American Queen

He’s right.

The bastard is right.

15

The Present

That day Belvedere arranged for me to get home, and somehow I had to pretend life was normal. I taught class, I went to faculty meetings, I tried to work on the book. But I couldn’t pretend, not when every time I closed my eyes, I could see Ash sitting in that chair in front of me, powerful legs sprawled out, eyes hungry as he watched me touch myself. Not when I could still smell smoke and leather and not when I could still feel the weight of his arm as we slept together in his bed.

No, there was too much to pretend, not to mention that I didn’t want to pretend things were normal. I wanted that flutter in my chest as I remembered that Ash wanted me, and wanted me in every way. I wanted the nervous trembling in my hands as I thought about seeing him again. I wanted that deep, itchy frustration as I remembered I couldn’t touch myself, couldn’t come without his explicit permission.

But with the wanting came doubt. I’d had this feeling, this wanting, three times before—after meeting Ash in London, after our afternoon in the sculpture courtyard, and after I’d slept with Embry. Three times, I’d felt the dizzying pull of falling in love, only to have the embers of my heart ground out on the cold ground.

Could I really trust this feeling again? Or did it even matter? Even if I decided I wasn’t going to fall in love with Ash again—if I’d ever even stopped loving him—could I really stay away from him? Was I doing what I wanted to do or was I listening to parts of myself that didn’t need to be listened to?

I spent the next two days going round in circles with myself. I loved Ash, I wanted him, but I also doubted Ash, I doubted our happiness.

It was this doubt that made my happiness feel sharp and brittle, as if it would shatter and cut me at the slightest touch. Well, the doubt plus two other reasons. One reason was Embry.

The other was Abilene.

A few days after my night with Ash, I’m walking into a trendy NoMa office building in search of my cousin. I’m jittery, both with the anticipation of talking to Abilene and also with three days of pent-up lust knotting in my cunt. Though we haven’t been able to meet again, Ash has called me every night, sometimes ordering me to finger myself but not come, sometimes ordering me to listen to him as he strokes himself. Sometimes just to talk, and after we hang up, I realize with a pang how lonely I’ve actually been all these years that I’ve avoided romance.

And I hear it in his voice—he’s been lonely too.

Corbenic Events is on the fifth floor, a striking office of glass walls and bright colors, and it’s Abilene’s very own. After she graduated from Vanderbilt, she used seed money from Grandpa to start her own event-planning firm in the heart of D.C. Weddings, cocktail parties, galas—you name it. Her calendar was full after two weeks in business, and she was able to pay Grandpa back after only six months. That Abilene was able to build such success in such a short time surprised Grandpa and her parents, but it didn’t surprise me. She always was passionate, and when she wanted something, she went after it with a single-minded zeal that would shame a saint. It was more surprising that she kept the venture going after three years, since her interest in things usually fizzled out long before that. But there were—and are—exceptions.

Which is why I’m here today. I’m here to undo my silence about Ash from ten years ago. I’m here to confess.

I walk through the busy office, crowded with harried young interns and planners snapping at people on speakerphone as they leaf through stationery books. Abilene’s office is in the very back, with an impressive view of the shiny new condos that have sprung up here recently, and I find her inside, bent over a glass desk spread with papers.

I take a moment just to watch her without me knowing. She really is beautiful, and there’s something undeniably sexy about the way she holds herself, every movement and gesture so graceful and deliberate it looks like she’s performing for some unseen audience. In fact, I know she is—she used to spend hours in our dorm room watching movie clips and mimicking the most mundane things. The way Zoe Saldana stretched her neck. The way Scarlett Johansson glanced up from under her eyelashes. The way Kiera Knightley held a teacup. It was hypnotic to watch, the way that watching a 3D printer is hypnotic; I watched Abilene create herself, form herself into a predetermined image to her liking. And this is the result, a woman whose movements are sensual and studied, so rehearsed that they’re ingrained, and even though it should make her seem distant or forced, it doesn’t. It only makes her more intriguing, more mysterious.

I shove down a resigned sigh—that old, familiar jealousy—and push the glass door open. “Hey.”

Abilene looks up and smiles at me, her long red hair moving against her slim black dress. Abilene always makes black look classic and stylish. On me, it always looks like funeral wear. “Greer,” she says, glancing back down at her work, “is it our lunch day? I must have totally forgotten. This malaria benefit next week is scrambling my brains, seriously.”

“No, it’s not our lunch day,” I say, taking a seat in front of her desk. I see a pair of Louboutins in the corner of the room, a sparkly clutch perched on a credenza nearby. “Date tonight?”

Abilene sighs dramatically, throwing her head back. “Yes, though I’d rather break my ankle than go. Some Hill staffer I met at the gym. He didn’t have his shirt on when he asked me to dinner, and I couldn’t stop staring at his abs long enough to figure out how to say no.”