Tess
SOMETIMES LIFE GETS in the way of personal news.
Fiona came home from her honeymoon with the flu, and because of this she was in bed for five days, and then Ethan had to fly to Miami for three days earlier this week, and Nick worked late the past two nights.
That is how a week and a half has passed before Nick and I have the opportunity to tell Fiona and Ethan that we are . . . together.
Together.
It’s the word we both decided to use to describe us.
Boyfriend and girlfriend sounded so immature. Going out seemed too casual. And the word item sounded way too old fashioned. And a couple, well, although we’d spent every night together at Nick’s place since Ethan and Fiona returned, the phrase made things feel like they were moving too fast.
Together—that worked.
And so it is Friday night, and while Jace’s new nanny, the one Nick suggested Jace get only after I prodded him, babysits Max and Scarlett, Nick is joining Ethan and Jace for a boys’ night out, and I’m taking Fiona out for a girls’ night.
The plan is that we both tell our respective friends about our relationship while we are alone with them, and then all of us will meet up at a club later tonight.
Fiona and I agreed to meet at RPM Steak in the River North neighborhood at seven. This gives me just enough time to go back to my apartment, which I haven’t been to in days, and shower and change.
Feeling on top of the world, I stop at the door and look over my shoulder to give the café one last look around. With the loan money having been secured just yesterday, things will start moving fast next week. I should be able to have all the equipment and fixtures delivered, the menus printed, and I can start hiring the staff.
The brutal chill hits me as soon as I pull the door open. Quickly, I turn with my key in hand and lock it. Just as I’m about to rush around the block to the lot my car is parked in, I notice a black line drawn through one of the help wanted signs posted on the large window.
I’d advertised online and in the paper of course for the chef position, but the rest of the jobs weren’t as crucial, so earlier today I’d hung a couple of signs inside the café windows.
Walking up to the window, I look closer at it. The sign had read, “Help Wanted. Come inside to inquire.” Now it reads, “Help Wanted. Go to 6959 S. Elizabeth Street to apply,” and the other sign is gone.”
Odd.
Someone obviously thinks they’re being funny by sending my potential employees to Englewood.
I wrinkle my nose in annoyance.
Backing up, I go inside and tear the sign down, tossing it on my makeshift desk. Tomorrow or Monday I’ll have to purchase some more. For now though, I focus on getting home.
I’m nervous about telling Fiona.
Back at my small apartment, I shower, and then contemplate what to wear. For some reason I want to look extra nice tonight, so I decide to go ahead and dig through a couple of unopened clothing boxes to find something shimmery and sexy. Having lived in New York City for so long, I had acquired a very nice wardrobe.
The nice pieces I bought, I did so at bargain basement prices. Sale shopping is in my veins. The nice pieces Ansel bought me were of course from Barneys.
Ansel liked me to look like an uptown girl. He chose to ignore the fact that I was anything but. Hey, I grew up in a dysfunctional family that lived at best in a middle class neighborhood. That fact couldn’t be changed.
Talking to him though, you’d think I grew up in the hood. And perhaps he wasn’t that far off.
Regardless of what clothes were on my back, I knew I wasn’t the girl he wanted me to be. How could I be when he wanted me to be who I wasn’t.
Looking back, he wasn’t that much different from my parents, I just never saw it back then.
But I do now.
Shaking off the memories, I continue my search. Once I find a top that is perfect, I get dressed and put my makeup on. Then I play with my hair a little, leaving it loose and wavy. Next, I slide into a pair of sexy pumps that make my legs look even longer, and hope like hell I don’t slip on the ice. Opting for my short leather jacket, I shrug it on and then pull up the Uber app on my phone. Within five minutes, I’m on my way to meet Fiona.
The restaurant is loud and packed. I glance around and spot, Fiona talking to the guy at the reception counter. I make my way toward her and watch as the guy laughs at whatever it is she’s telling him, and then he grabs two menus. I shake my head—she has always been such a flirt.
“Hey, I’m here.” I tap her on the shoulder.
“Tess,” she says with a huge grin on her face as she turns around to hug me.
When she pulls back, she looks me over and then gushes, “Wow, you look incredible.”
Fiona, of course, looks like a sultry movie star, like she always does. Picture Scarlett Johansson from head to toe, and you’ve met Fiona’s doppelganger. Me, I look more like Katie Holmes. “Stop,” I tell her.
“It’s true.”
“Thank you. And you look fantastic. I think Fiji was just what you needed.”
“Can I show you to your table?” the guy Fi was flirting with asks her. Now he looks like Orlando Bloom.
“He’s cute,” she mouths on our way to the table. “And he’s single.”
Oh, my God, she’s trying to set me up.
“Your server will be with you shortly,” he tells us as we both remove our jackets and slide into the booth.
“Thank you,” Fi smiles at him. And then she bobs her chin in my direction. “This is my friend, Tess. Tess this is Drake.”
“Nice to meet you,” he tells me.
“Likewise,” I smile.
He stares at me a few seconds before leaving.
Fiona settles into her seat and pulls off her leather gloves with a dreamy sigh. “To be single again.”
“Fi,” I warn, and seriously consider leaving my own gloves on to disguise the sudden trembling of my fingers. This is going to be so much harder than I had practiced.
“What? He’s the restaurant manager. He’s perfect for you.”
I laugh and shake my head. “You got the manager to bring us to a table.”
She smiles, her glossy lips more prominent with the tan on her face. “He was standing there, so I started talking to him. Then one thing led to another.”
I reach across the table to squeeze her hand. “Fiji was good for you. It’s great to see you smiling. You seem like your old self again.”
She squeezes my hand in return. “I feel like my old self. And I’m so glad you’re back in Chicago.”
“So am I.”
“Are you really?”
“Yes.”
She looks me over, as if doubting me.
“Fi, I’m fine. More than fine. And don’t worry, I plan to stay here.”
She nods. “Well that’s good because you look it.”
After the server takes our order, and delivers two Japanese High Balls, courtesy of the restaurant manager, I lean across the table. “So, Fiona, tell me. How was your trip?”
“It was better than I ever could have imagined.” Fiona says this with gleaming eyes and lips wet from where she’s licked them. “Ethan splurged for a private villa, and we had our own swimming pool just steps away from the beach. I felt like a queen.”
I take a sip of my drink, and then set it down. “And, what did you two do for fourteen days?”
She puckers her lips at the tart taste of the drink, but then swallows a healthy sip. “Not bad,” she says. “What did we do?” she repeats tapping her fingers on the table. “Let me see. We walked on the beach, jet skied, swam in the ocean, and lounged by the pool. We had massages in our bedroom. Ate the best food, and drank all day long. And we had sex, like five times a day.”
I practically spit out the cherry I am chewing from my drink across the table. The romantic picture she’d created in my mind of the Tokoriki Island Resort somehow seemed insignificant. “Five times a day?”
She nods her head, her honey-blond hair falling just so over the shoulders of her soft, emerald green silk top. “Everywhere.”
Just then the server delivers our sushi. I wait until she’s cleared the area and once again lean across the table. “Tell me more.”
With her chopsticks, she dips a piece of spicy tuna into the soy sauce. “The room was so romantic, Tess. It had a white sheer curtain all around it and the view out to the ocean was to die for. Everything about the resort was magical. Ethan and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We had sex in our room, in our pool, on the beach, and in the ocean.”
“I can’t believe you did it morning, noon, and night,” I say around a mouthful of sushi. “I wasn’t sure Ethan had it in him.”
She points her chopsticks, the ends stained with soy sauce, at me. “To be honest, I didn’t either. He even tied me up one night and we,” she lowers her voice to a whisper and looks around, “had anal sex.”
This time it’s a piece of rice I choke on. “Did it hurt?”
Fiona and I have always talked about sex candidly. She’s the one who told me what to do with the twins the first time I put my mouth on them. She was promiscuous. Then again her parents were kind of hippies, and the camp they took her to each summer was more like a commune. Fiona told me the married couples there would exchange partners. My parents would have died if they knew. I guess her parents had somewhat of an open marriage. But even that didn’t keep them together. After Fi graduated high school, they divorced and both moved away. Her mother now teaches yoga in Monterey and lives with her girlfriend. Her father remarried and has six kids and lives in a little town along the coast Washington. Fiona hasn’t seen either of them in years.
Whereas I always yearned for the wild, she dreamed of the tame, but when you put the two of us together, she was always the wild one, and I was the tame one.
Fiona licks her chopsticks seductively. “At first, it did, but it didn’t take long for the stretching and burning sensations to fade, and then I didn’t mind it.”
I stop with a piece of sushi halfway to my mouth. “Mind it?’
She shrugs. “I think it’s one of the things men like to do to feel like they own you. I didn’t love it, but Ethan did. I’ll do it again if he asks.”
I laugh so loud I’m surprised the other diners don’t turn their heads. “Fi, you are too much.”
“Hey, we both want to keep each other happy.”
I raise a brow. “Is Ethan on that page?”
“He is now,” she grins. “We talked a lot on this trip about making sure he makes time for me. I think he finally gets it. And will do it.”
Our dinners arrive and we spend most of the meal talking more about Fiji, and Fiona and Ethan’s sexual exploits.
They did some crazy things like watch a guy jerk himself off under their outdoor shower. I guess he’d thought their villa was his. I laughed when she told me he opened their door to see them both staring at him, and screamed before running.
Story after story, she never stopped amusing me.
I draw my fork through the last of my garlic-parmesan potatoes, but then set it down. “I’m full.”
Fiona pushes her plate forward slightly. “Me too. I ate way too much.”
I wipe my mouth with the napkin and consider how exactly to tell her about Nick and I—casually, or just blurt it out?
This is so much harder than I thought it would be. Besides, I’m really worried about you Nick too. What if later when we all meet up, Nick has an aversion to being seen with me? Hell, I’m driving myself crazy. “Do it already,” I chastise myself.
Just as I’m about to open my mouth, Fiona waves down the server. “Can we have our check, please?” she asks her.
The server nods. “I’ll bring it right over.”
Fiona pulls her wallet out. “Let’s head over to Studio Paris early so we can dance before the guys get there. Knowing you, you’ll probably leave the minute Nick opens his mouth, and then we won’t have any girl time.”
Right here, this is my chance.
But instead of telling her about Nick and I, I say, “That sounds like fun. I haven’t danced in ages,” and then I pray Ethan doesn’t text her the news before I get the courage to tell her.
Looks like I’ve found God again.