoming feelings for Brian. I keep wondering if it’s love between us. He hasn’t said it again since that night against the window in his bedroom, but the words have been on the tip of my tongue as he kisses me, as he makes love to me, as he caresses me with a gentle touch.
I haven’t brought up Mark to Brian, and he hasn’t mentioned him, either. I wonder if he thinks it’s strange I haven’t asked about his brother, but then I think he might prefer it this way.
One evening in early July, Brian and I are snuggled on my couch, being lazy with wine in my glass and whiskey in his as we watch mindless television.
“I have a question,” I say.
“What?”
“Do you gamble a lot?”
“I wouldn’t say a lot. I go once in a while.”
“Do you spend a lot when you go?”
He shrugs. “I play like I did that night with you. I don’t spend as much as my brother, but I also don’t do Vegas quite like Mark does.”
So to answer my question, yes. I want to ask if the money is his or his brother’s, but I don’t.
A shudder races up my spine at the mention of his brother. “What does that mean?”
“It means Mark likes to party.” My heart races at his name. “He likes to drink. He likes to drop a lot of money at the tables before he heads out to a strip club, where he spends even more money. He likes finding women to take home for the night. And when he’s done with that one, he moves onto the next.”
“If he’s like that, why do you feel like there’s so much competition between you?”
“I told you before, Reese. He’s charming. He makes women think he cares about them. He’ll feed them lines, make them think he’s in it for more than a night. He’ll say he’s going to write songs about them. He’ll tell them how intriguing they are.”
My heart stutters as he repeats the very things Mark told me that one night we were together. He wrote down those words to write a song. He told me I intrigued him. Were those just lines? Sadness tugs at my heart as it starts to pull me under. I know I shouldn’t let it—I’m with Brian now. My one night history with Mark doesn’t matter, even if I thought I was different. But I wasn’t. He says those same things to every woman, and that small bit of knowledge hurts more than it should.
“They’re all just lines, though,” Brian continues. “Can we not talk about him?”
I want to keep talking about him. I want evidence that it was just a line, that he’s said those same things to other women. How could the connection I thought we shared be nothing more than a few lines he says to every woman? It doesn’t feel possible.
“Sure.” I do my best to hide my disappointment. I’ve become somewhat of an actress on that front in my professional life. If I’m having a bad day, I can’t take it out on my students, so I’ve learned to mask what’s going on inside. It doesn’t always work, and it’s not always perfect, but I do my best to put on a show. I push my thoughts about Mark to the side and focus on the man in front of me. He deserves my attention. He does want more with me.
“I have to go to Houston again,” he says.
“When?”
“I don’t know. I’m on call for now and pretty much need to hop on the next flight when I get the call.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Undetermined right now.”
“Well that sucks. Will your pretty secretary be going with you?” The words taste bitter on my tongue and sound even more bitter than I mean for them to.
“I thought we were past that.”
I think about the irony. I’m pissed at him for traveling with his secretary, and I have no reason to think he’s lying about the nature of their relationship—yet I slept with his brother, a huge secret that feels like it gets bigger by the hour.
“We are,” I mutter, even though I’m a little annoyed that he didn’t answer my question.
He pulls my wineglass from my grip and sets it on the coffee table next to his glass of whiskey. He turns to me, and his eyes burn. This is smoldering. I still don’t know if I believe Jill when she said Mark’s eyes were smoldering at me, but Brian’s definitely are in this moment.
“Are we?” he asks with such intensity that I’m momentarily thrown back in my seat.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Prove it,” he says.
“How?”
“Be creative.” His voice is a sharp demand, and I can’t tell if he wants me to prove it with my body or with words.
“I trust you,” I say.
He chuckles, but there’s no humor behind it. “Actions speak louder.”
Body it is.
I press a soft kiss to his lips as I run my fingertips under his shirt. His warm muscles are firm even at rest. I lift his shirt higher and allow my lips to trail down to the solid expanse of skin on his abdomen. His body is like an ice cream cone that I can’t lick fast enough, but he tastes even better. My hand trails down to his pants, where I cup his growing erection. He moans and lifts his hips toward my hand. I kneel down on the floor between his legs and pull the button of his jeans. I reach in and pull out his thick length, fisting it and stroking it a few times before I lick the tip tentatively. He thrusts up again, and I tease him. I run my tongue along his length, swirl the tip, and repeat as I continue to stroke him.
When I finally cover the swollen, thick head with my mouth, a sexy grunt rumbles up from his chest. His hands bat my hands out of the way and then go to my hair, and even though I’m the one with something to prove here, he’s the one taking control. He thrusts his hips toward me, fucking my mouth, shoving his way in and pulling back out, using me as he pleases. And I’m content to rock back on my knees and give him everything he wants.
I reach down and rub at myself furiously, needing some friction, but he bats my hand away again. He wants this to be just about him, and I can only hope he’ll reward me next.
If this is what he needs to prove I believe him, that I’m past the whole Kelsey thing, then I’ll do it.
Even if it’s not completely true.