Chapter Twenty-Nine
The scent of ground coffee and baked goods hit Avery as she entered the little coffee shop. She glanced around, palms sweaty. Six days later, and she was still nervous about meeting Tam.
Six days since she’d seen anyone related to work. She’d called in sick for the rest of the week, and Gregory hadn’t balked at her sudden absence. But she couldn’t continue to avoid her job, not if she wanted to keep it.
And she did.
The train ride down to Burlingame had been quiet, the Sunday crowd thin. The predictable rock and sway of the train car had soothed her. People had gotten on and off, focused on their own lives and destination. Once again, she’d been just one of many.
She ordered an iced coffee and found a table in the shade on the outside patio. A rock song played over the sound system, and a tall hedge provided a barrier from the street.
She glanced at her phone, noting the time. Her foot tapped a nervous beat, but she crossed her legs to quell it. Her shorts and V-neck shirt were comfortably casual, not that she was worried about making an impression.
That had clearly already been done.
A mocking snort snuck out. She shook her head, smiling at her hypocrisy. Hours of analysis aided by a few bottles of wine and Karen’s wisdom had brought her to this point. One where she could not only see but accept her own judgments. And she wasn’t so squeaky clean.
“Hey,” Tam said as she stepped through the doorway to the patio. Her smile was bright, expression warm. Her sunglasses were perched on the top of her head, her hair styled to its normal sleek bob. Tam dropped into the chair across from Avery, her smile softening as she took her in. “I’ve been worried about you.” The truth rang from her voice and eyes.
Avery shrugged, unsure how to respond. “I’m fine,” she finally said. At least she was getting closer to that point. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“Of course.” Tam winced, a hint of guilt creeping into her expression. “I really am sorry about last week.” She reached out to grasp Avery’s forearm in a comforting grip. “I didn’t know I was stumbling into a bad topic. I honestly just wanted to be there for you.” She squeezed her arm. “I still do.”
Her chest contracted just a bit, her heart pinching with Tam’s concern. “I know.” She did. “None of this is your fault.”
“But I feel like it is.” She withdrew her hand and took a sip of her coffee. Her sigh was filled with appreciation. “I never thought I’d miss the buzz of a good espresso.” She closed her eyes, inhaled before reopening them. “Sorry. I’ve digressed.” She waved off her last comment. “So what can I do for you?”
Avery sat back, smiling. This was why she’d loved Tam almost instantly. Her quirky but direct approach to life reminded her of Karen, and both of them were so different from herself. “Thank you for taking time out of your Sunday. I—”
“Are you kidding me?” Tam cut in. “This is heaven.” She slumped back, face lifted to the sun. “Do you hear that?” She turned her head to listen. “There’s no crying. None.” Her smile was infectious when she looked back to Avery. “Gregory can deal with it for a while.”
Avery laughed along with her. An image of her boss attempting to comfort two cranky babies filled her head. He’d be okay. Maybe frazzled a little, but she admired that he pulled his weight in the parenting department.
She took a drink of her coffee, thoughts shifting to why she’d texted Tam for this meeting. “I have some questions for you, if your offer to talk about the Boardroom is still open.” She glanced around, reassured that no one was listening into their conversation.
“Of course.” Tam sat forward and crossed her arms on the table. “Shoot.” She was completely focused on Avery now, maybe too much.
She shifted in her seat, uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Her stomach fluttered with a nervous energy she had no hopes of squelching. She drew in a deep breath and called up the strength that’d gotten her to California and over every hurdle in her life.
Meet it. Face it. And then figure out how to move on. There was no going back.
“I don’t know where to start,” she finally said, being honest. The corner of her mouth quirked up in an abbreviated shrug. “I—” She clamped her lips tight, head shaking with her grimace. “Sorry. I’m still a little embarrassed by it all.”
Tam tilted her head, eyes narrowing. “About what part, specifically?” Her open inquiry instead of a quick dismissal of Avery’s feelings encouraged her to go on. The tightness in her chest eased and she sat back, a little more relaxed.
She fiddled with her cup, playing with the condensation that’d accumulated on the outside. “The everyone-knows part.” That was the crux of it. People she knew had knowledge of her sexual activities. Her non-normal ones.
Tam frowned, her lips twisting in thought. “I can understand that.”
Avery’s brows winged up, surprised at the admission.
Tam shrugged. “I had some of those same anxieties when I first joined the Boardroom.” She sat back, bringing her coffee cup with her.
“You did?” She had a hard time imagining this confident, self-assured woman with any anxieties.
“Of course.” Tam gave another shrug before taking a drink of her coffee. She licked her lips, lifted a brow. “What? It’s not like society has harsh stereotypes about women and sex or anything, right?” Sarcasm dripped from her words and matched her expression.
Avery couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled out. “Right?”
“What?” Tam covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide in fake surprise. “You mean women can enjoy sex?” She rolled her eyes, hand falling away. “And heaven forbid if we actually seek it out or deviate from the ‘norm.’” She added finger quotes to the last word.
The tightness that’d been holding within Avery for days finally started to unwind. Her shoulders fell, the knots in her neck releasing.
Tam shooed her words away with a flick of her wrist. “It’s garbage and we know it. But it’s still hard to overcome, especially when it’s been ingrained in our psyches since we were born.”
Avery stared at her, a wave of gratitude stretching out to wrap Tam in an invisible hug. “Thank you for saying that.” Karen had listened and done her best to comfort her, but she didn’t fully understand the mass of incriminations and shame huddled within her.
Tam shrugged. “It’s true.” Her scowl said what she thought about it, in case Avery had missed it earlier. “It sucks, but there’s no getting around it. We—” she motioned to the two of them “—are supposed to be prudes until we get into our husbands’ bedrooms. Then it’s okay for us to be wild, passionate sex goddesses. But only there. And all those women who openly engage in sex or dress in a way that draws attention to their assets? They’re great to ogle and fuck, but not to marry. What a joke.”
Avery blinked, her smile growing from the core of truth opening within her. She knew all of that. She’d repeated those sentiments many times in her own head, but somehow, they rang stronger, clearer, when they came from Tam.
“It’s just one of many double standards women face every day.” Tam shook off her annoyance and sighed. “And one I forced myself to face when I got tired of berating myself for being who I am.”
The simplicity of her statement diminished the complexity of the task. But it rang loud and true within Avery. She’d been berating herself since she’d first walked into the shocking scene in the Boardroom. For liking what she saw. For wanting to see more. For actually doing it and enjoying it. For every damn desire and want that’d sprung up since then.
And she was so damn tired of questioning that part of herself.
“It’s not wrong,” she said. “Is it?”
“What?” Tam frowned. “Us liking sex? No,” she scoffed. “And it’s not wrong to engage in it. Or watch it. Or have it with multiple people. Or outside of marriage. Or in an open relationship. Or any damn way you want it. So no, it’s never wrong if it’s what you want.”
“And I know that.” Avery pointed to her temple. “Up here. But it’s really hard to apply that knowledge to here.” She pressed on her chest, wincing.
“It is,” Tam sympathized. “I get it. I really do.” She made another exaggerated roll of her eyes. “I beat myself up for quite a while over the sexual things I wanted.”
And that was another startling revelation.
“So how did you stop? Beating yourself up?” Did she still? Avery couldn’t imagine it, but it was impossible to know about the internal battles someone else fought. Fronts of confidence easily hid insecurities, just like displays of anger could hide loneliness.
Tam lowered her gaze. She set her cup on the table as her lips curled with a warm smile. Her expression had softened when she looked to Avery. “Gregory.”
Avery’s brows went up again. She hadn’t expected that, even though she probably should’ve. “How?”
Tam’s shrug was small, like the hint of mischief in her eyes. “I’d been in the Boardroom for a while before I had a scene with him.” She stared into the distance, her fingers fiddling absently. “I’d joined out of curiosity and a bit of defiance.” She huffed softly. “I’m not sure who I was proving something to, but I enjoyed every second in the Boardroom.” She refocused on Avery, a shared understanding exchanging silently between them. Yeah, Avery had too. Tam sat forward. “But I never dreamed that someone from the Boardroom could love me. Not when they knew about my participation there.” There was that double standard she’d talked about. She was good enough to play with but not take home.
Avery shook her head, adamantly denying what Tam was saying. “That’s so not true.” How could anyone think badly about her? “You’re an amazing person who embraces life and goes after what you want. Any man who can’t accept that is a fool.”
Tam flicked a brow up, a smirk holding her lips in an amused smile.
“Crap.” Avery sat back, a defeated laugh hitching out. She closed her eyes, head shaking at her own blindness. She’d just defended Tam for exactly what she was beating herself up over. She opened her eyes to send a joking glare at her. “Nicely done.”
A smile beamed on Tam’s face as she sat up. “Thank you.” She would be hell to face in a business situation. “But like I said. It took Gregory loving me before I fully embraced what I was attempting to preach.” And Gregory did love Tam, Avery had zero doubt of that.
“And what about after?” she asked. A wave of heat skittered over her chest and started its slow run upward. “Did you still play there? In public, together?”
She’d explored every corner of the Boardroom app once she’d accessed it, but meetings were archived immediately following their completion. There was zero history stored that she could find.
Another of those secret smiles emerged on Tam’s face. “Yes. We play. Maybe not as much and always together, but our kinks didn’t go away simply because we’re a couple.”
Of course they hadn’t. Avery’s hadn’t, nor had Carson’s after they’d gotten serious. “So how do you handle it when you see someone from the Boardroom outside of it?”
“And that’s your real issue,” Tam exclaimed, tapping her palm on the table. “Right?”
Her sigh was long and annoyed. She wanted to object out of sheer stubbornness, but why? Tam wasn’t stupid, and in the end, that was the crux of Avery’s issues. If she didn’t care, then she would’ve been back at her desk after picking up the papers for Gregory.
Tam grinned, winking, and Avery had to chuckle. She had no idea how Gregory won any argument with his wife. Maybe they never fought. And maybe those pigs did fly.
A couple passed them as they left the patio, and another quickly swooped in to take their vacated seats. She watched them settle in, her thoughts wandering through all the varying emotions she’d experienced in the last few days. Betrayal. Hurt. Embarrassment. Shame. Disappointment. Anger. Defeat. Resignation. Loss. Confusion. Could there be any more?
“For me,” Tam said, bringing Avery back to the conversation, “I finally, really owned what I wanted.” Avery frowned, processing that. “You know? Like, in me.” Tam touched her chest. “In here. I took ownership of my wants and amazingly, that shoved the shame away.” She inhaled, smiling as she exhaled. “It gave me a sense of power and the understanding that the only opinion that truly mattered was my own. And I’d been judging myself way too harshly.”
The truth of that resonated within Avery. She was her own worst critic, on everything. And apparently, this sex thing wasn’t any different. Carson had tried to get her to see that, but she’d been so stuck within her shame that she hadn’t really heard him.
She remembered that power Tam was talking about too. She’d owned her sexuality the night of the office party, and it’d felt wonderful. Where had that gone? Why was she hiding from it now?
“I can promise you one thing,” Tam said.
“What’s that?”
“Neither Gregory or Trevor think any less of you for being in the Boardroom.” She waited for Avery to acknowledge that, which took a long moment before she slowly nodded. “They don’t judge. That’s not what the group is about. Trevor ousts anyone who makes even one derogatory comment about another person’s wants, as long as those wants are legal and consensual.”
She had a hard time believing that. “I’ve never known of a group that was so...accepting.” People always had some sort of judgment or negative thing to say.
Tam shrugged. “Actually, most sexual groups are like that. Once you open yourself up to that part of the world, you find a lot of fluidity and far more acceptance than I’ve found with most religious groups.”
Avery cracked a smile. “So God doesn’t judge you in a sex club?”
“It’s not God who judges. It’s people who do that.”
“Touché.” Her smile widened, a sense of peace flowing through her when she’d wondered if she’d ever feel centered again. “Thank you for talking to me. You’ve really helped.”
Tam sat up, beaming. “I’m glad.” Her smile fell a notch. “And I hope you’ll go back to work. Gregory’s been bemoaning your loss the whole week.”
Avery winced at the stab of guilt. “Sorry. I just couldn’t go in.”
“Oh, I know.” Tam waved off her apology. “I just wanted you to know that you’re missed and appreciated at Faulkner. It’s a good place. I swear.”
She didn’t question that. Both the people and the job had been a dream since she’d started there. But could she walk back in knowing others were privy to her deepest secret?
But she also knew theirs.
Karen had tried to hammer that into her over the last few days, but she’d resisted the simple understanding. Why? This wasn’t all about her. She knew a lot of stuff, and she had only a smidgen to lose compared to someone like Trevor or even Gregory.
“I’m making too much out of this, aren’t I?” she asked, feeling stupid. There, that was another emotion she’d wallowed in for a while.
“No,” Tam insisted. “You have every right to be pissed. Carson shouldn’t have kept things from you. But,” she rushed on, “I also don’t think he did it to be malicious. He’s not like that. None of the people I know in the group are.”
Carson had made a mistake and she’d made some too, including jumping to conclusions based on assumptions.
The app hadn’t held any great secrets. There’d been no smoking gun or chain of messages mocking her—or anyone. On the contrary, it’d been basic and straightforward. Every profile had an identifiable picture with hers being her office head shot. Her alias was Shotgun, and the only information provided was a relationship status linking her to Driver, Carson’s alias.
Everything in it had validated Carson’s claims. He hadn’t lied about that.
The hurt over his omission was still there, but she was able to see beyond it now. No one was perfect and no relationship lasted without hiccups, compromise and a few solid disagreements.
She inhaled, let it fill her. She’d go back to work tomorrow, head held high. There were so many worse things in the world than her enjoying some slightly kinky sex. She liked to watch it, live. So what?
So. What.
And there, starting as a little nugget of warmth before it spread through her chest and shoved out the last of her doubts and anxiety, was one more emotion.
Forgiveness.